![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
[ 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.
2/3 I LIED
Character: Winnifred "Winnie" Prismall
Age: 24
OC Type: Pure
Point Taken:
World Building: Winnie's world was the same as the real world, up until 1860. Around 1860, souls, it was found, could be extracted from people and placed into someone else; that someone could then absorb the soul. The absorbed soul enabled a person to live longer and cured many of the diseases scientists were struggling to find cures for. What followed was two things:
1. Scientists, now mostly freed from the constant pursuit for cures, took to discovering and advancing technology through steam power.
2. Souls were growing in demand.
Everyone wanted to live longer and be healthier. It started out innocently enough, with taking the souls of convicts and those already doomed to die. Soon, however, it wasn’t enough for the highest in society, who began to realize this and suffer the consequences -- they had to have a steady “diet” of souls, consuming/absorbing them at least once or twice a month. The older you grew the more souls you had to absorb to stay alive.
As demand grew, people found new ways to get the souls, namely by preying on the poor. Schools were set up to house, teach, and most importantly find Extractors, those rare individuals who could remove and implant the souls. The Extractors would then be taken out with handlers to seek out those who were poor and unaware to steal their souls, storing the souls within their own bodies. Extractors had no souls of their own and could not absorb them, thus posing no threats to taking any for their own. Each Extractor had a handler, and everything was provided to them by the governments of each country. Though everyone handled it differently, England kept a tight hold over their Extractors, letting them have little contact with the outside world and essentially making their lives revolve around what the government said and did.
Some other important rules to note are that souls begin going crazy after 24 hours away from their body, and one soul can last a person 20-25 days. The act of removing and implanting a soul are painless, and is done so orally-- the Extractor taps the other person’s mouth and pulls the soul out from there, then swallows the soul. Prolonged contact is not needed, just the quick touch and drawing the soul out will happen unless, obviously, the Extractor doesn’t wish to do that.
More on how souls work here!
Backstory: Winnie was born in 1864 to very wealthy parents and is one of these Extractors, though she was one of the lucky ones to not be sent away to the schools. The death of her mother is to thank for that, for her father, unwilling to part with the girl who looked so much like her mother and unwilling to be left alone, refused to give her up and kept the fact she was an Extractor a secret from everyone. She grew up fairly normal and her life wasn’t a very exciting one. It was mostly filled with lessons--how to play piano and violin (though she has no talent in either), manners, how to have a polite conversation, how to read, write, and do basic maths, and everything else she’d need to know to be the best pick when it came to courting and marriage.However, she’s had no interest in it and considers herself a spinster and “too old” to marry now. Her father used the excuse that she was sickly to keep her confined in her home, where she would read fairy tales and imagine herself as a sort of "modern" Rapunzel, waiting for a perfect happy ending.
When she was young her father took in another young girl named Agnes, and the two quickly grew close. Agnes knew more about the ‘real world’ than Winnie did and spent her time telling Winnie of the outside world and all the things she never had a chance to see for herself. And the more Winnie learned, the more horrified she became at what her friends and neighbors were doing. So, she and Agnes devised a plan to become like ‘modern’ Robin Hoods. They would attend the numerous parties and sleepovers that Winnie’s status granted them access to. The parties of the rich were usually characterized by an after-dinner “treat” in the form of each guest being gifted with a collected soul by the host or hostess. Winnie would simply take the soul, though not absorb it, and the next day she and Agnes would search for the original body, assuming it hadn’t been moved or destroyed already since souls are almost always transported and absorbed within a day of their capture. Souls have a short shelf life like that. In the event of the body being unable to be found, the soul was released. If lucky, the soul would become a ghost, but if not then the soul would be forced to wither away and ‘die’.
This was until the pair met a ghost who haunted the lighthouse in the port town only a few hours away from the city. It was a complete accident-- they'd heard the talk of the townspeople and Winnie had decided it sounded interesting, and so had dragged Agnes to it. The first meeting had been a disaster as Winnie's over enthusiasm didn't mesh well with Mortimer's grumpy personality, but Winnie was not deterred. She made a point to visit every day they were in town and eventually he grudgingly accepted her and Agnes's presence. After some consideration they realized that Mortimer, being a ghost, would possibly know what to do with the souls whose bodies they couldn't find. Although he pretends that it's a bother every time, he enjoys helping the souls either move on, or become and adjust to being a ghost; through him Winnie was able to find both another confidant and a way around what she had seen to be a failure to help the souls.
As Winnie interacted more with the outside world and the people in it, the more she felt moved to help them. Inspired by the heroic tales of her books, Winnie became more involved with the people of the slums, forging her own networks and connections to prepare for a revolution--a coup against the corrupt government and a chance to change the country for the better. Or, maybe, even the world...
Personality: Eccentric, dotty, and oblivious are the three words that could best described Winnie. Being an Extractor means being able to mentally hear and speak with the souls ‘housed’ in her, and talking to voices in ones’ head never bodes well for one’s mental health--it’s one of the drawbacks of being a Extractor, though the well-trained are able to put up mental walls to block the voices. Still, Winnie is not well-trained and quite prone to talking aloud to thin air, getting to absorbed in the soul speaking to her. This causes her to run into things or miss entire chunks of conversation.
She is, however, the type of person who is very poor at multi-tasking. Sometimes she will be so interested in a conversation, or a book, or any little old thing, that she’ll end up dunking her keys into her tea or something.
Winnie is also characterized by an unflappably calm and cheery disposition. When dropped into a new situation, she greets it with an excited smile and a declaration that it will be a “terribly interesting adventure.” Even when her dress caught fire the first day she met Mortimer, she simply laughed it off and kept speaking amiably; when Agnes asked how she could be so calm, she simply looked at the spreading fire and stated, “Well, it hasn’t gotten close enough to my skin to hurt me, and it’s only a dress! Though some water would be quite lovely, as I don’t wish it to get too far..."
As stated before, Winnie be can very forgetful. For example, she often forgets that Mortimer is a ghost and will go to hug him or pat his arm, only to go right through him; she is always surprised by it every time. She's a bit childlike in that way, as she finds everything very exciting and regards everything with a wide-eyed state of wonder, curiosity, and amazement. Her curiosity can sometimes get her in trouble, as she doesn't often think everything through and tries to rush ahead to explore something further. Thankfully that's where Agnes steps in to make sure Winnie doesn't get herself into hotter waters.
Loyal and kind, Winnifred loathes to lie, even though it’s a deemed necessity with what she and Agnes do. To make up for that, she tries to tell the truth and be honest with just about everything else. Her father, being a very doting and loving father, is often the unwitting pawn in Agnes and Winnie’s adventures, in case they need money to silence someone or need to use his influence. For the most part he remains oblivious to what the two are doing with the souls, but Winnie feels awful having to lie and use him, often unable to look at him when they need something.
The concept of fear is also largely lost on Winnie. It’s not that she doesn’t experience feeling scared or worried or anything like that, it’s more that it doesn’t apply to situations most people would be more wary of. For example, she’s very quick to trust someone and think them a nice person for any minor details, and is the kind of person who would walk down a dark alley without a second thought, because the idea that something bad might happen to her doesn’t even register. This is largely due to not having a soul, and therefore her emotional reactions to things are muted or otherwise nonexistent. If she had been raised in the dormitories with the other Extractors, it would be easy for her to have been changed like them-- Emotionless machines driven only by their one goal to collect as many souls as possible. Because Winnie was raised more-or-less normally, however, she's been able to grasp more emotions. The positive ones just come easier, but it's this soullessness that allows her to shrug off things that might emotionally cripple a 'normal' person and allows her to bounce back so easily.
Winnie is someone who lived a very sheltered existence. For the longest time she didn't have an idea of the suffering others went through, or gave much thought to the lower class-- they were simply outside her realm of understanding. It wasn't until Agnes that Winnie began to glimpse under the rose-tinted glasses that she'd previously adopted. When Winnie made statements about, "and then we went to our summer home it was dreadfully stuffy-- Oh, but you'd understand all about that, wouldn't you?" It was a shock when Agnes eventually revealed that no, she had no understanding of that because she was raised differently.
After much poking and prodding, Winnie was able to pry the truth of Agnes's life from her and for the first time the ugly reality was colliding with her fantasy of the world. It troubled her quite a bit, both the shock of her own ignorance and the fact that this wasn't a big secret-- all the adults in her life and most of the people her own age too were perfectly aware of what was going on, and most seemed content to let it stay that way (this isn't to say Winnie was the first to have radical ideas of reform or to put a cease to the soul trafficking, only that she wasn't privy to these other ideas and the people she interacted with personally were content with it).
However, Agnes views Winnie as fragile and needing protection from the further harsh truths of reality, and so has a tendency to pull Winnie out of situations before she has to deal with the consequences of her actions. As such, she holds a firm belief that if she just tries hard enough, things will change. If she pushes and, eventually, talks freely about it and advocates openly, she fully believes that things will change from her enthusiasm alone-- "If they see how much I believe it, why, of course they'll fall in line as well!" This is, of course, not the reality of the situation, but Agnes and those close to Winnie don't want to see her disillusioned, finding her blind optimism a breath of fresh air and something to protect. While this is damaging in the long run, as they can't protect her forever, Winnie is a bit stronger than they believe. When the dam finally breaks and she has to confront the consequences for the first time it'll be devastating for her, of course, but she's been going at it for so long that she doesn't know how to do anything else except to think "but if I try hard enough, it'll get better and it'll work."
She sees herself as a savior to others and will keep on trying to help them; if they adamantly refuse her help it'll take quite a few tries of being told off for her to understand. Winnie has, in her adult life, grown aware of other people who fight for a similar cause to her, but she's grown so used to relying on Agnes and Mortimer--and still has a wariness to admitting she's an Extractor not for her own life, but because she doesn't want to see her father in trouble-- that she prefers to stick with them and do what she can from her side. Essentially, Winnie wants to be like the heroes from the books she reads, the hero of her own story, and firmly drives towards that goal.
It should be noted, however, that Winnie is anything but stupid. She has a keen awareness she keeps hidden,largely because she's self-aware enough to know it's better that way. She plays up her sillier side, pretending to be airheaded and dotty far more than she actually is in order to get people to let their guards down around her. If people underestimate her, it's better for her in the long run if and when she can catch them by surprise.