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Empatheias Mods ([personal profile] simpathis) wrote2014-05-25 12:34 am
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[ application: original characters ]

— APPLICATIONS ARE OPEN AND WILL BE PROCESSED ON WEEKENDS —

Canon Applications are here


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—

  • 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!


⌈ 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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.



Clean copy and paste form here:

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only
inkbled: (❝ ɴɪɴᴇᴛʏ ᴏɴᴇ ❞)

Rosa Rivera | OC | Reserved because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[personal profile] inkbled 2019-09-03 07:41 pm (UTC)(link)
⌈ PLAYER SECTION ⌉

Player: Nico
Contact: PM | [plurk.com profile] isanghae | isanghae#8071
Age: 30
Current Characters: N/A
inkbled: (❝ ɴɪɴᴇᴛʏ ɴɪɴᴇ ❞)

[personal profile] inkbled 2019-09-03 07:42 pm (UTC)(link)
⌈ CHARACTER SECTION ⌉

Character: Rosa Rivera
Age: 16
OC Type: Pure
Point Taken: Immediately after the second time the Youth Centre kids save her
World Building:
• Once - centuries ago -, humans had magic. Not every human, however, and due to man's superiority complex, this led to all the awful things you can imagine. Subjugation, enslavement, using unpowered humans are guinea pigs.

• Innovation still ran deep throughout even the unpowered humans, and eventually, they'd invented their own way of fighting back. Created their own items that mimicked magic, things that blocked it. Eventually, technology far outstripped magic and was powerful enough to throttle the magic users, subjugate them instead.

• This was the decisive event that shaped the modern world that Rosa lives in. Magic as an innate part of biology began to die down, unable to contend with constant technological advancement, until eventually, it seemed to be extinct. Seemed to being the operative words. One in every few thousand humans still contained some genetic marker that allowed them to develop powers. These people were dubbed the -bloods, with the prefix referring to their abilities (Stormblood, Aquablood, Fireblood, for examples) or the appearance of their blood (see: Inkblood).

• Of all these genetic mutations, the rarest and most valuable is the Inkblood status, a power which grants the individual immortality and a lack of aging. These people can only be killed by draining all the blood from their bodies, blood which is coveted for its ability to reverse aging (thereby extending lifespans). Unlike the other -bloods, Inkblood does not have a technological equivalent, therefore making Inkbloods giant, walking targets.

• As mentioned, humanity's great advantage was their technological advances. This means that society, as a whole, benefits from technology that is beyond our own, much of which is designed to mimic magic. For those who can afford it, technology allows them to have xChips installed into their heads, essentially allowing for telepathic communication, or instant teleportation pods installed into locations they frequently travel - say, home to your office. Hover-vehicles are as commonly used as land vehicles, allowing for multiple layers of traffic (supposedly for smoother flow, but that's not really the case). The army is equipped with weapons that allow them to imitate the abilities of someone who can magic up fire, or lightning, or water - compact little things that can do far more damage than, say, a modern-day flamethrower.
For those less financially well off, technology isn't quite so flash. Phones are better than our modern day smartphones, transport is more environmentally friendly, but nowhere near as impressive as the higher priced options.

• Socially, a big problem is the disparity between the rich and the poor. In large cities such as Dewell, this disparity is particularly visible. High costs of living and an education system that seems designed to box people into a specific career path at too young an age means that many poorer families are trapped in a cycle - unable to let their children go onto expensive higher education as they're needed in the workforce as soon as possible to help support the family financially.
inkbled: (❝ ᴇɪɢʜᴛʏ ɴɪɴᴇ ❞)

[personal profile] inkbled 2019-09-03 07:43 pm (UTC)(link)
Backstory:
Rosa is the oldest child (of 5) of Eric and Veronica Rivera, part of a large, extended family living in the inner city of Dewell in Astaria. For the most part, her family live the paycheque to paycheque life, and the kids spend just as much time with their aunts, uncles and grandparents as they do with their parents. It's a nice family, though, one that loves each other, even if each additional sibling places extra strain on the family's finances.

Rosa grows up with that odd peripheral awareness that not all is well in the family, that her parents are trying to make things as normal as possible for her and her siblings. She goes with it, because what else can you do when you're eight years old and don't fully grasp the nuances of finance or have any way to contribute. She helps with her siblings, goes to school, occasionally gets in trouble. Lives a normal and imperfect life, like you'd expect to see in your own city.

Everything's fine, up until she turns 14, when the academic system begins to sort students for their future careers. Having always had an interest in electronics and machines and being a student one would consider above average, Rosa gives serious thought to pursuing an academic line of study, wanting a degree in Engineering. Unfortunately, her parents point blank refuse, unable to assist her financially through the rest of school and into university. Instead, they suggest the trade school for mechanics, because it's "close enough" while also earn money through an apprenticeship scheme, allowing her to help keep the family's heads afloat a bit longer.

She resents it, but does so.

As they say, when it rains, it pours. At 15, settled into somewhat accepting her lot in life, things change again with the discovery of her Inkblood status while getting a blood test at the doctor's. This, in and of itself, might not have been so bad. But, of course, it's never that easy. It's kind of hard to deny that you're an Inkblood when people have seen you get up from a car crash that would have killed most, have seen your blood run decidedly not red in the street. Initially, Rosa doesn't think much of it. It's weird, but there are people like this, even if she didn't expect to be one.

Of course, when someone tries to kidnap you, you start thinking differently of your new blood. Tries being the operative word. She makes it out unscathed and tries to bury the event as far down as it will go, never speaking of it. Her family don't need that trouble weighing on them, and neither do her friends. Instead, she continues life as normal — except for the constant glances over her shoulder and disappearing in the middle of hanging out, which are eventually noticed by her friends. They question her behaviour and it devolves into an argument, Rosa stubbornly refusing to let them in on her Inkblood problems before she storms off and into the arms of yet more would-be kidnappers.

(Dewell has many things, among them a huge amount of people desperate and broke enough to want Inkblood to reverse their aging.) She ducks and dives out of the kidnappers grasp and barrels right into a stranger who immediately backs her up with electricity that shoots from her fingers. A Stormblood who then takes Rosa back towards a youth centre, and to meet the other -bloods in the district, a small group who had heard whispers of a girl with pink hair whose blood ran blue in the streets.

"Looks like you're real, huh?" After introductions, the group offers to help Rosa by supporting her with their more offensive magic when she's in trouble, but she immediately shuts it down ("I can take care of myself, but thanks") and bows out of the place.

In the following months, life settles into something of a routine, at least, as much of a routine as anyone can consider kidnapping attempts on top of the rest of life. Rosa continues to manage to escape people who want her blood and turns sixteen (not that she's sure ages matter much once you're told you'll look like this forever). Life is nowhere close to perfect, but it's good enough, her family can afford everything it needs to and she even gets to save a little of her apprenticeship money for herself.

Like many a weekend, Rosa wanders off to check out a nearby farmer's market and meets a girl with a smile as lovely as a paycheque at the end of a hard week. They stroll the farmer's market together and flirt in that awkward, unsure way teenagers do, neither quite willing to make the first move, and wind their way out of the market and into an alley, where the girl signals to the ambush which has been set up.

Rosa darts, barely escaping the initial jump and hearing a cry of "You don't need to be soft, she can't die!" as she scrambles to put some distance and garbage between herself and her latest kidnappers. Shots ring out just as she rounds a corner and graze the back of her leg, slowing her down enough for the kidnappers to catch her and knock her to the ground before licks of heat and flame and the crackle of electricity overhead send them running, and the thundering fear gives way to realisation and hope as she looks up to see the Youth Centre kids standing a few feet away.
inkbled: (❝ ɴɪɴᴇᴛʏ ᴛᴡᴏ ❞)

why is my browser being so slow...

[personal profile] inkbled 2019-09-03 07:44 pm (UTC)(link)
Personality:
Upbeat and outgoing, Rosa makes a strong first impression: one of a cheerful, energetic teenager who loves food and — like many teenagers — just wants to find someone to date, so she's not a complete loser. With a tendency to say whatever comes to mind, the words ditzy or weird often accompanies that description. But generally speaking, she's a friendly, open-seeming young lady, whose upbringing as an oldest sibling in a busy household shines through most clearly when she senses an opportunity to help someone.

But being helpful doesn't negate Rosa's tendency towards bottling things up under a smile and an almost vicious determination to appear normal. Secret-keeping is part and parcel of who she is, thanks to her upbringing and now her Blood Status. As noble as she may believe the idea of keeping her problems from affecting others is, it can and has led to arguments with friends and left them asking why don't you trust us, Rosa? Growing up in a family who were stretched to the limits financially has led her to try and solve her problems "independently", so as not to put more burden on the people around her.

Despite her easy-going, often irresponsible seeming nature around the world at large, Rosa prioritises her duties to her family — to helping them survive financially in a city that makes it incredibly difficult to do so — above most everything else, including her own dreams of going to university. Furthermore, she expends a lot of energy in keeping up appearances, of making her family's situation seem less dire than it is to the world at large. This includes never really talking about her resentment at missing out on further academic study to help provide financially for her family, and finding ways to do "normal teenage things" such as go out shopping and to parties. (She squirrels away what little money she can save from her apprenticeship for herself, honestly.)

If anything, Rosa is a big ball of denial a lot of the time, convinced she can become the mask. If she smiles enough, or acts enough like a silly teenager, she won't feel the jealousy that burns under the surface at every person who is more financially stable than her family, at everyone who isn't a known Inkblood. Her dream is nothing more than to be what her society deems normal — i.e. part of a family affluent enough to allow her to afford her dreams, and decidedly not immortal — but deep down she's aware that ship has long since sailed, and she hates it.

This dream of "normal" influences everything Rosa does, even to her detriment. Normal is the reason it never even crosses her mind to make money from her Inkblood abilities — never considering selling her blood despite the fact that she could quite easily clear her family's financial problems by doing so. Why should she have to do so, when other people simply work for a living? It's not fair and Why me? are frequently whined protests which refer to far more than spilling sauce on her favourite top.

Admittedly, Rosa is aware that the unfairness of her life is down to forces beyond her family, that society as a whole is not perfect, but this awareness is a helpless thing, a "yeah, it sucks, but what can I do?" thing. She doesn't consider changing the world, just trying to fit into it and survive it, and wants that for those she loves as well. She tries to help others where she can and easily empathises with those who are down on their luck — after all, she's there, too.

Whether it's part of being immortal or simply a maturing young lady (we'd say growing, but lol), Rosa's love of food is perhaps the one thing which equals her love of machinery. There's few things which, in her opinion, can't be solved by saying "Lunch?" and while she can cook, she would much rather be able to gorge herself on food truck fries than make her own. In a way, it's one of the few things Rosa truly gets for herself — her clothes will eventually go to her younger sisters, her job has always been for her family, and that dream of being a normal teenager who dates others and never has to watch her back remains out of grasp as long as her blood runs blue — but carbs can never be ruined. ... She hopes.
inkbled: (❝ ɴɪɴᴇᴛʏ ᴇɪɢʜᴛ ❞)

[personal profile] inkbled 2019-09-03 07:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Abilities:
INKBLOOD;
• Immortal, or at least damn hard to kill. The only things that can kill an Inkblood are complete exsanguination, or the destruction of their heart or brain. Beyond that, Rosa can recover from any injury. Blow her up? As long as her heart and brain are in one piece, and there's blood clinging to her veins, she can be stitched back together and bounce back as if nothing happened.

• Simultaneously, Rosa's blood allows her a degree of accelerated healing from illness and injury, although the speed of it depends on how much blood she's lost. Even at the worst, she can recover from injuries in a week.

• As stated above, her blood also works to reverse aging and therefore extend lifespans. It won't heal anyone with illnesses, but it will reverse some of the progression, therefore giving them more time. These effects are all temporary, and no amount of Inkblood consumption is enough to give someone an Inkblood's immortality.

• All of this comes with one very distinctive marker: Rosa's blood is a deep, inky blue, rather than red.

MECHANICS;
One of Rosa's loves has always been vehicles and transportation. She's spent two years apprenticing as a trainee mechanic at trade school, working in a student garage and learning more about land and hover vehicles. This has given her experience with and knowledge of how to diagnose problems with vehicles and fix them under supervision. She has studied land vehicles in far more depth than hover vehicles, and is best acquainted with electric motors, which are the primary type of vehicle in her world.

GETTING THE FUCK OUTTA DODGE;
Despite her lack of any sort of combat skills, Rosa has been dodging kidnapping attempts since her Inkblood status got out. This is often just due to the ability to think fast on her feet, combined with the fact that many of her would-be kidnappers aren't the most intelligent of people, often resulting in some cartoonish looking escape scenes involving terrible wigs and taking advantage of crowds and police.


Alignment: Aiada. Behind her smiles and laughter, Rosa is frequently envious of the things she doesn't have — envying people who aren't known Inkbloods, those who have the money to continue on in school instead of going into a trade. It's not something she's massively proud of, but definitely spurs on a lot of her behaviour.

Other: Nothing I can think of.


⌈ SAMPLE SECTION ⌉

General Sample: TDM link

Emotion Sample: comment link!

Questions: I'm good for now, I think!
simpathis: (Default)

Accepted!

[personal profile] simpathis 2019-09-07 02:05 am (UTC)(link)
Congratulations! We are happy to announce that your application has been accepted.

Please follow these next few steps to officially be considered part of the game. Remember that you have one week to do all this, otherwise we will consider it a revocation of the application.

➟ Reply to this comment with the journal you will be joining with, then join the following communities:
➟ Please comment to the appropriate Taken Characters list: Canons A-M | Canons N-Z.
➟ You are required to create an information post on your character journal for easy player reference. Using your application is perfectly fine! You are also free to use one of our Info Post Templates.
➟ When your journal is added by the mod journal, comment to the Player Contact list.
➟ Introduce yourself in our Player Intro post and start playing!
➟ Use the Character Introduction Log for your character intro!
➟ Please note that while we will create a character tag for you, you will need to type it in the first time you use it in each community for it to show up on the list.


Some optional things:
➟ Review the Game Info, Emotions, Amulet, and Island information pages.
➟ Check the monthly mod post for some announcements and an idea of what's in store for the month.
➟ Make sure you understand how the Network works. Remember, Empatheias uses telepathy as communication!
➟ Feel free to make an Inbox post for any private messages that could be sent via messenger bird.
➟ Check this month's plotting post.
➟ Follow the mod plurk ([plurk.com profile] simpathis) for game announcements.
➟ Join the game's Discord chat. You can join it by following the link here.

Important! Her current "immortality" ability will need to be nerfed in some way to better fit the game setting. She can still be tough to kill, but it needs to be reduced to something more reasonable.

If you have any questions at any time, feel free to contact us! Once again, we welcome you to Empatheias, and we hope you enjoy the game!
inkbled: (❝ ɴɪɴᴇᴛʏ sɪx ❞)

[personal profile] inkbled 2019-09-07 10:46 am (UTC)(link)
This is the journal!

RE: Immortality
I've no problem nerfing her to make her easier to kill. I hope these changes work:
• Poison will be able to neutralise her healing / regeneration factor, effectively making her mortal
• Removal of the heart / brain will also kill her

I could also generally nerf her healing factor if this isn't enough!
simpathis: (Default)

[personal profile] simpathis 2019-09-08 01:54 am (UTC)(link)
Accelerated healing should be fine so long as it's not instantaneous for major injuries, which from what you've written seems reasonable enough already. So as long as her abilities aren't grossly overpowering comparable characters, this should be fine!
Flat | Top-Level Comments Only