Applications: Applications for students and teachers open a few weeks before the start of every semester. This is the only time that new students and teachers can join the game. Applications for townies are always open. You can find further details about applications in the 'The Game' section of this website.

Communication: Communication is your friend. When in doubt, talk it out. If you have a conflict with another player, please try to work it out between yourselves first. If that fails, then bring the issue to the admins. Please note that if you bring something to the admins and you haven't tried to work it out yourself first, they will instruct you to give it a try before they intervene.

Your Fandom: Don't assume anything with regards to your fandom. Be sure to contact the players of other characters from your fandom to check what the precedent is and find out who is from which part of the timeline so you don't accidentally step on each others' toes.

Canon Relationships: Canon relationships don't automatically translate to your character's relationships at Fandom High without the express permission of the other characters involved.

Approved Journals Only: Only approved character journals are allowed to participate in official Fandom High threads, including those on character journals. If there's an unapproved journal commenting on one of your posts, tell them to stop it and then bring it to the admins. Players of unapproved journals may have their membership revoked (if they're a current player with other characters) or be banned from joining in the future (if not currently a member).

Former Characters Once a character leaves the game completely, they are not permitted to interact with the current characters, nor can they play any active role in further Fandom High events without prior permission from the administration to be an approved guest star. Once they're gone, they're gone. They can still be referred to by other characters in the game, or even be handwavily visited 'offscreen' but they can't actually be shown interacting.

The exception to this would be if that character returned to the same universe/timeline as a current FH character and became their NPC. At that point the character would be under the control of the player of the current FH character, and may appear off-island under the same rules as any other NPC.

Alumni/Expatriates: those characters who have graduated from the school and left the island count as alumni. Those characters who have spent more than one year in the game and left the island on or after January 2007, count as expatriates.

Both of these character types are still in the game and may interact with current islanders under the rules found here.

Guest Stars: You can have the occasional guest star for your plots. To cut back on the amount of guest stars running around Fandom (as people often get carried away), we do ask that you have a legitimate plot-related reason for that guest star to be in town (ie: their presence is necessary/they're not just there to hang out). Please run your guest stars past the administration so we can moderate the number of characters coming in at any given time, and keep in mind that we will more than likely ask you to run the character through your own journal rather than a newly created journal.

ICA=ICC: In Character Actions = In Character Consequences. Think before doing something, because you will be expected to deal with the consequences of your character's actions. However, there is such thing as OOC decency. Do not hide behind ICA=ICC as an excuse to be rude to people. If you want to deal with consequences, arrange it OOCly with the other player(s) involved first.

Diversity: Try to branch out from your fandom. This is about mixing up the fandoms, not clinging together.

Time and Timing: You can't be in two places at once. Take care to make sure you're not doubling up.

OOC vs IC: What you know as a player and what your character knows are two totally different things. This includes anything you learned from an unofficial game community. Don't use OOC knowledge IC. Period. When in doubt, talk to the other people involved OOC to clarify what should or shouldn't be known before posting. Also, IC issues remain IC. OOC issues remain OOC. If you let an OOC issue leak into IC interactions, you will be called on it.

Godmodding: Godmodding is indicating that another character carried out an action without permission of that character's player or doing something that will affect another character without the other player's permission. Don't do it. It's bad cricket. Ask before affecting other characters. Mistakes will happen, but if it's a regular habit admin action will be taken, including possible removal from the game. That would be bad.

Retconning: Don't go back and change the past in a way that forces other players to amend their own character's history and memories to deal with your changes. In other words, don't go back and re-write scenes that multiple people have participated in, top-level posts, events that affect more than just the people in that scene, and descriptions of what happened in the past that are known by the game at large.

However, in a private conversation, it's fine to edit or delete a comment, or to delete multiple comments and re-write, as long as everyone in the conversation agrees to it. If you need to fix a mistake/accidental metagame/conversation that's just going in an uncomfortable direction for both players, and what you're changing hasn't been mentioned on the radio or by one of the characters in a later conversation with someone else, go for it.

Magic and Combat: This is pretty much covered under 'godmodding'. If you take a swing or cast a spell at a person, you don't get to control the outcome. That's up to the player of the character you are attacking. It's much easier if you just work out the scene beforehand with the other player/s involved. The scene will flow easier. You cannot detect that someone is under the influence of magic or has used magic unless it's canonical for your character to be aware of such things. However, there are magic-sensitive characters in this game. Don't think you can cast a big spell and not have it noticed. No major magic is to be performed on the island without administrative permission.

Alternative Role-Playing: Playing by email or IMs is allowed. In order for your playing to be considered as game canon, you have to post the finished logs in your own character journal or in the appropriate community in a timely fashion (ie: ASAP). If it doesn't show up in your character journal or in the communities, it didn't happen. Also, you may not include external role-playing sessions with players that have left/been asked to leave/players who aren't part of the game without admin approval. Try to keep external role-playing of events in public places to a minimum because it rules out the possibility of witnesses or possible consequences.

Deleting Journals: If you delete your journal or delete past entries or make them inaccessible, you are out of the game and will be on a permanent ban list. This is a one-strike offense. For real, don't do it.

Interfering/Getting Involved With Plots: If you want to interfere or get involved with someone else's plot, ask first.

Deaths: No player-character deaths are permitted without prior admin permission. Character death plot proposals will only rarely be accepted as death has a huge effect on the other characters in the game and it's unfair to impose that kind of trauma on everyone on a regular basis, so please take that into consideration. We get a lot of character death requests. Don't take it personally if you're told no. When it really does happen, we want death to remain significant. If people die too regularly and then come back to life, it lessens the impact.

Realism: We're wacky enough as it is. Try to keep things a little bit realistic. (ie: if you get hit by a bolt of lightning, play out the consequences!)

Extreme Plotlines: Please get admin approval before running an extreme plotline. This includes anything involving a lot of violence and/or controversial issues such as rape, torture, suicide, kidnapping, etc. This is not to infringe on anyone's creativity, but there may be other issues going on with players that may make the situation inappropriate at that time. You can't be expected to know what's going on with every player in the game, but the admins do have a better idea of it. Please just check in to be on the safe side.

Comm Jumping: Townies are allowed to become teachers and vice versa, but students are to remain students and townies cannot become students. Please don't apply for a townie with the intention of changing to a teacher as soon as you can. It's frowned upon.

Everyone is Fictional So No One is Fictional: All characters in Fandom are fictional, so we pretend that no one is fictional. This means that your character will not recognize any of the other characters in the game from TV shows, movies, books, plays, comic books, etc. They just won't. The way we get around this and still manage to keep pop culture references that are so important to some characters is to "meta" everything. We use alternate names for canons and the characters in those canons. For example, Bitterwoman is the Fandom version of Wonder Woman. Vanessa Saturn is the Fandom version of Veronica Mars. Space Battles is the Fandom version of Star Wars. Wormhole X-treme is the Fandom version of Stargate. Each of these shows have 'fake' names for the characters as well. Check the FH Meta Wiki to see if a meta name already exists for the reference you want to make - if there is none, go wild and make up your own! (Then add it to the wiki so other people can use it.)

Using Other Peoples' Canon: When using a canon that isn't your own, there are several guidelines to follow. If you're just passing through or brushing past known characters and there are no characters in Fandom from that canon, then it's okay to have a few scenes and move on. If you intend to have more than 2-3 harmless scenes in the canon where there are no characters in Fandom (ie: more than a brief visit, any kind of plottiness), you will need to write in for admin permission in advance. If you wish to visit or meddle with a canon that is not your own but that does have characters in Fandom, you are required to contact every player involved in that canon and get their approval. It's only polite, so please be sure to do the legwork before messing with someone else's canon.