Crediting the OP to Ayumi-Chan

Girlish Pigtails is supposed to denote a girl being youthful/girly via pigtails. But I noticed that some of the examples are simply "this girl has pigtails".

Here's the Wick Check (with organization help from the amazing Yindee) and the results:

• Just has pigtails - (27/63)
• Seems valid - (13/63)
• ZCE - (15/63)
• Unsure - (8/63)

Possible solutions:

1. Disambig the trope
2. Rename and/or rewrite the trope

~Tropers/Ayumi-Chan

No to disambiguating as this is a valid trope and no to rewriting because the description describes the trope adequately.

As for renaming... honestly, I am not sure if the name is the problem here as it does describe the trope. I think this just normal decay most appearance tropes face.

If renaming is really necessary, maybe Youthful Pigtails.

Edited by MacronNotes on Apr 2nd 2023 at 2:55:07 PM

Cleanup, and if necessary, rename.

Can't come up with something other than cleanup.

If all we need is cleanup, does this really need TRS? Especially with that wick count.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Apr 2nd 2023 at 2:59:14 PM

I also favor cleanup.

Well, we accept threads that have wick checks that shows a clear problem + a course of action. There's no way to tell which course of action we'd go for beforehand.

Edited by MacronNotes on Apr 2nd 2023 at 3:01:02 PM

I'm all for a cleanup. This hairstyle trope can stay since it fits characterization rather than just being chairs.

I agree that pigtails being associated with young girls is absolutely a trope. I think the problems faced by this one are due to its age.

One benefit of a rename would be being able to track cleanup via wick count, but I am having trouble coming up with a better word than "girlish".

Probably something like Pigtails Of Girliness.

to cleanup, partly because I feel the idea is salvageable.

What about Girly Childish Pigtails or Girly Childlike Pigtails to get the young/immature aspect into the name?

This is definitely a trope. I suppose cleanup is the only thing we can do here.

Rename and clean up. The names badtothebaritone and Hello suggested might work, though I'm leaning toward putting the adjective(s) after "Pigtails" with a word like "Mean(s)", "Equal(s)", or "Indicate(s)" between them (or maybe we could just go with "Of" like what badtothebaritone suggested), since I feel that would get the point across about what the hairstyle indicates about the character instead of simply being about the hairstyle on its own. I can't currently think of a way to use wording like this that wouldn't sound clunky, though.

Either way, I do agree that this is a valid Meaningful Appearance trope, and the problem is that people are missing the Meaningful part.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Apr 2nd 2023 at 3:44:44 AM

I don't think renaming is going to solve the issue as Girlish Pigtails already compared youth and girliness which is what the trope is about. People are still going to use the trope for any character with pigtails so I think a rename would be lateral at best. I just think appearance inherently attract misuse and ZCE examples at higher rates than other tropes no matter how clearly they are named (obviously non indicative names still need to be fixed).

Edited by MacronNotes on Apr 2nd 2023 at 5:03:35 AM

Agreed. Like I said, I don’t think this needs TRS, just a cleanup.

Then wouldn't a Projects thread for appearance tropes make more sense than TRS if we're only cleaning it up? It could also cover other cases of people missing the Meaningful part of Meaningful Appearance, which affects more than this trope.

I think I'm in favor of just closing this thread in favor of a Long-Term Projects thread.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Apr 2nd 2023 at 4:19:03 AM

You mean like the old one, or a different one?