How does dark_skin interact with tanlines?

Posted under Tags

At present, the wiki page for dark skin states that sometimes characters may have dark skin due to a tan, implying that tans qualify under the tag. I understand that much.

But does this apply only to when a tan cannot be distinguished from naturally dark skin if you don't have outside knowledge of the character not usually looking so dark, e.g. post #4241904? Or, does it also apply to tans with very clear tanlines which distinguish between the character's natural skin and their tanned skin, e.g. post #10835046 (Q)?

Both lines of logic, "The dark_skin tag goes on any image of a character having any dark skin for any reason" and "The dark_skin tag ideally goes only on naturally dark skin but when a tan is indistinguishable from it TWYS means tag as dark skin", seem viable.

StarfishAtLarge said in forum #432806:

So, to paraphrase Obstkuchen's paraphrasing of the answers they got, dark skin and tan shouldn't be used for the same character because the latter is used when tanlines make it clear that the tan isn't the character's natural skin color.

But that would mean that tan is redundant with tanlines. Should I create a BUR aliasing tan to tanlines? Might be worth it just for the feedback.

before you suggest an alias, take a look at posts in the tan tag and see if you would tag ALL of them with tanlines and if the answer is "no" then you don't suggest an alias

trapster77 said in forum #432810:

before you suggest an alias, take a look at posts in the tan tag and see if you would tag ALL of them with tanlines and if the answer is "no" then you don't suggest an alias

Good point. Perhaps a better solution would be just to eliminate tan entirely.

I also wouldn't mind going through images manually and for each one switching tan to either dark_skin or tanlines before suggesting an alias, but I'd rather first have confirmation that it won't all be undone.

Updated by StarfishAtLarge

StarfishAtLarge said in forum #432811:

Good point. Perhaps a better solution would be just to eliminate tan entirely.

I also wouldn't mind going through images manually and for each one switching tan to either dark_skin or tanlines before suggesting an alias, but I'd rather first have confirmation that it won't all be undone.

Don't do this. If you think tan should be replaced, submit a BUR to deprecate it.

zetsubousensei said in forum #433657:

I don't think characters like Asahina Aoi or Nagatoro Hayase should be in dark skin, but we definitely need a tag to indicate they're tanner than most characters. Unless you have a replacement for tan I can't support deprecating it.

My question is: How can tan be tagged if no tanlines are visible? Without tanlines, how can you tell the difference between a tan and natural dark skin?

How does one look at post #4241904 and determine that it is a tan?

StarfishAtLarge said in forum #433742:

My question is: How can tan be tagged if no tanlines are visible? Without tanlines, how can you tell the difference between a tan and natural dark skin?

How does one look at post #4241904 and determine that it is a tan?

You would agree that visually that character is lighter than Shihouin Yoruichi right? To me the usage of tan isn't to indicate a character is actually "tanned" in the sense of tanlines, but to indicate they are darker than a typical anime character yet not in the range of Yoruichi and friends. If you think tan is erroneous I think we still need a tag for this distinction.

Updated by zetsubousensei

zetsubousensei said in forum #433747:

You would agree that visually that character is lighter than Shihouin Yoruichi right? To me the usage of tan isn't to indicate a character is actually "tanned" in the sense of tanlines, but to indicate they are darker than a typical anime character yet not in the range of Yoruichi and friends. If you think tan is erroneous I think we still need a tag for this distinction.

Sounds good. But in that case, the wiki page for dark skin probably ought to be changed to indicate that it and tan shouldn't overlap, as the page currently describes the latter as a possible cause of the former.

Plus, and maybe this is more of a stretch, tan could be renamed to tan skin to more clearly have it in a spectrum alongside pale skin & dark skin.

wingdings said in forum #433759:
it probably helps to think of tan as shorthand for "either tanned skin, or a tan skin tone", it all pretty much boils down to twys.

This is even more reason to do tan skin instead of tan.

Part of my confusion stems from how tan as a tag can be read as referring to "a tan" since that's often the case with these tags, like how hat really means "a hat" and how mole really means "a mole". The article "a" is simply excluded.

I agree that TWYS means that artifically-tanned skin and naturally-tanned skin should be grouped together under the tag. But "tan skin" is a better neutral descriptor for that than "tan" is. Plus, again, this would put it right in line with pale skin & dark skin.

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