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[ application: original characters ]
IMPORTANT! We are officially in endgame until August 31, 2020. Applications are on a rolling basis. There is a small "block" period from the 1st through the 4th of every month to allow a bulk of apps to be submitted, and then applications can be submitted at any time during the month. Notices will be sent out all at once after the first "block" period, and then between 24 hours to the end of the weekend depending on how many and our schedule. Applications are guaranteed to be processed during the weekends.
IMPORTANT: Only the following types of original characters are allowed to be applied for—
The following would not be allowed:
Before applying, please be sure to read the following:
We have compiled sample applications from our players to show what the mod team and the application moderators are looking for in terms of writing quality and depth. We hope you find these samples useful!
⌈ PLAYER SECTION ⌉
Player:
Contact: Journal/Plurk/AIM — anything to help identify since someone might share your name handle.
Age: You must be at least 13 years old to apply.
Current Characters: If a new player, just put "N/A"
⌈ CHARACTER SECTION ⌉
Character:
Age:
OC Type: Indicate whether this OC is a Pure, MMO, or Blank Protagonist type of OC. If it is a Blank Protagonist, indicate the canon here.
Point Taken: A sense of time when the character is taken. More applicable to MMO and Blank Protagonist OCs.
World Building:This is separate from the character's personal history. This section is to provide us with information about the character's “canon” in general. We will have no idea what kind of world that the character is coming from, and this is the only place we can learn about it. We don't want an encyclopedia, but we will need to know important details about it so that we can understand the culture the character is coming from and how that will affect how they think and behave. What countries are important? What kind of geography or political climate? Are there any social conflicts that would impact the character or would influence how they view others? For MMO and Blank Protagonist OCs, linking us to wikis will suffice, but feel free to add more to it.
Backstory: While we don't need a play-by-play, what we would like to see includes how the character lived, what choices they've made and why, what events occurred that developed them, and other important facts that will help us understand the character. For MMO OCs: Most MMORPGs will have a set storyline that the player character has the opportunity to play through. Keep in mind that rather there being a singular "Great Hero," all MMO OCs are to be seen as a part of a large group of heroes if you choose to follow the main storyline. Also keep in mind that all MMO OCs will have to follow their game’s canon lore. For example: A character could not save the NPC that canonly died, nor could a mission fail if it is set to succeed. However, your character could have died and or had difficulty fulfilling the mission. It is also possible that your character had no part in the overall game's story and had their own adventures in the world instead. Finally, there can be no romantic or familial relationships with named NPCs.
Personality: We're looking for how they think, why they act the way they do, their strengths, their weaknesses, their thought processes, their opinions, their conflicts, what makes them feel the way they do, their significant traits. When writing your character, be careful! We want to avoid characters that are the super invincible almighty hero that can do no wrong. The one who can charm anyone with a smile, can easily trick and deceive, has the power to bend wills with ease. All characters have flaws—no one is perfect. But more importantly, such infallible characters are not interesting to play and interact with. In short, the character should be realistic, balanced, and well thought out. If we feel that your character does not meet this standard, then we may ask for a revision or reject if it cannot be changed.
Abilities: If there are any particular abilities the character has supernatural or otherwise, list them here. Referencing to a wiki list is acceptable if applicable. However, if there are any particular abilities that need to be weakened or removed, note them here.
Alignment: Please refer to the Alignment entry to choose which alignment your character would most likely fall under. Include a brief (a couple of sentences max) just to help explain why you think your choice is the best fit.
Other: Anything else you'd like to mention.
⌈ SAMPLE SECTION ⌉
Sample: We have two sample requirements.
General Sample: We should see examples of the character's dialogue as well as some introspection or additional narrative to further show how you intend to write the character. This is the most important part of the sample and where most of the weight will be.
Emotion Sample: This is our "game setting" requirement. Essentially we want to ensure that you have a basic grasp of the game's premise, especially with the use of emotions. It can be a small scene, even incidental to the main sample. A reminder that apathetic characters will also create effects, such as loss of color, surface distortion, holes forming. This section doesn't have to be lengthy, but the effect must be clear for us to see.
The emotion sample can be part of the general character sample. If so, please link directly or directly quote that portion so that it's easier for us to quickly find it.
The samples can be "written" in three different ways and you can choose which one will work best for you:
Format wise, you can use either [ brackets ] OR narrative prose. We do require that the writing at least be coherent, have proper sentence structure, and is mostly grammatically correct (we realize that writing styles can be loose/creative in [ bracket ] form so we're giving a bit more leeway). One last suggestion we have is try to have the character interacting with the environment and try thinking of the sample less of a narrative piece but more like a post or thread prompt you might make in the game. That will help the sample show not only how you will write the character, but also how you will play them in practice.
Questions: If you have any questions, ask them here.
Clean copy and paste form here:
IMPORTANT: Only the following types of original characters are allowed to be applied for—
- Pure OC. These are the typical kind of OC that everyone is familiar with. They are characters that are the player's own creation with their own world that is also of the player's design. There is zero relation to any pre-existing canon.
- MMO OC. MMOs, or Massively Multiplayer Online games, particularly those with a lot of roleplay and character build-up, have existing world building and lore that they have to follow. These characters are created by the player and can have their own story, but they have to follow the rules of the game lore. We consider "main hero" characters as those who are one of many in a great group that influenced the storyline, rather than the singular Great Hero character. This is to help multiple MMO OCs from the same game to have stories that mesh well together. In the sake of fairness to current FFXIV OC players and consistency with previous mod teams' decisions, we do not currently allow FFXIV Warriors of Light.
- Blank Slate Canon Protagonists. For our criteria, these types of characters are those which you control throughout the game and essentially make the player the main character. They may have a name and a couple of personality traits, but everything else is up to the player to interpret. Examples of these are most of the main characters from Dragon Age, Skyrim, Pokémon, etc. Important: Please note that this category ONLY pertains to the protagonists of canons. This does not allow side characters or other support NPCs as they have set stories and personalities. This section has nothing to do with how much headcanon is used and is only about the purpose and design of the protagonist character.
The following would not be allowed:
- Fanon/AU OCs. Characters that are based off pre-existing canons or an alternate version of the canon. We would not allow these OCs not because we are against them on principle, but it could cause unwanted confusion and complications with current existing casts. This type of OC would have needed to be allowed from the very beginning so players would know what they were getting into.
- Game Native OCs. Currently the game is not ready for such a type of character, as it would introduce other complications and worldbuilding that the interested player would have to be aware of. In addition, it would require more close connection with us the mods than we are currently ready for.
Before applying, please be sure to read the following:
- Read the Rules and the Game Information.
- RETURNING PLAYERS! You only need to submit any old application. Does not matter how long ago, as long as it was accepted and you have good standing (ie, not banned), it will be valid.
- Suggestion: Find some character sheets that have questions directly related to character building. These will help flesh out your application and give some guidelines as to how to write about your character.
- Feel free to use the most recent test drive both for practice as well as to use for samples. IMPORTANT! If you submit threads as samples, you must submit the application with that character journal. This is the only way we can ensure that the samples are from you and not someone else.
- Linked samples must have been made within the past year.
- You may apply for up to two characters per cycle.
- Do not plagiarize. If we find that the information provided was directly taken by either another player or some other source material, the application will be rejected immediately. If we find this after processing the application, we will revoke the application and have you removed from the game with potential ban.
- Reusing your own applications from other games is allowed. We only ask any original written samples to conform to our game. That is, we don't want to read samples that are set specifically for another game's premise. Note: this does not apply to threads linked from other games used as samples.
- If you are rejected, you cannot reapply for the same character for two weeks. However, you can apply for a different character in that same period.
- Those accepted must fill out all of the required entries within a week to be considered part of the game. Otherwise, we will consider it a revocation of the application.
- Fill out the form and comment to this entry! All applications must be posted directly to this entry; no linked-in applications allowed.
We have compiled sample applications from our players to show what the mod team and the application moderators are looking for in terms of writing quality and depth. We hope you find these samples useful!
- Sun Wukong (RWBY)
- Luke Skywalker (Star Wars)
- Goro Akechi (Persona 5)
Player:
Contact: Journal/Plurk/AIM — anything to help identify since someone might share your name handle.
Age: You must be at least 13 years old to apply.
Current Characters: If a new player, just put "N/A"
Character:
Age:
OC Type: Indicate whether this OC is a Pure, MMO, or Blank Protagonist type of OC. If it is a Blank Protagonist, indicate the canon here.
Point Taken: A sense of time when the character is taken. More applicable to MMO and Blank Protagonist OCs.
World Building:This is separate from the character's personal history. This section is to provide us with information about the character's “canon” in general. We will have no idea what kind of world that the character is coming from, and this is the only place we can learn about it. We don't want an encyclopedia, but we will need to know important details about it so that we can understand the culture the character is coming from and how that will affect how they think and behave. What countries are important? What kind of geography or political climate? Are there any social conflicts that would impact the character or would influence how they view others? For MMO and Blank Protagonist OCs, linking us to wikis will suffice, but feel free to add more to it.
Backstory: While we don't need a play-by-play, what we would like to see includes how the character lived, what choices they've made and why, what events occurred that developed them, and other important facts that will help us understand the character. For MMO OCs: Most MMORPGs will have a set storyline that the player character has the opportunity to play through. Keep in mind that rather there being a singular "Great Hero," all MMO OCs are to be seen as a part of a large group of heroes if you choose to follow the main storyline. Also keep in mind that all MMO OCs will have to follow their game’s canon lore. For example: A character could not save the NPC that canonly died, nor could a mission fail if it is set to succeed. However, your character could have died and or had difficulty fulfilling the mission. It is also possible that your character had no part in the overall game's story and had their own adventures in the world instead. Finally, there can be no romantic or familial relationships with named NPCs.
Personality: We're looking for how they think, why they act the way they do, their strengths, their weaknesses, their thought processes, their opinions, their conflicts, what makes them feel the way they do, their significant traits. When writing your character, be careful! We want to avoid characters that are the super invincible almighty hero that can do no wrong. The one who can charm anyone with a smile, can easily trick and deceive, has the power to bend wills with ease. All characters have flaws—no one is perfect. But more importantly, such infallible characters are not interesting to play and interact with. In short, the character should be realistic, balanced, and well thought out. If we feel that your character does not meet this standard, then we may ask for a revision or reject if it cannot be changed.
Abilities: If there are any particular abilities the character has supernatural or otherwise, list them here. Referencing to a wiki list is acceptable if applicable. However, if there are any particular abilities that need to be weakened or removed, note them here.
Alignment: Please refer to the Alignment entry to choose which alignment your character would most likely fall under. Include a brief (a couple of sentences max) just to help explain why you think your choice is the best fit.
Other: Anything else you'd like to mention.
Sample: We have two sample requirements.
General Sample: We should see examples of the character's dialogue as well as some introspection or additional narrative to further show how you intend to write the character. This is the most important part of the sample and where most of the weight will be.
Emotion Sample: This is our "game setting" requirement. Essentially we want to ensure that you have a basic grasp of the game's premise, especially with the use of emotions. It can be a small scene, even incidental to the main sample. A reminder that apathetic characters will also create effects, such as loss of color, surface distortion, holes forming. This section doesn't have to be lengthy, but the effect must be clear for us to see.
The emotion sample can be part of the general character sample. If so, please link directly or directly quote that portion so that it's easier for us to quickly find it.
The samples can be "written" in three different ways and you can choose which one will work best for you:
- Test Drive. You can utilize our test drive to cover both requirements of the sample. So long as there is enough character portrayal and a scene with an emotional reaction, be it within the prompt or done during the thread, then it can be used for both.
- Link out + Written. You can link to threads/entries from other games, memes, or museboxes to show character portrayal, and then write an additional short scene for the emotion portion of the sample.
- Original Sample. You can write a complete sample that shows both character portrayal and a scene involving emotion use. This can be one sample or two separate samples. If you opt to write an original sample, you are welcome to use any prompts from any of our Test Drives, Intro Logs, Task Board, and even past events. You are also free to change things up and are not restricted to any of these prompts. They are just here to help offer ideas.
Format wise, you can use either [ brackets ] OR narrative prose. We do require that the writing at least be coherent, have proper sentence structure, and is mostly grammatically correct (we realize that writing styles can be loose/creative in [ bracket ] form so we're giving a bit more leeway). One last suggestion we have is try to have the character interacting with the environment and try thinking of the sample less of a narrative piece but more like a post or thread prompt you might make in the game. That will help the sample show not only how you will write the character, but also how you will play them in practice.
Questions: If you have any questions, ask them here.
(3/3)
As with many things about Frisk, their personality is up to various interpretations. The interpretation that I personally use, is that the True Pacifist ending is indicative of Frisk's true nature. Or if it makes things simpler, the personality I'm going to describe is based entirely on the True Pacifist route, which includes sparing every monster encountered, going on a Date with both Papyrus and Alphys and a Friend Date with Undyne. All of which basically involves being a highly lovable little nugget.
One of Frisk's most striking traits is one that is repeated throughout the game - one that goes almost into ability territory, but is reinforced heavily by Frisk's own personality. Frisk has an incredibly strong will to live, but more than that they have a desire to press on, to keep going, to keep trying again when they fail. It even shows itself in less dire straits, as a general desire to push forward through obstacles despite deterrents and miscellaneous circumstances. Such as progressing through the ruins even though Toriel tells them to wait, or one time through one of Papyrus' puzzles rather than waiting for him to perform the solution for them.
While it serves them well in their adventures through the Underground, it can go to unfortunate extremes of pure stubbornness. Frisk's overabundance of determination is something that the game's primary antagonist, Asriel, attempts to exploit near the end of the True Ending, in order to try to keep Frisk trapped in the game. He cites how Frisk's determination and stubbornness to get a perfect ending - where everyone is happy - will drive them to go through their journey over and over again, no matter how many times Asriel might reset it.
Hand in hand with this determination is a sense of optimism - it seems strange that Frisk would push so hard to keep going and to find peaceful solutions with all they encounter, if they didn't believe such solutions and resolutions might be possible. They would have to believe that there isn't truth in Flowey's "kill or be killed" mantra. And so Frisk doesn't. Not to push this to an extreme though - they're "not totally naive or innocent" as Sans puts it, when judging them at the end of a pacifist run. In a more practical sense, this does involve a decent sense of when to cut and run. It's not perfect (Frisk likely makes plenty of use of those Save points) but there are times, such as the fight with Undyne, where Frisk opts for discretion.
As the above paragraph indicates, Frisk is also a pacifist. They prefer using other methods of resolving conflicts with those they encounter instead of fighting. This doesn't mean that they're passive or willing to just take whatever is dished out at them. But Frisk refuses to be the one meting out pain to others. No matter how harsh the opponent - from the lowliest of Froggits who just need a compliment, to Flowey, who tormented Frisk, including trapping them in a nightmare world and killing them repeatedly, and then threatening to kill everyone Frisk cared about - Frisk has shown them all mercy.
On a related note, Frisk is overall displays a decent amount of caring and empathy. Merciful doesn't always mean nice, but Frisk displays a considerable amount of compassion throughout the game. The most blatant display of this is Frisk's forgiveness of Asriel, and their attempts to comfort him about his fate of returning to being Flowey. Many of the options involved with sparing monsters throughout the game involves behaving in a compassionate and friendly manner with them - complimenting Froggits, laughing at Snowdrake's bad puns, singing along with Shyren, hugging or encouraging Vulkin, and so on and so forth.
That being said, also appears to possess a fair degree of self-confidence, or at least a distinct lack of self-consciousness, even a ridiculous streak. Frisk appears to have no reservations whatsoever about doing all manner of silly things when befriending monsters - such as getting into a flexing contest with Aaron or the entirety of the "fight" with Mettaton EX. Even ridiculous things they do, like pouring tea under a door during a sidequest to help with room service (and getting complimented for it). Petting vegetables during cooking lessons with Undyne. Overall, it's one of the ways in which Frisk is definitely still a kid.
Another way is in the sense of wonder they seem to find fairly easily. Throughout the game, Frisk's health is replenished by their determination, which is described as essentially their will to live. Various save points throughout the game describe different things that give Frisk enough determination to fully heal themselves. And many times they're simple things - crinkling playfully through leaves, a warm house in the ruins, a conveniently-shaped lamp. Even more ridiculous things such as the idea of a mouse hacking a safe to get to some cheese - implying that Frisk has a decent sense of imagination too.
For all this, Frisk does seem to hold how they express themselves in a certain reserve. While in many ways they are an example of the "silent protagonist" trope typical of RPGs, they do speak. Many of the commands during battles involve talking and there are times that they speak to NPCs (usually indicated by something like "..." in the NPC's dialogue). However the overall indication is that they don't feel the need to be needlessly chatty, if they don't have to be. It's similar with their emotions - while they don't show visible reactions, there are characters who comment on the faces they make, such as horror at fighting Toriel after resetting from a timeline where she's died, or grimacing at Sans if he talks about how "you haven't died even once" when they have.
Abilities:
Overall Frisk is a pretty normal human in every way.
With just a couple notable exceptions. Frisk possesses a pretty hefty amount of (for lack of a better explanation) the will to live, to persist, known colliquaily as "Determination". This Determination allows them to create a "Save" - a sort of temporal and spatial anchor point. Should they wish to do so, or should they die, Frisk can then "Reset," which rewinds time and space either back to their most recent Save, or back to when their abilities manifested - which is to say when they fell into the Underground. Only those with sufficient Determination - Frisk and Flowey in canon - are able to remember/recognize what has happened. On a related note, when feeling a particularly strong surge of Determination (such as when Saving), it has a passive healing effect.
On the whole, given the game-breaking nature of these abilities and the fact that the players in the game all likely possess much more Determination than the monsters in the Underground (and the fact that Flowey's abilities section has already established precedent), they'll be completely nullified. However there's one exception I'd like to make, if it's okay. The ability to Save is shown to have the ability to purge corruption and restore a being to a previous state. However it's not something Frisk can use willy-nilly on anybody - it's generally required that to Save someone you need to have an emotional understanding and ability to connect with them, to help remind them of who they once were. Also given aforementioned reasons, they would likely require extenuating circumstances to use and be incredibly exhausting for Frisk to do so.
If not then, welp, back to being a normal kid. Which may be a relief in some ways for them.
Alignment: Frisk is actually really tricky to pin down to just one. Ultimately I think one of the better fits would be Piphron. Frisk is (roughly) implied to have come from a not-very-happy background (it's a theory I choose to follow because among other things, it makes them a narrative foil to the first fallen human). And yet despite that, they opened up to the monsters in the Underground, became friends with them, requiring its own sort of trust. That being said, there's still plenty of things Frisk wouldn't be ready to trust others with - their own abilities (even if they're only referred to in the past tense), the resets, plenty of the events that happened in other timelines. Overall Frisk's emotions in this regard are likely to run the full gamut and be something that comes up pretty often.
Other:
Frisk spends a majority (if not all) of the game with the First Fallen human, generally referred to in fandom as Chara (though the name is actually designated by the player) sharing soul space with them. The role that Chara plays throughout the game (on Neutral and Pacifist routes in particular), as well as most aspects of Chara's personality, are generally very ambiguous and subject to much fan speculation (and argument). Two things we do know for certain is that Frisk is able to occasionally glean some of Chara's memories, particularly relevant ones of the Underground, and also if Frisk ends up participating in a genocide route, Chara's influence on their actions grows to the point of full-on possession.
As it is, given all the ambiguities and debate, I'd prefer if Chara's soul be dormant, per the question answer here.
Other than that...
Sample: Test driiiive
Questions:
How many cups of sugar does it take to get to the moon?
Accepted!
• Reply to this comment with the journal you will be joining with.
• We do require you to keep a copy of your application and/or an information post in your journal for easy player reference. In doing so, you are free to use one of our Profile Codes.
• Comment to the Taken list.
• When your journal is added by the mod journal, comment to the Player Contact list.
• Join
• Introduce yourself in our Player Intro post and start playing!
Optional:
• Review the Game Info, Emotions, Amulet, and Island information pages.
• Make sure you understand how the Network works. Remember, Empatheias uses telepathy as communication!
• Feel free to make a "Message Box" type post for any private messages that could be sent via messenger bird.
Please use the Character Introduction Log for your character intro. If you have any questions at any time, feel free to contact us! Have fun :D
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