Basic Trope: The audience wonders if a character is perpetually doing whatever they are last seen doing.
- Straight: The last time we ever see Alice on Tropetown, she is seen walking to the store to buy some cheese. The audience wonders if she ever actually made it to the store.
- Exaggerated:
- The last we see of Bob is that he's running around a track. Fanon holds that he died of a heart attack while exercising, hence we never see him again.
- The last we see of Claire is that she's trapped in a dark cave with no escape.
- Downplayed: The last we see of Danny is that he just started a new career in a new town, so the audience assumes that he is still working at that job.
- Justified: The universe is explicitly a simulation on a too weak computer which has a strange form of relativity. It can only implement one detail limited 'scope'. It must assumes everything was as it was left. This also results in In-Universe Good Bad Bugs like lighting a bonfire will turn day into night as the simulation checks the temperature, thinks it being too hot means it was left in the day too long.
- Subverted: In The Stinger, Evangeline and Franklin ask "Where's Alice?", cut to her in the checkout aisle with the cheese.
- Double Subverted: Then the last we see of her is that she's walking home, heading into a dark alleyway.
- Parodied: A "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue explains that every character is still doing what they were last seen doing: "Today, Alice is still walking to the grocery store, still hoping to buy that block of Provolone. Gabriel is still painting the backyard fence, Hazel is still playing fetch with the dog, and Isaac is still watching a marathon of his favorite show."
- Inverted: Offscreen Teleportation.
- Zig-Zagged: ???
- Averted: Even though we never see her again, Word of God holds that Claire escaped the cave.
- Enforced: ???
- Lampshaded: Franklin: I wonder if Alice ever made it to the store.
- Invoked: ???
- Defied: There is a scene of maps of the area with a labeled dot for every character. Not only is continuity maintained of all named characters they are never at the same place in an episode. It is always dead serious as well. An apparent Easter Egg of Alice's husband and Bob's wife being together in a No-Tell Motel when neither work there is Foreshadowing that they are having an affair.
- Exploited: ???
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
Back to Offscreen Inertia
