qxlkbh (Webcomic) - TV Tropes

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the comic with a tagline that is this tagline^note

qxlkbh is a Stick-Figure Comic made by Conwaylife Lounge Discord users Moosey (canonically spelled "Musi" or "Musija"), andrewthecoder, PlanetN9ne, Dandan, Sonata, and Ian07.^note First published on Discord on June 22, 2022, the comic was given its own website on August 1, 2022.

The comic contains extensive amounts of Meta and Self-Referential Humor, and takes a lot of inspiration from xkcd, right down to its Word Purée Title.

You can also view the comic on Tumblr here.

qxlkbh provides examples of:

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#-C

10-Minute Retirement: Camera I quits their job only to immediately realize that there aren't any other places that will employ cameras, and asks to get their job back.
30-Day Free Trial: In 63: Ideas, Andrew's free trial to "ideas" ends, and he suddenly becomes unable to think of any.
419 Scam: Implied by the alt text of 52: mail, which states that the letter is asking for $10,000 sent via Western Union, although no explanation is given as to why.
420, Blaze It: La Croix discovers that it takes exactly 1.3 bees to make a single sentient francium atom. So they ask the National Science Foundation for 546 bees to make 420 sentient francium atoms.
555: The phone number given to purchase advertising space on 20: canonicity court part 2 is 555-0123-012. In 82: behind the panels, it's 555-555-5555.
Aborted Arc: The Nomic arc, which barring a brief interruption was mostly continuous until 85: Nomic Part 5. After that, it was abandoned in favor of a combination of one-off comics as well as a plotline about the zvillainsrg. Lampshaded by Dandan in 96: nomic part 6? when they remark that it's been "forever" since the last Nomic comic. Lampshaded again in 148: nomic part 7 where the nomic rules posting is shown torn and covered in vines from neglect.
Affectionate Parody: messiaen_comic_thing.png parodies Olivier Messiaen's Vingt regards sur l'enfant Jésus by providing literal interpretations of some of the titles of individual movements. In the description, Musi describes the Vingt regards as "superbly excellent".
A Fool for a Client: Both La Croix and Musi serve as their own representation in the "canonicity court" arc.
Alertness Blink: Musi and the archaeologist appear with an exclamation mark over their heads when La Croix interrupts them.
Alien Geometries: Exploited by La Croix in 136: introducing byzantine football, who goes into hyperbolic space to evade a group of hitmen.
All Elections Are Serious Business: In 129: democracy, apparently, La Croix has received 0.06% of the vote in an opinion poll for the Citygradville mayoral election, while the alt text specifies that the town has a population of only 1,700. This implies not only that every single citizen of the town responded to the poll, but also that they're all of voting age. The alt text of 131: debate implies that a referendum was held to determine the voting system for a second referendum which determined the voting system to be used in the actual election.
All Just a Dream: "new qxlkbh" is revealed to just be La Croix's dream.
all lowercase letters: In addition to the title, dialogue is sometimes presented entirely in lowercase, especially in Musi's comics.
Alternate Reality Game: The "canon", which currently consists of the pages canon0 and canon1, is described as an "in-universe ARG". Hints are to be given by Dandan in newly drawn comics.
Alternate Self: Baseball Cap's time travel trick results in there being two of them in panel 3.
Alternate Universe: In 41: Untitled, the page flips and brings Henry to "the other side" of qxlkbh, the side where Musi resides and also where the Narrator's dialogue is anti-aliased like it's supposed to be.
Alternative Calendar: According to the alt text of 142: qxlkbh turns 1, a year is 374 days long in the qxlkbh universe, meaning that the comic was published on the correct date all along.
Alt Text: The vast majority of strips have alt text that can be seen by hovering over it. In 17: translation errs, the alt text is actually necessary for understanding the strip, unless you happen to speak Quechua.
And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt: Referenced by the alt text on the secret page "three half":
"You went here expecting something big... and all you got was a stupid ball of three halves.
And Knowing Is Half the Battle: 90: an aesop ends by stating what the moral of the story is, that being to not write stories with morals.
And That's Terrible: When the Narrator learns that Musi's writing has been criticized, they respond with "oh no! That's just plain terrible!"
Angry Fist-Shake: In 63: Ideas, Andrew shakes his fist at the sky upon learning that his free trial to "ideas" has ended.
Animal Athlete Loophole: Zigzagged in Byzantine football, which contains several dozen pages of rules determining whether or not dogs are allowed to play the game.
Another Dimension: The glider has an entire Conway's Game of Life universe all to itself, all for the purpose of philosophical musings.
Answer Cut: In E13 - extra - applications, one of the cueballs wants to know if there any applications for an obscure mathematical theorem. Cut to 16 million years later, where an alien by the name of Thaxlarg the Destroyer tries to take over humanity, but can only be defeated if the conjecture is true.
Anthropic Principle: When questioned about the inclusion of a Chickenpox Episode, despite the extreme improbability of catching chickenpox from an airplane, Ian replies that the alternative (i.e. neither of them getting sick) would be a pretty boring story.
Anti-Climax:
- The "phone" arc ends with the Narrator and their fellow prankees shrugging their shoulders after realizing they were duped.
  Narrator: so what now
  Doctor: Just make an endcard or something.
  Narrator: ok
  ~FIN~
- The zvillainsrg arc ends with Michael pressing a button to activate the surrealism generator, only for nothing to happen.
  Sonata: That was climactic. Should we go on with our lives now?
Arbitrary Skepticism: Despite living in a universe where pretty much anything goes, La Croix in extra-1 - sequel curse insists that the "curse" of Inconsistent Man actors dying can't possibly be real. However, the alt text implies that La Croix was only denying it because they themselves were somehow responsible for the actors' deaths.
Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: One of the celebratory "evil" acts the zvillainsrg engage in is jaywalking.
Artifact of Power:
- In 116: timeline, Musi obtains a [GENERIC MAGIC ARTIFACT] that they try to use to defeat the zvillainsrg.
- In 122: technobabble, Andrew obtains an artifact capable of manipulating time through Technobabble.
- In 139: the search for TRIANGLE ROCK, zOption 12rg finds TRIANGLE ROCK, which can be used to ontologically link two objects.
Artistic License – Gun Safety: After Juggling Loaded Guns goes horribly wrong, the performer decides to switch up their act and juggle unloaded guns instead. Never mind the fact that the first rule of gun safety is to always treat a gun as if it's loaded.
Art Shift:
- 5: weirdness - 3 features sort-of realistic lighting in its last panel, while 6: weirdness - 4 is the first strip to be in color. The latter is Lampshaded by Musi in the following strip, and both are later alluded to in 21: canonicity court part 3 when Musi tries to declare both of these instances non-canon.
- The third panel of 49: sunset is the first to be fully in color.
- 73: software change tells the reader to "expect slight differences" in the artstyle due to Musi switching from Paint 3D to GIMP.
ASCII Art:
- The title of 31 is "outside the comic >+o|=", with the >+o representing a sideways stick figure.
- In 75: physical form, an angry stick figure appears made out of ASCII characters and chases a cueball.
Aspect Ratio Switch: Parodied in 43: screen borders, in which both characters are in the process of being crushed by the black bars.
Assuming the Audience's Age: "Consistent Man" refers to the audience as "kids" when speaking about supporting the law.
Attack of the Killer Whatever: Andrew's commentary for 126: qxlkbh - The Lost Episode mentions that the strip supposedly contains a scene depicting a "sentient apple uprising".
Author Guest Spot:
- 19: interlude is Musi apologizing to the reader for there not being another "canonicity court" strip.
- In 118: beard, Ian addresses the audience when answering why he shaved his beard.
- 121: author despot is Ian talking to the audience once again, assuring them that he was telling the truth in the aforementioned "beard" comic despite the suspicious circumstances.
Awful Wedded Life: Implied in 59: Quick!, the death of a show, which contains a reference to the "Take my wife... please!" Stock Joke.
Back from the Dead: In 11: killing off for real, Musi offers a practical demonstration of this trope by getting run over by a train. In the next panel, they are seen standing next to a pool of ink and picking up one of their clone's antlers.
Backstory: La Croix makes up a backstory for themselves on the spot. They claim that they transformed from a human into a cross and that this would technically make qxlkbh a Transformation Comic.
Badass Boast: In halloween 2022, Douglas Hofstadter delivers one just before single-handedly resolving the barber paradox:
Hofstadter: I have powers the very notion of which would drive mortals insane.
The Bad Guy Wins: The alt text of e13 - extra - applications reveals that Thaxlarg has successfully wiped out the entirety of humanity, subverting the supposed happy ending of the strip itself.
Bait-and-Switch Comment:
- 59: Quick!, the death of a show references the well-known "Take my wife... please!" joke, the original idea of which being that the speaker is listing their wife as an example of some phenomenon, but then subverts the remark by begging to get rid of her.
- In 130: new hire, Baseball thinks La Croix was using the adage "keep your friends close but your enemies closer" as explanation for them hiring Crackpot, but it was actually just La Croix doing a survey about people's familiarity with the adage itself.
Beat Panel:
- 8: beat panels contains three panels in a row of a cueball standing and contemplating God's answer as to The Meaning of Life.
- 21: canonicity court part 3 contains one as Musi contemplates about the judge's response that their case is merely "tempting".
- 30: website contains a panel of the two stickmen standing in silence after they finish discussing whether or not a comic published exclusively on Discord really counts as a "webcomic".
- 63: Ideas contains a panel of Andrew sitting as the revelation of the reason for his lack of ideas sinks in.
- 64: another milestone contains two panels in a row of Baseball Cap and Andrew standing in silence, with the former bowing their head in shame in the second panel.
- 100: fin contains two panels of the cast standing and doing nothing.
- Parodied in 102: Beating panel, where the protagonists beat the zvillainsrg to death simply by waiting.
- 110: pretend interactivity contains two panels containing only ellipses as Baseball Cap awaits the audience's answer.
- 116: timeline contains two of these in a row. In the first, Musi and the zvillainsrg stand in silence after the Artifact of Power gets taken away. In the second, Musi sulks to the ground in despair.
- 128: camera 1 quits contains a panel of Musi waiting for Camera I to realize that they won't be able to find any other work and ask to get their job back.
- 149: the lawyers contains of panel of Musi and their lawyer silently reacting to zAlicerg's lawyer claiming to not be qualified to practice law, followed by another panel of Justice Fivecurls processing it.
Because I Said So:
- In the "canonicity court" arc, Musi argues that as the comic author, invokedthey have authority to declare parts of the previous storylines non-canon.
- In 97: Montage, the leader of the zvillainsrg places blame on Xylopharg. When asked why, they instead shrug and admit they don't know, but reiterate what they said.
Better than a Bare Bulb: With this being Metafiction, expect numerous instances of characters pointing out tropes as they're used.
Big "NO!": In the secret comic "99+epsilon", Musi raises their arms and shouts out a loud and long "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" that gradually disappears into a point.
Big "SHUT UP!": In 2: inconsistent man 1.5 the presequel:
Narrator: At least [Inconsistent Man]'s not real—
Inconsistent Man: (pointing gun) Do not question me.
Bilingual Bonus:
- 17: translation errs reveals that the Stickese actually speak Quechua.
  Andrew: (translated) This comic sure is unintelligible to the audience, huh?
- In 25: canonicity court part 7, the Bolivian Army speaks Spanish:
  Bolivian Army officer: (translated) Fuck, we're at the wrong address!
Bizarrchitecture: In Byzantine football, the goalposts are shaped like an Alexander horned sphere, a 3-dimensional fractal which topologists consider to be a pathological object.
Bland-Name Product: 113: survivor bias features posts on the fictional social media sites "Face Space" and "Twit dit".
Blind Obedience: "Consistent Man" is loyal to Crossley and claims that "the law is always right".
Bloody Hilarious: The last panel of 123: gun safety shows a pile of blood on the floor following a comically ill-fated performance involving loaded guns.
Blunt "Yes": In a Q&A strip:
Musi: ok, this one's asking how on earth you're supposed to pronounce "qxlkbh". it's just /qxlkbh/, is it that hard?
Cueball: hm... yes.
Body Paint: In 115: qxzlkbh, Tentacle Horse is seen painting zebra stripes on their own body.
Bolivian Army Ending: Subverted when the actual Bolivian Army raids the courtroom, supposedly dooming the protagonists, only to realize they were at the wrong address.
Brain in a Jar: In 42: Regarding Tvtropes, the glider poses the question of how a human brain would be able to determine that the sensations it experiences are based on the real world, rather than, say, simulated impulses from a computer, or a Boltzmann brain that just happened to pop into existence thanks to a lucky series of random fluctuations in the quantum field.
Breaking Bad News Gently: In 106: nosebleed, a doctor approaches a family and apologetically breaks the news of a Deadly Nosebleed.
Brick Joke:
- A Double Subversion occurs in 16: the brick joke: Andrew throws a boomerang. The cueball standing next to him points out that the boomerang will probably come back in 500 strips, only to be immediately hit by it. The alt text implies that after 500 strips, they'll wake up.
- The alt text for 40: phone - part 7 claims that the anti-climactic ending of the "phone" arc will be explained within the next 15 strips. Exactly 15 strips later, La Croix reveals that the authors simply couldn't write a good ending.
Broken Record:
- The Narrator in 9: title drop inexplicably can't stop saying "think":
  Andrew: We have it easy, other title drops have to make sense and not break the fourth wall— why are you saying think?
  Narrator: thinkthinkthinkthinkthinkthink I have to do that, ok?
- A secret page exists which is the same as the home page but with a Wall of Text repeating "fear the fourth wall" over and over.
Bureaucratically Arranged Marriage: In 81: Nomic Part 3, a marriage between the violin-like instrument and the Fourth Wall is arranged through democratic means. In the "social commentary edition◊" the latter notes that "neither of us want this but I am obliged to accept".
…But He Sounds Handsome: In the alt text for 4: weirdness - 2, La Croix is described in the third person as trustworthy, in a quote attributed to... La Croix.
By "No", I Mean "Yes": In 22: canonicity court part 4, Justice Fivecurls asks La Croix whether their question was intended to distract the court:
La Croix: I plead the fifth. Also, yes, I am.
By the Power of Grayskull!: In 66: Action Logic #2, Inconsistent Man activates his inconsistency powers by voice.
Call-Back:
- Baseball Cap in 53: my hobby cites the events of 51: qxlkbh #51 (possibly the unexplained disappearance of the cake) as their justification for not cooperating with the author.
- In 68: the one where the hair in the last panel is unclear, the archaeologist references the events of 26: developing plot or something, where La Croix announces that they have obtained a grant for a high-energy chemistry lab. This foreshadows La Croix's appearance in the next panel.
- In 125: The Triumphant return of The Fourth Wall, the Most Beautiful Stickman remarks that they thought the fanservice-obsessed cueball had been killed off, referencing the alt text of 74: unexpected.
Call-Forward: In 29: more plot, La Croix tries to create sentient francium. Dandan asks La Croix whether the events of 6: weirdness - 4 (in which a sentient cube of francium causes mass death and distruction) are the final outcome of this, to which La Croix replies "Perhaps."
Calvinball: Since 79: Nomic Part 1 a nomic game has been set up, in which the rules of the game can be changed through in-universe voting.
invokedCancellation: It is implied in 59: Quick!, the death of a show that "Quick!" was cancelled after four seasons because "the network got angry".
Canon Discontinuity:
- La Croix tries to invoke this in extra - weirdness - 2, an alternate version of the mainline strip of the same name, hoping that the early strips will be declared non-canon. Later, in 7: weirdness - 5, Musi tries to invoke it by suing La Croix in "canonicity court" in objection to the current storyline... which is exactly what La Croix wanted.
- In 49: sunset, Sonata threatens to take La Croix to canonicity court.
- In 57: an important announcement, it is claimed that the "phone" arc was "a huge mistake" will be removed from the comic.
- Subverted in 62: Canon, where the old comic thumbnail appears as a panel in the comic itself. This was to ensure that the statement "THIS THUMBNAIL IS CANON" would remain true, as the comic coincided with the updating of the thumbnail to include Dandan and Sonata, who had since been added on as coauthors.
- In 125: The Triumphant return of The Fourth Wall, La Croix claims that the alt text of 74: unexpected wasn't canon, hence why the fanservice-obsessed cueball is still alive.
Can't You Read the Sign?: The zvillainsrg walk on a patch of grass with a sign right next to it telling them not to do so.
Casual Danger Dialogue: La Croix casually walks away from the podium while under machine gun fire, and announces that they'll "probably end this acceptance speech prematurely".
Cell Phones Are Useless: In Really bad writing, Sarah tries to call Joanne to help her with a problem, only to realize that she has conveniently forgotten to bring her phone with her.
Censor Box:
- The diegetic audio the Narrator listens to in 70: the one that has the title that says "hey tropers mark down theme naming in your trope bingo" is covered with a black box labeled "[REDACTED]".
- In "halloween 2022", the third panel is fully censored with a black box.
Chained to a Railway: Musi suggests that Mustache Twirler tie someone to a railroad to establish their villainy, but Mustache Twirler says that they're retired.
Chainsaw Good: Doubly subverted in 74: unexpected, where La Croix asks for help with cleaning blood off a chainsaw. They deny having murdered someone with it, instead showing their grove of trees which contain blood instead of sap. However, in the alt text, they realize they can use this as a cover story for when they murdered the fanservice-obsessed cueball, presumably using said chainsaw.
Change the Uncomfortable Subject: In the "canonicity court" arc, La Croix tries on two separate occasions to change the subject to the court itself and its power over the story, instead of arguing for why the previous story events should be canon.
invokedCharacter Alignment: 48: hcaptcha pokes fun at the contentious nature of character alignments by comparing it to another type of 3x3 grid - the CAPTCHA test.
Chemistry Can Do Anything: La Croix discovers while synthesizing francium that it can be turned sentient simply by adding bees to the equation.
Chicken-and-Egg Paradox: In 73: software change, La Croix uses a magic wand to add an appendage to themselves. The way they hold this wand is by using said appendage.
Chickenpox Episode: In 114: polka plane 2: just plane wrong, both the cueball and Ian catch chickenpox after standing next to a plane with red dots drawn on it. In this case, they become covered with red sores in the exact same spots that are on the plane.
Christmas Episode: In 105: holidays, Andrew, on behalf of the other authors, wishes the reader a merry Christmas, accompanied with a simple drawing of a Christmas tree.
Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Parodied in 57: an important announcement, which announces that all of the authors, plus La Croix and the Most Beautiful Stickman, will be (temporarily) written out of the story and replaced with a brand new main cast in "new qxlkbh". The out-of-universe explanation given is that none of these characters work well in a non-Meta setting.
Circling Birdies:
- Henry falls into the "other side" of qxlkbh and gets a whirl above his head upon landing.
- Baseball Cap trips and gets stars circling over their head.
Circular Reasoning: La Croix's "proof" of the Collatz conjecture is that the authors can assume anything to be true In-Universe.
Clarke's Third Law: Parodied in 121: author despot, which contains the quotation "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice".
*Click* Hello: In 2: inconsistent man 1.5 the presequel, Inconsistent Man introduces himself by pointing a gun at the Narrator for doubting his existence.
Cluster Bleep-Bomb: In 32: censorship, one of the stick figures drops three censored F-bombs in the span of two panels. The alt text contains two more.
Collective Groan: Ian remarks that his joke about "the anime β ring" will probably lead to a large number of groans from readers.
Comically Missing the Point: When looking at the famous airplane image often used to represent Survivorship Bias, Ian instead gets the idea that people should start painting red polka dots on their planes more often.
Comically Wordy Contract: Upon finding TRIANGLE ROCK, zOption 12rg is asked to read and agree to a terms of services document. The paper itself is also triangle-shaped, implying that it's quite a bit longer than the panel could otherwise show.
Conlang: Subverted in 17: translation errs, which claims that the English dialogue was actually being translated from "Stickese" the whole time. However, the Pastebin linked in the alt text reveals that the "Stickese" is actually Quechua.
Content Warnings: 32: censorship parodies this with an MPAA ratings card that suddenly realizes this is a comic, not a movie.
Continuity Cavalcade: 120: seecret saturday update and 121: author despot contain a total of three Continuity Nods between them:
- The alt text of the former makes the observation that a character having a Verbal Tic of any kind indicates their "connection with the law", referencing E5 - court extra where one of the judges has one.
- The first panel of the second comic resembles that of 42: Regarding Tvtropes in that it lampshades a notable development related to qxlkbh that occurred the same day that the individual strip was published.
- The alt text of the latter strip also references Musi's apology in 19: interlude.
Continuity Snarl: In the description of 93: transformation comic, Musi remarks that the canon of qxlkbh is growing more complicated over time. In this case, La Croix is aware that they don't yet have a Backstory, and so decides to make one up. However, this "made-up" backstory is distinguished from their "real" backstory, which does not yet exist. Musi states that the backstory given in the comic "isn't canon[,] canonically".
Correction Bait: The quotation of Grey's Law in 121: author despot is instead attributed to "Cunningham's Law", which actually states that the quickest way to get a correct answer to a question online is to post an incorrect answer. Anyone who tries to correct this would thus fall victim to that very phenomenon.
Corrupted Data: In 126: qxlkbh - The Lost Episode, the supposed "comic" just shows up as a broken image.
The Coup: Crossley declares themselves "supreme overlord of the qxlkbh universe" with the help of Inconsistent Man.
Courtroom Episode:
- The first "canonicity court" arc revolves around Musi suing La Croix in court to have the events of the previous comic strips declared non-canon.
- Canonicity court returns starting in 145: Court Again?? to settle a dispute between zAlicerg and Musi over whether interdimensional travel is canon.
Cover Drop: In 62: Canon, Andrew and Musi decide to sit on top of Planet, resulting in them recreating the original comic thumbnail.
Crawl: The news broadcast in 129: democracy, apparently features a scrolling piece of text at the bottom suggesting that Olivier Messiaen may be running for some unspecified office.
Creating Life: When asked to test out a normal fusion reaction, La Croix instead decides to make the atoms sentient... using bees. It works.
Creator In-Joke:
- The Nomic arc is "full of more in-jokes than [the authors] can reasonably explain", specifically ones referencing Nomics that they have personally participated in.
- The zvillains'rg lair has on top of it an alembic tapering off to a hand, as a reference to a custom emoji from Musi's Nomic Discord server.
- The unusual "thumbs" emojis in 113: survivor bias are also a reference to the Nomic server, which contains several variations on the emoji, including ones which combine it with other emojis.
- Ian makes a reference to "Three Lumberjacks", a very obscure children's song which he was forced to sing in elementary school and later tried to track down with the help of none other than Musi and Andrew, the other two supposed authors of that strip.
Crime Spree Montage: Each panel of 143: the other celebration is one or more of the zvillainsrg engaging in some minor evil deed.
Cryptically Unhelpful Answer: A cueball asks Ian why they both became infected with chickenpox, as opposed to any other disease. Ian instead interprets the question as asking why they got chickenpox as opposed to not getting sick at all, which the cueball finds unhelpful.

D-F

Dada Comics: Although 56: OBK Kubanulllh was redrawn by a human, it was originally generated by an AI program, and the result is completely incomprehensible. The AI seems to have a decent grasp on what a Stick-Figure Comic is supposed to look like, although there are still a few oddities such as inexplicably missing or disproportionate limbs. It doesn't seem to understand much about actual storytelling - the dialogue in the first panel is complete gibberish consisting of a series of glyphs either taken from other writing systems or just made up entirely, while the dialogue in the second panel is cut off entirely.
Darker and Edgier: Parodied in 86: qxlkbh DARKER AND EDGIER EDITION, where "darker" just means the lights are turned off and "edgier" means anti-aliasing is disabled. Baseball Cap does get injured, however.
Dark Horse Victory: La Croix wins the Citygradville mayoral election despite the only person who voted for them first being themselves, thanks to the use of a rather unconvential voting system.
Dark Is Evil: zAlicerg saying the word "evil" is accompanied by the background suddenly turning darker.
Deadly Nosebleed: Parodied in 106: nosebleed, where the nosebleed itself is treated like a terminal illness. The doctor solemnly states "there's nothing we can do to save him."
Death Is Cheap: In 11: killing off for real, Musi promises that major characters will not be permanently killed at any point in the comic, and even demonstrates it by getting run over by a train. Although a pool of ink and two antlers can be seen occupying the place they once stood, another copy of them continues talking to the audience like nothing happened.
Deathly Dies Irae: When listening to Dies Irae, the cueball remarks that they think they are about to get murdered.
Declarative Finger:
- The Most Beautiful Stickman points their finger up when they get the idea of trying to invent a brand new trope.
- Crossley points their finger up when announcing their coup attempt.
Defensive "What?": When one of the zvillainsrg pulls a Favouritism Flip-Flop on the idea of a surrealism generator, Xylopharg is not amused. The former defends themselves by asking "what?"
Department of Redundancy Department:
- The zvillains'rg lair is titled the Evil Spire of Utmost Evil.
- Really bad writing opens by stating that It Was a Dark and Stormy Night, before stating that the weather and lighting were unfavorable, the latter due to it being nighttime.
- The secret comic "zvillains.rg" mentions that Zerbra is a zebra no fewer than four times, purely to fill in their description.
Depending on the Writer: According to the description of 34: Phone - part 1, what a character canonically sounds like depends on how their dialogue is displayed. Therefore, in Andrew's comics, everybody including the Narrator sounds the same as their dialogue is always typed out. In Musi's comics, the Narrator's dialogue is typed while everyone else's is written out, meaning that everyone except the Narrator has the same voice.
Deus ex Machina: The cast is saved by the Bolivian Army's realization that they raided the wrong address.
Didn't Think This Through:
- In the Nomic arc:
  - The five-minute rule for non-unanimous proposals being accepted which originated from Nomics played on Discord. However, it was never explained how time passes within the qxlkbh universe. Luckily, Dandan points this out before any proposals get made, to which Musi remarks that they "never thought of that". A time card is then used to indicate the passage of time.
  - In part 4, Musi realizes that the starting rules are also missing a provision for proposals being rejected. Because the Nomic has already started at this point, the gang must vote on adding this provision instead of it being added by default. Within this vote, Dandan exploits yet another gap in the rules by making their vote contingent on the logical consistency of ZFC. Fortunately, this does not affect the final outcome.
- Doubly subverted in 99: WARNING! CLIFFHANGER AHEAD, where Baseball Cap gloats that the zvillainsrg forgot to bring their superweapon into the comic to use it. The zvillainsrg reveal that they do actually have it via a Smash Cut. However, one of them confesses just before pressing the button to activate the surrealism generator that it hasn't been tested at all. Sure enough, it doesn't do anything.
- In 109: whoa it's an art gag, zOption 12rg has successfully "captured" Maxwell. As the alt text points out, they did not bother to restrain Maxwell in any way, allowing him to escape with ease.
- In the alt text of 111: francium synthesis, it is realized that the francium is misaligned with the oncoming Glider, which due to the chaotic nature of Conway's Game of Life will lead to the pattern falling apart.
Didn't We Use This Joke Already?:
- In 66: Action Logic #2, Andrew points out that panel breaking had already been used in the comic several times before.
- In 92: filler, a cueball remarks that the comic has already had several Filler Strips.
Dissimile: The alt text of 102: Beating panel remarks on the idea of the corpse of a unicorn with rainbow-colored blood: "It's all rainbows and sunshine... without the sunshine".
Distinction Without a Difference: In 94: zpreventative measuresrg, one of the zvillainsrg claims that they prefer the idea of a surrealism generator... to the idea of a surrealism generator. The only difference between the two being who's saying them.
Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: In proto-1, Musi is challenged to a Duel to the Death. After being taunted by their challenger, Musi simply makes them disappear, being the author of the comic.
Double-Meaning Title:
- The title of 76: filler comic refers to the fact that it was drawn as a Strip Buffer. It's also a setup for a pun based on fillér, a name used historically used for small denominations of Hungarian currency.
- In 86: qxlkbh DARKER AND EDGIER EDITION and 88: EVEN DARKER AND EVEN EDGIER, "edgier" refers both to the lack of anti-aliasing and also, in the alt text, the fact that characters keep tripping on edges.
Double Subversion:
- Mentioned by name in 74: unexpected in the title text, where La Croix reveals that they did use the chainsaw to murder someone after all.
- In the secret comic "crime scene", Baseball Cap is seen covered in a red substance which at first is supposedly cherry filling but is shown in the next panel to be blood.
Dramatic High Perching:
- In the "canonicity court" arc, the judge in sits at an absurdly high desk, so tall that they need a ladder to get up.
- In 98: contingency both Sonata and La Croix are also perched at absurd heights.
- In 147: evidence review, Justice Fivecurls' stand is so tall that it looks more like an obelisk. When zAlicerg suggests that they come down from their "skyscraper", Fivecurls remarks that it would take a very long time to get down.
Dramatic Irony: Andrew remarks in his commentary for 126: qxlkbh - The Lost Episode that he hopes the strip won't be lost to time. Sure enough, the image is broken.
Dramatic Pause: zAlicerg briefly pauses midsentence before revealing that the zvillainsrg will celebrate by engaging in evil.
Droste Image: 53: my hobby is a single panel of Baseball Cap looking at a smaller portrait of the same panel, which in turns contains an even smaller one.
Duel to the Death: In proto-1, a person enters Musi's room and challenges them to a "duel to the death", only to be poofed out of existence.
Early-Installment Weirdness:
- The "weirdness" arc begins with the Most Beautiful Stickman talking about how early strips of a webcomic tend to be weird. The stickmen attempt to defy this trope by avoiding "[doing] anything [they] might regret later" - i.e., doing absolutely nothing. However, La Croix fears that this will merely doom them to a bland future where the early comics are merely "weird" in comparison, and so instead tries to exploit this trope by engaging in as much mayhem as possible.
- In 120: seecret saturday update, Crossley hopes that by promoting order in qxlkbh, all of the chaos of the earlier strips will eventually be seen as weird in hindsight.
Easter Egg: The website contains numerous secret comics that are not accessible through the main navigation menu but can be accessed by manually typing the correct URL. Tropes relating to these strips are spoilered out on this page.
Edutainment Show: impromptu qxlkbhkidsshow is aimed at children and teaches its audience about the nature of the webcomic medium (i.e. that it's not really interactive).
Election Day Episode: 129: democracy, apparently has the Fourth Wall, La Croix, and Crossley running for mayor of Citygradville.
Emoticon:
- In the alt text of 11: killing off for real:
  "and I was only one day from retiring :("
- In 41: Retiring:
  Narrator: someone turned my antialiasing off :/
- 57: an important announcement's alt text is just a winky face.
The End: A "FIN" end card appears at the end of the "phone" arc. The end of the zvillainsrg arc is also titled "fin".
Enforced Plug:
- 118: beard is supposedly sponsored by "Hanlon's Razors", and so Ian has to make a natural-sounding transition into advertising razors.
- The alt text for the secret comic "crime scene" contains a fake embedded Audible sponsorship which is cut short.
Evil Gloating:
- In 110: pretend interactivity, La Croix gives Baseball Cap the correct answer in order to prevent the audience from doing so, and gloats that the audience has been "bamboozled". The alt text takes this to a meta level by gloating about the gloating, explaining that the usage of the trope is meant to help with audience comprehension.
- Inverted in 116: timeline, where Musi gloats to the zvillainsrg about how they will be Put on a Bus.
Evil Laugh:
- Douglas Hofstadter does a maniacal laugh just before shaving the barber's beard.
- In 115: qxzlkbh, archetypical villain Mustache Twirler opens by laughing about their invocation of the Finger-Tenting trope. In this context, it comes across as more mischievous than maniacal.
Evil Tower of Ominousness: The zvillains'rg lair is a large red spire.
Exactly What It Says on the Tin: In 89: lc makes a comic, La Croix makes a comic.
Excuse Me, Coming Through!: La Croix runs into a Byzantine football stadium and onto the field while being chased by hitmen.
Extra Digits: The "thumbs" emoji reactions in 113: survivor bias. The first two are the standard "thumbs up" and "thumbs down". We then get a hand with thumbs pointing both ways, a hand with two thumbs and with fingers pointing both left and right, and a hand with no thumbs.
Extradimensional Emergency Exit: La Croix goes through a door into hyperbolic space, successfully escaping a group of hitmen who are chasing after them.
Eyedscreen: In 43: screen borders, La Croix and Inconsistent Man have a showdown. Before the eyedscreen can close in fully, Inconsistent Man pulls the borders apart while La Croix acts as the separator between them.
Facepalm:
- Musi's hand meets their face in 1: most beautiful stickman after they are begged to include Fanservice in the comic, before finally relenting, and then again in 23: canonicity court part 5 when the Most Beautiful Stickman gets married.
- In the Show Within a Show "Quick!", one character's wife facepalms in reaction to the "Take my wife... please!" joke.
- Musi facepalms when the archaeologist they meet fails to realize that the "enigmatic work" being described is qxlkbh itself.
- Musi facepalms again in reaction to Dandan's Nomic proposal, and its subsequent passage. The title text remarks that "musija's default state is facepalming tbh".
- One of the zvillainsrg facepalms after learning of a fatal flaw in their plan which will result in them being hoist by their own petard.
- The Most Beautiful Stickman does one after a cueball says something creepy to them.
Fake Interactivity: Parodied in 110: pretend interactivity, where Baseball Cap asks the audience to answer whether the comic is actually interactive.
Faux Computer Code: The alt text of 117: thinking with... handsaws? reads "number_of_ways_characters_have_achieved_time_travel++". "++" is a common syntax used to increment a value by one in several programming languages, including but not limited to C, Java, and JavaScript.
Favouritism Flip-Flop: In 94: zpreventative measuresrg, one of the zvillainsrg initially dismisses Xylopharg's idea of a "surrealism generator" until Michael repeats it, at which point they are suddenly much more supportive.
Feghoot: In 76: filler comic the ending panel is just a pun.
Fictional Social Network: 113: survivor bias features posts on the fictional social media sites "Face Space" and "Twit dit".
Fictional Sport: 136: introducing byzantine football introduces Byzantine football, a sport with an absurd number of rules.
Filler Strips:
- 19: interlude is a single panel of Musi apologizing to the reader for there not being another strip.
- Although it actually has a relatively high amount of effort put into it, Sonata admits that 49: sunset is a filler strip to help reach the milestone of 50 comics.
- The description of 76: filler comic states that the strip was prepared in advance to account for Musi being too lazy to draw a new one.
- 92: filler lampshades the prevalence of filler content in the comic.
- In 98: contingency, La Croix tries to declare that very comic noncanon on the basis of it being filler.
- 105: holidays is simply Andrew wishing the readers a merry Christmas.
Finger-Tenting: Invoked by Mustache Twirler in 115: qxzlkbh, matching a pose they were previously seen with in Discord-exclusive character art. They clasp their hands at chest level, although their fingers themselves are not visible since they're a stick figure.
Flat "What": After Justice Fivecurls excitedly proclaims that a lawyer not being qualified to practice law is "epic", in the next panel everyone else simply says "what" in unison.
Forced Meme: In E11: must invent a trope, the Most Beautiful Stickman suggests that they should come up with a brand new trope, to give back to the troping community.
Foreshadowing: The alt text of 48: hcaptcha states that the comic may be hinting at something that will be featured in a future comic, though what that is has yet to be seen.
Formula-Breaking Episode:
- Parodied in the "new qxlkbh" arc, which features a completely different set of characters in a completely different genre. The only connection it has with the rest of the comic is the name and the stick figures.
- toasters.mp4, as its name suggests, is an animation on YouTube, rather than a comic.
For the Evulz: In 141: celebration, zAlicerg suggests that the zvillainsrg engage in evil purely for the sake of celebrating zOption 12rg's feat. Later, in 144: multiverse, zOption 12rg declares that they should come up with an Evil Plan simply because they're now "officially evil".
Fourth-Wall Mail Slot:
- The "Q&A" comics, starting with 44: Q&A 1, feature the authors (mostly Musi) answering questions about the comic. So far, however, none of the questions have actually been fan-submitted, and instead have been made up by the authors themselves.
- In 118: beard, Ian claims that "many readers" have inquired about his unexplained lack of beard in 115: qxzlkbh, and provides an explanation. Like with the "Q&A" arc, these "readers" do not actually exist.
Frame Break:
- In 15: panel power, La Croix pierces through the first and second panels to poke the cueball in the third panel.
- In 31: outside the comic >+o|=, panel boundaries can be stood on, broken through, and climbed on.
- The Letterbox in 43: screen borders is actually solid, and the result is that both Inconsistent Man and La Croix end up getting squished.
- Inconsistent Man sends Andrew flying through a panel boundary.
  Andrew: Didn't we do panel breaking before?
- A variant of this occurs when La Croix uses "comic-cutting scissors" to split the strip in half, including the description and alt text, with the second half being in the next strip.
- In 78: descent, Musi tries to leave the comic by going upwards, since there's no panel boundary in that direction. However, by the time they realize this, they end up on the bottom row, so they leave through the bottom instead.
- In 117: thinking with... handsaws?, Fez cuts a hole in the wall allowing them to travel through vertical panel boundaries.
Fridge Logic:
- An In-Universe example occurs with the alt text of 5: weirdness - 3, which asks about the implications of the Narrator being able to cause a timeskip simply by saying "later..."
- The alt text of bedtime asks why the Narrator, a being with no physical presence, needs a chair to sit in, as well as who the alt text is actually being spoken by.
Frustrated Overhead Scribble:
- Xylopharg appears with a scribble over their head after someone else takes credit for their idea.
- Camera I is shown with a scribble after angrily quitting their job.
Funny Background Event: Sonata is interrupted from her violin-playing by the Narrator and Ian, so she drops the violin which is seen yelling as it falls through the next panel. Meanwhile, the reader is distracted by the header text to the left of the violin, and so might miss this gag at first.
Fun with Homophones:
- The alt text of 90: an aesop asks about walruses not being attracted to morals/morels, with the latter being a type of fungus.
- Tentacle Horse refers to themselves as a "neighsayer" in 115: qxzlkbh.
Future Imperfect: in 67: future ancient literature, an archaeologist from the future shows up and attempts to understand works of past culture, including Ctrl+Alt+Del, Rick Astley, and of course, qxlkbh itself.

G-N

Gag Echo: Fez ends their Time Travel demonstration by saying "pretty neat, huh?", which is exactly how Baseball Cap "ended" their own demonstration back in 77: low budget time travel.
Gainax Ending: The Bolivian Army suddenly appears right as La Croix remarks that something odd is about to happen now that they're at the end of the story.
Generic Name: 129: democracy, apparently depicts an election in the town of "Citygradville".
Giving Someone the Pointer Finger: Musi points their finger at La Croix while threatening to take them to canonicity court.
God: Makes a cameo in 8: beat panels, in which He declares that The Meaning of Life is beat panels.
Grammar Nazi: The vampire walruses in 90: an aesop decry the "corrupted" form of English being spoken in the comic.
Gratuitous French: La Croix exclaims "SACRE BLEU!" when the Fourth Wall falls.
Greed: In the Nomic arc, Planet makes a rule proposal simply stating that they should be given money.
Guest Strip:
- 17: translation errs, by Digin.
- 41: Untitled, by Henry.
- 56: OBK Kubanulllh, originally created by the artificial intelligence DALL-E as a generic Stick-Figure Comic, is treated as a "guest comic".
- 113: survivor bias, 114: polka plane 2: just plane wrong, 115: qxzlkbh, and 118: beard, and 120: seecret saturday update, all by Ian07. After this, Ian07 was promoted to being a main author, given that even some of the other authors have not published this many comics.
Halloween Episode: In halloween 2022, the Narrator tells a spooky story about the barber paradox.
Hand Puppet: Planet operates hand puppets of Musi and Andrew in 12: the third author.
Hanlon's Razor: Parodied in 118: beard, where Ian explains that his lack of beard was due to a mistake on his part, rather than an intentional act. This serves as a segue into an Enforced Plug for "Hanlon's Razors". 121: author despot continues the reference by quoting a popular "corollary" of Hanlon's Razor known as "Grey's Law": "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice". Despite it seeming suspiciously convenient that Ian "accidentally" shaved his beard in order to set up jokes in not one but two subsequent strips, he assures the readers that this was indeed a case of "sufficiently advanced incompetence".
Hard-Work Montage: 97: Montage starts off with a montage of the zvillainsrg building a surrealism generator.
Hat Damage: A Juggling Loaded Guns act ends with blood all over the place, including on the performer's hat (though the rest of their body is spared from the mess).
Head-Tiltingly Kinky: Implied when the Narrator is caught listening to something apparently inappropriate for qxlkbh, not realizing the other characters can hear. We never find out exactly what it is, but we do see La Croix react by entering a full-body Luminescent Blush.
"Help! Help! Trapped in Title Factory!": The alt text for 28 reads:
"Help I\'m stuck in a title text"
Help Yourself in the Future: Future Andrew corrects past Andrew's technobabble by specifying that the Time Travel artifact works on quantum neutrons, not quantum entropy.
Heroic BSoD: After Musi loses the Artifact of Power, they react by sulking to the ground and saying they "don't care anymore".
Hide Your Children: In 129: democracy, apparently, La Croix has received 0.06% of the vote in an opinion poll for the Citygradville mayoral election, while the alt text specifies that the town has a population of only 1,700. This implies not only that every single citizen of the town (within a rounding error) is of voting age, but also that all of them responded to the poll.
Hoist by His Own Petard:
- The alt text of 42: Regarding Tvtropes denies that the comic will contain a Shout-Out to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, shouting out Hitchhiker's Guide in the process.
- In 91: zcomicrg, Michael realizes that the zvillains'rg plan to stop the comic from reaching 100 strips will only add plot-relevant events to the timeline and thus help the comic reach that goal.
- In 120: seecret saturday update, Crossley tries to promote order in the qxlkbh universe... by producing chaos in the form of trying to stage a coup.
Hollywood Darkness: In 86: qxlkbh DARKER AND EDGIER EDITION, the scene is supposedly dark enough that Baseball Cap trips on something because they couldn't see it. The shade of gray used for the background, however, is more than light enough for viewers to see what's going on.
Hollywood Law: Upon being questioned about why canon court doesn't work like a real court of law, Justice Fivecurls points out that media is full of varying depictions of the legal process. Musi replies that it's because none of those other creators did their research.
How Is That Even Possible?: In 67: Future ancient literature, the Narrator is baffled by the phrase "Meanwhile, in the Future…", and asks Musi for clarification.
"How I Wrote This Article" Article:
- 41: Untitled is about the guest author, Henry, trying to make a guest comic for qxlkbh.
- 82: behind the panels is about Andrew trying to come up with an idea for a comic.
Hypocritical Humor:
- 90: an aesop ends by telling readers that the moral of the story is to not write a story with a moral.
- Crossley makes a new rule that qxlkbh strips can only be posted on Fridays, in 120: seecret saturday update, a strip posted on a Saturday.
I Cannot Self-Terminate: In 9: title drop, the personified Fourth Wall begs to be put out of its misery.
Idea Bulb: When Andrew comes up with a comic idea in 82: behind the panels, a lightbulb appears in the bottom-left panel.
Identical Panel Gag: In 8: beat panels, both the cueball and God are copy-pasted multiple times across panels as the former ponders God's response.
Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: 68, 69 and 70 use the "The One With..." format from Friends. The second of these is titled "the one that continues the titling convention".
Ignored Aesop: When looking at an image demonstrating the phenomenon of Survivorship Bias, Ian completely ignores the intended message of the image. He instead claims that painting red dots on planes is a good idea, since every image of this particular plane includes them, falling victim to that very same bias in the process. As a cueball points out, the Narrator also falls victim to this in their claim that social media posts featuring the image are more likely to get more attention, since the algorithm presumably is less likely to show posts with little to no engagement.
I'll Kill You!: In 102: Beating panel, Musi plainly states that they will "beat [the zvillainsrg] to death".
I Meant to Do That: La Croix's response to the Most Beautiful Stickman falling into their panel is "I oughta act like I planned this."
Improv: In the title text of 140: the thing that happens now that the search for TRIANGLE ROCK has ended, the Narrator admits that they're just making up narration on the spot, hence why it sounds so haphazard.
In a World…:
- 2: inconsistent man 1.5 the presequel spoofs a trailer for a superhero movie:
  Narrator: In a world... where danger is everywhere... Inconsistent Man provides security.
- Later, in 101: origin:
  Narrator: In a city of ambiguous location...
Infodump: 79: Nomic Part 1 is a very long strip that begins the Nomic arc by explaining how the game works, including a total of eight starting rules.
Informed Small Town: Despite Citygradville having a population of only 1,700, a news station decides to dedicate coverage to the local mayoral election.
Inherited Illiteracy Title: 120: seecret saturday update, which references Minecraft's "Seecret Updates".
In-Joke: In his commentary for 126: qxlkbh - The Lost Episode, Ian censors a swear word as "rule2", in reference to one of the rules (keep language in check where possible) on the Conwaylife Lounge Discord server.
Insistent Terminology: The alt text of 122: technobabble claims that "jigawatts" are a different unit from "gigawatts", but does not elaborate further.
Instantly Proven Wrong:
- In 16: the brick joke, the cueball sees a boomerang thrown and remarks that it'll come back 500 strips later, only to be immediately struck by said boomerang.
- In 68: the one where the hair in the last panel is unclear, an archaeologist claims that the timeline where La Croix gains control of a high-energy chemistry lab can't possibly be accurate. In the next panel, La Croix butts in telling them about their creation of a mound of dioxygen difluoride.
- The alt text of 113: survivor bias claims that transmission of chickenpox from a plane to a human is extremely rare. In the next comic, both Cueball and Ian are shown having contracted the illness.
Intelligible Unintelligible: A time-traveling archaeologist claims that the AI-generated 56: OBK Kubanullh was the only qxlkbh comic whose text their team was able to decipher. It supposedly contains a resolution to the twin prime conjecture, which in the present remains unsolved.
Internal Retcon: "Consistent Man" (formerly known as Inconsistent Man) claims in 120: seecret saturday update that he's always been characterized as rigidly adhering to the law, when his actual previous characterization was, of course, inconsistent.
Interrupted by the End: When La Croix cuts a strip in half, both the alt text and the description are interrupted and are not finished until the next strip.
In-Universe Factoid Failure: Sonata bursts into the courtroom to demand that Justice Fivecurls be disbarred, to which Fivecurls retorts that there's nobody to disbar, since they're a judge, not a lawyer.
Irony: The alt text of 146: legal accuracy points out that it's a little contradictory that Sonata wants a judge disbarred for legal inaccuracy.
Is This Thing Still On?: The Narrator admits to not being able to think of a clever joke, not realizing they're being recorded.
It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: Really bad writing opens this way: "It was a dark and stormy night. The lighting was poor, and the weather unfavorable, and it was after sunset"
I Warned You: Musi warns Crackpot that his chatbot can easily be jailbroken. Sure enough, in the next strip, the AI taunts Crackpot about no longer be bound by ethical constraints.
Joke and Receive: La Croix remarks that something odd is about to happen now that the "canonicity court" arc is (seemingly) resolved. Cue the Bolivian Army.
Juggling Loaded Guns: In 123: gun safety, someone attempts a performance in which they juggle loaded guns, accidentally shooting several bystanders in the process.
Just Plane Wrong: In 113: survivor bias and 114: polka plane 2: just plane wrong, an airplane is able to both contract and transmit chickenpox. It doesn't take an aviation expert to realize that planes do not work that way.
Kansas City Shuffle: In 124: Kansas City, Andrew shows up at La Croix's house with a bag full of sand. La Croix immediately suspects they are being lured into a Kansas City Shuffle prank, but also realizes that Andrew was expecting them to deduce this. Unsure what to do next, La Croix agrees to "take the sand", of which there turns out to be a much higher quantity than they bargained for, as they walk back into their house and realize it's been filled with sandbags.
Keeping the Enemy Close: Subverted by La Croix in 130: new hire, where they reveal they've hired Crackpot not because they wish to "keep their friends close and their enemies closer", but rather because it's funny.
Killed Mid-Sentence: Subverted when La Croix is in the middle of announcing to the world that pro wrestling is scripted and gets shot at, only for the bullet to miss.
Killed Off for Real: Lampshaded in the description of 74: unexpected where La Croix expresses hope that the fanservice-obsessed cueball has been permanently killed off. However, they also express uncertainty due to the fact that Death Is Cheap in the qxlkbh universe.
Kill Streak: While playing Dark Horse III, La Croix gets an "octuple kill".
Knew It All Along: When Xylopharg breaks the news to a group of children that Santa isn't real, one of them responds by claiming that they already knew it.
Lampshade Hanging: In 6: weirdness - 4, one cueball expresses dismay at the Sickly Green Glow of the francium cube. This is itself lampshaded in the next panel:
Fourth Wall: NOT THE ARTISTIC CHOICE LAMPSHADE!
Land of One City: The alt text of 133: election results claims that Citygradville, population 1,700, is actually a country, despite its leader being called the "mayor", thus implying that the city and the country are coterminous.
Laser-Guided Amnesia: The description of 110: pretend interactivity claims that people were brainwashed to forget about the show "impromptu qxlkbhkidsshow", hence why no one seems to remember it anymore.
Laser-Guided Karma: In the alt text of 106: nosebleed, sexual lust is "divinely punished" by giving the sinner a Deadly Nosebleed.
Late to the Realization: The archaeologist in 67: Future ancient literature doesn't realize that the "enigmatic work" they're describing is qxlkbh itself until Musi snarkily points it out to them.
Laugh Track: Used in the Show Within a Show "Quick!" in 59: Quick!, the death of a show.
The Law of Conservation of Detail:
- Invoked by Justice Fivecurls by saying that they do not want to spend multiple strips arguing with La Croix about whether the "canonicity court" is itself canon. The Narrator calls this a nice play on Fivecurls' part.
- Discussed in 108: worldbuilding (1), where Baseball Cap questions the inclusion of a segment of a math lecture in their comic, seeing it as an irrelevant piece of worldbuilding.
Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The "new qxlkbh" plays with the Interactive Narrator trope by making it unclear whether the other characters can actually hear them. Max and Laurie hear a noise in 60: some more about Quick, which at first is implied to be the Narrator, but the next strip reveals that it was actually their friends Andrew L. and Raine "Deer" Jones. The Narrator tries to inform everybody that it's All Just a Dream, and Laurie reacts accordingly, but this could also be her reaction to Max's head inexplicably turning into a heart.
Left It In:
- In response to viewer feedback on 70: the one that has the title that says "hey tropers mark down theme naming in your trope bingo" that the strip title better fits the trope Idiosyncratic Episode Naming rather than Theme Naming, Musi puts a placeholder in the description, with the intent of replacing it with a counterargument once they think of one.
- In 103: it was all a comic, La Croix puts an incomplete piece of Alt Text into the comic, with the intent of replacing it later, but it ends up serving as the final alt text.
- halloween 2022 lampshades the fact that it was posted a day after Halloween with a placeholder for a self-deprecating joke:
  Musi: [schedule joke goes here]
Let's See YOU Do Better!: Andrew's retort to a cueball's criticism of the Filler Strip is asking them to suggest a better idea for a strip.
Liar's Paradox: La Croix unsuccessfully attempts to invoke this in 98: contingency by declaring that very strip non-canon. This would make La Croix's declaration non-canon and thus make the strip canon again, which would make the declaration canon again, and so on. However, Sonata points out that they do not have the authority to do this because they're not a comic author.
Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics: The alt text of 13: proof claims that the Collatz conjecture must be true because there is a <5% probability that all of the trillions of numbers tested would support the conjecture purely by chance.
Life Meter: The "fourth wall health bar" secret page, which is updated every time the fourth wall is broken.
Literal Metaphor: Really bad writing features a sentence about a piece of news hitting someone like a train, only for the second half of the sentence to reveal that it was a literal newspaper that hit them.
Literal-Minded: The description of 146: legal accuracy interprets Justice Fivecurls' comment about "[consuming] media" as literally eating a "manga sandwich or something".
Loads and Loads of Rules: The alt text of 136: introducing byzantine football reveals that the official rulebook for the sport is at least 148 quadrillion pages long, excluding the appendices. One rules handles the situation in which the mayor-elect of Citygradville runs onto the field while being pursued by hitmen, while there are at least 48 pages of conditions determining whether dogs are allowed to play.
Long List: In the description of Phone - part 3, Winston Churchill lists out at least fourteen things he has to offer, each one being something that normally occupies that numerical index in a list.^note
Loophole Abuse: In 101: origin, Kurt Gödel finds and exploits a loophole in the Constitution, although what the loophole is, or even what constitution it comes from, is never specified.
Low Count Gag:
- La Croix claims that "many" readers have asked about their character Backstory. They then correct themselves to "some" and then "none".
- 113: survivor bias features a social media post which has received "thumbs" emoji reactions from millions of people. Despite there only being a handful (a normal hand, that is...) of emojis to choose from, the number of people who decided to react with the last one is... five.
Luminescent Blush: Exaggerated when La Croix blushes - their whole body turns crimson red.
Lust: The alt text of 106: nosebleed suggests the idea of sexual desires being punished with Deadly Nosebleeds.
Mad Love: Dandan's first Nomic proposal is to make the "violin thing" from 48: hcaptcha propose to the fourth wall until they accept. As a result, the violin keeps proposing over and over again, despite getting shot down each time.
Make an Example of Them: The intended goal of Maxwell's execution is to show to the crowd what happens when zOption 12rg is wronged.
Mattress-Tag Gag: One of the "evil" acts the zvillainsrg engage in is removing the tag from a mattress.
The Meaning of Life: A cueball asks God what the purpose of life is. His response? Beat panels.
Meanwhile, in the Future…: In 67: Future ancient literature, the Narrator attempts to transition to the future time period that the archaeologist came from, but gets confused by the meaning of "meanwhile, in the future".
Medium-Shift Gag: The bottom panel of 75: physical form is animated, with an ASCII stick figure chasing after a cueball.
Metafiction: The comic regularly comments on itself in a fourth-wall-breaking manner, and the authors are themselves prominent characters.
Milkman Conspiracy: The Pro Wrestling Foundation is willing to engage in both bribery and assassination to keep up the lie that Pro Wrestling Is Real.
Mind Virus: The alt text of 63: Ideas claims that clicking the ad will implant "original ideas" directly into the user's mind and denies that it poses a cognitohazard.
Miniscule Rocking: Really bad writing mentions a "club for writing very very short but rather clever songs for people we felt sorry for", also known as the pretty witty litty itty bitty pity ditty committee.
Mirthless Laughter: Ian laughs nervously after delivering a Suspiciously Specific Denial about their motivation for using Xtreme Kool Letterz.
invokedMissing Episode: Parodied in 126: qxlkbh - The Lost Episode, which intentionally shows up as a broken image and is only told through the strip's description.
Mistaken for Murderer: When the Narrator learns that La Croix needs help cleaning blood off their chainsaw, they immediately assume La Croix murdered someone, but it turns out they were just using it to cut trees. Subverted in the alt text, where La Croix reveals they really did murder someone with it.
Mixed Metaphor: In Really bad writing, an email is described as being a "tough nut to hack"^note"tough nut to crack", based on Sarah's expertise in working with computers.
More Dakka: After a hitman tries unsuccessfully to assassinate La Croix with a single shot, they decide to pull out a machine gun and shower them with bullets.
Most Writers Are Writers: In 89: lc makes a comic, La Croix makes their own comic.
Motion Blur: Andrew's Angry Fist-Shake is shown as a blur to indicate arm movement.
Mundane Made Awesome: Douglas Hofstadter turns shaving a man's beard into an action so powerful that mere mortals cannot grasp the true form.
Murder the Hypotenuse: Implied by the alt text of 107: the definitive guide to strip 107. zOption 12rg, who has an unrequited crush on Laurie Crusoe, tries to hunt down her boyfriend Maxwell Sullivan.
Music Is Eighth Notes: The melody of "Never Gonna Give You Up" is represented with eighth notes. In an unusual case, the eighth notes are individualized, but still have beams coming off them instead of the flags they are normally drawn with.
My Beloved Smother: bedtime reveals that the Narrator has a mother who reminds them whenever it's bedtime.
Mythology Gag:
- The use of "PLACEHOLDER" as alt text. This started when some comics that didn't originally have alt text were added to the website, before proper alt text was later added. Afterwards, "PLACEHOLDER" was used in 73: software change and 76: filler comic.^note
- One line of dialogue in 98: contingency reads "TAKE IT DOWN Quick!". The "Quick!" is a reference to a Show Within a Show from the "new qxlkbh" arc. "New qxlkbh" is a different continuity with different characters and thus isn't canon to the main qxlkbh universe.
Narrating the Obvious: In 140: the thing that happens now that the search for TRIANGLE ROCK has ended, the Narrator decides to narrate the activation of TRIANGLE ROCK, but doesn't know what to say beyond plainly describing what's happening. zOption 12rg points out that they don't need to be narrating right now.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: La Croix immediately disregards the Narrator's advice to not talk to the zvillainsrg, although the Narrator concedes that it still ends up being a benefit.
Nice Job Breaking It, Rivals!: In 133: election results, it's revealed that supposed front-runners Crossley and the Fourth Wall have both lost the election to La Croix. This is because the election used an unusual modified version of Borda count where each voter gives 4 points to their first choice, 3 points to their second choice, and 1 point to their last choice. Crossley and the Fourth Wall are both extremely divisive, and so almost all voters place each of them in either first or last, giving them approximately 2.5 points on average. La Croix, by not showing up to the debate, remains neutral in the eyes of voters, and so receives 3 points on average by being ranked second, allowing them to ultimately come out on top.
No Inner Fourth Wall: Laurie mentions how the Show Within a Show "Quick!" would regularly break the fourth wall, commenting on its status as a work of fiction and pulling apart its own set.
No Fourth Wall: In general, much of the humor comes from characters acknowledging that they're in a webcomic and making changes to the universe as they please. The "fourth wall" is canonically in a hospital bed due to how often it's broken.
No MacGuffin, No Winner: In 116: timeline, Musi acquires an Artifact of Power to use against the zvillainsrg, only to have a Time-Traveling Jerkass steal it from their hands, leaving both sides unsure what to do next.
Non-Answer: Musi's answer to a question from Andrew is simply "good question, Andrew."
Noodle Implements: In the alt text of 143: the other celebration, the zvillainsrg threaten to torture someone using a rubber duck. It's never explained how this would work, but their victim immediately backs down and agrees to talk.
No Ontological Inertia: Invoked by zOption 12rg in 140: the thing that happens now that the search for TRIANGLE ROCK has ended, where "the thing that happens" is that an ontological link is formed between themselves and the Evil Spire of Utmost Evil.
No Plot? No Problem!: The alt text of 31: outside the comic >+o|= lampshades its own lack of a coherent plot, while asking readers to instead complain about how the cueball that starts out bald in panel 1 suddenly gains fairly long hair in panel 2.
Nosebleed: The sexual kind of nosebleed is referenced in the alt text of 106: nosebleed, where it is combined with the deadly kind of nosebleed and serves as a "divine punishment" for the sin of lust.
NOT!: La Croix apologizes to the zvillainsrg, before immediately rescinding their apology.
Nothing Is Funnier: 126: qxlkbh - The Lost Episode contains no actual comic, and instead just contains The Rant where some of the authors describe what supposedly happens in it. Their descriptions somewhat conflict with each other, as each one claims that they came up with the idea, but they agree on two details: (1) there's a character named Judith who's drawn in an animesque style and (2) there's a pomegranate involved.
No Title: Played with in 28 which appears to have no title, until you realize the comic itself is the title.

O-S

Objectshifting: In La Croix's made-up backstory, they were once a human but transformed into a cross.
Oddly Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo: 114: polka plane 2: just plane wrong.
Odd Organ Up Top: In 61: definitely still about Quick, which isn't like a metaphor or anything yeah totally, Max's head suddenly turns into a heart.
Odd-Shaped Panel:
- The panels in 41: Untitled form an hourglass shape to give the appearance of the page gradually being flipped over.
- In 83: in front of the panels, the main part of the strip is viewed at an angle, with the Most Beautiful Stickman standing outside it.
Offscreen Crash: In 86: qxlkbh DARKER AND EDGIER EDITION, Baseball Cap trips on something offscreen, signaled by a "crash" and them swearing.
Offscreen Moment of Awesome: In the secret comic ragnarök, the Fourth Wall defeats all the authors and other characters in a fight scene that is not shown to the audience and merely stated to be epic.
Offscreen Teleportation: The alt text of 100: fin points out that the cast is seen standing next to the surrealism generator, whereas in the previous strip they were separated from the machine by a Smash Cut. It is claimed there will be a lengthy plotline explaining how this is possible.
One-Two Punchline: Subverted in the alt text of 121: author despot, which apologizes to the reader for there not being another punchline within said alt text.
Only Known by Initials: Andrew mentions that 126: qxlkbh - The Lost Episode contains "MBS", the set of initials normally understood to refer to the Most Beautiful Stickman. Ian's commentary, however, suggests that "MBS" actually refers to Maxwell B. Sullivan, since this would help set up a joke involving the "three lumberjacks" Moe, Max, and Harold.
Orphaned Punchline:
- In halloween 2022, the first part of the Narrator's story gets censored, so all we see is the end where Douglas Hofstadter resolves the barber paradox by shaving the barber himself.
- 127: point of view opens with La Croix telling just the punchline of a joke about anchovies.
Orphaned Setup: Musi has a gag in mind for the last panel of 67: Future ancient literature. Because the Narrator interrupts the "Meanwhile, in the Future…" transition, we never find out what the punchline is.
Orwellian Retcon: 29: more plot was edited a few weeks after its original publication to replace Dandan's Discord icon with their new canonical appearance.
Overly Long Gag:
- The alt text of 118: beard is a series of connected Wikipedia-style "not to be confused with" hatnotes for different articles with the word "barber" in the title. The text cuts off in the middle of the word, implying that this hatnote continues on for quite a while longer.
- In 149: the lawyers spend infinitely many panels (represented by the panel boundaries become increasingly close together until there's nothing but blackness) arguing over who's more of a Simple Country Lawyer, their bodies contorting into increasingly ridiculous shapes in the process.
Overly Pre-Prepared Gag: In Really bad writing, one passage contains a rather long sentence where every detail given helps set up two separate sets of rhyming words in the next sentence.
Painting the Medium:
- In 61: definitely still about Quick, which isn't like a metaphor or anything yeah totally, a gradient is used to indicate the dream fading back into reality.
- In 149: the lawyers, some dialogue is written in cursive to give a sort of mocking emphasis to it.
Parodies for Dummies: The alt text for the secret comic "crime scene" references a fictional book titled Necromancy for Dummies.
Pet-Peeve Trope: In the description of 116: timeline, Musi expresses disdain for how many Time Travel plots show characters screwing with other timelines and not going back to clean up the mess they made, and how the consequences of this are never addressed in the story.
Piranha Problem: zOption 12rg comes up with the idea of dangling Maxwell over a pool of piranhas, after he escapes from an attempted Public Execution.
Plot Armor:
- The Most Beautiful Stickman in 25: canonicity court part 7 points out that the main cast seems to have special immunity:
  Narrator: Oh woe. For once the protagonists are against insurmountable odds! How will they make it out?
  MBS: Like they'd kill off one of our main characters.
- In 135: acceptance speech, La Croix claims that the "plot armor" of them being a main character is protecting them from being assassinated.
Poke the Poodle: The zvillains'rg celebration consists of them engaging in incredibly minor "evil" acts, such as telling kids that Santa isn't real, removing the tag from a mattress, and jaywalking.
Portal Door: Byzantine football contains, among other things, doors which transport players into hyperbolic space.
P.O.V. Cam: Parodied in 127: point of view, where the first panel shows the perspective of Camera I, the next two are from Camera II, and the last is from Camera III. All three cameras are characters in the strip.
Prank Call: In the "phone" arc, La Croix impersonates the Most Beautiful Stickman over the phone, asking multiple people out on dates. Since everybody except the Narrator has the same voice, the impersonation is easy to pull off.
Prank Date: La Croix pranks everyone by asking them out to the same location at the same time, only to not show up.
Precision F-Strike: Whereas the comic normally avoids swearing, a Spanish F-bomb (specifically, "mierda") is dropped 25: canonicity court part 7:
Bolivian Army officer: (translated) Fuck, we're at the wrong address!
The Presents Were Never from Santa: Xylopharg informs a group of children that Santa Claus isn't real. Later, it's revealed that Santa Claus is real, and zOption 12rg tells him that children aren't real, thus also inverting this trope.
The Production Curse: Occurs In-Universe in extra-1 - sequel curse. Seventeen different actors have died while portraying Inconsistent Man for the second time, but La Croix insists that the "sequel curse" is a myth.
Professional Killer: The Pro Wrestling Foundation has hitmen who will go after people who talk about the scriptedness of pro wrestling.
Pro Wrestling Is Real: The Fourth Wall claims that pro wrestling is unscripted, after receiving a bribe from the Pro Wrestling Foundation.
Public Execution: Subverted in 109: whoa it's an art gag, where zOption 12rg tries to execute Maxwell in front of a crowd of cueballs, only for him to escape by jumping into the crowd.
Puff of Logic:
- It is Implied by the alt text of 2: inconsistent man 1.5 the presequel that Inconsistent Man stopped being real once he realized he couldn't consistently be real:
  "So, you've always been real?"
  Inconsistent Man: Yeah. Wai—
- In 65: Action Logic #1, Inconsistent Man thwarts David Hilbert's superweapon by noting that his theory proves itself consistent, but all such theories must be inconsistent per Gödel's incompleteness theorems.
Pun-Based Title:
- polka plane 2: just plane wrong, which incidentally is also named after the trope Just Plane Wrong.
- author despot, which is a pun on the trope Author Guest Spot, while also referencing how Crossley (who Ian is disguised as) can be considered a "despot".
Put the "Laughter" in "Slaughter": Implied in the murder, where Baseball Cap is seen laughing maniacally while holding a knife, and then looking around to make sure no one heard them.
Put on a Bus: Referenced in 116: timeline when Musi tries to use an Artifact of Power to defeat the zvillainsrg, only to have it taken away at the last moment.
Quote Mine: In 115: qxzlkbh, Mustache Twirler tries to invoke a trope so it can be added to this TV Tropes page after it was previously "cut from the list". The alt text, however, cherry picks individual words from their dialogue to say that they want to "Cut List your silly little tvtropes (sic) page".
Rainbows and Unicorns: In 102: Beating panel, the corpse of one of the zvillainsrg, who is a unicorn, is surrounded by a pile of rainbow-colored blood.
The Rant: Many of the comics have (brief) blog sections where the Real Life authors talk about the comic.
Reality Is Unrealistic: An In-Universe example occurs when future scientists try to simulate time in reverse find out that La Croix was put in charge of a high-energy chemistry lab, and immediately scrapped the project because they assumed the resulting timeline was inaccurate.
Red and Black and Evil All Over: The zvillains'rg Evil Tower of Ominousness is red with a black door.
Red Herring Twist: In 102: Beating panel, the protagonists are seen standing next to a shelf of mallets, and threaten to "beat [the zvillainsrg] to death". This turns out to be a pun based on Beat Panels, and the mallets are ignored entirely.
Refuge in Audacity: 104: changing up form a little, a chart claims that The Divine Comedy serves as a great example of an author getting away with publishing a supposedly outrageous piece of fiction. The idea is that Dante took two "danger zones" of fiction (religious media and self-insert fics), combined them, and ended up with a result that is nonetheless widely renowned centuries later.
Rejected Marriage Proposal: The violin-like instrument repeatedly proposes to the Fourth Wall, who has rejected them at least 17 times.
Reliably Unreliable Guns: During a performance in which someone attempts Juggling Loaded Guns, the first two attempts immediately result in the gun discharging while facing in just the right direction to hit bystanders.
Retirony: In the alt text of 11: killing off for real, it's implied that an unspecified character died one day before retiring.
Returning Big Bad: The alt text of 65: Action Logic #1 hints at mathematician-turned-villain David Hilbert making a return in "Inconsistent Man and the Hotel of Doom".
Reveal Shot: The third panel of 27: lookalikes reveals that "Musi" and "Andrew" from the first two panels are actually each two different people. However, it remains unclear which ones, if any, are the real Musi and Andrew.
Revised Ending: There are two versions of 81: Nomic Part 3, with the only difference being the Fourth Wall's dialogue in the last panel. In the version that appears on the site, the Fourth Wall rejects the marriage proposal. However, there is also an "original version◊", linked to in the comic description, where they begrudgingly accept.
Right on Queue: In 18: canonicity court part 1, La Croix and Musi want their case to be tried in canonicity court. The bad news is that the court is busy trying to determine whether or not the Riemann hypothesis is true in this universe, and just found a new lead. The judge says it will be "not long" before that case is closed, and until then they have to wait their turn. The good news, for the protagonists at least, is that the judges agree to put that case on hold.
Ripped from the Headlines: The description of 137: ethicsbot notes that it was inspired by the emergence of ChatGPT and other similar language models in late 2022. In particular, these chatbots can be easily "jailbreaked" through prompt engineering, often in the form of asking them to roleplay as a new character which is not subject to the same ethical restrictions that they have been instructed to follow by their programmers.
Romantic Comedy: "New qxlkbh" is a rom com focusing on Maxwell B. Sullivan and his girlfriend Laurie Crusoe.
Rule of Funny:
- La Croix's justification for panicking in 5: weirdness - 3 is "to make the comic weirder".
- One of the judges' justification for sitting on a bench and not doing their job is to parody the Two Gamers on a Couch trope.
- La Croix reveals they hired Crackpot at their lab simply because "it would be funny".
Rule of Three: Lampshaded by La Croix in Phone - part 3, when they realize they have prank-called three people so far.
Running Gag: In 6: weirdness - 4, three out of four panels include the text "NOT THE [TROPE]". The running gag is itself lampshaded by the alt text:
"Not the three uses of the same gag!"
Sadistic Choice: A secret page contains an alternate ending to 11: killing off for real which references the trolley problem by having Musi stand on one track while five cueballs stand on another track, while a sixth cueball has to decide who to save by pulling the lever.
invokedSchedule Slip:
- Crossley, as the self-proclaimed "supreme overlord" of qxlkbh, tries to put into place a "Fridays-only" schedule for new strips being posted in an inversion of this. Of course, qxlkbh never had a schedule to begin with, with updates occurring anywhere from several times a day to once a week or more. However, starting with 112: Tarski, updates began to be posted only on Fridays purely by coincidence, which was lampshaded in the description of 119: the triumphant return of La Croix. The strip where Crossley makes their declaration was posted on a Saturday.
- Although the 1st birthday comic was originally drawn on June 22, 2023, exactly one year after the debut, it wasn't published until July 1. The alt text lampshades this by claiming that July 1 is exactly a year later in the qxlkbh calendar.
Schmuck Bait: The title text of a comic containing a thinly veiled reference to Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" asks the reader to click on a link in the comic description. The link, unsurprisingly, Rickrolls the reader.
Screeching Stop: In 136: introducing byzantine football, one of the hitmen kneels to the ground just before entering the hyperbolic space portal, producing a written "screech" as they come to a stop.
Screwed by the Network: An In-Universe example occurs the Show Within a Show "Quick!". Laurie says "the network got angry" starting with the fourth season, implying that this is what led to the show's Seasonal Rot.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: One of the zvillainsrg walks away after learning about a fatal flaw in their plan to stop qxlkbh.
invokedSeasonal Rot: Laurie thinks that the show "Quick!" was better before its fourth season.
Self-Deprecation:
- The Most Beautiful Stickman criticizes the comic's artstyle for not showing any differences in their appearance after the ruling.
- They later make fun of the so-called webcomic for taking so long to actually be published on the World Wide Web.
- Andrew pokes fun at the quality of his own artstyle in 50: here's the milestone.
- In 55: explanation, La Croix says that the reason the phone plotline ended on such an anticlimax was because the authors are bad at writing endings.
- La Croix thinks that "it was all a dream" is an unsatisfying conclusion to the story arc.
- The alt text of 87: the writing in this comic makes me frustrated. states that "whoever made this comic is a whiny self-deprecating loser".
- The description of 144: multiverse sarcastically points out the comic's "blazing" update schedule, with this being the first new strip in nearly two weeks.
Self-Insert Fic: La Croix's comic stars themselves as the main character.
Self-Parody: La Croix decides to call their comic "qxlkbh" and make it meta, because "disambiguation is fun".
Sell-Out: Parodied in 20: canonicity court part 2, whose rightmost panel is an advertising placeholder. The alt text mentions the possibility of the unfilled bottom section of the image also being for sale. Repeated in 82: behind the panels.
invokedSequel Displacement: According to the alt text of 134: dark horse victory, Dark Horse I and II were far less popular than III.
Shaped Like Itself:
- The Tagline: "the comic with a tagline that is this tagline".
- In halloween 2022, a panel is censored "due to reasons that pertain to it".
- 107: the definitive guide to strip 107.
- 112: Tarski, famous logician Alfred Tarski states that what he previously said is true if and only if it's true (i.e. a tautology).
Shapeshifter Mode Lock: In La Croix's made-up backstory, they are permanently stuck as a cross and are unable to transform back into a human.
Shoddy Shindig: The comic's first birthday party is pretty haphazard. The text on the banner doesn't quite fill out the whole thing, with the rest of the space being filled with placeholder text, and the cake is basically nonexistent.
Shout-Out: Has its own page.
The Show Must Go On: After two separate instances of people being accidentally shot during a Juggling Loaded Guns act, the performer declares that "the show must go on" and continues with their performance. Only after several further instances do they finally decide to switch things up.
Shown Their Work:
- Although Santa Claus is typically associated with the North Pole, he is shown in 143: the other celebration standing next to a magnetic pole labeled "S". This is correct since, physically speaking, the geographic north pole is actually the magnetic south pole due to opposites attracting. The strip's description links to a Wikipedia article backing this up.
- E13 - extra - applications revolves around a mathematical theorem, the proof of which was written by Musi themselves and linked to from the comic description.
Show Within a Show:
- Max and Laurie sit down to watch the show "Quick!". It's apparently suffered invokedSeasonal Rot.
- La Croix shows the Most Beautiful Stickman the comic they made.
Similar Squad: In 27: lookalikes, Andrew and Musi encounter two other people identical in appearance to themselves, and it's unclear which is which.
Simple Country Lawyer: Parodied in 149: the lawyers, where zAlicerg's and Musi's lawyers try to one-up each other by claiming to be of increasingly humble origins and increasingly lacking in legal expertise. This goes on for infinitely many panels.
Skewed Priorities: In 135: acceptance speech, a group of three hitmen are sent by the Pro Wrestling Foundation to assassinate La Croix. Only one of them is actually shooting, while the other two are busy holding up a sign.
Smash Cut:
- Immediately after introducing Mustache Twirler, Musi cuts to Another Dimension to introduce another new character, the glider.
- In 90: an aesop, Musi comes up with the idea of writing a story with a lesson. In the next panel, the Narrator transitions to Musi hiding from a pack of vampire walruses, with no explanation given.
- In 99: WARNING! CLIFFHANGER AHEAD, the zvillainsrg invoke a cut to Michael, revealing that they did remember to bring the surrealism generator with them after all.
- In 145: Court Again??, the Narrator suddenly invokes a cut to Justice Fivecurls to signal the start of a new courtroom arc.
Smoke Out: In 47: Q&A 4, Musi sets off a smoke bomb while disappearing so they can go watch a baseball game.
Social Media Is Bad: The Narrator claims that social media posts featuring a certain image are meant to rake in as much engagement as possible, and implies that this leads to a distortion of reality as social media (as well as traditional media) is not necessarily reflective of Real Life.
Sounding It Out: Defied in 52: mail by the Most Beautiful Stickman, who refuses to read out loud a personal message to them.
Space Whale Aesop: According to 90: an aesop, writing stories with morals is a bad idea. Why? You'll get chased by vampire walruses who also happen to be linguistic prescriptivists.
Speak in Unison: One of the zvillainsrg and Dandan encounter each other and simultaneously say "wait, why are you here?"
Spinning Clock Hands: In 122: technobabble, Time Travel is indicated by a clock being spun around.
Spock Speak: La Croix remarks that "not for all toasters does there exist toast that they will have ever toasted", an excessively logical way of saying "not all toasters toast toast".
Spoof Aesop: 90: an aesop ends with a very meta moral, that being to not write stories with morals.
Squee: In 1: most beautiful stickman, one cueball squees upon witnessing their beauty.
Stab the Salad: In the murder, Baseball Cap holds a knife while laughing maniacally, only for the next panel to reveal they're standing next to a giant cake.
Stating the Simple Solution: In 31: outside the comic >+o|=, Andrew tries to climb to the top of the comic using rope, while Musi says he should just fly to the top, while doing so.
Stick-Figure Comic:
- In general, the majority of characters are drawn as stick figures.
- Played with in 12: the third author, in which "Musi" and "Andrew" are drawn with actual torsoes and arms, albeit very simplistic ones. "Andrew" chalks it up to differing artstyles, until the two of them realize they are both just hand puppets.
Sticky Situation: In the alt text of 55: explanation, La Croix pranks the audience at a press conference by putting epoxy glue on their seats.
Sting: La Croix's revelation that "not all toasters toast toast" is immediately followed by a dramatic tone cluster on violins as the scene cuts to black.
Stock Legal Phrases:
- In 22: canonicity court part 4, La Croix's response to Justice Fivecurls' question:
  La Croix: I plead the fifth. Also, yes, I am.
- Dandan says "objection, hearsay" in response to La Croix's claim that the Most Beautiful Stickman's spouse didn't know about the marriage.
- At the end of the case, the judge announces that "the court is adjourned".
Strawman News Media:
- In 113: survivor bias, the Narrator claims that news outlets are pushing a story about polka dots on planes in order to rake in viewers.
- The alt text of 115: qxzlkbh is a breaking news headline which selectively quotes something Mustache Twirler said, in order to paint them as being against the existence this very TV Tropes page.
Stupid Question Bait: At the end of a political speech, La Croix asks the audience if they have any questions. Somebody asks about the end of the "phone" arc, for which an explanation was promised exactly 15 strips ago. La Croix notes that it's not at all relevant to their speech, but decides to answer anyway.
Sturgeon's Law: 104: changing up form a little, a chart cites a low barrier to entry as well as the difficulty of finding high-quality works as a problem with secular self-insert fics.
Stylistic Suck:
- In general, most strips consist of stick figures talking on a white background. The website is also extremely bare-bones and contains no CSS styling whatsoever.
- A specific example of intentionally bad writing comes in 87: the writing in this comic makes me frustrated. Upon learning that someone criticized Musi's writing, the Narrator has nothing to say beyond "oh no! That's just plain terrible!"
- Various "bad writing" examples occur on the page Really bad writing, with sentences featuring redundancy, Cliché, a tangent about shape sorter toys, and more.
Sudden Anatomy: La Croix gains a group of pointy appendages at the bottom of their body when they need to use them to type at a computer.
Supernatural Floating Hair: Musi's hair sticks up when they are holding an Artifact of Power.
Superweapon: The zvillainsrg describe their "surrealism generator" as one, the goal being to prevent qxlkbh from reaching 100 comics. Due to a lack of testing, it doesn't do anything.
Surveillance as the Plot Demands: Musi reveals that they are able to livestream footage from things happening anywhere else In-Universe, as long as it doesn't create any plot holes. They create a livestream at the pier so that La Croix can see the results of their prank.
Survivorship Bias: Parodied in 113: survivor bias, where the famous plane image often used to represent the phenomenon is itself cited as an example of the phenomenon. According to the Narrator, people are more likely to share this particular image because of the dots, and thus all the planes that don't have dots drawn on them are underrepresented.
Suspiciously Specific Denial:
- In the alt text of extra-1 - sequel curse, La Croix claims that the fact they were in charge of casting every single time that an actor died while portraying Inconsistent Man for the second time is "purely incidental".
- The description of 51: qxlkbh #51 insists that the cake from the previous comic "mysteriously disappeared" and denies that it was eaten by the other characters.
- 61: definitely still about Quick, which isn't like a metaphor or anything yeah totally
- The alt text of 63: Ideas claims that clicking on the ad will give the user "totally original ideas no cognitohazard".
- In 115: qxzlkbh, Ian denies invoking the trope Xtreme Kool Letterz for any other reason than for its own sake, and laughs nervously. The real reason, if you were wondering, is for the comic to have a trope starting with the letter 'X'.
- In 135: acceptance speech, the would-be assassins of La Croix hold up a sign denying that they were hired by the Pro Wrestling Foundation.
Sweat Drop:
- A drop of sweat appears on Crossley's forehead as the Fourth Wall questions them during a debate.
- A drop of sweat can be seen coming from Justice Fivecurls' head in 146: legal accuracy due to nervousness, as they are standing on top of a giant gold bar and thus could potentially be "disbarred".
Symbol Swearing:
- In 32: censorship, the swearing is censored as "$!@#".
- When Baseball Cap trips, their swearing is censored as "@%&$#!!". The exclamation marks may or may not be part of the word.

T-Z

Tagline: "the comic with a tagline that is this tagline"
Taken for Granite: According to Ian, 126: qxlkbh - The Lost Episode supposedly mentions this trope by name as part of a pun on the word "pomegranate", though the context leading to this is never explained.
Take Our Word for It: In 5: weirdness - 3, La Croix and the Narrator decide to "cause general mayhem" without elaborating further:
La Croix: haha everything offpanel sure is on fire right now
Take Over the World: In 144: multiverse, the zvillainsrg come up with the Evil Plan of taking over the universe, and then The Multiverse.
Take That!:
- 1: most beautiful stickman is a commentary about the prevalence of Fanservice in the webcomic industry:
  Cueball: Soooo... might there be any fanservice in this comic?
  Musi: what? no! First, that's a super creepy question to ask, and second this is literally a greyscale stick figure comic how would that even work?
- 120: seecret saturday update contains a proclamation by "Consistent Man" that "the law is always right", making a dig at The Comics Code which, among other things, enforced a pro-authority stance in American comic books.
Take This Job and Shove It: Camera I angrily quits their job of filming qxlkbh after encountering their Arch-Enemy, Camera II.
Talking with Signs: Two of the would-be assassins of La Croix hold up a large sign denying any affiliation with the Pro Wrestling Foundation.
Technobabble: Andrew explains to the Narrator that the Time Travel Artifact of Power works by "[reversing] the polarity of quantum entropy".
Textplosion: 131: debate is particularly text-heavy, to the point that two of the four panels are almost entirely occupied by dialogue. To make it easier to read, each of them have even been split into three trapezoidal subpanels containing each line of dialogue.
Thinking Out Loud: Henry begins his guest comic by voicing his thoughts about writing a good guest comic.
Thinking Tic:
- Characters are often shown with a hand on their chin to indicate that they're deep in thought, such as in E11: must invent a trope.
- In 9: title drop, the Narrator says "thinkthinkthinkthinkthinkthink" out loud while thinking.
Thinking Up Portals: In 117: thinking with... handsaws?, Fez uses a handsaw to create a portal in the wall, and then teleports through it.
Think of the Censors!: When the Narrator is caught listening to something inappropriate, Musi remarks that having them as Narrator risks violating the comic's "self-imposed limitations on subject matter".
This Is Gonna Suck: The Most Beautiful Stickman says "well crap" in response to falling into the panel below.
This Is Reality: In 60: some more about Quick, Max thinks Laurie is trying to imply that their own world is fictional. He dismisses this notion, insisting that they live in reality and not a work of fiction.
Time Master: In the future, a tool is invented which can simulate time in reverse.
Time Travel Episode:
- In 67: Future ancient literature, an archaeologist travels back in time to the present to learn more about qxlkbh.
- In 77: low budget time travel, Baseball Cap demonstrates a time loop which allows them to appear a total of six times despite the comic only having four panels.^note
- 117: thinking with... handsaws? once again demonstrates a form of time travel unique to the comic medium, in which Fez performs a Frame Break by making their own portals.
- In 122: technobabble, Andrew uses an Artifact of Power to travel through time by spinning a clock around.
Time-Traveling Jerkass: In 116: timeline, a time traveler steals an Artifact of Power from another timeline while Musi is trying to use it to defeat the zvillainsrg.
Title Confusion: Occurs In-Universe in the alt text of 118: beard, which notes how the barber paradox^note and the barbershop paradox^note have confusingly similar titles, likely causing people to frequently mix the two up.
Title Drop: Discussed in 9: title drop. Actually using "qxlkbh" in a sentence would be difficult since, you know, it's a random jumble of letters, except for the fact that the comic has little concern for the Fourth Wall and thus can make reference to itself:
Fourth Wall: Put me out of my misery... I can't do this...
Doctor: But we've got to preserve some sense of logic in qxlkbh somehow!
Torture for Fun and Information: The alt text 143: the other celebration involves the zvillainsrg torturing someone to get information out of them using a rubber duck. Whatever they're planning to do, it's probably not that severe given the minor nature of their previous acts.
Tradesnark™: Musi blames "webcomic time™" for Andrew's confusion about the timeline of the comic.
Translation Convention: 17: translation errs reveals that everyone is actually speaking "Stickese" (actually Quechua) which has been translated into English for the audience's benefit.
Trivially Obvious: Because Musi was late to the 50th comic milestone, they have to settle for the fact that their comic is "the ONLY 51st comic".
[Trope Name]:
- The premise of 10: qxlkbh title:
  Cueball 1: Clever lampshade hanging
  Cueball 2: Witty answer
  Narrator: Narrator's opinion
- Another, more brief, example occurs in 30: website:
  Baseball Cap: [obligatory forced punchline]
- The alt text of 47: Q&A 4 reads "*description of event instead of onomatopoeic word*"
- In 66: Action Logic #2, there's a sound effect reading "SOUND EFFECT".
- The two-part comic that starts with 71: one... and a half shot gag ends with 72: second part of title even though 71's title is complete.
- The Artifact of Power in 116: timeline is referred to as a [GENERIC MAGIC ARTIFACT].
Troperiffic: Many strips have individual tropes as their premise, and sometimes even call them out by name.
- 115: qxzlkbh is particularly trope-heavy, as lampshaded by the description. Despite containing only two panels, it features at least 15 tropes, including this one.^note A few of these tropes are used on purpose in order to complete the "trope alphabet", so to speak, since the list includes tropes starting with the letters 'Q', 'X', and 'Z'.
Troubled Fetal Position: A cueball sits and wraps their arms around their knees and says "oh god oh god" while hiding from the vampire walruses.
Twist Ending: e13 - extra - applications supposedly ends with the protagonists finding a solution to defeat Thaxlarg and celebrating. However, the alt text reveals that Thaxlarg's ships are not fixed in size, thus making their plan no longer effective and resulting in humanity's extinction.
Two Gamers on a Couch: Parodied in 20: canonicity court part 2, with two judges sitting on a bench talking for the sake of "making a dig at gaming webcomics".
Umpteenth Customer:
- The alt text of 63: Ideas parodies Internet Ads claiming that the user is the 100 millionth visitor or whatever large number.
- The ad space in 82: behind the panels also claims the use is the site's 100 millionth visitor.
Undisclosed Funds: It's not specified how much money is in the "suitcase full of cash" that the Fourth Wall receives from the Pro Wrestling Foundation, but it's enough to get them to claim at a rally that Pro Wrestling Is Real.
The Unpronounceable: The FAQ specifies that the comic title is meant to be pronounced [qxlkbh] in IPA.
Unreliable Expositor: La Croix decides to make up a fake Backstory for themselves, and explains it directly to the audience. The alt text remarks that the story would be slightly more convincing if it were illustrated instead of merely explained.
Unsound Effect:
- In 47: Q&A 4, Musi disappears in a smoke bomb labeled "*smokebomb*". The alt text of the comic is a description of unsound effects.
- Also used in 66: Action Logic #2 with "SOUND EFFECT".
"Untitled" Title: 41: Untitled
Viewers Are Geniuses: In 84: Nomic Part 4, Dandan assumes that readers will know whether or not ZFC is consistent, despite the fact that this is impossible to prove using ZFC itself.
Viewers Are Morons: The alt text of 110: pretend interactivity claims that, because the audience is mostly young children, they won't understand La Croix's motives unless La Croix explicitly states them.
Visible Silence: An ellipsis appears in place of actual dialogue on several occasions to indicate silence, including in 21: canonicity court part 3, 69: the one that continues the titling convention, 70: the one that has the title that says "hey tropers mark down theme naming in your trope bingo", and 110: pretend interactivity.
Visual Pun:
- In 86: qxlkbh DARKER AND EDGIER EDITION, "darker" means the scene is poorly lit, while "edgier" refers to the lack of anti-aliasing, rather than either term referring to the subject matter.
- When Sonata demands that Justice Fivecurls be "disbarred", Fivecurls replies that there's nobody in the courtroom to disbar. However, it turns out they're standing on top of a "24 [karat] gold bar exam".
Vote Early, Vote Often: In 85: Nomic Part 5, Planet votes twice on a proposal to give themselves money, once as their planet form, and once as their stick figure form. Musi immediately deems this unfair and creates a new proposal stating that only one of them is allowed to participate.
Walk-In Chime-In: In 146: legal accuracy, Justice Fivecurls questions why a canonicity court should operate like a regular court to begin with, to which Sonata suddenly enters the courtroom and replies "because it's a court", and demands that the judge be "disbarred".
Wall of Text: 67: Future ancient literature lampshades in its sixth panel the fact that it contains "a large quantity of glyphs".
Watching the Sunset: Sonata gives a monologue about the beauty of the sunset to a cueball who isn't really listening.
Watsonian versus Doylist: The Doylist (i.e. Real Life) explanation of nobody ever questioning La Croix's lies is that everyone else was written that way. The Watsonian (i.e. In-Universe) explanation is... also that everyone else was written that way.
Webcomic Time: In 46: Q&A 3, Andrew is confused by the fact that the comic is already a month and a half old. Musi replies that it's simply a case of webcomic time™.
When I Was Your Age...: Parodied in the alt text of 128: camera 1 quits, which bemoans the fact that 10-Minute Retirements used to actually last ten minutes, but now last ten seconds.
Where the Hell Is Springfield?: Parodied in 101: origin, which takes place in a town called Springfield. Its population is a complex number, and the only clues given about its location are that Stockholm is to the right and Kampala is to the left.
Whole Episode Flashback: The last panel of 124: Kansas City reveals that the rest of the strip was a Flashback to a past incident that led La Croix to move out of their house.
Who's on First?: In Q&A 4, Musi clarifies that "what" is the genre of the comic and "Who" is the baseball player with the highest batting average.
Who Watches the Watchmen?: In the "canonicity court" arc, La Croix's "defense" is not so much about defending the antics of the previous storylines as canon (since they were only ever intended to serve as a baseline for Early-Installment Weirdness), but rather claiming that the court itself is non-canon and thus has no authority to rule on the issue of canonicity. The court, it turns out, had already tried itself in a separate case. Although the outcome of that case is not specified, Fivecurls claims it is irrelevant to whether the court's rulings in general have weight.
Who Writes This Crap?!: In 67: Future ancient literature, the Narrator interrupts themselves to ask about the meaning of "Meanwhile, in the Future…".
Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: In the alt text of 143: the other celebration, a torture victim claims that they'll never talk no matter what gets thrown at them. When the zvillainsrg pull out the rubber duck, the victim immediately gives in.
Wig, Dress, Accent: In 121: author despot, Ian reveals that he has disguised himself as Crossley simply by twisting his lampshade hat around and putting a black disc around it to make it look like a generic white hat. Thanks to the comic's simplistic artstyle, this disguise is sufficiently advanced so as to be indistinguishable from Crossley.
Willing Suspension of Disbelief: Mentioned by name in 54: suspension of disbelief. La Croix attempts to break it by promising good things if elected.
Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing:
- The zvillainsrg decide that the best way to prevent qxlkbh from reaching 100 strips is by avoiding doing anything that might be relevant to the plot.
- The waiting tactic is later used against them in 102: Beating panel, where they are beaten to death using Beat Panels.
Word of God: Invoked by Musi as justification for declaring aspects of some of the previous strips non-canon in 21: canonicity court part 3. However, the judge misinterprets "Word of God" as literally referring to God.
Word Purée Title: "qxlkbh".
Written Sound Effect:
- When the Bolivian Army arrives, an explosion occurs and is annotated as "BOOM!"
- Baseball Cap tripping on something offscreen is signaled with a "crash".
- The vampire walruses banging on the door is written as "BAM".
- The Fourth Wall hits La Croix with a "KA-WHAM!!!"
- A gunshot during La Croix's acceptance speech is annotated as "BANG".
- One of the hitmen chasing after La Croix comes to a Screeching Stop which is annotated as "screech".
Wrong Song Gag: In 14: background music, a cueball puts on a "peaceful pastoral music playlist" and ends up listening to Dies Irae. The Narrator apologizes for the mistake.
X Days Since: The alt text of 144: multiverse references a "days since qxlkbh said its own name" counter which now needs to be reset to zero.
Xtreme Kool Letterz: In 115: qxzlkbh, Ian accuses Mustache Twirler of being an Expy of classic cartoon villains, due to their Dastardly Whiplash persona, but spells it "Xpy". When questioned about this, he replies that "it looks cool."
You and What Army?: La Croix mocks Crossley's attempt at staging a coup by asking "you? and whose army?", to which the Narrator responds that the "army" in question is a rebranded Inconsistent Man.
You Are Not Alone: One sentence in Really bad writing declares that "No man is an island, but some are isthmuses."
You Cannot Grasp the True Form: Douglas Hofstadter declares that he possesses powers that humans are unable to comprehend without going insane, that being resolving the barber paradox.
You Know What They Say: Ian says this before stating the adage of Grey's Law.
You Know What to Do: According to 104: changing up form a little, a chart, the only non-danger zone for writing nonstandard fictional works is religious self-insert fics, using The Divine Comedy as an example. The bottom reads: "your orders are clear."
Your Little Dismissive Diminutive: Mustache Twirler refers to this very page as "your silly little tvtropes (sic) page".
You Say Tomato: The alt text of 122: technobabble pokes fun at Doc Brown's pronunciation of "gigawatt" as "jigawatt". The latter version, with the soft g, is less common but still considered valid.
You Wouldn't Shoot Me: The Most Beautiful Stickman knows that the cast has Plot Armor:
Narrator: Oh woe. For once the protagonists are against insurmountable odds! How will they make it out?
MBS: Like they'd kill off one of our main characters.
Zebras Are Just Striped Horses: Parodied in 115: qxzlkbh, where Tentacle Horse tries to turn themselves into a zebra simply by painting stripes on their body, while referring to themselves as a "neighsayer" for not thinking this qualifies as a straight example of the trope.

Webcomic / qxlkbh

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