Topic: [APPROVED] Mythological Creature BUR

The bulk update request #1597 is active.

Reason: An attempt to create a taxonomical organisation for mythological creatures.

Instead of having several species tags imply mythology, let's imply them to mythological_creature and imply the latter to mythology. That way, we can avoid unnecessary clutter, since regional mythologies already imply the tag.

EDIT: The bulk update request #1597 (forum #321011) has been approved by @slyroon.

The bulk update request #1598 is active.

Reason: A few more to add to the list.

• Whether you like it or not, dragons are categorically mythological.
• Wyverns and hydras are forms of dragons specific to western mythology.
• Adding the mythological_equine category, since there are quite a few of those, and none of them imply mythology yet.
• Some mythological canines.
• Added mythological_marine for the selkie - I assume there are other mythological marine species out there. EDIT: added leviathan.
• Recategorizing the mythological birds in the mythological_bird tag instead of mythological_avian.
• Removed species implying mythology directly, now they imply mythological_canine and mythological_arachnid, respectively.

I am unsure what to do about couatl. It should imply aztec_mythology, but is it a type of dragon, technically? Or just a mythological flying snake (which is basically what dragons are anyway)? Do we have it imply mythological_reptile instead? In that case, shouldn’t dragon (or at least western and eastern dragon) also imply mythological_reptile? I’m leaning towards having it imply dragon, but I’m unsure.

EDIT: The bulk update request #1598 (forum #321012) has been approved by @slyroon.

scaliespe said:
I am unsure what to do about couatl. It should imply aztec_mythology, but is it a type of dragon, technically? Or just a mythological flying snake (which is basically what dragons are anyway)? Do we have it imply mythological_reptile instead? In that case, shouldn’t dragon (or at least western and eastern dragon) also imply mythological_reptile? I’m leaning towards having it imply dragon, but I’m unsure.

Strictly on a TWYS basis, I'd say no. Couatl shouldn't imply any form of dragon. Although I'm not exactly sure what's supposed to separate them from feathered_snakes. If it were to separate simple snakes with feathers from those that actually have wings, then that doesn't seem to be cleaned up very well.

...I'd also argue against wyverns being implicated to western_dragon, but that may be a personal bias and I am far too tired right now to give a proper, logical argument against it, so I'll just leave it at that.

vulkalu said:
Strictly on a TWYS basis, I'd say no. Couatl shouldn't imply any form of dragon. Although I'm not exactly sure what's supposed to separate them from feathered_snakes. If it were to separate simple snakes with feathers from those that actually have wings, then that doesn't seem to be cleaned up very well.

Well, a couatl is a creature from Aztec mythology. Someone could draw a snake character with feathers that isn’t a couatl (many already have), regardless of the fact that any given couatl could have just been a feathered snake or vice versa, since the couatl doesn’t have just one canonical representation. However, there are likely to be some feathered snakes that differ greatly from any valid definition of a couatl, while I don’t think any couatls couldn’t be considered feathered snakes, hence the current implication.

My issue is that, roughly speaking, the most basic definition of a dragon is a flying serpent. Couatl fits that definition. And the alternative, like I said, would be to create a class of mythological reptiles, which would, by necessity, have to include most dragons.

vulkalu said:
...I'd also argue against wyverns being implicated to western_dragon, but that may be a personal bias and I am far too tired right now to give a proper, logical argument against it, so I'll just leave it at that.

I could at least give my justification for including it, anyway.

According to Wikipedia

In most languages, cultures and contexts no distinction is made between wyverns and dragons. Since the sixteenth century, in English, Scottish, and Irish heraldry, the key difference has been that a wyvern has two legs, whereas a dragon has four. This distinction is not commonly observed in the heraldry of other European countries, where two-legged dragon-like creatures are called dragons.

So, in general, dragon and wyvern are perfectly interchangeable terms, except in some forms of heraldry. Being interchangeable doesn’t help us at all, so we can use the definition in the one case where it’s different—which is already what we do. They have two legs and two wings, compared to normal western dragons that have four legs and two wings. Besides that, they are the same thing. The design of the wyvern is clearly based on the regular western dragon, just minus two legs, which I think justifies it being classified as a subtype of western dragon.

Also, wyverns appear to be exclusive to western mythology, hence the implication chain leading to European_mythology.

scaliespe said:
Well, a couatl is a creature from Aztec mythology. Someone could draw a snake character with feathers that isn’t a couatl (many already have), regardless of the fact that any given couatl could have just been a feathered snake or vice versa, since the couatl doesn’t have just one canonical representation. However, there are likely to be some feathered snakes that differ greatly from any valid definition of a couatl, while I don’t think any couatls couldn’t be considered feathered snakes, hence the current. implication.

The only place I can find "couatl" being used for an entire species is in tabletop games, like DnD. Everything else I see references Quetzalcoatl, specifically, or the deities similar to Quetzalcoatl in other Mesoamerican religions. If it's supposed to be a species tag for things similar in appearance to Quetzalcoatl, then I'm surprised with how much is tagged with the deity, but not couatl. Regardless of the name or origin of the tag though... My gripes are specifically with TWYS. I cannot see where the line is drawn between couatl and feathered_snake. There's no wiki for either tags, and it doesn't feel like whatever distinction there is is properly maintained, whenever I can see images of the same depiction of Quetzalcoatl being inconsistently applied as just feathered_snake or sometimes couatl, too. I'd be far less opposed to its existence if I had any idea what the difference was even meant to be between the two.

As for couatl's relation to dragon... I'd still argue not to implicate it in any way to dragon. I just see a snake with feathers in most of the things tagged couatl, not a dragon. I know dragons are described as "flying serpents", but for TWYS's sake, I don't think snakes that can fly should automatically be considered dragons, without enough other physical traits to make them more similar to dragons. Maybe I'm the odd one out on that, I don't know. A mythological_reptile tag sounds fine, although I'm not sure how well that would apply to dragons when this is the furry community and some dragons are drawn more avian or mammalian in appearance.

scaliespe said:
I could at least give my justification for including it, anyway.

So, in general, dragon and wyvern are perfectly interchangeable terms, except some forms of heraldry. Being interchangeable doesn’t help us at all, so we can use the definition in the one case where it’s different—which is already what we do. They have two legs and two wings, compared to normal western dragons that have four legs and two wings. Besides that, they are the same thing. The design of the wyvern is clearly based on the regular western dragon, just minus two legs, which I think justifies it being classified as a subtype of western dragon.

Yes, I am fully aware how the two words are often interchangeable. But as you said, this site already enforces a distinction between them. Don't get me wrong, I will agree that western_dragons and wyverns are very similar... in the average use case for them. But again, this is the furry community, and this is a site that up until this point, only said that wyverns had to be dragons with two legs and winged forelimbs, nothing else. I don't know if you've noticed, but western_dragon implicates scalie. I don't think these count for what most people are looking for when they search scalie. Scalie's wiki even explicitly mentions that furred_dragon and feathered_dragon are notable exceptions to the tag, which says to me that feathered or furred wyverns should also be excluded if they're fully feathered/furred. Implicating wyvern would mean that scalie could not be removed from those posts without removing wyvern from them, though. Unless people genuinely don't care about that, I don't know, scalie as a tag never made much sense to me.

The only other solution I could think of, if some form of wyvern really had to implicate western_dragon, is if there were a scaled_wyvern tag (with it, feathered_wyvern, and furred_wyvern all implicating wyvern), but then you run into the problem of that applying to most wyverns, and it would probably wind up under-utilized. Alternatively to remove scalie from western_dragon, but... judging from prior, old discussions I've seen on the topic, as well as how frequently western dragons apply for scalie, that wouldn't exactly be the best solution either. Incidentally, there's apparently a scaled_dragon tag with a few posts under it, not sure what to make of that either. I would assume most people here would vote to just alias it to dragon, but I don't know.

Again, unless people genuinely don't care about this, in which case, implicate away. I personally don't use the scalie tag so this implication only really bothers me for the OCD issue of "this feathered/furred creature shouldn't have this", or for the possibility of weird edge-cases of wyverns that probably shouldn't have western_dragon slapped on.

vulkalu said:
The only place I can find "couatl" being used for an entire species is in tabletop games, like DnD. Everything else I see references Quetzalcoatl, specifically, or the deities similar to Quetzalcoatl in other Mesoamerican religions. If it's supposed to be a species tag for things similar in appearance to Quetzalcoatl, then I'm surprised with how much is tagged with the deity, but not couatl. Regardless of the name or origin of the tag though... My gripes are specifically with TWYS. I cannot see where the line is drawn between couatl and feathered_snake. There's no wiki for either tags, and it doesn't feel like whatever distinction there is is properly maintained, whenever I can see images of the same depiction of Quetzalcoatl being inconsistently applied as just feathered_snake or sometimes couatl, too. I'd be far less opposed to its existence if I had any idea what the difference was even meant to be between the two.

Perhaps we could establish a distinction, then. Feathered_snake does not imply that the snake has wings, whereas the current usage of couatl seems to imply that it has wings. Couatl could be a winged feathered serpent, in that case, which still justifies the couatl -> feathered_snake implication.

I assume that the term “couatl” is indeed used in reference to DnD. Like so many other things in DnD, it appears to be a creature taken from a different source and renamed for use by the game. In this case, couatl seems to be a direct copy of Quetzalcoatl in his winged serpent form. I see that this must be kept separate from Quetzalcoatl since the original Aztec god can be depicted not only in that form, but also sometimes without wings, or in a human or humanoid form, and so can’t always get the same species tag.

Another distinguishing feature of both the couatl DnD species and Quetzalcoatl’s quasi-draconic form (which we’re using the same tag for, since they are precisely the same thing) is that it has a sort of iridescent green and red plumage. This, I found out, is because Quetzalcoatl is apparently named for the resplendent quetzal which has precisely that color of plumage, combined with “coatl,” which is the Aztec word for rattlesnake—hence the snake/bird form. So, again, we can say that a feathered or winged serpent without those colors isn’t a couatl. Again, it’s based on what you can see in the DnD species, since that is more or less just a streamlined version of Quetzalcoatl, and we don’t have to worry much about variations like we do with the Aztec deity. It’s easy enough to say “if it looks like the DnD thing, it’s couatl; if not, it’s something else.”

As for couatl's relation to dragon... I'd still argue not to implicate it in any way to dragon. I just see a snake with feathers in most of the things tagged couatl, not a dragon. I know dragons are described as "flying serpents", but for TWYS's sake, I don't think snakes that can fly should automatically be considered dragons, without enough other physical traits to make them more similar to dragons. Maybe I'm the odd one out on that, I don't know. A mythological_reptile tag sounds fine, although I'm not sure how well that would apply to dragons when this is the furry community and some dragons are drawn more avian or mammalian in appearance.

If we were to go the mythological_reptile route, I would only have western_dragon and probably eastern_dragon imply it, since we have separate tags for the mammalian and avian dragons.

However, I would argue that in the case of DnD’s depiction of a couatl, the wings give it a fairly draconic appearance. Assuming we abide by that definition, implying dragon wouldn’t seen out of place to me, and it would still keep regular feathered snakes out.

Yes, I am fully aware how the two words are often interchangeable. But as you said, this site already enforces a distinction between them. Don't get me wrong, I will agree that western_dragons and wyverns are very similar... in the average use case for them. But again, this is the furry community, and this is a site that up until this point, only said that wyverns had to be dragons with two legs and winged forelimbs, nothing else. I don't know if you've noticed, but western_dragon implicates scalie. I don't think these count for what most people are looking for when they search scalie. Scalie's wiki even explicitly mentions that furred_dragon and feathered_dragon are notable exceptions to the tag, which says to me that feathered or furred wyverns should also be excluded if they're fully feathered/furred. Implicating wyvern would mean that scalie could not be removed from those posts without removing wyvern from them, though. Unless people genuinely don't care about that, I don't know, scalie as a tag never made much sense to me.

The only other solution I could think of, if some form of wyvern really had to implicate western_dragon, is if there were a scaled_wyvern tag (with it, feathered_wyvern, and furred_wyvern all implicating wyvern), but then you run into the problem of that applying to most wyverns, and it would probably wind up under-utilized. Alternatively to remove scalie from western_dragon, but... judging from prior, old discussions I've seen on the topic, as well as how frequently western dragons apply for scalie, that wouldn't exactly be the best solution either. Incidentally, there's apparently a scaled_dragon tag with a few posts under it, not sure what to make of that either. I would assume most people here would vote to just alias it to dragon, but I don't know.

Again, unless people genuinely don't care about this, in which case, implicate away. I personally don't use the scalie tag so this implication only really bothers me for the OCD issue of "this feathered/furred creature shouldn't have this", or for the possibility of weird edge-cases of wyverns that probably shouldn't have western_dragon slapped on.

There was a discussion recently about how scalie should be used. It’s never included fish or pangolins, so it’s clearly not a tag just for creatures with scales, which would also be rather redundant with the scales tag. The only current distinction in the implication chain between scalie and reptile is that scalie contains fictional reptilian species like Argonian and Koopa that aren’t taxonomically reptiles, though they are clearly meant to be reptiles. Personally, I don’t see the problem with having those species imply reptile rather than scalie. This whole discussion arose from a debate over whether or not a western dragon-form goo dragon can get the western dragon tag or not, considering the implication to scalie, and the fact that a goo dragon can’t have scales. The general outcome of the discussion seemed to be that the scalie tag is better not taken too literally to mean “a creature with scales” (otherwise we should include fish and pangolins—not to mention that salamanders are very often considered scalie despite the fact that they lack scales and aren’t reptiles— and thus salazzle, by extension, is so frequently given the scalie tag. Given how similar lizards and salamanders are in many artist’s depictions, to the point that you may not even be able to tell them apart according to TWYS, it doesn’t make much sense to say that one can imply scalie and the other can’t have the tag at all). The conclusion was that the scalie tag is best used for creatures with a reptilian or draconic appearance, regardless of whether it’s actually a reptile or not, and regardless of whether it has scales or not. Following that same logic, the separation of western, eastern, furred, and feathered dragons so that only western dragons are considered scalie doesn’t make much sense. The majority of eastern dragons are covered in scales, for example, and all are clearly serpentine in shape, but the implication to scalie was omitted because some of them may be covered in fur, regardless of their snake-like body. Similarly, furred and feathered dragons still have to retain a draconic form; the only distinction is what covers their skin. Considering that we only assume that western dragons are covered in scales much of the time (many artists don’t draw the scales—they may as well be bare skin, and yet we don’t utilize a flesh dragon tag for these), it also doesn’t seem very logical to retain the scalie/not scalie distinction exclusively based on the skin covering. Again, we have the actual scales tag if you only want to find dragons with scales.

The furred snake tag has also generated some similar debate over whether or not it should continue to imply snake, which ultimately implies scalie. The definition I’m proposing would also make that not a problem.

Okay, separate question: what is the point of the mythological prefix on various specific species like mythological_golem? golem is aliased to it, so it’s not like there’s a distinct golem tag that’s being used for anything else. I mean, what is the alternative? Are there real-life golems? Same with all the other mythology-specific species, like mythological sphinx. That one can be differentiated from sphynx_(cat) by the spelling. I noticed this issue when I was looking at mythological_leviathan. The tag has zero uses, though it already has an implication to mythology, while leviathan has over 200 uses and no implication. Can we just get rid of these prefixes?

scaliespe said:
Okay, separate question: what is the point of the mythological prefix on various specific species like mythological_golem? golem is aliased to it, so it’s not like there’s a distinct golem tag that’s being used for anything else. I mean, what is the alternative? Are there real-life golems? Same with all the other mythology-specific species, like mythological sphinx. That one can be differentiated from sphynx_(cat) by the spelling. I noticed this issue when I was looking at mythological_leviathan. The tag has zero uses, though it already has an implication to mythology, while leviathan has over 200 uses and no implication. Can we just get rid of these prefixes?

+1 to removing the prefix. If the prefix actually would distinguish the tag from another, the site standard would be to display it like tag_(mythological).

strikerman said:
+1 to removing the prefix. If the prefix actually would distinguish the tag from another, the site standard would be to display it like tag_(mythological).

True. Sadly, most of these tags already have a whole host of aliases that have to be undone before fixing them. *ugh*

I’m wondering if we need to keep the disambiguation pages for things like basilisk and behemoth. Isn’t the mythological basilisk going to be by far the primary connotation of the word? Is it actually so likely that people are going to confuse it with an obscure enemy type in Dark Souls or Homestuck that it’s better to disambiguate it than it would be to just clear the occasional mistag?

------

As far as the prefix discussion, I'm in agreement. If it doesn't need disambiguating, it shouldn't need that (and as already stated, it should probably be a suffix instead). Although, in the case of behemoths, I honestly think of Final Fantasy behemoths before anything else, and there's a lot of names that use it, so I would assume that one's best left to being disambiguated.

vulkalu said:
I can't say I agree with restricting a species tag to only apply with specific colors as well, though. I feel like "feather-winged snake" is specific enough. A white raven is still a raven, even if we expect it to be black; a pink lion is still a lion, etc.

Fair point. I just remembered, also, we have an alternate_color tag that could possibly be used in cases where the color is obviously different but otherwise appears to be the same species.

Oh, absolutely. As with all other character tags, they don't always get depicted as the same species, and deities are certainly no strangers to this treatment. I just thought it was odd that I saw posts under Quetzalcoatl that would have been applicable to feathered_snake or couatl.

The tag needs some cleaning, certainly. I think people try to use Quetzalcoatl thinking it’s a species tag.

I could see western/eastern possibly working, I suppose, yeah. Couatl I still disagree on being inherently a dragon--I still just see a winged snake--but I suppose if other people agree it should be implicated, I'll concede on that point.

Likewise, if everyone else objects to a couatl -> dragon implication, I’ll concede. However, it does remind me of the dragon in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. It was described as a winged snake—no mention of other limbs—and yet it was called a dragon in the text—or at least the translation that I read called it a dragon. It wasn’t feathered like couatls are, though.

Honestly, this is a lot of the reason I don't understand the point of the scalie tag. Like you and other people have said: it's not explicitly about the scales. But it seems so inconsistently applied, and so many people disagree on what should or shouldn't be included. But at the same time, it seems to be the easiest catch-all term, despite that. I feel like the whole thing's rather a mess with no real 100% "best" decision.

I think the best way to handle it is just to say that anything with a reptilian or draconic appearance is a scalie, regardless of anything else. That may be somewhat vague and open to interpretation when it comes to edge cases, but I think it’d be the most useful categorization regarding how people are likely to use the tag. I highly doubt that anyone using the scalie tag (such as myself) would care about the distinction between a salamander and a lizard when looking for scalies, or the distinction between a dragon being covered in scales or made of slime.

This is pretty much what we already do with avian. Anything with a bird-like appearance or strong bird-like features can get the avian tag regardless of whether or not it’s actually a bird.

In regards to wyverns, though, it still feels pretty odd, to me, to try to implicate them to western_dragon when not every depiction of them would be similar to a stereotypical western dragon. Even if those instances are far in the minority, they're still there. But I don't know how best to rectify that.

I think any significantly divergent wyverns could just get their own tag. The traditional wyvern is definitely a reptilian creature very similar to the usual dragon. Most of your examples look like they could be called avian_wyvern or something like that. Those could possibly just imply avian instead. Some of them hardly look like dragons to me at all.

As far as the prefix discussion, I'm in agreement. If it doesn't need disambiguating, it shouldn't need that (and as already stated, it should probably be a suffix instead). Although, in the case of behemoths, I honestly think of Final Fantasy behemoths before anything else, and there's a lot of names that use it, so I would assume that one's best left to being disambiguated.

I haven’t played Final Fantasy, so I am not familiar with those. However, yes, it seems that the great majority of behemoth-related tags are the FF variety. I don’t even think the original behemoth has appeared on this site yet…

scaliespe said:
I’m wondering if we need to keep the disambiguation pages for things like basilisk and behemoth. Isn’t the mythological basilisk going to be by far the primary connotation of the word? Is it actually so likely that people are going to confuse it with an obscure enemy type in Dark Souls or Homestuck that it’s better to disambiguate it than it would be to just clear the occasional mistag?

There are the real life lizards.) too.

scaliespe said:
Most of your examples look like they could be called avian_wyvern or something like that. Those could possibly just imply avian instead. Some of them hardly look like dragons to me at all.

If anything, some look more like a standard non-avian dinosaur.

clawstripe said:
There are the real life lizards.) too.

Well, basilisk lizard and basilisk (lizard) are aliased to the correct species tag already, which is probably sufficient to avoid confusion in that case.

The bulk update request #1597 (forum #321011) has been approved by @slyroon.

I really like mythological creatures of all kinds so I'm glad to see this tag being made.

Some suggestions I don't see mentioned yet:

• elf, merfolk, lamia - Maybe controversial in that like dragons, they've become standard fantasy species
• fairy, pixie, nymph, dryad - Same as above
• genie, gorgon, dullahan
• yokai, fox_spirit, foo_dog, jiangshi
• siren
• minotaur, centaur, satyr, faun
• cyclops, gargoyle, ogre
• kirin, longma
• manticore

From the Cerberus wiki: On e621, the tag is used for any canine character with three heads, regardless of any connection to the mythological creature the tag derives from.

This needs to be sorted out before any further implications are made. The current implication to greek_mythology is bad enough, as a lot of posts under the tag have nothing to do with mythology.

genjar said:
From the Cerberus wiki: On e621, the tag is used for any canine character with three heads, regardless of any connection to the mythological creature the tag derives from.

I don’t particularly like that wiki. Without the mythology association, that’s just an arbitrary canine + 3_heads combination tag. I think that tag either should be for the mythical canine exclusively, or just nuked entirely.

The bulk update request #1598 (forum #321012) has been approved by @slyroon.

The bulk update request #6619 has been rejected.

create implication yokai (9612) -> mythological_creature (736391)
create implication genie (4172) -> mythological_creature (736391)
create implication gorgon (824) -> mythological_creature (736391)
create implication jiangshi (442) -> mythological_creature (736391)
create implication fox_spirit (3660) -> mythological_fox (516)
create implication foo_dog (1682) -> mythological_canine (68568)
create implication minotaur (6653) -> mythological_creature (736391)
create implication satyr (3462) -> mythological_creature (736391)
create implication faun (1048) -> mythological_creature (736391)
create implication kirin (3229) -> mythological_creature (736391)
create implication longma (411) -> mythological_equine (223721)
create implication manticore (759) -> mythological_creature (736391)

Reason: Not all of my suggestions but some of the ones I think are more straightforward :p

I'm not really sure if any of these should be in specific categories but I can move them around

EDIT: Scratch that, should probably figure out where stuff would go structure-wise first :P

The bulk update request #6619 (forum #391405) has been rejected by @dsco.

The bulk update request #6621 has been rejected.

Reason: Y'know what, here's mythological kitties... I'm skipping some I'm not completely sure on, and I'm probably missing some.

Some possibly needed context:

• The mythological chimera is part lion. Questing beast is a similar creature that is part leopard.
• Gryphons are part lion as well.
• The cactus cat, splintercat, wampus cat and ball-tailed cat are all cats from American folklore.
• Grimalkins are cats in Scottish mythology.
• Cha kla is a cat ghost from Thai mythology.

EDIT: The bulk update request #6621 (forum #391421) has been rejected by @Nimphia.

dsco said:
create implication mythological_feline (0) -> felid (611980)

A mythological feline would be a feline. This should be mythological_feline -> feline, or mythological_felid -> felid in case some better fit the felid tag and not feline.

watsit said:
A mythological feline would be a feline. This should be mythological_feline -> feline, or mythological_felid -> felid in case some better fit the felid tag and not feline.

I was trying to match mythological_canine, but now I see that it implies canine and not canid. And since some of them are felid, like pantherine, I am going to update it to mythological_felid.

Edit: Updated now

The bulk update request #6624 is active.

change category mythological_scalie (422557) -> species
change category mythological_marine (754) -> species
create alias mythical_avian (3) -> mythological_avian (35909)
create alias mythologial_avian (2) -> mythological_avian (35909)

Reason: Also, tiny BUR for a category switch for two oversized tags and a couple of aliases floating around.

EDIT: The bulk update request #6624 (forum #391444) has been approved by @slyroon.

I really don't think dragon should imply mythological_scalie, and it should be undone. Dragon doesn't imply scalie; it used to, but the implication was removed because not all dragons are scalie, like furred_dragons, feathered_dragons, and aquatic_dragons. Additionally, what's considered a dragon in modern times is vastly more diverse than the mythological creature. For example, posts including Reshiram are now being tagged mythological_scalie, mythological_creature, mythology, and scalie, despite not being scalie nor looking like the dragons from mythology. goodra and flygon are affected as well. The implication should be removed and the erroneously added tags cleaned up.

Instead, western_dragon could imply mythological_scalie, since as its name suggests, it's based on dragons of western mythology, as opposed to eastern_dragons from eastern mythology, and western_dragon does imply scalie. But dragon itself is much more loose and can range far outside of its mythological roots.

Similar for werewolf implying mythological_canine. As it is, the tag has an identity crisis with anthro wolf, and many of the things classified as werewolves in modern times aren't like the ones from mythology. This is causing very silly results in the mythology tag.

Gyarados is from Jewish mythology? That's news to me.
And the dragon tag was already approaching video games level of catch-all, now we even have hydras and who knows else in there.

...yea, this wasn't all that well-thought-out.

What's going on with leviathan and mythological_leviathan?

dsco said:
create implication gryphon (21924) -> mythological_felid (0)

Honestly, given how ubiquitous gryphon characters can be in this fandom, it too is approaching a level of diversity that's separate from its mythological roots. I remember there being some discussion about removing its implications to mythology a while ago because modern interpretations and depictions don't always carry the mythological roots, becoming more of a general avian+feline hybrid, and its only become more generalized since then. It may be time to cut the ties on it now.

I agree with Watsit. Individual dragon types should be implied selectively. furred_dragon now implicates scalie.
An implication to fictional_species would have been equally as useful at this point.

watsit said:
I really don't think dragon should imply mythological_scalie, and it should be undone. Dragon doesn't imply scalie; it used to, but the implication was removed because not all dragons are scalie, like furred_dragons, feathered_dragons, and aquatic_dragons. Additionally, what's considered a dragon in modern times is vastly more diverse than the mythological creature. For example, posts including Reshiram are now being tagged mythological_scalie, mythological_creature, mythology, and scalie, despite not being scalie nor looking like the dragons from mythology. goodra and flygon are affected as well. The implication should be removed and the erroneously added tags cleaned up.

Instead, western_dragon could imply mythological_scalie, since as its name suggests, it's based on dragons of western mythology, as opposed to eastern_dragons from eastern mythology, and western_dragon does imply scalie. But dragon itself is much more loose and can range far outside of its mythological roots.

Similar for werewolf implying mythological_canine. As it is, the tag has an identity crisis with anthro wolf, and many of the things classified as werewolves in modern times aren't like the ones from mythology. This is causing very silly results in the mythology tag.

oopsitripped said:
I agree with Watsit. Individual dragon types should be implied selectively. furred_dragon now implicates scalie.
An implication to fictional_species would have been equally as useful at this point.

Furred and feathered reptilian creatures have typically been given the scalie implication regardless of whether they have scales or not: see furred_snake, feathered_snake, feathered_dinosaur. Unless we want to go the route of removing the reptile -> scalie implication, because not even all actual reptiles (real or fictional) have scales, but that would effectively make the tag useless if the primary thing implying it no longer implies it. Real-life theropods were feathered_dinosaurs, and many of the real-life reptiles known as pterosaurs didn't have scales either, but something much closer to fur. So feathery and furry reptiles are already a thing in real life and getting rid of that implication would be absurd. Furred_dragon seemed to be the main outlier in that system, all because of a decision made several years ago which really didn't consider all the other tags that go against that policy. In any case, furred_dragon -> scalie still fits so long as the creature has some reptilian appearance (I've suggested changing the name of scalie itself to reptilian, as that would hopefully make it more clear that scales are not necessary for the species, but that idea didn't seem popular).

As for Goodra, that's just because there has been a very long-running issue with people tagging Dragon-type Pokemon with the dragon species tag. That's just lore tagging as Goodra in particular hardly even looks like a dragon, so they probably never should have been tagged as dragons in the first place. I would just tag that as mollusk. As for Reshiram, well... I do think that one looks vaguely draconic or reptilian. The head and feet in particular pull off the dragon look well enough, IMO. And Flygon looks very scalie, so I don't see the issue with that one being tagged as such.

I can agree with getting rid of werewolf. I made this BUR over two years ago, before I really saw how bad the werewolf tag actually was. I actually forgot all about this BUR until just now when it got approved, and had I been making it again today, I'd likely have skipped werewolf. At this point, I think I'd be fine with just aliasing werewolf to wolf because I've pretty much lost hope that the werewolf tag can even be recovered. It seems to be almost exclusively lore-tagged anthro wolves. The rest of the were tags can probably get the boot as well.

Also note that my original BUR just had dragon imply mythological_creature - that line was removed by the admin who handled it and the mythological_scalie was established instead. I don't really think this implication is a problem, though, but just taking note of that, in case anyone's wondering where that part came from since it's not included in any of the BURs in this thread.

The bulk update request #6630 is active.

create implication kirin (3229) -> dragon (421175)
create implication longma (411) -> dragon (421175)
create implication longma (411) -> mythological_equine (223721)
remove implication kirin (3229) -> chinese_mythology (4354)
create implication mythological_basilisk (97) -> mythological_scalie (422557)
remove implication mythological_basilisk (97) -> mythological_creature (736391)
create implication mythological_salamander (260) -> mythological_scalie (422557)
remove implication mythological_salamander (260) -> mythological_creature (736391)
create implication questing_beast (44) -> mythological_scalie (422557)
create implication tsuchinoko (86) -> mythological_scalie (422557)
create implication cockatrice (292) -> mythological_scalie (422557)
remove implication tsuchinoko (86) -> scalie (751944)
remove implication cockatrice (292) -> scalie (751944)
remove implication mythological_leviathan (0) -> jewish_mythology (1028)

Reason: Some more tags, since we're on the subject.

• Kirin should imply east_asian_mythology instead of chinese_mythology because some form of the Kirin is found across many East Asian cultures. It may have originated in China, but it can't be attributed solely to Chinese mythology. Longma, on the other hand, appears to be unique to Chinese mythology, so that one stays.
• Having both species imply dragon as they are, by definition, dragon hybrids. Longma is a horse-dragon, so also implying mythological_equine. Kirin can't imply anything else, since it is variously depicted as a dragon mixed with either a horse, a deer, or occasionally an ox or goat.
• Moving mythological_basilisk and mythological_salamander to the new mythological_scalie tag as they are reptilian by definition. Also adding questing_beast to mythological_scalie alongside the above BUR adding it to mythological_felid since it is a hybrid of a leopard and a snake.
• Likewise, adding mythological_scalie implications for tsuchinoko and cockatrice. Removing scalie from those two as that implication will be redundant with mythological_scalie.

EDIT: added remove implication mythological_leviathan -> jewish_mythology as this tag is not in use.
EDIT 2: changed the followup implication to east_asian_mythology instead of asian_mythology.

Followup:
implicate kirin -> east_asian_mythology

EDIT: The bulk update request #6630 (forum #391520) has been approved by @slyroon.

The bulk update request #6624 (forum #391444) has been approved by @slyroon.

scaliespe said:

• Kirin should imply asian_mythology instead of chinese_mythology because some form of the Kirin is found across many Asian cultures. It may have originated in China, but it can't be attributed solely to Chinese mythology.

This would be the better course to go, implicating kirin to asian_mythology. Technically, the kirin is more Japanese than Chinese, being derived from the Chinese qi'lin which was more antelope/deer-like with two horns rather than the scaled, dragony unicorn the Japanese turned it into. At least when the qi'lin wasn't actually a giraffe. But many Users won't know all that.

clawstripe said:
This would be the better course to go, implicating kirin to asian_mythology. Technically, the kirin is more Japanese than Chinese, being derived from the Chinese qi'lin which was more antelope/deer-like with two horns rather than the scaled, dragony unicorn the Japanese turned it into. At least when the qi'lin wasn't actually a giraffe. But many Users won't know all that.

Indeed, I did my research on Wikipedia before making this one - very interesting history behind that creature, actually. But seeing as we don't have a separate tag for the Chinese qi'lin (note that qilin is aliased to kirin), we should probably treat it a catch-all for the different forms that it takes. Especially considering how even the Chinese and Japanese versions seem to have a lot of overlap, with certain Japanese examples borrowing traits usually found in the Chinese qi'lin and vice versa. Treating them all as the same thing is probably going to be the least headache for us.

cloudpie said:
What's going on with leviathan and mythological_leviathan?

Sorry, I missed this. I'm not sure what happened here but it seems that the mythological prefix wasn't deemed necessary for this tag, so that form isn't currently in use despite having an implication. I've now edited my above BUR to fix that.

scaliespe said:
As for Goodra, that's just because there has been a very long-running issue with people tagging Dragon-type Pokemon with the dragon species tag. That's just lore tagging as Goodra in particular hardly even looks like a dragon, so they probably never should have been tagged as dragons in the first place. I would just tag that as mollusk. As for Reshiram, well... I do think that one looks vaguely draconic or reptilian. The head and feet in particular pull off the dragon look well enough, IMO. And Flygon looks very scalie, so I don't see the issue with that one being tagged as such.

The main problem is with them being saddled with mythology tags. For the things that are considered dragons in modern day, it's like implicating elf to mythological_creature given they come from germanic mythology, making all that sweet Link and Zelda porn get classified as "mythology". This is what needs to be undone and cleaned up before it gets more out of hand, as it's resulting in mythology becoming a useless mess plastered on a bunch of things it shouldn't be.

Unicorn and hellhound are also an issue. Do people really expect things like this to be under mythology?
post #4611100 post #4610847 post #4610813

The bulk update request #6641 is pending approval.

remove implication dragon (421175) -> mythological_scalie (422557)
remove implication leviathan (409) -> mythological_marine (754)
remove implication leviathan (409) -> jewish_mythology (1028)
remove implication leviathan (409) -> aquatic_dragon (5941)
remove implication werewolf (34088) -> mythological_canine (68568)
remove implication unicorn (124599) -> mythological_equine (223721)
remove implication kirin (3229) -> dragon (421175)

Reason: Not all dragon, werewolf, and unicorn depictions are of the mythological variety. Dragon is a pretty broad term covering a range of creatures that aren't all mythological:
post #4598832 post #4612563 post #4612123 post #4611923

Leviathan is basically just an alternate word for large sea creature or sea serpent, not always referring to the biblical creature:
post #4609587 post #4164916 post #4353449 post #4587786

Werewolf is also not always mythological, applying essentially to any scruffy or muscular looking wolf anthro/humanoid or wolf shapeshifter:
post #4612394 post #4609976 post #4601876 post #4601006

Unicorn... well, MLP and Fluffy Ponies. Basically any equine-like thing with the slightest horn-like thing on its forehead is being labeled a mythological creature, despite not being what the mythological creature is (or it's description being so generic that it should require something a bit more explicit to link it to mythology):
post #4612102 post #4608936 post #4604131 post #4604088

These are on the level of having elf imply mythological_creature, something so common and basic in modern furry culture that depictions are largely divorced from the mythologies the creatures spawned from, causing these mythology tags to be flooded on many posts that they aren't expected on. mythological_scalie, mythological_marine, mythological_canine, mythological_equine, jewish_mythology, and mythology will need a heavy cleanup after, probably a nukeing to clear it off of any post that doesn't have something else to imply them, as there's probably tens if not hundreds of thousands of mistags from these implications.

P.S. I would've added an imply western_dragon -> mythological_scalie as a replacement, but I've noticed it getting used pretty loosely as well:
post #4604239 post #4604040 post #4600979
I'd probably consider these mistags, they should only use dragon instead, but they should be cleaned up before any such implication is made.

honestly, mythological_<species> seems like a weird tag family in general, I don't know why it's neccesary when <culture>_mythology already exists...

like, there's really not any shared traits between all these creatures, other them being fictional and, I guess, ubiquitous.

EDIT: these tags are akin to video_games

watsit said:
The bulk update request #6641 is pending approval.

remove implication dragon (421175) -> mythological_scalie (422557)
remove implication leviathan (409) -> mythological_marine (754)
remove implication leviathan (409) -> jewish_mythology (1028)
remove implication leviathan (409) -> aquatic_dragon (5941)
remove implication werewolf (34088) -> mythological_canine (68568)
remove implication unicorn (124599) -> mythological_equine (223721)
remove implication kirin (3229) -> dragon (421175)

Honestly this BUR should probably be undone and these implications fixed before redoing it. So many posts just got fucked lol

What is the distinction between mythological_bird and mythological_avian? The bird wiki simply says "See avian", while the avian wiki says "Anything avian relates to birds. Mostly includes bird species, but also includes a few fictional species that aren't usually considered birds." So "bird" is used for real-world avians, while avian is anything bird-like, including fictional species. But in the context of mythological creatures, I don't see a functional difference.

Also found leviathan implicating aquatic_dragon, despite leviathan being primarily considered sea serpents. I know dragon is pretty broad, but I don't think it includes all serpents yet.

I also don't think the distinction between mythology and mythological_creature is that strong to need separate tags on a site like this. Most posts tagged mythology will be because they have a mythological creature.

I'm starting to agree with DefinitelyNotAFurry4. All the BURs related to this thread should all be undone, all the mythology/mythological tags be cleansed in nukeular fire, and have a more carefully curated set redone.

Sorry for the second post, but I also notice hydra is somehow implicating greek_mythology and western_dragon twice. The hydra wiki lists both twice in its implication set, and both greek_mythology and western_dragon list hydra twice. Some kind of system error there. (also western_dragon implicates european_mythology, resulting in hydra posts being tagged both greek_mythology and european_mythology).

watsit said:
Sorry for the second post, but I also notice hydra is somehow implicating greek_mythology and western_dragon twice. The hydra wiki lists both twice in its implication set, and both greek_mythology and western_dragon list hydra twice. Some kind of system error there. (also western_dragon implicates european_mythology, resulting in hydra posts being tagged both greek_mythology and european_mythology).

greek_mythology implicates european_mythology to begin with?

sipothac said:
EDIT: these tags are akin to video_games

Well, we needed something to replace that with now that it's gone... :kek:

Seriously though, looking at these? Werewolves do seem especially out of place in the mythology tags. Medieval werewolves looked kind of silly, with no tails and mostly human torsos, or only appeared as full wolves (which'd be feral anyway).

Modern anthroish werewolves feel more like they're from movies and TV than from mythology. Except for some carryovers like vulnerability to silver.

dsco said:
greek_mythology implicates european_mythology to begin with?

So it does. Makes me wonder if it should, since Greek Mythology generally brings to mind ancient Greece (Zeus, Pegasus, etc), which I don't think many people consider traditional European (King Arthur, etc). That feels like it may be over-extending the utility of european_mythology. The ancient Greek civilization lasted from about 1200BCE to 323BCE and called the area "Europa", which I think is a distinct enough time period and culture to the Roman Empire (31 BC to 476 AD) and post-Roman eras where the more traditional European myths and legends come from. Europe as a continent may include Greece, but it also includes Scandinavia, but I don't think many people would consider Odin and Tyr to be in the same boat as Hades and Hercules.

The bulk update request #6630 (forum #391520) has been approved by @slyroon.

Now kirin is implicating dragon, which they aren't necessarily:
post #4590054 post #4605251

It's wiki page describes it as having "body of an elk, the tail of an ox and a single horn on the head", not a single draconic feature and sounds more like a unicorn or cervine. That depictions are "often inspired by the appearance of the dragon and include body covered in scales", according to its wiki page, doesn't make it always a dragon or even reptilian/scalie (not that simply having scales is enough for the dragon tag anyway). Can we just undo and nuke all these implications and aliases? As it is, mythology is on equal footing to scalie (the last few days mythology was actually ahead of scalie, now they're currently at 555k posts each), with a lot of mythology tags needing a big cleanout from posts that won't be nice on the system, where the longer it waits the worse it's going to be (and a lot of posts are mistagged dragon from some of these implications too, that can't have its cleanout be so automated).

watsit said:
The main problem is with them being saddled with mythology tags. For the things that are considered dragons in modern day, it's like implicating elf to mythological_creature given they come from germanic mythology, making all that sweet Link and Zelda porn get classified as "mythology". This is what needs to be undone and cleaned up before it gets more out of hand, as it's resulting in mythology becoming a useless mess plastered on a bunch of things it shouldn't be.

Unicorn and hellhound are also an issue. Do people really expect things like this to be under mythology?
post #4611100 post #4610847 post #4610813

Well, I suppose elves actually are mythological creatures, so I don't see the issue with that in particular. Even since it was first proposed, this was always going to be a big umbrella tag covering a very broad array of species. That's kinda the point. I imagine its primary purpose would be more for filtering out content than anything else - like for people who are looking only for "real" animals or similar, as there's not really any other way to do that currently. Not that it's perfect at achieving that, but it seems to come fairly close in its current state.

Unicorns seem distinctly mythological in my mind, so I don't see a problem with that. Nearly everything from MLP is based on a mythical creature besides the plain horses. That seems to be a deliberate decision on their part - there aren't any, like, foxes or birds that I'm aware of (well, I've never watched MLP, can't say for certain, but they must be rare if they do exist), so I think anyone searching for MLP shouldn't be surprised to see much of it tagged as mythology - and vice versa, seeing a lot of MLP under the search results for mythology.

As for Loona, well, I do think that her being tagged as hellhound is mostly just lore tagging as she looks pretty much like any regular wolf anthro outside of the red sclera (which is arguably slightly demonic-looking, but I don't think that's enough). As much as I believe that "true" hellhounds definitely qualify for a mythology tag, I think the hellhound tag might just be polluted with lore tagging beyond repair at this point... much like werewolf. Even hellhound -helluva_boss doesn't have great results. Having a tag for actual demonic-looking canines would be nice, but that might be better off nuked at this point. It's mostly just regular canines and people are probably going to continue using the tag that way for as long as it exists.

As for the third example, that just looks like a regular (albeit anthro) mythological dragon to me, so I don't know what the problem would be with that one. That seems appropriate for the tag.

watsit said:
Now kirin is implicating dragon, which they aren't necessarily:
post #4590054 post #4605251

It's wiki page describes it as having "body of an elk, the tail of an ox and a single horn on the head", not a single draconic feature and sounds more like a unicorn or cervine. That depictions are "often inspired by the appearance of the dragon and include body covered in scales", according to its wiki page, doesn't make it always a dragon or even reptilian/scalie (not that simply having scales is enough for the dragon tag anyway).

Well, a kirin is a dragon hybrid creature by definition, and the wiki is somewhat wrong. I'd rather go by Wikipedia.
The second of your two examples at least has some kind of head-scales that one might interpret as draconic, though, it's a pretty loose interpretation of a kirin if it even qualifies. The first example probably shouldn't even be tagged kirin - looks more like a regular unicorn.

watsit said:
Reason: Not all dragon, werewolf, and unicorn depictions are of the mythological variety. Dragon is a pretty broad term covering a range of creatures that aren't all mythological:
post #4598832 post #4612563 post #4612123 post #4611923

See, this I don't understand. In what way are these dragons "not of the mythological variety?" These mostly look like what I would expect to see with dragons, not any different from I would think of as "mythological" dragons, with the sole exception that they're anthro (which is not relevant. This is a furry site, anthro is the default here.)
...except maybe Flygon. Admittedly, that one could be better off tagged as arthropod or something along those lines. In reality it's a dragon/dragonfly hybrid (though almost never tagged this way, probably due to the questionable "no specific species on pokemon" rule), and hybrids generally tend to be hard to fully recognize as their constituent species. But the existence of hybrids doesn't invalidate species tag implications. We just have to accept that hybridized creatures like that are not going to perfectly fit the mold of the base species.

Leviathan is basically just an alternate word for large sea creature or sea serpent, not always referring to the biblical creature:
post #4609587 post #4164916 post #4353449 post #4587786

I could see a case for merging leviathan into some more generic sea_serpent tag, assuming most of its uses are not really accurately depicting the biblical creature. Disappointing, if what you're actually looking for is a depiction of the biblical creature, but perhaps a suffixed subtag could be created for that instead. I think that might be the best way to handle that. Then a specific leviathan_(biblical) (or whatever) tag can imply sea_serpent and receive leviathan's current mythology implications.

That said, however, Wikipedia does consider sea serpents to be a type of dragon. In a mythological sense, "serpent" tends to refer to any snake-like reptilian creature rather than snakes exclusively as modern terminology tends to - so that includes dragons. Sea serpents aren't really closer to being snakes than dragons, and the closest they come is the fact that they are sometimes (but very often not) limbless. But the same is true of dragon generally; see Lindworm for an example. Dragons were heavily inspired by snakes from the beginning, though, so the dragon/serpent overlap isn't surprising.

Werewolf is also not always mythological, applying essentially to any scruffy or muscular looking wolf anthro/humanoid or wolf shapeshifter:
post #4612394 post #4609976 post #4601876 post #4601006

Mostly ruined by lore-tagging, yes. I'm on board with just getting rid of it entirely, so +1 to that.

Unicorn... well, MLP and Fluffy Ponies. Basically any equine-like thing with the slightest horn-like thing on its forehead is being labeled a mythological creature, despite not being what the mythological creature is (or it's description being so generic that it should require something a bit more explicit to link it to mythology):
post #4612102 post #4608936 post #4604131 post #4604088

I'm just gonna self-quote my earlier response to this, actually:

These are on the level of having elf imply mythological_creature, something so common and basic in modern furry culture that depictions are largely divorced from the mythologies the creatures spawned from, causing these mythology tags to be flooded on many posts that they aren't expected on. mythological_scalie, mythological_marine, mythological_canine, mythological_equine, jewish_mythology, and mythology will need a heavy cleanup after, probably a nukeing to clear it off of any post that doesn't have something else to imply them, as there's probably tens if not hundreds of thousands of mistags from these implications.

I don't really see what you're expecting to get out of a tag like mythological_creature in the first place. It is very broad, yes. A lot of what the furry fandom focuses on has spawned from mythology. That's what the tag is for. Naturally, it's going to cover a lot of extremely varied content. Yet, you don't seem to be suggesting abolishing the tag entirely. So what is your proposal for the tag, exactly? What should the results include?

P.S. I would've added an imply western_dragon -> mythological_scalie as a replacement, but I've noticed it getting used pretty loosely as well:
post #4604239 post #4604040 post #4600979
I'd probably consider these mistags, they should only use dragon instead, but they should be cleaned up before any such implication is made.

I'm also not seeing where you draw the distinction between these and a "true" western dragon. They look perfectly well like western-style dragons to me. Well, the second example should arguably only be tagged scalie rather than any form of dragon since only half of the dragon character is visible. The tail looks scalie enough for a scalie tag, but the easiest way to identify an anthro dragon apart from other scalies is the head, which is not visible here. But I don't see how this would get tagged as even regular dragon. He may as well be a lizard or something.

Your first example seems to just be the artist's style. They have a very toony style that perhaps makes the dragons look a bit more like a Yoshi, but at least with the horns and wings I can read that as a dragon, however abstracted. It's definitely not an eastern dragon, besides the very toony and exaggerated style it does still follow the basic western dragon formula.
And the third example is also just a very abstracted art style. I can still reimagine this creature as a perfectly on-model western dragon without changing any features. Art style isn't really relevant to how a species should be tagged. They're ideally tagged according to identifiable characteristics, which these still have.

watsit said:
So it does. Makes me wonder if it should, since Greek Mythology generally brings to mind ancient Greece (Zeus, Pegasus, etc), which I don't think many people consider traditional European (King Arthur, etc). That feels like it may be over-extending the utility of european_mythology. The ancient Greek civilization lasted from about 1200BCE to 323BCE and called the area "Europa", which I think is a distinct enough time period and culture to the Roman Empire (31 BC to 476 AD) and post-Roman eras where the more traditional European myths and legends come from. Europe as a continent may include Greece, but it also includes Scandinavia, but I don't think many people would consider Odin and Tyr to be in the same boat as Hades and Hercules.

Greece and Scandinavia are probably still a lot closer to each other culturally than they are to things like aAsian mythology and Native American mythology. I think they all fit soundly under the "European" title. But perhaps a more specific tag for the area between Rome and England might be useful.

scaliespe said:
Even since it was first proposed, this was always going to be a big umbrella tag covering a very broad array of species. That's kinda the point. I imagine its primary purpose would be more for filtering out content than anything else - like for people who are looking only for "real" animals or similar, as there's not really any other way to do that currently.

so... like video_games then...

honestly, I still do not see a good reason for the mythological_creature and other mythilogical_<thing> tags to exist when the <culture>_mythology tags exist already, and are more useful.

sipothac said:
so... like video_games then...

Well, no. video_games was a mess because so much of it was blatantly wrong, and additionally didn't follow TWYS in any way most of the time. It arguably could have been useful had it been limited to actual recognizable video game content, but it was implied by so many non-videogame things that it became pointless. Like how the Sonic comics and Pokemon anime implied video_games through sega and nintendo even though those aren't video games at all. At least the current results for mythological_creature are still somewhat recognizable as originating from mythology (ie. as opposed to purely real-life species and OC creations and whatnot).

scaliespe said:
Well, no. video_games was a mess because so much of it was blatantly wrong, and additionally didn't follow TWYS in any way most of the time. It arguably could have been useful had it been limited to actual recognizable video game content, but it was implied by so many non-videogame things that it became pointless. Like how the Sonic comics and Pokemon anime implied video_games through sega and nintendo even though those aren't video games at all.

and a bunch of stuff that isn't mythological in origin in their own canon is getting tagged as mythological_creature. Pokémon and Sonic are primarily and were initially video game franchises. I don't see how tangle_the_lemur implying video_games is ultimately any different from a unicorn fluffy_pony implying mythological.

scaliespe said:
At least the current results for mythological_creature are still somewhat recognizable as originating from mythology.

this was just as true for video_games when that tag was still active.

--

also like, what even qualifies as "mythological"?

are more recent pieces of folklore/urban legends mythology? would things like a dragon and a cockatrice be mythological, but the chupacabra and jackalope not?

what about aliens, are roswell_greys mythological?

should modern internet-era folklore be considered a kind of myth? is slenderman mythological?

where do we draw the line and why?

scaliespe said:
Well, I suppose elves actually are mythological creatures, so I don't see the issue with that in particular. Even since it was first proposed, this was always going to be a big umbrella tag covering a very broad array of species. That's kinda the point. I imagine its primary purpose would be more for filtering out content than anything else - like for people who are looking only for "real" animals or similar, as there's not really any other way to do that currently. Not that it's perfect at achieving that, but it seems to come fairly close in its current state.

So are foxes and wolves and bears... most animals are tied into various mythologies around the world, but that doesn't inherently make depictions of them of the mythological variety. And most "mythological creatures" are based on real animals with real animal features, which makes the boundary rather vague. Hence why creatures like werewolves and dragons tend to apply more broadly, in ways that aren't depicting mythology except in the most loosest sense. In some cases, the nature of the furry fandom would naturally result in creatures that also happen to have appeared in mythology (e.g. minotaurs being humanoid bulls, werewolves being people who change between wolf and man) which further blurs the line with mythology.

As loosely as mythology is being applied now, it's currently beating scalie (currently scalie has 556k posts and mythology has 559k posts). That makes me wonder what the intended utility of the tag is for such a niche concept (stuff from real world myths and legends), if it's beating one of the most popular concepts in the fandom (reptilian/scalie creatures of any kinds). And this is with scalie being expanded to include furred and feathered dragons.

scaliespe said:
As for the third example, that just looks like a regular (albeit anthro) mythological dragon to me, so I don't know what the problem would be with that one. That seems appropriate for the tag.

I don't see anything mythological about it. What is mythological in it? It's a horned scalie creature, that one can interpret as draconic from its generic depiction.

scaliespe said:
Well, a kirin is a dragon hybrid creature by definition, and the wiki is somewhat wrong. I'd rather go by Wikipedia.

That doesn't seem to support the assertion very well:

Qilin generally have Chinese dragon-like features: similar heads with antlers, eyes with thick eyelashes, manes that always flow upward, and beards. The body is fully or partially scaled and often shaped like an ox, deer, or horse, or more commonly a goat.

"Generally have" isn't "always", and the specific features listed, "heads with antlers, eyes with thick eyelashes, manes that always flow upward, and beards" and "partially scaled", isn't exclusively draconic. But even is it was, wouldn't an implication to eastern_dragon be more appropriate by this definition, since it explicitly names "Chinese dragon-like features"?

scaliespe said:
The second of your two examples at least has some kind of head-scales that one might interpret as draconic, though, it's a pretty loose interpretation of a kirin if it even qualifies. The first example probably shouldn't even be tagged kirin - looks more like a regular unicorn.

Again pointing to the problem of so loosely applying the mythological_creature tags, as they aren't real creatures and people can make their own interpretations of them, and other people making their own interpretations of those interpretations. Ultimately creating variations that never appeared in mythology and blurring the line of when it stops being said fictional/mythological creature.

scaliespe said:
See, this I don't understand. In what way are these dragons "not of the mythological variety?"

They're not the kind of things I'd expect to see if I go look at the mythological sources. It's not just them being anthro, but their overall design not fitting the mythologies.

scaliespe said:
I could see a case for merging leviathan into some more generic sea_serpent tag, assuming most of its uses are not really accurately depicting the biblical creature. Disappointing, if what you're actually looking for is a depiction of the biblical creature, but perhaps a suffixed subtag could be created for that instead. I think that might be the best way to handle that. Then a specific leviathan_(biblical) (or whatever) tag can imply sea_serpent and receive leviathan's current mythology implications.

There is the mythological_leviathan tag that could be for the mythological versions, though it's empty currently.

scaliespe said:
I don't really see what you're expecting to get out of a tag like mythological_creature in the first place. It is very broad, yes. A lot of what the furry fandom focuses on has spawned from mythology.

That's far too broad to be useful. The entire idea of anthropomorphic animals spawned from mythology, but we're not implying anthro to mythological_creature. What I expect from mythological_creature is depictions of creatures from mythology more directly. Essentially I'd expect to see mythology in posts tagged mythology/mythological_creature, not someone's OC that's of a species that has filtered and re-filtered through the fandom and more popular modern (re)interpretations that have deviated from the mythologies it originally spawned from.

scaliespe said:
I'm also not seeing where you draw the distinction between these and a "true" western dragon.
[...]
Your first example seems to just be the artist's style. They have a very toony style that perhaps makes the dragons look a bit more like a Yoshi, but at least with the horns and wings I can read that as a dragon, however abstracted. It's definitely not an eastern dragon, besides the very toony and exaggerated style it does still follow the basic western dragon formula.

Honestly, when I think of "western dragon" I think of D&D's feral/"true" dragons and wyverns (though even they aren't quite the same as the original mythological sources; interestingly I remember hearing somewhere how the idea of a dragon breathing fire likely came from a misinterpretation of a carving depicting a forked tongue). That first one I'd have called a kobold if I didn't know any better (which kobold is a fun thing to get into when talking about mythology too). But this goes to show how malleable these creatures are and how they can be reinterpreted in ways separate from the original mythology they came from.

scaliespe said:
Well, I suppose elves actually are mythological creatures, so I don't see the issue with that in particular. Even since it was first proposed, this was always going to be a big umbrella tag covering a very broad array of species. That's kinda the point. I imagine its primary purpose would be more for filtering out content than anything else - like for people who are looking only for "real" animals or similar, as there's not really any other way to do that currently. Not that it's perfect at achieving that, but it seems to come fairly close in its current state.

I liked the idea for searching, as I'd enjoy a way to look for all mythological creatures at once... But I feel like the mythology implication might be the largest issue here, personally... Dragons are mythological creatures, same with unicorns, but mythology I feel would only belong on posts that are specifically related to real-world mythology, not any mythological creature used in any context. I would expect to see a dragon in mythological_creature, but unless that dragon was specifically from a real world myth, I wouldn't expect to see it turn up under mythology.

I am going to agree with others in this thread that this tag needs to be thought theough more and the original BURs should be undone and cleaned up. I'm going to reject my felid BUR for now even if I still agree with it, because we don't need to add more fuel onto the fire.

The bulk update request #6621 (forum #391421) has been rejected by @Nimphia.

sipothac said:
and a bunch of stuff that isn't mythological in origin in their own canon is getting tagged as mythological_creature.

Like what? Besides things that were mistagged from the start. Like, dragons are inherently mythological. Their entire existence derives from mythology. If something qualifies as a dragon in any way, then it is a creature derived from mythology, even if it's a modernized or abstracted version of it.

Pokémon and Sonic are primarily and were initially video game franchises. I don't see how tangle_the_lemur implying video_games is ultimately any different from a unicorn fluffy_pony implying mythological.

this was just as true for video_games when that tag was still active.

Video_games was full of posts of characters like that which were not derived from any video game. A unicorn is derived from mythology by definition, so any form of unicorn is necessarily of a mythological origin. If we're going to make the argument that a fluffy pony unicorn is too far abstracted from the original mythology to be tagged as mythology, then I'd say it shouldn't be tagged as unicorn. That's a mythological creature. If the character in the post is not a mythological creature (even an abstracted or modified one), then don't tag it with a mythological creature species tag.
Alternatively, you could ask yourself whether or not anybody searching for unicorn and expecting to find the typical mythical horned equine would find that post to be an acceptable result.

also like, what even qualifies as "mythological"?

are more recent pieces of folklore/urban legends mythology? would things like a dragon and a cockatrice be mythological, but the chupacabra and jackalope not?

what about aliens, are roswell_greys mythological?

should modern internet-era folklore be considered a kind of myth? is slenderman mythological?

where do we draw the line and why?

The lines are blurry, sure, but I would say that mythology has to be "magical" or "supernatural" in some way. chupacabra and jackalope are cryptids, which get their own tags - these have no associated myth or magic; essentially, cryptids are (probably fake) animals that have been reported to exist somewhere in the world. Aliens are similar, except that they're purported to have come from another planet. Things like Slenderman and SCP characters fall into the realm of modern fiction. The distinction with mythology is that they're long-held cultural narratives. Generally, myths are associated with religion and are (or, for the most part, were) actually believed by the people who were part of that religion. Not that somebody couldn't start a Church of Slenderman, but that lacks the historical and cultural precedent.

watsit said:
So are foxes and wolves and bears... most animals are tied into various mythologies around the world, but that doesn't inherently make depictions of them of the mythological variety. And most "mythological creatures" are based on real animals with real animal features, which makes the boundary rather vague. Hence why creatures like werewolves and dragons tend to apply more broadly, in ways that aren't depicting mythology except in the most loosest sense. In some cases, the nature of the furry fandom would naturally result in creatures that also happen to have appeared in mythology (e.g. minotaurs being humanoid bulls, werewolves being people who change between wolf and man) which further blurs the line with mythology.

A dragon isn't a real animal. At best, it's a hybrid of a few different real animals, but that's easily distinguishable from a real animal. That is not remotely in the same category as foxes and wolves and bears that happen to be featured in mythological narratives. If you can even tag it as dragon at all, it is mythological.

As loosely as mythology is being applied now, it's currently beating scalie (currently scalie has 556k posts and mythology has 559k posts). That makes me wonder what the intended utility of the tag is for such a niche concept (stuff from real world myths and legends), if it's beating one of the most popular concepts in the fandom (reptilian/scalie creatures of any kinds). And this is with scalie being expanded to include furred and feathered dragons.

With how popular mythology is in general, I don't see how that can be niche. Or what you're wanting is only content from individual myths? ie. you want not just any western dragon, but specifically the dragon from Saint George and the Dragon. That would be incredibly niche, I suppose. But the concept of dragons is shared across a very large number of individual myths, so the species itself is derived from the mythological canon as a whole rather than any particular myth. I think that's what the mythology tag was meant to be used for, and that is inevitably going to be very broad since so much of modern popular culture does trace its roots back to mythology.

Funny how this has always been the case for a lot of smaller species - ie. eastern_dragon implying east_asian_mythology - but nobody had an issue with that until like a year ago. Likewise for gryphon. Anything you can say against dragon implying mythology can be said about that implication too. Eastern-style dragons are also very often depicted in a way that is pretty far removed from its origin, but that's still its origin. Is sisu_(ratld) really "East Asian Mythology"? She's been tagged as such for as long as the character has existed on this site, and that never seemed to be an issue. But again, having a tag that broadly covers everything of mythical origin, even characters like Sisu, will probably prove to be useful for search filtering. It covers most non-real-life species, and the rest mostly imply franchises or similar copyright tags, so now copytags:0 works pretty well for searching "only real species". Maybe add a few of the major outliers like alien and demon, but most of the results should be pretty accurate if that's what you're looking for - rather than having to filter out a bunch of individual mythical creatures. I don't see how that's not useful.

I don't see anything mythological about it. What is mythological in it? It's a horned scalie creature, that one can interpret as draconic from its generic depiction.

Well, a horny_toad is also a "horned scalie creature", but that's hardly the same thing. The creature in the picture looks like an anthropomorphized form of the dragons from western mythology. It doesn't look to me like a real-life reptile. The head in particular seems to evoke the image of a western dragon well enough to qualify. It's not just about sticking horns on a reptile.

That doesn't seem to support the assertion very well:
"Generally have" isn't "always", and the specific features listed, "heads with antlers, eyes with thick eyelashes, manes that always flow upward, and beards" and "partially scaled", isn't exclusively draconic. But even is it was, wouldn't an implication to eastern_dragon be more appropriate by this definition, since it explicitly names "Chinese dragon-like features"?

Well there's more to it than that. The literal definition is a bit vague as there is always variation in the depictions of mythical species across time and place, but it always has at least some traditional eastern dragon features. Without that, it wouldn't even be recognizable as the species.
Having it imply eastern_dragon instead would probably work, actually.

Again pointing to the problem of so loosely applying the mythological_creature tags, as they aren't real creatures and people can make their own interpretations of them, and other people making their own interpretations of those interpretations. Ultimately creating variations that never appeared in mythology and blurring the line of when it stops being said fictional/mythological creature.

We do have to draw the line somewhere. If an artist's depiction of a kirin ends up so far removed from the original mythology that nobody looking at it would be able to correctly identify the species, then it probably just shouldn't be tagged as that species. There's still room for individual artistic interpretation within those bounds, but it should still bear some resemblance to the original form.

They're not the kind of things I'd expect to see if I go look at the mythological sources. It's not just them being anthro, but their overall design not fitting the mythologies.

Perhaps we're just looking at them differently, but I can look at any one of those (not flygon) and imagine a feralized version of it looking pretty on-model to the beasts depicted in mythological sources. Any form of anthropomorphization is an abstraction from that original, though, so you do lose some of the resemblance that way.

There is the mythological_leviathan tag that could be for the mythological versions, though it's empty currently.

The contents of that tag were manually moved over to leviathan, but I think it largely had the same problem. The problem is that it doesn't specify what mythology the leviathan is from, since the concept of the sea serpent originates from several unrelated myths, and "leviathan" has come to refer to any of them in a generic sense.

That's far too broad to be useful. The entire idea of anthropomorphic animals spawned from mythology, but we're not implying anthro to mythological_creature. What I expect from mythological_creature is depictions of creatures from mythology more directly. Essentially I'd expect to see mythology in posts tagged mythology/mythological_creature, not someone's OC that's of a species that has filtered and re-filtered through the fandom and more popular modern (re)interpretations that have deviated from the mythologies it originally spawned from.

Well, where do you draw the line? Pretty much any depiction of any mythical creature in modern artwork is going to be put through some kind of modern lens, unless your artwork looks like this. I don't think there's a clear line between this and what the furry fandom produces today where one can say it switches from "a mythological depiction" to a "non-mythological depiction." And what are we going to do, sift through 300,000 dragon posts and try to manually tag the ones that are close enough to the original mythology by some arbitrary standard? It's easier to just say that they're all mythological, even if abstracted from the original. As long as it's close enough that an uninformed user can look at the post and visually recognize it as a dragon - if not, then it shouldn't even be tagged as a dragon via TWYS.

Honestly, when I think of "western dragon" I think of D&D's feral/"true" dragons and wyverns (though even they aren't quite the same as the original mythological sources; interestingly I remember hearing somewhere how the idea of a dragon breathing fire likely came from a misinterpretation of a carving depicting a forked tongue). That first one I'd have called a kobold if I didn't know any better (which kobold is a fun thing to get into when talking about mythology too). But this goes to show how malleable these creatures are and how they can be reinterpreted in ways separate from the original mythology they came from.

Even D&D dragons are a somewhat modernized abstraction from the ones depicted in ancient artwork, but sure, that's a pretty standard dragon. I could see the argument for that particular post simply not being tagged as dragon - it's a bit on the edge for me. Kobolds don't have wings, so the winged character in that post can't be a kobold. However, urd is used for winged kobolds specifically. I could kinda see that working on that post. Or just tag it as yoshi

nimphia said:
I liked the idea for searching, as I'd enjoy a way to look for all mythological creatures at once... But I feel like the mythology implication might be the largest issue here, personally... Dragons are mythological creatures, same with unicorns, but mythology I feel would only belong on posts that are specifically related to real-world mythology, not any mythological creature used in any context. I would expect to see a dragon in mythological_creature, but unless that dragon was specifically from a real world myth, I wouldn't expect to see it turn up under mythology.

I am going to agree with others in this thread that this tag needs to be thought theough more and the original BURs should be undone and cleaned up. I'm going to reject my felid BUR for now even if I still agree with it, because we don't need to add more fuel onto the fire.

You know, that might make sense actually. Perhaps we should leave mythological_creature roughly as it is - implied by pretty much anything with some mythological origin, however abstracted - and remove the implication to mythology. Nuke the tag, then use it for things only associated with specific, individual myths, such as specific deities or other characters from specific myths. As it stands right now, the distinction between mythological_creature and mythology is only about 24,000 posts, and most of those just seem to be species that already imply mythology through one of the regional mythologies but are missing the mythological_creature implication, such as wendigo - another mythological creature that furries tend to abstract pretty far from the original myth. Among a bunch of others, but that was just the standout one I saw.

scaliespe said:
A dragon isn't a real animal. At best, it's a hybrid of a few different real animals, but that's easily distinguishable from a real animal.

Not always. Considering many mythological creatures start as being a real animal (often one not familiar to the people hearing about it) but the description gets slowly warped and misinterpreted by retellings of the events with the creature, where it comes to take on a life of its own. Where one animal ends and the other begins is left open to debate, with no real answer.

scaliespe said:
With how popular mythology is in general, I don't see how that can be niche. Or what you're wanting is only content from individual myths? ie. you want not just any western dragon, but specifically the dragon from Saint George and the Dragon. That would be incredibly niche, I suppose.

That's the kind of thing I expect under the mythology/mythological tags. Maybe not direct depictions of the myths, but at least something inspired more directly by them, rather than the more pop culture depictions that are farther removed from the myths themselves. I mean, the general idea of medieval knights fighting dragons or saving princesses who were captured by a dragon, could be considered mythological to modern audiences, but some kind of generic furred anthro with a patch of scales and horns cuddling on a couch with his boyfriend in a modern or futuristic society, I wouldn't call inherently mythological.

scaliespe said:
But the concept of dragons is shared across a very large number of individual myths, so the species itself is derived from the mythological canon as a whole rather than any particular myth. I think that's what the mythology tag was meant to be used for, and that is inevitably going to be very broad since so much of modern popular culture does trace its roots back to mythology.

Which I think makes it far too broad, as you can say the same thing about many anthro animals. But we don't tag all anthro jackals as mythological_creature, despite not being a real thing and coming from mythology, so I don't see why we should for all dragons.

scaliespe said:
Funny how this has always been the case for a lot of smaller species - ie. eastern_dragon implying east_asian_mythology - but nobody had an issue with that until like a year ago. Likewise for gryphon. Anything you can say against dragon implying mythology can be said about that implication too.

I do remember there being discussions a couple years ago about separating gryphon from the mythology tags, with very similar reasons to here. That the concept has grown so broad, at least within the furry fandom, that many depictions are based more on the idea of 'feline+avian hybrids are neat' with no hint of the mythology the concept came from (but they still look close enough to what we call "gryphon" that people will use the word). I was on board with separating them.

As for eastern_dragon implying east_asian_mythology, maybe it's because e6 largely caters to a western audience, that eastern_dragon is seen as something more specific, the stuff from Asian culture and legends that we're not a part of. Whereas western_dragon is seen more as "the default kind of dragon", the kind of thing we're more exposed to on the regular and being more connected to western pop culture reinterpretations of the creature (which would also explain why people are likely to tag "western dragon" more loosely alongside "dragon"). Depictions of eastern dragons in western media are more likely to tie it to the myths and legends they came from in some way, basically the east asian myths tend to be the reason to make an eastern dragon character as opposed to some other animal. I'm sure if e6 was targeted more to eastern audiences, the roles would be reversed; they'd probably see eastern dragons as more common/pop culture stuff with western dragons being more exotic and myth-based.

scaliespe said:
Well, a horny_toad is also a "horned scalie creature", but that's hardly the same thing. The creature in the picture looks like an anthropomorphized form of the dragons from western mythology. It doesn't look to me like a real-life reptile.

Facially at least, it kind of makes me think of certain types of horned lizards. And it's not like a dragon can't resemble a toad or amphibian. Ironically, I'd have said he has a more eastern dragon look than a western dragon one, but it is rather ambiguous on that front. Which is kind of my point, it's really hard to pin this stuff down.

scaliespe said:
Perhaps we're just looking at them differently, but I can look at any one of those (not flygon) and imagine a feralized version of it looking pretty on-model to the beasts depicted in mythological sources.

I'm sure you can, but it's not about if you can imagine it looking on-model to mythological sources, it's about whether it is, and I don't see that it is in most cases without more.

scaliespe said:
Well, where do you draw the line? Pretty much any depiction of any mythical creature in modern artwork is going to be put through some kind of modern lens, unless your artwork looks like this. I don't think there's a clear line between this and what the furry fandom produces today where one can say it switches from "a mythological depiction" to a "non-mythological depiction."

I'm not sure exactly where the line is, but I'm of the mind the mythology tags needed a bit more tightening up, to put more mythology in mythology, rather than the loosening and unraveling it recently got. I said earlier that I was on board with stripping the gryphon tag from mythology because of how generic and separated they've become from their mythological roots in most images here, and was hoping that discussion could be revived one day. But as the tags are currently being handled, the vast majority of this site is considered mythology/mythological_creatures. I don't see how that's supposed to make the tag useful for anyone. Anyone actually looking for mythology or mythological_creatures is going to find their results filled with characters from video games and kid shows, with very modern/pop culture designs lacking any actual mythology beyond the most superficial.

scaliespe said:
I could see the argument for that particular post simply not being tagged as dragon - it's a bit on the edge for me. Kobolds don't have wings, so the winged character in that post can't be a kobold. However, urd is used for winged kobolds specifically. I could kinda see that working on that post. Or just tag it as yoshi

The winged character is tagged imp, another fun thing to look into regarding mythology alongside kobolds. Honestly, the distinction between kobolds and anthro wingless_dragons has always been a bit muddled to me, but that's what you have to deal with when dealing with fictional creatures that can be reinterpreted however an artist wants.

watsit said:
The main problem is with them being saddled with mythology tags. For the things that are considered dragons in modern day, it's like implicating elf to mythological_creature given they come from germanic mythology, making all that sweet Link and Zelda porn get classified as "mythology". This is what needs to be undone and cleaned up before it gets more out of hand, as it's resulting in mythology becoming a useless mess plastered on a bunch of things it shouldn't be.

Unicorn and hellhound are also an issue. Do people really expect things like this to be under mythology?
post #4611100 post #4610847 post #4610813

I would argue that elves as mentioned above aren't aliased to a mythological tag because practically every feature of them in common perception has stemmed from contemporary writings and art--Christmas media and Tolkienian fantasy in particular. (whether Hylians are elves or not is debatable) The same goes for dwarves and goblins, as well as kobolds, also mentioned above... I would argue dragons fit in the same mold

I recall that I was opposed to the mythological creature tag being unaliased from mythology in the first place, a few years back when the unalias was being planned. I don't think the presence of a species stemming from mythology should be the threshold for stating that a post contains elements of mythology. Most mythological creatures can be altered by way of worldbuilding, or on an individual level, character creation, to be wholly unrepresentative of the mythos that the species occurred in.

Similarly, often seen in myths and ancient stories are mundane animals with mythical traits. We've seen in the past that kitsune and related fox spirits from other Asian cultures, hugely important to and relevant in furry art, don't cleanly fit into any mythological creature tag.

The tag implication hydra -> western_dragon has been rejected by @slyroon.

The tag implication hydra -> greek_mythology has been rejected by @slyroon.

The tag implication pegasus -> mythological_equine has been rejected by @slyroon.