So I'm not going to plaster this RP with rules. I prefer a light environment where people can let their creativity blossom and be free in their thought process. But still, there are some soft guidelines that I wanted to set up that are important to me, and that I failed to do so before now. When I was thinking about how to convey them, I realized can be broken down to the following points.
I mentioned before that the year in which this RP plays is not of particular importance. This still applies. However, when I was designing the setting, I had a world in mind before the Smartphoncopalypse. I was thinking around the time of late 90s or early 2000s. So smartphones, tablets and all the other modern devices are a no-no x) Cellphones are fine, and so is the internet (has to be since Akemi's personality relies on it). It just gives the world a different feeling I think.
My next point is more of a guideline than a rule, but is of great importance to me: Don't rush interaction with the other players. This might sound weird, but it is particularly important to be because I have witnessed it in other RPs before and I didn't like it. People often go "Hey there's another player character in the room, let's go interact with them right away", but this often doesn't really make sense. Put yourself in your characters shoes, imagine the scenery around them and try to act based on how your character would realistically act in that situation. For example during lunch break: Imagine the scenery; a classroom, full of people, students your age. Some of them you know, some you don't. If there is no logical, emotional or circumstantial reason to start interaction with another student you don't know it doesn't really make sense to suddenly start talking to them simply because "they are a player character". I hope you get where I'm coming from. I'm not saying you were going to make that mistake, I am just putting this guideline up to make you aware of my concern^^ And by all means, I am not telling you not to interact at all! I'm just saying wait for the right moment to initiate interaction, and then in later situation build up on that first impression.
On a very similar note: Don't rush. Don't try to let everything happen in one day. We have many days ahead of us, so not every day has to be a grand adventure. Take it easy, take your time. Friendship and deep relations don't happen over night, most take time to evolve. Don't try to interact with everyone and anyone of our characters either. There are quite a number of players, so having you all interact with each other would very quickly end in an confusing unclear blob of personas. Think like real life; you regularly talk to the people you take a liking for, and maybe, in the strangest of ways, you find yourself interacting with other, new people.
Never forget, you are not alone in this RP. I am always there as a GM, observing your characters and waiting for my chances to implement events and scenarios that will spice things up for you. Will it bring two characters closer together or test their relationship by creating friction? Will I introduce a new element or change a characters life in a dramatic way? Leave some things to me every now and then, I have some good paths in mind for you *gg*. I'm not going to force these things, I'm just going to offer them to you.
And let's make one last thing clear once and for all: Putting links inside the text is an absolute no-no, be it pictures, youtube or anything else x) This might be more of a personal issue than a rule that actually makes sense, but it just really annoys me if I am reading a well written text and then there suddenly is that yellowish word that wants to prompt me to click it: If I click it, the text disappears and another page opens, which completely throws me out of the flow of reading. If I don't click it, I get anxious and feel I might've have missed something really important to understand the following context. So you see, I lose either way x) Putting a picture between two paragraphs is a nice switch from words to visual, and having a youtube play button right in between the text is way easier than opening a new tab for it.