tag implication: artist_self-insert -> real_life_insert

Reason: The artist is a real person.

Not quite the same, though. An artist self-insert is done typically via an author avatar, which is most definitely not inserting something straight from real life. If it was their real likeness, then I could see Real Life Insert being used, but... Well, I don't think it'd work in most cases.

Does a different look change the fact that it represents a real person?

It does change the implication of real life insert. That tag to me seems only worthwhile to apply to representations of real people as real people.

I'd rather see author avatars distinguished from depictions of the author themselves.

Wasn't the origin of the tag in the first place all these doujins with artists inserting other artists (like in Comiket) as misc. characters from their works?

The insertion of other artists, friends and relatives gave birth to the tag, yeah.

Ugh. I missed that discussion then. The name is highly misleading, in my opinion.

But, if that's what it means, that's what it means.

There seems to be a couple of subtly different concepts floating around here.

• The character is a real-life person drawn into the picture and/or fictional environment. See most images under Zun. Caricatures fall here.
• The character is meant to represent a real-life person in avatar form. See warugaki_(sk-ii)'s reports and possibly Mizuki_Hitoshi's 4koma.
• The character is entirely fictional, but is the spiritual representation of a real person. Some of jiroo's work comes to mind, as does dora_e's Reitaisai advice (pool #4194) and Slim from Of mice and men, for those that have read it.

The other important variable that confuses the matter is how fictional the story is. So much so that I'm struggling to bring it into context well enough to think of clear examples of how it fits in.