Rules and FAQ

[rachel2205.livejournal.com]

Your leaders:

Currently torrain and I are the mods for the game. If the game grows, the mod team may too. Approach us with any questions!

Terminology:

Confusingly, we have two uses for 'tag' - game tags that livejournal uses (e.g. this post will be tagged with the "!mod" tag), and a term used to refer to comments in the game (so you could write "I tagged in the restaurant post", for instance). Thread - the series of comments. OOC: Out of Character. Threadbomb: a post where four or more characters interact over 50+ comments. PC: Played character. NPC: Non-played character.

Game play rules:

1. Try to post/tag in once a week. Obviously, sometimes life happens and you have other obligations - no problem. If you will be away, please notify the OOC comm, that's all!
2. Tag your posts. All characters will have a character name tag, so make sure you use that! You must also use warning tags if appropriate.
3. Adult content must be tagged and behind a cut. Kostantiniyye is happy to feature explicit adult content, but not everyone wants to read it. Our warning tags: !ac: sex, !ac: violence, !ac: caution. Sex and violence are fairly self-explanatory. The caution tag is considered appropriate for content that may be triggering. Please remember that even if you don't find something triggering, someone else might. If you think your content might be upsetting, then add the tag and in your cut tag put a brief, NON-DESCRIPTIVE reason for the !ac: caution tag. (e.g. "Warning: non-con sex.) If the !ac doesn't happen until the comments, edit a note in closed brackets into the bottom of your post.
4. Don't take part in more than one thread at a time. There are a couple of exceptions to this. If a thread you are in has gone dormant (no comments posted for over 48 hours), you can move on - though you should be cautious about doing this for continuity reasons. You can also join a planned threadbomb even if you are already in another thread, as planned threadbombs are normally organised community events such as party scenes - like this one.
5. When you reach 48 tags, use your 49th tag to provide a link to a new post: here's an example from Excolo. This is because at after 50 tags, LJ's comments collapse and it's harder to read threads. The exception to this is obviously threadbombs. :)
6. Wait your turn! If you're in a thread with multiple people who are all interacting, let everyone have their turn to take part. However, this doesn't mean you have to slavishly follow an A-B-C-D-A-B-C-D tagging order. Sometimes it might make more sense for person C to interject when B's due to speak. Just be fair and sensible about it!
7. Posts should feature a time and location. Cos, you know, it helps people interact with you if they know where (and when) you are. ;)
8. Also note if your post is open or not. This means: who do you want to interact with you? If you've arranged to play with a specific character, you could write: [Open to: Ashraf] at the end. If you don't mind who jumps in, just put [open]. If you are writing a reflective post that you don't want to use for interaction, write [closed].
9. A game day lasts for four real life days. A moderator will roll over the day with an announcement in the OOC comm, also featuring a handy weather report. :)
10. Don't tag into a post after a day has ended unless you have mod permission! You can also not backdate a post you put up without permission - this prevents retconning. :)
11. Posts must be in first person. I know some people are fans of third person, but first person tends to result in more engaging RP.
12. Don't move other PCs without their permission! Or put words in their mouths, or generally write for someone without their say so.
13. Be awesome. That's the overall rule of the game. Be considerate to your fellow players, play nice with others, and in case of arguments, talk to a moderator rather than getting Godzilla-like with other players. Let's keep this comm a drama-free zone!

FAQs:
What would it be useful for me to include here? :) Ask away.

f-f-fashion

[rachel2205.livejournal.com]

So something I've been wondering about is what the heck people wear in Kostantiniyye. I've been doing a bit of thinking about this, but would appreciate your feedback too, especially since I know how some of you are historical costume geeks :)

Given just how AU our world is in some respects, it's difficult to chart a course of fashion history. Now, I've chosen 1850 as a reasonably arbitrary start date for our game, which in the West in our world is full of clothes like this. But in a world that's already well into its industrial revolution, plus a world with less power disparity between the genders, the typical Victorian costumes make less sense. Meanwhile, Ottoman fashion of the same period was a mishmash of the huge range of cultures that society both influenced and was influenced by. (These are obvious basic wikipedia links but they are a reasonable place to start if you've not read much on fashion history.)  Meanwhile, in Kostantiniyye itself, fashions are bound to be an amalgam of the different cultures. I don't want to be too proscriptive in saying what people wear, but if we try to come up with a general vibe of clothing that would be seen as relatively acceptable that would probably be good!

For women, my starting point from a western perspective is a combination of the Victorian dress reform movement and the Turquerie trends of the C16th-18th. The crinoline doesn't seem to me as likely a trend in this world, but bloomers seem rational - modest, allowing movement, and cooler in the Turkish heat than heavy skirts. They bear some similarities to female costume in the Ottoman period too.

( bloomin' marvellous )

For both Jewish and Muslim communities, religious regulations regarding clothing ensure modesty for both men and women (though note that these laws allow for a great deal of flexibility and variety in culture and fashion terms), and given the power of the Ottoman Empire, I imagine this has influenced European trends too. But I think we'd be more likely to see looser, flowing lines in fashion rather than the tighter fits of the late Victorian/early Edwardian period. Perhaps this is a point where New England is diverging a bit (especially since the British are self-consciously trying to raise their global profile) and perhaps are a bit more scandalous with, for instance, showing of decotellage or men wearing breeches - though I imagine that anyone who planned to settle in Kostantiniyye rather than just passing through would modify their clothes somewhat. So a British man might not go wholesale Turkish and start wearing kaftan and looselegged şalvar, but he might change his breeches for trousers...

Also worth noting that this industrialised age allows for mass-produced clothes, widening the possibilities of what people buy, although the well-to-do are likely to still prefer to go to their tailor.

Here are some pics of male and female fashion that I think could be useful pointers. If you have other ideas, please leave them in comments for discussion! I would say that in this city, you could probably get away with quite a lot of different looks as long as you're not, say, going about in a mini-skirt or have a bare head. (SO many awesome hat possibilities!)

( pretty pics )