I dare you to find the most popular character that isn’t a copyright-owned character (i.e. An OC that is not associated with a franchise). If you found them, include the number of posts they’re in.
+50 points if you can find the top 3 OCs.
Topic: [CHALLENGE] Who is the most popular OC?
Posted under Off Topic
zenith-pendragon said:
I dare you to find the most popular character that isn’t a copyright-owned character (i.e. An OC that is not associated with a franchise). If you found them, include the number of posts they’re in.+50 points if you can find the top 3 OCs.
Do you already know the answer, or do you want to know but not put in the work?
The top 4 OCs, according to the tag search:
"OC" is defined here as a character tag with no active implications. It turns out we have some quite popular characters with longstanding unapproved implication proposals. Case in point, number 5 is death_(puss_in_boots). There are currently two conflicting proposals for what to do with this, at topic #38725 (by Rainbow Dash) and topic #37626 (by gattonero2001). Pick your preferred admin and join the fight, I guess.
Number 6 is the very odd case of cutie_mark_crusaders_(mlp). At first glance this seems like it should obviously be implied to my_little_pony or possibly friendship_is_magic, but reading the wiki I'm not convinced in belongs in the character category (or possibly on the site) at all. No active proposals to change either of those things.
At number 7 we finally have our first genuine OC, silver_soul (big surprise there from the only comic ever to hit the pool limit). You could debate over whether this is still "associated with a franchise", given that the vast majority of her posts are also tagged pokemon, but she can and has appeared in wholly original contexts (mainly before and after her most famous appearance).
Number 8 is protagonist_(tas), a franchise which generally has a whole bunch of stuff pending in topic #36852.
Number 9 is warfare_krystal. Apparently this refers specifically to a 3D model of the star_fox character krystal created by the artist warfare_machine. The vast majority of the 1.5k entries in this tag were added one month ago, and I have a feeling it's on the fast lane to a nuke.
Numbers 10 and 11 are moritaka and yasuyori, two more TAS characters proposed for implication. (And mass updating with a suffix, since most characters from this franchise are originally from public domain mythology. Is Housamo Japan's answer to Shrek? Discuss.)
Number 12 is robin_hood. The first Puss in Boots BUR linked above quoted this as another source of long-running admin controversy. Disney doesn't own Robin Hood, but they do own the only widely-known furry version of Robin Hood, but even if you accept that argument the robin_hood_(disney) copyright tag exists and surely there must be some room for nuance here? The most I could find was a single rejected BUR from a hidden topic.
We then have background_character (not a character) and ych_(character) (of which at least half of its uses are invalid).
Number 15 is mokdai, the first appearance from lifewonders' other gacha juggernaut, live_a_hero. Strangely, this guy has never featured in any alias requests or BURs, despite topic #36578 implicating a number of other characters from this game.
Number 16 is gouryou (TAS again).
Number 17 is gallus_(mlp). Only half of the six characters linked on that wiki page have friendship_is_magic implications, one of whom is yona_yak with a grand total of 1 post. Active BUR at topic #35844. As for Yona, it turns out there's a competing tag at yona_yak_(mlp) with over 300 posts, which for some reason also has the FiM implication. I made a request to resolve this issue at topic #40117.
Finally, at number 18, we have gyro_feather, an OC of the artist gyrotech. The vast majority of posts with this tag were uploaded by the character owner, who in most cases is also the artist. Guess we found the secret to "popularity" (as crudely defined by post count) on e621 then.
Then number 19 is shibeta, all but two posts of which are also tagged with the artist ayaka. Another protagonist of an enormous pool.
Next up are cu_sith_(tas) (obvious), gyobu (same) and volos (same).
It's at position 23 that actual OCs finally start to become more common. First up we have zig_zag, courtesy of max_blackrabbit, swiftly followed by shota_feline_(marimo) who has appeared in so many posts we just got that desperate for a tag. Next is kyappy, from the same author as shibeta.
Number 26 is artica_sparkle, arguably the first character on this list you could unambiguously call an "OC" - as in, a character not owned by an artist who draws her over and over again, and who has no 500+ page webcomics padding out the post count or lingering associations with external copyrights. It is also here that we have our first post count tie, with wolf_(petruz) also clocking in 870 posts at the time of writing (or at least of last night's DB export). Unfortunately that's another warfare_krystal case of a certain 3D model getting its own tag, which has persisted despite repeated admin insistence that such tags are forbidden because none of them want to take the flak for removing it.
Number 28 is anonymous, an ambiguous tag with substantial overlap with anon. An alias has been proposed three times and rejected every time. Oddly, despite what seems to be a firm conclusion, there is no active BUR to disambiguate it.
ashigara is from TAS again and brok_(character) is the main character of an indie video game. Then there's licho_(tas) and seth_(tas) and foxy_(psychojohn2) which is just foxy_(fnaf) and also the subject of an active tag war. alp_(tas), rescued_dragons_(spyro) (a collective tag for many other characters, although none of them imply it), rudolph_the_red-nosed_reindeer (WTF), tadatomo (guess) and then finally green_fox_(foxes_in_love) at position 38, from a comic which I swear used to have a pool but seems not to any more?
At number 39 we have our second definitely-one-hundred-percent-an-"OC"-by-any-definition, pirate_eagle. Recommend not clicking on that unless you're very sure about the strength of your blacklist, though.
venus_spring is an MLP fan character so technically doesn't count. blue_fox_(foxes_in_love) comes in only 9 posts behind the green version.
Finally at position 42 and 756 posts is sherri_mayim, an OC owned by a prolific commissioner with no particular artist or franchise ties. I think that's a good enough place to stop.
TLDR: Approve all the BURs in topic #36852 pls.
wat8548 said:
Number 6 is the very odd case of cutie_mark_crusaders_(mlp). At first glance this seems like it should obviously be implied to my_little_pony or possibly friendship_is_magic, but reading the wiki I'm not convinced in belongs in the character category (or possibly on the site) at all. No active proposals to change either of those things.
groups/teams do generally get character tags for posts containing the entire group. although, the only examples other than the above I can think of are the idol groups in the splatoon games.
I was also going to say koopaling but that's tagged for when any of the 7 appear.
Could just say things unrelated to actual counts, like reggie_(whygena), R-MK's June Greenfield, Spelunker Sal's [[Bowser Koopa Jr_(roomates)||Bowser Koopa Jr]] (since he apparently qualifies as not Bowser Jr), etc
wat8548 said:
all that
boy oh boy. kinda funny seeing marimo's cat being pretty high up there. he doesn't even get that many posts anymore.
also, hehe yeah, shibeta would be up there too, if ayaka's comic is the closest contender as the 2nd series to reach the pool limit.
you really did not need to point out the unimplied copyrighted sutff, if it's just another excuse to bump a bur.
replying to wat aside. in a less statistical answer, i'd say sea_salt or reggie_(whygena) might be my personal candidates. reggie especially, since he's gone outside the fandom, though probably for infamy.
wat8548 said:
Very interesting analysis
Wow, can't believe how intriguing all of this actually was.
Also why is the bar for being unambiguously an OC that it isn't the creator being the majority of the artists of the posts that feature them?
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The shota_feline_(marimo) isn't too surprising, since the artist of the character has more posts than fucking anonymous_artist.
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Also it's funny to see how closet possum (and/or his efforts) comes up twice in two separate sections. I believe the foxy_(psychojohn) is from his tagging effort to be able to blacklist the 3d models.
Edit: Well that's a coincidence and a half, that thread got bumped again
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Also, it was scalipse that deleted the foxes in love comic and yes it existed.
Updated
benjiboyo said:
boy oh boy. kinda funny seeing marimo's cat being pretty high up there. he doesn't even get that many posts anymore.also, hehe yeah, shibeta would be up there too, if ayaka's comic is the closest contender as the 2nd series to reach the pool limit.
you really did not need to point out the unimplied copyrighted sutff, if it's just another excuse to bump a bur.
replying to wat aside. in a less statistical answer, i'd say sea_salt or reggie_(whygena) might be my personal candidates. reggie especially, since he's gone outside the fandom, though probably for infamy.
Oh yeah, if it's not going by post count, the top 3 are definitely reggie_(whygena), sea_salt, and silly_cat_(mauzymice), though I have no idea the order
snpthecat said:
Wow, can't believe how intriguing all of this actually was.
Also why is the bar for being unambiguously an OC that it isn't the creator being the majority of the artists of the posts that feature them?
well, atleast for this "Challenge" that would be the qualities needed of the OC. but yeah, silver_soul and shibeta should both count as OC, unambiguously.
snpthecat said:
Oh yeah, if it's not going by post count, the top 3 are definitely reggie_(whygena), sea_salt, and silly_cat_(mauzymice), though I have no idea the order
Wrong,those were a fad like Bowsette and "new guy".
If I had to say which OC is the most recognizable all over the world it would be Sonichu by a large shot.
What if you measure popularity by how many posts they have that aren't by their creator? Probably pretty tedious to figure out.
Anon.
He is literally me, in fact he is ALL of us.
sipothac said:
groups/teams do generally get character tags for posts containing the entire group. although, the only examples other than the above I can think of are the idol groups in the splatoon games.I was also going to say koopaling but that's tagged for when any of the 7 appear.
There's also team_charm and team_meanies.
wat8548 said:
The top 4 OCs, according to the tag search:"OC" is defined here as a character tag with no active implications. It turns out we have some quite popular characters with longstanding unapproved implication proposals. Case in point, number 5 is death_(puss_in_boots). There are currently two conflicting proposals for what to do with this, at topic #38725 (by Rainbow Dash) and topic #37626 (by gattonero2001). Pick your preferred admin and join the fight, I guess.
Number 6 is the very odd case of cutie_mark_crusaders_(mlp). At first glance this seems like it should obviously be implied to my_little_pony or possibly friendship_is_magic, but reading the wiki I'm not convinced in belongs in the character category (or possibly on the site) at all. No active proposals to change either of those things.
At number 7 we finally have our first genuine OC, silver_soul (big surprise there from the only comic ever to hit the pool limit). You could debate over whether this is still "associated with a franchise", given that the vast majority of her posts are also tagged pokemon, but she can and has appeared in wholly original contexts (mainly before and after her most famous appearance).
Number 8 is protagonist_(tas), a franchise which generally has a whole bunch of stuff pending in topic #36852.
Number 9 is warfare_krystal. Apparently this refers specifically to a 3D model of the star_fox character krystal created by the artist warfare_machine. The vast majority of the 1.5k entries in this tag were added one month ago, and I have a feeling it's on the fast lane to a nuke.
Numbers 10 and 11 are moritaka and yasuyori, two more TAS characters proposed for implication. (And mass updating with a suffix, since most characters from this franchise are originally from public domain mythology. Is Housamo Japan's answer to Shrek? Discuss.)
Number 12 is robin_hood. The first Puss in Boots BUR linked above quoted this as another source of long-running admin controversy. Disney doesn't own Robin Hood, but they do own the only widely-known furry version of Robin Hood, but even if you accept that argument the robin_hood_(disney) copyright tag exists and surely there must be some room for nuance here? The most I could find was a single rejected BUR from a hidden topic.
We then have background_character (not a character) and ych_(character) (of which at least half of its uses are invalid).
Number 15 is mokdai, the first appearance from lifewonders' other gacha juggernaut, live_a_hero. Strangely, this guy has never featured in any alias requests or BURs, despite topic #36578 implicating a number of other characters from this game.
Number 16 is gouryou (TAS again).
Number 17 is gallus_(mlp). Only half of the six characters linked on that wiki page have friendship_is_magic implications, one of whom is yona_yak with a grand total of 1 post. Active BUR at topic #35844. As for Yona, it turns out there's a competing tag at yona_yak_(mlp) with over 300 posts, which for some reason also has the FiM implication. I made a request to resolve this issue at topic #40117.
Finally, at number 18, we have gyro_feather, an OC of the artist gyrotech. The vast majority of posts with this tag were uploaded by the character owner, who in most cases is also the artist. Guess we found the secret to "popularity" (as crudely defined by post count) on e621 then.
Then number 19 is shibeta, all but two posts of which are also tagged with the artist ayaka. Another protagonist of an enormous pool.
Next up are cu_sith_(tas) (obvious), gyobu (same) and volos (same).
It's at position 23 that actual OCs finally start to become more common. First up we have zig_zag, courtesy of max_blackrabbit, swiftly followed by shota_feline_(marimo) who has appeared in so many posts we just got that desperate for a tag. Next is kyappy, from the same author as shibeta.
Number 26 is artica_sparkle, arguably the first character on this list you could unambiguously call an "OC" - as in, a character not owned by an artist who draws her over and over again, and who has no 500+ page webcomics padding out the post count or lingering associations with external copyrights. It is also here that we have our first post count tie, with wolf_(petruz) also clocking in 870 posts at the time of writing (or at least of last night's DB export). Unfortunately that's another warfare_krystal case of a certain 3D model getting its own tag, which has persisted despite repeated admin insistence that such tags are forbidden because none of them want to take the flak for removing it.
Number 28 is anonymous, an ambiguous tag with substantial overlap with anon. An alias has been proposed three times and rejected every time. Oddly, despite what seems to be a firm conclusion, there is no active BUR to disambiguate it.
ashigara is from TAS again and brok_(character) is the main character of an indie video game. Then there's licho_(tas) and seth_(tas) and foxy_(psychojohn2) which is just foxy_(fnaf) and also the subject of an active tag war. alp_(tas), rescued_dragons_(spyro) (a collective tag for many other characters, although none of them imply it), rudolph_the_red-nosed_reindeer (WTF), tadatomo (guess) and then finally green_fox_(foxes_in_love) at position 38, from a comic which I swear used to have a pool but seems not to any more?
At number 39 we have our second definitely-one-hundred-percent-an-"OC"-by-any-definition, pirate_eagle. Recommend not clicking on that unless you're very sure about the strength of your blacklist, though.
venus_spring is an MLP fan character so technically doesn't count. blue_fox_(foxes_in_love) comes in only 9 posts behind the green version.
Finally at position 42 and 756 posts is sherri_mayim, an OC owned by a prolific commissioner with no particular artist or franchise ties. I think that's a good enough place to stop.
TLDR: Approve all the BURs in topic #36852 pls.
So... what about most artists who have made fanart of them? So say, specifically OCs regardless how many technicalities that may contain, which has the largest number of fanart counted by number of artists who have made said fanart.
I know I'm repeating myself and probably made a few mistakes, but it's late and I've taken my meds already so cut me some slack.
in_denile said:
So... what about most artists who have made fanart of them? So say, specifically OCs regardless how many technicalities that may contain, which has the largest number of fanart counted by number of artists who have made said fanart.
This takes quite a bit more processing effort to determine. For the sake of my RAM I limited consideration only to unimplied character tags with at least 100 posts, which shouldn't have an observable effect on the results.
There is, of course, no way within e621's tagging system to tell the difference between "fanart" of a character and art commissioned by the owner of said character. I would wager that fanart of any OC is extremely rare, and fanart in general is defined by the lack of any possibility that the character's owner might someday pay you for it. Yes, I know artists trying to break into the fandom economy sometimes draw popufurs for free, but there's no way to measure that and it's definitely drowned out by the volume of commissions. If you are hoping for an actual answer to this question, anything I can tell you is inevitably distorted by the fact that e621, for all its pretensions, has never been a fully comprehensive art archive. Character owners who actively upload their commissions here will almost always outrank those who don't. To speak nothing of those who take them down, or commission a lot of DNP artists, or get into fandom drama which results in artists taking their characters down, etc.
Well, the top 6 are exactly the same as before. However number 7 is now background_character, silver_soul having migrated all the way down to a position somewhere below 1,000 with only 49 distinct artist tags associated with her.
The following 7 tags are all non-OCs (or in two cases non-characters) who appear in my previous post in some order: ych_(character), robin_hood, moritaka, protagonist_(tas), rudolph_the_red-nosed_reindeer, yasuyori and anonymous. We then have ashley_graham_(resident_evil), who was all the way down at #64 in the post count rankings.
Then at number 16 we have teemo_the_yiffer. I'm pretty sure this is technically a league_of_legends fan character who only just missed my arbitrary cutoff last time (he was four places below Sherri at 722 posts), but depending on the strictness of your definition this might be the first "true" OC in the list. He has been drawn by 422 different artists at the time of writing, an average of less than 2 per post.
Number 17 is artica_sparkle again, at an only slightly less impressive total of 398 artists despite a slightly higher post count. It looks like she's making it onto the podium no matter what the rules of your competition say.
Number 18 is the wretched case of moushley, who, yes, is technically an OC (and has had multiple BURs knocked back by the admins for this reason), but I feel wasn't exactly who you were looking for.
I won't bore you with the full list after this point again. Suffice to say that none of the following 17 characters are OCs, most of them have already been mentioned, and the few that haven't were not far off (although majin_android_21 did manage an impressive rise from 92nd to 29th after taking unique artists into account).
The next interesting entry is sponty at #36, who has been drawn by 285 artists across 708 posts (rank 51 in post count). Then at #40 we have the first (re)appearance of a character owned by an artist: apparently gyro_feather has managed to amass no fewer than 270 artists in total. Searching gyro_feather -gyrotech returns 8 pages of results, as opposed to 14 without qualification.
A quick summary of all the rest of the actual OCs from the top 100, with caveats where noted:
- #41 werefox_(character) (269 artists)
- #43 xero_(captainscales) (266)
- #45 dr._voir (256) (pokemon fan character)
- #47 tagg (254)
- #49 casimira_(orannis0) (251)
- #53 zaire_(nightdancer) (226)
- #57 bunsen (214)
- #58= teryx_commodore (208)
- #58= nika_sharkeh (208)
- #60 pyron (206)
- #64 artik_ninetails (198) (not actually a pokemon fan character)
- #73 milky_way_(flash_equestria) (187) (my_little_pony fan character)
- #77= jess_(teckly) (184)
- #77= skylar_zero (184)
- #81= zig_zag (183)
- #81= firondraak (183)
- #85 purgy (182)
- #89= sledge (180)
- #89= alty (180)
- #93= lupine_assassin (177)
- #93= hervy (177)
- #100 selene_leni (174)
And as for some of the other characters who ranked highly in post count:
- shota_feline_(marimo) has 9 artists
- green_fox_(foxes_in_love) and blue_fox_(foxes_in_love) have 3 artists
- shibeta has 3 and kyappy has 2
- venus_spring has 17 artists
- pirate_eagle has 101 artists at position three hundred and something - not bad, but not right up there
- sherri_mayim has 132 artists at position 183
Updated
wat8548 said:
This takes quite a bit more processing effort to determine. For the sake of my RAM I limited consideration only to unimplied character tags with at least 100 posts, which shouldn't have an observable effect on the results.There is, of course, no way within e621's tagging system to tell the difference between "fanart" of a character and art commissioned by the owner of said character. I would wager that fanart of any OC is extremely rare, and fanart in general is defined by the lack of any possibility that the character's owner might someday pay you for it. Yes, I know artists trying to break into the fandom economy sometimes draw popufurs for free, but there's no way to measure that and it's definitely drowned out by the volume of commissions. If you are hoping for an actual answer to this question, anything I can tell you is inevitably distorted by the fact that e621, for all its pretensions, has never been a fully comprehensive art archive. Character owners who actively upload their commissions here will almost always outrank those who don't. To speak nothing of those who take them down, or commission a lot of DNP artists, or get into fandom drama which results in artists taking their characters down, etc.
Well, the top 6 are exactly the same as before. However number 7 is now background_character, silver_soul having migrated all the way down to a position somewhere below 1,000 with only 49 distinct artist tags associated with her.
The following 7 tags are all non-OCs (or in two cases non-characters) who appear in my previous post in some order: ych_(character), robin_hood, moritaka, protagonist_(tas), rudolph_the_red-nosed_reindeer, yasuyori and anonymous. We then have ashley_graham_(resident_evil), who was all the way down at #64 in the post count rankings.
Then at number 16 we have teemo_the_yiffer. I'm pretty sure this is technically a league_of_legends fan character who only just missed my arbitrary cutoff last time (he was four places below Sherri at 722 posts), but depending on the strictness of your definition this might be the first "true" OC in the list. He has been drawn by 422 different artists at the time of writing, an average of less than 2 per post.
Number 17 is artica_sparkle again, at an only slightly less impressive total of 398 artists despite a slightly higher post count. It looks like she's making it onto the podium no matter what the rules of your competition say.
Number 18 is the wretched case of moushley, who, yes, is technically an OC (and has had multiple BURs knocked back by the admins for this reason), but I feel wasn't exactly who you were looking for.
I won't bore you with the full list after this point again. Suffice to say that none of the following 17 characters are OCs, most of them have already been mentioned, and the few that haven't were not far off (although majin_android_21 did manage an impressive rise from 92nd to 29th after taking unique artists into account).
The next interesting entry is sponty at #36, who has been drawn by 285 artists across 708 posts (rank 51 in post count). Then at #40 we have the first (re)appearance of a character owned by an artist: apparently gyro_feather has managed to amass no fewer than 270 artists in total. Searching gyro_feather -gyrotech returns 8 pages of results, as opposed to 14 without qualification.
A quick summary of all the rest of the actual OCs from the top 100, with caveats where noted:
- #41 werefox_(character) (269 artists)
- #43 xero_(captainscales) (266)
- #45 dr._voir (256) (pokemon fan character)
- #47 tagg (254)
- #49 casimira_(orannis0) (251)
- #53 zaire_(nightdancer) (226)
- #57 bunsen (214)
- #58= teryx_commodore (208)
- #58= nika_sharkeh (208)
- #60 pyron (206)
- #64 artik_ninetails (198) (not actually a pokemon fan character)
- #73 milky_way_(flash_equestria) (187) (my_little_pony fan character)
- #77= jess_(teckly) (184)
- #77= skylar_zero (184)
- #81= zig_zag (183)
- #81= firondraak (183)
- #85 purgy (182)
- #89= sledge (180)
- #89= alty (180)
- #93= lupine_assassin (177)
- #93= hervy (177)
- #100 selene_leni (174)
And as for some of the other characters who ranked highly in post count:
- shota_feline_(marimo) has 9 artists
- green_fox_(foxes_in_love) and blue_fox_(foxes_in_love) have 3 artists
- shibeta has 3 and kyappy has 2
- venus_spring has 17 artists
- pirate_eagle has 101 artists at position three hundred and something - not bad, but not right up there
- sherri_mayim has 132 artists at position 183
Wow... that's a lot to take in. Thank you for doing this and I'm sorry for the delayed reply. Busy being a student and completely forgot to check the forum mentions. I've only made about... 5 comments on forums and 2 are replies to replies...