Some boring time ago I looked at my favorites and stared at the beautiful wonder of this one picture post #899687 and noticed that it was tagged female. Makes senses since it is a female Meowstic here. I know that tag what you see thing should be applied here but with this I then thought that Meowstic was an exception since it's a whole design and not only a tail end like Pikachu.

I then looked for a similar Meowstic, male this time, to show at one one my buddies and noticed that post #665857 was now tagged as a female, dafuk ? (I changed the tag to Ambiguous since)
Once I looked at the tag edits at both pictures, I saw the same person adding female to both of them, my guess is because of them wearing dresses, which is completely wrong to begin with because clothing isn't a tag what you see factor and it's a male Meowstic to begin with.

And now I do wonder if the tag what you see should be used for sex designs like for Meowstic. I know that looking for sexual traits like muscles and body types are to be used to identify a gender, so it would make sense if designs that would be purely based on genders should matter too, not only for the case of Meowstic.

If not, then by logic meowstic crossgender shouldn't be able to find any results at all, but you still can find some anyway

If you can't see any telltale genitalia and defining physical anatomy, then it should be tagged as ambiguous_gender. Tagging based on their aesthetics established in-game (such as the nick in a female Pikachu's tail or the wholeness of a Garchomp's dorsal fin) is technically outside information and would interfere with the TWYS rule.

I do know that, I know how it works, that's why I typed all this in the first place. They have more than a different trait, it's a whole body design made to identify their genders, and ignoring that just sounds kind of dumb. It still doesn't really answer my second point where Meowstic and Crossgender should be able to exist or not, but with what you said that'd be no, they cannot

Neitsuke said:
I do know that, I know how it works, that's why I typed all this in the first place. They have more than a different trait, it's a whole body design made to identify their genders, and ignoring that just sounds kind of dumb. It still doesn't really answer my second point where Meowstic and Crossgender should be able to exist or not, but with what you said that'd be no, they cannot

I do believe that fits into the common sense territory, ya? Like when we see a shirtless male and can identify them as such we tag male even if outside info says the character has a vagina. We don't go for ambiguous because we can see a male character.

Ko-san said:
I do believe that fits into the common sense territory, ya? Like when we see a shirtless male and can identify them as such we tag male even if outside info says the character has a vagina. We don't go for ambiguous because we can see a male character.

Still doesn't stop some people from throwing a fit when their character is a herm but is tagged as dickgirl because that's what's evident in the image.

Meowstic's gender differences don't seem like a good enough excuse to tag the gender, as unlike the Heart-shaped tail of a Pikachu, fur color can be decided by an artist thinking "I like these colors!" Meanwhile, a heart-shaped tail is just feminine anyways.

While all this has been concluded that gender-based appearance shouldn't be used to tag genders but still nothing about this whole case with this meowstic crossgender issue, the first picture I linked is still getting the female tag by this same person.

Also as a quick question : Does it also go the same for character with an actual gender in the games like this guy here post #902325 ? This looks pretty female to me, but this character is known as a male in the game

Neit! I think I remember you from Wildcritters. <3

Neitsuke said:
While all this has been concluded that gender-based appearance shouldn't be used to tag genders but still nothing about this whole case with this meowstic crossgender issue, the first picture I linked is still getting the female tag by this same person.

Also as a quick question : Does it also go the same for character with an actual gender in the games like this guy here post #902325 ? This looks pretty female to me, but this character is known as a male in the game

I believe character tagging is different, though for that character it would probably be safe to go ambiguous before male or female considering it isn't even really easy to tell what it is. Unless it's a character species like Yoshi or Birdo.

The eyelashes/makeup on every eyes give the hint that it's/they're pretty much female.

However the same guy still added back female on both post #899687 and post #665857 while there's "apparently" nothing to make them have a gender beside wearing a dress. Can someone tell him to stop ? I'm pretty sure he won't listen to me at this point

Neitsuke said:
The eyelashes/makeup on every eyes give the hint that it's/they're pretty much female.

However the same guy still added back female on both post #899687 and post #665857 while there's "apparently" nothing to make them have a gender beside wearing a dress. Can someone tell him to stop ? I'm pretty sure he won't listen to me at this point

Your best bet is to directly PM an admin

I'm not enough of a jerk to do that plus he's super privilegied, I have no power to do anything I'm a weakling. From what I see and suspected, he doesn't seem to like solo females one bit, would be why he keeps adding females back on them. He should just add "dress ambiguous_gender solo -male" to his already super big blacklist instead

1. how about in future you just report me if you believe that im doing something wrong instead of creating forum threads to whine and talk shit about me?

2. stop calling me with he pronouns

3. when character looks like female, it gets tagged as female and the dresses make them look like female. also clothing and apparel has weight in gender tagging too, not just body type and genitals. it doesnt have as much weight, but it still does have weight.

post #665857
this character has extremely feminine outfit, ambiguous face, ambiguous torso, wide hips and feminine leg shape and absolutely no masculine traits. it should be enough evidence for female tag.

post #899687
this character has extremely feminine outfit, ambiguous face, ambiguous torso and again, feminine leg shape and absolutely no masculine traits. it should be enough evidence for female tag.

Hey calm there bud, no need to become arrogant about something this little. The forum was mostly about if gender designs were to be used to tag gender for the most part. Beside saying the tag female was being added back many times I didn't begin to cry or badmouthed anything. No need to be on the defensive like I called you a criminal

But first, clothing is clothing, it doesn't/shouldn't have any impact on the gender unless you see a bulge or camel toe somewhere
Second, those "wide hips" you mention, these are, dress cotton fabric, not a part of his- I mean, her body, it's a piece of clothing
Third, feminine leg shape. You mean that they have thighs and they end like a butter knife ? What does an actually ambiguous leg shape like this have to do with being feminine ? Male Meowstic and many other male characters have simple looking legs and people aren't calling them lady legs

Still, the Male Meowstic having wide hips because the dress has a lot of cotton fabric was pretty funny to hear

Ignoring the clothes, the first one looks overall feminine to me.
But there's something masculine about the second, though I can't quite pinpoint it. I'd go with ambiguous for that one.

Neitsuke said:
Hey calm there bud, no need to become arrogant about something this little. The forum was mostly about if gender designs were to be used to tag gender for the most part. Beside saying the tag female was being added back many times I didn't begin to cry or badmouthed anything. No need to be on the defensive like I called you a criminal

But first, clothing is clothing, it doesn't/shouldn't have any impact on the gender unless you see a bulge or camel toe somewhere
Second, those "wide hips" you mention, these are, dress cotton fabric, not a part of his- I mean, her body, it's a piece of clothing
Third, feminine leg shape. You mean that they have thighs and they end like a butter knife ? What does an actually ambiguous leg shape like this have to do with being feminine ? Male Meowstic and many other male characters have simple looking legs and people aren't calling them lady legs

Still, the Male Meowstic having wide hips because the dress has a lot of cotton fabric was pretty funny to hear

the hips are actually wide. like here, i just connected where legs end and torso begins. the character has in fact very wide hips.

This doesn't even look that wide anyway, but most important, you completely forgot one little detail to take account for : Perspective, you know, the legs/dress ring are closer than the rest of the chest and body, which makes the chest look smaller than the legs

Mutisija said:
3. when character looks like female, it gets tagged as female and the dresses make them look like female. also clothing and apparel has weight in gender tagging too, not just body type and genitals. it doesnt have as much weight, but it still does have weight.

Probably should have refreshed the page before I sent a message to you about this, whoops, didn't realize you already replied.
I haven't heard about clothing choices effecting the gender tags before now, do you have a source for this?

post #665857
this character has extremely feminine outfit, ambiguous face, ambiguous torso, wide hips and feminine leg shape and absolutely no masculine traits. it should be enough evidence for female tag.

post #899687
this character has extremely feminine outfit, ambiguous face, ambiguous torso and again, feminine leg shape and absolutely no masculine traits. it should be enough evidence for female tag.

I don't see it. Those legs are fairly ambiguous.

Neitsuke said:
I do know that, I know how it works, that's why I typed all this in the first place. They have more than a different trait, it's a whole body design made to identify their genders, and ignoring that just sounds kind of dumb. It still doesn't really answer my second point where Meowstic and Crossgender should be able to exist or not, but with what you said that'd be no, they cannot

This always seemed rather odd to me, disregarding an entire set of established knowledge to a rather extreme extent

That's not to say TWYS should be ignored either, but you're not the first person to wonder if something else should be done about cases like these

crossgender exists precisely because of the above;
Where franchise-specific information is well-known enough to make it a non-trivial point of interest (physical gender in this case)

Mutisija said:
1. how about in future you just report me if you believe that im doing something wrong instead of creating forum threads to whine and talk shit about me?

2. stop calling me with he pronouns

3. when character looks like female, it gets tagged as female and the dresses make them look like female. also clothing and apparel has weight in gender tagging too, not just body type and genitals. it doesnt have as much weight, but it still does have weight.

post #665857
this character has extremely feminine outfit, ambiguous face, ambiguous torso, wide hips and feminine leg shape and absolutely no masculine traits. it should be enough evidence for female tag.

post #899687
this character has extremely feminine outfit, ambiguous face, ambiguous torso and again, feminine leg shape and absolutely no masculine traits. it should be enough evidence for female tag.

Since we don't see the actual genitalia, it could most likely be a femboy trap we're dealing with. We have no way of knowing, therefore it's supposed to be ambiguous gender. I'm assuming you should stop imposing your preconceived notions about feminine or masculine traits upon these characters, forcefully defining their actual gender without having either a dick, pussy, or both, clearly being shown in the image. It'll also help you in actually having people not assume your gender like you do to these characters. Y'know, since people usually don't like hypocrites.

potatoheadahoy said:
Since we don't see the actual genitalia, it could most likely be a femboy trap we're dealing with. We have no way of knowing, therefore it's supposed to be ambiguous gender. I'm assuming you should stop imposing your preconceived notions about feminine or masculine traits upon these characters, forcefully defining their actual gender without having either a dick, pussy, or both, clearly being shown in the image. It'll also help you in actually having people not assume your gender like you do to these characters. Y'know, since people usually don't like hypocrites.

First, it is in poor taste to conduct thread necromancy.
Second, it is in poor taste to adopt such an abrasive attitude.
Third, it is in poor taste to complain about a system without understanding it - either its purpose or its application.

potatoheadahoy said:
Since we don't see the actual genitalia, it could most likely be a femboy trap we're dealing with. We have no way of knowing, therefore it's supposed to be ambiguous gender. I'm assuming you should stop imposing your preconceived notions about feminine or masculine traits upon these characters, forcefully defining their actual gender without having either a dick, pussy, or both, clearly being shown in the image. It'll also help you in actually having people not assume your gender like you do to these characters. Y'know, since people usually don't like hypocrites.

genitals are not only traits used in gender tagging. body shape and facial traits can be used too. also maybe consider looking at the timestamps next time. you are posting to almost year old thread.

also maybe dont bring my gender to this.

traditional character design makes clear distinctions between male and female characters, with the default state of existence being "male", and "female" being denoted by girly stuff and eyelashes.

in recent years this view of things has changed and there are many more pictures with an ambiguous gender. i can't claim to know a gender when i see one, though i still think there's some streak of traditional character design left in artists, subconsciously or otherwise, and overall i find there's less error in tagging a character along that binary.

Ledian said:
also maybe dont bring my gender to this.

I don't mean to interfere, but weren't you the one who brought up the pronoun thing? Just saying.

Imuthes said:
I don't mean to interfere, but weren't you the one who brought up the pronoun thing? Just saying.

me requesting a person to stop misgendering me is not exactly comparable to what gender tag we should slap on some video game character like that person was suggesting. (and before someone points out that my profile states that i accept he pronouns, i started being comfortable with he pronouns only very recently)

Ledian said:
me requesting a person to stop misgendering me is not exactly comparable to what gender tag we should slap on some video game character like that person was suggesting. (and before someone points out that my profile states that i accept he pronouns, i started being comfortable with he pronouns only very recently)

Fair enough. That said, while the "video game character" comment is entirely valid and it's not healthy to worry so much about them, you also have to remember that a lot of characters and artwork are much more personal; 'sonas tend to be extensions and representations of ourselves for our online adventures, and misrepresenting them can be every bit as unpleasant as misrepresenting the artist personally.

Even if nothing changes as policy goes, and we have no choice but to keep tagging things in an objectively-inaccurate way, it might be worth considering how the people we argue with might actually feel as strongly about it as we do, for reasons that're just as real to them as our own, you know? Nothing satisfying for anyone will ever happen if people just fight with each other every time the subject comes up.

I think body type should trump clothing or makeup. The Meowstic in question is clearly a MALE Meowstic. So I would probably tag it femboy or whatever tag you guys use are here for that sort of thing. It has no female traits to suggest otherwise, other than changeable things like clothes. Ofc this goes beyond TWYS, but TWYS hasn't given us a whole lot to work with in this case.

It's like a male and female peacock. We all know the males have the brilliant plumage and the females are just brown. So if you stick a CLEARLY male peacock in a dress it's not suddenly a female.

EDIT: futhermore...the pastel coloration doesn't suggest it's a female either...that's literally just what a shiny male Meowstic looks like