Splutter! (escaping simile of the day alert!)

[predatrix]

Found on AO3 in a LOTR fic:
"Frodo wept, his cheeks flushed unattractively, the light once in his eyes now draining through his tears like a watering can with holes in the bottom."

Comments

[julesjones]

...

[predatrix]

INORITE!

Taking another look at it, there's an entirely new level of fail in that beside the obvious. There's the bathetic 'watering-can' (JRRT could well have used a fairly 'ordinary' word in the POV of a hobbit, but he would never have let the register slip from tragic to pathetic that way). Then one realises 'light' is compared to water while 'tears' are compared to the watering-can. The top level of the failcake is the holes mysteriously being in the bottom, not the spout.

Oh dear.

[kalypso_v]

There's a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza...

Actually, "his cheeks flushed unattractively" strikes me as hilarious too. "His cheeks flushed... but no, stop cooing at the thought of Elijah Wood's pretty cheeks! He's doing it unattractively! Which I will proceed to reinforce with a totally preposterous metaphor about dysfunctional watering-cans!"

[jthijsen]

Yikes...