Not Tropeworthy: Breathe On The Fan

Breathe on the Fan is... I'm not even sure. The page dates back to 2010, but only has 31 wicks outside of the sandbox, and seems to be defined as nothing more than "character talks or breathes into a fan to change their voice", but the trope is hardly used as a narrative tool and most of the entries even with context are "characters do this". The description isn't much help because it mostly fixates on the type of fan being breathed into, which is completely irrelevant to the trope itself and seems like it's mainly there to pad the description and keep it from seeming stubby (as without all the fan talk, the actual description is reduced to a single short sentence that's only barely longer than the trope's laconic).

The Breathe On The Fan Wick Check shows that the trope's wicks consist of

• Character Talks/Breathes into a fan with additional context: 10/23 or 43%

• Just a Character talking/breathing into a fan: 3/23 or 13%

• ZCE: 9/23 or 39%

• Pothole/Mention: 1/23 or 4%

A rather high ZCE rate, and a good portion of examples that are just "character talks into a fan" with no other context.

The one good thing is that I think a potential trope is trapped in here, a character using a fan to change their voice in a specific manner in a way that actually has meaning could be salvaged, but the trope in its current state is just pure Chairs and brimming with ZCEs

Opening

Not sure what to do with it since it is a common gag. Maybe merge with Helium Speech (I assume it has the same issues) and remake that one for using objects for high-pitch humor?

Edited by Amonimus on Mar 10th 2022 at 6:52:37 PM

That could work too, reorient the trope specifically around humorous gag uses of it rather than the overly general setup here.

Merging could work. Maybe we could choose a new name for the result, like Distorted Speech Gag.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 10th 2022 at 10:15:33 AM

Sounds good. I imagine there are also gags that involve messing wiht a microphone or being subjected to Shrink Ray.

Edited by Amonimus on Mar 10th 2022 at 9:03:25 PM

I guess I'd be okay with merging? I might make a wick check for Helium Speech just to humor myself, though.

I mean, there's generally never a reason not to do a wick check.

As a side note, maybe Speech Distortion Gag would work instead of the name I previously suggested.

In my opinion, being a gag is meaning. If it's a specific thing played for comedy, it's not chairs, because a comedy trope is narrative value. Helium Speech is a more specific and common thing that I don't see the value in broadening that just to include this trope.

If the issue is a lack of examples with context, I'd rather send this back to TLP to gather more fleshed-out examples. Alternatively, we go with the Speech Distortion Gag idea, but make it a supertrope to Helium Speech that encompasses this and any other "messed up voice" examples that don't fit a subtrope.

Edited by mightymewtron on Mar 11th 2022 at 4:08:06 AM

I'd be fine with sending it back to TLP and making it a supertrope to Helium Speech instead of merging it with Helium Speech, similarly to how we turned Hook-Handed Pianist into Ironically Disabled Artist, which turned it into a supertrope to Deaf Composer in the process.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 11th 2022 at 3:32:40 AM

If it's a common gag and has a reasonable amount of examples, why can't we let it alone?

I think the issue is that since it wasn't written as a gag trope, most of the examples don't emphasize the humorous aspect of the trope, so even if we do redefine it, we'd still have lots of ZCE of the "Character A does this" variety.

Also if this draft doesnt have a sponsor, sending it back to the TLP will likely end up with it languishing around for a bit. Is there someone who wants to sponsor it?

Because it's not written as a gag trope. All that's required is that a character is breathing into a fan, which isn't a trope on its own.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 11th 2022 at 10:09:41 AM

Renaming into Talking Into Fan Gag can be an option too, but I'm still concerned it's rather rare and Helium Speech is already used for more jokes than the use of the gas.

Yeah, I know that talking into fans to distort one's voice is a thing, and can be used as a gag, but it doesn't quite seem common enough to be a fully independent trope.

If it comes down to a rename + merge, I propose Fun With Voice Distortion or Voice Distortion Fun. The word "Gag" for some reason suggests a prank or someone is subjected to voice distortion instead of doing it on their own for fun.

We can also include examples of digital voice distortion (such as doubling or halving the tempo but keeping the same pitch in both cases).

I'm fine with those names.

Anyway, I'm still leaning toward turning this into a supertrope to existing tropes involving vocal distortion being Played for Laughs, while leaving Helium Speech alone. As I said, we can send this back to TLP if necessary, similarly to what happened with Hook-Handed Pianist becoming Ironically Disabled Artist (as I previously mentioned).

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 12th 2022 at 3:30:02 AM

If both options win, would that mean Breathe on the Fan can stay (renamed/rewritten), and Voice Distortion Fun to be TLP/Yard'ed separately?

Why are multiple options lumped onto the same entries? "Rename" should be its own option to vote on.

That's a good point. I think the current setup is better, so props to Tabs for fixing that.

And the two non-rename, non-cut options are mutually exclusive, but if we keep this fan-specific, nothing's stopping anyone from sending the supertrope to TLP.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 14th 2022 at 2:55:33 PM

If they're tied exactly (same ratio), then we'd have a voice distortion trope that TLP decides the scope of, I think.