Currently there are two characters named Aurora by Fluff-Kevlar. One very old OC in post #1305552 and post #1225611, and a new one in a comic, with her first appearances in post #3999420 and post #4081258. In the comments of post #3999420, FK said that the old one should be made obsolete but unless they messaged staff for removal, I think the proper way to handle this would be by splitting the character tags.

my gut solution is to use what movies and albums use, where the year is appended, so

aurora_(fluff-kevlar)_(2012)

and

aurora_(fluff-kevlar)_(2023)

but maybe there's some other precedent on e6. Any thoughts?

Huh... Well this is new to me.

The alternative distinctor i'd say could work would have the "2012" one be "disowned" instead and leaving the "2023" one blank.

Normally it would be ideal to separate them using a last name or something, but with an absence of that I'm not sure.

Since the old one is intended to be abandoned, that one could be moved to something else, leaving aurora_(fluff-kevlar) to be for the new character.

In my own experience, I would just add the same character tag for both of them, then possibly include a description on the tag wiki specifying the two variations.
This is simply because some character owners do change their character's design from time to time, sometimes little and sometimes drastic, so it wouldn't be feasible to create a new character tag for every iteration.

I actually ran into this problem twice with Fuze's characters. He has two characters called Max, and another two called Dan. The two are from unrelated universes and never interact - in both cases, one is a Pokémon, and the other one is from his OC comic series Texnatsu. Since the comics have a well-defined continuity and cast, I opted to split out every character that only appears there into a different namespace ending with *_(texnatsu), effectively formally elevating it into Franchise status versus Just Some Guy's OCs. This left the original max_(fuze) and dan_(fuze) tags for the exclusive use of the Pokémon fan characters.

As the new Aurora character originates from a well-defined comic universe, it seems to me that the same solution could be applied. Keep the most generic and least helpful aurora_(fluff-kevlar) tag for the older OC about which we have no further information, and distinguish the new one with a tag along the lines of aurora_(predators_of_denali).

A lot of good ideas/suggestions. If the characters don't look anything like each other, and come from entirely different franchises, then it makes sense to try to find out if they have a last name. See: Aaron Steele If Lordmarukio ever creates another character named Aaron (in the same comic for example), then it would separate them.