Fandom/Kins Rules Update Feedback Box

+1 to banning outright canon characters only.

+1 to banning near derivative, recolors, and AU, but only in terms of commerce.

We do not need to be stifling people's personal creations, particularly those of (let's be very real here) younger people, just because someone else finds it distasteful. Does a person consider something to be an original character, distinct from an actual canon character, no matter how similar the look? Does it use only original and permitted, no stolen or official art? Then cool, sounds like there's nothing to worry over.

That said, if someone is selling or trading a design that is literally "Miku but purple" or "normal Pikachu but with a mohawk" or characters based directly off of MMO characters,  that's a no go for me. But simply posting them with your own art (or screencaps) for personal use? Chill.

tldr, is the character literally named Naruto Uzumaki, or uses official art of him, or stolen fanart? Bad. Does the character resemble Naruto, but has a distinct backstory, original art, and some other defining element, no matter how close the resemblance, but the person has posted it for personal use and is not attempting to profit? Absolutely fine.

The canon character ban should have the part about canon character but as an animal. It's the same thing. Naruto as himself or Naruto as a dog is still Naruto. Fanart of that can be fun. This isn't a fanart site.

The rest of the derivative section is a giant grey area, and should be case by case. No one will be fooled by an anteater named James, but has the exact same personality of Naruto, and must always be drawn cosplaying as him. That's a ban. But if they have a character with similar personality to a canon character in some ways, and the character cosplays a lot of different characters, including a few times as the inspiration character, that's fine. Inspiration comes from most anywhere, and with a human element for a case by case system, that would be better than a blanket ban.

Games with character customization are a bit tricky. Using the game's creation tools to get an idea down for an original character done in a creator that allows actually customizing the face of a character is fine. Credit the game in the art. Skyrim for example is so moddable you can easily make totally original designs with a very very low chance someone will recreate the exact same design. Pair that with Skyrim being massively open to the type of characters you can play, from a beggar all the way to Dovahkiin, and a whole lot in between. I see them as free bases, where you can use them to get an idea down, but do not profit off of it unless told otherwise. So don't sell them.

Games where you only customize the outfit, that's a no go zone IMO. Yes I can go into San Andreas and give CJ the green suit from the high end shop at the end of the game. Doesn't make him anyone but CJ in a green suit.

If the game offers high customization for a preset character, IE Mass Effect, I'd still say that's fine if you only use the face to build it into a character design, leaving the personality and all that behind. Yes in the game you make your Shepard look different but he or she still is Shepard. But that doesn't have to be true outside the game, where your character's face was customized in a game. Not everyone can draw and this allows us with no art skills to get ideas down. Just credit the game for any images you get from it. And don't sell these characters.

But in the end, a lot of this will have to be subjective, as a blanket ban could get a lot of innocent people in the crossfire.

I think that at this time at least you should only worry about straight up canon characters. Something that is exactly Ash Ketchum or exactly in all design umm Deku. Those should not be permitted.

Now X character turned into a dog, I think should be left alone. I get why people don't like it but then you have to decide where to draw the line in how close a character is to be a rip off and not just a fan character. How will you monitor it? How complex must a character be before its no longer X made into a dog? Will every animal with a Captain America's shield get banned? I have an otter with an eye patch and ax vaguely based on Rupert/Hawk from a book, will he get banned? Derivative characters I also feel should be left alone, its once again where do you draw the line. If you outright say no derivative you will loose tons of characters and many will slip through by not being main stream fan based. And some will be wrongly banned by being similar to something the owner didn't even know about. Also all species characters like pokemon, and nifflers, and httyd dragons should be left alone due to limited design space to fit into the world they originate from.

If you go farther than Canon in regulating then there will be tons of nitpicking and a very vague cut off line that some people will claim ban and others will claim no ban.

Also for the case on case basis based on written description, how long after uploading does an owner have to write said description, and is someone really going to spend the time and energy going through every last character on TH and reading their descriptors to see if its too close?

P.S. I like Motherbeast's Fan Character Check Box idea. I've gotten characters based on fandoms I don't know and it does change how you look at a character after you realize where the design idea came from.

+1 for banning "character but as an animal"

+1 to banning canon characters

i 100% agree with RedRarebit as well!

What do I think?

+1 to banning Cannon/kin characters — why are you uploading someone else’s character to your own gallery and claiming it as your own ya dingus

+1 to banning obvious redesigns— it’s a form of plagiarism and not okay. Literally just having a purple version of Korra from TLOK and is obviously Korra in every way, shape, and form, except the person claims it as their own, should be taken out.

+1 to banning characters resembling the canon ones in both personality and appearance or constantly cosplaying them. I’ve seen too many furry Dekus and Bakugous sjdhjk— in my opinion these fall into the same category as redesigns, as they’re really obviously just that character in every way, shape, and form, just in a different way.

-1 to banning personalized MCs: yeah it’s from a game and you use it for the game, but it’s like making a doll in a dollmaker. It’s your character! You made it and use it, make the story for it, do whatever you want. It’s not someone else’s character.

-1 to banning characters belonging to a canon species: if it’s your design, your character, except it exists as, say, a seawing from WOF, it’s still your character! As long as it’s allowed by the people who originally created that species and say that it’s okay to make your own for private use, then I think it’s okay.

-1 to banning characters belonging to a canon setting, unless the creators explicitly said they don’t want people doing that! The characters in that world are still your own— spidersonas are still your own characters, they just exist in the spiderverse!

TL;DR I agree with my friend Jutta and redrarebit

I’d say my thoughts are pretty similar to MintyFivestar’s. Canon characters with no changes made to them should not be allowed. Derivatives should be allowed, and I agree with the sentiment of other people determining what is and isn’t “original” enough is going to be too much of a gray area, especially when discussions from various threads in the past have established that some people just don’t think fancharacters are “real characters” to begin with. I don’t think a blanket ban on fan content is the right call to make just because some people are overstepping their boundaries with claiming canon characters.

In the cases of people straight up trying to claim canon characters as their creations, it’s pretty obvious that’s not acceptable. In most cases I’ve seen of derivative characters either set in canon settings, based on canon species, or inspired by/based on customizable characters (or even based on canon characters and transformed in some meaningful way) the owner is usually pretty transparent about that fact. I also tend to mention somewhere on the profile what the source material is or mention if certain characters were based on certain things. Then again, I don’t browse other people’s characters that frequently, so that’s only what I’ve seen so far. I personally don’t really consider it my business what other people do with their characters if they’re not blatantly and unashamedly ripping off canon content and/or trying to make profit from it. As the OP stated, derivatives are a very wide range, and I think most of that range seems acceptable.

I think I’m rambling at this point, but in general, yes—there needs to be a clarification about canon characters. I don’t agree with banning of derivative works though unless they fail some kind of strictly defined “plagiarism test” of determining if their profile content and design is unchanged from the source material. If no such test can be determined without gray area, I think it needs more time for consideration before enforcement, even if the rules for canon characters potentially is set in place first.

i would say:

+1 to banning canon characters
+1 to banning canon characters as dogs, etc.
-1 to banning fan characters

i personally have a lot of fan characters and not being able to upload them here would be pretty devastating. i've worked hard on their stories and i think as long as the design is unique and not just a remake or copy of an existing character, it should be allowed. or, at least be judged on a case-by-case basis.. but just don't ban them altogether. 

+1 to kin characters ban: i've always been pretty iffy on kinsonas, but a lot of them i see are just X as a dog / anthro with most of their outfit/accessories and its super obvious. i get there's also the just uploading of like.. just media characters as a kin list or whatever? just make an about page guys hg

-1 to banning fcs: i have a few fcs myself and i don't see the issue with them? unless they just recolor someone and go "its my oc" then.. why ban?

-1 on the MCs: they can be highly customizable (for ex. fire emblem fates/awakening) so its a bit hard to steal an MC? with the exception of the 'canon' MC form of a series? idk i can't Word Good

the fact this is an issue just.. dang