Cannot Spit It Out: Difference between revisions

* Pick an [[Unlucky Childhood Friend]]. ''Any'' [[Unlucky Childhood Friend]]. It will also be coupled with the intended target [[Failed a Spot Check|Failing All Spot Checks]] on what few hints they ''do'' manage to give off.

 

* This is more or less [[Rumiko Takahashi]]'s S.O.P.: [[Belligerent Sexual Tension|At least one member of the pairing must not be able to confess their feelings]]:

** ''[[Ranma ½]]''. After spending most of the series calling Akane an "uncute tomboy", Ranma finally musters up the courage to tell her that actually, he thinks she's really cute—and [[Cassandra Truth|then she doesn't believe him because she thinks he's trying to trick her]].

* ''[[Those Who Hunt Elves]]''. All it would take to save the group tons and tons of trouble every episode is for somebody to approach an Elf and say "Hello, there. This might seem like an odd request but my friends and I are looking for fragments of a very important spell that's been imprinted on the bodies of five random Elf women. You don't happen to have recently found yourself with a strange marking on your body, have you? You HAVE? Great! Would you mind if we went to a quiet, private location to check if it's one of the fragments and remove that for you if it is?" Instead of, y'know, randomly assaulting and ripping the clothes off every one they come across.

* A particularly heartbreaking example occurs in ''[[Berserk]]'' during {{spoiler|the Eclipse}}. {{spoiler|Judeau wants to confess his love for Casca after being seriously wounded by one of the Apostles. When the time finally comes, all he can say to her is "I'm glad to see you cry.". He dies painfully in her arms immediately after. And then [[It Got Worse]].}}

* In the ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' manga and second anime, Winry and Ed have this in SPADES. To the point where he'd rather recite the periodic table of elements than admit his feelings.

** Which is hilarious when you think that, when the topic of his feelings for Winry comes up, he's been known to spit ''other'' things out... [[Spit Take|like his drink, all over poor Black Hayate]]... Yeah, [[It Makes Sense in Context]].

* In ''[[Smile Pretty Cure]]'', Yayoi decides to pull an April Fools prank, saying that she's going to get transferred to another school. It's all fine and dandy, except for one hitch - the person she told it to was Miyuki, who panics and begins spreading the news, spiraling into Reiko holding a farewell party with the rest of the class and Yayoi unable to say anything because the other girls keep putting words in her mouth. It isn't until Akaoni reveals the truth through a manga Yayoi drew and lost that the girls realize that it was a lie. They're pretty disappointed at her... until they realize it was Miyuki's fault for believing it in the first place!

 

* In the 1990s [[Marvel Comics]] series ''Sleepwalker'', Rick Sheridan finds himself unable to explain his sudden sleeping problems, caused by Sleepwalker being trapped in his mind, to his girlfriend Alyssa, mostly because he's afraid of how he thinks she'll react.

* ''[[Spider-Man]]'' suffers from this trope '''in spades''', with Peter Parker unwilling to reveal his dual identity to his Aunt May, because he fears the shock will kill her, and later because he doesn't want her constantly worrying about him risking his life as Spider-Man. It became even worse when Peter wouldn't tell his first girlfriend, Gwen Stacy, the secret either. He never told Mary Jane while they were dating, either -- ''she'' had to tell ''him'' that she knew his secret.

* In ''[[Alpha Flight]]'', Eugene Judd (aka Puck), one of the team's founders, has had a longstanding crush on teammate Helen Hudson, but has never been brave enough to tell her, as he figures a woman like her could never love a "dwarf old enough to be her grandfather", as he himself puts it. Note that Puck's ideas of fun include wrestling bears (which he first did when he was eight years old) yet he still is not brave enough to spit it out and tell Helen he loves her.

 

* ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1730427/1/Anguish Anguish]'', a ''[[Forgotten Realms]]'' fanfiction, had Drizzt trying to tell Catti-brie how he feels about her at the most perfect moment—on a balcony during a ball -- {{spoiler|only to be interrupted because Delly was having a baby.}}

* A plague of this happens in many, many, ''many'', ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'' fanfic stories. Harry falls for Ginny Weasley (or insert your own particular favorite shipping character here... it doesn't matter who you're shipping, this is so common...). Ginny falls for Harry. Unfortunately, since neither character seems capable of opening their mouths and admitting their feelings to the other character, you get chapter after multitudinous chapter of [[Wangst]] about it.

* This happens in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' fanfic ''[[Children of the Stars]]'', where Keleria - madly in love with Ayuri and most certainly wanting to express her feelings - ''won't'' allow herself to spit it out rather than wanting to and just getting cold feet.

 

* In the movie ''[[Spider-Man (film)|Spider-Man]] 3'', Harry Osborne has a terrible grudge against [[Spider-Man]], as he believes he was responsible for the death of his father, Norman. As one of the only people who knows Spider-Man's real identity, he spends the greater part of the movie making things difficult for Peter Parker, battles Spider-Man a few times as the Green Goblin, and eventually, in one of said battles, gets injured. Later in the movie, Peter asks Harry to help fight the team of Venom and the Sandman, but Harry declines the offer. At this point, the Osborne family's loyal butler Bernard arrives, and tells Harry that Spider-Man was really never responsible for Norman's death, and that he died of his own folly. Apparently, the butler knew this all along, but still allowed Harry to play out his vendetta against Spider-Man. [[All There in the Manual|According to the DVD extras]], the butler was a hallucination for Harry to justify himself. Note how ''only'' Harry sees him during the entire movie.

** There's also Mary Jane. If she had just said that she got fired from her job, about half of the conflict in the movie would disappear.

* Averted in ''[[Ghost Rider]]'': Johnny's love interest confronts him about breaking their date... so he tells her that he turned into a burning biker skeleton possessed by a spirit of vengeance. Naturally, she finds this preposterous, but when she sees proof that he was telling her the truth, she unhesitatingly steps up to help him.

* One of the protagonists of ''Better Than Chocolate'' keeps starting to come out of the closet to her mother, only to have her mother interrupt, assuming she was trying to disclose something else.

{{quote|{{spoiler|'''Silent Bob:''' THE SIGN ON THE BACK OF THE CAR SAID "CRITTERS OF HOLLYWOOD!" YOU DUMB FUCK!}}

{{spoiler|'''Jay:''' Say it, don't spray it.}} }}

** "If I was to say [[Tongue-Tied|s-s-something apologetic]]... it would reflect my feelings in this matter.

 

* The fall and damnation of Satan, the eternal struggle between heaven and hell, and the loss of quite a few demigods is all due to all characters in ''To Rule in Hell'' performing an extended dance remix of this trope.

* In ''The Rise of Endymion'', the eponymous main character spends a great deal of energy angsting over a period of time that his love spent unaccounted for while he was off touring planets, having kidney stones, and eluding the Space Pope. No, really. He deduces that this time was spent with another man, and angsts accordingly. At length. Of course, he can't bear to ask her about it; otherwise she might have told him that {{spoiler|thanks to some time travel tomfoolery, the other man was ''him.''}} However, considering how much of the plot's pacing hinges on said lover's constant reluctance to give information that would explain anything to anyone, maybe not.

* Most, if not all, of [[Jeeves and Wooster (novel)|Bertie Wooster]]'s problems can be traced back to this trope, combined with the fact that he's an [[Extreme Doormat]]. Besides being unable to correct any girl who thinks she's engaged to him, at the end of ''The Inimitable Jeeves'' {{spoiler|he can't work up the courage to fire Jeeves, or even tell him off, after Jeeves has fooled one too many influential people into thinking he's insane. He tries to start a conversation to that purpose several times, but repeatedly ends up saying, "Oh, nothing!"}}.

 

* The first season of ''[[Everwood]]''. One of the fundamental source of Ephram's antagonism toward Andy is the latter's seemingly inexplicable decision to uproot his family and move from New York to the eponymous little mountain town. We learn in episode 1 that Andy did it because his wife made him promise before she died. Ephram even points this out in the season finale after Andy finally tells him (after they've worked out their differences): "You know, this would have been a lot easier if you had told me straight away."

* This drives most of the entire story of ''[[Mad Men]]''. If Don Draper came clean about his "dark secret", then he would be able to straighten things out with his wife, stop looking over his shoulder generally, and would have saved his brother's life.

* Inverted when Lisa Landry met Terrence in ''[[Sister, Sister]]''. Lisa ''did'' spit it out to Terrence when meeting him. Unfortunately for both her and Terrence, it was the wrong kind of "spit it out."

 

* This is the premise of the song "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" by [[The Police]]. The narrator is in love with a girl, but can't work up the courage to tell her. (Also "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da." Same narrator, I guess.)

* Likewise "I Want to Tell You", by [[The Beatles (band)|The Beatles]].

* "If Only You Knew" by Patti Labelle: "I must have rehearsed my lines / A thousand times / Until I had them memorized / But when I get up the nerve / To tell you the words / Just never seem to / Come out right".

* The [[Broken Record|rather minimal]] lyrics of [[Mercury Rev]]'s "Car Wash Hair" hint at this:

* Jim Croce's "I'll Have to Say 'I Love You' in a Song"... because of this trope. "Every time the time was right/All the words just came out wrong..."

* "The Chase" by Kane ([[Leverage|Christian]] [[Angel|Kane's]] band) is about how this causes a breakup.

* "Big Brother" by [[Kanye West]] provides a friendly example. He made the song when the relationship between him and [[Jay Z]] hit a rough patch.

* This is shown to be the backstory in "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You," written by Doug James and [[Michael Bolton]], first performed by Laura Branigan. And now the singer finds the words when it's too late, because "someone's swept your heart away."

 

* Charlie Brown's inability to talk to the Little Red-Haired Girl in ''[[Peanuts]]''.

** Inspired by the rejection of a proposal to marriage Charles M. Schulz offered his girlfriend in 1947. The woman later married a fireman, the woman and Schulz remained friends for life, but Schulz was significantly affected by the rejection. [[Unrequited Love]] was a constant theme in ''Peanuts''.

* Jon in ''[[Garfield]]'' has a really serious case of this. He can't even spit it out when his [[Love Interest]] is ''not'' present!

 

* ''The Muppet Frog Prince'' had a particularly silly version of this. The Princess's evil aunt places a spell on her where she is unable to speak straight. Despite trying her hardest to explain that "Tant Aminella" (Aunt Taminella) is the evil witch, no one catches on. Of course, this is aimed at kids, so no deep plots here (not bothering with spoilers tag since it's painfully obvious to anyone over the age of about... 8).

 

* [[Older Than Steam]]: ''[[Romeo and Juliet]]'' uses this trope. Tybalt confronts Romeo, challenging him to a swordfight. Romeo tries to explain that there's no reason for their two families to keep feuding, since he and Juliet recently got married. Tybalt won't let Romeo get to the part about marriage, assuming Romeo's unwillingness to fight is simply the act of a coward. Then Tybalt makes the whole conversation moot when he [[It's Personal|fights and kills Mercutio instead]].

* Both [[Simpleminded Wisdom|Le Bret]] and [[Romantic False Lead|Christian]] try to convince ''[[Cyrano De Bergerac]]'' that he should tell Roxane that he loves her, but he's too ashamed of his perceived [[The Grotesque|grotesqueness]] due to his big nose (and has serious [[Mommy Issues]]) to entertain the thought.

* The chorus of "If I Loved You" from ''[[Carousel]]'' describes an inability to overcome nervousness and proclaim your love to someone.

 

* Kaidan in ''Mass Effect''. He grows a bit of a backbone in ''Mass Effect 2''. Shame...

** Possibly [[Justified Trope|justified]] in that Tifa was actually doubting her own memories. Cloud's story had details that she thought he couldn't have known—remember, he was [[The Faceless|hidden under a Shin-Ra grunt's mask]], so she didn't know he was there—so she wasn't sure she was remembering correctly, or whether her memories had been muddled by her injuries.

** Imperial Agent act 2. You can choose actions and dialogue protesting your orders, but {{spoiler|Imperial Agency's brainwashing}} prevents you from actually doing anything against them.

 

* In ''[[The Order of the Stick]]'', Haley at one point becomes unable to speak intelligibly at all for some time until she expresses her feelings for Elan by an [[Anguished Declaration of Love]].

* For the first year of ''[http://www.avalonhigh.com Avalon]'', the characters seem (progressively less) unable to say the word "lesbian", which complicates Ceilidh's attempts to ascertain whether her best friend Phoebe ''is'' one ([[Mistaken for Gay|as rumor would have it]]). When she finally asks Ryan outright [http://www.avalonhigh.com/d/20000920.html why he would ask out a lesbian], she learns all about what started the rumor, among other things. Unfortunately, by this time Ceilidh's constant innuendo has half the school—including Phoebe herself—convinced that ''she's'' a lesbian.

*** Actually, her friends did mention they had been teasing him for it within their group. She just seemed to think he was over it for some reason.

*** They were teasing ''her'' about it. But they tease her about everything, so she assumed they were just screwing with her.

* Oh dear. Lucy from ''[[Bittersweet Candy Bowl]]'' spends YEARS - both in-world and in real life - trying to come to terms with her feelings before she finally announces how she feels. {{spoiler|Disappointingly, she left it just a bit too late.}}

* In ''[[Homestuck]]'', Jane has it so bad that even when Jake outright asks her whether she has a crush on him {{spoiler|she panics and instinctively denies it, a rejection Jake takes at face value.}} Dirk theoretically averts this as he's apparently planning an [[Anguished Declaration of Love]] towards Jake, but even he's been crushing on him for three years (to the point where his ''autoresponder'' seems to be trying to provoke him into action) and he's noticeably tight-lipped about the exact details, or even if he's really going to go through with it at all.

* ''[[Girl Genius]]'', both Gil/Agatha and Tarvek/Agatha, though they were not the worst. Then there was Violetta [[He Is Not My Boyfriend|with Moloch]]; later Jiminez Hoffmann and Larana Chroma prompted Zeetha to exclaim "''Everyone'' in Paris can't be like this. I mean, I've seen ''kids''."

** Of a non-romantic variation, [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20130329 it took Tarvek some struggle] to admit that [[Vitriolic Best Buds|he actually cares about Gil]].

 

* There's just ''so'' much of this in the ''[[Whateley Universe]]'' stories, but of course that is a [[Teen Drama]].

* In [[Shadow of the Templar]], Simon and Jeremy are a perfect example. Despite spending years in an exclusive Secret Relationship and risking their lives for each other multiple times, they are apparently incapable of expressing their feelings for each other. Jeremy just acts like a Tease, and Simon hesitates to even think of Jeremy as his friend.

* They go into a [[Dating Catwoman|relationship]] anyway, but [[The Nostalgia Critic]] looks ready to cry when he chickens out of holding [[The Nostalgia Chick]]'s hand and telling her that he's in love with her.

 

* In one episode of ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants]]'', after Squidward has played a prank on SpongeBob, he realizes how much he's humiliated him and goes to his house to apologize... but every time he tries to say "I'm sorry", he just can't pull it off without doing weird cartoon-takes.

* This is the cornerstone of Ulrich and Yumi's [[UST]] in ''[[Code Lyoko]]''.

** Also [[Zig Zagged Trope|Zig-zagged]] with a [[Sibling Triangle]] subplot between Lion-O, his brother Tygra and shared [[Love Interest]] Cheetara. Rather than explicitly state that they both have feelings for her and asking if she reciprocates, they [[Invoked Trope|complicate]] matters by treating their interactions as ([[Sibling Rivalry|yet another]]) passive-aggressive competition, hoping she'll give an indication of "choosing" one of them eventually. In "Between Brothers" Cheetara finally understands the extent to which the pair have been feuding over her, and apologizes for [[Played Straight|playing this trope straight.]] She admits that she's [[All Love Is Unrequited|also harbored unrequieted feelings]], confessing her love and kissing {{spoiler|Tygra, which is of course the moment Lion-O enters the scene.}}

* ''[[Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!]]'': This sums up Sprx and Nova's relationship fairly well, especially in Sprx's case; it's obvious he loves her, and comes fairly close to saying it a couple of times, only for something to interrupt or chicken out at the last second. In the final episode, {{spoiler|it's ''Nova'' who finally spits it out, in order to break Sprx out of his [[Brainwashed and Crazy]] state}}.

* In ''[[Kim Possible]]'', the titular character went through this in the pilot episode - the girl can wrestle sharks and spars with [[Mad Scientist]]s with [[Humungous Mecha]]s on a daily basis, but wasn't able to garner up the courage to ask Josh to the school dance. [[Downplayed]] in that she finally managed it by the end of the episode.

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Romance Arc]]