Regarding Character Journals

(and how to play with them)

Journal format - Journal format consists of standard comments in a character's personal journal. These comments are meant to be written the same style that you, in real life, would leave a comment in a friend's LJ--only instead of you leaving the comment, obviously, your character is doing so. This means that any actions you might include in a journal comment are not actually happening "real time" in the game. If your character is in a personal journal and writes "*smacks you upside the head*", the other character is not actually hit upside the head. The other character just gets the indication that the person talking to them wants to hit them (whether literally or as a joke kind of depends on the context).

However, real time actions may be described, because you're writing in first person. If your character has a wireless computer that they can carry around with them, they can send a comment to another character saying "I'm in the hallways right now, heading to your room. I'll be there in a second." This is a viable journal comment. Putting "He arrived at her dorm room and knocked on the door." is not a journal comment. If journal comments lead up to such a thing happening, then the event is switched over to that point to the logs.

A good example of journal comments leading up to a log event is here: Roxas and Axel arrange to meet, and then the meeting takes place in a log.

Side notes (OOC and IC) - OOC and IC stand for "out of character" and "in character", respectively. Basically, you're OOC when you're talking as yourself, and IC when you're talking as your character. There are several ways to indicate OOC talking; the two most common ways are to put "OOC" as the subject of your post/comment, or to enclose the comment in double brackets (either (()) or [[]]). OOC comments can be tacked onto the end of an IC comment, or be a comment on their own. OOC comments can also be used for description that your character wouldn't bother with IC. For example, in the paintball post, Yuuko wouldn't need to explain what the armor looks like, because the characters will see when they pick the armor up. But you as a player can't see what the armor looks like, so I put descriptions in an OOC comment.

Strikes - Strikes are made by using the html tag <s></s>. Strikes can be used in both log and journal format, but in very different ways. Strikes in journal format are often used to mark something a character would say, but would probably say under their breath in real time, either because it's inappropriate or a side comment or whatever (for example: "Uh, hi! What the heck, nobody was supposed to see that post."). Sometimes strikes are used by the player to indicate something the character is thinking or would say, but actually did not--in which case there is usually an OOC note at the bottom saying "strikes unreadable" or "first strikeout unreadable" or something like that. In the case of an "unreadable" strike, you as a player can read the struckout text, but your character cannot.

Emoticons - I'm sure most of you know what emoticons are! If not, I'm probably confusing you every time I do something like this: >_>;; Emoticons can be used in journal format no problem.

Privacy - Characters will occasionally want to make comments or entries that can't be read by other characters. But for the sake of the story (and entertainment), the players usually want the other players to be able to read the "unreadable" entries. This is accomplished in entries by writing "Private" or "Locked" (no one can read it except for the character who wrote it) or "Locked to Yuuko" (no one can read it except for the characters listed) in either the subject line, or in the text of an LJ-cut that has the filtered writing behind it. LJ-cuts can be made with the code <lj-cut text="Filtered to Daisuke">Filtered text.</lj-cut> They can also be used to hide long entries or entries with large images, so that people don't have to spend forever loading your character's journal.

Comment privacy is also specified by writing "filtered" in the subject line, or by putting "[Private to (name)] This message is filtered. [/private]" to specify which part of the comment is private. Keep in mind that while you as a player can read filtered messages, your character cannot, unless they're the one the message is filtered to.

Characters can also lock entries from certain people, so that everyone can read the entry except for the person in question. For example: "Locked from Yuan" would be readable by everyone except Yuan.

Another privacy option is making a comment or an entry hackable. Hackable entries are ones that your character did their best to lock, but for whatever reason the lock failed to provide full security. Hackable entries can be read by any characters with decent computer skills. Some entries might only be hackable by certain people (for example, "Hackable only to friends" or "Hackable only to cyborgs").

Voice Posts - Since all the computers on campus come with microphones, students can leave voice posts on their journals if they want to. Voice posts can have extra information regarding sound effects, or the tone of someone's voice. For example: "[sudden crash, then a loud yowl and some cursing] Damn cat--! Come here already!"