Labels

Labels aren't as helpful as they should.<ref>

It’s important to remember that designations between others are artificial.

I wouldn't say so. Designations between Others are so blurry as to be terminally misleading. - /etr301k Wildbow on Reddit</ref><ref> Peter said. “What the hell right do you have, calling yourself an angel?”

“That would be a label others applied to me,” Faysal said. “Human invention.”

“I was under the impression that all Others of any given classification were of human invention, to some degree, conscious or unconscious,” Rose said. “Influenced, at the very least.” - Excerpt from Possession 15.7</ref>

Rose Thorburn Senior waxes about this subject that one shouldn't be hampered by the labels people give Others.<ref>The being I have named Barbatorem is an entity falling under the classification Insolitus Nex. This author does not believe in stricter classifications, and leaves it to others to label him a devil or goblin as they see fit. It is difficult to impossible to guess as to his origins, but one can speculate that it came about after the dawn of human civilization, given the common elements and the trend in appearances. - Excerpt from Bonds 1.7</ref>

This also extends to practitioners of course. Collectors doesn't just mean curators of private museums but also those who might collect things like people or legends.

Oni are known for messing with labels.<ref></ref>

Specific examples

Non-Demons
Very Old Thing<ref>Say you're a practitioner in Europe. Your town is hundreds of years old, and it borders a bog. In that bog lives a Very Old Thing. It predates Solomon, it predates tidy labels, and it is nasty, predatory, and prone to kidnapping children to eat. It can't be killed and most conventional ways of binding it will see it throwing itself against the walls of its metaphorical cage until the people who set up the seal give up or people start to notice something's up. Wildbow on Reddit</ref>
Goblin Specifics<ref name=":1">“Butty’s thing.”

“The mayo bomb?”

“He’s a fester, you know. That’s what he does.”

“I’m not playing that game, Gash. I’ve been told he’s a bulge, a fester now, ummm, I think Cherry called him a boil. You guys make this up.”

“Exactly! Perfect, you’re not so dumb after all. That’s what he does. He takes all the ugly, all the mess, all the bile and crap and he concentrates it. Longer he waits and lets it sit before it goes pop, the better. Rest of the time, he’s just a greasy stain. He’d be good to have around if he wasn’t so shit.” - Excerpt from Back Away 5.4</ref><ref name=":0">Goblin, third class, which put her between lesser and middle tiers. The problem was that goblins despised and defied boundaries and convention, and trying to apply one saw a given goblin slip into a tier above or even a tier below. They came in all shapes and sizes, humanoid and not, and as Deedee went, she was a beauty among goblinkind and she was a beauty to him. - Excerpt from Poke 2</ref>

References