Of Snail Slime is a 2011 humor novel by Gilbert and Patrick Hays. It follows the two brothers' romp throughout a random (or connected, it's hard to say) series of events wherein they encounter, among other things, several Captain Ersatzes, teleporting hands, chocolate aliens, and a group of talking snails.
Of Snail Slime contains examples of:
- A Day in the Limelight: Though the two brothers share main character status, Patrick gets his own chapter during Earth's choclofication, wherein he travels to Cricket Mountain to converse with the Cricket Elders.
- Adults Are Useless: The brothers' parents receive a customary mention at one point, but never actually appear.
- The Ahnold: The trope namer shows up as one of the judges at the Inventacon.
- Amusing Injuries: Due to his status as a tumor, Gilbert is capable of shrugging of complete bodily destruction, and laughing about it.
- Author Avatar: The main characters, nonetheless, cast as an idiot tumor and megalomaniac genius respectively.
- Big Bad: Kronos.
- Big Damn Heroes: Quoted right before Gilbert, Patrick, and several supporting characters go to fight the Chocolate Alien Emperor in Washington DC.
- Big Red Button: Beep, a small red button, and Gilbert's creation for Inventacon. Though it's designed to damage the enemy by dropping large things on their head, it more prefers to attack the person pushing it instead. Or rather, Gilbert specifically.
- Black Comedy: To say the least.
- Broken Record: The Snails become this on several occasions, mainly due to being awestruck at a compliment given to them.
- Brown Note: The short film Everything That Ever Was, documenting Exactly What It Saysonthe Tin in less than a second. It's supposed to drive men mad, but when used on Patrick and Gilbert, it turns out the former is too smart and the latter too dumb to be effected. The film it was supposed to precede, Everything That Ever Wasn't, turned out to be such a Brown Note that is completely destroyed itself, and everyone who ever saw it.
- Captain Ersatz: A strange example. Superman, Aquaman and Captain Planet show up at one point as part of the Justice League, but due to fear of lawsuits, they are referred to as Cuperman, Apuaman, Captain Quanet, and the Justice League of Amerika. Additionally, a quick Shout-Out to Family Guy in the form of Jolly William.
- Cardboard Prison: Though it does a good job at holding Kronos, the Happy Valley Nuthouse is described as such.
- Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys: Brought up at one point for the purpose of making fun of their military history and habit of eating snails.
- Child Prodigy: Given his age of eleven, Patrick may very well be this. Gilbert, on the other hand...
- Comically Missing the Point: Gilbert on several occasions.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: A good spread of them, but especially Gilbert, whose primary focus during Earth's choclofication is the status of his pickle collection.
- Crapsack World: Even though it's never explicitly defined, any world where inventions of death are showcased in competitions, standard operation for government agents is breaking and entering, and ancient greek deities run amok has to be an example.
- Clumsy Copyright Censorship: See Captain Ersatz. Done without the respective character owners even complaining.
- The Dragon: The Chocolate Alien Emperor winds up being one to Kronos
- Good Thing You Can Heal: A rather bizarre example of this trope; Gilbert is capable of healing from any injury because he is a walking tumor. There's no good logical explanation given for this; it just is.
- Mad Scientist Laboratory: Two of them, one for Gilbert and one for Patrick. Gilbert's, while serviceable, is shown to pale in comparison to the majesty of Patrick's... which we never see.
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Marty Stu: Wrestling Matt is explicitly described as one of these, referencing TV Tropes and the Trope Pantheon in the process. Due to the Worf Effect, however... - Oh, Crap!: The brothers' reaction to Kronos showing up. Billed as the only seriously bad word in the book.
- Overly Long Gag:"We fell for a very very very very very very very very very very..."
- Self-Deprecation: The narration and dialog repeatedly make clear how stupid they think the story is. A general air of not caring surrounds all of this. Also, Patrick's inserted, exceptionally negative review of the book at the very end.
- Super-Strength: Wrestling Matt's entire gig. Not that it helps him much, though.
- The Swarm: The Sharks, a group of tiny sharks who can swim through air and eat almost anything. Excepting soy milk.
- Talking Animal:
- The snails, quite often. In high-pitched, squeaky voices, nonetheless.
- The Hays brother's cats and dogs, who appear a few times, mostly for fight sequences.
- There Was a Door: As the agents of the United States government so aptly put it: "Doors are for dorks."
- The Unintelligible: Though he speaks very simply sometimes, Wrestling Matt is basically this.
- The Unreveal: As noted above, we never quite see Patrick's laboratory. Gilbert comes close, but winds up having his eyes repeatedly gouged out before he gets a good look.
- The Voiceless: Both the Slugs and the Atheists in the attic, who communicate through notes attached to bricks and sequentially arranged darts respectively.
- Worf Effect: Wrestling Matt, despite being described as one of the strongest beings in the universe, only succeeds in one fight against a small band of government agents. When he tries to fight the Chocolate Alien Emperor and Kronos, he falls rather quickly.
- The Yoshi: Sparky, The Giant Cricket. Only appears exclusively for Patrick to ride.
- "...very very very very very very very very..."
