Roleplaying Tip: Rule Pages
but how to write a rule page that covers everything? while still keeping it concise enough to avoid that people go eh, that’s so much to read, i’ll do it later ( and never do it )? i hope to give some advice on how to pull this off.
one. start with what is most important. if you are selective ( meaning that you will only rolepay with mutuals ), write it down. you can also specify your blog’s shipping status here, letting people know if you are multiship ( more than one romantic ship ), singleship ( only one romance at a time ) or multi-singleship ( more than one romantic ship, but only one per character: meaning, you ship your muse with only one lucy/sting/whoever ). if your blog is a sideblog ( something i generally do not recommend as you cannot follow other blogs or send them asks ), you might want to add this to the same category which i like to call BASICS.
a first paragraph might look like this
i. BASICS. this blog is selective, meaning that i will only roleplay with mutuals --- that means: with people who follow me and whom i also follow. if you are not a mutual, i kindly ask you to refrain from attempting in-character interactions as this makes me feel pressured. however, ooc memes are available for all my followers! my blog is singleship and currently shipping with (INSERT SHIP PARTNERS URL WITH A LINK HERE). and please keep in mind that this blog is a sideblog to (INSERT MAIN BLOG URL HERE) and that i cannot follow back from this account, or send asks.
two. if you have triggers, write them down. write them down and add the tag you block, too, so people know how to tag these things to keep you save. by the way, THIS is a post to tell you how to properly tag triggers so they are really blocked.
an example paragraph about this:
ii. TRIGGERS. please tag blood ( as blood tw ), gore ( as gore tw ) and snails ( snails tw ) as these things are triggering for me. i also block ‘MY NAME don’t look’ as a catch-all tag. of course, if you have a trigger, let me know.
three. some people like to give the criteria according to which they follow / unfollow, but that is not strictly necessary. first of all, no one owes anyone an explanation as to why they unfollowed because just like everyone can do on their dash whatever they want to, everyone has the right to make sure that their dash is not composed of things that make them uncomfortable.
still, to keep things complete:
iii. FOLLOWING / UNFOLLOWING. i follow when your blog is neat and organised, easy to navigate and i like your portrayal. i unfollow for untagged triggers ( if it happens more than once ), a portrayal that i don’t like, rudeness etc.
four. now, let’s look into the things that honestly should not be needed to be written down but still belong into a proper rule page.
iiii. GENERAL. • trim your posts. • don’t force ships. • do not godmod. you control your muse, i control mine. • don’t give me a one liner as a reply when i wrote three paragraphs. • etc.
five. maybe, you will also want to establish that you do not ship the popular ships for your character / that some canon divergences occurred. and although canon divergences do not really belong into the rule page, i generally advice to at least mention them, in a superficial manner, so that people know to look for the proper canon divergences post/page.
misc. if you have more than one muse, it might be smart to write a template with the aforementioned basics that apply to all muses and to just copy paste it onto a new blog. another tip would be: if you use one of the fancy pages or a pop up for your rule page, write it in a regular text post and format it ( bold things, put things into italics --- go wild ) and click this symbol in the top right corner.
a menu will pop up
and when you select html, you will see something like this.
now, you can copy paste this into the code for the fancy page without having to painstakingly format it there.
and i cannot stress one thing enough: stick to your own rules. do not let anyone wear you down. do not let anyone endanger your mental health by pushing you into situations you do not want to be in. and keep in mind: if you bend once, if you close both eyes just one time, people will expect you to bend again. so for your own sake: be consequent. it is 1000% okay to have standards when it comes to roleplaying, be if with the portrayal or anything else. it is your blog. you set up these rules. people who do not respect your rules are people who probably do not respect you either.