Our Nymphs Are Prettier -- name concerns

Our Nymphs Are Prettier is a newish subtrope of the Our Monsters Are Different family that launched some time ago. It's by and large a workable trope, but I have some concerns regarding its name.

My understanding is that, generally speaking, "clever" Snowclones aren't really a good way of naming new tropes. In the case of Our Monsters Are Different and its variants, I'm under the impression that only the second word should be swapped out with whatever term is appropriate for its case — the point of these tropes is to analyze how a given type of creatures are portrayed in fiction, and messing around with the name leads to confusion and to examples that don't focus on what the trope is supposed to be about.

Our Gods Are Greater got renamed to Our Gods Are Different for this precise reason — the name apparently led people to assume that it was about in-universe cases where some sort of divine conflict or rivalry was going on. Likewise, Our Elves Are Better has a marked tendency to attract examples that focus only on wether a work acts like its elves are objectively "better" that other species in some manner. There's definitely a history of this sort of names causing problems.

In this case, there's also the issue that nymphs' physical appearance is only a secondary focus in both the trope description and the examples. In this case, it seems to me that it's like naming Our Dragons Are Different to "Our Dragons Are Greedier" or somesuch — it reflects a part of their usual portrayals, sure, but it's overly narrow and doesn't reflect what the trope is actually about.

Also, another reason I'm not that comfortable with this particular case is that the draft was in fact titled Our Nymphs Are Different for most of its history, but the sponsor changed the title to its current one without discussion and launched the trope maybe fifteen minutes later.

Edited by Theriocephalus on Jan 10th 2020 at 7:23:55 AM

Yeah, this should probably be unlaunched and renamed.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

You should've posted in TLP Crash thread

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Maybe, but one could argue there's precedent behind this sort of naming. Nymph OP was following Our Elves Are Better, Our Ghouls Are Creepier, etc. examples. This thread can spur on a TRS thread if you can demonstrate that a great deal of misuse occurs when the template name is edited. I'm pretty sure Our Elves Are Better was posted in the repair shop, but I forgot if there was a decision.

Sure, but the problem here is that it was unilaterally created, not formed from consensus. People had opportunity to give feedback on a different name and approved of it. They were not given a chance to give feedback on this name.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Yeah, but there's also precedent for renaming these tropes — see Our Gods Are Different. The official line on Everything's Worse with Snowclones that permits the "Our Xs Are Different" snowclones also explicitly states that replacing the "Different" isn't allowed. There's also the issue of the last-minute change, which kinda defeats the purpose of having a TLP at all — if there had been a discussion on the subject and people had agreed that "Our Nymphs Are Prettier" was preferable to "Our Nymphs Are Different" that'd be one thing, but there wasn't. The drafter just changed it and launched without input.

Unrelatedly, should I just move this issue to the TLP crash rescue thread? I was under the impression that it was for tropes that had launched prematurely or with multiple issues; this seems more like just an issue with the name, specifically, in a trope that was launched correctly otherwise.

EDIT: Actually, it's occurring to me now that this should probably have been posted on the Trope Repair Shop forum...

Edited by Theriocephalus on Jan 11th 2020 at 10:53:52 AM

Nah, new pages get handled at the Crash Rescue thread, not the TRS. Something similar happened with Mistaken Species Adoption once the sponsor realized it was too similar to another, existent trope.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

although the misused "Our X Are [any word but "different"]" should.

Oh, yeah, if we're doing a batch of them.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

So. Should this conversation be moved somewhere else, or is it fine to stay here? Unrelatedly, should something be done about the trope's name, specifically?

You should've posted in TLP Crash thread

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Aight, I'll bring this up there instead.