Hey, this might sound stupid, but I do a lot of Lion King fan art, and a lot of the time I'm drawing people's Original Characters in the same Lion King style. A lot of these people I draw for have their OC's in the same Lion King or Lion Guard timeline. Even without TLK canon characters in these pictures, am I allowed to tag The Lion King franchise in artwork like this?

Examples:

https://e621.net/posts/3546678?q=lynxbrush
https://e621.net/posts/3129794?q=lynxbrush
https://e621.net/posts/3055498?q=lynxbrush

Thank you so much!

Generally unless there's something identifiable from the franchise (a specific character, background location, object, etc), it shouldn't be tagged. A character merely "in the style of" some franchise shouldn't be tagged with the franchise, because such a picture can be for something else completely. In some cases, different franchises can have a very similar style, and if someone plays around with their style or who may not be a very good artist, you'll have disagreement on whether a post actually fits the style of the franchise or not. It would also be false attribution, saying something belongs to the franchise or franchise owner when it doesn't. People searching for things actually from the franchise would likely not be happy having the search results flooded with images that don't have anything from the franchise.

watsit said:
Generally unless there's something identifiable from the franchise (a specific character, background location, object, etc), it shouldn't be tagged. A character merely "in the style of" some franchise shouldn't be tagged with the franchise, because such a picture can be for something else completely. In some cases, different franchises can have a very similar style, and if someone plays around with their style or who may not be a very good artist, you'll have disagreement on whether a post actually fits the style of the franchise or not. It would also be false attribution, saying something belongs to the franchise or franchise owner when it doesn't. People searching for things actually from the franchise would likely not be happy having the search results flooded with images that don't have anything from the franchise.

This is why I thought I'd ask, and why I typically have not tagged my art with OCs as such. Thanks for your informative answer!

watsit said:
Generally unless there's something identifiable from the franchise (a specific character, background location, object, etc), it shouldn't be tagged. A character merely "in the style of" some franchise shouldn't be tagged with the franchise, because such a picture can be for something else completely. In some cases, different franchises can have a very similar style, and if someone plays around with their style or who may not be a very good artist, you'll have disagreement on whether a post actually fits the style of the franchise or not. It would also be false attribution, saying something belongs to the franchise or franchise owner when it doesn't. People searching for things actually from the franchise would likely not be happy having the search results flooded with images that don't have anything from the franchise.

ehh... for searching and blacklisting purposes I'd say that it's often better to add the copytag for fan character's parent series even if there's nothing in the image that'd imply it. it seems most other users would agree with that, at least with most of the posts I've ever seen tag this way. I think a good example would just be to look at some of the series that has the highest volume of fan characters: mlp fan_character, sonic_series fan_character.

darryus said:
ehh... for searching and blacklisting purposes I'd say that it's often better to add the copytag for fan character's parent series even if there's nothing in the image that'd imply it.

Problem is, a fan character can switch between franchises. It's not an official part of the franchise, and if you don't see anything from the franchise, you shouldn't tag it. Fan characters were deimplicated from the fan_character tag because they could be drawn with no association to the fan work they were made for.

darryus said:
I think a good example would just be to look at some of the series that has the highest volume of fan characters: mlp fan_character, sonic_series fan_character.

Those are problems when they don't have anything identifiable to the franchise, particularly MLP since we have people tagging MLP for Them's Fightin' Herds content (which is explicitly not MLP/Hasbro-owned), simply because it's in the "same style" due to both having the same character designer. In contrast, Fakemon characters are not tagged Pokemon fan characters despite following Ken Sugimori's "style" of pokemon art.

watsit said:
In contrast, Fakemon characters are not tagged Pokemon fan characters despite following Ken Sugimori's "style" of pokemon art.

I feel like fakemon is kind of exception because, well, the fakemon tag exists. if a user dosn't want to see Pokémon-styled stuff they can just blacklist both pokemon and fakemon, but with fan characters for most other series they're just kinda SOL if the posts aren't tagged with their parent series.

darryus said:
I feel like fakemon is kind of exception because, well, the fakemon tag exists. if a user dosn't want to see Pokémon-styled stuff they can just blacklist both pokemon and fakemon, but with fan characters for most other series they're just kinda SOL if the posts aren't tagged with their parent series.

There's a reason tags like anime were aliased away, because simply being "anime style" was vague and subjectively applied. Despite the fact that it could be useful to search or blacklist. Same goes for a Disney style art or Warner Brothers style art, something people would like to search or blacklist, yet we don't tag Disney or Warner Brothers simply because an image is in that style. Tagging MLP/Sonic for fan characters is treating it as a vanity lore tag. You could have two identical pictures of a character, one saying it's an MLP/Sonic fan character and tagging it as MLP/Sonic, and another not. If there's no objective measure, you can't say who's right or wrong. Worse, you can have a fan character drawn differently from the franchise's style, but still be tagged as that franchise because of the character. So the tag wouldn't even be useful as a style tag, it's just if the tagger says so.

It annoys me because I have -mlp set with certain searches due to the deluge of MLP content that I would get in the search results. But it's not the style that bothers me, I don't mind things being in the "MLP style", I just don't like seeing pages filled with Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Spike, Apple Jack, etc, making it harder to see anything not from MLP. So when MLP is applied to the style of an image rather than the things in the image being from MLP, I end up missing stuff I would like.

watsit said:
It annoys me because I have -mlp set with certain searches due to the deluge of MLP content that I would get in the search results. But it's not the style that bothers me, I don't mind things being in the "MLP style", I just don't like seeing pages filled with Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Spike, Apple Jack, etc, making it harder to see anything not from MLP. So when MLP is applied to the style of an image rather than the things in the image being from MLP, I end up missing stuff I would like.

Personally I'm of the opposite mindset. If I search -mlp, I'm not looking for anything in that MLP style or with the distinct character designs, and I'd extend that to fan characters.

strikerman said:
Personally I'm of the opposite mindset. If I search -mlp, I'm not looking for anything in that MLP style or with the distinct character designs, and I'd extend that to fan characters.

I see it from this perspective too. This topic seems somewhat of a Grey area and more opinion based? I value what everyone is saying equally, but is there a mod I can ask this to that anyone can link me to? I have zero clue which runs this site and which to ask, lol.

strikerman said:
Personally I'm of the opposite mindset. If I search -mlp, I'm not looking for anything in that MLP style or with the distinct character designs, and I'd extend that to fan characters.

With MLP in particular, you have the issue of MLP not being the only thing in that "MLP style", since the show's character designer has done work for other series/franchises with a similar style. Anyone tagging Them's Fightin' Herds content, for example, as MLP is wrong to do so, the tags should be removed, and if a user keeps adding it back, they should be reported. It's also not unusual for art of fan characters to not be in an MLP style too, such that it could be mistaken for generic equines in a generic setting, but still be tagged MLP just because.

lynxbrush said:
Even without TLK canon characters in these pictures, am I allowed to tag The Lion King franchise in artwork like this?

I would say not, for the same reason that we don't tag Pokemon-inspired or Digimon-inspired characters with the tags pokemon, digimon, nintendo, or bandai_namco. From the wiki entry on fakemon:

Note that the franchise tags such as Pokémon and Digimon are for official creations. Fan-made species should [generally] be tagged simply as "fakemon"...

There does not seem to be a principled reason why this general guideline -- that franchise tags exist for official creations and not fan creations -- should apply only to the Pokemon and Digimon franchises. Thus, artwork would only be tagged the_lion_king if it depicts an official TLK creation, such as Mufasa or Simba.

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darryus said:
I feel like fakemon is kind of exception because, well, the fakemon tag exists.

strikerman said:
If I search -mlp, I'm not looking for anything in that MLP style or with the distinct character designs...

If enough people wish to specifically blacklist or specifically search for The Lion King or My Little Pony fan characters, would it not be most sensible to produce a fakemon-esque tag for TLK and one for MLP?

If the demand is there, it seems preferable to create a tag for non-franchised fan creations of a certain style rather than to overload the copyright tags for these franchises with material which is not actually copyrighted or trademarked to Nintendo, Bandai Namco, or Disney. After all, you cannot copyright an art style and these works are merely done in the style of the original franchise.

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lynxbrush said:
I see it from this perspective too. This topic seems somewhat of a Grey area and more opinion based? I value what everyone is saying equally, but is there a mod I can ask this to that anyone can link me to? I have zero clue which runs this site and which to ask, lol.

You are right that it's certainly a grey area! But that's why this forum exists -- so that active users can discuss their opinions and reasons, and we can (hopefully) come to a consensus. The admins monitor these forums and frequently chime in as needed, but thus far, the process seems to be working as intended. :)

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One other thought:

• Some users (e.g., Watsit) would like the ability to filter specifically for official franchise creations.
• Some users (e.g., Strikerman) would like the ability to filter for both official franchise creations and franchise-inspired fan creations.

Bearing these two use cases in mind...
Including fan creations under the franchise tags restricts the former use case whilst permitting the latter use case. (Tags like the_lion_king would become useless for separating official creations from fan creations.)
Including fan creations under alternate tags, in the style of the fakemon tag, allows both the former and the latter use cases. (Users like Strikerman can blacklist both tags from their searches.)

Does it not make sense, then, to allow users the greatest freedom in their searches?

watsit said:
It annoys me because I have -mlp set with certain searches due to the deluge of MLP content that I would get in the search results. But it's not the style that bothers me, I don't mind things being in the "MLP style", I just don't like seeing pages filled with Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Spike, Apple Jack, etc, making it harder to see anything not from MLP. So when MLP is applied to the style of an image rather than the things in the image being from MLP, I end up missing stuff I would like.

you could like, use -fim instead since that tag is generally meant for the specific characters that show up in the series rather than just stuff related to the series. and all of the characters you mentioned directly imply it.

also, we're not talking about tagging an artstyle, we're talking about tagging stuff that is meant to exist in a universe. I'm certainly not saying that TF'H stuff should get tagged with mlp. I mean, it has it's own tag, there's no reason to also tag it with mlp, peeps can just blacklist it as well.

darryus said:
you could like, use -fim instead since that tag is generally meant for the specific characters that show up in the series rather than just stuff related to the series. and all of the characters you mentioned directly imply it.

What's to stop someone from tagging fim for FiM fan characters, as they would MLP? Since most fan works is a result of FiM, there wouldn't be much difference.

monroethelizard said:

If enough people wish to specifically blacklist or specifically search for The Lion King or My Little Pony fan characters, would it not be most sensible to produce a fakemon-esque tag for TLK and one for MLP?

Maybe a standardized system for tagging fan characters of x franchise is an order. That would be a massive ordeal to implement, but I imagine if it gains traction it'd become self sustaining and reduce mistags.

watsit said:
What's to stop someone from tagging fim for FiM fan characters, as they would MLP? Since most fan works is a result of FiM, there wouldn't be much difference.

I mean, currently not much. it's just that, looking at the fan_character fim search there's not nearly as many posts containing just fan characters. I guess preferably it'd be kind of how we deal with pokemon/digimon/whatever species tags, like, users aren't supposed to tag specific species like mouse on pikachu but tagging murine would be fine.

Haha, figures the Brony exception also had an exception. Not familiar with TFH, but it means that cutie mark, unicorn, cartoonish colors, and OC != MLP unless it has something else identifyable (say, a canon character or specific city outline, etc. relevant to a franchise)?

A while ago I actually created a tag called The_Lion_King_(original_character) just to find some middle ground 😂 I guess that means I answered my own question.

lynxbrush said:
A while ago I actually created a tag called The_Lion_King_(original_character) just to find some middle ground 😂 I guess that means I answered my own question.

It's not really an "original character" if it's a fan character, is it? And we want to avoid linking unofficial characters to particular franchises since they aren't necessarily depicted in the setting. If the Lion King setting is clearly depicted, it can be tagged, but if it's just someone's character in a generic or nondescript setting, it's just that character, it shouldn't be linked to a particular franchise.

watsit said:
It's not really an "original character" if it's a fan character, is it? And we want to avoid linking unofficial characters to particular franchises since they aren't necessarily depicted in the setting. If the Lion King setting is clearly depicted, it can be tagged, but if it's just someone's character in a generic or nondescript setting, it's just that character, it shouldn't be linked to a particular franchise.

https://e621.net/posts/3450886?q=lynxbrush

It does when it's something like this x3

alphamule said:
Haha, figures the Brony exception also had an exception. Not familiar with TFH, but it means that cutie mark, unicorn, cartoonish colors, and OC != MLP unless it has something else identifyable (say, a canon character or specific city outline, etc. relevant to a franchise)?

cutie_mark currently implies my_little_pony, which means that any OC that has a cutie mark will imply the franchise in this case.