Most consent failures are not malice. They are missing notes. A collaboration made perfect sense in a chat thread at the start of a project; the images are selling several chapters later; by the time a question arrives, nobody can produce the message where the use of a likeness was agreed. Manual-keepers annotate margins for exactly this reason. Keep the consent record the same way: small, plain, and written before the first chapter opens — not reconstructed after the fact.
The smallest sufficient note
For every real person whose face, body or photographs enter the work, note four things together in the margin. Identification — who they are, and how their adulthood was verified. Scope — what may be made: stills, clips, swaps, undress transformations, stated in words rather than assumed. Term — how long the permission runs, and whether it can be withdrawn. The agreement itself — a signed release, or at minimum a written exchange in which the scope is stated and accepted, saved as a file and not left buried inside a chat application.
Habits that keep the margin honest
- Scope is literal. Consent to appear in clothed stills is not consent to undress transformations. A new use earns a new line in the margin, agreed before the job runs.
- Withdrawal is real. If a collaborator withdraws, production stops and published pieces come down. A record that cannot execute a withdrawal is not a consent record at all.
- Fictional muses keep a different file. There is no person to consent — but keep the chapter card and the first frames. “This performer is fictional” is a claim you may one day be asked to show your working for.
- Records travel with the work. The folder for a set holds its consent note beside the finished files, so an audit never becomes an excavation.
When in doubt, skip the chapter
The arithmetic is uneven. One undocumented set can cost an account, a storefront and a name. The set you declined costs a week of work. L2Guides’ rules follow the same arithmetic — uploads and swaps require adulthood and consent, and moderation may ask to see the note. Having it written and ready is what professional looks like in this manual.