mob x character

we currently have no way to tag sexual (and to a lesser extent romantic) interactions between canon characters and non-characters ("mob" - faceless, designless people who are typically barely anything more than their genitals)

the closest way to achieve it would be searches involving the amount of chartags (chartags:1 hetero), or tags like pov, faceless, head out of frame, but they not only are rather indirect, they also provide a multitude of false positives and negatives:

someone trying to achieve that effect through chartag counts would have a hard time dealing with costume tags and group sex
posts with all three tags might be identifiable, be it through clothing, dialogue, or whatever else:

• pov example: post #8032063
• faceless example: post #5701070
• head out of frame example: post #8645891 (though the pov person seems to be a "mob" character, the headless one is identifiable through clothing)

lack of such tagging also makes it difficult to find canon x canon ship posts, especially when it comes to NSFW hetero (canon x canon might also be worthwhile considering to tag due to this, though it does appear to be a problem more unique to hetero that yaoi and yuri are less likely to experience)

Oh yes, please, a way to filter "mob" characters would do so so much good for searching. I'm all for any attempt to do so.

Personally though, I think just being able to tag "mob" characters at all would be a huge step forward. As it currently stands, there is no real way to filter them, even as a Builder+. Like...maybe come up with something better than mob, but just a tag for their presence would go a long way, especially when I just wanna see the canons fucking each other.

Edit: Just realized mob is already a tag...Under the traditional definition of "angry crowd" lol. So come up with something that isn't just that period.

We kinda used to have a tag for this, it was called extra but it was deprecated in topic #25406

I just personally call them non-descript. And it has to be featureless enough. Faceless is a must.

However, I don't know how practical such a tag would be. We do have examples of faceless self-insert characters later being developed into actual character or at least being given a face. I guess it could be rare enough that it isn't much of a concern though.

Knowledge_Seeker said:

[...]

Personally though, I think just being able to tag "mob" characters at all would be a huge step forward. As it currently stands, there is no real way to filter them, even as a Builder+. Like...maybe come up with something better than mob, but just a tag for their presence would go a long way, especially when I just wanna see the canons fucking each other.

Edit: Just realized mob is already a tag...Under the traditional definition of "angry crowd" lol. So come up with something that isn't just that period.

i do agree it's not a good name in english, don't get me wrong. it's a somewhat awkward calque from japanese: as far as i know (i don't actually speak japanese), when the word "mob" was loaned into japanese, its meaning seemingly shifted a little to include NPCs and background characters (jisho dictionary, meaning 2). because of this, it appears to be somewhat common of a practice for artists to use ship tags and such that include the word "mob" (i think the practice is more popular with yaoi than hetero while being rare for yuri, even comparing our commentary counts, but the point still stands)

this meaning hasn't really drifted back to english as far as i know, and the jisho definition for "mob" is not that different from what extra was used for (see under the last quoted section), which means we shouldn't use that as the tag name. but it is a term with some relevant background

gzb said:

I just personally call them non-descript. And it has to be featureless enough. Faceless is a must.

i agree with calling them non-descript (though this also seems like a less-than-great tag name), and i do agree they need to be lacking discernible features. however just to be clear, many of those mob x canon artworks don't fit our definition of faceless, which states the head must be included in the picture (i agree they should not have much of a face, it's just a matter of dictionary vs local site definitions of words somewhat differing)

However, I don't know how practical such a tag would be. We do have examples of faceless self-insert characters later being developed into actual character or at least being given a face. I guess it could be rare enough that it isn't much of a concern though.

while i understand the concerns on defining how non-descript the character tagged must be, i believe the use-case is rather broad, at the very least as a negative search for hetero:

• wanting to have a greater chance of seeing content where the men are actually aesthetically interesting and worth looking at as well, outside of just women (some of such posts fall under pool #20151, but likely not all, and the pool has the minus of being a pool, thus less popular) (sure, it would not
• wanting to see ship posts between canon characters without particularly caring who is the man (or even anyone) involved, within a series

i suppose it could also be useful as a positive search for people who want to self-insert in the man's place without being bound down by anything identifiable about a male character (though how viable that would become depends on how strictly the "mob x canon" tag would be, regardless of what we name this)

Unbreakable said:

We kinda used to have a tag for this, it was called extra but it was deprecated in topic #25406

looking at that discussion, one of extra's fault was that it was a mixed bag including both canon characters that played a minor role, regardless of whether they are currently playing a minor role in the picture tagged, crowds, and mob x canon. my proposal is only for tackling mob x canon

sinning said:

looking at that discussion, one of extra's fault was that it was a mixed bag including both canon characters that played a minor role, regardless of whether they are currently playing a minor role in the picture tagged, crowds, and mob x canon. my proposal is only for tackling mob x canon

I'm just including it for reference.

...Would a favgroup convert BUR be enough to start getting the ball properly rolling? I still don't really got a good name for this hypothetical tag, though I suppose "non-descript male" or something could work...Though I don't think that's a good name either...

Knowledge_Seeker said:

...Would a favgroup convert BUR be enough to start getting the ball properly rolling? I still don't really got a good name for this hypothetical tag, though I suppose "non-descript male" or something could work...Though I don't think that's a good name either...

I've seen several sites using a tag like "anonymous_male" but the name sounds bad.

Fenton said:

I've seen several sites using a tag like "anonymous_male" but the name sounds bad.

That sounds even worse than "non-descript male" to me, honestly. The last thing we need is for them to get mixed in with faceless male due to the name, either...

a favgroup BUR will never hurt, even if the name we start with is bad, i think

sinning said:

a favgroup BUR will never hurt, even if the name we start with is bad, i think

True true. Sounds like a plan then.

BUR #35715 is pending approval.

mass update favgroup:39793 -> non-descript_male -faceless_male

Alright, here's the starter BUR. However, I have a few questions in order to properly determine the scope of this tag and keep it from ending up like old extra or getting lumped in with faceless male:

• Do those faceless player insert gacha characters often framed in this way qualify for this tag (like for example, sensei (blue archive))? I didn't include any in this favgroup just to be safe, but I do feel like that'd be something someone would want to filter for, especially if they, say, wanted to see versions of them with actual designs.

• How much detail can these characters have? Are they just dicks or hands, or can they have hair, as long as they do not stray away from this principle? At what point do we cross over into faceless male? The goal is to use this tag to cache self-insert men in porn that are only there to be dicks or hands (or whatever else the artist is into), so that people can see actual male characters in searches like hetero (or to see only the self-inserts), so where the line is drawn is a good thing to keep in mind.

Also, suggestions for names superior to non-descript male are highly encouraged. The "-faceless male" is there to catch posts tagged that in the favgroup so that they are automatically removed when the tags become generally exclusive.

Knowledge_Seeker said:

• Do those faceless player insert gacha characters often framed in this way qualify for this tag (like for example, sensei (blue archive))? I didn't include any in this favgroup just to be safe, but I do feel like that'd be something someone would want to filter for, especially if they, say, wanted to see versions of them with actual designs.

If they have a chartag, wouldn't that eliminate them?

Damian0358 said:

If they have a chartag, wouldn't that eliminate them?

That's what I'd assume, but you can't exactly tell things like post #8711621 from post #8730063 without the sign, can you? I'd assume the chartag would in fact disqualify them, but if I were to try and use this tag to eliminate mob characters from my search and still got post #8711621, I'd probably be pretty irritated all the same. My point was that these characters are often treated as effectively the same as mob characters, which is why I was asking.

Knowledge_Seeker said:

That's what I'd assume, but you can't exactly tell things like post #8711621 from post #8730063 without the sign, can you? I'd assume the chartag would in fact disqualify them, but if I were to try and use this tag to eliminate mob characters from my search and still got post #8711621, I'd probably be pretty irritated all the same. My point was that these characters are often treated as effectively the same as mob characters, which is why I was asking.

We could probably consider evazion's response in the OC x Canon forum thread in this case;

evazion said:

The spirit of the tag is someone's OC getting shipped with an established character. The pool definition said that customizable player characters like MMO or RPG avatars count, but I don't really agree with that, those are not someone's OC and it's normal for them to interact with other characters. Things like gacha player avatars shouldn't count.

Damian0358 said:

We could probably consider evazion's response in the OC x Canon forum thread in this case;

Alrighty then. Unless something changes, I'll assume the answer is "No" to my first question (and that my instinct to avoid adding them was the correct one).

why would faceless and non-descript male tags be mutually exclusive?

sinning said:

why would faceless and non-descript male tags be mutually exclusive?

Ah. I somehow got it in my head that we wanted the tags to be generally exclusive (and to differentiate the tag). If we don't them exclusive...Then would it ought be best to remove the "-faceless_male" part of this BUR?

i've heard it's generally non-advisable to make such substantial edits after others have voted. i know i downvoted this BUR because of the inclusion of -faceless_male

BUR #35769 is pending approval.

mass update favgroup:39793 -> non-descript_male
mass update favgroup:39855 -> non-descript_male

How about like this then? Let's see if this goes better.