If you spot an article that has more natter than one person can handle without losing their lunch, report it here.
Fix as much as you can bear to, then call on us for help.
Edited by wingedcatgirl on Feb 25th 2024 at 10:26:27 AM
You can cut that, but I'm not sure if BLAM fits. We don't expect plot points from songs to be come up again on others. Might Creator's Oddball or a related trope fit better?
Stories don't tell us monsters exist; we knew that already. They show us that monsters can be trademarked and milked for years.A while back, I added a No Budget example to Smiling Friends, but then Brainbin added a whole bunch of subbullets. What should we do with this example?
- No Budget: According to Zach, the entire first season cost less than a single episode of Family Guy. At the time he made that comparison, the per-episode cost of Family Guy was widely reported as $2 million. However, the following should be considered before assuming an apples-to-apples comparison:
- An episode of Smiling Friends runs 11 minutes, half as long as an episode of Family Guy.
- The biggest expenditure on Family Guy is actor salaries, which is reported as $100,000 per episode for each of the regulars (Alex Borstein, Seth Green, and Mila Kunis; presumably Seth MacFarlane makes more, since he voices several main characters and is also a producer on the series).note Co-creators Zach Hadel and Michael Cusack voice most of the main characters themselves, or enlist their online animator friends to voice side characters and presumably pay them scale, if that.
- The "entire first season", depending on how you count, is either eight or nine episodes, meaning the per-episode budget is as much as $250,000. Cutting Family Guy's budget in half for runtime after deducting $400,000 (probably more) for the actors' salaries brings you to $800,000, which is considerably more than Smiling Friends, but not as outrageously so as first assumed.
- Even a lot of these remaining costs wouldn't apply to Smiling Friends, including a writers' room (Hadel and Cusack write every episode themselves), studio overhead (they operate out of their homes), and the very high clearance costs Family Guy has to pay to use copyrighted images, music, and trademarks in each Cutaway Gag.
- $250,000 or even $200,000 for eleven minutes of content is not a lavish Hollywood budget, but it's comfortably above the "indie" bracket. Stretching that out to feature length puts you well into the seven figures.
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Those bullets seem to be trying to explain that actually it's not an example at all. If we can take them at face value, we should just remove the entry entirely.
Bringing this up from California Doubling. The first needs to be split up into separate bullets, the latter's sub-bullet could go.
- John Adams takes place in various parts of colonial United States, including Philadelphia and Boston. However, the entire mini-series (save the European scenes) was shot in the state of Virginia. Scenes that took place in BOTH Philadelphia and Boston were filmed using old colonial buildings in and around Williamsburg. However, the scenes taking place in Europe were shot on-location.
- The TV movie "Killing Kennedy", which was also shot in the Richmond area, despite the scenes taking place mostly in Dallas circa 1963. Richmond also doubled for New Orleans, Washington DC, Russia, and Mexico City while stock footage was used for key aerial shots.
- Also Turn is filmed in Central Virginia, despite taking place in the Revolutionary-era Northeast (centering on the Long Island town of Setauket, but frequently venturing to New York City, rural Connecticut and New Jersey, and even to Philadelphia for a few episodes). Virginia is basically known for being the filming site of a whole bunch of historical period pieces, regardless of where they actually occurred, mostly because Virginia has good tax breaks and because Virginia has an embarrassment of colonial sites to film at, while the Northeastern sites are frequently covered over by development (try to shoot scenes of Washington's New Jersey camps close to their locations in Morris County and it'll be hard not to accidentally get a McMansion, a modern paved road, or an office park in the background, unless you want to spend extra budget on CGI).
- Sharpe's Rifles had Ukraine doubling as Spain. In fact pretty much all the Sharpe series were filmed in either Ukraine or Turkey. Presumably labour is cheaper there.
- That's actually pretty much true. In a mostly unknown 'making of' documentary for the series, they talk about the awesome Ukrainian stunt men who are cheap, plentiful and absolutely insane. Given that the core cast is actually pretty small (6 riflemen, 2 wives, Wellington, Hogan plus a handful of speaking villains du jour) and that any part of the European countryside (where all the battles are fought) looks so similar it makes no odds, it makes a LOT more sense to move the production to the stuntmen, rather than transporting and accommodating 200+ psychopathic men and horses to wherever they were needed.
This post from Alternate Character Interpretation which seems to be arguing with itself:
Death of a Salesman can be seen as a brutal depiction of an ordinary man's struggle with bipolar disorder, or an Anvilicious attack on the American Dream.
- Bipolar disorder? Where do we infer that from? Sure, he's deluded and probably going senile, but that seems like an overspecification.
- Borderline Personality Disorder has also been suggested.
- It's probably not "against" the American dream. It's more against chasing a dream that doesn't suit you. If Willy was a great salesman, then chasing the American dream would have been the right choice. It's the fact that he rejected his true talents that make it a tragedy.
- Also, who's the real hero of the story? Willy the eponymous Salesman? Biff, the Ensemble Dark Horse? Willy's wife, who (unlike Biff and Willy) never did anything actually wrong, and gets the most tragedy in the end?
In addition, this is in the literature section in spite of being theatre.
I would cut it since it's about interpreting the whole work, not a character.
Two badly nattered examples on CharacterDerailment.Video Games:
- In the original Baldur's Gate, Quayle is quite arrogant and stupid. In the series, he's a kindly old gnome who has adopted Aerie, caring for her after her traumatizing experience in the circus that resulted in her losing her wings. This is a rare case of a character having a more positive personality after being derailed.
- Quayle explains to Aerie that she changed him for the better, explaining his more compassionate nature. How it made him more intelligent is anyone's guess.
- Or for that matter, how either had any influence on the other at all, when he can't have been with the circus for more than a month or two, since he met the PC in baldur's gate, many miles away, a few month's ago, and the PC's travel was probably magically aided.
- Also, the novelization derails every single character's personality. Which is why fans don't acknowledge that it exists.
- Ironically, the novelization counts as canon within the Forgotten Realms setting, while the game with it's non-linearity doesn't.
- However because most of the fans dislike the novelization, Wizards of the Coast declared it uncanon, much to the joy of the others.
I'm tempted to cut everything but the first two sentences, since the novel thing is a ZCE.
- A portion of the Final Fantasy fanbase utterly detests the way that Cloud & Co. were characterised in their various spinoffs and cameo appearances. Case in point: Cloud got over his angst in the game, but became Wangstier than ever in both, and Sephiroth underwent Motive Decay to the point where he's just sort of there to torment Cloud and nothing else.
- Cloud can be more a case of Pandering to the Base-triggered Character Development in that he is at least given some understandable reasons for his severe depression in Advent Children, which were made clear in the Director's Cut Advent Children Complete version. Also, complainers about Cloud's supposedly wangsty behavior seem to ignore that Cloud explicitly gets over it by the last third of the movie. This is even more apparent from one of the cutscenes in Dirge of Cerberus — when Vincent talks to Cloud over the phone, Cloud is upbeat enough to snort in obvious amusement at one of Vincent's comments. That said, without the additional exposition in Complete, Cloud's wangsting had a negative impact on his character, and was further flanderized with each subsequent appearance until later in The New '10s.
- Sephiroth in Dissidia borders this. Of all the villains he is one of only two who has no interest in either dominating or annihilating all of existence, and instead fixated on getting his memories back and then endlessly harassing Cloud like a jilted lover. Sephiroth in his own game was a Fallen Hero Tragic Villain who wanted to absorb the planet's Lifestream to become a god even if it meant destroying all of existence. Although he does pay lip service to the idea of using Chaos' power to become a god before his final battle with Cloud it seems like he is only doing this to get Cloud to take the battle seriously. He does maintain his trademark stoicism, though.
- Really a lot of the characters in Dissidia are like this. Tropes are Not Bad, though; almost all of the characters have certain aspects of their personality highlighted to set them apart from each other. For Sephiroth, they focused on the Fallen Hero aspects of his character. Some characters like the Onion Knight and Warrior of Light, had their character basically invented for the game. Terra is seen as considerably meeker while Tifa picks up her more Action Girl traits; Kefka is heavier on the Monster Clown and lighter on the Manipulative Bastard but actually gets an Alas, Poor Villain moment where it's revealed that he can't comprehend true happiness and acts like a troll because he wants everyone else to be miserable too. Most of Kefka Magnificent Bastard traits went to The Emperor who acts like the quasi-Big Bad of the game, even manipulating the other villains. Kuja loses almost all of his capacity for magnificent bastardry and acts like a whining, arrogant child although the prequel Duodecim reveals that his Heel–Face Turn at the end of Final Fantasy IX stuck and he initially acts as a The Mole aiding the heroes until Kefka catches him and manipulates his memories to make him loyal to Kefka. Tidus is more optimistic and tough here than in his own game. And then of course there's Exdeath who went from very generic Evil Overlord to an amusing Large Ham Barrier Warrior who has probably the best defense in the game.
- Terra deserves special mention, as her new characterisation as a shy, hapless victim proved unpopular, even in Japan (which has a higher tolerance for meek characters and isn't nearly as fond of her original game as the US is). It was criticised enough that her unvoiced dialogue was rewritten for the Duodecim release to make her tougher, and the 2015 reboot outright nullified Terra's Chickification by basing her depiction on her more confident personality at the end of VI.
I've never played FFVII but I know there's a deep-running argument over whether Cloud's angst in later portrayals is derailment or a realistic continuation of the issues he suppressed during the game. But I'd like someone familiar with the games to chime in.
Stories don't tell us monsters exist; we knew that already. They show us that monsters can be trademarked and milked for years.
In addition this entry seems to be throwing around Magnificent Bastard a lot for characters I'm pretty sure did not get approved as such.
this is from Power Rangers
- Improbable Age: Tommy Oliver is implied to have gotten an 8-year PhD then done a bunch of top secret projects all within 6 years.
- It should be noted, however, that after completing your Bachelor's Degree, you generally do have the choice (assuming you do choose to go through more schooling) of either of the following:
- Going to a community college
- Doing your Master's (it usually takes 2 or 3 years to complete) and just sticking with it; or, doing your Master's and following it up with a PhD afterwards
- Going straight into your PhD right after your Bachelor's (no Master's in between; option to take it after, or not at all). It is highly likely that Tommy took this route after getting his Bachelor's. But, there is still a discrepancy because a PhD on average takes 5-8 years to complete and it would be very, very difficult to try and complete it within 2 years (even for savants, which Tommy is not, and who make up a very small minority among the general population in real life) because of the course and work load. And yes, it's true that Tommy could be in the process of completing his PhD while he is doing his teaching job; but, that is not how it was written and hence, we are told that he somehow already completed his PhD by the time we see him in Dino Thunder. Either way, and as to be expected, logic doesn't always take a front seat in Power Rangers.
- It should be noted, however, that after completing your Bachelor's Degree, you generally do have the choice (assuming you do choose to go through more schooling) of either of the following:
i'm tempted to cut all the subbullets (it kind of defends the time it takes for tommy to get a phd but then disproves it and just says 'oh well it's power rangers' which is really confusing), but i wanted a second opinion to see if anything could be salvaged
replaced, i also fixed some formatting issues on that specific trope.
honestly a lot of power rangers pages have natter issues but i don't have the time rn to go through all of them, the Improbable Age one was just sticking out like a sore thumb to me.
Found this in Fangirl.
So I'm not sure if Ambiguous Ending sounds natter or not because of the word "etc". Here's the example:
- Ambiguous Ending: While Jane calls the police on her stepfather in the end, it's unknown whether her stepfather finds out, if Jane gets justice, etc.
Edited by Bubblepig on Jun 9th 2023 at 10:26:01 AM
"CHICKEN JOCKEY!"This is from WesternAnimation.An American Tail Fievel Goes West:
- Xanatos Gambit: Downplayed, but Cat R. Waul's Pragmatic Villainy in having Chula toss Fievel from the train. If Fievel doesn't survive the fall, it looks like a tragic accident with none the wiser (especially his family; to them, it would just seem Fievel didn't learn anything from the first film and went off for some foolish nighttime exploring again). If he does survive the fall, Fievel's still stranded out in the middle of the desert with no water, food, or transportation (to say nothing of being one little kid mouse against the local, larger, and deadly predators).
- Of course, Cat R. Waul never anticipated the possibility Fievel might just actually survive against all odds and still make his way to Green River (not that it does him much good, since the Mice have all been taken in by Waul's PR campaign in the interim).
I wonder what we should do about this entry? Maybe trim it down?
Edited by gjjones on Jun 9th 2023 at 2:11:35 PM
He/His/Him. No matter who you are, always Be Yourself.
Is that even a Xanatos Gambit? Throwing someone off a train sounds far too simple.
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That's not natter, because it's properly indented. It could maybe be expanded a little but it's not a ZCE either.
Bringing this up from California Doubling. The first needs to be split up into separate bullets, the latter's sub-bullet could go.
- John Adams takes place in various parts of colonial United States, including Philadelphia and Boston. However, the entire mini-series (save the European scenes) was shot in the state of Virginia. Scenes that took place in BOTH Philadelphia and Boston were filmed using old colonial buildings in and around Williamsburg. However, the scenes taking place in Europe were shot on-location.
- The TV movie "Killing Kennedy", which was also shot in the Richmond area, despite the scenes taking place mostly in Dallas circa 1963. Richmond also doubled for New Orleans, Washington DC, Russia, and Mexico City while stock footage was used for key aerial shots.
- Also Turn is filmed in Central Virginia, despite taking place in the Revolutionary-era Northeast (centering on the Long Island town of Setauket, but frequently venturing to New York City, rural Connecticut and New Jersey, and even to Philadelphia for a few episodes). Virginia is basically known for being the filming site of a whole bunch of historical period pieces, regardless of where they actually occurred, mostly because Virginia has good tax breaks and because Virginia has an embarrassment of colonial sites to film at, while the Northeastern sites are frequently covered over by development (try to shoot scenes of Washington's New Jersey camps close to their locations in Morris County and it'll be hard not to accidentally get a McMansion, a modern paved road, or an office park in the background, unless you want to spend extra budget on CGI).
- Sharpe's Rifles had Ukraine doubling as Spain. In fact pretty much all the Sharpe series were filmed in either Ukraine or Turkey. Presumably labour is cheaper there.
- That's actually pretty much true. In a mostly unknown 'making of' documentary for the series, they talk about the awesome Ukrainian stunt men who are cheap, plentiful and absolutely insane. Given that the core cast is actually pretty small (6 riflemen, 2 wives, Wellington, Hogan plus a handful of speaking villains du jour) and that any part of the European countryside (where all the battles are fought) looks so similar it makes no odds, it makes a LOT more sense to move the production to the stuntmen, rather than transporting and accommodating 200+ psychopathic men and horses to wherever they were needed.
Found on Forever War:
- The Hundred Years' War between England and France, which lasted 116 years (including some armistices). Given the average lifespans and literacy rates at that point, it's very likely most people had no idea what the war was about.
- It was (originally) a dispute over royal authority: King Edward III of England refused to subordinate himself to King Philip VI of France, as previous kings of England dating to William the Conqueror had done (as they held lands in France as French nobles independently of their lands in England). Philip VI responded by confiscating Edward III's property in France. Edward III then declared that Philip VI had no authority to do so, because he was actually the rightful king of France (Edward was more closely related to the previous king than Philip, but the crown was given to Philip because he was related through the male line while Edward was related to Charles IV through his mother). Accusing the king of being a usurper is obviously a big deal, so naturally war resulted. Given that the kings of England at the time were also French nobility, it could rightly be seen as a French civil war. But unlike most succession disputes, this war continued long after the original claimants to the throne were dead. England and France each had five different kings over the course of the war.
- Even after the war ended (1453), relations between France and England were far from peachy. Both countries would remain at odds for the next four hundred years over matters such as religion or colonial ambition. In fact, it wasn't until the Crimean War (1853) that either of them actually managed to agree on anything.
- Not strictly true, as there was a brief period, during what some historians have dubbed the 'Second Hundred Years War' (between the ascension to the throne of William and Mary in 1688 and Napoleon's final defeat at Waterloo in 1815), between 1716 — 1731 that the Anglo-French Alliance existed and they even fought alongside each other (uniquely in this time period) during the 1718- 1720 'War of the Quadruple Alliance' (with the titular Alliance comprising them, (the then State of the Holy Roman Empire) Austria and the Dutch Republic, later joined by Savoy) against the Kingdom of Spain.
The "not strictly true" part is concerning.
I found the real life section of Variable Terminal Velocity page has natter ones, at the bottom. Anyone can help?
- This is either Literature or Real Life, not sure, but there was a book years ago about how to survive a variety of odd situations, one of which was sharing a parachute. It's possible, but very, very, painful. Broken limbs abound because you have to secure yourself to the person with the parachute in a way you won't fall off when the chute deploys.
- That's the Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook, and you have to hook your arms through the front of their rigging and grasp your wrists, you dislocate both shoulders and possibly both people will break their legs too. But it's better than the alternative....
- There's a stunt called "Mr. Bill" which entails doing this deliberately. It's done well before reaching terminal velocity though, and the other guy then jumps off and deploys his own parachute. Depending on the parachute it could be done at terminal with minimal injuries, this troper's parachute (Spectre 150) has very soft openings. Landing two people with a chute designed for one is bound to be rough though - but still better than landing without one.
- Here's an exemple GoPro video on Youtube
of a guy proposing his girlfriend while doing a "Mr. Bill".
- That's the Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook, and you have to hook your arms through the front of their rigging and grasp your wrists, you dislocate both shoulders and possibly both people will break their legs too. But it's better than the alternative....
I found this on Creator.Mai Kadowaki and I feel like it's natter because it gets quite wordy.
- Illyasviel von Einzbern in Fate/stay night, Fate/Zero, Carnival Phantasm, Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA and Fate/Grand Order. Quite arguably the role that made her famous and the role that led to some of her pigeon-holing; it was one of her early roles, recorded when she was only 24, and the one that she's returned to in various forms for a decade and a half. Also, ironically, at least in stay night despite being the Token Mini-Moe Ilya is one of the older members of the main cast at 18, a fact not always repeated in many of Kadowaki's other characters.
Removed and just replaced it by simply stating it to be her Star-Making Role.
She/Her | Currently cleaning: N/ATroper Sharout added what I've bolded on an example on Fate Dx DAU on June 13 2023
:
- Cliché Storm: The story is a bog standard Fandom-Specific Plot of a crossover character being used as an author stand in to replace Issei as the main character and steal his harem. About the only thing approaching an "interesting" idea in the fanfic is Ritsuka NOT using a fan-created/rip-off of Issei's Sacred Gear as well. This is in fact very false, the whole plot of DXD is changed from the first chapter with the arrival of Goetia in DXD. There is a clear goal to achieve (strengthening the Human Order in the DXD universe) and Ritsuka already has his own harem (several members of which are mentioned as early as Chapter 1) and officially has a Skill called "Harem Protagonist" to Rank EX for this reason, which explains things
I personally think the non-bolded stuff can stay, but what I've bolded should be axed. Thoughts?
Edited by KageTsuki88 on Jun 18th 2023 at 12:01:23 PM
Honestly the whole thing should be cut. Its clearly written to be bashy, but the real problem is it doenst actually explain why it's a Cliché Storm. The entry lists one thing "a crossover character takes Issei's place in the narrative."
Ok, and? A Cliché Storm actually has to provide examples of the various and many cliches on display. This doesnt even list a plot point it's just the basic premise of the fic.
It would be like saying "Cliché Storm: This movie is a typical buddy cop movie. The only interesting thing it does is feature actors not commonly found in such films."
Its basically a ZCE and should be cut. The only other entry on that YMMV page is also not written well, either.
This is on TooIncompetentToOperateABlanket.Advertising:
- There's a pic that made the rounds on gaming forums a while back: It was from a Best Buy, where the employees had affixed stickers to all the copies of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for Xbox 360 that cheerfully offered to "Let us install it for you!"
- Presumably they mean the Xbox 360 itself. A process which involves color matching a trio of cables to your television along with a power cord and Ethernet cable and should take about three minutes, tops. Or if you have an HDMI cable, takes less than thirty seconds, ten of which are spent making sure the cable's the right way.
- Here's how these things happen: Someone in marketing/sales came up with the "Let us install it for you!" thing for software to improve sales among the computer-illiterate as well as spread the Geeksquad name around the store, and the bosses thought it was a solid idea. Merchandising printed out a billion of those stickers and the bosses (themselves mostly computer-illiterate) said "Stick these on all your best-selling software." The store managers (generally computer-illiterate) pass the order down. The younger kids and gamers who work at Best Buy (the real computer-literate ones) would mention how it's a stupid idea to put them on console games, but the manager would reply "Whatever, someone from upper management is coming next week and they want to see stickers."
- It won't stop.
Now they're charging $30 for PS3 firmware updates. For readers who don't own a PS3, the update process is as follows: push left on the controller a few times until you get to the options menu. Select firmware update. Agree to terms and conditions. Wait a few minutes as PS3 automatically updates itself. Apparently this is esoteric enough to be worth $30 if you can do it.note Admittedly, there are users either without access to high-speed, unlimited Internet, or really as dumb as this trope suggests.
- Best Buy's Geek Squad, or any electronic store that has a computer & electronic department, offers customers to do the most basic things like installing software, running virus checks, or just moving files from the hard drive to a flash drive for a pretty penny. Granted, there are people out there who really have no idea how computers work except the basics (generally the older population that didn't grow up with them), or situations where the user literally can't do these things for themselves (like transferring files off of a computer with a corrupted OS), but even then...
As you can see, it's overly long and filled with subbullets that start by assuming what exactly the thing described on top actually meant, which shortly becomes a rant on the concept of stores allowing you to pay an extra for having someone install and set up your newly-bought PC or console for you.
I think it should be just cut since it has little to nothing to do with what the trope is about.
I was going to take care of this wick for TRS, but this will need to be condensed. From Characters.The Gamers:
- Overprotective Dad: Seems to be this, when he's observing Jee-Han and Sung-Ah "date", which leads to Jee-Han involuntarily learning a skill to sense bloodthirst directed at him. Which only kept getting levels throughout the whole afternoon.
- With the revelation of the nature of Sung-Ah's problem and how she could be exploited, this aspect of his personality is not only perfectly justified, but comes off less as hilarious and more as tragic.
- So much so, that when her daughter is captured by The Company, one of the most powerful factions in Korea, he goes out to take all of them on at once without thinking twice. If it weren't for the Eight Sealing Pillars weakening him, he would have destroyed them all with relative ease.
- With the revelation of the nature of Sung-Ah's problem and how she could be exploited, this aspect of his personality is not only perfectly justified, but comes off less as hilarious and more as tragic.

Someone added this on Miracle Musical:
- Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: "Labyrinth" is a rap song featuring two guest singers, telling a story about a guy trying to hide from his relationships. It stands in heavy contrast to the calmer, more quiet tone most other songs have. Nothing from "Labyrinth" ever comes up again in the album.
- However the song does continue the story, as Simon is battling with his regret and loss from earlier in the album as he's trapped in a labyrinth of grief.
The nature of the album (a bunch of songs that are thematically similar, but it's unclear whether they're connected) makes it prone to Wild Mass Guessing, and I'm guessing this is another case of someone trying to string together a whole story from it. I do think "Labyrinth" qualifies for its utter musical shift, rapping, and more blatant lyrics, and I've seen people say the same. Permission to cut the natter?Edited by Grotadmorv on May 6th 2023 at 11:53:21 AM
Make it so we never die, and take the pain away