Topic: What's The Differences Between doppelganger_(literary) and doppelganger

A conversation that I'm somewhat dread to have due to the possibility of it ending in a misconception or less than favorable way, but it's something that needs to be done soon and I need to make a heads up about what I did in the last two hours (with the second hour looking for art for examples).

I want to have a talk about the differences between those two tags doppelganger_(literary) and doppelganger itself. At first, I was using the latter for my characters as there was no good way to describe a character that is similar to another official character but is definitely not in the "OC: Do Not Steal" territory as they are literally using the bodies of the real characters but are more or less imposter versions of them. Then I discovered the literary version and decided to use that instead for awhile before discovering that there are two versions of the word and over time I decided that since both terms are about to hit their hundred together, that we should probably have a discussion between what's different between the two tags.

But before we do, I decided to separate the tags using my idea about them first as an example to start things off and try to go from there.

doppelganger_(literary) I believe is supposed to mean:
Actual creatures/monsters with transformation abilities that are meant to replace someone or exist at the same time as the original person
post #5737796
post #5715067
post #5366820
post #5004694

Character of similar qualities but can definitely replace them when they can: post #5606859

An actual named character that is said to be a doppelganger/evil clone of the original character: yticilef_(rainbow_butterfly_unicorn_kitty) (This picture is the only one with the real Yticilef): post #5635521
Evil T-Bone (but he's not named here and only the description of the source confirms that this isn't the real Chance Furlong): post #5459909

To be honest, I understand that this is what the Tag Doppelganger is meant to be used all along. But how would that describe my kind of characters that are using the bodies of official characters or other kind of characters, or someone else's where it's implied that they're doppelgangers of another character but there's no other indication of that unless they speak or other such indicators like glowing eyes.

For me
Doppelganger is in a similar manner of tf_into_fictional_character and/or [[twinning] however this time, it's about scenarios after they become the character
but the characters are their own beings and personalities and are actually shapeshifters that turned into the characters like my characters of Sadith and Meri being Kumoko:
post #4915760

Or Leader's main form being Dolly from Dalmatians Street:
post #4933617
post #3634210

Or when a character is pretending to be a character that is off screen:
post #4638869

I removed all the literary versions of the tag off of my characters but add them in for every character that fits my criteria of being a creature or character that's in middle of taking someone's place or a literal creature that can assume the forms of others. So the numbers between both tags have been mostly flipped now and since this is pretty much a big change, this is definitely something that needs to be talked about.

Not gonna lie, a lot of these seem almost entirely based on external information. The only ones I would look at and think to myself, 'oh, there's some doppelgangery going on here are: post #5606859, post #5737796 and post #5366820 and at a stretch post #5004694 and post #5715067.

Now, I don't pretend to understand lore tags as a category, but the rest seem like they might fit better into a lore tag than in general. Of course, this is predicated on not tagging things based on image text, which I think is still the rule?
At a guess, most people looking for doppelganger content wouldn't be expecting images that appear just to be a character doing things, unless you already understand the context of the image.

quenir said:
Not gonna lie, a lot of these seem almost entirely based on external information. The only ones I would look at and think to myself, 'oh, there's some doppelgangery going on here are: post #5606859, post #5737796 and post #5366820 and at a stretch post #5004694 and post #5715067.

Now, I don't pretend to understand lore tags as a category, but the rest seem like they might fit better into a lore tag than in general. Of course, this is predicated on not tagging things based on image text, which I think is still the rule?
At a guess, most people looking for doppelganger content wouldn't be expecting images that appear just to be a character doing things, unless you already understand the context of the image.

So more or less these two fit the kind of doppelganger content that most people will be likely looking for.
post #4890019
post #4638869

If you're looking for doppelganger content would you most likely look the one that has literary on it first or just the word by itself?

I think there are three doppelgänger tags:

1) doppelganger_(literary) - this is the first wiki you linked to.
2) doppelgänger_(artist_ - this is the second wiki you linked to, probably by mistake. This is an artist that is now aliased to the name "Mothercrow".
3) doppelgänger_(species) - this is a red "species" type tag.

So disregarding the artist (#2), I think you have "doppelgänger" in the sense of a specific mythological creature (a monster that mimics the image of persons) and "doppelgänger" in the sense of an uncanny double - think of a character who passes his double while walking down the street in an old German story, or Homer Simpson meeting the guy with the mustache .

donkdewd said:
I think there are three doppelgänger tags:

1) doppelganger_(literary) - this is the first wiki you linked to.
2) doppelgänger_(artist_ - this is the second wiki you linked to, probably by mistake. This is an artist that is now aliased to the name "Mothercrow".
3) doppelgänger_(species) - this is a red "species" type tag.

So disregarding the artist (#2), I think you have "doppelgänger" in the sense of a specific mythological creature (a monster that mimics the image of persons) and "doppelgänger" in the sense of an uncanny double - think of a character who passes his double while walking down the street in an old German story, or Homer Simpson meeting the guy with the mustache .

Oh, I did link to the artist one by accident, I meant by the general tag of doppelganger: https://e621.net/posts?tags=doppleganger and your last definition of it for my characters that should be somewhat similar to the character in here:
post #5606859

in which they look the same as the original but they're actually not. I should probably tag the ones referring to the actual creatures species of doppelganger along with the ones I've already marked as doppelganger_(literary). But mostly after this discussion on what to do with those two general tags.

jolem said:
Oh, I did link to the artist one by accident, I meant by the general tag of doppelganger: https://e621.net/posts?tags=doppleganger and your last definition of it for my characters that should be somewhat similar to the character in here:
post #5606859

in which they look the same as the original but they're actually not. I should probably tag the ones referring to the actual creatures species of doppelganger along with the ones I've already marked as doppelganger_(literary). But mostly after this discussion on what to do with those two general tags.

Oh, I missed that there was yet another doppelgänger tag. I should have clicked through to some of your examples. We should probably eliminate that tag, but I'm not certain of the best way to do that, so I hope others have some thoughts.

Yes, that example in your last post would be doppelgänger_(literary), IMO. The Mickey Mouse "Prince and the Pauper" stuff under that tag is another good example of the "literary" sense of the word.

The Dungeon Meshi / Delicious in Dungeon example you posted would be an example of doppelgänger_(species), although I think in Dungeon Meshi the creature in that scene is called a Shapeshifter and a doppelgänger might be a different thing in the universe of the manga / anime, so I'm not sure what to do there, TBH.

donkdewd said:
Oh, I missed that there was yet another doppelgänger tag. I should have clicked through to some of your examples. We should probably eliminate that tag, but I'm not certain of the best way to do that, so I hope others have some thoughts.

Given the amount of debate this has sparked, I think a disambiguation tag may be warranted.

I'm still not entirely clear what the purpose of the "literary" version is. It should probably be renamed -- maybe just to "uncanny double", if that's the more literal meaning?

beholding said:
Given the amount of debate this has sparked, I think a disambiguation tag may be warranted.

I'm still not entirely clear what the purpose of the "literary" version is. It should probably be renamed -- maybe just to "uncanny double", if that's the more literal meaning?

Yeah, that sounds good to me. So we would keep doppelgänger_(species) and alias doppelgänger_(literary) to doppelgänger_(uncanny double) or doppelgänger_(look-alike), then have plain "doppelgänger" lead to a page that explains those tags. "Look-alike" is a little less precise but it's easier to understand. There is already a "look-alike" tag with only 8 images in it that we can alias away as well, probably.

donkdewd said:
Yeah, that sounds good to me. So we would keep doppelgänger_(species) and alias doppelgänger_(literary) to doppelgänger_(uncanny double) or doppelgänger_(look-alike), then have plain "doppelgänger" lead to a page that explains those tags. "Look-alike" is a little less precise but it's easier to understand. There is already a "look-alike" tag with only 8 images in it that we can alias away as well, probably.

I think simply aliasing the _(literary) tag to "look-alike" is the better option.

beholding said:
I think simply aliasing the _(literary) tag to "look-alike" is the better option.

Yes, that seems fine.

The bulk update request #12018 is pending approval.

remove alias doppelganger (0) -> mothercrow (115)
create alias doppleganger (137) -> doppelganger_(disambiguation) (0)
change category doppelganger_(disambiguation) (0) -> invalid
create alias look_alikes (8) -> look-alike (10)
mass update doppelganger_(literary) -> look-alike

Reason:

alias doppelganger -> doppelganger_(disambiguation)

Here's the proposed adjustment.

None of these tags have wiki pages, by the way. That should probably be rectified. EDIT: While attempting to do so, I discovered that the wiki doesn't allow page titles to contain non-ASCII characters, so it is impossible to write a description for doppelgänger_(species).

I really should've said something earlier but I was too tired to respond, but I don't think using look-alikes are a good idea for a replacement for the literary version of doppelganger to look_alikes since the term itself appears to be used for characters that have similar clothes to each other:
post #5440859

Similar hair styles:
post #5541048

Similar poses:
post #4696027

and similar body types:
post #294042

Then again since the number of posts this tag has is relatively small and barely used for each of these scenarios, maybe it would be that these kinds of situations should be given their own name, like clothing_emulation for the Raboot picture, hair_emulation the Fire Princess picture, Pose_emulation for the Decidueye picture, and body_type_emulation for the Sylveon one.

Oh wait we have a comparison tag, so I could just add them to that tag instead before the merging of the literary doppelganger. Edit: Okay, now you can do the merging.

beholding said:
The bulk update request #12018 is pending approval.

remove alias doppelganger (0) -> mothercrow (115)
create alias doppleganger (137) -> doppelganger_(disambiguation) (0)
change category doppelganger_(disambiguation) (0) -> invalid
create alias look_alikes (8) -> look-alike (10)
mass update doppelganger_(literary) -> look-alike

Reason:

Followup

alias doppelganger -> doppelganger_(disambiguation)
category doppelganger_(disambiguation) -> invalid

Thanks for doing that Beholding, but we also have the other tag Jolem found that I originally missed, which is doppleganger with the L and the E flipped - this is separate from the tag for the correct spelling of the word, which is aliased to Mothercrow. The incorrect spelling tag currently has 132 posts connected to it. We can sort the "species" posts from the "look-alike" posts once we've got the complete mapping down.

donkdewd said:
Thanks for doing that Beholding, but we also have the other tag Jolem found that I originally missed, which is doppleganger with the L and the E flipped - this is separate from the tag for the correct spelling of the word, which is aliased to Mothercrow. The incorrect spelling tag currently has 132 posts connected to it. We can sort the "species" posts from the "look-alike" posts once we've got the complete mapping down.

No problem, I've added it to the BUR.

beholding said:
No problem, I've added it to the BUR.

Thanks! That looks good to me.

I added a very short wiki to the Look-alike tag that others are welcome to refine.

Two or more characters who very closely resemble each other, to the point where one could be mistaken for the other. A famous example would be Disney's The Prince and the Pauper ; the 1990 cartoon loosely based on the 19th Century novel by Mark Twain.

Mario and Luigi are examples of characters who have a family resemblance, but would not be "look-alikes", as this tag is defined. The concept is closer to Freud's concept of the "Uncanny Double" or the literary sense of the word "Doppelganger" or "spirit double", as it is used in late 18th and 19th Century Romanticism. The tag is distinctly separate from the concept of identical brother / sister twins.