Donmai

Puffing up vs raised hackles.

Posted under Tags

Mango2

BUR #24578 has been rejected.

create alias puffing_up -> raised_hackles

Two tags that mean the exact same thing:

Puffing up

An animal puffing up its body as a defense mechanism in a threatening situation in order to appear larger in size, to signal defensive aggression towards the enemy. In mammals, this is usually done alongside an arched back.

Often accompanied by hissing. Though unlike hissing which is an offensive move almost always shown as a form of threat or anger, puffing up can be seen on other occasions such as fear or shock.

See also

Raised_hackles

When the feathers or fur along an animals spine is raised as a form of intimidation or out of fear.

Hackles are the erectile plumage or hair in the neck area of some birds and mammals.

In mammals, the hackles are the hairs of the neck and back which become erect when the animal is fearful, as part of the fight-or-flight response, or to show dominance over subordinate animals. Raising the hackles causes the animal to appear larger, and acts as a visual warning to other animals. Raised hackles are used by grey wolves as a dominance behavior, by moose preparing to attack, and by cats and striped hyena which are fearful or threatened.

Angry cats with "blown out" tails should also be tagged.

External sites:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackles

Puffing_up was created in 2010 but only had 3 posts (1 in 2015). Raised_hackles is created in 2023 (by me actually) and populated, and then in 2024 puffing_up is populated by @magcolo and also has the better wiki.

Personally, I prefer raised hackles as it's more precise and we have the similar sounding fluffed up, but I might be biased as I created that tag. Puffing up has the way better wiki however and whichever tag we keep should have that.

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Red Terror Unbreakable Obst albert03 avidbookreader Laudividni John Reality
Mango2

Unbreakable said:

I've never heard of the term hackles or raised hackles so my vote is on the second BUR.

You do you. The term is everyday use in my native language and from what I could find this was the English equivalent. So that is what I chose, unless it was "technically correct" but a niche term? Is there really not a common everyday English term for this? Raised bristles? Something people use with aggressive dogs or cats barking or hissing with raised hackles?

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magcolo

War6t2 said:

You do you. The term is everyday use in my native language and from what I could find this was the English equivalent. So that is what I chose, unless it was "technically correct" but a niche term? Is there really not a common everyday English term for this? Raised bristles? Something people use with aggressive dogs or cats barking or hissing with raised hackles?

From what I could find, "puff up" is the common everyday English term for that. I chose it because it includes types of puffing other than mammals raising their hair. "Raised hackles" is definitely a correct term, but if you google it it only has 561,000 results and google image seems to suggest that it's mostly associated with canines. While puffing up animal has 390,000,000 results, images of felines, puffer fish and many different species of birds and reptiles and an example in wiktionary as one of the first results.

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Mango2

magcolo said:

From what I could find, "puff up" is the common everyday English term for that. I chose it because it includes types of puffing other than mammals raising their hair. "Raised hackles" is definitely a correct term, but if you google it it only has 561,000 results and google image seems to suggest that it's mostly associated with canines. While puffing up animal has 390,000,000 results, images of felines, puffer fish and many different species of birds and reptiles and an example in wiktionary as one of the first results.

That is the issue. It means ANY kind of puffing up. It can mean anything from this specific distinct phenomona/trope to characters having their hair blow dried and poofing out. When I tired to create a tag for the latter two fluffed_up puffed up animals was actually one of the words I considered for the same reason. That is not me trying to dismiss you either, if there was a more precise but commonly used english term that would be excellent.

Perhaps this is just one of those things that are hard to make a tag for because of the English language itself. In my native language it is litterally raised hackles, but the term itself is as common as "whiskers".

Or are you suggesting we seperate puff up and fluffed_up? It sounds a bit silly but it can work. (I was originally considering making the latter something with "poof" as that is the sound effect most often used but search results of that just led to inflation fetish porn.)

Updated

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zetsubousensei

War6t2 said:

Or are you suggesting we seperate puff up and fluffed_up? It sounds a bit silly but it can work. (I was originally considering making the latter something with "poof" as that is the sound effect most often used but search results of that just led to inflation fetish porn.)

I don't know why you made fluffed up when that is what the tag fluffy is for, unusually fluffy depictions of things.

Anyway seconding puffing up I've never heard of the term raised hackles before and I wouldn't know what it's for at a glance making in unintuitive.

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Mango2

zetsubousensei said:

I don't know why you made fluffed up when that is what the tag fluffy is for, unusually fluffy depictions of things.

Anyway seconding puffing up I've never heard of the term raised hackles before and I wouldn't know what it's for at a glance making in unintuitive.

Fluffy is for well, fluffy things regardless of whether or not it's permanent and is often tagged on things that are just fluffy by design like swablu, fluffed_up is for things like post #2715406 post #5862716. Again I did initially want to make it something like "poofed up" since that is the sound effect most often associated with it but search results for that just led to furry porn.

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Mango2

War6t2 said:

BUR #24625 has been rejected.

rename fluffed_up -> poofed_up

Or we could also just do this.

This actually solves everything in my opinion. Both puffed up and poofed up are more intuitive and we no longer have the similar sounded fluffed up and puffed up.

Worth noting that this is NOT the tag from the above bur about the fear response. This is the one for stuff like post #2715406.

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zetsubousensei

War6t2 said:

Worth noting that this is NOT the tag from the above bur about the fear response. This is the one for stuff like post #2715406.

I still don't know why you'd not just use fluffy here or in some of those pictures static_electricity, but if they are going to be two separate tags having the tags named puffing_up vs poofing_up seem way too close namewise. In fact there already appears to be two mistakes by your definition post #723889 having been for puffing_up. I can only imagine this being exacerbated by a name change to poofing_up

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Mango2

zetsubousensei said:

I still don't know why you'd not just use fluffy here or in some of those pictures static_electricity, but if they are going to be two separate tags having the tags named puffing_up vs poofing_up seem way too close namewise. In fact there already appears to be two mistakes by your definition post #723889 having been for puffing_up. I can only imagine this being exacerbated by a name change to poofing_up

It is to collect the whole trope of static electricity, hairdryers, etc together alongside any niche cases that are too small to have their own tag, like a fluffy character fluffing up from pleasure (And not shock from an unexpected movement). Otherwise we would need a tag like "fluffy after blowdrying" which quickly gets way too long. The name isn't important but IMO puffing up vs poofed up is easier to differentiate between than puffing up vs fluffed up.

That last one is correctly tagged puffing up, it's just the sound effect.

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