Just a Face and a Caption: A Mech By Any Other Name

The picture on A Mech by Any Other Name shows five mechs, but not what they are called, which is what the trope is about.

The caption identifies them by name. And no, that does not make it Just AF Ace And A Caption.

All I see are a bunch of robots, not "A Humongous Mecha that's not called a mecha." The picture looks like it could just as easily be on Humongous Mecha.

The caption does provide additional information, but without it the picture is entirely meaningless. Does it qualify for the "When the image and caption work as a team" rule that makes it not JAFAAC?

[REDACTED]

edited 31st Jul '13 7:55:48 AM by Willbyr

"Is the image meaningful without the caption?" is not a relevant question. It sidesteps the actual issue. Page images don't stand alone; "the article title helps" is pushing it, but "the caption helps" is totally fine.

JAFAAC means you wouldn't know it's an example without being familiar with the source work; it's not apparent in the image. I am not familiar with the source, but the caption fills in the single detail needed to make the image work, I get it almost immediately. Those are examples, being examples, right there in the image; it illustrates the idea. It needs the caption to say what they're called, so not great, but not bad enough to leave the page blank I don't think.

An ideal image would both demonstrate (explain the trope) and illustrate (depict it being used), though in a pinch just "illustrate" is mediocre but acceptable.

edited 30th Jul '13 10:08:00 PM by rodneyAnonymous

This. I'm tired of people misusing JAFAAC. JAFAAC is a problem with Fan Myopia expecting you to be familiar with the work in order to understand the picture. That is not the case here, you do not need to be familiar with any of those works, just the giant robot genre in general. Due to the nature of this trope, you cannot have a picture without telling us in some way that these things are called something different than "mecha". If the caption is doing that, then fine. Captions are not always bad.

Too busy would be the only problem for me here. I have difficulty imagining a pic that works without a caption.

I don't think it's too busy to see that those are giant robots.

Considering it's a trope about names, you need a text somewhere to explain it. Moving the text from the caption to the image one way or another isn't a great improvement, I think.

Keep Until Better Image Suggested.

After taking another look at the pic, I figured out what the bottom two are, so I'm changing my vote to Keep Until Better Image Suggested.

The image shows five robots and the caption basically says "These are not called mechs". I don't see how this is different from other JAFAAC pics where it shows a character and the caption says "This guy fits the trope".

That caption needs the (not-actually-)mechas to work. That makes it "not JAFAAC".

This. The caption does help, but even if you've never seen the show before the image still works.

That said, it would be nice to find an example of this trope at work in-universe.

It works as well as a collage. Somehow several faces and a caption work better than Just A Face And A Caption. I'd also prefer an example of this trope at work in-universe.

^^^^ "The image shows five robots and the caption basically says "These are not called mechs". I don't see how this is different from other JAFAAC pics where it shows a character and the caption says "This guy fits the trope"."

It is unlike JAFAAC pics because those are (say) a picture of a hero who likes dogs on a trope article about liking dogs being portrayed heroically, but the picture is just of the character standing there, not engaged in heroic dog-liking. This, on the other hand, is a trope about what things are called. The image would have a hard time saying they're not called mechs without having a text message in it. Not impossible—in-universe or lampshade or something—but hard. Is a text message in the image a whole lot better than a text message in the caption? I don't think so.

The caption doesn't say "these are examples", it says "these are not called mechs" (which also makes them examples).

edited 1st Aug '13 12:13:26 AM by rodneyAnonymous

I think the current work, but here's a suggestion anyway.

"High speed armored trooper", "advanced mobility armor" and "heavy weapons platform".

We could skip the last one and crop it down to ~430 pixels. Managed to do a horizontal version with two of them.

edited 1st Aug '13 7:18:13 AM by m8e

Too long.

I wouldn't mind some montage of various mechs from different genres with labels underneath identifying what their 'official' names are.