The bulk update request #9498 is active.

remove implication littlepip (406) -> fan_character (140198)
remove implication blackjack_(fallout_equestria) (135) -> fan_character (140198)
remove implication velvet_remedy (97) -> fan_character (140198)
remove implication homage_(fallout_equestria) (37) -> fan_character (140198)
remove implication calamity_(fallout_equestria) (74) -> fan_character (140198)

Reason: Should any character imply fan_character?

EDIT: The bulk update request #9498 (forum #422149) has been approved by @spe.

There used to be a lot more characters that implied fan_character but those implications were all removed.

Interestingly the majority of these come from this BUR - which only received one vote (a downvote)

EDIT: And even more interestingly, the implication the BUR was using as precedent has since been deleted.

The bulk update request #9498 (forum #422149) has been approved by @spe.

I'm confused. Aren't those literally all fan characters, though? Why should fan characters not have the fan character tag?

mrnotsosafeforwork said:
I'm confused. Aren't those literally all fan characters, though? Why should fan characters not have the fan character tag?

fan characters are only fan characters while they're fan characters.

mrnotsosafeforwork said:
I'm confused. Aren't those literally all fan characters, though? Why should fan characters not have the fan character tag?

They aren't inseperable from the work/franchise they may have been created as a fan of, so can be depicted in a way that they're not a fan character. For example, if they're drawn as normal horses, without any cutie marks, and placed into a generic forest or field, there's nothing from the source works to make them a fan character. It would be like any other normal character in a normal setting, with nothing they were originally a fan character of present. There's nothing to stop any fan character from being separated from the work they were created as a fan of, so no one that may be considered a fan character now can be said to always be a fan character in every future image. And if there are situations where a tag won't always apply with another, the implication is considered bad.

Personally I think fan_character itself isn't a good tag, since any character in someone else's preexisting setting that's not a specific identifiable character from that setting is inherently a fan character. Even one-off unnamed characters (like this) are still characters, and if they're not official, they're fan creations/fan characters. Very few fan works involving a preexisting setting will use only official characters from that setting, so fan_character will almost always apply to images based on others' works. I also don't like that it lacks nuance for what they're a fan character of. For example, since wanderlust is a fan work of pokemon, all its characters can be considered pokemon fan characters. But it has its own canon too, it's own cast of characters, and people can make fan characters of Wanderlust. But with fan_character being the only tag, how do you distinguish characters that are non-canon to wanderlust from those that are non-canon to pokemon?