teratophilia should be for attractive monsters

Posted under Tags

I created the teratophilia pool to agglomerate pairings with attractive monsters. It is a specific aesthetic: the monster as alluring rather than abject; beautiful, graceful, or compelling rather than grotesque or primitive. It provokes desire, not disgust.

Teratophilia is The Shape of Water, The Ancient Magus' Bride, Robots & Lace. But more than the series, the actual content of the image is paramount:
post #6986960 is teratophilia, post #10092907 is not.
post #9536003 is teratophilia, post #11411097 or post #11046847 are not.
Tagging generic, nauseating, monster rape like post #11446882 as teratophilia makes the tag no more useful than monster rating:e.

Teratophilia should be something like pool #20151, but for monsters. There are plenty of ugly, disgusting, or simply boring monsters on this website. I do not think "teratophilia" should be used to describe them.

I haven't had much time to log on since I got accepted into a PhD program, but it seems like the pool got turned into a tag, and the meaning I intended for it was lost. If it was still a pool, I would have purged some posts, edited the description, and moved on. But since it's been moved to a tag, I think it warrants discussion. I know this is somewhat subjective, but I thought it was at least lucid enough to deserve a pool.

I agree with Talulah, "attractive", "nauseating" and so on is in the eye (and/or some other part) of the beholder. And if it's rape, happy sex or anything else that is independently taggable, the corresponding tags should be used. The "subjective tags are OK if they are pools" policy never made much sense. If they so desire, OP can maintain their custom monster love collection as a public favgroup.

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