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Character: anon
Short for Anonymous — this tag describes a generic, mostly featureless humanoid or anthro character intended to be a placeholder for the viewer to insert themselves or their characters into a scene, or act as a generic figure for an "actual character" to interact with.
Anons are typically a solid tone or colour, lack clothing (or have generic "t-shirt and jeans" type clothing), and frequently have "YOU", "ANON", "YCH" (Your Character Here) or a question mark written on their chest or face.
NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH...
Anonymous character
An anonymous character is a "one-off" character who is fully drawn and visually distinct, as if they were an original character or character from a franchise, but do not have a name or narrative attached to them.
Disembodied hand, disembodied penis, or unseen character
These are characters which only have their hand or penis depicted in the shot, completely lacking a body attached to them. Unseen characters are not anonymous, they are only implied by dialogue or physical indications within the scene.
Faceless character
Faceless character describes a character whose face is off screen, or has an undrawn head, or is looking away from the viewer, and their face is entirely obscured. Anons more accurately fall under featureless face.
Types of "Anon"
Types of Anon
"Anon" can be broadly categorized into a few major versions of the concept:
Generic Human Anon
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This covers a wide range of human "Anons" — these are usually bald human characters coloured in with paper-white or grey (less commonly with other colours), typically with an entirely featureless face. Artists may opt to give these Anon characters hair and clothing; in some cases Anons are depicted with limited facial features (such as a mouth and eyebrows), or simple cartoonish faces for emoting; less commonly, these characters are drawn with fully detailed facial features, but no eyes and grey/white skin, rarely, even normal human skin-colours are used (this is sometimes seen in hentai). While these Anons are frequently human males, human female anons may also be seen.
Anthro Anon
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Anthro Anons are similar to the human anons above, acting as an anthropomorphic stand-in for the audience or as a generic character for a scene. They are rendered in a single flat tone or colour, and lack a fully drawn face. Anthro anons often tend to be a generic canines. Unlike human anons, anthro anons are less likely to have entirely blank, featureless faces — they may have a simple face, or have an eyeless face, while the rest of their head is drawn in. They frequently have "You"/"YCH" etc. written on their body.
4chan Anon
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The 4chan Anon is a bald, featureless green skinned male, often shown wearing a suit and tie. This anon is intended to represent anonymous users of 4chan specifically, and is usually seen in art originally posted on 4chan, or made for a 4chan browsing audience. Similar to the generic human anon, these anons may be given a mouth and/or eyebrows to emote, however, rarely are these anons ever given a nose and eyes, they may have a crosshair or question mark over their face, or where there nose and eyes should be. 4chan anons may sometimes be drawn as if they are wearing a skin-tight mask over their face, with realistic facial features "smoothed over".
Tumblr Anon
The Tumblr Anon is similar to the generic human anon but usually have a more rounded head, and are often shown wearing oversized sunglasses, evoking the default avatar on Tumblr. In some rare cases, a Tumblr anon may be anthrofied, with the grey skin and oversized sunglasses communicating that this is a Tumblr Anon. Tumblr Anons are most often seen in response images from ask blogs.
