The bulk update request #10361 is pending approval.

remove alias alternative_species (0) -> alternate_species (38291)
remove alias species_swap (0) -> alternate_species (38291)
remove implication dragonification (272) -> alternate_species (38291)
remove implication furrification (8822) -> alternate_species (38291)
remove implication humanized (3807) -> alternate_species (38291)

Reason: With the alternate_form to lore BUR currently deadlocked, I'd like to propose something more specific in the meantime.

Relevant supporting evidence:

wiki says:
This applies when different species are shown in contrast to a character's normal species.

Help: Lore Tags says:
The main purpose for lore tags is twofold:

1.) Provide information impossible to be covered by TWYS
2.) Correct information that TWYS is providing incorrectly

As such, Lore tags are entirely outside of the realm of TWYS, and are not subject to the TWYS limitation of needing to be visually verifiable within the submission itself. Instead, lore tags are supposed to complement shortcomings of TWYS to provide information that is either incorrect when following TWYS, or simply isn't visual information at all, but still relevant to the submission.

A character's "normal species" is dependent on information impossible to be covered by TWYS. By the definitions of the tag and of lore tags' purpose and use, this tag should be lore.

Thus far, the primary argument against converting the broader alternate_form to lore is that it could invite controversy and subjectivity in the case of crossgender and alternate_age. I do not believe this applies in the case of alternate_species, which should be objective. If you disagree, please provide an example of a specific extant post where changing this tag to lore would create more problems than keeping it as a general tag would.

Regardless, the fact remains that this tag is a walking TWYS violation, so something needs to be done about it. If it shouldn't be converted to lore, I can see only three other reasonable possibilities:
1. Retire the tag (i.e. make it an invalid_tag)
2. Convert the tag to meta
3. Revise tagging policy to carve out exceptions to TWYS for certain tags such as these.

I don't believe that any these options are better than making it lore.

The bulk update request #10362 is pending approval.

Reason: Second part.

Apparently alias #63542 already attempted this and is locking up the alternate_species_(lore) name, but has been silent for over a year.

It feels weird to me to lore-ify these because... well, let's just take an arbitrary example:
post #5277800
rick_sanchez + furrification
In order to even tag rick_sanchez in the first place, you'd have to know who that is, so you'd already know he's a human. "Furrification" doesn't require any more "lore" knowledge than normal tagging of the character already does inherently. In fact, it's not just characters; it's stuff from franchises in general. Pokeball isn't lore, but it requires some degree of Pokemon knowledge to tag. "Lore" tags are more about the lore started by the artist than a franchise's canon.

crocogator said:
It feels weird to me to lore-ify these because... well, let's just take an arbitrary example:
post #5277800
rick_sanchez + furrification
In order to even tag rick_sanchez in the first place, you'd have to know who that is, so you'd already know he's a human. "Furrification" doesn't require any more "lore" knowledge than normal tagging of the character already does inherently. In fact, it's not just characters; it's stuff from franchises in general. Pokeball isn't lore, but it requires some degree of Pokemon knowledge to tag. "Lore" tags are more about the lore started by the artist than a franchise's canon.

Character tags do not follow TWYS. If a tag requires the same amount of outside knowledge as a character tag, it should not be a general tag.

beholding said:
Character tags do not follow TWYS. If a tag requires the same amount of outside knowledge as a character tag, it should not be a general tag.

So... pokeball, pokemon_egg, pokemon_berry, and sharpedo_bluff should all be lore too?

crocogator said:
So... pokeball, pokemon_egg, pokemon_berry, and sharpedo_bluff should all be lore too?

If you're a TWYS purist, then yes. I can't see any other self-consistent application of TWYS. If not, then official tagging policy needs to be revised to make it clear TWYS is not universal policy for general tags.

It occurs to me, also, that this argument could reasonably be used to justify converting incest back into a general tag; if you know who the characters are, you also know how they're related.

This is rapidly reaching the_treachery_of_images levels of discussion. TWYS ends somewhere before putting chair in lore because you need a non-zero amount of outside information to correctly identify that a collection of pixels is intended to represent one.

regsmutt said:
This is rapidly reaching the_treachery_of_images levels of discussion. TWYS ends somewhere before putting chair in lore because you need a non-zero amount of outside information to correctly identify that a collection of pixels is intended to represent one.

I think fandom-specific information is a justifiable place to draw that line. The average user can be expected to know what a chair is; they cannot be expected to know what species a specific character from a specific copyright is.

To me, I think it makes sense to say that information that the average person could not discern merely from stumbling across the image with no context is reasonable territory for lore. A reader with no knowledge of Rick And Morty who finds that image would not know the character depicted and therefore would not know the image is a furrification. It would be on users who are familiar with the character and source material to provide that information. This is the exact same model for how family relationship tags are implemented, and those are currently lore.

beholding said:
It occurs to me, also, that this argument could reasonably be used to justify converting incest back into a general tag; if you know who the characters are, you also know how they're related.

That... makes a lot of sense to me, to be honest. If we're not going to put a lot of tags that require some degree of external info into lore, removing incest and it's related (heh) tags back to general seems sensible.

beholding said:
I think fandom-specific information is a justifiable place to draw that line. The average user can be expected to know what a chair is; they cannot be expected to know what species a specific character from a specific copyright is.

Hard disagree when it comes to objects. Is the shape of the various animal_genitalia with specific tags knowledge we should expect users to have? Or is it just more specialized knowledge? Should ALL objects/shapes which require specialist/fandom knowledge be lore? The idea of a pokeball_(lore) tag is silly, especially since in a lot of cases it isn't a literal pokeball- it might be a decoration, toy, or sticker.

To me, I think it makes sense to say that information that the average person could not discern merely from stumbling across the image with no context is reasonable territory for lore. A reader with no knowledge of Rick And Morty who finds that image would not know the character depicted and therefore would not know the image is a furrification. It would be on users who are familiar with the character and source material to provide that information. This is the exact same model for how family relationship tags are implemented, and those are currently lore.

I'm kinda neutral to this point. It IS background/artist intent information, but it also doesn't necessarily change character dynamics or how you're supposed to interpret the image the way incest tags or gender_(lore) tags do. It's more of a genre of ways to portray or play with a character in a way that's kind of a grey area between general, lore, and meta. There isn't really a problem with it being in general- it's not like gender_(lore) tags where the alternative breaks how gender tags are used. The biggest issue with alternative form/species stuff is when a character is a shapeshifter or transformed. This is when it might be useful to point out that, in lore, this character is NOT actually the species they currently look like.

I agree that moving fandom-specific objects to lore feels a bit extreme, but at the same time I can't provide an argument for why it feels wrong that's self-consistent with TWYS policy. Like you say, we do have to draw a line somewhere, but the exact location of that line is going to be subjective.

I'm kinda neutral to this point. It IS background/artist intent information, but it also doesn't necessarily change character dynamics or how you're supposed to interpret the image the way incest tags or gender_(lore) tags do. It's more of a genre of ways to portray or play with a character in a way that's kind of a grey area between general, lore, and meta. There isn't really a problem with it being in general- it's not like gender_(lore) tags where the alternative breaks how gender tags are used. The biggest issue with alternative form/species stuff is when a character is a shapeshifter or transformed. This is when it might be useful to point out that, in lore, this character is NOT actually the species they currently look like.

My issue with leaving it as general has less to do with whether it's strictly necessary for understanding the post and more to do with the broader ramifications of it eroding TWYS. Currently, TWYS is stated to be the default and universal for general tags. If we have general tags that violate TWYS, it makes it harder to explain how TWYS works and makes it more likely users will ignore or misunderstand it. For that reason, I think it's wise to keep edge cases like this to a minimum.

I wouldn't be opposed to moving it to a meta tag instead, though I feel that's a poorer fit based on the meta tags we currently have. crossover being meta is the closest thing to a compatible precedent, but most genre tags aren't meta.

(Could the last case you describe be satisfied through a shapeshifter_(lore) tag?)

The main reason I see against lore-ifying these alternate_species/form and crossgender tags is that lore tags are ultimately up to the artist/creator. If an artist says two characters aren't related, incest_(lore) doesn't apply full-stop. If an artist says a character is trans, trans_(lore) applies full-stop. alternate_species doesn't work this way; if an artist says n_(pokemon) was a zoroark but they're depicting them as a human, would alternate_species apply to them as a human? That's not the intention of the tag. But ignoring the artist's say-so isn't how lore tags are supposed to work.

At the same time, alternate_species and others don't really fit TWYS, either. It depends on knowing things about a character that's not shown in the image. Just as we can't tag male for a character we know is male but appears ambiguous, we shouldn't tag based on knowing a character is normally one species but appears as another.

Yeah, I really don't like these kind of tags in general - they're just not TWYS, and having exceptions harms the concept as a whole.

watsit said:
The main reason I see against lore-ifying these alternate_species/form and crossgender tags is that lore tags are ultimately up to the artist/creator. If an artist says two characters aren't related, incest_(lore) doesn't apply full-stop. If an artist says a character is trans, trans_(lore) applies full-stop. alternate_species doesn't work this way; if an artist says n_(pokemon) was a zoroark but they're depicting them as a human, would alternate_species apply to them as a human? That's not the intention of the tag. But ignoring the artist's say-so isn't how lore tags are supposed to work.

If we follow the precedent set by the incest_(lore) case, alternate_species would apply, but I agree that feels wrong and runs contrary to how most people use the tag. I think the particular case you describe is pretty niche, though, and is more relevant to the "how do we handle shapeshifters" question.

Would making it a meta tag avoid the need to tag it for these "This is an AU where this character is a shapeshifter, but in this artwork they're presenting as their canon species" cases?

crocogator said:
It feels weird to me to lore-ify these because... well, let's just take an arbitrary example:
post #5277800
rick_sanchez + furrification
In order to even tag rick_sanchez in the first place, you'd have to know who that is, so you'd already know he's a human. "Furrification" doesn't require any more "lore" knowledge than normal tagging of the character already does inherently. In fact, it's not just characters; it's stuff from franchises in general.

Counterpoint is that general tags are twys while character tags are far more lenient
Unless of course you're suggesting a move to character category

beholding said:

Would making it a meta tag avoid the need to tag it for these "This is an AU where this character is a shapeshifter, but in this artwork they're presenting as their canon species" cases?

I think everyone would be more dissatisfied with it as a meta tag

snpthecat said:
I think everyone would be more dissatisfied with it as a meta tag

I'd be happier with it in literally any category other than general and artist.

I wouldn't like it in the meta category. That's basically saying "it doesn't make sense in these categories, so put it in this category that it also doesn't make sense in." It's probably best to just leave it as it is until someone can make a compelling case that it does belong in another category.

beholding said:
Would making it a meta tag avoid the need to tag it for these "This is an AU where this character is a shapeshifter, but in this artwork they're presenting as their canon species" cases?

That is definitely worse than either lore or general
Hell, I'd accept it as a character before meta

scth said:
I'd be happier with it in literally any category other than general and artist.

Wait why artist? And you'll be fine with contributor or invalid?

snpthecat said:
Wait why artist? And you'll be fine with contributor or invalid?

Forgot we had the contributor category, and artist would be even more obviously wrong then general. Invalid would at least fix the problem.

I think I should make an attempt to clarify what exactly "do not tag according to external information" means.

If you wanted to interpret that statement very literally, you wouldn’t even be able to tag a chair because you need to know what a chair is (external knowledge). This whole discussion seems to be centered around acknowledging that this would be going too far and figuring out where to draw the line instead. So, perhaps I can rephrase the statement in a way that makes it clearer what (I believe) its actual intent was.

"Do not apply tags for things that are not discernible within the artwork itself on the basis of external knowledge of what it’s supposed to be."

A bit verbose, but maybe clearer. This doesn’t say anything about what kinds of tags you can use or what they can be for. It’s about how and when the tags can be used.

- you can’t tag a post as male if the character appears ambiguous just because the character is known or supposed to be male. That’s using a tag according to external knowledge since it isn’t evident within the post itself.

- if you have character a, who is normally a dragon, but has temporarily shape-shifted into a bird, you cannot tag the post as dragon even if that is the character’s canonical species. That’s external knowledge that is not discernible within the artwork.

- This post, however, can be tagged as alternate_species because you have:
1. The character visible in the post
2. The species visible in the post
3. The species is different than the character’s known species

The last point could be considered external knowledge, but that’s not a TWYS violation. You’re not tagging the character’s known species - THIS would be tagging something that isn’t visible in the artwork based on external knowledge. The fact that there is a character being depicted as a different species visible within the post is not external information. You can see that right there in the post. You do have to know what the character’s original species is in order to tag that, but that goes back to the chair thing. You have to know what anything is in order to tag it.

So as far as I can tell, this tag is fine as-is

spe said:
The last point could be considered external knowledge, but that’s not a TWYS violation. You’re not tagging the character’s known species - THIS would be tagging something that isn’t visible in the artwork based on external knowledge. The fact that there is a character being depicted as a different species visible within the post is not external information. You can see that right there in the post. You do have to know what the character’s original species is in order to tag that, but that goes back to the chair thing.

Wouldn't this then mean a character that's known to be, say, a herm but you can't see their vagina so get tagged gynomorph, should then be tagged htg_crossgender? Or a character we know to be a (femboy) male, but we can't see their crotch and gets tagged flat_chested female (or a feral male scalie with a genital_slit that looks like a pussy, and gets tagged female), should be tagged mtf_crossgender? It seems it's still dependent on intent/external knowledge that can't be discerned by the image itself, even taking knowledge of the character into account.

watsit said:
Wouldn't this then mean a character that's known to be, say, a herm but you can't see their vagina so get tagged gynomorph, should then be tagged htg_crossgender? Or a character we know to be a (femboy) male, but we can't see their crotch and gets tagged flat_chested female (or a feral male scalie with a genital_slit that looks like a pussy, and gets tagged female), should be tagged mtf_crossgender? It seems it's still dependent on intent/external knowledge that can't be discerned by the image itself, even taking knowledge of the character into account.

I think that currently the general concencus is that the character needs to be explicitly drawn off-model to be applicable for any alternate-type tag.

I do remember way back, prior to lore, it was used in the way described but that's real dangerous imo.

dba_afish said:
I think that currently the general concencus is that the character needs to be explicitly drawn off-model to be applicable for any alternate-type tag.

So we can basically no longer use htg crossgender?

snpthecat said:
So we can basically no longer use htg crossgender?

yeah, I think a lot of the current population probably should be herm_(lore) instead.

dba_afish said:
I think that currently the general concencus is that the character needs to be explicitly drawn off-model to be applicable for any alternate-type tag.

That's what's meant by artist/creator intent, which is expressly in the realm or lore/non-TWYS tagging. As spe was saying,

The fact that there is a character being depicted as a different species visible within the post is not external information. You can see that right there in the post. You do have to know what the character’s original species is in order to tag that, but that goes back to the chair thing.

Applying this to a character's sex, we can have the scenario where an artist draws a character in a way that appears female when the character is normally gynomorph. The artist could have explicitly drawn them female instead of gynomorph, or it could be incidental due to not being able to see the character's bulge or penis (out of frame, behind a couch or some boxes, or loose clothing). It looks exactly the same regardless, meaning gtf_crossgender would apply based on the intent of the artist.

Or if we want to keep it in the realm of species, we can have a character that's normally depicted as some ambiguous canine. One artist thinks it's a fox and intentionally draws them as a fox, another draws them ambiguously canine but the art style makes them appear fox-like, so they're both tagged fox. The character's creator comes out and says they're a wolf. Would alternate_species only apply to the first case, where they're explicitly drawn as a non-wolf, and not the second, where it was unintentionally made fox-like, even though they both look like foxes and not wolves? Or would it not apply to either since the artists didn't explicitly draw them as a different species? Or would it apply to both, even though the second didn't intend to make them look like a fox?

Thank you for weighing in, spe. Additional clarification on TWYS policy is helpful.

I do feel like "we expect people to know what a chair is" is an inaccurate comparison here, though. If there's an image of a chair, a chair is objectively in the image, the only obstacle to tagging it is knowing what a chair is. (This is, I think, a fair argument for keeping fictional objects like pokeball as general tags.) But in an alternate_species post, the character's original species is not "right there in the post"; it relies totally on bringing in external knowledge of what the character's species is supposed to be. (I'm thinking largely of posts like the Rick Sanchez furrification example upthread, rather than shapeshifters, which are a more complicated issue.) As others have said, if you're allowed to bring in knowledge of the character's original species, you should be allowed to bring in knowledge of the character's sex as well, but the latter is explicitly not allowed by current policy. This inconsistency ought to be resolved somehow.

Something did occur to me recently. The commissioner > artist > creator hierarchy established by trans_(lore) was done so because gender identity and misgendering are sensitive issues and it's therefore very important to respect the artist's intent, yes? alternate_species doesn't have the same baggage, so I believe there's less risk in using the creator as the sole reference point, which would simplify some of these cases. This may be an inaccurate assumption, but I doubt that in e.g. the case of an AU where N is a zoroark who's currently presenting human the artist would consider it unreasonable not to tag that with alternate_species.

Or if we want to keep it in the realm of species, we can have a character that's normally depicted as some ambiguous canine. One artist thinks it's a fox and intentionally draws them as a fox, another draws them ambiguously canine but the art style makes them appear fox-like, so they're both tagged fox. The character's creator comes out and says they're a wolf. Would alternate_species only apply to the first case, where they're explicitly drawn as a non-wolf, and not the second, where it was unintentionally made fox-like, even though they both look like foxes and not wolves? Or would it not apply to either since the artists didn't explicitly draw them as a different species? Or would it apply to both, even though the second didn't intend to make them look like a fox?

I can't think of a solution for this one, though. This sounds like a real headache.

beholding said:

Something did occur to me recently. The commissioner > artist > creator hierarchy

I believe you're talking about the takedown hierarchy? It's artist > commissioner ≡ character creator

snpthecat said:
I believe you're talking about the takedown hierarchy? It's artist > commissioner ≡ character creator

no, I think that it's been said several times that the lore tags are to be applied based on artist's statement primarily and without that fall back to commissioner and without that fall back to canon.

it's really more of just, like, an assumption stack, though, and not an actual hierarchy. without the artist's explicit statement we kinda have to assume they'd go with whatever the commissioner said, and without either we'd kind of have to assume they're following canon, unless there's reason to believe otherwise.

dba_afish said:
no, I think that it's been said several times that the lore tags are to be applied based on artist's statement primarily and without that fall back to commissioner and without that fall back to canon.

it's really more of just, like, an assumption stack, though, and not an actual hierarchy. without the artist's explicit statement we kinda have to assume they'd go with whatever the commissioner said, and without either we'd kind of have to assume they're following canon, unless there's reason to believe otherwise.

Oh yeah that's the one

spe said:
I think I should make an attempt to clarify what exactly "do not tag according to external information" means.

"Do not apply tags for things that are not discernible within the artwork itself on the basis of external knowledge of what it’s supposed to be."

- This post, however, can be tagged as alternate_species because you have:
1. The character visible in the post
2. The species visible in the post
3. The species is different than the character’s known species

The last point could be considered external knowledge, but that’s not a TWYS violation. You’re not tagging the character’s known species - THIS would be tagging something that isn’t visible in the artwork based on external knowledge. The fact that there is a character being depicted as a different species visible within the post is not external information. You can see that right there in the post. You do have to know what the character’s original species is in order to tag that, but that goes back to the chair thing. You have to know what anything is in order to tag it.

Let's tackle

3. The species is different than the character’s known species

So how would you decide what is their known species? If let's say the media a character is from shows that character to be a wynaut but gets shown later (end of the media, or dlc, or extra content from artist to social media platform, or random statement on x) to be another species, say zoroark, would depicting them as zoroark or wynaut be alternate species?

Probably not. So let's move on to gender, where ambiguous gender has a bigger foothold. If a character is depicted ambiguously, but is shown later (see previous brackets) to be male, would drawing them as female be crossgender?
Tangential Q: Also what about drawing a character as male whose gender is canonically ambiguous (we can't even tag that as lore :()?

watsit said:
Wouldn't this then mean a character that's known to be, say, a herm but you can't see their vagina so get tagged gynomorph, should then be tagged htg_crossgender? Or a character we know to be a (femboy) male, but we can't see their crotch and gets tagged flat_chested female (or a feral male scalie with a genital_slit that looks like a pussy, and gets tagged female), should be tagged mtf_crossgender? It seems it's still dependent on intent/external knowledge that can't be discerned by the image itself, even taking knowledge of the character into account.

I believe that is how the tags would be used strictly according to TWYS, yes. Of course, most people don’t use it quite that way, and I’m not actually intending to enforce that, but it would be technically correct.

That said, lore tags, at least in part, do exist for situations like this, so it would probably still be fine… lot of people might complain, though, but still. Maybe we ought to have lore tag counterparts for crossgender while keeping the general category tags as-is…

beholding said:
Thank you for weighing in, spe. Additional clarification on TWYS policy is helpful.

I do feel like "we expect people to know what a chair is" is an inaccurate comparison here, though. If there's an image of a chair, a chair is objectively in the image, the only obstacle to tagging it is knowing what a chair is. (This is, I think, a fair argument for keeping fictional objects like pokeball as general tags.) But in an alternate_species post, the character's original species is not "right there in the post"; it relies totally on bringing in external knowledge of what the character's species is supposed to be. (I'm thinking largely of posts like the Rick Sanchez furrification example upthread, rather than shapeshifters, which are a more complicated issue.) As others have said, if you're allowed to bring in knowledge of the character's original species, you should be allowed to bring in knowledge of the character's sex as well, but the latter is explicitly not allowed by current policy. This inconsistency ought to be resolved somehow.

I don’t think this is "bringing in external knowledge" - the original species is still not represented in the tags in any way; only the current species. And this same thing is allowed with gender tags, as that’s exactly what crossgender is for. Let me put it like this:

• you see a chair. You know what a chair is. You tag chair.
• you see Rick Sanchez. You know what Rick Sanchez is. You tag Rick Sanchez.
• you see a wolf. You know what a wolf is. You tag wolf.
• you see a furrified Rick Sanchez. You know what furrified Rick Sanchez is. You tag rick_sanchez furrification.

I don’t think you can make it past point #2 without being able to recognize that Rick Sanchez is not usually a wolf. If you know the character at all, you already know that too. It doesn’t really require any more external knowledge than the character tag itself does.

snpthecat said:
Let's tackle

3. The species is different than the character’s known species

So how would you decide what is their known species? If let's say the media a character is from shows that character to be a wynaut but gets shown later (end of the media, or dlc, or extra content from artist to social media platform, or random statement on x) to be another species, say zoroark, would depicting them as zoroark or wynaut be alternate species?

Probably not. So let's move on to gender, where ambiguous gender has a bigger foothold. If a character is depicted ambiguously, but is shown later (see previous brackets) to be male, would drawing them as female be crossgender?
Tangential Q: Also what about drawing a character as male whose gender is canonically ambiguous (we can't even tag that as lore :()?

Ambiguous gender is in a weird position all its own, though maybe it should get a lore counterpart… or maybe something likecanonically_ambiguous_(lore). That said, I would probably prefer to leave ambiguous out of the crossgender system entirely. If either the "to" or "from" gender is ambiguous, then just don’t tag it as ambiguous. That’s more just my opinion than official policy, though. I don’t know if there’s anything officially decided in that regard.

spe said:
Ambiguous gender is in a weird position all its own, though maybe it should get a lore counterpart… or maybe something likecanonically_ambiguous_(lore). That said, I would probably prefer to leave ambiguous out of the crossgender system entirely. If either the "to" or "from" gender is ambiguous, then just don’t tag it as ambiguous. That’s more just my opinion than official policy, though. I don’t know if there’s anything officially decided in that regard.

yeah, I don't think something like canonically_ambiguous_(lore) is a thing that could logically exist as a tag. a character not having a stated gender is just that, they're effectively in a superposition of all possible states, they're not necessarily a guy or a girl or non-binary they're just nothing, or like, anything, I guess.

it also just seems kinda, like, counter to the entire idea of a character not having a stated gender to give them a lore tag like this. and, with that tagging them with crossgender would also not make sense.

there might be situations where a crossgender might make sense for, like, null characters, but that's an entirely different case from gender ambiguity.

spe said:

• you see a chair. You know what a chair is. You tag chair.
• you see Rick Sanchez. You know what Rick Sanchez is. You tag Rick Sanchez.
• you see a wolf. You know what a wolf is. You tag wolf.
• you see a furrified Rick Sanchez. You know what furrified Rick Sanchez is. You tag rick_sanchez furrification.

I don’t think you can make it past point #2 without being able to recognize that Rick Sanchez is not usually a wolf. If you know the character at all, you already know that too. It doesn’t really require any more external knowledge than the character tag itself does.

As a counterpoint, character tags are largely not TWYS - the guidance I've always seen is to just use what the artist says. Especially for something like alternate_form, the original character wouldn't really be taggable without that. General tags, however, should be. I think this makes point 2 fail, since it's not that you see Rick Sanchez, but you're told that they're there.

Tagging an object from a series, like a pokeball, is supposed to be that you recognize it, but not characters. Not fully, at least.

Also, just realized alternate_form isn't for form (and there seems to be no umbrella for different form). That should be handled.

spe said:
I don’t think this is "bringing in external knowledge" - the original species is still not represented in the tags in any way; only the current species.

It kind of is, though. If you see a character tagged alternate_species wolf, it's telling you the character is originally not a wolf (it may not say exactly what it normally is, but it's something other than a wolf). Even more with crossgender given the subtags, a character tagged ftg_crossgender is saying the character's original sex is female.

spe said:

• you see a chair. You know what a chair is. You tag chair.
• you see Rick Sanchez. You know what Rick Sanchez is. You tag Rick Sanchez.
• you see a wolf. You know what a wolf is. You tag wolf.
• you see a furrified Rick Sanchez. You know what furrified Rick Sanchez is. You tag rick_sanchez furrification.

I don’t think you can make it past point #2 without being able to recognize that Rick Sanchez is not usually a wolf. If you know the character at all, you already know that too. It doesn’t really require any more external knowledge than the character tag itself does.

counterpoint:
post #2357954

• you see a female pikachu. you know what a female pikachu looks like. you tag ambiguous gender because female pikachus having a cleft tail is considered external knowledge.

dba_afish said:
counterpoint:
post #2357954

• you see a female pikachu. you know what a female pikachu looks like. you tag ambiguous gender because female pikachus having a cleft tail is considered external knowledge.

Well you can't tag them as female, but if it has a penis you can tag it as ftm crossgender.

Hmm, so canon_lore and twys goes into the general category, and artist_lore goes into the lore category

snpthecat said:
Well you can't tag them as female, but if it has a penis you can tag it as ftm crossgender.

Can you? Crossgender is supposed to apply to specific characters, not species. E.g. a salazzle with a penis should not be tagged ftm_crossgender, unless it's a specific salazzle character that is normally depicted female. Same for a female rathalos not being mtf_crossgender. I don't see a species' sexual dimorphic features working differently here as it creates the same confusion: for example, someone creates a male pikachu character that has a cleft tail. If they're depicted as female, they would be mtf_crossgender, but depicted as a male they shouldn't be ftm_crossgender since they were created male, otherwise the character could never not be crossgender.

snpthecat said:
Well you can't tag them as female, but if it has a penis you can tag it as ftm crossgender.

Hmm, so canon_lore and twys goes into the general category, and artist_lore goes into the lore category

I think I'd be more inclined to tag a pikachu that displays mismatched sexual dimorphism like this with trans_(lore) or intersex_(lore) or maybe gynomorph_(lore).

I mean, _I_ think we should just consider sexual dimorphism of fictional species the same as that of real animals when tagging gender (at least for ferals/semi-anthro). but every time I say that I get shut down, so...

watsit said:
Can you? Crossgender is supposed to apply to specific characters, not species. E.g. a salazzle with a penis should not be tagged ftm_crossgender, unless it's a specific salazzle character that is normally depicted female. Same for a female rathalos not being mtf_crossgender. I don't see a species' sexual dimorphic features working differently here as it creates the same confusion: for example, someone creates a male pikachu character that has a cleft tail. If they're depicted as female, they would be mtf_crossgender, but depicted as a male they shouldn't be ftm_crossgender since they were created male, otherwise the character could never not be crossgender.

I mean, using the logic spe has set out.
The system would have character_lore>canon_lore, so if the character is established male, the canon wouldn't come into effect, but if it's a random pikachu, canon wouldn't take over since there is no character lore. So in your scenario it can be tagged mtf but not ftm.

Now where this gets dicey is what if the random pikachu becomes an established character with lore? does it retroactively make their previous appearances no longer ftm? hmmm.
Same with the furrified rick sanchez example. If they make them distinct enough from the original, and a consistent and repeating character, does it make them that artist's character? If so, since they're (somewhat) their own character, does it mean past (or at least future) appearances are no longer furrification? In a manner similar to fexa_(cryptiacurves). Or are all derivatives of a character always that character (with the original character's lore), and shouldn't have a separate tag?

dba_afish said:
I think I'd be more inclined to tag a pikachu that displays mismatched sexual dimorphism like this with trans_(lore) or intersex_(lore) or maybe gynomorph_(lore).

I mean, _I_ think we should just consider sexual dimorphism of fictional species the same as that of real animals when tagging gender (at least for ferals/semi-anthro). but every time I say that I get shut down, so...

Though one problem is that lore tags are for the artist only, and they could disagree.

snpthecat said:
Same with the furrified rick sanchez example. If they make them distinct enough from the original, and a consistent and repeating character, does it make them that artist's character? If so, since they're (somewhat) their own character, does it mean past (or at least future) appearances are no longer furrification? In a manner similar to fexa_(cryptiacurves). Or are all derivatives of a character always that character (with the original character's lore), and shouldn't have a separate tag?

AFAIK, as long as it's still considered the original character, it's tagged as that character and not some fan name (see all the gender- and species-swapped or "evil twin" character names that have been aliased to their original characters' tag). Fan interpretations of characters becoming their own characters should only happen when they're no longer considered the character they were based on, so nothing of the original character would apply if not specified for the new character. So for the furrified rick sanchez example, if someone made an interpretation of him as an anthro wolf, called him Mick Lanchez, and distinguished him enough to be considered a separate character, he wouldn't be tagged rick_sanchez or furrified, since Mick is normally a furry and wasn't furrified into one. If he's still close enough to be considered rick_sanchez, then furrified would apply and he wouldn't be tagged mick_lanchez since he's rick_sanchez.

snpthecat said:
Though one problem is that lore tags are for the artist only, and they could disagree.

we do have an actual mismatched_sexual_dimorphism tag which seems to be applicable to fictional species as well. and, I guess, if it appears that the pikachu has GAS scars on their tail visibly_trans might still be applicable if trans_(lore) isn't, although that seems somewhat unlikely...

spe said:
I don’t think this is "bringing in external knowledge" - the original species is still not represented in the tags in any way; only the current species. And this same thing is allowed with gender tags, as that’s exactly what crossgender is for. Let me put it like this:

• you see a chair. You know what a chair is. You tag chair.
• you see Rick Sanchez. You know what Rick Sanchez is. You tag Rick Sanchez.
• you see a wolf. You know what a wolf is. You tag wolf.
• you see a furrified Rick Sanchez. You know what furrified Rick Sanchez is. You tag rick_sanchez furrification.

I don’t think you can make it past point #2 without being able to recognize that Rick Sanchez is not usually a wolf. If you know the character at all, you already know that too. It doesn’t really require any more external knowledge than the character tag itself does.

In addition to the points others have made re: character tags not following TWYS in the first place, I feel this contradicts the reasoning for incest being lore. If a character's species is reasonable information to include in general tags, then their family relations should be as well.

Fundamentally, incest and alternate_form seem to be operating under mutually exclusive assumptions about what does and doesn't belong in a general tag. I think this warrants critical examination of whether incest and family tags should remain lore, and why.

I agree with Beholding here. It's not at all clear what the difference is. If you argue that alternate_species is fine as general because you can recognize the character and know their original species, the exact same thing would apply to relations.

scth said:
If you argue that alternate_species is fine as general because you can recognize the character and know their original species, the exact same thing would apply to relations.

FWIW, I don't think alternate_species is fine as general, because it relies on knowing the character's original species which isn't TWYS. However, I don't think it works for lore either, because it relies on both the character's canon species and their current visible species, ignoring what the creator might say or intend for any given image. Neither is good, but it needs to be somewhere since it's a useful tag. It's currently in general, so I think there would need to be a good argument to say it's better in another category to move it.

I think the difference is that human vs a furry is explicit and visible. It's less-so with relations. Canon relationships in long-running, often rebooted series can and do change, and are sometimes left up-to-interpretation (both on purpose and on accident). Even when a relationship is stable in canon, it's less visually obvious when an artist is taking that into consideration or not.

watsit said:
FWIW, I don't think alternate_species is fine as general, because it relies on knowing the character's original species which isn't TWYS. However, I don't think it works for lore either, because it relies on both the character's canon species and their current visible species, ignoring what the creator might say or intend for any given image. Neither is good, but it needs to be somewhere since it's a useful tag. It's currently in general, so I think there would need to be a good argument to say it's better in another category to move it.

For species in particular, it's also not entirely TWYS - 'what the artist says' is generally the species to tag, outside of cases where it's obviously wrong. Others are trickier though, like aged_up.
I also don't know if there's a better category, but it's hard to argue against tags on the basis of them having to be TWYS when tags like this exist.

regsmutt said:
I think the difference is that human vs a furry is explicit and visible. It's less-so with relations. Canon relationships in long-running, often rebooted series can and do change, and are sometimes left up-to-interpretation (both on purpose and on accident). Even when a relationship is stable in canon, it's less visually obvious when an artist is taking that into consideration or not.

In terms of being explicit, would you say gender is closer to relations, or species? What if dialogue contradicts what you expect their gender to be?

snpthecat said:
In terms of being explicit, would you say gender is closer to relations, or species? What if dialogue contradicts what you expect their gender to be?

It's a grey zone that runs the gamut from dramatic physical transformations to just changing pronouns. It seems like dialogue-based gender would be covered by lore.