Currently "centauroid" is an "everything else" kind of tag, for posts that depict centaur-like monsters that are not named (centaurs, arachnes, sphinxes). I assume it emerged when people realized "centaur" was too specific (you can't tag deer or goat girls with it, for example, since it specifically refers to horses).
Right now you can search for centauroid mantis_girl or centauroid deer/centauroid deer_girl, but you have to resort to multi-OR searches to see them all together. I don't think it makes much sense from a tagging point of view, and as a monster girl enthusiast I think sites like e621 do it better, by having a single umbrella tag and all variants as subsets. Posts like post #3076465 for example tickle the exact same kind of fetish as centaurs, and the only difference is pattern/tail type.
e621 uses the term taur for this, and that's also what high-profile monster-based fetish games like Corruption of Champions and Trials in Tainted Space use, but I think it's a terrible name so I would prefer to use centauroid. However if people disagree I'll go with it instead. I'd like to hear everyone's opinion on this.
As for sphinxes, we can't imply that because more often than not they appear like half-furry characters with two cat legs (post #4309368), but a search for centauroid sphinx would show all applicable results.
I also want to point out that right now you have to search for male arachnes with spider_boy centauroid, while arachne is treated as a separate case. That doesn't make much sense.
Before opening this thread I didn't consider mermaids/lamias until they were mentioned on discord. I'm not going to add them to this BURs right now, I want to hear people's opinion first, because mermaids/lamias don't have legs, and typically they only have "half" the fish or snake body, so we'd have a reason to keep it separated.
There are however cases like post #4405129 that fit in the centauroid tag, for example, so the question is whether want to mix them or just use centauroid in combination with mermaid or lamia only for extreme types of these characters.
I want to note that e621 keeps them separate, I'd be for keeping them separate too and go with the latter option, given they are very different visually.
I also want to point out that right now you have to search for male arachnes with spider_boy centauroid, while arachne is treated as a separate case. That doesn't make much sense.
We have harpy boy and merman, we should probably have a similar tag for arachne if we're using it as a gendered tag. Really, the same with any of the tags that implicate monster girl. Centaur is gender-neutral.
nonamethanks said:
Before opening this thread I didn't consider mermaids/lamias until they were mentioned on discord. I'm not going to add them to this BURs right now, I want to hear people's opinion first, because mermaids/lamias don't have legs, and typically they only have "half" the fish or snake body, so we'd have a reason to keep it separated.
There are however cases like post #4405129 that fit in the centauroid tag, for example, so the question is whether want to mix them or just use centauroid in combination with mermaid or lamia only for extreme types of these characters.
I want to note that e621 keeps them separate, I'd be for keeping them separate too and go with the latter option, given they are very different visually.
I dislike including lamia, mermaids, and similar things like scylla as a centauroid, at least as implications. I definitely think there could be instances where it could be added, but outright implicating them would dilute the tag pretty heavily. It would be a few too steps close to "monster_girl -harpy -slime_girl".
I'm not wholly against the implication, but centauroid really is an "everything else" kind of tag. Unless we wanna be extra-dumb furries and start making "deertaur" and whatnot into tags. I do agree with it being implicated to Centaur and Arachne as an umbrella tag, though.
I have no strong opinion, but I would suggest the following as possible criteria that could be used for the tag (probably just one or two of the below, not all of them):
A clear point of separation between the human part of the body and the inhuman one (would exclude only slimes and some borderline-furry monster girls)
A minimum of four legs on the inhuman part (would exclude mermaids, lamia, post #4405129, and possibly some other oddities)
The inhuman part must be significantly larger than the same portion of the body would be if it were human and proportionate (slightly subjective, and might include some or most lamia. 'Larger in girth' could be specified to narrow it down, but there are still lamia that qualify, e.g. post #4092115.)
No matter what we do, there's probably some edge cases that will 'feel' like centauroids but are excluded by the criteria we set, or don't feel like them but are not excluded. One option would be to just be to let the tag be subjective, defining it as something like 'a clearly centaur-inspired hybrid that is not a classical centaur,' and trusting people not to pollute it.
A clear point of separation between the human part of the body and the inhuman one (would exclude only slimes and some borderline-furry monster girls)
As you said it would exclude centauroid slimes and furry centaurs, not a good idea.
A minimum of four legs on the inhuman part (would exclude mermaids, lamia, post #4405129, and possibly some other oddities)
Consider post #4021268. It doesn't have four legs, yet it's still a centauroid by any commonly understood definition of the term.
The 'inhuman' portion must be significantly larger than the same portion would be if it were human and proportionate (somewhat subjective, and might include some lamia. 'Larger' in girth could be specified?)
Excludes some types of scorpion, crab and insect girls.
What about just "An animal/monster/creature body with its head (and possibly neck) replaced by a human(oid) torso"? That's the most common definition I've seen across the various media I've consumed over the years. It excludes the vast majority of lamias and mermaids while still leaving room for the more unconventional types that would otherwise not be searchable.
I suppose "technically" you could argue the typical slime (creature) with its head replaced would be just a normal slime girl, but I don't think anyone is going to start tagging slime girls as centauroid just to be anal about it.
Consider post #4021268. It doesn't have four legs, yet it's still a centauroid by any commonly understood definition of the term.
I personally wouldn't consider that akin to a centaur given that the two bodies have the appearance of being distinct entities (even if the artist says they're a dullahan and thus adjoined,) but I'm sure there are other borderline images, so point acknowledged.
nonamethanks said:
What about just "An animal/monster/creature body with its head (and possibly neck) replaced by a human(oid) torso"?
Yeah that may be the best we can do.
Only thing I'd note is that this definition also does not exclude lamia (aside from the type with only a human head and no torso, which are uncommon on danbooru) because, broadly speaking, you can't distinguish any of a serpent's body parts except for its head, so there's no basis to identify which parts are and are not being replaced. Maybe just noting 'lamia are specifically excluded' is all that can be done. Or maybe we should just let them share the tag, because there are some borderline cases among lamia too.
New here but, I would use this as umbrella. Definitely would not have arachne imply centauroid. Arachne has its own tag with an okay following plus its specific. (Why do I get the feeling I am not understanding implications?)
Would also not imply pure centaurs.could use it for anything that is a half human half animal and explicitly exclude Centaurs, Arachne and Lamia.
New here but, I would use this as umbrella. Definitely would not have arachne imply centauroid. Arachne has its own tag with an okay following plus its specific. (Why do I get the feeling I am not understanding implications?)
When a tag implies another, whenever you add the first the second is automatically added as well. This means that if centaur and arachne implied centauroid, you could use "centauroid" to search for any kind of creature of this type including arachnes, centaurs, deer centaurs, sphinxes etc. You would still be able to search only for centaurs etc by using the specific tags.
When a tag implies another, whenever you add the first the second is automatically added as well. This means that if centaur and arachne implied centauroid, you could use "centauroid" to search for any kind of creature of this type including arachnes, centaurs, deer centaurs, sphinxes etc. You would still be able to search only for centaurs etc by using the specific tags.
Disregard what I said. +1 for me. Would make life easier to find all so sweet sweet quadruped demihuman babes!
I think the wiki page should be more explicit and list some examples like those we've come up with in this topic, as well as counterexamples that people might overzealously apply the tag to. If the OP BUR goes through, how does this look?
Centaur-like creatures that have a human or human-like torso where the head of the animal would be. This tag also encompasses beings with little or no resemblance to any real-world animal, but which have a body contour similar to that of a classical centaur and were clearly inspired by them.
Examples:
post #613259 (centaur-like body, explicitly states the inspiration)
-1 for aliasing Centaur and Arachne to Centauroid.
I understand that Centauroid means that a being based on a certain animal (which is not a horse) has body similar to a Centaur. It's important to note that Centauroid is derived from Centaurs thermwise, so It doesn't make sense to treat Centaur as a subset of something that is derived from it. When someone searches for Centauroid, they expect to view creatures with a body similar to a centaur but based on other animals (like post #4369084, a centauroid who is based on a cow). It also doesn't make any sense to treat everything that is half half-human half-something else as Centauroid (that includes Lamias, Scyllas, Mermaids, Arachnes, etc.).
I understand that Centauroid means that a being based on a certain animal (which is not a horse) has body similar to a Centaur. It's important to note that Centauroid is derived from Centaurs thermwise, so It doesn't make sense to treat Centaur as a subset of something that is derived from it. When someone searches for Centauroid, they expect to view creatures with a body similar to a centaur but based on other animals (like post #4369084, a centauroid who is based on a cow).
How do you propose we search for this kind of things then? If we don't treat arachnes as centauroid, we need a tag for male arachnes, which means it becomes a four OR search (~centaur ~centauroid ~arachne ~male_arachne). Then there's things that are not centaur-like, like post #4021268 or other examples.
Games like CoC/TiTS either call them x-taur, like "fox-taur" or just "taur", or "centauroid fox", etc. "Centaur" as a word doesn't make any reference to horses ("taur" means bull), yet everyone understands it's about horses, and centauroid in the MG community has similarly evolved to be a generic term for the kind of character we're talking about here.
e621 even calls the spider variant "arachnid taur".
Well, we could simply create a Male Arachne/Arachne Boy tag. The gardening would be pretty easy because Spider Boy has only 38 posts as of right now (this may also be the reason why there wasn't a big need to create this tag until now).
Centaur has 1109 posts, Arachne has 664 posts, while Centauroid has 361 posts. The two first tags will completely overload Centauroid. This also supports that Centauroid is something derived/inspired from Centaur. If someone wants to search the more exotic 'taur' (which is clearly the main reason someone is gonna look for Centauroid), they will need to search [centauroid -arachne -centaur] which isn't very efficient as well. CoC/TiTS aren't that great of a source as they are just text hentai games. And taur means bull? The world may be related to bull with Minotaur or Holstaur, and both creatures are also not centauroid... For these reasons, I think it's more efficient to keep Arachne, Centaur and Centauroid separated.
mongirlfan said: And taur means bull? The world may be related to bull with Minotaur or Holstaur, and both creatures are also not centauroid...
That's not what I said. The "-taur" suffix is widely understood for this kind of content to mean a creature like a centaur of arachne. The word itself means bull, yet nobody thinks "wait no, they're not bulls, why are they being called taurs?".
Likewise, "centauroid" does not mean "derived from centaur", it means resembling a centaur, which by definition includes centaurs and arachnes.
And centauroid has 361 posts because it's very underused. If you look at the history I added several pages of results just yesterday by random browsing. It wouldn't surprise me if the tag itself has more results than either of those other two tags, results that are simply untagged because the tag has stayed in limbo for all these years.
I agree that making centauroid an umbrella tag is a good idea. Currently there's no easy way to search for all centaur-like characters at once, and this would solve that problem.
nonamethanks said:
What about just "An animal/monster/creature body with its head (and possibly neck) replaced by a human(oid) torso"? That's the most common definition I've seen across the various media I've consumed over the years. It excludes the vast majority of lamias and mermaids while still leaving room for the more unconventional types that would otherwise not be searchable.
This definition makes sense to me. Lamias and mermaids are half and half, while centauroids are closed to half and four fifths.
That's not what I said. The "-taur" suffix is widely understood for this kind of content to mean a creature like a centaur of arachne. The word itself means bull, yet nobody thinks "wait no, they're not bulls, why are they being called taurs?".
Likewise, "centauroid" does not mean "derived from centaur", it means resembling a centaur, which by definition includes centaurs and arachnes.
And centauroid has 361 posts because it's very underused. If you look at the history I added several pages of results just yesterday by random browsing. It wouldn't surprise me if the tag itself has more results than either of those other two tags, results that are simply untagged because the tag has stayed in limbo for all these years.
With "derived from centaur" I did not mean it literally, I mean it concept/thermwise. The concept of Centaur is what came first and inspired the existence of Centauroid. The Wikitionary link also supports my point. Resembling a centaur =/= Being a centaur, and that the concept is based on Centaurs. Arachnes and other insect people doesn't resemble Centaurs at all, similarly to how insects doesn't look similar to quadruped animals, that's how I see it. However, I see a logic in tagging insect people as centauroid, due to heir upper body being where would tipically be the head of the insect/monster part, but I'm still afraid of it overloading the tag with insect people in comparison to quadruped-based centauroids that resemble centaurs more. I'm still -1 to implying Centaur to Centauroid for these reasons.
How about adding a new tag for quadrupeds? Either "quadruped" itself, or four_legs (it could be considered a subset of multiple legs.)
Might be approaching tag overkill here, given that all centaurs could end up tagged "centaur centauroid four_legs multiple_legs monster_girl" or something like that, but every tag seems to cover a distinct concept that objectively applies to them.
