Pluralstories nonhuman logging!

[lb_lee]

Sneak: I went through the pluralstories "nonhumans" tag, and I manually added in the catalog entries the various nonhumans represented! I had considered doing a tag family, but it would've rapidly gotten out of control, with a billion tags all with only one or two entries. (Also the thought of trying to squish them down makes me cry--like, have separate tags for angels, demons, lwa, mpungos, gods, and spirits, or compress them down to "spirits"? But what if someone is SPECIFICALLY looking for Vodoun works and want lwa specifically? Oh no!)

Now, if someone really wants to find, say, a pluralstory with robots, they can just search "robot" and get a dozen!

The only entry I couldn't do this with was System's Out! because it's really, REALLY long and an outside submission. (I also was kind of stumped by Soft-Pedaled because there were characters I couldn't really guess the species of or how to quantify them!) But it's a start, at least!

Comments

[beepbird]

I am still glad the nonhuman category exists- thank you for continuing this project.

[lb_lee]

Sneak: Thank you! Maybe I will make a few tags for some of the most common nonhuman families? "Animals," "anthropomorphic animals," "aliens," "spirits," and "robots" would all be pretty safe I think, but I also don't want there to be too many tags... hmm...

[beepbird]

There is bound to be a good balance somewhere. I do think family tags might be helpful ( would certainly use the robot tag), though agreed that too many tags would be an issue.

[talewisefellowship]

[Hikaru]

tfw we don't think of spirits as being necessarily nonhuman ;w; we see it as some spirits are human, others are not

I know what you're trying to do, I just wouldn't feel comfortable putting Sai under 'nonhuman' is what I'm saying. He's a ghost so he goes under spirit, but I don't think that makes him any less human imo. sorry if im making things more difficult by saying it, just something I feel strongly about

[talewisefellowship]

[Janusz]

Maybe a good alternative name for the tag family could be 'beings'?

[talewisefellowship]

[Hikaru]

Yea that could work!

[lb_lee]

Sneak: I do have a “people” tag family that I think includes nonhumans, fictioneers, the dead, copies (AI versions, factives), and probably other stuff I don’t remember!

[talewisefellowship]

[Janusz]

Is fictioneer an alternative word for fictive?

[lb_lee]

Yeah, we nabbed it from Jasper Fforde's books since "fictive" can have weird fights over whether insourced folks count, and we just... didn't want to deal with it.

[talewisefellowship]

[Hikaru]

Yea I've not been liking the language of 'fictive' and have been straying away from it. fictioneer sounds better, but it might be the word 'fiction' itself is loaded for me. We like 'story' better so Janusz sometimes calls us his story friends.

not that that has anything to do with your categorization scheme, just talking about what's best for the fellowship.

[lb_lee]

Sneak: yeah, I felt like I really wanted a tag for exploring the realms of fiction (both people and worlds), as someone who really enjoys those stories! (Examples include Ib and Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next books, where his protagonist not only goes into books like Jane Eyre to save the story, but meets fictioneers of herself based on tell-all books written about her life!) I enjoy the exploration of fiction having its own independent life.

Fictioneer in normal English also means someone who writes copiously but badly so I also think it’s a funny word to use!

[lb_lee]

Sneak: you’re right, that’s a problem. (Besides, we already have “the dead” tag for beings like Sai, who are human dead people, while, say, the Negative Spirit from Doom Patrol would go under the “nonhumans” tag!)

Aliens, robots, animals, and anthropomorphic animals all feel pretty safe categories, but then you’ve got a whole bunch of fantasy creatures (griffins, mermaids), religious beings(?) (angels, demons, gods, lwa...), and I am stumped as to what catch-all term would work! All of them run into similar problems as the spirit one you just mentioned with Sai!

[talewisefellowship]

[Hikaru]

Yea that's tough!

[frameacloud]

That's so cool!!