Creator / TomSka

"Hey, you! My name is Thomas 'TomSka' Ridgewell."

TomSka (real name: Thomas Ridgewell, born June 27, 1990) is a UK-based web filmmaker, producer, vlogger and actor known for his live-action and animated productions, most notably the asdfmovies.

He also gained prominence as a part of Eddsworld, voicing an Author Avatar character named Tom and, after Edd Gould's passing, working as the series' main showrunner. He eventually departed from the role in 2016, finishing his tenure with the two-parter "The End", after which he passed control over the series to Gould's family alongside Matt Hargreaves. He also served as one of the executive producers on Don't Hug Me I'm Scared from episode three onwards.

His main YouTube channel is here. His second channel, titled TomSka & Friends (formerly DarkSquidge) and containing several comedy series as well as vlogs and behind-the-scenes material, is here. He also has accounts on Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr.

His animated series Crash Zoom, his comedy challenge series Try Hards, his short film Hit It, and his mock children's book The Flibbity Jibber all have their own pages.

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Tropes present in his works or otherwise related to him:

Main Channel Sketches

• Absurd Phobia: The premise of "Bad Singer," where Tom plays a singer who is secretly afraid of music.
• Achievements in Ignorance:
  • Parodied in I Don't Know, where one of Big Jimmy's mooks dies from asphyxia after being told she doesn't know how to breathe, another somehow got himself stabbed in the chest after being told he doesn't know how to use knives, and Big Jimmy himself instantly vanishes when he realizes he doesn't know who he is. All of this happened during a game of poker where the infiltrating spy protagonist doesn't know how to play poker, and apparently neither does Big Jimmy, with both of them saying to "go fish".
  • The villagers in Wizzo the Wizard don't know what magic is, and thus are utterly unimpressed with Wizzo's wizardry.
• Action Bomb: Tom himself is revealed to be one at the end of "HOLY SHIT CATS".
• Actor Allusion:
  • In "Bible Time", he drunkenly insists on a series of "corrections" to the Bible, which is being written here by H.Bomberguy. His final insistence before being cut off is "And then Donkey Kong says 'Trans Rights!'", a reference to Harris' famous Mermaids charity stream.
• Affably Evil: Tom as an assassin who kills a man named Khyan and cheers up Khyan and tells him to man up and go talk to his wife in a really friendly manner, only for it to be part of his plot to kill him.
• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Well, if you consider "HOLY SHIT CATS" to be idiotic.
  Tom: I was really drunk when I wrote this film.
  • Zigzagged in "Drunk Science". Tom and Chris get drunk, and in the midst of more typical drunken antics (riding a pig down the stairs, giving a beer to a raging bear), they invent a working time machine. By the end of the video, they've crashed the time machine through a wall and stranded the bear at the north pole 150,000 years in the past.
• Alter-Ego Acting: He usually plays an exaggerated version of himself.
• Ambiguously Gay: Not Tomska, but in his "Big Fat Monster" video, his mom is crushed by a tank, causing him to say, probably rhetorically
  Tom: That was my favorite mum!
• Armies Are Evil: The "Big Fat Monster" sketch is about Tom being confronted by a group of soldiers who think he's a giant monster.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The content warning in the description of “Magical Dream Bed” states that it contains, “Suicide, graphic violence (towards children), gore, torture, and showtunes.”
• Aside Glance: In "Meanwhile 2," the Tom from the universe where the letter M doesn't exist gives one after saying "video gaes."
• Ask a Stupid Question...: From "PIZZA TIME":
  Tom: When do I learn to time travel?
  Future Tom: In the future.
  Tom: Yeah, I guess that makes sense.
• The Atoner: He's said several times that he was kind of a horrible person growing up, especially towards women and part of his sex-ed videos are basically him making sure that other people don't make his mistakes.
• And I Must Scream: Of sorts, near the end of "What Happened?" The video is based around someone who has committed suicide, but whenever someone asks what happened, another person will take the gun and shoot themselves in the head. Tom is the Only Sane Man in this situation. There's a particularly diabolical officer who asks the question and forces Tom to shoot himself, screaming all the while.
• Appropriated Appellation: "DarkSquidge", the former name of his second channel, was derived from Tom's first online username, with which he made the most of a nickname given to him by school bullies for his weight — "Thomas Squidgewell".
• Ascended Extra: The character of Wizzo the Wizard first appeared as a side character in "MAGIC SPOON", only being revealed in the very end. He then became the focal point of his eponymous video.
• Author Appeal: Tom really likes guns, and half of his sketches use them in some shape or form.
• Baby Talk: The gag of "Where's the Baby?" is that everyone talks like this when discussing the missing baby.
• Bad Boss: Tom is sort of one to his coworkers in the KatataK vlogs, and it gets Played for Laughs.
• The Bad Guy Wins:
  • In "What Happened?", a psychotic police officer got Tom to commit suicide.
  • In "Le Alien", Antoine Daniel the French alien and Sammy, who both turned out to be literal French Aliens, manages to take over the world.
• Bad Santa: In "Secret Santa" , a little girl catches him deposing the gifts under the Christmas tree, he utters the sentence "No witnesses." to her, and shoots her dead. Then he pushes her corpse down a garden shredder.
  • The Santa in "Sam Kills Christmas", who (accidentally or not) killed Sam's parents by clogging up the chimney and shows No Sympathy when Sam confronts him about it in the present.
  • Possibly the Santa in "Christmas Demolition". While he is never seen doing any evil, he has an army of Mooks who attack Tom as he storms into the movie set and then attacks him with a candy cane gun.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • In "Any Regrets?", Dodie admits to never having seen Star Wars while Sammy admits to getting bitten. Daniel is shocked; that Dodie had never seen Star Wars. When a zombie starts to break in, Daniel states that there is still time… for Sammy and Deepraj to role-play Star Wars.
  • In "PIZZA TIME", Tom ordering a chicken barbecue pizza will lead to a chain of events that causes him to have a robotic left arm… which his future self agrees is awesome. The problem is instead that he gets AIDS.
• Big "NO!":
  • Tom in "Takeout Robbery" when he realizes that the phone robber isn't going to let him leave.
    • From the same video, the phone cop lets out one when his co-worker, Bob, is shot and killed by the robber.
  • Tom also does one accompanying a key change in "Musical Suicide" when the woman confirms that she plans to commit suicide.
  • Tom does one at the end of "Literal Drinks" and "Christmas Demolition".
• Bittersweet Ending: "Sniper Pug". While Sgt. Pugsley does pull a Deus ex Machina and save the team from meeting a death at the hand of their enemies, they realize a bit too late that they forgot about defusing the bomb that was the basis of their mission. Just as they have their Mass "Oh, Crap!" moment, the bomb goes off.
• Black Comedy: One of his fortes.
  • In "OH NO SPACE CATS":
    TomSka: So I always hear, "TomSka, you're so attractive! Why aren't you making a game?" And to that I always say, "Oh no, the voices are back. I should take stronger meds." [internal whispers]
    [cut to Tom laughing with his coworkers]
    TomSka: I've started this off making a joke about a mental illness. This is going well.
  • The "fake suicide prank" in "EPIC GIRLFRIEND PRANKS". Immediately after said prank, Tom suddenly shoots himself through the chin.
  • In "PIZZA TIME", when Tom decides to order chicken barbecue pizza, Future Tom appears with a robot arm...and full-blown AIDS.
• Blame Game: "The Blame Game" has a very exaggerated version of this trope. Tom seeks to enact violent revenge on the kid Brian, who bullied him in school, who blames Sammy for forcing him to copy the cool kids or else she beat him up, who blames her father for his drinking problems that caused a toxic home life that caused her to lash out, who blames the store clerk for selling him the alcohol (even though it's his job), and then blames his drinking on the state of the country, Miss England, who blames the death of her mother, which leads back to the store clerk (as he was also a hitman) that blames capitalism, who blames Lady Luck, and then its to a point where Motive Decay is down to the point where Brian gets investigated for eating Miss England's lunch, who lastly blames Tom for making him stressed (he eats when he's stressed).
• Blessed with Suck: Fire Man in his eponymous video is a super hero whose ability is to... well, create fire, but he is a firefighter, and as his chief points out, fighting fire with fire just makes more fire and has to fire him.
• Bond One-Liner: Many examples, usually at the end of a video and accompanied by Tom putting on his pair of sunglasses and subsequent dubstep music.
  • "Salon Shootout" has two:
    "Sorry, kid. I don't make the condition..ers."
    "I'm glad we...straightened that out."
  • In "Guitar Bandit":
    "You're a little flat. Don't fret about it."
• Book Ends:
  • One of the first events of "HORSE" is Mrs. Johnson killing Tom with a knife. One of the final events is Mrs. Johnson killing a husband and wife with a knife.
  • After the first gag in "The Confession", Tom says "I think that went well." After the final gag, Jenny says the same thing.
• Boom, Headshot!: Tom has a special liking for this trope.
• Bottomless Magazines: Especially in ''Rejects''
• Bottomless Pits: The titular hole in "The Hole", possibly.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs:
  • Sort of.
    Here are some top tips for passing the time waiting for an ambulance: Read a book. Write a book. Book a holiday for your book.
  • In "PIZZA TIME":
    Future Tom: The Nazis are back!
    (Present Tom chooses another pizza)
    Future Tom: The dinosaurs are back!
    (Present Tom chooses another pizza)
    Future Tom: Nazi...dinosaurs!
    • Earlier in that short, Present Tom chooses a pizza that creates a future where gay marriage is mandatory. Later on, Tom chooses a pizza that creates a future full of...
      Future Tom: Gay Nazi dinosaurs!
  • The drilldo in "Tell Me Something I Don't Know". It’s exactly what you think.
  • Coupled with Added Alliterative Appeal in "BEARD":
    Tom: This is a beard!
    (Zoom on Tom's beard)
    Tom: And this is a beer!
    (Zoom on the glass of beer Tom is holding)
    Tom: And that is a bear!
    (Shot of a bear in a field)
    Chris: Yeah, but-
    Tom: And that is a bearded bear bearing a beer with a beard!
    (...)
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: The "Buy Some Shirts" song.
  Buy some shirts!
  Buy a lot!
  Buy some shirts so I can buy a-
  BOAT.
  Buy some shirts, and nobody gets hurt.
  • He mentions in "I'm Bad At Meeting Fans" that he keeps a box next to him at conventions for gifts from fans, like art, letters, mysteriously ticking packages, and other gifts.
• Call-Back:
  • "The Hole" appears again in "The Orb".
  • The "Magical Dream Bed" song is the same as the "Magical Pony" song from asdfmovie6, with "pony" replaced with "dream bed" in the lyrics.
  • The Robot Arms gag from "Robot Wars" returns in "The Impostor".
• Calvinball: The killer from "The Blame Game," given the hated bullying nickname of "Ham Man," tries to find the one responsible for the bullying of his childhood. He starts with one of the bullies, Brian, but he tells Ham Man to take it up with Sammy Smith, who then tells him to blame her abusive and toxic father, and it all starts to fall apart from there. Ultimately, the killer decides to take it up with God. Apparently God was also in on the bullying, identifying the killer as Ham Man.
• Captain Obvious: In "Bite Me":
  Tom: Chris, you’ve been bitten. You’re gonna turn into a zombie.
  Chris: I know! What am I gonna do?
  Tom: You’re gonna turn into a zombie.
  Chris: I know. What am I gonna do?
  Tom: You’re gonna turn into a zombie.
• Careful with That Axe: The result of Tom's "music phobia" in "Bad Singer".
• Catchphrase:
  • Mrs. Johnson has "I love it!"
  • Tom has "Hey, you!" (formerly, "Hello, turbofans!"), accompanied with a little two-finger salute and usually followed by "My name is Thomas "TomSka" Ridgewell".
• Chaos of the Bells: In "Christmas Demolition", Tom uses LilDeuceDeuce's bassy dubstep version of "Carol of the Bells" in his video, which sees his character violently battle Santa and his elves because Santa brought him nothing for Christmas when he was a child.
• Content Warnings: Tom started using these for his videos 2015 onward. Some are a parody of said warnings ("Spy Guys"'s content warning is simply "Bit Gay"), while others are genuine ("Magical Dream Bed" has a content warning that reads "Suicide, graphic violence (towards children), gore, torture, and showtunes").
• Comically Missing the Point: Happens quite frequently in Tom's videos.
  Wizzo: There, you're flying now.
  Villager: I'm probably just on a rope.
  Wizzo: A ROPE? WHAT'S THE ROPE ATTACHED TO?
  Villager: Well me, obviously.
• Curse Cut Short:
  • In "Edd's Birthday", when Tom realises he's forgotten Edd's birthday.
    Tom: OH SHI - [title sequence]
  • Also happens in "HOLY SHIT CATS", when he faces off against an army of cats.
    Tom: COME AT ME, YOU PUSSY MOTHERF- (explodes)
  • Also happens at the end of "The Hole" when Tom accidentally drops a DVD in The Hole.
    Tom: (holding up a DVD copy of 17 Again (2009)) Oh, wait, here it is. (dramatic sting and brief cut to black, Tom then drops the DVD case) Oh, sh- (dramatic sting and cut to black)
• Dawson Casting: Played for laughs. The "little boy" selling the "Juice That Makes Your Head Explode" is played by Tom himself, despite the fact that Tom clearly has a full beard. The illusion is somewhat helped by the fact that he's been digitally shrunk down and using larger props than the rest of the actors.
• Deadpan Snarker:
  • Tom has his moments
    Danisnotonfire: What are all these dead bodies doing here?!
    TomSka: Honestly, not much.
  • In "Sniper Pug," Tom says that he's not comfortable with Sgt. Pugsy being on the team because he's a dog. This alarms his CO:
    Officer: How did you find out?!
    Tom: It's kind of obvious.
• Death as Comedy: You know it's a TomSka sketch when the punchline is death.
• Death of a Child: A lot of it.
  • Where's the Baby stands out as just one long dead baby joke.
  • In the "Next Time" segment on Magic Spoon, Tom asks Wizzo "What's with all these dead kids?"
• Delayed Reaction:
  • Tom made a skit based off of it and named after it. It has a criminal that is about to be thrown off of a building, and when he is thrown off he actually lands on his two feet without a scratch. His reaction then kicks in, begging for his life, and as he tops it off with a Big "NO!" he suddenly throws himself into the ground.
  • In Any Regrets?, Tom initially doesn't catch up the fact that Sammy said he got bitten by a zombie, he is instead surprised that Dodie never watched Star Wars, and it's only near the end of the video that Tom realises what Sammy said. Cue Sammy turning into a zombie.
• Deus ex Machina: Sgt. Pugsley's rescue in "Sniper Pug".
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • Chris stabs Tom in "STABBED" with a salty knife laced with tiny bees, then programs Tom's phone to order a mushroom pizza filled with more bees when Tom calls for an ambulance, all because Tom ate Chris's sandwich.
  • A wizard turns Ben into a cake for saying he had a funny hat.
• The Don: Tom plays one named Big Jimmy in "I Don't Know" and "Delayed Reaction".
• Downer Ending:
  • "Memories": The young boy destroys the titular VHS tape after he noticed he took the place of another baby and realised his family isn't really his own.
  • "What Happened?": Tom is forced to kill himself with the gun, and 10 years later his son inadvertently inflicts this same fate upon his mother.
  • "STUPID JUSTIN BIEBER PARODY": Justin travels back in time to the Achterhuis when Anne Frank is hiding in it. He sings her a song and then leaves. The Gestapo most likely hear the song and decide to check behind the bookcase.
  • "Where's the Baby?": Someone in a search party manages to find the baby, but it's buried in the ground. It then cuts to a headstone with "The Baby" written on it.
  • "Musical Suicide": The Stinger reveals that the girl did go through with her suicide, as we hear a crash and a car alarm.
• Driven to Suicide: Tom tries to talk his lover out of this in "Musical Suicide", which is exactly what it sounds like. It turns out that Tom had mistaken her for someone else (after all, he had been looking at her from behind).
  • The ending of "EPIC GIRLFRIEND PRANKS" has Tom saying "I love you" and shooting himself through the chin.
  • Played For Laughs in "Big Fat Monster" when a team of soldiers start shooting themselves after mistaking Tom for an obese monster. As does the actual obese monster that appears in the video who seemingly pulls a giant handgun out of nowhere.
• Dull Surprise: Tom throughout "The Hole". Alice even lampshades it.
• Dying Moment of Awesome: In "My Dream Funeral", Tom talks about how he wants to go out in this manner, such as in a bear fight...or from heart failure.
• E = MC Hammer: Parodied in "Cake". The whiteboard Tom used for "science" ends up filled with nonsense like a dollarsign, the infinity-symbol, the pi-symbol on a sticky-note, the phrase "A* in mafs", a pentagram, and crude drawings of - among other things - a cake, a cat, Earth, a cube, the TARDIS and a penis.
• Epic Fail:
  • In "I Don't Know", Johnny Knives threatens to use his knives against Vladimir Stratosphere during a dispute, to which Vladimir replies that he doesn't even know how to use them, and at which point Johnny somehow gets a knife planted right into his own chest.
  • In "Baby with a Gun", Tom ends up threatening the titular baby with a gun of his own. Realizing how mean he sounded, Tom proceeds to give the baby his gun, and only then does he realize his massive fuckup.
  Tom: Now it's a baby with two guns.
• Everyone Has Standards: In the "1 Man, 27 Impressions" video, Tom is willing to perform the various imitations the announcer has him do, ranging from different nationalities to a scientist realising that they're trans, some of which potentially offensive, but draws the line at imitating a sexist. Not that the announcer cares, as he tricks Tom into saying something sexist anyways.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The bar in "Literal Drinks" seems to serve nothing but drinks that create whatever circumstance or behavior they're named after.
• Exact Words: "Juice That Makes Your Head Explode!" "Which is just it's name. It won't make your head explode." It doesn't, but the Jewish sniper who shoots people in the head when they drink it does.
• Expendable Clone: In the "Rejects" sketch, Tom creates and murders clones of Dan to relieve the stress of hiding the fact that the Dan he's talking to is a clone and he turned the real Dan into a chair and doesn't want to hurt Dan's feelings by telling him this.
• Facial Horror: Tom in the Russian Roulette cartoon repeatedly shoots himself in the head but remains alive, making his face increasingly more gory and emaciated and becoming more and more incoherent.
• Fingore: Somehow shoots off his friend Abi's pinky with a shotgun in Friendship.
• Foreshadowing: In "Musical Suicide", Tom apologizes for shooting Jenny's brother, but she says "I don't recall." Because the woman he's singing with isn't Jenny.
• Forced Transformation: In "Cake", Ben is turned into a cake by a wizard, and Tom and Kathryn try to help change him back (and resist the temptation to eat him).
• Friendly Sniper: The Jewish sniper at the end of "Juice That Makes Your Head Explode" is rather amiable for someone who just murdered several people.
• Fun with Subtitles: There's some fun to be had with some of the subtitles on Tom's videos. For a really good example, see "Sniper Pug".
• Gallows Humor: According to Tom's "dream funeral" video, he encourages this ten-fold with his death, wanting his friends to make the most crude and tasteless jokes under the sun.
• Gambit Pileup: On Valentine's Day, of all things.
• Gory Discretion Shot: Whenever Mrs. Johnson stabs someone in "HORSE".
• The Grinch: Being raised as a Jehovah's Witness left him with a bit of a distaste towards Christmas, which he exaggerates in his works from time to time.
• Guy on Guy Is Hot: For some reason, during their Stars Wars and Breaking Bad cosplaying in "Any Regrets", Sammy and Deepraj make out, to Dodie's delight.
• Hats Off to the Dead: The lead soldier in "Big Fat Monster" removes his hat after a Big Fat Monster Ate His Gun from seeing Tom.
• Heel Realization: Has this at the end of "Tell Me Something I Don't Know" after brutally torturing Nerd³.
• Hugh Mann: Inverted in Robot Wars, where at some point, Elliot and Eddie disguises themselves with fake mustaches and cardboard box, pretending to be robots to try to get past a giant evil laser firing robot. Needless to say, the actual robot isn't convinced in the slightest.
  • It happens again in The Impostor, where Tom pretends to be a robot to infiltrate an army of warmongering robots, this time though, it works.
• Hurricane of Puns: "Rock Bottom". Unsurprisingly, starring Edd Gould.
  (Edd and Tom are stuck in a sunken house)
  Edd: Hey Tom, I got my grades back today.
  Tom: What are you talking about!?
  Edd: They're below C level!
  *Laugh Track plays*
• Iconic Item: The dubstep sunglasses.
• Idiot Plot: Deliberately invoked in "I Don't Know" and taken to its extreme logical conclusion. Nobody involved has any competence or even knowledge in any relevant skills, and one person dies from being reminded that they don't know how to breathe.
• I Knew It!: In-universe; Tom at the end of "Needles", when the time stopper finally appears.
• Incendiary Exponent: The second Banned University of Lincoln advert is nothing more than a lecture, where everything is on fire.
• Informed Judaism: The sniper at the end of "Juice That Makes Your Head Explode."
• Insane Troll Logic: In "Bite Me"
  Chris: Tom I thought you were smart.
  Tom: Einstein was smart Chris, and he's dead.
• Instant Sedation: Tom does this to himself in "The Confession".
  Tom: I chloroformed myself, didn't I?
  Jenny: Yeah, you did.
  (Tom holds chloroform up to his face, but Jenny slaps it away)
  Jenny: Don't do it again!
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: In Tell Me Something I Don't Know, Tom subjects Dan to rather painful torture methods to get him to tell him something he doesn't already know.
• Juggling Loaded Guns: The premise of the "What Happened?" sketch:
• Killed Mid-Sentence: "What happened?" "Y'see, they took this gun, pointed it to their head, and—" [BANG]
• Lame Comeback: "You are original insult!"
• Large Ham:
  • Wizzo the Wizard in his eponymous video, courtesy of Eddie "Eddache" Bowley.
    Wizzo the Wizard: Hahahaha ! I am Wizzo the Wizard ! Bow before me and my magical mastery ! Ahahaha !!!
  • Tom himself on a few occasions:
    • In The Confession 2, he suddenly acts insane as a Mad Cop while trying to be a Bad Cop.
    Tom: Also, I am a Jelly Bean! Have you seen my penguins?! THE GOVERNMENT IS BEES!
    • In Tell Me Something I Don't Know, he manages to be legitimately terrifying by yelling at Dan and physically abusing him.
    Tom: ''TELL ME SOMETHING I DON'T KNOW !!!'
• Mathematician's Answer: In "Rejects":
  Dan: What are all these dead bodies doing here?
  Tom: Honestly, not much.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • In "The Confession":
    Tom: See, Chris, the thing is—(pulls out gun)—I'll just kill him.
  • A rather shocking one at the end of "EPIC GIRLFRIEND PRANKS". We see Alice arriving at home, telling Tom that he has to stop pranking her. She goes into a dark room, turns on the light, and finds Tom hanging. It turns out to have been yet another prank.
  • He starts "My Dream Funeral" by saying, "Hey you! We're all gonna die."
• Motor Mouth:
  • In the "Rejects" sketch:
  Tom: Well, you know when you want to tell someone something, but you don't want to hurt their feelings, so you just bottle it all up inside until it slowly but surely develops into an overwhelming urge to kill them?
  (Beat)
  Dan: Obviously.
  Tom: I cloned you so I could kill you.^note DAN DAN HAM!
  • As highlighted in his #CONTENT video Hardcore Drawnography:
  Tom: whatdoyoumeanwhatthefuckisabongocat!!!
• Mummies at the Dinner Table: At the end of "Designated Driver", Tom confusing "dead" for "drunk."
• My Future Self and Me: Tom gets visited by his future self (from an hour into the future) while ordering pizza, who warns him of some apocalyptic scenario or crippling injury that will happen if he orders a particular pizza.
• Naked People Are Funny: In "Edd's Birthday", Tom goes around asking his friends for present ideas. Matt suggests nudity as a present, and is naked when the camera turns back to him.
• Nepotism: The reason why so many of the cops in the "What Happened" sketch are twins.
• Noodle Implements: "Picture Perfect" has a variant. Police arrive on the scene of Chris and Tom's double-suicide.
  Officer 1: They must've painted their killers before they died.
  Officer 2: So we're looking for a centaur, an antisemitic cat, and the alphabet.
  Officer 1: My god! They're back!
• Not Quite Dead: Despite the numerous times he shoots himself in the head in "Russian Roulette", Tom doesn't die. Not even when he removes his brains.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Yes, Sgt. Pugsley does take out all those enemies in "Sniper Pug", but we never do see him behind the rifle.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • In "Takeout Robbery".
    Customer: Hi there, I'd like a cheese pizza, a bottle of cola, and all the money in the register.
    Tom: Hehe, what?
    Customer: (Dramatic Gun Cock) This a robbery.
    Tom: Oh, God.
  • The end of "Sniper Pug". The team is celebrating Sgt. Pugsley's gallant sharpshooting that saved them from their enemies, only to realize that they never took care of the bomb that was the basis of their whole mission. And it's about to detonate.
• One Curse Limit: In "Bite Me", Tom cancels out Chris being bitten by a zombie by making a vampire bite him instead. Then a werewolf. Then the skit descends to madness as usual.
• One-Man Army: Tom in "Christmas Demolition".
• One-Steve Limit: Discussed in Meanwhile 2 and brought up again in Tell Me Something I Don't Know.
• Only Sane by Comparison: In "The Blame Game", Tom is crazy enough to kidnap people and threaten to kill them. Meanwhile, everyone else in the skit is crazy enough make fun of Tom, cheerfully deny responsibility for his childhood bullying, then put on a mask and join Tom in threatening someone else. Tom is also the only one who notices that the people he "kidnaps" are popping out of nowhere, and that they somehow kidnapped Lady Luck and the embodiment of Capitalism.
• Only Sane Woman: In "Juice That Makes Your Head Explode", the first woman is the only one who doesn’t get tricked and drink the juice. Even the police and forensics fell for it.
• Orphaned Punchline: At the beginning of "Juice That Makes Your Head Explode", a man is telling a woman a story that ends with "So then I said, 'That's not my wife! I don't know who's body that is!'" The woman laughs with him for a moment, but then becomes confused.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Tom visits Alice at work dressed up as a delivery man in "EPIC GIRLFRIEND PRANKS". However, she actually falls for it.
• Police Are Useless:
  • In "Baby with a Gun" the police are unconcerned that a minor wielding a firearm has broken into Tom's apartment.
  • The cops in the "What Happened" sketch keep shooting themselves while explaining the situation.
  • In "Juice That Makes Your Head Explode", everyone except the first woman drinks the juice— even the police and forensics.
• Precision F-Strike: In "Fire Man", the titular character played by Tom sums up his feelings towards Water Man in one sentence.
  "I fucking hate you."
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner:
  • In "Christmas Demolition", Tom says "Christmas pun." before shooting Santa with his own candy cane cannon.
  • In "Salon Shootout", Tom says "No need to make this hairy!" before shooting an alien disguised as a female barber.
• Psychic-Assisted Suicide: The end of "What Happened?" The basis of the video is that a suicide has taken place. Whenever someone asks what happened, another person will take the gun and, while explaining, shoot themselves in the head. A particularly diabolical officer forces this fate upon Tom by asking the question. It turns out that Tom had a wife and a son. His son then asks what happened. And you know what that means...
• Propeller Hat of Whimsy: In "Juice That Makes Your Head Explode", Tom plays a small boy running a Juice Stand, and wears a multicoloured cap with a propeller.
• Pun:
  • The climax of "Guitar Bandit" features the line "Drop the bass!", as in Tom dropping his bass guitar.
  • "Juice That Makes Your Head Explode!" ends with one as a punchline, specifically "Jews That Make Your Head Explode!"
• The Quisling: Tom plays one in this sketch, as a human who immediately dresses up as a robot and switches side in the face of an upcoming Robot War. When the aliens invade at the end, he also immediately dresses up like an alien.
• Racial Face Blindness: Parodied in the "Rejects" sketch. After Tom kills "Secretly Asian Dan", Dan comments that "they all look the same to me" before clarifying that he was talking about the clones.
• Rapid-Fire Comedy
• Rearrange the Song: One of his scrap'd videos, "The TomSka Song" (made from a collab between Tom and The Living Tombstone), would later be released as "Tom's Dog", with all of the video samples extracted.
• Recurring Extra: Ever since "Mrs." Johnson appeared in The Fallen, the horse-headed person has appeared in many future sketches, always giving a thumbs-up and announcing "I love it" to whatever event is occurring. According to Meanwhile 2, she's also an exile from a parallel universe for unexplained crimes against her country.
• Roger Rabbit Effect: "Imaginary Friend" plays this straight, with Mr. Tibbles, his parents, and Dr. Unicorn Duck being 2D cartoon characters in a live-action setting.
• Running Gag:
  • His hatred of Christmas.
  • The "dramatic sting" in "The Hole".
  • The fact that the party serves free drinks in "XBOX RUINED ME".
  • The aptly named Recurring Gag is one in "Literal Drinks".
• Sadist Teacher: In 1 Man, 27 Impressions, one of his impressions is of a teacher singling out a student named Paige, telling her no one likes her and smacking her with a sheet of paper.
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: In "The Omega Diet", one of his "scrap'd" videos.
  "I don't care if the rules contradict each other! I make the rules!"
• Screw Yourself: Wants to practice kissing with himself.
• Self-Deprecation: How I "Make" Cartoons.
  • A much more serious case in The 7 Flaws of TomSka.
  • And yet another example in Big Fat Monster, mixed with You Are Fat.
• Shower of Angst: The penultimate scene in "XBOX RUINED ME" is of Tom taking one. It comes out of nowhere as well.
• Signing Off Catchphrase: "TomSka OUT!"
• Slasher Smile: The officer in "What Happened?" who forces Tom to shoot himself after asking the titular question. He's in the video thumbnail, no less.
• Spree Killer: Mrs. Johnson in "HORSE" goes around randomly killing people.
• Straight Man: Tom plays this role in many of his videos.
• Stylistic Suck:
  • "TOMSKA'S OLYMPICS EMPORIUM" uses a badly drawn recreation of the Olympics symbol, has gratuitious use of stock photos and clipart, a very noticeable use of chroma keying, along with Tom wearing a torn off shirt and speaking in Buffy Speak.
  • "Super Good Impressions", a video made for YouTube's Lo-Fi Week, was made to look like it was made earlier than it actually was.
  • The comedy sketches in his Last Week series, they involve Bad "Bad Acting", cheesy editing, several bloopers left in, a few instances of Special Effect Failure, are made with whatever Tom and his crew have access to, and are always recorded in his office.
• Subverted Kids' Show: “Magical Dream Bed” starts out innocently enough, with the boy flying on the titular bed as they sing a Disneyesque showtune ^note which is actually the same song as the Magical Pony song from ASDF Movie, except with the word “Pony” replaced with “Dream Bed”). That is until the airforce shows up, frightening the boy. The pillow (voiced by PewDiePie) then says he's not going back to jail and shoots himself. The boy (who is clearly suffering emotional trauma, not understanding what is going on) is then caught and interrogated by the police, who also killed the bed (with an axe, no less) shortly after he was caught. This revelation causes the boy to freak out even more, prompting the interrogator to restrain him and violently break his arm as he screams in agony. Yikes!
  • Also, "Imaginary Friend", which starts with Lily and her cartoon cat friend Mr. Tibbles in a setting that is absolutely saccharine. Problem is, Lily is insane and has made a bomb as a gift for her friend, who is desperately trying to convince her to do something other than use it to blow up people. Also, it isn't made very clear just who the imaginary friend is...
• Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: "Buy some shirts! Buy a lot! Buy some shirts so I can buy a boat."
• Surreal Humor: One of his fortes. Take HORSE, for example, in all its sociopathic glory.
• Surrounded by Idiots:
  • Big Jimmy (played by Tom) in "I Don't Know", immediately after all three of his subordinates kill themselves through extreme incompetence (not knowing how to breathe, stabbing oneself with a knife by accident and playing Russian Roulette while thinking that's the way to play poker).
  Big Jimmy: GOD DAMN IT! Why do I even hire you idiots?!
  • The titular character in "Wizzo the Wizard" has to deal with multiple dumb peasants who clearly don't know actual magic when they see it, which frustrates him immensely. It takes a mundane number-guessing trick to convince them.
• Take That!: One against The Hangover Part II in "I Got Drugged".
  So I don't really remember anything from the night, but little bits kind of came back to me over the next couple days, including flirting with an assortment of people. I'm very sorry if that was you, I don't remember who you are, though, 'cause I got roofied, and it wasn't good, it wasn't like The Hangover 1, it was like The Hangover 2... forgettable.
• Talking Down the Suicidal: Or rather "Singing Down The Suicidal".
• Tele-Frag: Happens in "Meanwhile 2".
  • MANY TIMES in "Time Trouble".
  • And a few times in "Bible Time".
• Tempting Fate: The guys in Cover Up:
  Guy: I'll save him faster than you can say 'Wait, don't do that, you'll die'!
  • In Bite Me, Tom gets bitten by a mosquito, but assures Chris he should be fine. He’s Instantly Proven Wrong.
• That Came Out Wrong: In the description for The Hole.
  Holes. Everyone's got one. Wait that came out wrong...
• They Called Me Mad!: Pretty much Lily's entire character in Imaginary Friend. To the point where she builds a bomb for the express purpose of "proving" her friendship with Mr. Tibbles is real by blowing people up. Bonus points for the line "To show them, Mr. Tibbles! To show them all!"
• The Stoic: During The Hole, Tom is completely stoic and deadpan about there being a hole in his floor, his favorite mug being thrown into the hole and shooting a hole person. Turns out he's more worried about the space octopus.
• The Talk: He has a series of videos where he discusses sex, foreplay, puberty, and porn.
• The Tape Knew You Would Say That: Despite his best efforts to convince his friend to go away in Le Alien, the frantic message for help he left on the friend's phone specifically mentioned that it was not a joke and that his friend shouldn't let him smash his phone (which Tom is in the process of shooting).
• They Killed Kenny Again: Tom dies a lot in his videos, but he's always fine by the next one.
• Time Stands Still: The "Needles" sketch has Tom trying to catch a timestopper by filling a room with tiny needles.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • The cops in What Happened? keep shooting themselves while explaining what just happened.
  • Vladimir in I Don't Know ends up killing himself by playing Russian Roulette, thinking it's an acceptable game to play. Oh, and he also thinks it's the way to do CPR. Granted, his two colleagues aren't any more competent, considering one of them literally lies of asphyxia immediately after being told she doesn't know how to breathe and the other one somehow got himself stabbed in the chest after being told he doesn't know how to use knives. And their boss isn't much better, considering he literally disappears in a Puff of Logic after he realizes he doesn't know who he is.
  • Everyone who drinks the titular juice in "Juice That Makes Your Head Explode!" Including the police and forensics. The third person to do it literally looks at the headless corpses to his left... And then asks about the price.
• Trade Snark: A now common occurrence in the subtitles is that any original proper noun has TM on the back of it.
  Tom (In The Orb): Oh, yeah. That's The Orb™
  The Orb: *The Actual Sound Of Death Itself*
• Trigger-Happy: Just ask Bing, whom he shot at the end of "The Confession".
  • In "Needles", he reveals that his preferred method of washing the dishes is shooting them.
    Jack: That explains what happens to the dishes...
    Tom: Yeah I was...poorly raised.
• Troubled, but Cute: Has admitted to being depressed and having a drinking problem, and comes off as a bit of a Sad Clown. He's still a good looking guy, however.
• True Art Is Angsty: In-Universe; in "Picture Perfect".
  Chris paints a picture of a cat.
  Tom: I— Actually, that's pretty good.
  Chris: (Laughs) He's thinking about the Holocaust!
  Tom: Ha-ha— Now I hate it!
• Tranquil Fury: Displays this in Christmas Demolition.
• Very Loosely Based on a True Story: TomSka is Sad: The Cycle, a minicomic he released on Tumblr.
  It’s also all true. Well, in one way or another. Everything that happens in the comic was based off of a real event or conversation. I really did shoot myself - but it was in the leg (and in 2011); I really did have that nightmare - but it was a lot longer than implied (and in 2014); and I really did play Smash Bros - but… Actually that one’s pretty straight forward.
• Very Special Episode: Uploaded a video listing tips for protecting yourself and others during the coronavirus pandemic.
• Viral Transformation: After Chris gets bitten by a zombie in "Bite Me", Tom formulates several plans to keep him from turning into one… except, they all involve him getting bitten by some other classic monster (vampire, werewolf, Hyper-Intelligent Horse Person, etc.), meaning he’ll just turn into one of them instead. In the nick of time, Tom bites him, keeping him safe (well, as safe as turning into a clone of Tom can be). Tom gets bitten by a mosquito after this, though he confidentially assures Chris nothing will happen. Guess what happens next.
• Vocal Dissonance: Parodied in "Bad Voice Actor".
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot:
  • The first gag in "The Confession", supplied by Tom.
  • Happens twice in "Imaginary Friend", both depicted as Rainbow Puke. Mr. Tibbles pukes in shock upon Lily revealing she built a bomb as a present for him. Later, when Mr. Tibbles' parents barge into Lily's room and see him holding the bomb, his father also pukes in shock.
• Wall of Weapons: Standard background for his vlogs. Interestingly, the guns on the wall are replicas, and because he is a registered filmmaker, he doesn't need a licence for them.
• What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: In "Guitar Warfare", Jenny plays a ukulele that summons an aura of hearts. She is kicked out almost immediately.
• Wishing for More Wishes: Defied in "The Wish" as the genie makes it perfectly clear you can't do this, can't use a loophole to get around it, and in fact reduces the amount of wishes he'd grant to one for being pestered about it. The girl who found the lamp is still determined to get infinite wishes, by any means necessary.
• Wrong-Name Outburst: Played for Laughs and heightened to the extreme in "Musical Suicide".
  Tom: I LOVE YOU!
  Woman: (turns around, finally revealing her face to him) I love you too-
  Tom: Wow, I don't know you!
• You're Drinking Breast Milk: In "Baby With A Gun 2", the titular baby has a flask on him. Tom takes a sip and finds out that it is breast milk. He's later seen actually enjoying the taste.
• Your Head Asplode: The "Juice That Makes Your Head Explode" sketch.

Tomska & Friends (#CONTENT, etc.)

• The Artifact: The content warning before "Thomas The Tank Engine Is Darker Than You Think" reflects aspects of the now-removed Surfshark ad that got Tom in hot water with the Advertising Standards Authority. Though that was removed from the video, he was unable to alter the warning.
• Flipping the Table: Tom does this twice in "Writing A Horrific Kids Book", shocking Eddie.
• Improv: #CONTENT runs pretty much entirely off of this.
• "Truman Show" Plot: The Surfshark ad in "Reviewing Terrible Memes From TV and Movies (I Hate This So Much)" features Tom using the service to watch shows exclusive to Netflix in France until, to his horror, he finds their #1 series is a show that’s just hours upon hours of footage of him doing things in his house. He freaks out more upon discovering a “making of” documentary, in which it’s revealed Elliot (who secretly despises Tom) is behind the project and that Eddie has been played by 5 different actors. The ad ends with Elliot casually checking up on Tom through the phone.
  Elliot: Hey, Tom. Any progress on the Surfshark ad?
  Tom: Uh… yeah, so click the link in the description and use code “Tomskafriends” to get 83% off your Surfshark subscription, but um… please don’t use French Netflix.
  Elliot: I’m sorry, what was that?
  Tom: …Uh… nothing!
  Elliot: HE’S ONTO US! FIRE ZE MISSILES!
• Unimpressive Progress Reveal: 'I watch the same movie 34 times' in "50 Ban-Worthy Videos in 1":
  Tom: [Blood dripping from eyes and ears] Alright guys, so that was the end of Bee Movie watchthrough… number one. Let’s go again!

---

TomSka out.