NATTER ALERT!

Is it just me or does this example from Damage Control feel a little nattery? Is the second bulletpoint just adding additional details or is it so different that it makes the example self-contradictory? I can kind of see both. (With that said, I think "Just to clear up a few myths here" could go. To me, it reads the same as "Actually, the way it should be is...") If not, you can just ignore this. If it is, does anyone have any suggestions on removing the natter? The example is a bit lengthy.

Edited by Diesel on Jan 10th 2024 at 11:41:29 AM

yeesh, "just to clear up a few myths here" on a separate sub-bullet reeks of natter; find a way to combine any actual information from the sub-bullet into the example and yeet the rest. Something along the lines of "this was an advantage of the American Navy (though not to the extent people think)".

Edited by ReginaldOgron5 on Jan 10th 2024 at 2:40:15 AM

Right. Here's my attempt to fix things up:

• In World War II, superior damage control was one of the US Navy's major advantages compared to the Imperial Japanese Navy, though not to the extent people may think. Both sides started the war with relatively comparable damage control capabilities, with their own strengths and weaknesses. However, the US was much faster at addressing their weaknesses. The USN focused on standardization, spread new ideas and techniques, offered more cross-training so more crew could pitch in for repairs, and incorporated more redundancies, altogether making their ships more and more durable. In fact, US damage control measures were so good that the Japanese sometimes mistook enemy ships they previously hit as other ships because they could not conceive of them being able to survive. Meanwhile, the Japanese took a lot longer to adapt and innovate, partly due to the notoriously hierarchical culture of the Japanese Navy,^note Crew beatings were not uncommon, sometimes to the point where the poor sap had to be hospitalized, partly due to each ship's design flaws,^note Such as in the sinking of Shinano. and partly due to the emphasis on specialization. While very well-trained, crews were trained for one specific ship and one role on that ship. As the IJN lost more ships, the crews were either lost with the ships or taken off duty altogether, meaning the knowledge they COULD gained from those losses was never utilized.

much better, .

Never thought I would come back to this trope, but here I am at No Dub for You:

• BlazBlue: Central Fiction. Notably the first game in the series to not be dubbed at all (excluding XBlaze; see its entry below).
  • Not helping is the fact that the Massive Multiplayer Crossover Spin-Off BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle, did have a dub, making some feel like it was rubbing salt in the wound for those who wanted a dub for Central Fiction. However, Naoto Kurogane and Susano'o, both characters introduced in Central Fiction, were given English dubs for their appearances in Cross Tag Battle.

I bolded the sub-bulleted part since it came off as your typical Natter-y entry, especially at the part when it says "making some feel like it was rubbing salt in the wound for those who wanted a dub for Central Fiction". I think this problem was mentioned on the another thread under a different trope (Tainted by the Preview I think?), but I don't have the link to it. What should we do with this?

Bumping.

Yeet it to the void.

Okay!

Troper Winning Pony just added an example that seems like natter, found at the Housepets! webcomic's M-Z page. The weasel word "potentially" has me thinking it's not okay:

• Real-World Episode: Potentially. The Gallifrax Dimension the crew enters follows the rules of our universe, with seemingly no magic(k) and unanthropomorphic animals, but whether it's meant to be the real world or just a more realistic one is never stated.

Cut this? Let me know, and thanks!

Edited by BoltDMC on Jan 30th 2024 at 4:33:39 AM

It's not natter, but it's definitely against Examples Are Not Arguable.

Thanks! I'll cut citing this thread.

Seems like a candidate for a "played with" instance if "Gallifrax" functions like the real world, though.

Problem is, I know the webcomic arc and it's not certain if this universe qualifies or not. That feels speculative, and I agree with War Jay that the entry violates Examples Are Not Arguable.

Fair, maybe there we have a more fitting trope for this.

There is an entry on Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards that at the very least is both too long and badly indented:

I would suggest cutting it down drastically, to something like:

• The Order of the Stick often comments on this tendency in Dungeons & Dragons:
  • In the commentaries to one of the books, Rich admits that Vaarsuvius is (by level 15 or so) pretty much a living god, capable of single-handedly shaping the outcome of the battle. The plot often conspires to prevent them from having too much of an impact. One being that their particular magic specializations make for the weakest wizard build possible.
  • During the second battle against the Linear Guild, a gnome druid is able to take on half the order and only the cleric Durkon is a match for him. He says to Haely, a rogue: "I have special abilities that are more powerful than your entire class!"
  • During the battle of Azure City, Vaarsuvius contributes more than the rest of the order (except Belkar, who got hold of an at-will fireball attack), only fleeing to an enemy with high magic resistance.
  • Haley and Elan prepare to fight off a handful of soldiers on dinosaurs, when Vaarsivius kills them all with a single spell. "Oh yeah. Wizard."
  • In another of the books, the Order (who are based on D&D 3.5e) meet and fight their 4e counterparts. When V realises that mages had been nerfed for class balance, they opine that wizardry would quickly die out in the 4e world, as nobody would commit to years of study when they could become just as powerful by "bumming around in a bad neighbourhood", that is to say, becoming a rogue. Cut to Harry Potter throwing away his wand and going to steal some cigarettes.

Is there another trope where the "optimal use of spells looks boring" bit could go?

Bringing these up from Spotlight-Stealing Squad. These are very natter-y.

• Hockey Night In Canada, due to various licensing agreements with teams and broadcast agreements, was widely seen as "The Toronto Maple Leafs Show" with the occasional spinoff "The Montreal Canadiens and Someone Else". This problem eased significantly when the show went to a two-game format, the later game finally allowing the western Canadian teams to get regular national airtime.
  • It's STILL the "Toronto Maple Leafs Show", not just on Hockey Night but on every Canadian-produced sports show/channel, because essentially all of Canada's English-language media is located in Toronto and they hammer that fact in every single moment they can.
  • A fun game is to take a shot for every time the Toronto Maple Leafs are mentioned during a game they are not even in! Even more irritating is during the playoffs in years they don't qualify, or are already eliminated (they haven't won a playoff series since before the 2004-05 lockout, and failed to qualify for seven years in a row and ten out of eleven afterward). That certainly does not stop HNiC from bringing them up.
• After Favre's (final) retirement, the media fixated on Tim Tebow in the same way. Before his first snap with the Denver Broncos, he was dominating gobs of coverage on SportsCenter and other programs pretty much entirely because of his outspoken personal views... but networks took it to the point where every move Tebow made was being obsessively followed by cameramen, even when he wasn't saying a word to them. It got to the point where, during the 2011 season, pre-season starting QB Kyle Orton was eventually released by the Denver Broncos to allow Tebow to take over at quarterback — not necessarily because Tebow was better, but because the fans stole Orton's spotlight for Tebow.
  • Tebow's situation was actually pretty similar to Anna Kournikova's, of all people. A solid competitor but hampered by serious flaws (weak arm, can't handle speed of NFL/bad control, injury-prone), came along at exactly the right time (fans looking for a role model in troubled league/Internet just starting to really take off) became insanely popular among a certain section of the fanbase (evangelicals/horndogs), genuinely tried to improve, couldn't, finally hit rock bottom (0-7, 1 interception, 0.0 passer rating/clobbered in first round of US Open), and quickly faded into obscurity with little fanfare. There were other openly devoutly Christian QBs before (Kurt Warner and Jon Kitna), during (Philip Rivers) and since (Russell Wilson) Tebow's tenure. but none captured the imagination of the faithful on the basis of his faith like Tebow.
  • And just as Tebow's career flamed out, Johnny Manziel came onto the scene—essentially Tebow 2.0, as both QBs are known more for their ability to scramble than for their passing ability, played in the SEC in college, won a Heisman Trophy earlier in their college careers than anyone before ^* Tebow was the first to win the Heisman as a sophomore; Manziel was the first to do it as a freshman, and are white. While there are some differences (Tebow wasn't quite as undersized as Manziel, but had less arm strength), the similarities have been repeatedly lampshaded.

• Brazil has a football obsession to religious levels - though the Olympics and volleyball also get some love. And nationwide press basically just pays attention to the big 4 of both Rio and São Paulo (being the biggest two cities/states and the headquarters of the big media companies helps the other states being treated as a Flyover Country), getting even worse if one of those 8 hires a big name player or wins a major championship.
  • Things are a bit worse than that. There are 2 teams from that group that gets even more attention. Flamengo and Corinthians are really popular and won some titles but that turns every single national sports news into 45% to each of those teams and 10% to the other "Big Ones".
  • You're talking about Stealing Spotlight in Brazilian soccer without talking about Neymar?

Edited by DongwaChan on Feb 4th 2024 at 10:31:28 AM

Found some nattery stuff in the World War III article on the section regarding EndWar:

• Tom Clancy's EndWar is based on World War III where the United States, European Federation, and Russia go at each others' throats for what appears to be a European Kill Sat shooting down a US spacecraft carrying the final components for a US military space station without warning. This provokes the US into declaring war on the Federation, shortly followed by Russia declaring war on the Federation as well to "liberate the oppressed states of Eastern Europe"... only for the US to declare war on them as well in response to their sudden expansionism. What actually happened is that when the US and Europe jointly created an orbital missile shield that automatically eliminates any and all ICBMs in flight (thus making a nuclear war kinda problematic), Russia perceived it was only a matter of time until the two superpowers team up to get Russia's oil and natural gas supplies. Therefore, they hired a bunch of terrorists to attack all three factions and planted false evidence that the Federation did it. The US bought the bait alright and the last spark was provided by Spetznaz commandoes disguised as terrorists uploading a virus into the missile shield that made it mistake the US spacecraft as an ICBM targeting Paris. The rest is history - and logically, neither side wanted to needlessly escalate the situation so the missile shield was left in place to make sure no one nukes the others. The whole game is fought with conventional warfare.
  • Obviously because, while just nuking everything would be instantly gratifying, it would get old fast.
    • Actually, we still get WMDs. It's just that they only become available 5 minutes before the end of a match, and they aren't actually nukes: the US gets a satellite-launched kinetic kill vehicle, Europe gets to fire one of the missile shield satellites' laser and Russia gets a thermobaric warhead.

Are the sub-bullets cuttable?

Yep.

Reeks of Thread Mode. Cut.

++

Cut those sub-bullets.

Already zorched the sub-bullets yesterday.

Edited by Jalpo99 on Feb 11th 2024 at 4:32:59 AM

This string on DoubleEntendre.Advertising (already a mess of a page due to people moving Radar misuse onto this page wholesale without regards for context) has always bugged me. It stops even being about the company name.

• Wang Computers embraced the double entendre produced by their company name, airing commercials urging consumers to "play with their Wangs".
  • In an issue of the Badger comic, Mavis destroys Ham's computer, at which he says, "I hope you're satisified Madam! Now I no longer have the biggest Wang in town!"
  • Everybody Wang Chung Tonight!

• Do you like my Wang?
• Similarly, the Wang linker (named of course after the Chinese researcher who pioneered it) is a linking group in solid-state organic catalysis. Guaranteed to raise giggles among chemistry undergraduates when it comes up in lectures.
• Wang tiles are studied by some geometers and logicians.
• A man in the Netherlands made a rather modest museum to Wang computers. What did he call it? Why, the Small Wang Museum, of course!
• Incidentally, though Wang Computers no longer exists, the name lives on as the name of the Wang Theatre in Boston, which led to it being used in a punchline in a local morning DJ's comedy sketch about "Viagra: the Musical".
• And then there is the story about them trying to rename their support system Wang Care

Day one of rename

Operator: Good morning Wang Care, how can I help.

Caller: Who the *#£! are you calling Wangcare.

—————————————————————————-

Day 2 - Name change

This entry from Unnecessary Makeover (and the correspoding one on YMMV.The Breakfast Club) feels way too long and complainy (and word cruft-y). Only the second sentence describes the actual trope (character gets a makeover that supposedly makes them prettier, but the audience prefers the original look). The rest just feels unnecessary.

• Allison Reynolds, Ally Sheedy's character in The Breakfast Club has this happen to her. Many people just find her cuter as the "Basket Case", with her post-makeover look being intensely awkward and dated-looking, frequently compared to The Stepford Wives. It's one of the most famous examples in movies, but it's also a rather misunderstood element — in the film, Allison is a closet Attention Whore, whose behaviors and manner of dress is meant to draw attention to herself without having to ask for it or acknowledge that she's lonely. She's a loner with no friends, not a Goth or Emo kid who dresses as a way of self-expression or identifying with people like her. Her makeover is partially about accepting affection and kindness from another person (the Alpha Bitch Claire, in this case), and partially about openly acknowledging that she wants attention and human interaction by tucking back her hair and changing her concealing make-up and clothing. A lot of fans also miss that the pink clothes post-makeover was something Alison already owned and had on underneath (which was confirmed by the film's costume designer). That said, it probably isn't great when even Ally Sheedy reportedly found the entire thing "uncomfortable."

• The Breakfast Club: Many people find Allison Reynolds cuter as the "Basket Case" with her post-makeover look being intensely awkward and dated-looking, frequently compared to The Stepford Wives.

The trimmed down entry looks way better. The other information is interesting, but should really be its own example for another trope.

Only the first example actually describes an advertisement for the computers, so the rest need to be cut.

This may also be nitpicky but the company was called Wang Laboratories from what I can tell. That makes me think the tropers were going off of secondhand jokes that weren't 100% true to reality. The last example reads entirely like a joke and not something that actually happened, for example.

I took a better look at the trope pages for this movie, thinking how better to split this entry, but it looks like this information is already present elsewhere. Deconstructed Character Archetype mentions that Allison's eccentric persona is just a call for attention, her character page has an Attention Whore entry, Creator Backlash talks about the actress being uncomfortable with the makeover, and Misaimed Fandom talks about what it symbolizes. So yeah. Completely redundant.