What to do with Persona_(summon) and Demon_(megami_tensei)

BUR #59112 has been approved by @nonamethanks.

create implication persona_(summon) -> demon_(megami_tensei)

The Persona series is a spin-off of the greater Shin Megami Tensei franchise which has basically become its own thing, but the one area that is still largely overlapping is the demons.

All of the "persona" you can fuse and collect in the Persona series are shared (down to the art used in game) with the SMT series. The only exception to this is the unique persona each party member has. The main character can summon any persona post #1217408, post #1190160, post #7325712, post #386275 which would currently under our tagging system be tagged demon (megami tensei) meaning if you search character_name + persona you are not guaranteed to get all art of the character actually using/having one. This expands to any art of characters next to persona which are not new like post #556597.

Currently the tag is only designed for unique demons to Persona like orpheus_(persona) and jiraiya_(persona_4), but functionally in-universe they are identical so I think they should be grouped in some way.

BUR #59113 has been rejected.

create alias persona_(summon) -> demon_(megami_tensei)

Alternative, like I said with the exception of party members they are the same thing, other series have a single "species tag" so this would be in-line with stuff like duel monster, pokemon (creature), digimon (creature) and so on.

It doesn't seem right to equate demons with Personae. Not only are they separate concepts, they also have vastly different design philosophies. You can immediately identify a Persona as such from the design, much like JoJo Stands.
If a demon is depicted as a character's Persona, I say it should still be tagged as demon and not Persona. If I'm searching persona (summon), I'm looking for the Personae that were actually designed as such, which the alias would make impossible.

BaiserLaVerite said in forum #438395:

It doesn't seem right to equate demons with Personae. Not only are they separate concepts, they also have vastly different design philosophies. You can immediately identify a Persona as such from the design, much like JoJo Stands.
If a demon is depicted as a character's Persona, I say it should still be tagged as demon and not Persona. If I'm searching persona (summon), I'm looking for the Personae that were actually designed as such, which the alias would make impossible.

Are they though? post #10079422, post #9347269, post #10249041 and post #10406340 are all official art renderings and seem to share a similar philosophy. The only difference is that two are demons originating in SMT and two are Persona originals.

5 even brought back the demon recruitment system from the main franchise, in this regard the series are linked.

If someone wanted to search for a character summoning their persona which would include post #386275 what should they search to get it? It feels very much like a technicality when in-game there is no divide.

zetsubousensei said in forum #438397:

Are they though? post #10079422, post #9347269, post #10249041 and post #10406340 are all official art renderings and seem to share a similar philosophy. The only difference is that two are demons originating in SMT and two are Persona originals.

5 even brought back the demon recruitment system from the main franchise, in this regard the series are linked.

If someone wanted to search for a character summoning their persona which would include post #386275 what should they search to get it? It feels very much like a technicality when in-game there is no divide.

Personae are easily recognisable because they have a robotic look, or a "living costume" aesthetic. They look very different from Kaneko's mythologically-accurate demon designs. In those four examples, even someone unfamiliar with the franchise would be able to tell that Orpheus and Pytis have a robotic design that sets them apart from Sarasvat and Kikuri's more organic look (lack of proper feet is also a tell). If you know about mythology, you can look at a Kaneko demon and immediately recognise what it is based on its design, whereas Personae are more stylised on their mythological namesakes, and usually made to fit with their human users.

As for the other point, perhaps a summoning tag? I can live with posts like that one being tagged Persona (summon), but both an alias and an implication feel innappropiate. When I'm searching demon (megami tensei), I'm not looking for Kanji's Take-Mikazuchi (Persona 4), but I am looking for it when I search persona (summon), which the alias would make impossible.

You have to understand that, despite the Persona series recycling Kaneko's demon designs for the MC's non-unique Persona, they're still two different breeds of mons.

I disagree with the two tags being grouped together, as along with sharing the sentiment raised by BaiserLaVerite above, I find there is an additional issue with examples where a Persona party member has a unique Persona which also happens to be an SMT demon, with the two having completely different designs. Take SMT's Amaterasu demon (post #8880383) versus Amagi Yukiko's Amaterasu Persona from Persona 4 (post #10532096) for example.

Now the reason this would be a problem as an alias is that as has been established, SMT and Persona despite technically being in the same series, are very much different things from each other and have very different playerbases with different preferences. So take someone who has only played SMT games/mainline adjacent non-Persona games like Devil Survivor (yes they exist, this was me for quite a while), this person would just want to see the demons he is familiar with from the games he played and not the radically different Persona designs. This is moreso an issue for SMT only players if it was implicated since, while the Persona players can search for Persona_(summon) and get just Persona designs, SMT only players would be stuck seeing a bunch of images of Izanagi and Arsene when they search for Demon_(Megami Tensei). They could of course add -Persona in their search, but do remember that our restricted friends are still unjustly bound to two tags per search and this would be quite a needless burden on themr.

I find the implication less intrusive than the alias so if either of these goes through it should be the implication and not the alias, though I don't think either is necessary.

voiceofthecold said in forum #438552:

I disagree with the two tags being grouped together, as along with sharing the sentiment raised by BaiserLaVerite above, I find there is an additional issue with examples where a Persona party member has a unique Persona which also happens to be an SMT demon, with the two having completely different designs. Take SMT's Amaterasu demon (post #8880383) versus Amagi Yukiko's Amaterasu Persona from Persona 4 (post #10532096) for example.

Now the reason this would be a problem as an alias is that as has been established, SMT and Persona despite technically being in the same series, are very much different things from each other and have very different playerbases with different preferences. So take someone who has only played SMT games/mainline adjacent non-Persona games like Devil Survivor (yes they exist, this was me for quite a while), this person would just want to see the demons he is familiar with from the games he played and not the radically different Persona designs. This is moreso an issue for SMT only players if it was implicated since, while the Persona players can search for Persona_(summon) and get just Persona designs, SMT only players would be stuck seeing a bunch of images of Izanagi and Arsene when they search for Demon_(Megami Tensei). They could of course add -Persona in their search, but do remember that our restricted friends are still unjustly bound to two tags per search and this would be quite a needless burden on themr.

I find the implication less intrusive than the alias so if either of these goes through it should be the implication and not the alias, though I don't think either is necessary.

I am fine with an implication, it's why I opened the thread with it instead of the alias. That being said I think it's worth noting that even in the SMT franchise proper you have situations like Amaterasu notably with Lucifer (Megami Tensei) having numerous different designs and personas (heh) depending on the game and situation. If a person really wanted just one Amaterasu and not the other wouldn't they just search the specific character they wanted and not a species tag?

I also still disagree on the designs being "radically different" Orpheus (Persona) is a mythologically based creature who is humanoid, if the argument is Persona look more artificial then I don't see how he's much different than post #11114536, post #10432083, or post #10431841. All of the characters Persona or Demon are based on world mythology it's the backbone of the franchise. post #10405771, post #48516, post #10520431

Again I think it's purely arbitrary based on the origin game and they're the same thing both in-universe and for gameplay purposes, but even if you consider Persona a subset that does put the tagging at odds with how similar franchises are handled. Pokemon (creature) groups 1000s of different designs we don't tag based on type, stage, regional. We have a general duel monster tag not a tag for performapals, fusions, or card types.

The point of the species tags are largely to group a type of "character" together for easy searching. Fracturing it like this doesn't help when functionally these two images are the same thing post #1217408 post #7723907.

zetsubousensei said in forum #438575:

I am fine with an implication, it's why I opened the thread with it instead of the alias. That being said I think it's worth noting that even in the SMT franchise proper you have situations like Amaterasu notably with Lucifer (Megami Tensei) having numerous different designs and personas (heh) depending on the game and situation. If a person really wanted just one Amaterasu and not the other wouldn't they just search the specific character they wanted and not a species tag?

I also still disagree on the designs being "radically different" Orpheus (Persona) is a mythologically based creature who is humanoid, if the argument is Persona look more artificial then I don't see how he's much different than post #11114536, post #10432083, or post #10431841. All of the characters Persona or Demon are based on world mythology it's the backbone of the franchise. post #10405771, post #48516, post #10520431

Again I think it's purely arbitrary based on the origin game and they're the same thing both in-universe and for gameplay purposes, but even if you consider Persona a subset that does put the tagging at odds with how similar franchises are handled. Pokemon (creature) groups 1000s of different designs we don't tag based on type, stage, regional. We have a general duel monster tag not a tag for performapals, fusions, or card types.

The point of the species tags are largely to group a type of "character" together for easy searching. Fracturing it like this doesn't help when functionally these two images are the same thing post #1217408 post #7723907.

You know what that's fair, I'll agree that the pros of implying Persona_(Summon) to Demon_(Megami tensei) outweigh the cons. The issue regarding restricted SMT Onlies having to use one of the two alotted tags to remove the Personas from their search for specifically SMT demons remains, but I suppose that's unrelated to this topic and more for the ongoing cause to finally ease the unfair subjugation of the restricted plebs and give them more search slots.

Now I would like to turn my attention to the voters who are considering whether to choose to implicate or alias, and I am telling you all here and now you must surely vote for implicate and against alias.
Putting whether or not demons/personas have different design philosophies aside, there is one thing unique to Personas which is undeniable, and that is the manner in which they are summoned; demons in SMT act either independently or as standard JRPG party members whereas Personas are bound closely to their user, summoned floating in the direct vacinity of the user in a very Stand-esque manner. I present post #1155152 and post #4314784 as examples where the Persona tag serves an idiosyncratic purpose; no actual canon Persona is being displayed, and yet the Persona_(Summon) tag fits because they are both parodying the manner in which Personas are summoned next to the user and parodying the archetypical design of a Persona.
TL;DR: Personas visually function like Stands, SMT demons do not, so vote for implicate and not alias.

The bulk update request #59112 (forum #438391) has been approved by @nonamethanks.

The bulk update request #59113 (forum #438392) has been rejected by @nonamethanks.

Implication is fine, that way we're still able to finetune searches.