Posted under Tags
BUR #4261 has been approved by @evazion.
create alias succubus -> demon_girl
create alias incubus -> demon_boy
Previously discussed in topic #2394 and topic #6083.
There's no distinction between the two tags other than canon. Even the wikis are vague because there's no visual difference.
If someone wants a tag for sucking the soul out through sex a tag should be created specifically for that, instead of keeping this kind of padding around.
Well, nobody objected to this so I'll go ahead with it.
This tag was used very inconsistently. Even Morrigan and Lilith Aensland were only tagged succubus about half the time. Then there are characters like Meruccubus, who is canonically a succubus but visually a red oni. It's really difficult to come up with any kind of meaningful difference between succubus and demon girl here.
The bulk update request #4261 (forum #177802) has been approved by @evazion.
Surprised to find out about this today. Did we really drop a major character archetype in anime and fiction like that?
I agree that visually they're represented similar a lot of times and in most cases, a succubus/incubus is a type of demon, or demon relative though, so are the ashura, imp, leviathan and goblins, yet we usually keep separate tags for different species of a type. Sometimes they're specifically said to not even be demons.
It feels a bit like if we'd merge wolf_* and dog_* tags because they're hard to distinguish sometimes, or if we removed the mermaid tag and aliased it to fish_person. It's a staple character tag.
keonas said:
Surprised to find out about this today. Did we really drop a major character archetype in anime and fiction like that?
I agree that visually they're represented similar a lot of times and in most cases, a succubus/incubus is a type of demon, or demon relative though, so are the ashura, imp, leviathan and goblins, yet we usually keep separate tags for different species of a type. Sometimes they're specifically said to not even be demons.It feels a bit like if we'd merge wolf_* and dog_* tags because they're hard to distinguish sometimes, or if we removed the mermaid tag and aliased it to fish_person. It's a staple character tag.
How do you propose we tag succubus then? By canon?
Of your examples, goblins and mermaids have distinct shapes, but look at imp: like 80% of it is just midna regardless of how she's drawn. It's a useless tag.
nonamethanks said:
How do you propose we tag succubus then? By canon?
Of your examples, goblins and mermaids have distinct shapes, but look at imp: like 80% of it is just midna regardless of how she's drawn. It's a useless tag.
By canon first of all yes, it isn't the only tag we have based on canon. Because many times they don't display the base trio of tags for *bus - demon_wings, demon_tail and pointy_ears, sometimes fangs, many times, no horns. There were plenty of images tagged succubus/incubus with just a fang showing based on the inferred image situation, color scheme or character type, no demon* tags. If even that wasn't present then, of course the tag wouldn't apply.
I'm not suggesting we revert the change. Looks like a nightmare to re-tag, but i was very surprised that we got here.
If you take a look at all the other mythological tags we have, you'll notice that none of them is supposed to be based on abstract canon. We don't tag werewolves if they're not wolf-like beings, and we're not supposed to tag vampires if there's no vampiric features - this is often ignored by people who tag all canonical touhou vampires with that tag, rendering it useless half the time. Do you think someone searching for "vampire" is looking for post #3964431?
Imagine if we tagged every single picture of imaizumi kagerou with werewolf.
Every time we have a tag that is based on canon, it ends up being equivalent with a single character. Look at therianthrope. The definition makes it sound like it could be used for a lot of characters, but no, it's actually just for a specific one from an obscure series, because we have better tags for the actual concept described in the tag (monster girl). The tag adds nothing, it's useless and only used by people blindly smashing the related tags on the upload page. Searching for it brings up less relevant results than just searching for the character itself.
If you want a list of canonical succubi no matter the appearance, you should use Google. Danbooru is a visual gallery and the tags we use have to be reflected in the picture. Otherwise we might as well start tagging the characters' political affiliations too.
A perfect example of this nonsense that I had to clean up is satou_sakie. She's canonically a succubus, but she's indistinguishable from any other random human character in 99% of the pictures. I really doubt someone searching for mythological creatures wants to see a random woman in tracksuit in the results.
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