Topic: Slaying the boss_monster (BUR)

Posted under Tag/Wiki Projects and Questions

Boss Monsters are a category of creatures from Undertale. In the lore, they can only age when their offspring ages and their soul can linger after death. This is as much info that is concrete about boss monsters. It's not even certain whether all boss monsters are goat-like, or if we're just meeting one family of boss monsters who happen to be goats. "boss monster" is a category to explain characters in the Undertale story, and I'd struggle to call the term an actual species. And yet, the boss monster page here seems to have dipped a bit too far into the fan juice.

They are creatures with a mix of caprine and lion-like features such as fangs, paws, droopy ears, and horns when matured. Similar to real life lions, they appear to display sexual dimorphism, with males often having manes.

...Lion? Where? Because Asgore has sideburns and a beard? All sprites of the boss monsters in-game look like anthro goats. boss_monster solo caprine has over 84 pages of results. boss_monster solo felid has less than 1 page. I think post #2214741 is the only one that actually resembles a caprine/feline hybrid, and even that also tags canine for... some reason? Everyone draws them as goats, they look like goats, please can we just call them goats in the same way that we call Alphys a lizard or Noelle Holiday a reindeer.

They also appear to have unique magical powers of sorts, often dealing with or themed around flames or fire

Isn't Toriel the only one with fire-related powers?

The page is trying so desperately hard to justify the tag's existence, even when it itself admits that the only three Boss Monsters are Asgore, Toriel, and Asriel. And even still, the tag ends up on posts showing Flowey the Flower (who is Asriel in another form but looks completely different), or Ralsei (who exists in a separate universe where boss monsters might not even be a thing), or Muffet (who is a boss in the Undertale game but not a "Boss Monster"). The term is rife for confusion and mistags. Honestly, I'm surprised it's not mistagged on any non-Undertale posts, given how generic the term is. If there's concern for fan characters losing searchability, there's no reason undertale fan_character caprine wouldn't hit the same beats.

I'm starting this as a tag discussion at first in case I'm missing something obvious, but I'm very tempted to throw the tag into a BUR and do something to it. Maybe make it an invalid tag (due to genericness), maybe alias it to Undertale, the details can be hashed out. I just don't think there's value in a tag that can only ever refer to three specific characters in a specific context (Undertale, not Deltarune) and a small spattering of fan characters who just look like goats anyway.

Updated

The bulk update request #2051 is active.

remove implication boss_monster (0) -> caprine (111580)
remove implication boss_monster (0) -> undertale (42822)

Reason: Per everything I said in the original post: the term boss_monster is ill-defined bordering on TWYK, ripe for misuse, and at best could only be applied to three characters officially; any fan characters can survive with other search terms.

Given that the term's only been used on Undertale posts, it should be safe to get rid of it by aliasing it to undertale (and not undertale (series), since "boss monsters" as a concept have yet to be mentioned in Deltarune afaik). The term itself is generic enough that you could make an argument for having it be invalid, but this way needs less clean-up.

Edit: ...forgot about the transitive relationships. Step 1 will be to remove the current implications, step 2 will be to alias the tag to undertale

Edit 2: Change of plans; per gatto's comment, step 2 will be to invalidate and disambiguate the boss_monster tag.

EDIT: The bulk update request #2051 (forum #327884) has been approved by @slyroon.

Updated by auto moderator

strikerman said:
I thought about that, but given how it's been misused on non-caprines (namely Flowey and Muffet), that might cause issues.

If it were aliased, people would see it suggesting Caprine when they try to tag it, so it should reduce misuses.

furrin_gok said:
If it were aliased, people would see it suggesting Caprine when they try to tag it, so it should reduce misuses.

Maybe, but that's only if the tagger has auto-complete turned on, or if the tagger doesn't add the tag fast enough to skip the auto-complete appearing.

strikerman said:
(...) step 2 will be to alias the tag to undertale

IMO it should just be disambiguated and invalidated. It's not like most other games don't have at least one character that can be called a "boss monster". There's even a game called "Boss Monster".

gattonero2001 said:
IMO it should just be disambiguated and invalidated. It's not like most other games don't have at least one character that can be called a "boss monster". There's even a game called "Boss Monster".

IMO, but I feel the same.

By the way, Your name seems RED ... is that just for me? (( 2nd time this Fox used the joke --- the 1st time was for wolfy ))
Congratulations !

gattonero2001 said:
IMO it should just be disambiguated and invalidated. It's not like most other games don't have at least one character that can be called a "boss monster". There's even a game called "Boss Monster".

Fair point. Kinda wish I could make a BUR with multiple options (alias to caprine, alias to undertale, invalidate), and people could vote on whichever one(s) they prefer.

strikerman said:
Fair point. Kinda wish I could make a BUR with multiple options (alias to caprine, alias to undertale, invalidate), and people could vote on whichever one(s) they prefer.

I have a question for that --- Are these what you're imagining? :

- A → B : 👍 or 👎 or 😕
- P → Q : 👍 or 👎 or 😕
- X → Y : 👍 or 👎 or 😕

- A → : B? C? D?
- O → : P? Q? R?
- W → : X? Y? Z?

That way, Everything won't be a [failure], User/Volunteer/Admin load will be reduced, and There will be more options, right?

kurogi_foxsiv said:
I have a question for that --- Are these what you're imagining? :
That way, Everything won't be a [failure], User/Volunteer/Admin load will be reduced, and There will be more options, right?

...I'm so sorry, but I can't follow what that diagram's showing.

strikerman said:
...I'm so sorry, but I can't follow what that diagram's showing.

It will be off-topic of this topic, so Should I make a new topic as a [Proposal]?
Apparently, I've got it a bit wrong? and I want to talk about our ideas in more detail.

EDIT : I will just GO ahead and make [proposal]

Updated

strikerman said:
...I'm so sorry, but I can't follow what that diagram's showing.

I think:

- A → B : 👍 or 👎 or 😕
- P → Q : 👍 or 👎 or 😕
- X → Y : 👍 or 👎 or 😕

alias/implication/whatever aaa –> bbb — vote yes, no, or neutral

- A → : B? C? D?
- O → : P? Q? R?
- W → : X? Y? Z?

alias/implication/whatever aaa –> vote bbb, ccc, or ddd?

Basically another version of what you were wishing for.

clawstripe said: (...)
Basically another version of what you were wishing for.

Yeah, That's going to get a lot of different versions of opinions.
And maybe I've got a bit wrong of what @Strikerman said.

EDIT : I will just GO ahead and make [proposal]

Updated

clawstripe said:
I think:
alias/implication/whatever aaa –> bbb — vote yes, no, or neutral
alias/implication/whatever aaa –> vote bbb, ccc, or ddd?

Basically another version of what you were wishing for.

kurogi_foxsiv said:
Yeah, That's going to get a lot of different versions of opinions.
And maybe I've got a bit wrong of what @Strikerman said.

Ahh, gotcha. I think something along those lines would be good, yeah.

snpthecat said:
Edit:
Would it be safe to have boss_monster_(undertale) imply caprine and undertale? Haven't kept up with the games.

I'm not sure where we stand on this right now-- I know we avoid implying fictional species to other species tags sometimes, but I think that's just for the ones that are like "half-species/half-character" like pokémon or digimon...
I _think_ implying to caprine would be fine.

Iffy on implying them to caprine. The paws and especially the fangs are not goat-like and are a part of the species' appeal. Plus a lot of art seeks to make them appear more "lion-like".

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