Is this verse allowed? (Excellent Entities)

[Psychomaster35]

So there’s this web series I want to include on this wiki later on called Excellent Entities, which has 2 seasons, various shorts, and an upcoming 3rd season this week. Issue is, however, is that 2 episodes of Season 2 involved copyrighted characters/franchises as major plot points to them. The first one featured Chao from Sonic (They were literally stated to be from it) as a major plot point, and the other episode featured some Minecraft-inspired boss (Who is original and not literally from Minecraft, but its assets are from it), .

Should be noted that the first season was completely original with the characters and plot, and the episodes outside of those 2 I mentioned were also completely original with the characters and plot. After all, those copyrighted characters from the 2 episodes were only deemed minor characters and aren’t relevant in the other episodes.

With that said, is it allowed?

 

[TheMassivlyUnkn0wn]

Imo, given that we have Animator vs Animation which constantly does stuff like what you’re mentioning, I’d say it’s fine. I’m no admin or someone who approves these things or whatever. But I feel like the more opinions the merrier

 

[The_Axiom_of_Virgo]

Tbf Sega are pretty relaxed with people using their Sonic assets although making money off them is another subject (then again I've seen peeps unfortunately get away with selling Sonic.EXE merch so it's kinda a grey area) and I believe Minecraft is pretty similar in that regard, I mean there's even Minecraft Sonic.

I highly doubt they'll even care about a harmless web series using their assets in one-off episodes but I know FANDOM can be pretty nervous about these types of subjects, so I'm not completely sure myself.

 

[TheMassivlyUnkn0wn]

that too

iirc there are more examples of stuff like this on the wiki (first one to come to mind besides AvA is Blox Fruits) so I do feel like the wiki has become more accepting of verses that feature copyrighted characters, so long as they're not the whole shtick

 

[Psychomaster35]

As I’ve said, they're only relevant in one episode and not in any others. Prior to those episodes being released, the show was completely original and not reliant on featuring unoriginal characters as their gimmick, so any copyrighted characters featured in them only either make minor cameos or are just one-off episode characters.

 

[TheMassivlyUnkn0wn]

Yeah so essentially AvA. I've recently taken note that AvA is kinda controversial on if it should be on FC/OC or VSBW. (For reference I side with it being on VSBW, as it's not DIRECTLY fanfiction/fanwork). But it should be fine

 

[Oliver_de_jesus]

I mean there's even Minecraft Sonic

although this is a crossover made by the both companies, not something made by only one

 

[James_Plays_4_Games]

It's fine if a fictional work includes characters from a different one as a one-off occurrence. The situation is even better if the crossover character could've been replaced with different more general characters without requiring major changes. That seemed to be the case, aside from the reference to the different types of Chao before the intro and the competition at the end which didn't end up being anything like it is in the Sonic the Hedgehog series. Anyway, as long as the Chao aren't major aspects of Excellent Entities that constantly require knowledge of the Sonic the Hedgehog series to understand, it shouldn't be a problem.

The usage of Minecraft assets doesn't have to do with using the story and setting of Minecraft, so it's not a problem. It's clear that there was some inspiration from Minecraft, but the actual character is original, being a living structure made of blocks rather than any character that normally already exists in Minecraft. A character being inspired by a different fictional work still means it has enough of a degree of originality, as long as it's not literally a character from that separate fictional work. References are fine.

Also, the witches from the second episode of the second season are Mrs. Jötunheim from The Amazing World of Gumball, but again, this is just a random negligible cameo, so it's fine.