Is an "arachne" tag necessary?

The arachne tag presently stands at >100 posts, but it's unclear to me whether it serves any purpose. As it is used now, it's basically a combination tag for spider girl extra eyes centauroid, and the bulk of it is dominated by rachnera_arachnera posts. Does this tag do anything that isn't already done by searching for existing tags? I don't think so, but I'm not about to touch a tag that's been around so long without some sort of consensus.

If the ultimate decision is to keep the tag, we should at least come up with a precise definition for it so it doesn't get tacked on to images that don't even resemble the rest, like post #1039732 or post #1948829 or post #2053342. A tag that's used inconsistently is pointless.

Arachne is a name of a woman who was turned into a spider in the Greek mythology; I couldn't find anywhere that it is used as a name for monster's who are half human and half spider unlike centaur, which is a legitimate name. I also believe we should discard it, or at least alias it to spider girl since that would be more correct.

I believe it is worthwhile keeping it for the subtype of spider_girl where the upper body is that of a woman and the lower body is that of a spider, and that it should simply be made to implicate the spider girl tag, which is a more general concept of a fusion between spider and woman.

Even if the tag can be accomplished through a combination search, I still think it is worthwhile creating these various subtags for races and monsters where it is possible to create them. So I don't really support going out of our way to avoid the use of a tag like this. It should also be pointed out that due to the lack of these images being tagged centauroid, the proposed search won't actually bring up really any results. Furthermore tagging them as centauroid is questionable, as that may be lumping something into that tag that was not intended to be covered by it, and right now its definition would not allow beings like these to be tagged as centauroids.

The Japanese do use this name to cover spider girls that have the upper body of a woman and the lower body of a spider, and there are games like Final Fantasy 4 that display this. An interesting thing to note though is that the term commonly used in games for this monster type is apparently Arachne (アルケニー arukenii), while the woman from Greek Mythology is Arachne (アラクネ/アラクネー arakune/arakunee). For tagging on Pixiv they don't seem to really bother with that distinction and so アルケニー and アラクネ depictions on pixiv pretty much cover the same thing, even though both tags exist on there and their wikis seem to differentiate them from what I could understand (I could be wrong).

Arachne (アルケニー) used in video games to refer to this type of depiction

• Final Fantasy
• Dragon's Crown
• Castlevania
• Megami Tensei (depicted either as a spider with a woman's head or a woman with monster limbs)

The mythological character if tagged would be best tagged as Arachne_(mythology), to put her inline with a lot of the *_(mythology) tags.

Is there a third form of spider girl?

We can tag as we've done for the longest time to categorize what counts as monster girl and what doesn't ( post #113417 ) as a way to distinguish girls with spider bodies, and girls without:

extra appendages (similar to wings, tails): spider_girl
body is half-spider (similar to centaur, mermaid): spider_girl monster_girl

Or would you want an extra tag just for the cases of multiple monter girls in the same picture?

S1eth said:

Is there a third form of spider girl?

After some quick checking here are the forms I've come across.

Human body (pelvis up) + a spider body (whole): post #1475550 and post #1511171 [common form]
Human body (whole) + spider's legs: post #1163292 and post #1039732 [common form]
Human body (whole) + spider's abdomen and legs: post #1282030 and pixiv #42578996
Human body (whole) with extra human limbs + spider's abdomen: post #879485
Human body (whole) with extra human limbs: post #2076974
Human body (whole) + spider limbs from head or limb-like hair: post #648210, pixiv #45584310, pixiv #49580174
Human body (torso and head) + spider's limbs: pixiv #45466089
Human body fused at limbs and back to a spider's body: post #237505
Human body (torso and head) fused with spider limbs and abdomen: post #354903
Human head + a spider body (whole): post #330429 and post #1656048

S1eth said:
Or would you want an extra tag just for the cases of multiple monter girls in the same picture?

That could be worthwhile having it for cases like that, but just on a very quick glance I'm not seeing really seeing instances of a non-monster girl spider girl with a monster girl other character, so not sure if it would be necessary for that reason.

zaregoto said:

I couldn't find anywhere that it is used as a name for monster's who are half human and half spider unlike centaur, which is a legitimate name.

It isn't one of the traditional English-language monster names like mermaid or centaur, but on the other hand, we also misuse names like medusa and scylla, so I wasn't considering this as an argument for eliminating the tag.

Yes, I realize I'm playing devil's advocate against myself.

NWF_Renim said:

...tagging them as centauroid is questionable, as that may be lumping something into that tag that was not intended to be covered by it, and right now its definition would not allow beings like these to be tagged as centauroids.

Not to derail things, but why is that tag defined so narrowly, anyway? Having to come up with an additional tag for creatures with the same body type but more than four legs (e.g., post #240297 and post #1806934) seems like unnecessary tag proliferation.

After some quick checking here are the forms I've come across.

That is quite the... assortment. I hadn't realized just how diverse these things were. One for every fetish or phobia, apparently.

Type 1: Definitely spider girl and monster girl and probably the best fit for the existing arachne tag, except that your examples lack the extra eyes typical of Inui Takemaru's spider girls.
Type 2: Spider girl + spider legs, but not monster girl. Maybe extra legs or multiple legs depending on how one interprets those tags. Those spider legs are "extra" on a human body but merely "multiple" on a spider's.
Type 3: I'm honestly not sure what to make of this. Spider girl and spider legs are obvious, but the spider abdomen seems to be stuck on like a tail. Spider tail?
Type 4: Once again, spider tail? That, and spider girl + extra arms.
Type 5: I'm not even sure if this should count as spider girl, let alone monster girl. The web print and background in the example post are the only reason it's spider-themed at all; without that it would just be extra arms.
Type 6: Um, spider girl + prehensile hair? These keep getting more and more bizarre.
Type 7: Similar enough to Type 2 that I'd probably treat it the same way.
Type 8: Spider girl + monster girl, without question. Probably not arachne or any definition of centauroid since the spider body is joined below the hips rather than at the waist.
Type 9: Spider girl + monster girl. Also, terrifying. I'm not sure if this example counts as having a "human torso" so much as having human boobs and tummy grafted onto a spider's abdomen.
Type 10: See Type 9. Now I'm starting to contemplate the utility of a tag for human heads attached directly to nonhuman bodies, as in post #1092570 or post #1314090. Or post #416987. Or Pandemonium-san.

In addition to the forms you listed, I'd like to mention mention chaos witch quelaag for the sake of completeness. Human body (waist up) + whole spider (including head), as in post #1545013. Spider girl + monster girl, absolutely not arachne or anything else.

iridescent_slime said:

In addition to the forms you listed, I'd like to mention mention chaos witch quelaag for the sake of completeness. Human body (waist up) + whole spider (including head), as in post #1545013. Spider girl + monster girl, absolutely not arachne or anything else.

Actually I'd consider it belonging to the arachne category, as the Castlevania example I linked also follows this (those are all external links btw). The common layout for an Arachne is a human upperbody attached to more or less a whole spider. The human body portion is attached to the cephalothorax (fused head and thorax) portion of the spider's body (body is split into 2 segments, while insects it is 3). Some versions of this attach the human body more forward on the cephalothorax and thus replaces where the head of the spider would be, in others the attachment is a little further back and does not replace the area that the spider's head would be. They're still both attached to the same segment of the spider's body though, and even those that are attached more forward on the cephalothorax don't necessarily erase all the presence that the spider's head is/was there. For example Rachnera Arachnera still has pedipalps, which for her appear more like legs were she human, but for a spider they are limbs near the head that would be used to bring food to its mouth (post #1808116).

iridescent_slime said:

Not to derail things, but why is that tag defined so narrowly, anyway? Having to come up with an additional tag for creatures with the same body type but more than four legs (e.g., post #240297 and post #1806934) seems like unnecessary tag proliferation.

It may have not have been a consideration at the time when the wiki was written. Alternatively the tag may have not been originally intended to include creatures that would have more than 4 legs, ie human +invertebrate animal, and the wiki was written to try and describe that.

On the topic of spider girls, why does the spider_girl tag implicate insect_girl?
The wiki entry for insect_girl states: "A girl with insectoid qualities such as antennae, wings, and any sort of appendages related to a particular insect." Nothing in this statement apply to spiders or spider girls, spiders are not insects, they do not possess antennae nor wings, insects have 6 legs, spiders have 8 legs which is also stated in the description of spider_girl.
The purpose of these monster girl tags should be to further specify a search, not bunch them all together.

Auranium said:

On the topic of spider girls, why does the spider_girl tag implicate insect_girl?
The wiki entry for insect_girl states: "A girl with insectoid qualities such as antennae, wings, and any sort of appendages related to a particular insect." Nothing in this statement apply to spiders or spider girls, spiders are not insects, they do not possess antennae nor wings, insects have 6 legs, spiders have 8 legs which is also stated in the description of spider_girl.
The purpose of these monster girl tags should be to further specify a search, not bunch them all together.

The decision on the usage of insect over bug was done way back in topic #1327, although I personally do not agree with the outcome that occurred there.

NWF_Renim said:

The decision on the usage of insect over bug was done way back in topic #1327, although I personally do not agree with the outcome that occurred there.

Did you even read what I wrote? I've mentioned nothing about bugs, which are completely unrelated to spiders.

Auranium said:

Did you even read what I wrote? I've mentioned nothing about bugs, which are completely unrelated to spiders.

Yes I did, and your failure in understanding is that "insect" in "insect_girl" means essentially "bug" (and no, not "true bugs" that refers to insects of the order of Hemiptera). The tag is intended for use for pretty much any monster girl that is derived from a terrestrial arthropod (with the exception of things like crabs and stuff). The wiki is merely incorrectly written and not taking into account the full scope of what the tag was intended for since a long time ago.

In general all of these various types of monster girls share visual elements amongst each other, so there is no reason to not put them all under a catchall tag for users who want to broadly find them and it provides a tag for users who may not be aware of specific types of bug girls, such as bee_girl. There is also no reason to provide full independence of its subtypes, as artists aren't necessarily going to care how many legs or whether something originally had compound eyes when they make something bug-like.

iridescent_slime said:
Type 10: See Type 9. Now I'm starting to contemplate the utility of a tag for human heads attached directly to nonhuman bodies, as in post #1092570 or post #1314090. Or post #416987. Or Pandemonium-san.

That's exactly why I created the human head tag a while back.

NWF_Renim said:
*snip*

Anyone who refers to arthropods as bugs needs to go back to school, you want a catch-all term? Use arthropod_girl, it's scientifically correct, it'll teach people to use the proper term and stop people from being butthurt over the incorrect usage of calling everything insects.
Further, don't trust everything you just happened to glance over on Wikipedia, there's a reason most schools don't allow it as a source material.

Auranium said:

Anyone who refers to arthropods as bugs needs to go back to school, you want a catch-all term? Use arthropod_girl, it's scientifically correct, it'll teach people to use the proper term and stop people from being butthurt over the incorrect usage of calling everything insects.
Further, don't trust everything you just happened to glance over on Wikipedia, there's a reason most schools don't allow it as a source material.

Going from what was said in the previous thread, which I'm going to assume you ignored completely, as it was stated "we're an anime imageboard, not an entomology textbook." I agree with this and I'm going to assume on the issue of education you yourself never attended a class on technical writing. The most important thing is knowing your audience, which determines the degree of how technical your writing is. Arbitrarily choosing jargon because that makes you sound smart only results in the audience not understanding what you're trying to convey. More people will understand the terms "insect" or "bug" in the manner we're using it than understand the term "arthropod". This is backed up just by looking into the dictionary and finding definitions like "bug - n - 1a : an insect or other creeping or crawling invertebrate (as a spider or centipede)" and "insect - n - 1.1 informal Any small invertebrate animal such as a spider or tick."

Furthermore you seem to fail to understand that a word following its (current) scientific definition doesn't automatically make it the more logical (or rational) choice to use here. If you want to argue we should follow scientific definitions then we'd have to implicate tomato to fruit, as botanically it is a type of fruit as opposed to a vegetable, although in the culinary usage it is categorized as a vegetable for cooking purposes (which is just as valid of a categorization scheme). We'd also have to stop using the term "planet" for all the images of round spherical space objects we have, as under the IAU's definition of a planet it has to orbit the sun and if it orbits another star it is an "exoplanet". The term "starfish" would also need to be aliased over to "sea_star" as there have been plenty of scientists who have wanted to remove the inaccurate old name that associates them with fish, when they're not fish.

Another thing to note, which you don't seem to take into consideration at all, is that these tags are also open to completely fictional creations as well. To follow a scientific definition when artists might just create something that look "insect" or "bug"-like but not follow the scientific definition means that we're not going to be able to properly apply these tags on images that these tags were intended to cover. Using a scientific definition in that situation is just silly.

NWF_Renim said:
The most important thing is knowing your audience, which determines the degree of how technical your writing is. Arbitrarily choosing jargon because that makes you sound smart only results in the audience not understanding what you're trying to convey.

Ironic given I myself recently tried advocating the same point to some elistists in a certain game community, they did not agree.

If we're using insect_girl as a catch-all term, why does monster_girl exist? What's the reason we're not using monster_girl as the catch-all tag when most people would consider them to be "monsters"? That'd leave plenty of room to seperate insects from other arthropods and ensure there's a unique tag to narrow down searches.
But I'm assuming that argument was brought up in another topic as well.

NWF_Renim said:

Actually I'd consider it belonging to the arachne category, as the Castlevania example I linked also follows this (those are all external links btw). The common layout for an Arachne is a human upperbody attached to more or less a whole spider. The human body portion is attached to the cephalothorax (fused head and thorax) portion of the spider's body (body is split into 2 segments, while insects it is 3). Some versions of this attach the human body more forward on the cephalothorax and thus replaces where the head of the spider would be, in others the attachment is a little further back and does not replace the area that the spider's head would be. They're still both attached to the same segment of the spider's body though, and even those that are attached more forward on the cephalothorax don't necessarily erase all the presence that the spider's head is/was there. For example Rachnera Arachnera still has pedipalps, which for her appear more like legs were she human, but for a spider they are limbs near the head that would be used to bring food to its mouth (post #1808116).

None of the arachne posts I found here appear to have eyes and mouths below the human waist, but the Castlevania example is enough that I'm willing to live with the tag in its broadest sense. At least now there's some sort of consensus so I'll have a discussion to point to in the future.

create alias drider -> arachne
create implication arachne -> spider_girl

Link to request

I can't believe I hadn't noticed drider until now. There's probably no good reason for keeping a term from Western RPGs on an anime-centric art site when we already have a perfectly serviceable synonym.

The bulk update request #288 has been approved.