Hello, right now my character art is tagged as tag:nova-aurora
There's an old character tag that's been abandoned for years named tag:nova_aurora (also tag:novaaurora), the owner of the character as far as I can tell is long gone.

Is there a way to either:
1. Commandeer the tag for myself
2. Better differentiate between the two characters (tag:nova_aurora_(novaaurora)?)

Not sure what the process is here

novaaurora said:
Hello, right now my character art is tagged as tag:nova-aurora
There's an old character tag that's been abandoned for years named tag:nova_aurora (also tag:novaaurora), the owner of the character as far as I can tell is long gone.

Both nova_aurora and novaaurora refer to the same character that goes by the name of Nova, owned by the FA user Nova_Aurora.
As you can tell from their recent favourites, they are definitely not "long gone."

Is there a way to either:
1. Commandeer the tag for myself
2. Better differentiate between the two characters (tag:nova_aurora_(novaaurora)?)

Not sure what the process is here

Under no circumstance should you ever "commandeer" a character tag because you think the original character owner does not use it anymore.
You should always go for the differentiate route and/or rename the character tags so that it clearly distinguishes them both as separate characters.

1) The first issue here that needs to be addressed is that you and the other character owner share the same name.
Ideally, this should have been resolved very early on (by choosing a different name) so as to not confuse you with the other person, though I couldn't fully fault you for not wanting to or not realising it beforehand.

2) The second issue to address is new character tag names for you and the other character owner.
We can go with nova_(novasaurora) since that is how you are known on FA and other sites, and for the other character to be known as nova_(novaaurora) or nova_(nova_aurora).
If you fear that the names still look too familiar, then you can go with nova_aurora_the_cat, and the other character to be known as nova_the_wolfgon.

3) The third issue is what to do with the existing tags.
Normally, we would alias all three tags together into one disambiguation tag. However, since it only involves you two and no other third "Nova", you can abandon using them altogether and let it remain empty.

Sorry, didn't mean to come across as crass, I genuinely just have no idea how these things work and am trying to better understand.
I was unaware of their FA, I was only going by their history on e621.

I think going with nova_aurora_the_cat is probably the best option for me. I don't have any communication with the other individual and don't really want to, and they have seniority, so they can keep the nova_aurora tag.

The bulk update request #9215 is pending approval.

mass update nova-aurora -> nova_aurora_the_cat
create implication nova_aurora_the_cat (0) -> vtuber (4922)
create implication nova_aurora_the_cat (0) -> domestic_cat (287210)

Reason: To better differentiate from existing nova_aurora, cat implies domestic_cat, and character is a VTuber

novaaurora said:
Sorry, didn't mean to come across as crass, I genuinely just have no idea how these things work and am trying to better understand.
I was unaware of their FA, I was only going by their history on e621.

I think going with nova_aurora_the_cat is probably the best option for me. I don't have any communication with the other individual and don't really want to, and they have seniority, so they can keep the nova_aurora tag.

Sorry if I sounded direct, but we just don't allow people to stake claims to character names here. It will just lead to issues down the road.
The main point is that the character tags are here to tell people that this character is here and that it is unique from other characters with similar names.

While you are free to use the new tag for yourself, we will still have to deal with the old tags since other people may confuse it as being your tag.
I will move them elsewhere for the other character owner.