'' THE RULES
PAY ATTENTION ,,,

THIS PLACE SEEMS SO UNFAMILIAR
AND YET I KNOW IT WELL
REGISTRATION.
• You must be thirteen years or older to join this forum. These aren't our rules, these were set down by IF themselves. So be warned, anyone under thirteen will be turned away immediately.

• When registering, please make sure that you register with a first name, middle name and last name all in lower case. For example; johnny lee truant would be accepted, whereas johnny101 would not.

• Please don't post anywhere on the forum until you've completed your application and it has been accepted by a member of the staff. Make sure that you post up your completed applications in the sorting office, and please try to be patient whilst you are waiting for your application to be checked by an admin. Acceptance should take no longer than a day or two.

I THINK I USED TO BELONG HERE
BUT THE ONLY WAY I CAN TELL
MEMBER PARTICIPATION.
• As a member, you are fully expected to enjoy your time here on Leaving Autumn, so if there is anything that is bothering you, you need to step forwards and let a member of staff know. The admin here at LA are pretty awesome, we know, but unfortunately we haven't learnt to mind read yet, so you're going to have to work with us on making this an enjoyable experience for you.

• Remember that as a member here on LA, you have a responsibility to remain respectful of all the other members on the forum. We have always tried to promote a friendly environment and do our best to make all of our members here feel welcome and as though they're part of a community, not just a role-playing forum. So, if someone upsets that balance and starts offending or upsetting the other members, we will remove them from the forum without a warning.

• Activity is very important on any role-playing forum. We don't expect you to crank out a post or a thread every day, that's just insane really. What we would like to see however, is all of our members logging on at least once every other day and maybe just posting so much as a small hello in the c-box or a reply in the ooc section. We just like to know that you haven't dropped off the face of the earth completely.

IS THAT I MISS YOU STILL
AND I CANNOT FIND YOU HERE
ROLE-PLAYING.
• Leaving Autumn is an R rated forum, which means that at times there might be scenes of a graphical or sexual nature. Plus you'll probably see certain Slytherin's swaggering about, cursing and getting drunk like there's no tomorrow. Because that's what they all like to do, right? All threads with mature content in them must be marked however, to protect our younger members from reading anything that might damage their unadulterated innocence.

• No God-modding. This one should be pretty obvious by now to everyone who role-plays. People do not like having their characters controlled by other people. You cannot control another person's character, you can't make them talk, you can't make them move and most of all you can't determine whether they live/die/get punched in the face. Make sure you don't do anything that could be considered God-modding, because it really is a serious offence.

• Posts are written in third person and third person alone. For example; "Johnny Truant gazed through the window protecting him from the harsh weather of the outside world, wondering what would happen if he perhaps decided to smash his head right through it." is correct. Just remember, you're writing about your character from the third perspective, narrating their story if you will, not pretending that you are your character and that you're writing their thoughts. "I looked through the window..." NO, NO, NO, NO, NO! See the difference?

• When it comes to post count, I'm slightly dubious as to whether or not there should be a minimum. I would personally like to see everyone write at least 3 paragraphs per post, not because length is important, but because that way you're sure to provide the other person with enough material to work from. Unfortunately, people do find it hard to bulk out their posts a lot. So, as long as you're giving back as much to the other person as they're giving to you, I think that should cut it. In other words, I don't want to see a thread where one member is writing four paragraphs for every post, and the other member is only just scraping by with one paragraph. It's not fair and I know you can all do better.

YOU LEFT ME TATTERED AND TORN
JUST LIKE THAT SWEET SPANISH DOLL
CHARACTERS.
• We are presently accepting both canon and original characters. Obviously we would love it if you picked up one of the many canon characters we do have going, but if you decide to make an original, we'll be equally as happy.

• If you decide to take a canon who already has a sibling on the forum, please try and make sure that your character's history matches up with that of the other sibling's. Don't hesitate to send a PM to the other member playing the sibling if you need to ask any questions either.

• Personally I don't mind how many characters you make, I myself am notorious for making an insane number of characters, so I'm not going to stop any of you from creating an entire world's worth of people to play with if you want to. All I do ask however, is that you try and keep on top of all your characters and their respective threads.

• Multiple characters are fine, but make sure that you spread your characters equally amongst the member groups and the two genders. So, say your first character was a female, contemplate making your second a male. Also, we don't want to see everyone making Gryffindor's and Slytherin's, so change it up!

• No Mary-Sue's or Gary-Stu's. Enough said really, right? No, your character is not perfect. No, your character couldn't possibly have fit in any one of the houses in Hogwarts but got shoved in Gryffindor because they're too amazing to be anything else. And finally no, everyone does not love your character or think they're amazing and awesome, super-special. Everyone has flaws in real life, even your idols have flaws. So please, try to be original and creative when it comes to making your characters.

• On a similar note, if I see one more character who's been raped, has lost all their family, ended up in an orphanage, got shunned because they were weird, self-harmed/still self-harms, ended up in Slytherin because they've become very bitter about the world, still has no friends, I seriously will go stark raving mental and start killing people myself. Rape is something I don't want to see on anyones applications, EVER. Anything else is questionable at best. You have been warned, so write your histories carefully.

I WENT DOWN TO THE ALLEY WAY
SIERRA LA BONITA
OTHER.
• The c-box is there for the benefit of all of our members on Leaving Autumn. It is a place to talk with other members of the forum without having to take up space with threads. Anyone found spamming the c-box will be banned without warning. Furthermore, we don't wish to see any guests posting links to their sites. This is also considered a form of spamming and it won't be tolerated. Lastly, if something awful has befallen you, for instance perhaps your grandmother fell out of a tree whilst trying to save your kitten and she's ended up in hospital and could possibly die within the next twenty four hours, please keep this news to yourself. If you really need to alert someone to your situation, post up a topic about it in the absence forums.

• As a rule, signatures should be no wider than 500 and no taller than 250. If your signature does exceed these specified amounts then we'll remove it and you will be forced to use another one that does comply with our rules. As for icons, you're allowed anything up to 150x200 in size. I don't want to see anything pornographic being used, and nothing too graphical either, thank you.