Forums » Help » Are fan characters allowed?

I was wondering... Are there things allowed like, rp as a character from an anime you see or watch?
I've been really wanting to do a rp with possible doflamingo and straw hats from one piece but i don't wanna get in trouble or anything...

That sort of question comes up a lot, actually. The rule for other's creative work can be found here, but things tend to get a bit fuzzy around RP and fanfiction. Ideally, no one uses anything without permission, but explicit permission is hard to obtain from big studios and such who aren't likely to even read your request and are likely to so "no" by default to simplify their legal protection. Most of those companies never really take notice of little RPs and fanfics though, and it'd be hard to argue that you're causing any harm to the company. There are some companies that have an explicit "no fanfiction" rule that would also apply to RP, and it'd be good to check into that before using anything.

Ultimately, it's not very likely that you'd be sued if you did use it and they didn't approve (though a small possibility does exist), but Kim would have to take whatever it is down at their request.

Thank you! That really helped

Thanks Novalyyn, you covered that handily!

This is something that's always worried me too, since I got my start with RPing in the realms of copyrighted characters, and in fact I'm still just as engulfed in it - just look at Walpurgisnacht and that should be obvious. But yeah, unless you happen upon characters in works that belong to a particularly draconian company, then don't worry too much about it. I'd still put a disclaimer somewhere thought, just to be polite.

A caveat -- while large studios often don't care and just consider this type of thing a "fan tribute," solo artists very rarely find it to be a compliment when their art is used without permission.