The trope uses the clock motif because it's similar to the motion of a clock. After charging an energy attacks straight above, the above the arms sweep down and the attack is released ahead.
I've been Bluelinked
Gravity Assisted Energy Charging?
The clock hand description probably isn't needed, because it's more about the pose than the action to release the attack. *Makes a note to add Gannondorf*
Australia The country with a 2 party system But all the power with independentsThe internet is horrible for conveying tonality, so let me preface the following by saying I am writing this completely calm, albeit a bit disappointed.
I've noticed that a good chunk of the time one of the tropes I launch ends up here it's because a critical point of view wasn't presented in ykttw. Here, it's that it had a bad title. I gave this various bumps, waited 10 days, and gave it a launch header with the current name
to try and catch some attention. I ask this as plaintively as I can: what more can I do? What went wrong, and how can I avoid this? Should I just run every trope through the forum first, assuming the worst, or that my judgement is poor?
Sorry for the melodrama, I'm just bummed about this.
I think the problem is that there are various sets of tropers that don't always overlap: those who edit the wiki (and even there, you have page minders, wiki walkers, new trope watchers, etc.), those who hang out on the forums, and those who hang out in YKTTW. They're often very different sets of people, and the level of title criticism in YKTTW seems to be rather different than what you find here.
It's not really a flaw of the system per se as it is different branches. Think of YKTTW as legislative and Trope Repair Shop as judicial. This said, if you want to get some pre-launch opinions on titles, we have a specific thread for getting feedback on YKTTW.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Yeah, I get the idea of the symbolism, but honestly? when I first saw the title, my mind immediately went to "a variant of Bullet Time; perhaps a slo-mo effect when someone is Outrunning the Fireball?"
I have a message from another time...Personally, I wander YKTTW, LNF, and TRS when I'm not checking tropes for just whatever. I've never been in any other part of the forum.
I also don't post on every YKTTW, although this past week I've been doing a fair imitation.
I hate to say it, but yes, this Needs A Better Name. I thought it was a play on either "killing time" or The Thing's Catchphrase, and expected it to be about either going around being a Complete Monster to waste time or a Pre-Mortem One-Liner.
Let's see... Gravity Assisted Energy Charging conveys it, but is kind of clunky....
Mmmm...
How about... Pulling Down The Blast? Still a bit clunky, but it's the best I can come up with right now.
But soft! What rock through yonder window breaks? It is a brick! And Juliet is out cold.The trope describes using energy blasts as if the users were actually hurling balls of some sort—slam dunking a basketball for stuff like the spirit bomb or winding up to hurl a baseball like those generic ki blasts DBZ characters hurl en masse.
Perhaps Slam Dunk Energy for the big stuff and Fireball Fastball for the "chain" effect?
Do we really need separate tropes for variations in scale? It sounds like The Same But More to me....
![]()
![]()
I actually like that one; it might be a bit clunky, but it's clever and it gets the point across.
Sorry Earnest, but I also completely agree with Hylarn. The pose isnt remotely similar to the motion of a clock, since the characters arm only moves through a 90 degree angle.
I quite like Fireball Fastball for the rapid movement version of the trope. My suggestion would be Overhead Energy Blast or something like that.
Can't think of anything witty, so have this instead...

The trope itself is basically just "characters tend to charge energy balls by holding them straight up". All of this talk about clocks just obscufates things, especially since they're not always thrown at that angle.