Does Not Illustrate: It Only Works Once

Ok, I can barely tell what's going on here. It's three crowded panels relying almost entirely on text, nor is it clear why It Only Works Once or against whom.

It works, but just barely...I don't think it's bad enough to be pulled straightaway, but if a better option can be found, cool.

Not sure what the image adds to the text in it. (That's a pull vote, for clarity's sake.)

edited 26th Feb '15 4:34:56 PM by AnotherDuck

The image adds absolutely nothing, it's not even showing off text bubbles of someone speaking, which I would probably be fine with if it had some inflection, but this just cropped text.

edited 26th Feb '15 9:00:49 AM by Memers

Agreed, it works just as well as a quote does. I'd say zap it, the image itself is pretty confusing already, and it's text isn't all that great either.

It might as well be a page quote. Pull.

Bad image. Yank it.

The visual elements are way too cluttered there. Voting to pull.

Well, I'm clearly outvoted. :) The pic's yanked and the page is tagged.

A one-shot cannon that needs one hour of warming up.

Clock is set.

I would've liked to keep it out of Fan Myopia, but while a good example, it did admittedly require mostly text.

Here's an example that could work.◊

"Only once per duel; make it count."

Now in shinyvision to illustrate its importance.◊

edited 27th Mar '15 9:20:43 AM by ThePope

That's even worse than the one that was pulled.

...How?

We have things based on card descriptions all the time.

Yes, but most of them actually have the card image adding something to illustrate the trope. You have a flower.

Also, I almost never vote for the card image suggestions anyway.

edited 27th Mar '15 10:14:38 AM by AnotherDuck

Maybe a suicide bomber with their finger on the trigger?

Edit: Hmm nah too mean.

edited 27th Mar '15 10:18:56 AM by Memers

And that'll probably illustrate Suicide Attack better than this trope, any way.

Although I don't have a specific suggestion for a replacement, I can imagine the format it should take. We'd want two pictures. The first would show the weapon/effect blasting the enemy backwards/to ashes and the second would show the same weapon/effect having no effect on an enemy.

If someone has videos of a series such as Dragon Ball Z they may be able to vidcap two such pictures.

I'm not sure if this could work, given that: A)It's somewhat spoilerific, and B)It might potentially reference other tropes in the process.

But in Iron Man 2, when fighting the Hammeroids, Tony uses the "Super Cool Laser Move" that slices up several of them in all of 2 seconds. When questioned why he doesn't start with that move, rather than waiting to use it to end the fight, Tony replies that he can only do it once. He then ejects a pair of cartridges that seem to be burning.

I'm not sure I know of a scene in Dragon Ball that properly demonstrates it without having 6 pictures, but a shot of the laser move, with a shot below of him ejecting the shells, and the conversation as a caption; could that work?

I agree. I will edit this post, when I find those images

Here they are, I don´t really know if they fit the description but they look cool

edited 20th Apr '15 4:21:21 PM by DeisTheAlcano

First of all, thanks so much for grabbing the screen-shots in the first place. I find it topical for the pic that War Machine actually looks like he's asking Iron Man about the lasers, too.

But, if you don't mind me saying, the discarded shells coming out of Tony's smoking gauntlets are very important to the trope, to help illustrate just why the lasers are an "only works once" attack in Iron Man 2. Otherwise, it would look like the lasers are just a Charged Attack, with a dash of Death in All Directions (like they become in the Avengers when Tony hooks their use up to his reactor rather than needing to use ammo for them).

So, if you don't mind me asking, despite the fact that beggars shouldn't be choosers, can you make that 3rd image just a breath later, since he discards the smoking shells probably just a few frames after the point in which that last screen-grab was taken? Do that, and it would look -PERFECT-.

Well, I will grab another image but bear in mind the shells don´t look as clear as you would expect. And don´t worry about choosing, that´s why we are here after all

EDIT: Updated album, the shells are as clear as i could get them.

edited 20th Apr '15 6:22:23 PM by DeisTheAlcano

Yeah, that looks really good. I think those work; at the very least the second and fourth, though if we have room then all 4 together illustrate it. Unless someone objects or has a better idea...

,: I'm trying to find the shells knowing that they're there and I'm failing horribly. I don't know how someone who doesn't know what they're looking for would ever understand the picture. Massive from me

Darn. Fitting that I'd end up jinxing my suggestion.

I'd like to have hoped that they were a bit more visible to people looking at it (note the one on his left glove being still visible next to his head, and the one from his right being in the background), though I admit that looking at it, they do blend rather well (into his helmet and the terrain respectively).

My biggest fear with this was that it would be hard to make it look right without it being confusable with other tropes. I was thinking that the basic image would be gotten across with the gloves that were used appearing to have been powered off and smoking, at the very least, but if not, then I'm not sure what image would work better. Most other guns and weapons are reload-able, and the difference between a one time special attack and a failed special attack are hard to discern without knowing what to look for...

If I may ask, I swear on another trope (unfortunately can't say I remember which; accursed wiki walking), there was a video link in place of the picture. This kind of trope, if anything, may be more deserving of that to properly convey what's going on; otherwise, what kind of picture could properly do it justice?

I am thinking, maybe we could use a picture from Batman Arkham City where we show one of Bat's attacks against Freeze, show him counteracting his tactic and Batman's doing the same attack but failing.

I will see what I can find.