Nice Job Snowcloning It, Hero (Alt Title crowner 2/28/12): Painting The Medium

Okay, I would like to know just how broad this trope is. I'm still not sure on the definition to even try voting on a name, and especially not suggesting one.

All caps is a clue. So is using a voice-over, or green gas, or wavy lines.

Those are all hints at what's happening, and depending on the context, the meaning changes. Terry Pratchett's Death speaks in all caps, but he's not shouting. He just sounds very real. Green gas might mean a stinky smell or poison, or just a dangerous mad scientist chemical.

These are clues, because they don't tell you explicitly what they stand for. Unless they're lampshaded.

Could that include stuff in comics like arrows pointing to important things, or even the narration boxes?

Yep.

Basically, most of the proposed names don't really work for this trope.

• "Interface" doesn't work because it implies something that the audience interacts with. That's just what the word means—it's how it's used in everyday speech and it's how we use it everywhere else on the wiki. And this trope isn't about that.
• "Clue" and "Hint" don't work because it implies that the trope is, like, a piece to a larger puzzle. It really isn't. It's a way of expressing a thing-that-you-can't-express-directly-or-whatever using elements of the...like, font changes, camera-shaking, speech bubble shapes, that sort of thing. (Okay, that's Buffy Speak-y, but if I knew good words for this stuff I'd have name suggestions of my own.) But it's not a clue to anything, it's just a way of representing something.
• "Symbolic" is similar to "Clue" in that it implies that it's symbolic of something else. That's not really quite right.
• "Paratext" doesn't work because it's not Paratext. Paratext is auxiliary to the text; this trope happens within the text itself.
• "Narrative Conventions" doesn't work because that's just another word for "Tropes". And this is a trope, not an index—well, it's a supertrope + index, but you get the point.
• "Change of Theme" doesn't work because...well, hopefully I don't even need to explain this, since it's pretty clearly not this trope.
• "Presentation" doesn't really work because what does that even mean? Presentation of what? When you use that word as a noun, you're either talking about, like, "I've got to give a presentation in front of my whole class", or you're talking about the presentation of a specific thing. And when you use it as a verb, it's always with an object; it doesn't make sense on its own. So it's like, presentation of what? Cuz if you don't have an object that just leaves you with the slideshow version.
• Non-Diegetic...well, I'm uneasy about it because I don't really understand the term. Not sure.
• Visual Inflection...I haven't decided yet. I'll think about it.

Extra Diagetic is considered more accurate than Non Diagetic. Having thought about this a bit, I'm going to say it's just not accurate. The characters can "hear" all caps dialog, and so it is diagetic. I can't think of examples that tell the audience something without telling the characters as well.

Interesting how Buffy Speak hints at what you want to say, when you can't find the words you need to say.

Okay, does this cover all elements on screen/panel/image that are only visible to the viewer, or is it more narrow?

Speech Bubbles is not a subtrope of this trope, but Speech-Bubbles Interruption is. Does that help?

Edit: Actually, no wait, Speech Bubbles are a subtrope of this, because they have a built-in indicator to show that a person is talking and to point to which person it is. Man, this is a pervasive trope.

edited 22nd Feb '12 8:48:37 PM by troacctid

I don't think that's true. The page is kind of unclear, but it seems to be about all the elements that convey information. Speech Bubbles are explicitly listed.

I think "Visual Inflection" is the closest of all the suggestions. I'm not *entirely* sure it doesn't change the meaning of the trope a bit, but I think the core of it would survive.

Audienc Privy Visual Elements?

@109: If Speech Bubbles are considered a Sub-Trope of this trope-under-discussion, I'm gonna have to add Chairs to my speed dial. :P A speech bubble has been a standardized convention in visual media for decades, if not centuries, but the garden variety speech bubble (i.e. which conveys only "this character is talking") isn't this trope.

edited 22nd Feb '12 11:05:38 PM by Stratadrake

"Standardized convention in media for decades if not centuries" sounds like "trope" to me.

But I agree we may be going a little too broad.

That's why we have subtropes. Nothing wrong with being a supertrope.

@114: Yeah. I would hardly call black text on a white speech bubble an example of creatively using medium conventions. The same for the thought bubble or spiny exclamation.

edited 22nd Feb '12 11:30:17 PM by Stratadrake

Speech Bubbles are not People Sit On Chairs because that is something that just happens, Speech Bubbles mean "someone is talking". That is a very broad trope.

...with pseudo-natter instead of a description?

edited 22nd Feb '12 11:39:13 PM by rodneyAnonymous

Maybe the definition should be refined to just being about changes to normal medium conventions. Speech bubbles and subtitles wouldn't count, but using oddly-shaped speech bubbles would.

In fact, that's already how the trope is being treated. The description just need some tweaking to match that.

Speech Bubbles shouldn't be listed under this trope. They should be listed under Speech Bubbles, which has its own trope.

I made a bunch of changes to the description.

Feel free to revert it or make whatever changes you want if you think I made it worse.

What about Visual Shorthand?

Edit: Also, I think we can call the crowner now. It seems stable. If it helps I can change my vote from nay to yea.

edited 23rd Feb '12 2:44:23 AM by Feather7603

Visual Shorthand is way broader; it's already used to refer to a lot of symbolism and stuff.

ETA: For what its worth, we have Diegetic Interface, but the description has to go out of its way to explain what diegetic means. Having to do that explanation and then reversing it seems needlessly convoluted to me.

edited 23rd Feb '12 8:00:47 AM by Elle

Asking here to test the waters before starting an image picking thread (since everyone here has been thinking about the trope a lot): Is the image here really appropriate? I see two problems with it.

First, it's not totally clear, but the speech bubble probably indicates something about the character's tone of voice. Is that this trope? It's showing something in-setting (even if they're making a joke about how it's conveyed.) If using colored speech bubbles to convey tone is this trope, then everything is this trope (eg. using a picture of a tree to convey a tree would also qualify — Ceci n'est pas une pipe and all that.) Granted, I could be wrong about this one, but it strikes me as an odd choice to illustrate it.

Second, much more importantly, the picture also shows someone Leaning on the Fourth Wall, which is one of the tropes most prone to confusion with this one. That's extremely bad, and is the main reason I'd suggest replacing the image (or even just removing it — no image at all would be better than one that encourages more confusion with Leaning on the Fourth Wall.)

Granted, this is a hard trope to find pictures for, but I think it'd be best to go for one that isn't lampshading it, since any lampshade is going to be Leaning on the Fourth Wall, which we're trying to clearly-distinguish this trope from.

edited 23rd Feb '12 10:15:36 AM by Aquillion

If you get rid of the picture, Visual Inflection could be a separate trope about speech bubbles, and this could be an Extradiagetic Frame. Frame being literal or figurative.

For a picture, a side-by-side of a shooter in "you are bleeding" mode might be better.

^^ I'm not convinced there's any Leaning on the Fourth Wall (which is itself a horrid snowclone title) going on there. Elan is using Medium Awareness. The paladin ... I dunno.

edited 23rd Feb '12 11:16:30 AM by Stratadrake