[!] RULES & GUIDELINES

[TAYLOR THE CANADIAN]

[bg=1C1C1C][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=width,500px,true] I. GETTING STARTED

[bg=090909][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=width,460px,true] 001. COMMON SENSE. To prevent these rules from being too long, I'll mention this one right off the bat. If it doesn't make sense to be doing it, don't do it. I'm not going to perfectly outline everything that can warrant a ban as it should be fairly easy to figure out. (ie. Respect, no racism, no spamming, ect). 002. RESPECT THE TOS. The ProBoards Terms of Service is like the handbook for all the things you should not be doing. You must be of age to join, the site is rated PG13, ect. You should at least give them a once-over to ensure you're alright with following their guidelines. 003. MATURITY OOC. I'm sorry, but I don't want a bunch of immature idiots on the site. Whether you're 13 or 30, if you can't act like a mature human being when dealing with other people, don't join. (Note that immaturity in the comical sense is fine. We all kid around in the chat box and the like but you should know when you're taking it too far). 004. NO ADULT CONTENT. Really, this is common sense, but I do feel the need to outline it further. I don't want anyone linking to questionable/adult content. There might be younger kids on this site. Also avoid linking to sites that fully promote the spam of such content, even if one page is void of it. I don't want this site deleted. 005. THEFT IS NOT TOLERATED. I am very, very touchy about theft. If the graphics aren't yours, make sure you're allowed to use them and give credit if you are. Same with any sort of post, plot, or other sort of template. If you steal a character, it is an immediate ban. Stealing is not okay. Characters will never be put up for adoption on this site when a member is deleted unless they were a canon character for another member. (ie. the brother/sister of an active character that was placed up on the request board). 006. PLEASE STAY ACTIVE. If you're going to join and ditch immediately, don't join. If you plan to be active but something comes up in your life, let us know in the absences board. There's no use going through all the trouble to create a character and then just leaving the site immediately. This site needs active members, not dead-weight accounts that lie around doing nothing.

[bg=1C1C1C][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=width,500px,true] II. CHARACTER CREATION

[bg=090909][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=width,460px,true] 007. USE THE APPLICATION. You must use our provided template to give the site a more uniform look. Don't change the colours or the formatting of the template. Before you ask—no, we won't let you skip the history/likes/whatever section you don't want to do. The only exception is the RP sample if you've already done it once, in which case you can put 'See -insert character-'s application' on all future applications. 008. CHANGE YOUR DISPLAY NAME. Like most role-play sites, we don't care what your username is when you register as long as it's nothing that violates the Terms of Service. After you've done so, however, you should change your display name to your characters 'FIRST MIDDLE LAST', all in capitals like so. It saves us from having to do it. 009. NO DUPLICATE NAMES. After we started getting more members we also started to notice duplicate names. To avoid confusion we have decided to implicate the 'One Steve Limit'—your character cannot have the name last name as another unless in the case of relatives/spouses, and they cannot have the same first name. Middle does not matter. If you want to see which names cannot be used, check out our roster here. 010. DON'T WRITE A NOVEL. We don't mind if you go above the minimum but there's a difference between a fleshed-out biography and a novella of pointless information. It's a hassle to skim a ridiculously long application when you're trying to get an idea of the character, and the admins actually have to read the entire thing. Not as fun as it sounds. 011. NO PERFECT CHARACTERS. Mary-Sues and Gary-Stus will immediately be denied. Balance the strengths and weaknesses of your characters, and don't make them irritatingly beautiful/handsome/ect. Bubblegum and kittens are not weaknesses. Soft spots, perhaps, but not weaknesses. Acrophobia (fear of heights)? That's a weakness. Trouble controlling emotions? That's a weakness. We also don't accept prodigious characters. That sort of strength is too easily abused. 012. CHARACTER VARIETY. Don't make your characters all one type. It's no fun without a little variety. I do understand gender restrictions as a matter of style—I am much better at playing male characters—but if we have a serious imbalance of anything (gender, element, personality, ect) it would be appreciated if you created the minority. I don't like to apply restrictions, but bans may be necessary if it gets out of hand. 013. AGE RESTRICTIONS. Characters are either fourteen or turning fourteen by the start of the second term (July) to attend the Academy. This is when their powers would start to surface. Likewise, college students must have completed the four years of high school. 014. GRADUATE LIMIT. Everyone loves to be the oldest—I get that, really. However, the graduates are also more advanced in the control of their element, thus more powerful than their younger counterparts. So I'm only allowing one pre-created graduate per person. If you have a pre-created grad and your high school students graduate in-character, that's fine. They do not have to go to college. You can have your graduate only RP in the town if they graduated and left the Academy. 015. OLDER CHARACTERS = HIGHER STANDARDS. With age comes elemental maturity, and thus the older characters are the more powerful characters. Power levels off at around twenty-five (mid thirties for someone who didn't attend college), but there is still a significant increase per year until then. If you want to play a graduate or professor, expect us to be tougher in the acceptance process. If you are new to RPing, it might be a good idea to create a younger character as a 'test' character to adapt to the RP. 016. ELEMENT = PERSONALITY. Genetics may play into it slightly, but ultimately it is your personality that decides which element you are in. We've seen a lot of elementals that aren't obeying these usual characteristics. Your character doesn't have to have every trait of their element, but a majority should be there or they will not be in that element. 017. CHARACTER LIMIT. There is a limit of five characters per person. If you want more, you'll need to ask an admin. Furthermore, you can only have as many characters as the administrators think you can handle. If you've only got one character but try to make a new one before really establishing your first, we'll deny it. There is a two week waiting period between creating characters no matter how active you are, and you must have at least 25 in-character posts with the previous character before creating the next. This is to ensure that we don't have people running around with five characters they do nothing with.

[bg=1C1C1C][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=width,500px,true] III. ROLE-PLAYING

[bg=090909][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=width,460px,true] 018. DON'T DISAPPEAR. It's a little pet peeve of ours when people go through all the troubles of creating a character and getting them accepted... only to ditch the site without another word. This is a role-playing forum. If you join, you're expected to be a role-player. You'll have a week to make at least one in-character post (even if it's starting an open thread) or we'll delete your character. 019. KEEP THINGS REALISTIC. Obviously as the characters can control the elements and this is in a fictional area in the British Columbian mountains, there are elements of fantasy. However, the usual laws still apply. Characters would still be arrested for murder, drunk driving, underage drinking (the legal age in BC is 19), ect. This applies to their history as well. 020. ASK AN ADMIN. If you want to get a character pregnant, kill someone off, ect, please ask permission. We don't want millions of pregnant girls and dead people hanging about! It also ensures that we're alright with the manner in which you plan to get rid of the character(s) in question. 021. RESPECT CONSEQUENCES. If your character kills someone, they'd go to jail. If they break a rule inside of school and they're caught, they'll be punished accordingly. They can't get away with everything, and anyone who tries to do so will be labelled a Mary Sue, likely warranting their deletion from the site. Also, 'politics' play a huge role on Academy of the Elements. Having your Fire student seriously anger the Water element might not be such a great idea when you invoke the wrath of said element on your head. 022. DON'T ABUSE POWER. If you have a graduated elemental, you play a character much stronger than the high-schoolers. Please use this responsibly. If your elemental abuses their power too much by severely injuring or killing out of pure spite, their powers can be taken away. To avoid this happening, it's as simple as not powerplaying/getting out of hand. 023. MATURITY RESTRICTIONS. Fade to black is necessary for any romantic scenes going beyond kissing and the like. Sexual content is banned from the ToS, and thus banned from AotE. Swearing is fine, as long as it isn't every other word or used in a ridiculous manner. Racism, sexism, ect is fine IN CHARACTER. If your character is an asshole, let them be an asshole. Just don't let it get out of hand, and don't take it personally if someone else's character insults yours. 024. LITERACY LEVEL. The word you'll need for the application is 'silver bullets'. I'm imposing a word count of 200 WORDS MINIMUM. This isn't to put pressure on anyone, merely to ensure that we don't attract a bunch of slackers. Grammar and punctuation are a must. Everyone has off days and we're not going to hound you for every single spelling error, the posts simply need to be readable. 025. RESPECT ALLIANCES. I don't like to see too many 'out of place' characters that can get along with everyone regardless of element or alliance, because at the Academy of the Elements this is supposed to be a rare thing. The Alliances are drilled into everyone and generally fuelled by the attitude of other elements toward yours.

[bg=1C1C1C][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=width,500px,true] IV. GRAPHICS

[bg=090909][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=width,460px,true] 026. SIZE RESTRICTIONS. Don't stretch the page with your graphic or it will be removed. Please don't make them ridiculous in height, either. Avatars must be 100px in width and 200px in height—if you don't know how to make these graphics, post in the graphics request board. I'm sure someone will help you out. 027. AVATARS MANDATORY. You do not need to have a signature. Those are optional. However, to save everyone from having to hunt down the name of your face-claim and look them up every single time they need to remember what your character looks like, you must have an avatar. Again, see the Graphics Requesting board if you need someone else to make it for you. 028. CELEBRITY CLAIMS. Like avatars, these are mandatory. They can only be real people—anime, cartoon characters, and other non-human claims will not be accepted. Make sure that there are more than a few grainy images of your claim, as well. It doesn't make sense to use a claim with horrible pictures. If you need help with a claim, ask around. 029. KEEP IT CLEAN. Going along with the Terms of Service and ban on adult content, graphics cannot contain anything involving nudity, drug use, or other questionable content. If your face claim only has topless pictures or nearly topless pictures... it's time you found a new face claim.