Tag discussion: out_of_character

I came across the out of character tag, and noticed that it's applied to a number of posts where lesbian characters are engaging in heterosexual sex. Checking tag histories, though the tag is somewhat infrequently used, this is not a single-user vendetta and seems to go back at least a few years.

Which makes me wonder: is this a proper use of the tag? And is it proper in all cases?

Question one - should it be limited to apparently consensual sex? post #3677152 and post #3561926, for example, are very likely nonconsensual, though I suppose it can't be proven (the posts are still tagged rape though.) A person getting raped by someone they'd never be attracted to doesn't make the situation out of character.

Question two - how well established does a character's sexuality need to be to make fanart that goes against that "out of character" for them? I don't want to open any cans of worms by arguing that the sexuality of the characters currently in the tag is subjective, so instead let's try flipping things around...

Dizzy is married to Ky Kiske. I think most people would assume that she's heterosexual and monogamous based on this.
Should we tag all the posts with the tag combination dizzy_(guilty_gear) yuri as "out of character?"
Should we tag posts of her having sex with men other than Ky as as "out of character?"
If not, why should we do it for Akaza Akane, or Yoshida Yuuko?

In summary, this is a big mess, and if nothing else I think it's going to be inordinately difficult to comprehensively tag sex acts as "out of character" based on the sexuality of the characters involved. I would like to suggest restricting the use of this tag to non-sexual art, or if we can find a definition that isolates them, maybe very OOC images like post #288613 (where the issue is not just "lesbians having sex with men" but "upper-class girls at an elite Catholic private school engaging in an orgy.")

Is making it a pool an option?

A quick glance through the tag, even outside of sexual situations it seems really subjective. What's even out of character about post #3960759? Yuuka being nice? She's not even mean in canon.

I support making it a pool, out-of-character is meta knowledge, you have to know the character to know if the tag is applicable, and it's going to vary between taggers' interpretations of characters.

Mysterious_Uploader said:

Is making it a pool an option?

+1 for making the tag into a pool

I can get on board with that.

That said, the issue still seems potentially contentious to me even in an "Out of Character" pool. That can of worms I avoided is still sitting there waiting to open up as soon as two users disagree on a character's sexuality.

Maybe we could spin the sex posts off into a separate pool called "Unexpected Partners" or something. I think that would be a less controversial way to frame it.

7HS said:

I can get on board with that.

That said, the issue still seems potentially contentious to me even in an "Out of Character" pool. That can of worms I avoided is still sitting there waiting to open up as soon as two users disagree on a character's sexuality.

Maybe we could spin the sex posts off into a separate pool called "Unexpected Partners" or something. I think that would be a less controversial way to frame it.

I think it's best to leave porn pics out of it. Artists will make characters act in any way and have sex with all sorts of people and things in order to satisfy their fetishes. It's more or less how hentai fanart works, and there's nothing notable about it. Same goes for shipping (and we already have the Unlikely Couples pool for that)
The tag/pool is better left to pics that show characters acting in a very atypical way that clearly contradicts the basis of their personality. post #3292336 post #2844048 and post #79212 are good examples. I think this is what people have in mind when searching for the tag. If someone wants to see lesbians having sex with men, or timid characters acting like whores, they can use the relevant tag combinations instead of the vaguer out_of_character.
There should also be some pruning regarding series like Touhou or Kancolle where canon and fanon tend to blend in together. As already pointed out, Yuuka being nice is not incongruent with her canon depiction.

I think it also depends on how much it is out of character. If she's the type that would never even consider having hetero sex in her life (according to the lesbian's character), that would fit better for the tag.

+1 to separating pool:Unexpected_Partners from out_of_character. As SSJG mentioned, a lot of artists don't know or don't care who a character's canonical partner is. It's different from characters otherwise displaying behavior that wouldn't be expected of them.

However, there's another situation which is similar in motivation but distinct in how it manifests: explicitly uncharacteristic sexual behavior. For example, Helltaker's Lucifer is canonically demonstrated to be very dominant, even going so far as to murder the protagonist if he says he intends to make her submit. Despite this, due either to ignorance or being a one-note individual, some artists still draw her enjoying being very sexually submissive. It seems like this sort of thing would also clutter up the out_of_character tag, but it also doesn't fit into unexpected_partners either.

Hmm. Would calling the 2nd pool "Incongruous Sex Acts" be any better? I'm not completely satisfied with that title but it seems to at least cover most of the applications of the tag, and the additional ones brought up in the thread.

It could have a description like so:

One or more characters performing sexual acts that are highly contradictory to their established personality, sexual orientation, or the nature of their source material. For example, an overbearing and dominant character acting timid and lovey-dovey in a sexual encounter, lesbians or gay men having heterosexual sex, or characters from a "cute boys/girls doing cute things" series being unusually sexually promiscuous.

Nonconsensual sex acts can be included in this pool.

When adding a post, ask yourself "if this character were depicted having explicit sex in this manner in their source material, disregarding that it may be incongruous simply due to being explicit, would it still make no sense for other reasons?" If the answer is yes, it belongs here.

This is a companion pool of Out Of Character (<- pool link once it exists) and was migrated from the former out_of_character tag due to its subjectivity.

Admittedly, I might be trying to fit too many eggs in one basket here. I fully agree with SSJG's argument and would be happier just not allowing porn to qualify as "out of character" even in a pool. But we would lose information if I just nuked them from the tag/pool, so worth seeing if we can give them a home.

Admittedly, I might be trying to fit too many eggs in one basket here. I fully agree with SSJG's argument and would be happier just not allowing porn to qualify as "out of character" even in a pool. But we would lose information if I just nuked them from the tag/pool, so worth seeing if we can give them a home.

Honestly, does it even need a home? I'm of the mind that the whole tag would be better off nuked. It depends entirely on meta-knowledge and I'm certain a decent portion of them could be argued over whether or not they're actually out of character.

As for the nsfw side of things, you could shove practically all non-solo nsfw pictures of some characters, like the Maid Dragon cast, into that 2nd pool. Which is why I support nuking it.

I don't think having a version of the tag/pool for pairings/NSFW stuff is a good idea.

The tag needs gardening, not nuking.

And replacing it with a pool is dumb; it just adds another unnecessary search layer.

Kikimaru said:

The tag needs gardening, not nuking.

And replacing it with a pool is dumb; it just adds another unnecessary search layer.

"Character" is not something that can be tagged on sight by any random user. To even use the tag you have to have enough confidence in your understanding of a character's personality and expected behavior to be able to say they're behaving out of character, and if the tag is misused then the only people who can fix it are those that also know enough about that character. It's a tag that requires more than just a minute of research if you want it to be used seriously, and can't be gardened by just anyone because it requires knowledge of every single character that gets tagged with it.

On top of that, fanart is wildly inconsistent in its portrayals of characters, to the point that any random post could be considered out of character simply for deviating even slightly from canon. It's also very much up to individual interpretation, so even trying to limit usage of the tag to very out of character portrayals isn't going to do much to stop the tag from being misused.

Lastly, tags are, usually, for a single, visible, easily identifiable concept or object. All posts tagged smile have a smile in them, anything tagged hat has a hat, but a post tagged out of character could be literally anything. It's a completely nebulous concept defined entirely by the character it's being applied to. There's absolutely nothing actually linking any random set of images with the tag that any random user could use to identify the tag.

Tldr: As a tag it relies too heavily on meta knowledge that is always going to be different from post to post, and it's too subjective for a tagging system that aims to be as transparent and objective as possible. It makes more sense as a pool.

BUR #3064 has been rejected.

mass update out_of_character -> -out_of_character

A couple of people have suggested just nuking the tag completely; I'm interested in polling support for this.

EDIT: This bulk update request is pending automatic rejection in 5 days.

EDIT: This bulk update request has been rejected because it was not approved within 60 days.

EDIT: The bulk update request #3064 (forum #169672) has been rejected by @DanbooruBot.

As an addendum I'm coming to think that even in the realm of pools, classifying characters as "out of character" is more manageable and less subjective when separated into specific deviations from canon by specific characters, and several pools along these lines exist already. pool #3171, Perverted Homura, is one example.

Since that pool alone has ~900 posts it also demonstrates how woefully incomplete the tag is.

I want to disagree on nuking the tag, but after looking at the posts it really does look like the tag is used arbitrarily, almost nonsensically.

I'm also against straight nuking things (as usual), though I do feel this is subjective enough to probably warrant moving to a pool with some cleanup. After it's moved, the tag should probably be killed.

+1 for a cleanup of the tag and create a pool instead of nuking.

Unless it's a specific pool of a specific character for a specific abnormal behavior, I'm thinking that regardless of whether it gets made into a pool or not, it should be required for the adder to make a comment specifying which character(s) is acting abnormal and why.

BrokenEagle98 said:

it should be required for the adder to make a comment specifying which character(s) is acting abnormal and why.

Difficult to enforce, but I think this is a reasonable thing to ask. The directive to add a comment can be added to the pool description.