diff --git a/app/models/post.rb b/app/models/post.rb
index 9586f49fc..2addde42c 100644
--- a/app/models/post.rb
+++ b/app/models/post.rb
@@ -1111,7 +1111,7 @@ class Post < ApplicationRecord
       tags = tags.to_s
       tags += " rating:s" if CurrentUser.safe_mode?
       tags += " -status:deleted" if CurrentUser.hide_deleted_posts? && !Tag.has_metatag?(tags, "status", "-status")
-      tags = Tag.normalize_query(tags)
+      tags = Tag.normalize_query(tags, normalize_aliases: false)
 
       # optimize some cases. these are just estimates but at these
       # quantities being off by a few hundred doesn't matter much
diff --git a/app/models/tag.rb b/app/models/tag.rb
index b9e91fa55..d7e2960b7 100644
--- a/app/models/tag.rb
+++ b/app/models/tag.rb
@@ -272,10 +272,10 @@ class Tag < ApplicationRecord
       query.to_s.gsub(/\u3000/, " ").strip
     end
 
-    def normalize_query(query, sort: true)
+    def normalize_query(query, normalize_aliases: true, sort: true)
       tags = Tag.scan_query(query.to_s)
       tags = tags.map { |t| Tag.normalize_name(t) }
-      tags = TagAlias.to_aliased(tags)
+      tags = TagAlias.to_aliased(tags) if normalize_aliases
       tags = tags.sort if sort
       tags = tags.uniq
       tags.join(" ")