History Main / TomatoSurprise

** A horse has a five-foot rope tied to it. A bale of hay is 10 feet away, yet the horse can still eat it. How is this possible? [[spoiler:The other end of the rope isn't tied to anything.]] Alternatively, [[spoiler:the other end rope is tied to something and the horse simply moved back and forth.]]

** A boy and his father are in a car. It gets into a terrible accident. The father is killed outright. The boy is critically injured and rushed to the hospital. In the operating room, the doctor looks down and says "My God! This is my son!" How is this possible? [[spoiler:Either the boy [[HasTwoMommies has two daddies]] or the doctor is his mother.]]

* In ''Webcomic/RomanticallyApocalyptic'', the Moon Arc heavily implies Zee Captain is some form of [[MechanicalAbomination ANNET]], the [[AIIsACrapshoot A.I. who (inadvertently) helped cause the apocalypse]] and served as the BigBad fur a large chunk of the comic's run.

TheReveal in a Tomato Surprise tends to be different from other types of twist. Since it is revealing to the audience something the characters already know, it is not tied to any dramatic development in the story, and simply consists of the camera showing us something that was previously obscured, or the narrator "casually" naming a character or setting that was previously not identified. The trope is a bit harder to pull off in visual media since savvy viewers will have their suspicions the more they notice that characters' faces are being deliberately hidden.

** A wet, naked body lies in a puddle of water surrounded by shards of glass near an overturned table. There are no marks on the body. How did the victim die? A goldfish died from asphyxiation after its bowl fell down and broke.
** A man takes the elevator in his building on rainy days and the stairs on sunny days. He has dwarfism, and the only way he can reach the elevator buttons is with his umbrella, which he only has with him on rainy days.
** A car is traveling along a road with no street-lights, the headlights of the car are not on either. A pedestrian in black clothes quickly walks out in front of the car. Yet the driver of the car is able to stop in good time and there is no incident. It's daytime.
** A man walks into a restaurant and orders a bowl of albatross soup. He takes a spoonful, pays, leaves, and walks into an alley to shoot himself. Why? (you can watch a brilliantly animated yes-or-no question version [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIdHBJmZWe8 here]]) He was once a castaway with his ship's crew, and their chef kept the survivors alive with his "albatross soup". When the man noticed that the real soup tasted different, he confirmed his suspicion that the chef cooked the bodies of the deceased victims, and he killed himself because he'd unwittingly committed cannibalism.
** When the music stopped, the lady died. The lady was a blind tightrope walker, the end of the song was her cue for when to step off the tightrope onto the platform, and--oops!--someone turned off the music too early! Alternatively, she was the ballerina figurine in a music box. Or alternatively, she was a ladybug who flew onto a chair during a game of Musical Chairs and was squashed when people rushed to sit down in the chairs after the music stopped.
** A man lies dead in a forest. How did he die? He was a swimmer or diver, accidentally picked up by a helicopter getting water from a lake to put out a forest fire.
** A man lies dead next to a green rock...How did he die? He's Superman, the rock is Kryptonite.
** A man lies dead in the desert surrounded by 53 bicycles. They were playing cards. He was cheating and got murdered. ('Bicycle' is a common brand of playing cards, so 53 suggests that one was a duplicate.)
** A man pushes his car in front of a hotel, and as soon as he did, he realized that he was broke. He was playing Monopoly.
** A boy and his father are in a car. It gets into a terrible accident. The father is killed outright. The boy is critically injured and rushed to the hospital. In the operating room, the doctor looks down and says "My God! This is my son!" How is this possible? Either the boy [[HasTwoMommies has two daddies]] or the doctor is his mother.
** There's a cabin in the woods. Everybody in it is dead. How did they die? It's a ''plane'' cabin-- they crashed.
** A woman sees a house and the windows are closed. She calls the police and many people are arrested. What happened? She saw the windows closed on the picture of the White House on the back of a $20 bill, and realized it was counterfeit.
** A man was found dead with a hole in his suit. What happened? He was an astronaut on a mission and his ''space''suit got punctured.
** A man lies dead and alone in a desolate field with an unopened package. How did he die? Hint: The closer he got to his destination, the surer he was that he was going to die. His parachute didn't open; as he neared to the ground, the man was sure he was going to die.
** Two chess grandmasters play five games and end up with the same win-loss records. No game ended in a draw. How? They didn't play against each other.
** A woman shoots her husband, holds him underwater for over five minutes, then hangs him. A few minutes later, however, they go out for dinner and a movie. She's a photographer. She shoots a picture of him using old-school film, places the film in a chemical bath to develop it, then hangs the developed photo to dry.
** The prisoner was held in a cell with high, thick concrete walls and no windows or door. So how did he escape? Through the hole in the wall where the door should have been.
** A horse has a five-foot rope tied to it. A bale of hay is 10 feet away, yet the horse can still eat it. How is this possible? The other end of the rope isn't tied to anything. Alternatively, the other end rope is tied to something and the horse simply moved back and forth.
** A baby falls out of a twenty-story building and survives. How? He fell out of a first-story window.

** A horse has a five-foot rope tied to it. A bale of hay is 10 feet away, yet the horse can still eat it. How is this possible? The other end of the rope isn't tied to anything.

* An Creator/AlanMoore story in ''ComicBook/TwoThousandAD'' was based around a series of shock confrontations between a human and a hideous alien, with first-person narrative captions of a person telling a psychiatrist that he keeps seeing horrible monsters wherever he goes. As the GenreSavvy reader will suspect, the final panel revealed that both the patient and the psychiatrist were aliens.

TheReveal in a Tomato Surprise tends to be different from other types of twist. Since it is revealing to the audience something the characters already know, it is not tied to any dramatic development in the story, and simply consists of the camera showing us something that was previously obscured, or the narrator "casually" naming a character or setting that was previously not identified. The trope is a bit harder to pull off in visual media since GenreSavvy viewers will have their suspicions the more they notice that characters' faces are being deliberately hidden.

* The ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'' fanfiction ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4332642/1/Smokescreen Smokescreen]]'' begins with Danny waking up after a fight. He's pretty disoriented afterwards, and as time passes, he has more and more trouble with memory gaps and his powers going berserk. Eventually, it is revealed that he isn't Danny at all; he's D-17--one of Vlad's many experimental Danny-clones! ParanoiaFuel indeed; as the fanfic recommendation page says, "Who's to say that you aren't you, but somebody else?"

** A man lies dead in the desert surrounded by 53 bicycles. They were playing cards. He was cheating and got murdered. ('Bicycle' is a common brand of playing cards.)]
** A man pushes his car in front of a hotel and as soon as he did he realized that he was broke. He was playing Monopoly.

** There's a cabin in the woods. Everybody in it is dead. How did they die? It's a ''plane'' cabin -- they crashed.

* In ''[[https://fox-lee.itch.io/where-ages-go Where Ages Go]]'', the protagonist is a HeroicMime who meets a cute boy in a park and gets closer to him over time until they eventually move in with him. In other words, just like your typical RomanceGame...until the ending image reveals that the fact the protagonist is never shown speaking dialogue is because they're actually a ''dog''.

* A famous fight over censorship erupted around ''Judgment Day'', a story in Creator/ECComics' ''Weird Science'' title. In the story, an astronaut from Earth visits an alien planet populated by robots to judge whether it was ready to be accepted into the wonders and greatness of Earth. He rejects this the world when he realizes that the Orange robots live in a place of comfort and superiority, while Blue Robots live in inferior conditions, are basically kept as slave labor, and have no rights, though they supposedly 'are equal'. The astronaut promises to return when the robots learn to abolish this method. In the final panel, the astronaut removes his helmet for the first time, with the shocking reveal that ''he was black''.
* Another EC example was a story from ''Weird Science'' about a man who worked as a dishwasher in some rundown desert diner. The man recounts how he always wanted to be an astronaut, venturing into space and living on another planet, but things like marriage and providing for his family came first and now he was too old to live such an exciting life. Turns out the whole story ''took place on Mars'', where he was born and lived his entire life. The grass is always greener indeed.

* [[TomatoSurprise/{{Film}} Film - Live-Action]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* [[http://www.misterkitty.org/extras/stupidcovers/stupidcomics70.html This page]] showcases some shocking revelations from old comics.

-->''When I was small, my mother warned me every day never to open the cellar door. She said that horrible, unspeakable things would happen to me if I ever opened the cellar door. I was frightened, but I still so desperately wanted to know what was behind the cellar door. So one day when my mother was away, I summoned up all my courage and opened the cellar door...and you'll never believe the things I saw! Flowers! Trees! Other children!''

* [[http://www.misterkitty.org/extras/stupidcovers/stupidcomics70.html This page]] showcases some particularly clumsy Tomato Surprises from old comics.

* The ''Franchise/LyricalNanoha'' fanfic ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8000913/1/Another_Way Another Way]]'' (an AlternateUniverse SpinOff of ''Fanfic/{{Game Theory|LyricalNanoha}}'') ends with the reveal that the Takamachi and Testarossa in the story are actually Momoko and Alicia.
** The prologue of ''Power Games'' appears to be Hayate awakening to the first manifestation of the Wolkenritter. Except that it's actually from ''[[Audioplay/StrikersSoundStageX Ixpellia's]]'' perspective.

* In ''VisualNovel/{{Ever17}}'', Takeshi's real face isn't shown during the [[MultipleEndings first playthrough]] (except for one scene, where it's just barely onscreen that a sharp-eyed person can realize they're being misguided before the reveal), to conceal the fact that the two Takeshis presented are different persons. This turns out to be a big part of a plan by one of the characters to save his father and friend from a deadly virus. This varies based on the order one plays the routes in. If one approaches the final route from Kid's perspective, he also gets tomatoed in the same manner.

-->''When I was small, my mother warned me every day never to open the cellar door. She said that horrible, unspeakable things would happen to me if I ever opened the cellar door. I was frightened, but I still so desperately wanted to know what was behind the cellar door. So one day when my mother was away, I summoned up all my courage and opened the cellar door... and you'll never believe the things I saw! Flowers! Trees! Other children!''

* In ''[[https://fox-lee.itch.io/where-ages-go Where Ages Go]]'', the protagonist is a HeroicMime who meets a cute boy in a park and gets closer to him over time until they eventually move in with him. In other words, just like your typical RomanceGame... until the ending image reveals that the fact the protagonist is never shown speaking dialogue is because they're actually a ''dog''.

** A man lies dead next to a green rock... How did he die? He's Superman, the rock is Kryptonite.

* The crossover CrackFic ''[[https://m.fanfiction.net/s/10507832/1/Kasumi-s-Epic-Quest Kasumi's Epic Quest!!!]]'' is listed as a MyLittlePony and VideoGame/{{Minecraft}} crossover, and the reason for this serves as one of these; Kasumi is the daughter of Discord. This is only vaguely hinted ''once'' before the reveal in the final chapter.

* In ''[[http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=31416&sid=9b2085ae812ba6450f8c8fc9a27652f3 Where Ages Go]]'', the protagonist is a HeroicMime who meets a cute boy in a park and gets closer to him over time until they eventually move in with him. In other words, just like your typical RomanceGame...until the ending image reveals that the fact the protagonist is never shown speaking dialogue is because they're actually a ''dog''.

* A ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'' fanfic, [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5353458/1/Blast_to_the_Past Blast to the Past]] makes this interesting. Taken as a reference from the comics, Sonic and Eggman were once friends. But then a terrible accident happens to one of then-benevolent Eggman's machines. Sonic tried to stop it but clumsily pulled out the plug by tripping, and things got worse from there. The good doctor tried to see if his young ward was alright, but trips on his foot and crashes into the machine, causing a devastating explosion. When the flames subsided, the now evil MadScientist we all love to hate was born and immediately blamed Sonic for his transformation. Sonic also blames himself for his friend's FaceHeelTurn, say that it was [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone his fault]] that Eggman is trying to rule the world. But as the story progressed, it turns out that the real culprit was [[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006 Princess Elise,]] along with Silver and Blaze, who had gone back in time to turn Eggman evil on purpose. It's NotWhatItLooksLike, though...

'''This is a PlotTwist trope, and as such will contain major spoilers.''' From the viewer's point of view, of course.

* A [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyeDBZaxFa8 UK advert]] for Robinsons' Juice has two boys playing together outside, teasing each other about girls, drinking the orange juice and watching a film together at home. The first boy falls asleep on the couch, and the second boy takes off his shoes for him, carries him upstairs and puts him into bed. As the second boy walks out, he pauses at the door and the first boy sleepily says [[spoiler:"Night, Dad." We see the 'second boy' at the door again, now grown-up as his Dad. As the text says at the end "It's Good To Be A Dad, It's Better To Be A Friend."]]
* A commercial for Subaru ("The Date") shows a man and a woman driving around the countryside in their car, apparently on a date or a husband and wife outing. They stop for lunch and have some fun at a roadside market. In the end, the man drops off the woman [[spoiler:at the side of the road next to a pickup truck. She then takes a gas can out of the trunk revealing she was just a stranded motorist he stopped to help.]]
* An advertisement shows an apparent JerkAss and his random acts of anti-social behavior toward strangers--pulling up a woman's dress, ruffling another woman's hairdo, throwing sand in a child's face, flipping an elderly man's umbrella inside out. Although it's obvious to the viewer, the man seems oblivious to why nobody likes him. TheEndingChangesEverything when it is revealed that the man is actually [[spoiler:a personification of the wind. What's being advertised is the idea of harnessing the wind for power]].

** He says that he loves to watch the schoolkids running and yelling and screaming at recess...and then says [[spoiler:they don't know he's just firing blanks]].
** He tells a long story about how he went to the library to look up, attempt to check out, and finally end up photocopying the instructions for the "Heimlich Anti-Choking Maneuver," ending with him saying [[spoiler:"So I went back out to the car, and by this time my sister was almost purple from the chicken bone..."]]

-->''When I was small, my mother warned me every day never to open the cellar door. She said that horrible, unspeakable things would happen to me if I ever opened the cellar door. I was frightened, but I still so desperately wanted to know what was behind the cellar door. So one day when my mother was away, I summoned up all my courage and opened the cellar door... and you'll never believe the things I saw! [[spoiler:Flowers! Trees! Other children!]]''

* The ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' comic ''ComicBook/DamnationCrusade'' tells the story of three different Black Templar Space Marines: A neophyte, a battle brother, and a Dreadnought. In the very end, it is revealed that [[spoiler:all three were in fact the same person, during different stages of his life.]]
* In ''Enigma'', a story about a superhuman who patterns his life after a comic book superhero in an attempt to give his life meaning, the hilarious yet bitterly sardonic narrator is revealed in the end to be [[spoiler:a lizard whom Enigma grants sentience to, trying to explain the whole story to a bunch of ordinary lizards. Enigma was making a point about how he felt, living as a superhuman in a world of ordinary humans]].
* A famous fight over censorship erupted around ''Judgment Day'', a story in Creator/ECComics' ''Weird Science'' title. In the story, an astronaut from Earth visits an alien planet populated by robots to judge whether it was ready to be accepted into the wonders and greatness of Earth. He rejects this the world when he realizes that the Orange robots live in a place of comfort and superiority, while Blue Robots live in inferior conditions, are basically kept as slave labor, and have no rights, though they supposedly 'are equal'. The astronaut promises to return when the robots learn to abolish this method. In the final panel, the astronaut removes his helmet for the first time, with the shocking reveal that [[spoiler:''he was black''.]]
* Another EC example was a story from ''Weird Science'' about a man who worked as a dishwasher in some rundown desert diner. The man recounts how he always wanted to be an astronaut, venturing into space and living on another planet, but things like marriage and providing for his family came first and now he was too old to live such an exciting life. Turns out the whole story [[spoiler:''took place on Mars'']], where he was born and lived his entire life. The grass is always greener indeed.

* In ''ComicBook/TheTombOfDracula'' #25, we first meet private investigator Hannibal King. King is hired to investigate a murder which he asserts is the work of a vampire and asks his doubting client to trust him. Sure enough, the case involves an appearance by Dracula. And King holds his own quite well against Dracula and his vampire flunkies. We are not told until the end that [[spoiler:Hannibal King is also a vampire]].

* The ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' fan comic "[[http://www.pixiv.com/tag/%E5%B0%91%E5%A5%B3%E5%B9%BB%E6%83%B3%E3%81%AE%E3%81%8A%E3%82%8F%E3%82%8A?order=asc The End of the Maiden's Illusion]]" concerns Reimu's death (of old age) and then segues into a reflective, long and sad conversation between her and Komachi. But scroll down the last strip and BAM! [[spoiler:Turns out the entire thing was an OscarBait screenplay by Nitori.]]
* A ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'' fanfic, [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5353458/1/Blast_to_the_Past Blast to the Past]] makes this interesting. Taken as a reference from the comics, Sonic and Eggman were once friends. But then a terrible accident happens to one of then-benevolent Eggman's machines. Sonic tried to stop it but clumsily pulled out the plug by tripping, and things got worse from there. The good doctor tried to see if his young ward was alright, but trips on his foot and crashes into the machine, causing a devastating explosion. When the flames subsided, the now evil MadScientist we all love to hate was born and immediately blamed Sonic for his transformation. Sonic also blames himself for his friend's FaceHeelTurn, say that it was [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone his fault]] that Eggman is trying to rule the world. [[spoiler:But as the story progressed, it turns out that the real culprit was [[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006 Princess Elise,]] along with Silver and Blaze, who had gone back in time to turn Eggman evil on purpose. [[NotWhatItLooksLike It's not what it looks like, though...]]]]
* The ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'' fanfiction ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4332642/1/Smokescreen Smokescreen]]'' begins with Danny waking up after a fight. He's pretty disoriented afterwards, and as time passes, he has more and more trouble with memory gaps and his powers going berserk. Eventually, it is revealed that [[spoiler:he isn't Danny at all; he's D-17--one of Vlad's many experimental Danny-clones! ParanoiaFuel indeed; as the fanfic recommendation page says, "Who's to say that you aren't you, but somebody else? "]]
* The FanVid ''WebAnimation/{{Haloid}}'', featuring a certain pair of armored badasses ([[Franchise/{{Metroid}} Samus]] and [[Franchise/{{Halo}} Master Chief]]) taking on both the Covenant and each other, with plenty of sexual tension to go around, only to reveal at the very end that [[spoiler:The Spartan-II wasn't Master Chief, but rather ''Nicole'', the guest fighter from ''VideoGame/DeadOrAlive 4''. This, of course, mirrors the more well-known Tomato Surprise that SamusIsAGirl.]] This does not defuse the sexual tension. [[spoiler:[[YuriFan Quite the opposite]].]]
* The ''Franchise/LyricalNanoha'' fanfic ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8000913/1/Another_Way Another Way]]'' (an AlternateUniverse SpinOff of ''Fanfic/{{Game Theory|LyricalNanoha}}'') ends with the reveal that [[spoiler:the Takamachi and Testarossa in the story are actually Momoko and Alicia.]]
** The prologue of ''Power Games'' appears to be Hayate awakening to the first manifestation of the Wolkenritter. Except that [[spoiler:it's actually from ''[[Audioplay/StrikersSoundStageX Ixpellia's]]'' perspective.]]
* The ''Fanfic/CalvinAndHobbesTheSeries'' episode "Lightning Man" has one concerning the titular villain, though Calvin and company play AudienceSurrogate - the titular villain is [[spoiler:related to the Brainstorm family.]]
* The crossover CrackFic ''[[https://m.fanfiction.net/s/10507832/1/Kasumi-s-Epic-Quest Kasumi's Epic Quest!!!]]'' is listed as a MyLittlePony and VideoGame/{{Minecraft}} crossover, and the reason for this serves as one of these; [[spoiler:Kasumi is the daughter of Discord.]] This is only vaguely hinted ''once'' before the reveal in the final chapter.

* In ''VisualNovel/{{Ever17}}'', Takeshi's [[spoiler:real face isn't shown during the [[MultipleEndings first playthrough]] (except for one scene, where it's just barely onscreen that a sharp-eyed person can realize they're being misguided before the reveal), to conceal the fact that the two Takeshis presented are different persons]]. This turns out to be a [[spoiler:big part of a plan by one of the characters to save his father and friend from a deadly virus]]. This varies based on the order one plays the routes in. If one approaches the final route from Kid's perspective, he also gets tomatoed in the same manner.

** In the True End of ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward'', several facts obvious to much of the cast are revealed to the player, such as the fact that [[spoiler:most of the game has taken place on the moon, 45 years after the player thought it was]]. Not ''all'' of the characters knew this, however. There are also some [[TomatoInTheMirror interesting revelations]] about the protagonist.
** ''VisualNovel/ZeroTimeDilemma'' continues this trend by [[spoiler:hiding an entire character just out of sight from the audience that is completely known in-universe and just very rarely referenced. All of the characters know that "Q" is really an old man in a wheelchair and that the Q players know is really named Sean, but the player never learns this until near the end of the game]].
* ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaV3KillingHarmony'': The ending of the first chapter/murder case, in which it's revealed that the killer [[spoiler:is Kaede Akamatsu, ''the PlayerCharacter''. Since Monokuma was going to kill everyone if a murder was not committed within the time limit, Kaede decided to try to kill the mastermind of the killing game, but when her trap seemingly resulted in the death of Rantaro instead, she decided not to take Monokuma up on his offer (which allowed the first person to commit a murder to get off scot-free and leave without a trial) so she could try to catch the mastermind during the trial. Sadly, it fails, and the player switches to controlling Kaede's best friend Shuichi Saihara as the new PlayerCharacter once it becomes clear that she must be convicted. Notably, while quite a bit of her inner monologue and dialogue with other characters [[RewatchBonus will stand out on a second playthrough]] (like how she goes on and on about catching ''the mastermind'', but never about figuring out the killer), the way it's worded is vague enough to successfully hide it from the player on the first go-round]]. Chapter 6 then turns that reveal on its head when it turns out [[spoiler:''she didn't do it''; she was framed by the mastermind, who managed to successfully trick Kaede into thinking the aforementioned trap worked; in reality, Rantaro died a different way to a similar murder weapon]].
* After finishing up Natsumi's route in ''VisualNovel/SharinNoKuni'', there's a brief kinda-actiony sequence followed by Isono finally admitting he knew who Kenichi was the whole time. What was much more subtly built up was [[spoiler:when he started talking to Kenichi's sister Ririko, who has been standing right behind him the ''whole time'', forbidden from interacting with anyone else or being recognized.]] Apparently specifically so it doesn't look like an asspull, the story immediately starts a flashback sequence where this reveal had been hinted at. It's a lot more obvious in hindsight, especially when considering [[spoiler:the Maximum Penalty badge that had shown up on the title page since the beginning, yet no one in the story bore it.]]
* ''VisualNovel/UminekoWhenTheyCry'': One possible interpretation of the story is that the majority of the events might just be [[spoiler:written fiction revolving around the actual tragedy of Rokkenjima. Of course, this wouldn't explain the blatantly supernatural stuff that happened after TheReveal.]]
* In ''[[http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=31416&sid=9b2085ae812ba6450f8c8fc9a27652f3 Where Ages Go]]'', the protagonist is a HeroicMime who meets a cute boy in a park and gets closer to him over time until they eventually move in with him. In other words, just like your typical RomanceGame...until [[spoiler:the ending image reveals that the fact the protagonist is never shown speaking dialogue is because they're actually a ''dog'']].

* ''Webcomic/BrawlInTheFamily'' pulled this off when they did the Cocoon Academy arc, about [[VideoGame/{{Kirby}} Dedede and "Pinky"'s]] days in school. Pinky is a very familiar-looking pink puffball with good sucking abilities. [[spoiler:It turns out that he's actually Meta Knight, who got corrupted into a blue color while defending the academy, whereas soon after he got his mask. Kirby was likely not even born at the time of the arc.]]In addition, [[spoiler:"Headmaster Hand" is actually Crazy Hand, only he isn't.]]
* In ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'', Jane and Jake live in Maple Valley, Washington and a small island in the Pacific respectively, just like John and Jade. Roxy and Dirk live in Rainbow Falls, New York and Houston, Texas. However, what was kept hidden from readers was that [[spoiler:Dirk and Roxy live in the future where the Troll Empress has taken charge of Earth and flooded it. Roxy's house is part of a chessboard-esque hub and Dirk's apartment is the only thing remaining above water.]]
* ''Webcomic/GuildedAge'': The beginning of chapter 9 let us know that none of the adventures are "real"--it's an extremely advanced experiment in virtual simulation for the online Game [[BlandNameProduct "Kingdoms of Arkerra"]], with the main adventuring party having forgotten their original identities entirely. HR's comments pose a philosophical question of "what is real?" when he implies Arkerra is indeed a real place, one that he 'found' through the game. He likened it to a sculptor, revealing a statue that was always in the block of marble. [[spoiler: It turns out Arkerra is a copy of another, pre-existing world, altered by HR through magic until that world fit what he'd need both to open Kingdoms of Arkerra and access the Realm of Being [[GodhoodSeeker (which would make him as powerful as a god)]].]]
* In ''Webcomic/RomanticallyApocalyptic'', the Moon Arc heavily implies [[spoiler:Zee Captain is some form of [[MechanicalAbomination ANNET]], the [[AIIsACrapshoot A.I. who (inadvertently) helped cause the apocalypse]] and served as the BigBad fur a large chunk of the comic's run.]]
* In the episode [[https://tapas.io/episode/388139 Killing Zone]] of ''Webcomic/SilentHorror'', the protagonist is killing zombies with a katana from first-person view.[[spoiler: Then it is revealed that it all was just a VR-game.]][[spoiler: In another, non-tomato twist, he actually killed his coworkers.]][[spoiler: Then there's a third twist...]]

** A wet, naked body lies in a puddle of water surrounded by shards of glass near an overturned table. There are no marks on the body. How did the victim die? [[spoiler:A goldfish died from asphyxiation after its bowl fell down and broke.]]
** A man takes the elevator in his building on rainy days and the stairs on sunny days. [[spoiler:He has dwarfism, and the only way he can reach the elevator buttons is with his umbrella, which he only has with him on rainy days.]]
** A car is traveling along a road with no street-lights, the headlights of the car are not on either. A pedestrian in black clothes quickly walks out in front of the car. Yet the driver of the car is able to stop in good time and there is no incident. [[spoiler:It's daytime.]]
** A man walks into a restaurant and orders a bowl of albatross soup. He takes a spoonful, pays, leaves, and walks into an alley to shoot himself. Why? (you can watch a brilliantly animated yes-or-no question version [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIdHBJmZWe8 here]]) [[spoiler:He was once a castaway with his ship's crew, and their chef kept the survivors alive with his "albatross soup". When the man noticed that the real soup tasted different, he confirmed his suspicion that the chef cooked the bodies of the deceased victims, and he killed himself because he'd unwittingly committed cannibalism.]]
** When the music stopped, the lady died. [[spoiler:The lady was a blind tightrope walker, the end of the song was her cue for when to step off the tightrope onto the platform, and--oops!--someone turned off the music too early!]] Alternatively, [[spoiler:she was the ballerina figurine in a music box.]] Or alternatively, [[spoiler:she was a ladybug who flew onto a chair during a game of Musical Chairs and was squashed when people rushed to sit down in the chairs after the music stopped.]]
** A man lies dead in a forest. How did he die? [[spoiler:He was a swimmer or diver, accidentally picked up by a helicopter getting water from a lake to put out a forest fire.]]
** A man lies dead next to a green rock... How did he die? [[spoiler:He's Superman, the rock is Kryptonite.]]
** A man lies dead in the desert surrounded by 53 bicycles. [[spoiler:They were playing cards. He was cheating and got murdered. ('Bicycle' is a common brand of playing cards.)]]
** A man pushes his car in front of a hotel and as soon as he did he realized that he was broke. [[spoiler:He was playing Monopoly.]]
** A boy and his father are in a car. It gets into a terrible accident. The father is killed outright. The boy is critically injured and rushed to the hospital. In the operating room, the doctor looks down and says "My God! This is my son!" How is this possible? [[spoiler:Either the boy [[HasTwoMommies has two daddies]] or the doctor is his mother.]]
** There's a cabin in the woods. Everybody in it is dead. How did they die? [[spoiler:It's a ''plane'' cabin -- they crashed.]]
** A woman sees a house and the windows are closed. She calls the police and many people are arrested. What happened? [[spoiler:She saw the windows closed on the picture of the White House on the back of a $20 bill, and realized it was counterfeit.]]
** A man was found dead with a hole in his suit. What happened? [[spoiler:He was an astronaut on a mission and his ''space''suit got punctured.]]
** A man lies dead and alone in a desolate field with an unopened package. How did he die? Hint: The closer he got to his destination, the surer he was that he was going to die. [[spoiler:His parachute didn't open; as he neared to the ground, the man was sure he was going to die.]]
** Two chess grandmasters play five games and end up with the same win-loss records. No game ended in a draw. How? [[spoiler:They didn't play against each other.]]
** A woman shoots her husband, holds him underwater for over five minutes, then hangs him. A few minutes later, however, they go out for dinner and a movie. [[spoiler:She's a photographer. She shoots a picture of him using old-school film, places the film in a chemical bath to develop it, then hangs the developed photo to dry.]]
** The prisoner was held in a cell with high, thick concrete walls and no windows or door. So how did he escape? [[spoiler:Through the hole in the wall where the door should have been.]]
** A horse has a five-foot rope tied to it. A bale of hay is 10 feet away, yet the horse can still eat it. How is this possible? [[spoiler: The other end of the rope isn't tied to anything.]]
** A baby falls out of a twenty-story building and survives. How? [[spoiler: he fell out of a first-story window.]]

* Joan Cornellà's surreal visual strips are a haven for this trope. In one example, a man is looking at the mirror in a bathroom, when he perceives another man killing a third one behind him. Understandably freaked out, he looks at his back, but he's relieved as the final panel reveals [[spoiler:there weren't two men, but two homunculi growing out of his own back.]]

* ''Webcomic/GuildedAge'': The beginning of chapter 9 let us know that none of the adventures are "real", but it's an extremely advanced experiment in virtual simulation for the online Game [[BlandNameProduct "Kingdoms of Arkerra"]] and the adventure group to be volunteers that are incapable of turning it off. HR's comments pose a philosophical question of "what is real?" when he implies Arkerra is indeed a real place, one that he 'found' through the game. He likened it to a sculptor, revealing a statue that was always in the block of marble.

** A baby falls out of a twenty-story building and survives. How? [[spoiler: he fell out a first-story window.]]

* In ''VisualNovel/{{Ever17}}'', Takeshi's [[spoiler:real face isn't shown during the [[MultipleEndings first playthrough]], to conceal the fact that the two Takeshis presented are different persons]]. This turns out to be a [[spoiler:big part of a plan by one of the characters to save his father and friend from a deadly virus]]. This varies based on the order one plays the routes in. If one approaches the final route from Kid's perspective, he also gets tomatoed in the same manner.