I found that using "order:random" counts as a tag when using the api. Is this intended behavior? I'm asking because the tag "rating:safe" does not count as one of the two tags.
Meta tags like order: generally count towards the tag limit. The rating: meta tag is an exception because rating:safe gets added automatically when you use safebooru.donmai.us. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to use any two-tag search there.
