applications

[groundrules]

APPLICATIONS

Eastbound is primarily an invite-only game — each existing player can currently invite up to one person per month, or get in touch about further invites. Existing players can hold two characters in game. A third character can be applied, if players can prove they have met activity requirements for two consecutive months with their existing two characters and have stayed engaged with the game. If you don't have an invite, somehow stumbled upon this neck of the woods, and you’d like to stay, drop the mod journal a line — we'll try to figure it out.

As of Oct. 1, cast/game caps are off. Please note, as of Dec. 1, Eastbound only has 3-4 months of gameplay left.

WHAT CHARACTERS CAN BE APPLIED?

YES: canon and original characters, if they have a solid and consistent personality and background. Characters brought in after they've died are a-okay. For characters taken from a time point just as they're in the process of dying, please read below on meeting medical requirements.

NO (at this time): real people, original characters set in a canon environment, characters from canons or canon instalments that have been released for less than one month, characters with imported development from other games (CRAU), alternate universe, or gender-swapped versions of canon characters.

Children or characters with very specific medical/magical/environment needs: appable, but please make a note of how your character will ICly meet their requirements and stay alive. Likewise, if you are applying for a character taken just as they're dying, provide a suggestion for how they can be kept alive on arrival (this might be easier in some app cycles than others). You can bend the world a little to make miracles happen (ex: a substitute for the medication your character needs to survive can be found for a high price at certain apothecaries, etc.)

Characters that were dropped or swept by activity checks: yes, but they’ll come back without their previous memories, if they are applied in by a different player.

APPLICATION FORM & INSTRUCTIONS

EXISTING / RETURNING PLAYERS

<b><Small>PLAYER NAME</small>:</b> <b><small>CONTACT</small>:</b> <b><small>CHARACTER</small>:</b> <b><small>CANON</small>:</b> <b><small>CANON POINT</small>:</b> <b><small>BACKGROUND</small>:</b> link out or write no more than two-three paragraphs...! <b><small>PERSONALITY</small>:</b> bullet points a-okay, or written out. You can also link out to it, if you agree to what's on your wikia. <b><small>SAMPLE</small>:</b> a written sample or one or more threads to show your character's personality. <b><small>NOTES</small>:</b> you know the ropes, jot down if your character has any world-breaking powers or accommodations you need for them!

NEW PLAYERS

<b><Small>PLAYER NAME</small>:</b> <b><small>CONTACT</small>:</b> <b><small>REFERRED BY</small>:</b> Who invited you, please? c: <b><small>CHARACTER</small>:</b> <b><small>CANON</small>:</b> <b><small>CANON POINT</small>:</b> <b><small>BACKGROUND</small>:</b> written or linked history both fine. Bullet points also a-okay. If no information is available in English, please write this out in short. <b><small>ABILITIES | POWERS</small>:</b> Include any relevant power restrictions, so you don’t break our playground. <b><small>PERSONALITY</small>:</b> make sure this ties back to the character’s time point and background. <b><small>SAMPLE</small>:</b> one or more samples to showcase the nuances of your character’s personality. Submit at least one prose sample of five comments or more. You can link memes, PSL or other game threads, provided they took place within the last 12 months. You can also write a single prose sample in the game or character canon setting, if you think you can cover good introspective ground that way, or a top level with enough variety to show how the character engages in various scenarios. <b><small>INVENTORY</small>:</b> No world-breaking items. For living or magical beings, or anything colossal (think... Gundams...) please let's talk beforehand! <b><small>SUITABILITY</small>:</b> Eastbound is a plot-heavy game that typically features sleuthing, action and the undead. How is your character likely to deal with all that (and the game bear)? <b><small>NOTES</small>:</b> Are there any particular accommodations your character will need? How do you propose to handle that?

APPLICATIONS CLOSED


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Comments

Anthony Lockwood | Lockwood and Co

[recklessenough]

PLAYER NAME: Lae
CONTACT: Laekhund
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: TDM & EMP

CHARACTER: Anthony Lockwood
CANON: Lockwood & Co
CANON POINT: Season 1 Episode 8 after the battle with Bickerstaff while riding to the surface from the catacombs.

BACKGROUND: A wild Wiki Link appears!

ABILITIES | POWERS:

• Talent / Sight: In Lockwood and Co canon, children manifest 'Talents' related specifically to interacting with the dead and are sensitive to these Talents up until their early twenties. The talents fall under one of three umbrella; Sight, Touch, Listening. These aren't magic powers or anything that could be taught to someone else. They are considered psychic abilities and are innate talents that gradual fade as a person ages; usually gone by the mid-twenties/early thirties.
  
  Lockwood's is most gifted with Sight. This Talent allows him to detect death-glows, which is usually depicted by the shape of how their body was laid out in that final moment. He can also detect residual spirit energy and identify different types of ghosts from the various energies they exude. His Sight is very strong, and he often uses sunglasses while on a case as a way to keep from being blinded by his own Talent.
  
  One of the things that is remarked upon is that Lockwood, who is 17/18, which is around the time Talents start to dull, has not seen any sign that his talent is fading. He is as strong with his Talent at young adulthood as he was back as a child, as opposed to someone like Kipps, who is in his early twenties and his talent is completely gone.
  
  Listening is the big talent in canon. It is Lucy's talent and Lucy is the audience's primary guide through Lockwood & Co, both the books and the series. Listening allows an agent to hear ghosts, ghost activity, and in rare instances allows for a psychic/empathic connection; such as Lucy and Anabelle's ghost. Lucy takes things a step further with her Talent in that she can also hold conversations with ghosts who are powerful enough -Skull-. Lucy is only the 2nd person in canon with this ability.
  
  Lockwood can detect some ghost sounds, enough to recognize they're in an area, but where Lucy could be hearing death loops, identifying individuals, spirit type, Lockwood would need his Sight to be able to provide those same identifications. Also Lockwood does not have the ability to form a psychic/empathic connection with the dead, the way Lucy can, let alone hold a conversation with the dead.
  
  Touch doesn't have as strong an example in canon as Sight and Listening. Touch is an agent's ability to come in contact with an item and gain a sense of the spirit connected to it. Touch really helps agents find and identify Sources, but it can also help particularly sensitive agents learn things about the ghost tied to the item.
  
  Lockwood possess a low level sensitivity with this talent. He knows a Source if he comes in contact with it, this is necessary for an agent in the field, but it isn't the same level of sensitivity Lucy displays in the first episode when she can sense the emotions (happy, positive, vengeful, murderous) attached to an object. For example.
  
  
• Charisma: Ask his friends, and even his enemies, and they will all agree that one of his best features is his charm. It starts with his smile, which is often remarked upon, and he knows how to use it to great success. From opening doors, to reassuring difficult clients, Lockwood knows how to work a room and charm people into doing what he wants them to do. He is also quick witted, able to pick up on discreet social and conversational cues, well read, and 'to the manor born', all of which allows him to pick the best response in most situations.
  
  
• Sword master: Almost all agents are trained in the art of fencing and an operative's iron rapier is often their most powerful personal protection against Visitors. Lockwood has been hailed as a fencing prodigy, having soundly defeated operatives much older and more experienced. Whether he's wielding his rapier or an umbrella, his blade work is considered legendary in canon.
  
  
• Leadership: Though his charm adds to his natural leadership ability, Lockwood's skill at leadership is more than his winning smile. He looks at people not pieces of paper, and he isn't interested in working with the normal, or the status quo just because it is comfortable. He embraces the quirks that made George unemployable at Fittes, the risk that made other agencies close the door in Lucy's face.
  
  It could be said that Lockwood is just hiring who he can get, but we see that it is more than that. He hires people like George and Lucy, then stands back and trusts them to do the very thing he hired them to do. There is not just charisma and charm to his leadership, there is also wisdom beyond his years. He never asks anyone to take a risk that he won't take himself, he does his best to protect his people, and though he likes the limelight he is often the first one to give credit where credit is due.

PERSONALITY:

• Charming: It is rare to see Lockwood without a smile on his face. According to his friends -and even his enemies- it is his greatest weapon. Sometimes it is his armor, but most of the time it is a genuine expression of friendliness and empathy for those he's around. Though reserved when it comes to his personal life, Lockwood does his best to be positive towards, and fully engage, with those around him. It is this quality that often helps set clients at ease, despite his youth. He may use this as a way to deflect attention away from himself, but there is a sincerity in his interest, and it is this genuine warmth, kindness and sincere desire to help people that often acts as a good balance against his natural arrogance.



• Passionate: Lockwood has a passionate ambition (some would say obsession) to have one of the most successful agencies in London. He has a very well-developed sense of confidence in his worth, his goals, and this belief in himself often helps others believe in him. Though it may be fueled by the personal losses he suffered young, Lockwood has a passion for being proactive about tackling the Problem, not just reacting to it. Though his ambition to do things his way is often viewed as just arrogance, it comes from a genuine belief that people -ADULTS- have become complacent with the Problem. Lockwood wants to see actual changes in this fight against The Problem, and if he must make his own solution to get the work done, then that is what he will do.



• Confident: While he can come off as abrasive, he is a natural born leader, often display wisdom well beyond his year. Such as how he takes on Lucy based on her abilities, not just her paperwork. He does like the limelight, but he is always generous with his support for George and Lucy's work and when things go sideways (really sideways, not just leaving chains behind) he takes the responsibility on his own shoulders. He is very protective of his people and believes in letting them do what they're good at, even if he's not so sure it is the best course. For example, Lucy's relationship with the Skull.



• Secretive: Lockwood has a habit of always believing he's the smartest in the room. He tends to keep his own counsel in regarding what should be done, when and where. An example of this is seen in episode two when he sends Lucy and George off to get dinner while Lockwood takes it upon himself to put news of their intention to pursue Anabelle's killer based on Lucy's psychic connection with Anabelle. This after Lucy specifically asked him to leave her out of the public eye. He is also extremely reserved when it comes to the subject of his parents and his family in general. While it is obvious that these losses are what fuel his ambition, passion and also his reckless actions, he shuts people out rather than allow himself supportive relationships.



• Reckless: Though he is protective of his team, Lockwood is dangerously reckless when it comes to his own safety. It is noted by many different characters over the course of the series that Lockwood has a death wish, and Flo Bones even says she was surprised to see him because she figured he'd have gotten himself killed. He often throws himself in harm's way any chance he gets, and even admits that his plans often have a suicidal component in the mix. He can also be reckless from the perspective of committing the Agency to a job that others wouldn't touch with a hundred-and-ten-foot pole in the pursuit of glory. Though, to his credit, he usually has a plan in mind when George and Lucy are part of the equation. He doesn't want them hurt and never hesitates to put himself between them and any threat.



• Arrogant: Simply put Lockwood believes he is the smartest person in the room. Lockwood strives to project an air of calm, cool, detachment but when people challenge his competency and/or the legitimacy of his agency and his team, he gets very defensive. For example, his relationship with Kipps. When things go his way, his extreme self-confidence shines but when things don't go the way he plans them, his wounded pride often causes him to make bad decisions; i.e Kipps and the wager during the Bickerstaff case. The good news is, Lucy and George are often there to be Lockwood's better angels and Lockwood does show genuine growth at the end of the series because of his relationship with his friends, but it is still a work in progress.

SAMPLE:

Turning on the charm

Being friendly, yet cagey with an adult

Rare opportunity with a castmate

INVENTORY:

• Long dark rain coat cut at the sides to accommodate a rapier.
  
• Swordbelt containing 1 iron rapier, 1 digital thermometer, 1 specialized flashlight (it has 3 different settings; regular white light, yellow light, red light), 3 magnesium flares and 6 salt bombs (sand + salt+ silver fulminate)
  
• White dress shirt with bloodstained shoulder
  
• Wristwatch
  
• Narrow black tie
  
• Black slacks
  
• Faded purple Converse All Star high-tops
  
• Pink socks
  
• A silver ring with an inset emerald cut emerald

NOTES: N/A

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? If there is something that works well for the game I would love plot heavy for this busy bee. Otherwise I am just as happy with something light/easy.

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

Aloy / Horizon

[datapoint]

PLAYER NAME: Theresa
CONTACT: PM this account
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Jenn has graciously invited me 🙏

CHARACTER: Aloy
CANON: Horizon
CANON POINT: Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores, Epilogue

BACKGROUND: Actual Wikipedia article! We made the big time, kids. There is also a more jargon-laden article on the fandom wiki. Elevator pitch: raised as an outcast in a post-apocalyptic, tribal Earth. Later finds out she is the savior of mankind, literally born to avert a second apocalypse. Kills a lot of robot dinosaurs in the process.

ABILITIES | POWERS: Aloy has no powers to speak of because she is a normie. That said, she has been undergoing intense physical training since she was six years old (she's roughly 20 now), so she is an extremely capable warrior and hunter, and is an expert in stealth, climbing, survivalism, etc. She also has a genius-level intellect and keen observational skills. Anachronistically for somebody living in the far-off, post-apocalyptic future, Aloy is a digital native, so she can figure out advanced tech just by messing around for a bit, and has a rudimentary understanding of mechanical engineering. For posterity's sake, her totally mundane abilities include sewing, crafting, cooking, and all the basic things you'd expect from someone who grew up in the woods and was taught to be self-sufficient.

PERSONALITY:
Proclaimed an outcast from the moment of her birth, Aloy grew up in near-solitude with only an austere father figure for company. She had no playmates and no one to vent her frustrations to about the nature of her ostracization, as her caretaker (Rost) was customarily tight-lipped about such things. Still, despite her isolation, she learned about love and duty from Rost, leading her to develop a strong sense of ethics and to value kindness and generosity.

Apart from Rost, the most formative experience in her upbringing was finding a Focus when she was six. Tucked away in forbidden ruins, the Focus introduced Aloy to a wider world and acted as a rudimentary education in literacy and digital technology. Finding the Focus at such an early time in her life was a godsend, leaving her open to experiences that the rest of her tribe culturally shuns.

Because of her social isolation, Aloy is kind of awkward and prone to being blunt and sarcastic. This is tempered by the influence of Rost, who taught her about kindness; she is never a jerk to people for no reason, and although she's not really friendly, she is always open to help those who need it and displays a great capacity for empathy and value for human life.

Perhaps also because of her isolation—or possibly her natural intellect nurtured by the digital education from her Focus (or a combination of both)—Aloy is skeptical of things she deems needlessly steeped in tradition, such as various superstitions and unfair or cruel treatment. She likes to analyze things herself instead of simply accepting what is "known" by everyone else, seeking the truth whenever she has the chance.

It's this fixation on the "truth" that drives Aloy's existence: when she was six, it was training to win the Proving (an endurance trial to see who earns acceptance into the Nora tribe) to learn who her mother was. After the Proving, it was to find who massacred everyone. And after that, is was finding why she was wanted dead by the assassins—and who the mysterious woman that looked like her was in her Focus. Aloy's designation as Seeker of the Nora is fitting, then, because she sure does seek a lot.

Aloy's other chief motivator is ensuring the egalitarian respect and compassion that she believes everyone deserves. Because of her isolation and the cruelty she endured by the rest of the Nora tribe, Aloy is especially empathetic to those who are outliers in their own right, and naturally fights against those who take advantage of the less fortunate.

Her fixation on her goals can sometimes blind her to other things going around her, but she almost without deviation will stop and help outsiders; no matter how far she gets or how many accolades she receives, she always thinks of herself as not fitting in. But instead of being bitter (most of the time), she'll help the "privileged" just as readily as she'll help anyone else. More than her Focus and genetics have influenced her, it's still Rost's lessons of love and kindness that inform her decisions most of all.

SAMPLE:
TDM sample #1 and TDM sample #2

INVENTORY:

Clothing/armor. Metal plates stitched to well-worn leather armor. The plates have the capability of projecting personal hard light shields, but the power source is dead so they're just there to look fancy now.

Spear. A long, solid spear made of wood and metal.

Hunter bow & hip quiver w/60 arrows.

Pullcaster. A handheld tool with a sturdy, retractable wire ending in a hook. Used to pull objects or as an aid in climbing.

Shieldwing. A small, hand-held device that can project a hard light "umbrella," used for gently descending from heights. The umbrella can collapse if hit with enough physical force.

A pouch full of medicinal berries and flowers.

Focus. A small, triangular device that rests on its user's temple. This is part smartphone and part augmented reality device, and it allows her to receive basic blurb-type info (e.g., a puddle of blood will be labeled "blood, fresh"). The Focus's primary usage is interfacing with technology: she can wirelessly receive digital files and view (or listen to) them through an AR holographic interface. When scanning machines with moving parts, it also allows her to virtually dissect their components. This doesn't seem to extend to organic matter: if she scans a rabbit, it'll just be labeled "rabbit" instead of giving her an X-ray view of its organs.

NOTES: None I can think of!

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? I would dearly enjoy a plot-heavy intro 👀 But I am A-OK with taking a back seat if proportionally needed!

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

Sam Wilson | MCU

[unclesam]

PLAYER NAME: Inky
CONTACT: inkcharm or inkcharm#4573
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Enabled by y'all on plurk, invited by Val (honeyfoot)

CHARACTER: Sam Wilson
CANON: MCU
CANON POINT: Post "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier"

BACKGROUND: Sam @ MCU Wiki

ABILITIES | POWERS:
Pararescue:
Sam has received the nearly two year grueling Air Force PJ Training, also known as "Superman School" that includes training from multiple military branches and is designed to cover a wide range of special ops and rescue skills. Pararescuemen are combat medics that are dispatched into the field to rescue injured soldiers in a wide variets of situations. The training includes the following courses according to the US Air Force: Basic Military Trainig, Special warfare Preparatory, Assessment and Selection Course, Special Warfare Pre-Dive and Combat Dive Course, Airborne School (Parachuting), Military Free-Fall Course, SERE Training (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape), various Paramedic/EMT courses.

Paramedic/Combat Medic:
As part of his pararescue training, Sam is able to provide on-site emergency medical care with improvised means or under less than ideal conditions.

Flight/Pilot:
Outside of his parachute/skydiving training, Sam is shown competently handling aircraft familiar to him. Most of his flight prowess is depicted with the EXO-7 FALCON wingsuit and follow-up models, however, a combination wingsuit and thruster pack that keeps its pilot airborn. Sam is extremely fast and agile with this. Canonically, the EXO-7 was still a prototype, with only Sam Wilson and his wingman Riley piloting the suits, implying they'd been testing the FALCON suits mark 1 through 6 as well. later, Stark Industries would improve on the prototype design, and at his current canon point, Sam as Captain America has instead received a new take on the suit as designed by Wakandan technicians.

Martial Arts/Acrobatics:
As part of his unique training and later combat outings as the Falcon and becoming Captain America, Sam has developed a unique fighting style. Trained in aerial and unarmed combat, his style includes a combination of firearm improvisation, flight maneuvers and modern army combat styles that are influenced by elements from Muay Thai, American Boxing and Taekwondo, relying on fast and acrobatic maneuvers, often employing kicks boosted by momentum and his thrusters. Additionally, in order to handle the shifting equilibrium of his fast flight speeds, Sam trains hard to be nimble and acrobatic. In addition to regular runs, we see his training including acrobatics to keep his body in constant, fast motion.

Marksman:
While mostly using the retractable sidearms of his former Falcon now Captain America suit, Sam has been shown using a variety of firearms with skill and accuracy, as befits his military training. Additionally, he has trained to use the vibranium shield offensively as well as defensively, throwing it with great skill and accuracy.

Mechanics/Engineering:
Sam performs maintenance and calibrations both on his wingsuit as well as his drone in between missions, not trusting specialised professionals over his own skills. He's also seen doing repairs on his family's boat, and has canonically pitched improvements for his gear to Stark Industries, suggesting an above average skill level when it comes to mechanics/engineering.

Social/Community Work:
Sam has attended LSU for a bachelor's degree that he would have needed to carry out the work we see him doing upon his first appearance in the MCU, when he works as a counselor at Veteran Affairs in DC, having worked with veterans and their families in need of professional help for an unknown number of years at that point. He has theoretical and practical knowledge in this area of social work. Furthermore from his time at home in Delacroix, he's used to lending hands to various community efforts, as his parents were and his sister still is considered a pillar of the community, often providing food for those less fortunate and packing meal kits for others in a soup kitchen-esque setup.

Fishing/Cooking:
Sam has spent his childhood and youth working on a fishing boat and for his parents' seafood business. He has reasonable skill at fishing and handling fishing related tools, can be seen fixing nets, is comfortable on boats, and has a good grasp of cooking especially surrounding seafood.

Languages:
Sam speaks English and Arabic.

PERSONALITY:
Compassion, Empathy, Helping Others VS Reckless Self-Sacrifice
Unwavering Moral Code & Unflinchingly Loyalty VS Wary of Authority & Stubborn Persistence
Level-Headed with a Sense of Humour VS Open without Opening Up

Core traits of Sam's personality are perhaps best summed up in the pararescuemen motto: "These Things We Do, That Others May Live". Sam is a man dedicated to helping others and doing what he believes to be right. Sam is ready to extend a helping hand, empathy and understanding - sometimes even to those who oppose him and seek to do him harm, willing to hear others out and stick up for the little people, the disenfranchised, the ones left behind by the world. Not ready to stop at just feeling with and for people, though, he's ready and willing to take action. If he sees something done that he considers wrong, he will speak up about it, make his stance known and act if he is able to act. If in doubt, he refuses to take the easy way out. He's a man who lives his life in service to others - from being a pararescue to becoming a counselor at the VA, to jumping back in the fight to help Captain America, to giving up his career to search the world for Bucky Barnes and eventually become an Avenger, to pushing for the betterment of the world when taking up the mantle of Captain America. He's ready and willing to put himself in harm's way for the right people - this can included opponents. We see Sam save Bucky from an accident that Bucky, being a super-soldier, could likely have walked off despite being lethal to a regular human. The maneuver puts Sam himself at great risk of physical harm, but it shows that he sees others as people first, their abilities and use second. He will take a bullet even for someone who could walk a bullet off, and would sacrifice himself to do the right thing without hesitation. Similarly, Sam spends the runtime of the Falcon and the Winter Soldier trying to help the people he encounters, even going so far as to accept responsibility for problems he didn't cause, but inherited.

His refusal to stand idly by in the face of injustice or people in need can lead to Sam putting himself in harm's way physically and emotionally. He gives up his career and personal life in DC without second thought to do the right thing, throws himself at enemy combatants with reckless abandon for a man who flies through the air in nothing but light tac gear and a glorified jet pack. We see him invested in setting wrongs right, but we also see that in order to do that, Sam will put himself on the line - the biggest example is when during the events of Civil War, Sam is the one who makes the call that he and the team will stay behind to cover Steve's and Bucky's escape, knowing that it would get him arrested and thrown into prison without trial. We also see this when he spends hours at a police station waiting for Bucky's release despite having been racially profiled and despite being justifiably angry and upset with Bucky, and when Sam refuses to fight back against Karli Morgenthau in their final confrontation, when she eventually has a gun on him and he still refuses to hurt her. He's not a pacifist, but he'll fight and die for the right cause, and give more of himself than he should by any right in order to help people - and he will not rest until he's done so. If in doubt, he refuses to take the easy way out, and maintains a solid balance of conviction that never tips too far into cynicism or optimism. While he can be swayed, he will ultimately stay true to himself. His loyalty isn't the easiest to gain, but it's incredibly hard to lose. Sam doesn't give up on people easily, and can be incredibly stubborn in his convictions.

Sam's sense of justice and morality can easily put him in conflict with authority figures, whom he does not blindly follow. Optimistic when it comes to other people, he is jaded when it comes to those in authority. This wariness of authority figures can of course easily become detrimental to Sam himself. He says of himself that he's happy with his civilian life because "no one is giving him orders" anymore, and rejects an offer to be recruited by Nick Fury himself after impressing him on the battlefield. It's when he's treated as an equal - as a partner - that he joins the Avengers team. He also openly flaunts orders to operate in a 'subtle' manner when doing contract work with the Air Force in "Falcon and the Winter Soldier", mocking the Air Force general bossing him around, and later having little more than open disdain and sharp words for the newly minted Captain America, John Walker. And most famously, at the end of Falcon and the Winter Soldier he very publicly and vocally dresses down a group of politicians and demands that they have to do better with the power they hold in the world. Sam will gladly work alongside people he respects, but have an authority figure in charge, be it law enforcement, military personnel or politician, and Sam will absolutely become more sharp tongued and display a habit of flaunting their regulations and the respect many would assume they're owed due to their station alone.

Sam is able to remain level-headed and firm without portraying the full extent of the anger or hurt he might feel, often willing to diffuse a situation with humorous remarks, teasing and bantering for other's sake over raising his own voice. True anger leads to him shutting others out more than it does to him raising his voice. While being open towards others, Sam rarely if ever opens up about his own feelings, trauma and needs. Even close friends are left in the dark about much of his inner life. Patient with others far beyond what many would put up with if he considers a person worth it, Sam can and will be hurt by others, letting them close but ever kept at arm's length without getting pushed away - and often without noticing that's what he's doing. Sam is able to remain level-headed and firm without portraying the full extent of the anger or hurt he might feel, often willing to diffuse a situation with humorous remarks, often to the detriment of his ability to share his hurt and trauma unless he's using it to relate to others. We can see this in how he brings up his most traumatic personal loss only once in canon in order to show sympathy with a loss Steve Rogers suffered. Likewise, in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Sam spends much of the runtime deeply hurt and affected by Bucky Barnes' actions, without ever explaining this to him properly other than shutting Bucky out emotionally and snarking back at him, covering his real emotions behind angry snark or sullen silence - while also still regularly checking in on Bucky's wellbeing.

SAMPLE:
Sam would rather do what he thinks is right than what the mission expects of him
https://ximilia.dreamwidth.org/49649.html?thread=6702833#cmt6702833>A town hall speech on the ethics of getting involved
Understanding loss and grief
Some introspections, PTSD, quipping, the works.

INVENTORY:
Captain America Flight Suit & Wing Pack
The suit is basically light weight tactical gear that offers some base line physical protection. It includes a slim, silver jetpack that clips onto the shoulders and houses with retractable wings made of vibranium that allow Sam to fly at great speeds and with pin point precision while maintaining maneuverability. The wings can be used as blunt force weapons, and are strong enough to break into asphalt to provide a stable dome that shields Sam from a helicopter to the head. The suit also includes combat goggles that enhance the wearer's vision, allowing to partially zoom in and track objects beyond human eyesight ability, e.g. tracking heat signatures and foot prints, as well as a wrist monitor that interfaces with Redwing for control and battlefield overview.

Captain America's Shield
A vibranium shield impervious to most damage from regular human weaponry, can be thrown and bounced off solid objects, becoming a versatile hand-held offensive and defensive tool. It can be placed on Sam's back, covering the jetpack while still allowing the wings to unfold.

Recon/Combat Drone (Redwing)
Redwing is a recon and combat drone, Wakandan tech with a vibranium chassis, when not in use is housed in the silver "backpack" wing case from which the drone can easily be launched. Includes extensive scanners, projectile grappling handcuff line, twin machine guns mounted on the wings, a small missile launcher in the center, a high powered laser that with time can cut through metal within reason. Redwing is able to split into three separate pieces to split up fire power, with only the central piece retaining full recon functionality. Although highly advanced technology capable of interpreting complicated voice commands as well as the wrist controls on Sam's Cap suit, and although Sam talks to Redwing as if it's a pet, the drone is not sentient and fully controlled by him.

Weapons
The wingsuit stores miniature guided missiles that seek out targets predetermined by Redwing, twin machine pistols holstered in the suit, a dual barrel wrist-mounted machine gun.

Note
Canonically the capabilities of Redwing + the goggles is pretty damn invasive, so of course I will never use any of those abilities against other players without express permission/prior plotting, and I'm happy to run anything Sam would try to do with them by the mods, with a 100% understanding that sometimes the answer is going to be "no, you can't do that / this doesn't work right now / shenanigans" ;) Just because Sam's tech theoretically has a capability will never mean I expect it to be fully functional/working all of the time.

NOTES: n/a

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? Happy to go with plot heavy if capabilities allow <3

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

Wen Ning | The Untamed

[fiercechains]

PLAYER NAME: Kitty
CONTACT: PM journal
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Existing Player

CHARACTER: Wen Ning
CANON: The Untamed
CANON POINT: Post canon

BACKGROUND: Here

ABILITIES | POWERS:

- Strength (due to being a puppet he's stronger than any ordinary human)

- Agility (better than a puppet without consciousness)

- Speed (better than a puppet without consciousness)

- Archery

- Medicine (But nowhere as skilled as his sister)

PERSONALITY: Wen Ning, before becoming a puppet, was a very kind and caring young man. To the point where he tries not to allow anyone to suffer.

His loyalty to someone he considers a friend is first shown after Wei Wuxian shows him kindness when helping with his archery skills. The other man had actively given him a bit of boost in confidence even when he'd been a bit shaky in the activity he was doing. After that kindness was shown he continued to show a loyalty that had no bounds. To the point of saving Jiang Wanyin and Wei Wuxian from the Lotus Pier. Wens had taken it over and had killed off Jiang Fengmian and Madam Yu. It had been him, in the dead of night, to help Wei Wuxian retrieve Jiang Wanyin even though his friend had thought him the enemy at first. Something he did his best to prove to the other that he wasn't, that he was there to save them.

Wen Ning takes both Wei Wuxian and Jiang Wanyin back to his sister deciding that hiding them away in the office his sister held would be the safest place for them. It wasn't like their cousin would come looking for them there. While there he petitions his sister to help Jiang Wanyin. After all, the man had been through a lot and he owed quite a bit (in his mind) to Wuxian. To a man who had done nothing but show him that there were those out in the world who were kind, even to people that weren't as good as them. (Or as healthy).

Then, during the Wen indoctrination, even at the risk of himself he steals medicine (from his own sister at that) for someone who had showed kindness to him, someone who had been trapped in a dungeon with a big dog, a mutt that he'd sedated with one of his sister's needles. This is all done despite the fact that his sister had told him that he should stay away from the other man. That he wasn't in the same league as the other, more or less. However, he'd pointed out to his older sister that Wei Wuxian had saved his life. So despite the fact that his own sister had tried to convince him to avoid his friend, the one who saved him, he couldn't. Much less when the man was being tortured by their cousin.

After becoming a living dead boy he doesn't lose any of his innocence or gentle nature. Though that does not mean that he can't feel guilt. Even though he can no longer really show emotion (let's face it, he tries) he is none too happy about the way that things went down when he killed people. (Even a certain Jin because that was his friend's nephew's father). Despite all of the guilt that he feels he doesn't allow that to bring him down. He doesn't allow anything that happened (when he didn't have his consciousness and when a certain demonic cultivator lost control) to take away from who he really is.

The Ghost General is, and always will be, a sworn protector of the people. Of those that he considers friends and family. Even if some of that family now happens to be a man in white who is with the man that he would follow to the ends of the Earth and possibly even beyond.

So it all comes down to a very protective, loyal, gentle, kind living dead boy. Someone who will put his life on the line in order to keep those around him safe. What little bravery he had (and he did have it, look at what he did for Jiang Wanyin and Wei Wuxian) before becoming a puppet he will gladly show for the rest of his life as a puppet.


SAMPLE: TDM & TDM

INVENTORY:

- Clothes on his back
- Chains

NOTES: Wen Ning is a puppet who will sink under water due to being a living dead boy. So something that keeps him from sinking to the bottom of the lakes (or any type of water), especially if he's going to help people get to safety (without the use of a boat).

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? Let's go plot-heavy

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

Ruka Minazuki | Fatal Frame 4

[moonsounds]

PLAYER NAME: Kalyn
CONTACT: ovals
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: points at eyes, points at ruxi

CHARACTER: Ruka Minazuki
CANON: Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse
CANON POINT: Phase IX: Descent, when she enters her family home

BACKGROUND: https://wiki.thelostvillage.net/index.php/Ruka_Minazuki

ABILITIES | POWERS: Ruka is able to see spirits, but that's about all. Without her Camera Obscura she doesn't appear capable of exorcising them or anything like that.

As a descendent of the Tsukimori Maidens, her music has the ability to soothe agitation and in particular the Moon Song, which at this time she can only remember snippets of, can help trigger lost or buried memories in people

PERSONALITY: Ruka is dedicated and driven. As a child she studied piano and this continued well into her adulthood. She is studious and hard-working, practicing and honing her skills. It brings her peace and also brings her closer to her lost memories, as well as being a source of peace for the others. Madoka talks about Ruka playing for them often, which implies Ruka keeps touch with them and cares about their well-being. Even despite her mother making her promise to never return to the island, Ruka returns anyhow to help her friends--and herself--with recovering the truth of what happened there in the hopes of saving themselves and each other.

It's this dedication to her craft and to her friends and family that helps save them in the end. Ruka is able to remember most of the lunar melody and her ability to read music helps her put together the rest of the song needed to "calm the moon" and clear the Moonlight Syndrome.

Ruka is also shown to be very caring and kind, even from a young age. She constantly worries about her father working so hard, and even as an adult she worries about his spirit and what happened to him. Instead of being angry and upset with how he treated her and caused her to develop Moonlight Syndrome in the first place, she's more concerned with figuring out why he was doing all this and what his thoughts were.

Ruka is curious to a fault. While it's natural to be curious and inquisitive about some things, Ruka can't leave well enough alone. Once she gets it in her head to figure something out, she'll stop at nothing to see it through the end. While in away this is a good thing, it's also what led her to returning to the dangerous island of her childhood. Her mother's pleas forbidding her from going back weren't enough for her to quit.

Also thanks to her father and to the Moonlight Syndrome, Ruka is wary of things like masks, mirrors, and the moon. She also likely has some unease with hospitals and the like, but generally, despite having the daylights scared out of her at every turn, she's learned to manage her fear quietly. Mostly so she doesn't attract unwanted attention from other ghosts.

SAMPLE: https://westwhere.dreamwidth.org/50527.html?thread=7815775#cmt7815775

INVENTORY: 1. Camera Obscura
2. Ruka's patient interview
3. Ruka's diary (entries 1-3)
4. Sayaka's diary (entries 1-3)
5. Tape Recorder
6. 3 out of the 4 pieces of the Mask of the Lunar Eclipse

NOTES: Annnot that I can think of

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? hit me up man i am Ready.

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

marc spector, marvel comics

[vestments]

PLAYER NAME: laura
CONTACT: spandex
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: waggles eyebrows hi

CHARACTER: Marc Spector ( Steven Grant / Jake Lockley )
CANON: Marvel Comics
CANON POINT: Vol 9, issue 9

BACKGROUND: Wiki

ABILITIES | POWERS:

Marc does not have any powers per se — he is a human in mostly great physical shape, who tends to push his body as hard as he can. He's acrobatic and a skilled boxer, proficient in multiple martial arts and a decent marksman (ex-military!). He's broken near enough every bone in his body, doesn't sleep anywhere near as much as he should, and generally has a lackadaisical approach to the concept of 'self-care'. Look, it may not be a traditional ability but, please, give the man something.

He speaks multiple languages with a high degree of fluency outside of his native English: Hebrew, Arabic, French, and Symkarian.

For the sake of transparency, Marc has been stated to have had powers before — strength that waxes and wanes with the phase of the moon, but as with everything with Moon Knight, the subsequent rewriting of this has been: Marc (may have just) believed he had strength that waxed and waned with the phase of the moon, and pushed himself more or less accordingly so. The only other supernatural ability that Marc has been stated to have is the inability to die, but even this is less an innate ability and more a reliance on Khonshu to bring him back from death.
NB. irrelevant to the here and now, but (the real) Khonshu is presently imprisoned on Asgard and as of present canon, is stated to be limited in his ability to resurrect his FISTS. Marc doesn't know this.

BUT as Khonshu will not be present (outside of any delusions or hallucinations Marc may have), this ability outside of game mechanics will be null and void.

The big deal in terms of Marc and quote-unquote abilities is in relation to telepathy and psychic powers: though Marc has precisely none of his own, as the revelation of Khonshu being a REAL BOY has come to the fore, so has his effect on Marc's psyche. That is, whilst Marc does suffer from DID, depression and has a debatable and tenuous grip on reality, like, most of the time, Khonshu has made precisely none of that better. Whilst Marc, therefore, has no ability to prevent mind reading or mental manipulation in and of itself, what he does have is a terrifying mind that is utterly unpleasant for anyone/thing else to experience. Even esoteric, man-eating houses.

PERSONALITY:

As a by-the-by, given the nature of Marc's character and the medium of superhero comics as a whole, Marc's history and experiences have been rewritten and retconned a handful of times, however in the specific context of Moon Knight (as compared to, like, Spider-Man or whoever), these retcons and changes in personal experience are generally attributed — in canon — to Marc's incredible tendency to be a very unreliable narrator. What he believes he experiences is not always reflective of reality, and his acceptance/not of this is a consistent thread throughout the character's run.

Anyway—as the WE DON'T TALK ABOUT IT MCU adaptation of Moon Knight so succinctly put it: Marc Spector is a troubled man. He's difficult, abrasive and single-minded. He's ruthless, reckless and generally considered a liability. He's dramatic, irritable and angsty! He avoids dealing with his problems in favour of punching (not always) bad guys and yelling at an Egyptian god that only he can see. (Or, occasionally, a statue of said god. The god does exist, but it's Complicated. Half the time, Marc is just yelling at delusions and externalisations of his Problems.) He has a questionable grip on reality!!

Marc's early history can be summarised as: challenging. He had a tempestuous relationship with his father (this forming the bulk of his #daddyissues, which feed into his relationship with Khonshu both perceived and real) — their disagreements and Elias' subsequent disowning of Marc were ultimately about pacifism vs violence, and how the former was a stronger tool in the face of anti-semtisim and bigotry than the latter. Marc disagreed and frequently (read: always) chose violence as a reaction to almost anything he perceived as problematic in his life.

Elias himself has been described — by Marc — as the opposite to Marc: kind and gentle, deeply committed to his faith and his people. By contrast, Marc holds the firm belief that there is nothing kind nor gentle in himself, and is fully aware that he gave up his religion and his people at the merest possibility that he might not die. Marc — in contrast to his beliefs as a young adult — has reached the conclusion that he's weak, and deeply regrets almost every choice he's made.

(The very short version of this is that Marc deeply, deeply hates himself. That's it, that's the personality section. Marc "is it any wonder I developed DID? I'd prefer to be anyone other than myself" Spector.)

Prior to death ("death"), Marc was a mercenary, very happy to work for absolutely whoever employed his services for as long as it meant he got paid (he is a war criminal...). Over time, he admits he "grew a conscience", something that led to his death and subsequent rebirth (as it were) as Moon Knight. Whether Marc did die or not is ultimately irrelevant: his belief that he did was the turning point in him being a completely awful human being to becoming a less awful human being. From Marc's perspective, however, nothing he has done since has ever been able to make up for his past, and he's continuously striving for redemption — a process not as fluid as Marc would like given his propensity for violence and making the worst choices.

(It's worth mentioning that Marc has precisely zero hobbies outside of doing Moon Knight stuff. It's not, then, that any non-vigilante hobbies are being glossed over — Marc just really, genuinely doesn't have any. He hasn't even had an actual job since his mercenary days. The man's life is singular and, frankly, sad.)

His dedication and determination to serving Khonshu and what he perceives to be his debt and duty are entirely unwavering, but his methodology raises questions (as he would point out, known FUCKING VIOLENT ASSHOLE, Frank Castle, considers him crazy) and has served to make him an incredibly unpopular superhero (debatable term) within New York. Marc is unpredictable and unreliable, prone to erratic behaviour that very few others can make sense of and he's not aided by his staunch refusal to ever elaborate or communicate to any worthwhile level (he literally burned his Avengers ID card). The few times that Moon Knight has been tolerated to any large degree, Moon Knight has either: not been Marc, or has been Marc pretending to be someone else (Jake Lockley, as opposed to like, actual Jake Lockley. I'm sorry, comics are wild. At least I'm not playing Spider-Man anymore.).

Marc ain't okay, man.

While he wants to be a good person, he has a tendency to go off the rails, to need to be pulled back and reined in by others and, unfortunately for him, he doesn't always listen. Marc's mental state is typically fragile, even early on in his career as Moon Knight — he placed great importance in the presence of Khonshu's statue ("liberated" from Egypt) and had an identity-based breakdown (look...) when he believed it to be smashed to pieces mid-battle; through to years later in his career, having defeated his nemesis, Raoul Bushman, but finding himself rapidly hitting rock bottom in the process (carving off Bushman's face, taking it home, wearing it, branding criminals with a crescent moon if he doesn't outright kill them — behaviours that are generally frowned on, you know?); and then, later still, helping to take over the world and steal the powers and abilities of his colleagues because his moon god was like 'yeah, no, it's the best course of action, please believe me, bro'. ACTUAL PHRASING MAY HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT.

Marc is very good at not questioning what he should or should not be doing until it's generally far too late and he's in the middle of something awful. The conscience he great at, like, 30 or so? Yeah, it's there but Marc is also very easily manipulated and weirdly, for someone that has lingering issues with authority and authoritative figures, really good at following orders.

Marc's self-loathing and self-hatred is consistently funnelled into 'Marc Spector' rather than any other identity he wears — Moon Knight and Mr. Knight, for all else that Marc is and does, do help people and are capable of good things, but Marc doesn't consider any of his positive actions to be the result of Marc Spector (he occasionally talks about himself in the third person, too). He has an unhealthy tendency to separate and partition his life: Mr. Knight is the superhero who protects his local community, who is capable of working alongside the police and who does not commit horrific acts of violence. Then there's Moon Knight, the less sanitised and people-friendly superhero ("superhero"), who does commit questionable actions. And then there's Marc Spector, the guy who fucks up every single aspect of Marc/Moon Knight's lives by being an awful person at all times.

Canonically, he's diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, but it's not used as an explanation for Marc's frankly terrible life choices at any point. Those, canon is keen to point out, are all Marc's doing, even if Marc's acceptance of his DID¹ veers between healthy and himself blaming all of his problems on that rather than acknowledging that it's him, he's the problem.
¹ Marc's DID is canonically stated as presenting atypically — comics!! — on account of his brain's structure being irrevocably changed after being touched by a god. That is, Marc battles with mental illness and has head his messed with.

Steven Grant and Jake Lockley are the two other alters part of the Moon Knight system. As of his canon point, he's in the process of wilfully and deliberately suppressing them for two reasons: one, his desire to be "normal"; and two, his belief that Steven and Jake are better people than Marc is and that the people he cares for will leave him for Steven and Jake if he allows anyone to meet them. (Or: Marc needs to feel in control of his life, even if he is not actually in control of his life.)

This current status quo is a direct reversal of how Marc is first met in canon — then, Marc was vehemently denying his DID in favour of asserting that 'Marc Spector', 'Steven Grant', 'Jake Lockley' and even 'Moon Knight' are alter-egos (who was considered to be the 'real' identity at this point? A bone of contention—). Despite everyone around Marc knowing Marc as Marc first, 'Steven Grant' was the "alter-ego" seen the most — an urbane, charming, millionaire investor who hated Marc Spector as much as Marc hated (still hates) himself, whilst Marc was mostly seen as Moon Knight and just Moon Knight.

Steven, whose opinion of Marc often mirrored Marc's at this point in time, repeatedly stated that Marc was unneeded, an unnecessary reminder of [their] past, whilst Marc himself insisted that he died in the desert and viewed himself as a ghost (healthy). This was the closest Marc, Steven, and Jake have come to co-existing for any real length of time...

Marc, whilst not meaning to, tends to get incredibly and wholly wrapped up in his own issues and matters of self that he doesn’t always (read: rarely ever) stops to consider the impact of his actions on anyone else. The positives, though, are that he's incredibly protective, loyal (admittedly, not always to the right people or causes), determined and resourceful (again, not always in the right way, but An Attempt Is Made).

His actions have led to a life of reclusiveness and isolation he's trying to get over (kind of), have led to his long-term partner deciding 'fuck this' and skipping the country with their daughter (who, for obvious reasons, Marc rarely sees), and his one (1) friend also deciding 'fuck this' — after a decade plus of their companionship, Marc has reached the conclusion that their decisions to leave him are reflective of his ability to do nothing but hurt others around him. That is, he's ultimately very good at self-sabotage, but compared to where he used to be, he is better.

Basically: angry and sad man uses violence as a poor coping mechanism to deal with his life, is then SHOCKED to discover it's a poor coping mechanism and hates how the violence makes him feel... All the while continuing to be an angry, sad, violent man.

SAMPLE: psl, tdm.

INVENTORY:

suit (white suit with crescent moon details, fam.)
crescent darts (five) — these are literally just throwing darts shaped like crescent moons. the man has a theme and he's sticking to it.
truncheon — this. it can function as a club (nice), nunchaku, and grappling hook. it's white (because it can't be moon shaped). he's very fond of it. after his crescent darts, it's his second favourite weapon.

NOTES: No...

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? gimme what u got (by which i mean, like, whatever works out best balance-wise given workloads!)

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

Shen Yuan | The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System

[xiaoxiuya]

PLAYER NAME: Drake
CONTACT: Discord: SilverDrake#1436
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Referred by CellarSpider#9984/PaleAntiquarian

CHARACTER: Shen Yuan/Qingqiu
CANON: The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System, by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu
CANON POINT: Halfway through book two, after his death by self-detonation but before his resurrection in the fungal body.

BACKGROUND: Shen Yuan was born in a world like ours, in China at some point between the mid-80s or early 90s. His parents were wealthy enough to afford to have four children despite China’s One Child Policy, and as the third son with two highly motivated and capable older brothers Shen Yuan never felt like he had any reason to struggle or achieve anything in particular, as long as he didn’t embarrass himself or his family. He grew up to be a lonely, disaffected, and deeply closeted adult, who spent all his time binging webnovels alone in his apartment until the day he suddenly died of food poisoning, while raging-posting over the inglorious ending to his latest hyper-fixation.

For the sake of convenience I treat July 2015 as the date of his death, as that was the month his home canon began serialized publication on the internet. However, Shen Yuan’s death was not the end of his story: he woke up in the world of the book he’d just finished reading, Proud Immortal Demon Way, in the body of one of the most important characters. In fact he’d woken up in the body of the protagonist’s immoral and abusive mentor, Shen Qingqiu.

Imagine how scary it would be to fall asleep while watching the prequels and wake up to discover you’d possessed Sheevy P, and now a disembodied voice in your head is telling you that it’s your job to mentor Anakin Skywalker and fix the plot. That’s the burden that was dumped on poor Shen Yuan’s shoulders. Obviously he was terrified of the ignoble demise that eventually awaited him (and Shen Qingqiu’s death was both more final and bloodier than Palpatine’s!) but it took him an entire volume and four long years in-story to come up with a way to escape: he’d die a second time, but with a back-up body waiting to receive his soul just off-screen! And then he’d run away to the far edges of the world map and keep his head down for the rest of forever, living a quiet and peaceful life beneath the protagonist’s notice.

(Obviously it doesn’t work out that way in the book.)

In volume two, an angry and betrayed protagonist confronts Shen Qingqiu (secretly Shen Yuan), and the two of them eventually come to blows. However, protagonist Luo Binghe has taken to carrying around a powerful but extremely cursed sword, which is doing major harm to his body and spirit. Halfway through their fight Shen Yuan realizes that Luo Binghe is on the brink of a complete mental, spiritual, and physical breakdown, and seeing his chance to pull a classic “Villain does a good deed in the 11th hour and redeems themselves before dying” maneuver, embraces Luo Binghe and destroys his own spiritual core, pouring all of his body’s magical energy into Luo Binghe’s body and reversing the breakdown. He dies in Luo Binghe’s arms, content that he has made his escape from the plot and that the protagonist can now forget his grudge against his wicked teacher and achieve a glorious destiny.

(It definitely doesn’t work out like this in the book, either – but that’s not relevant to this application. <3)

ABILITIES | POWERS: - Knowledge of the concept of the multiverse as a basic fact of reality.
Encyclopedic knowledge of the fantasy genre and associated tropes, including real-world media (Shen Yuan has canonically read Harry Potter); ability to draw workable conclusions about his observed reality through comparison to fiction. (I wasn’t able to find any specific rules about 4th-walling in the game info, but my personal policy is to always talk things out with other players and follow their preferences before letting Shen Yuan 4th-wall through in-game dialogue. IC-wise he tends to be extremely cagey about the subject, so as to avoid offending anyone or triggering an existential crisis.)
Basically instead of having Shen Yuan enter the game with a bunch of fancy powers already in place, my interest is in having him gradually empower himself over time by pursuing relationships, collecting special items or equipment, and studying the setting’s magic system.

PERSONALITY: Shen Yuan is his own most unreliable narrator. He would describe himself as lazy, arrogant, overly-particular, and somewhat ridiculous. Of these only the last one has any significant basis in reality. Actually Shen Yuan is extremely intelligent in all matters except emotional awareness, with a strong drive to protect his friends and those weaker than him. He has an enormous capacity for love and affection, but he’s so out of touch with his own feelings that he tends to under-estimate his own importance in other people’s lives, frequently leading to misunderstanding and heartbreak. He is artistic and scholarly, and after living for seven full years in a xianxia world his manners are an odd and frequently jarring mix of “real world internet troll” and “flowery lord of a cultivation sect.” He has a tendency to slip into melancholy when things go badly for people he cares about, and he’s so deep in the closet that he’s besties with Mr. Tumnus.

SAMPLE: 1. https://spiderparlour.dreamwidth.org/5338.html?thread=166106#cmt166106 Crossover PSL with CellarSpider (Kahl’s player) and a mutual friend. “Luguang” is a courtesy name I invented for AUs where Shen Yuan as a xianxia native, rather than occupying the body of Shen Qingqiu, but his personality is the same.
2. https://alloriginalheavenlypillar.dreamwidth.org/421.html?thread=75429#cmt75429 A version of Luo Binghe invades the real world and latches on to Shen Yuan like a very horny limpet. Also features Shen Yuan’s complete inability to notice when someone is hitting on him, even when they’re doing it with a 2x4.
3. https://deercountry.dreamwidth.org/196521.html?thread=35673513#cmt35673513 A thread I did with Peter Graham (from the movie Hereditary) in the deer_country rpg. Dialogue-heavy and features Shen Yuan in a mentorship role, which he always enjoys.

INVENTORY: Pffft, items? He’ll be lucky if he shows up in Akhuras with clothing. The only thing from PIDW that might have had any use to him in-game would have been his sword, Xiu Ya – but it broke when he detonated his core. Oopsie!

NOTES: Shen Yuan comes with a small content warning for internalized homophobia and both transphobic and misogynistic opinions. Although he outwardly treats women no differently from men (indeed, a young woman under his care grew up to be an insightful and reasonably powerful cultivator) his internal monologue may sometimes allude to concepts other players may find upsetting. My personal policy is to avoid using slurs and instead play up the comedic side of his closeted status: he can’t be homophobic if he never realizes people are being gay in his general vicinity, after all! As his CR circle develops I will discuss this further with players interested in pursuing closer relationships with him, and develop a plan from there. It’s never my intention to spoil anyone else’s fun, and I know everyone’s ability to tolerate these issues when they come up in fiction is different.

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? A plot-heavy intro sounds like a lot of fun, but if there’s nothing available I won’t complain about a plot-light intro instead!

[groundrules]

Heya! Thanks so much for your application. Two things, if you're okay to respond within the next 48h:

— do you happen to have any samples that show Shen Qingqiu's current canon point?Afraid the ones you've offered are either AU, don't reflect his canon point, or are a bit short. The other option would be to write one or more samples, in either the canon or Akhuras setting, making sure to please include relevant introspection and not be exclusively action-heavy.

— regarding homophobia/transphobia/misogyny: it's understood that these opinions and views will be held by certain characters, and that they don't reflect player opinions. However, being attitudes that a lot of people face on a daily basis, it'd be great to minimize this as much as possible in a fictional hobby setting. Appreciate that you're already sensitive of that, but, if the application is accepted — if you're also okay to please provide an ooc venue (a post, or whatever you are comfortable with) where people can choose to opt out of tagging with this character if exposure to these views or topics would be triggering to them.

Cal Kestis | Star Wars

[deescalate]

PLAYER NAME: Rose
CONTACT: LadyotRings
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: You can’t get rid of meeeeee

CHARACTER: Cal Kestis
CANON: Star Wars
CANON POINT: Post-Jedi: Survivor

BACKGROUND: Incomplete wiki and my Jedi: Survivor write-up. I’m sorry this is not short at all.

ABILITIES | POWERS: He’s a video game protagonist so any of this can be nerfed as necessary.

Lightsaber skills: Cal is a proficient swordsman, not just in single bladed combat, but having learned five total fighting stances.
- Single blade: Ye olde traditional lightsaber, for a more civilized age. Good for deflecting bullets, one-on-one duels, and miscellaneous rope-cutting.
- Double-bladed: Darth Maul started a trend, apparently. Good for crowd control and just looking really cool.
- Dual blades: When you have two hands, you might as well have two swords. Faster and more powerful, but lowers one’s defense.
- Lightsaber and blaster: I wanna be a cowboy, baby. Sometimes you just need to shoot someone in the face.
- Crossguard: Kylo Ren started a new trend. If lightsabers could be claymores, then it’d look like this. Hits hard and heavy, but has a long wind-up which leaves one vulnerable beforehand.
- Lightsaber throw: It’s like a boomerang; it always comes back.

Force abilities: Cal is a Jedi Knight and can do quite a bit!
- Psychometry: A rare ability he was born with where he can touch an object or be in a location and learn its history through the Force. It doesn’t happen with everything he touches, but seemingly only if there is a strong enough emotion or memory attached.
- Force stasis: AKA Slow. What it says on the tin. He can “freeze” a group of enemies for a short amount of time, making it easier to dispatch them or retreat. Mostly the former. Embracing the darkness replaces stasis entirely after a certain point in the game, but I imagine it would make more sense to switch between depending on his mental state.
- Force pull: He can yoink enemies or objects toward him, sometimes directly onto his lightsaber.
- Force push: He can shove them away. Weaker enemies can be shoved off cliffs or the like and it’s very entertaining.
- Parkour: This includes good ol’ video game wall-running, double jumping, and dashing.
- Mind trick: He is not the Jedi terrorist you’re looking for.
- Confusion: You absolutely should fight with him and not against him. Works on both sentient beings and beasties.
- Creature taming: Useful when you need a ride across large distances!

Miscellaneous: All that extra stuff.
- Can understand droid binary language (AKA all those cute beep boops)
- As a former scrapper, is very good with fixing droids and other mechanical things, as well as customizing equipment to fit his needs
- He sassy

PERSONALITY:

Five years ago, Cal was forced out of hiding when he was discovered to be a Jedi by the Empire. Up until that point he had kept himself hidden and didn’t get involved in anything that would attract attention. After getting swept up in adventure, however, he has grown in confidence and become a thorn in the Empire’s side. Once the spark is lit under him, he embraces what he believes to be his purpose in life, which is to fight the Empire head-on. And considering his background this isn’t surprising. He and his master, Jaro Tapal, were in command of a clone trooper battalion at the end of the Clone Wars when Cal was still a child, about twelve years old. The fight is really all he knows.

This makes him valuable in the fight against the Empire, of course, though it also puts him and anyone close to him in constant danger. He is a powerful Jedi and, thus, a force (haha) to be reckoned with. Rank-and-file soldiers don’t stand a chance against him and so he doesn’t necessarily worry about any threat they could pose. This makes him a little reckless, something Cere doesn’t hesitate to point out to him when she is still part of the Mantis crew. But Cal feels like fighting is the best bet they have against the Empire. After all, if he doesn’t do it, then who will? It’s only recently that he’s been presented with an opportunity for another way to fight, by hopefully gathering Force-sensitive people on the hidden planet of Tanalorr and biding their time until they can pose an actual threat to the Empire.

Some of his drive can be traced back to one of the last things his master told him before he died, to “hold the line.” Cal felt guilt for Jaro Tapal’s death for years, feeling like he was responsible since he couldn’t save him (but, like, he was twelve years old, please calm down, Cal). While he’s come to terms with this and no longer feels that same responsibility, he still takes these words to heart. Cal can be kind of intense with his need to stick it to the Empire all the time and it’s implied that this was one reason the original Mantis crew of Cere, Greez, and Merrin went their separate ways, though they had their own reasons, too. His drive isn’t always a bad thing, though, as it does unite people for his cause, especially those who want to get back at the Empire, whether for personal reasons or not. Cal is easily likable, with his generally optimistic outlook and easy-going attitude. He can be considered the heart of his found families, always beating and always ready for what comes next.

Family is incredibly important to Cal, even if the people he claims as his own aren’t related by blood. He doesn’t really remember his biological parents, but he has called the Jedi Order his family, as well as the original Mantis crew. There is also his second crew that was killed on the mission on Coruscant, except for new hire Bode. Cal may act on his own a lot of the time, but he functions best when he has a safety net to catch him. He knows what it’s like to be alone and cut off from other people and how scary that can be. Having a family he can trust who will support him but also keep him grounded is what he craves. So, it comes as no surprise that he was deeply hurt when the original crew broke up and when the second crew died.

But, you may be asking, aren’t attachments forbidden for a Jedi? And you would be correct! This is something Cal struggles with for a time, especially after Merrin kisses him before a roller coaster of a time on Jedha, but he eventually concludes that the Jedi Order didn’t get everything right. Plus, they’re gone now, so it isn’t as if he feels obligated to follow every rule they set down. So, now he has a family and a hot goth girlfriend and he would do anything for them. Which can be a double-edged sword. They may make him stronger, but the fear of losing them or anger when anything bad happens to them are very real emotions. Fear and anger are, of course, paths to the Dark Side and Cal is not immune to the pull. After Bode betrays them and then uses Cal as a distraction to escape the Empire, Cal grows so angry that he embraces the Dark Side and uses it multiple times. In-game this is visualized by the edges of the screen going red and making enemies much easier to kill for short bursts of time.

(I also just find it interesting that Cere has struggled with the Dark Side and she served as Cal’s informal master and now he’s struggling with it, too.)

Nor is he a bad person or has completely fallen to the Dark Side. Cal is just very sentimental with his heart in the right place. He wants the best for people and normally doesn’t enjoy being the one to kill someone who simply won’t back down. More than once in Survivor he tries to talk down some of the big bads, hoping to convince them to either stop fighting or join him in his fight, but when they don’t, he doesn’t hesitate to take them out. He may be somewhat naïve in hoping for the best, but he isn’t so foolish as to turn his back entirely on an enemy. If they’re up to no good, then he has to step in. He even gives Bode a second chance despite his unforgivable betrayal so that they can work together for the greater good and so his daughter won’t have to grow up without a family, like Cal and Merrin had to do.

Cal could use a good space therapist that isn’t Merrin (though she definitely puts in the work and none of us deserve her). Cal has PTSD from Order 66, unsurprisingly, and even ten years later, he has a panic attack when getting into escape pods since his master died in one. It’s very possible he has survivor’s guilt since many people have died on his watch, and just feels guilty in general when things go wrong since he feels like he could have done something. Hindsight is a bitch, though. Despite this, he’s able to find happiness in life and still form good relationships. He’s good with animals (the kinds that don’t want to immediately kill him, anyway). He’s good at witty little quips in the moment and even has a mischievous streak, though it usually relates to Merrin. Because she’s a space witch and intimidating by reputation, as well as able to keep a straight face when joking, Cal easily plays along with her empty threats. He even tells people who ask about her things like she’s a witch and can raise the dead and you better look out because she’s ~scary~. It’s disgusting. They’re made for each other.

TL;DR: looks like a cinnamon roll, could actually kill you.

SAMPLE: beep boop

INVENTORY:

- Lightsaber
- Blaster
- Ascension cable (grappling hook)
- Charm to allow him safe passage through energy shields
- Rebreather for breathing underwater
- All the freckles

NOTES: N/A

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? Let’s go crazy, let’s go apeshit. Hit me with the heavy.

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

hua cheng ( tgcf )

[ghastleye]

PLAYER NAME: exxie!
CONTACT: perilous
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Ruxi kept poking me!!

CHARACTER: Hua Cheng (San Lang, Hong-er)
CANON: Tian Guan Ci Fu
CANON POINT: Post-series

BACKGROUND: Here.

ABILITIES | POWERS:

Ghost: As a ghost, Hua Cheng doesn't age, doesn't need food or sleep, and can't actually die unless his ashes are destroyed. And since no one but he and Xie Lian know where his ashes are, well.. he's pretty safe. He can be drained to the point of essentially disappearing, of course, which then takes time to recover from.. but that takes something really extraordinary.

Spiritual Powers: He's a Devastation/Calamity rank ghost, so he has a lot--A LOT--of spiritual power, which he uses for various, mostly unspecified things. In particular, he uses his abilities to manifest his Wraith Butterflies, which are more or less what it says on the tin. They're beautiful, glowing silver butterflies that act as offense and defense (their wings can cut like razors), and can also do recon work for him (like following people and transmitting and recording voices). Additionally, he turned his despised right eye into E-Ming, his sentient, cursed scimitar. A cut from E-Ming usually means an opponent will be poisoned and die, and even if they survive such a fate, Hua Cheng can will any healed cuts from E-Ming open again to bleed out at any time he wishes.

This is all very OP, even in his actual canon, but he basically doesn't do much with his abilities that Xie Lian doesn't specifically ask of him. His husband is a very good collar and leash.

PERSONALITY:

Polite: One thing that's immediately and easily noticeable is the fact that Hua Cheng is actually very polite-- even when he's being extremely impolite. He smiles and he's genteel in most of his language, and he has a way of saying things that one can't really fault even when one knows he's actually insulting everyone (except Xie Lian) around him.

Dauntless: It's only very rare throughout the novels for Hua Cheng to lose his cool. He always seems at least one step ahead of everyone else--often several steps--and he observes things that other people don't notice, especially in dangerous or stressful situations. He has absolute faith in his abilities, and given his massive amounts of spiritual energy, it's no wonder, really. Only Xie Lian in danger can truly ruffle or scare him-- and it's rare for him to show it even then.

Brilliant: There's absolutely no doubt about one thing, at least: Hua Cheng is extremely talented and intelligent. He doesn't exactly believe that, especially when compared to his god, but the fact remains that he's the only person that could basically go toe to toe with Jun Wu on his own, and even as a Supreme Ghost King, the wealth and power he's accumulated over the centuries is enough to bankrupt heaven if he wants.

Insecure: Despite all his projected confidence and power, not all that deep down, Hua Cheng is deeply insecure about himself. He believes he's ugly and unworthy of being loved, and has based everything he's done, his entire personality and reason for existence, on his quiet service to Xie Lian. He was perfectly satisfied to never be acknowledged, to always exist in the shadows of his god's life, worshiping and protecting him wherever possible, never opposing him-- only trying to help and guide when Xie Lian needed those things.

Single-minded: As mentioned, everything he's done in the last 800 years has been for Xie Lian's sake. The prince was kind to him for a few hours in Hua Cheng's childhood at his very lowest point, and he's never, ever forgotten that. Even when Xie Lian forgot him--not once, but several times--Hua Cheng continued to do his best to serve him and provide for his needs. He remembers everyone who's ever done Xie Lian wrong, and he despises them for it. He hates the heavenly realm for its abandonment and mocking of his god, and he in fact severely punished 33 gods in particular that once crossed and humiliated Xie Lian. In some ways, you might call Hua Cheng a bit.. obsessive, though thankfully not in a creepy way (despite what certain gods might think).

Soft: Now that he and Xie Lian are married, Hua Cheng has shown his husband a side of himself that no one else gets to see. He finds it completely wondrous, impossible to believe at times, that Xie Lian loves him even a little-- much less enough to marry him. He still teases and charms and seduces, but he also allows himself to be more vulnerable around him, the quiet, reserved young man he'd been before he'd died. He still struggles to admit to his fears and doubts, and he's terrified of not being worthy, of failing his husband somehow, and he's very unlikely to communicate those things, but he's.. trying..

SAMPLE: Here.

INVENTORY:

- E-Ming, his cursed, pseudo-living scimitar.
- A pair of his teleporting dice.. with limited teleportation capabilities (whatever the mods deem suitable).

NOTES: N/A.

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? Plot-light.. pls..

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

Beckett Mariner | Star Trek: Lower Decks

[starfleetashell]

PLAYER NAME: Rin
CONTACT: chatvert / Discord: Temujin#0712
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Been here on and off since the game opened! You may remember me as playing Rachel Silva.

CHARACTER: Beckett Mariner
CANON: Star Trek: Lower Decks
CANON POINT: s3e10, "The Stars At Night"

BACKGROUND: Mariner @ Memory Alpha

ABILITIES | POWERS: Mariner has exceptional combat abilities, training herself in multiple martial arts while off-duty. She is proficient enough to avoid death by all sorts of horrible ways and has an extremely high tolerance for pain.

PERSONALITY:

Boimler: Beckett Mariner...how do I begin to explain Beckett Mariner?
Fletcher: Mariner is flawless.
Tendi: She has the cool new tricorder with the purple stripe.
Jet: I hear the Sequoia's insured for 10,000 bars of latinum.
Ransom: I hear she plays in anbo-jyutsu tournaments...in Japan.
Shaxs: Her favorite holonovel is Crisis Point.
Rutherford: One time she met Will Riker on a starbase...
Dr. T'Ana: ...and he hooked her up with contraband.
Jennifer: One time she punched me in the face...it was awesome.

In all seriousness:

Ensign Beckett Mariner is the most-demerited officer in Starfleet. She's been promoted and demoted so many times it'd make a normal person's head spin. Not because she's incompetent, but rather because she resists moving up the rank ladder so much that she self-sabotages to keep herself from gaining responsibility she doesn't want. She was the top of her class in Starfleet Academy, and everyone thought she'd be the first from their year to reach the rank of Captain. Her perennial Ensign-hood is baffling and disappointing to her former classmates, who think she's throwing her life - and career - away. People think she's immature for her antics, but she's perfectly happy being a perennial Ensign while she figures her life out. The Cerritos is her fifth ship, and she was stationed on Deep Space Nine during the Dominion War as well; she's no fresh-out-of-the-Academy newbie. Captain Will Riker (you know, the famous one) was even her mentor.

When Boimler calls her "Starfleet royalty" after finding out that her mother is the captain of their ship and that her father is an admiral, she hisses at him to shut up and threatens him to try and keep it quiet. She's a Starfleet brat, true, but she doesn't want any special treatment because of who her parents are. (She has a different last name, which obscures their connection.) When that information comes out, everyone on the ship sucks up to her, trying to give her the special treatment she feared. It gets to the point where she tries to transfer ships to get to one where nobody knows about her connections.

She's extremely calm and levelheaded in crisis situations, cracking jokes and being the source of morale, and trying to keep her other crewmates calm too. Her pain tolerance is so high that when she crash-lands and gets injured, she claims her injured arm is "just a fracture" and snaps the bone back into place, much to Boimler's dismay. She's very proud of her scars and views them as trophies of her Starfleet life, unlike many other officers who prefer to have their scars healed over by Starfleet Medical. She claims that she is always right due to her experience, and she knows all sorts of weird and obscure things about alien societies, including customs and languages. She's dated murderous aliens just to make her mom mad. Once she even defused a barfight by paying for the next five rounds...with a wallet she stole from someone else.

People tend to think of her as a badass fuck-the-rules person. When confronted about this, the implication being that she doesn't care about any rules and is entirely lackadaisical, she angrily says that she'd never break rules that would put her friends in danger, and that she only breaks "dumb rules" that keep her from being able to do her job. One example of the latter is that she procured advanced farm equipment for some aliens that they needed and wouldn't be able to get without going through Starfleet bureaucracy. She does her job and she does it well, but she doesn't mind breaking protocol to do it. In fact, she loves doing that. Mariner's take is that protocol is for people who need to be told what to do, which she doesn't.

Mariner is generally tight-lipped about her past aside from her service history. She actually spreads rumors about herself that she's some kind of creepy black-ops agent to cultivate an air of mystique and mystery around herself, and the rumor is at least partially true, since she has done "off-the-books grey-ops stuff" with a Klingon general. She's able to get in good with a criminal element pretty easily due to her generally chaotic nature, but won't hesitate to strand them on alien planets if she needs to. Other tidbits about her past include that she was once trapped in a sentient cave for a week ("that's a dark place that knows things") and was once in a Klingon prison where she had to fight a yeti for her shoes.

She tries not to get close to people because every time she makes friends, they get transferred or killed, which is why she is so affected by Boimler's decision to take the promotion to the Titan and slip away in the middle of her shift without telling her. She acts like she doesn't care until she blows up at him for leaving without saying goodbye and for not apologizing about abandoning her. She even holds a grudge after that when he continues to bring up his time on the Titan, because of how abandoned she felt. There's a clear implication that she thinks he'd rather be having adventures there instead of being with his friends on the Cerritos, and she takes it very personally because of the very few friends she has.

Her friends and family mean everything to her. Once she trusts you, you're in #MarinerGang for life, whether you want to be or not. She'll take a phaser blast - or a trip to the brig - for you. When her mother was being court-martialed for something she didn't do, Mariner almost stole the Cerritos out from under guard so she could go and find proof that Captain Freeman was innocent, even though that would have made her a wanted woman and torpedoed her Starfleet career for good. She takes her "badass" reputation seriously, but is willing to sacrifice it to make a friend feel better about themselves. When Boimler thought that he wasn't cut out for Starfleet, she made an obvious "mistake" that he was able to pick up on and succeed where she "failed", because the alternative was Boimler being so dejected that he was going to quit. She even drove herself half-crazy trying to protect Boimler from the girlfriend she thought was a murderous alien, because she'd seen a friend get eaten by one before and didn't want that to happen again.

Trying to get Mariner to do something she doesn't want to do is like trying to drink a Klingon under the table. You can't do it! (...except she did. Okay, other people can't do it!) Even when Captain Freeman and Commander Ransom tried to get her to transfer of her own accord by giving her the worst tasks on the ship, she knew what they were up to and was determined not to let them win. She figured out how to make the tasks fun, even "Klingon prison stuff" like scraping carbon off the ship's carbon filters by betting on who could finish it first. When that didn't work, they tried to get her to quit by promoting her to Lieutenant and putting her on Captain Freeman's senior staff, but she was so stubborn that she stuck it out until she was able to get herself demoted by making fun of an Admiral in front of the Captain, embarrassing her and forcing her to demote Mariner again.

Fairness and justice are very important to her. When demoted and transferred to the worst posting in the fleet due to Captain Freeman's mistaken though reasonable assumption that she'd caused trouble, Mariner resigned her Starfleet commission in anger, temporarily striking out into civilian life. She'll take her lumps when she knows they're deserved, but if she's being treated unfairly, she's going to make her displeasure known. Loudly.

SAMPLE: So, this isn't the weirdest thing that's happened to Mariner, but it's pretty close. At first she thought that someone was playing a prank on her and dumping her in the holodeck, but no amount of 'computer, arch' or 'computer, end program' did anything. And people were starting to look at her weird.

Nothing for it but to adapt. Her commbadge isn't sending or receiving, because why would it be these things fritz out at the WORST times, so she's on her own on a strange planet. And the weird thing is that this place is silent. It's pretty - it looks almost like Risa here, but it's definitely not normal. It feels off, somehow, like animals have fled before an earthquake. There is danger beneath the beauty. And an indicator of that is the mold that she can see climbing things. "Nuh-uh, I know better than to touch that stuff," she mutters to herself, stepping away from a half-sunken building. "My kingdom for a tricorder, here." Without any ability to examine exactly what it is and its molecular structure, that stuff may as well have DANGER stamped all over it in big red letters. Some predators on other planets appear as carpets of lichen and devour unwitting prey; who's to say this isn't a distant relative?

Looks like there are people who hadn't started walking the other way when she'd been trying to talk to the nonexistent ship's computer. She hopes that her universal translator in the commbadge still works, at least, even if it doesn't send and receive communications. "Hey there," she says, walking up to a group of presumed locals. "What's, uh...what's up, how're we all doing, anyone know what this planet is called?"

INVENTORY: Starfleet commbadge, bat'leth

NOTES: I am so sorry about her in advance.

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? Whatever's easiest, but I'd prefer plot-heavy. Star Trek Protag Syndrome wouldn't have it any other way. :)

[groundrules]

Heya — this is looking great so far, and it's so awesome to see you back! Do you happen to have any other samples for her that you'd be okay linking (or writing, if easier) over the next 48h? Just to get a deeper sense of her. Thanks!

wen kexing ( word of honor )

[wifedup]

PLAYER NAME: Sarah
CONTACT: qingya / discord: sadgaydna
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: From Ruxi over the course of many, many moons and then Em more recently.

CHARACTER: Wen Kexing
CANON: Word of Honor
CANON POINT: After his confrontation with Shen Shen / his fainting.

BACKGROUND: Wikipedia.

• Early Life: Our knowledge of Wen Kexing starts when his family is cast out from the Healer Valley. With his parents on the run and his father gravely injured. They take solace with Qin Huaizhang and Four Seasons Manor before moving on to a small village to hide. Unfortunately Wen Kexing ( then Zhen Yan ) is tricked by Zhao Jing which leads to the Ghost Valley finding them and his parents being murdered. Wen Kexing is saved by Luo Fumeng who implies that he is fierce enough to become a ghost like them. He is then forced to drink the soup of oblivion and spends the next decade or so within the Valley itself. At some point he adopts a child, and begins plotting a rebellion, and helpfully skins a man alive.
  
• Valley Master: Wen Kexing takes the place of the Ghost Valley Master, he survives much longer than any of the other previous masters. After a few years and a lot of behind the scenes plotting, he unleashes his ghosts onto the world to retrieve pieces of the Glazed Armour and just generally cause mayhem.
  
• Jianghu: He goes out to further his own schemes regarding the Glazed Armour and the Five Lakes Alliance. During this time he runs across Zhou Zishu again, disguised as a beggar, and starts following him around, promptly baby trapping him. The various dignified martial arts sects start falling apart fighting each other for the glazed armour and Wen Kexing watches all of his unfold, trying to find the balance between his grand vengeance and his longing for humanity. Chengling gets into a lot of trouble at various moments and is saved by his new parents, Wenzhou anger the Scorpion Sect by being generally badass. People die, most notably the Four Sages ( which he regrets ) and Gao Chong ( which he doesn't ). Wen Kexing finds out that Zhou Zishu is dying and cries in the rain about it. The Ghost Valley is blamed for all of the current Jianghu happenings.
  
• Long Yuan Cabinet: The trio ( plus new grumpy grandpa ) go to Long Yuan Cabinet where the story about Rong Xuan comes to light. Wen Kexing's identity as Zhen Yan is also discovered. There is a lot more crying. On the road to Four Seasons Manor, Shen Shen discovers the group and demands to know if Wen Kexing is actually the child of his dead best friend. Due to the side effects of the Soup of Oblivion, Wen Kexing quickly becomes sick and falls into a deep sleep.


ABILITIES | POWERS:
• Martial Arts skills: varying schools, proficient at each, gifted swordsman but prefers to use either his fan or channel his qi into energy, good Qinggong enough that if you didn't hear him you might never know he'd been there - but don't worry, he can't keep his mouth shut so you'll hear him. He has exceptional hearing and fast reflexes.
  
• Medical arts: it's implied that he has enough leftover knowledge of his parent's time in the healer valley that he can manage some wounds. He knows enough to remove the bad blood from Zhou Zishu's shoulder after their run-in with the scorpion sect, and he also helps the other man with his pain from the nails a number of times, he carries medicine in his sleeves which means he's aware enough of things that might happen.
  
• Healing music: uses the xiao to play music to provide Zhou Zishu respite through the night.
  
• Housewife material: he can cook, he can clean, and he can tell the kids some real good ( terrifying ) bedtime stories.


PERSONALITY: Wen Kexing is a mercurial character. He has several seemingly conflicting personalities, slipping between charming young master to unhinged monster at even the slightest of provocation. He's a chameleon - much like his martial art skills he picks up personality traits wherever he goes, often putting on a smoke screen of what he thinks people want to see. Cold-hearted lunatic to the members of Ghost Valley, flirtatious pest to Zhou Zishu, wise elder to Chengling, philanthropic and educated young master to the world at large, he is never just one thing.

His charm, though at first seemingly and obnoxiously put on, is a large part of him. Wen Kexing is desperate to appear as someone worthy of other people’s time. He’s self-taught but quotes poetry like a scholar, he spends money on trinkets and food with an air of carefully cultivated ease, he’s polite when he needs to be, flirtatious when he doesn’t. He pursues good food, good wine, beautiful sights, enjoys clothing that is more fancy than those around him. He’s fastidious. He works hard to achieve what the martial art sects would think a man of his age would be, never serious, romantic, at ease in his own skin. He overdoes it without realising, sometimes, especially when it comes to his blatant pursuit of Zhou Zishu. Those moments he can come across as a wanton lush. It’s the invisible line of his act, he has not grown up into this person naturally, and sometimes he gets it just a shade off. A lot of Wen Kexing’s personality can come across as childlike. His anger, his joy, it’s all very big. The loss of his childhood probably had an impact on him that way, never growing up in the normal world, surrounded by unsavoury characters left and right. He’s very dramatic, quick to react. He’s childish, often sulky, cries easily. There’s a sense that his feelings are not easily tamed.

The other side of that coin is the “Lunatic Wen” part of his performance. In the Valley you had to be a certain kind of way to survive. The fact that Wen Kexing incites the rebellion that helps him unseat the previous Master is important, so too is the manner of his death. It is a bloody way to kill someone, skinning them alive, and a monstrous way. The Ghost Valley is where the worst of the worst are left to rot, and to be the one on top Wen Kexing has to be the most cruel. He has a reputation. He is seemingly quick to hysteria, to losing control of himself in anger. He laughs as he kills White Grim Reaper, is gleeful when the sects violently turn on each other, and destroys Qin Song out of revenge. That madness is something that has kept him alive, and because he is called that so often he begins to truly see it as a part of him. Why shouldn’t he be a monster, when the world keeps calling him one. ( “Good. In that case, I shall go crazy until the end.” / “I am always crazy, you’re probably more scared when I’m not” ) Being cruel is a shield that protects him, and protects the people around him.

But, even though he comes across as unhinged, there are ways in which his control shines through. Luo Fumeng is able to call him out when he starts to act up, and he never reacts violently to those people in his care. He looks after Gu Xiang for many years, becoming a pseudo-father/brother figure for her. In a world where weakness can be exploited, he certainly lets himself have them. His revenge too is also slow to unfold. Wen Kexing was Valley Master for eight years, and he had to scheme for the majority of those. The only time his impatience starts to shine through is when the Heroes Conference takes place, and the violence is slow to start.

When Wen Kexing starts letting himself be himself, the strong parts of his personality start changing subtly. He becomes less exaggerated, more kind. He cares for the people in his life - wanting Gu Xiang to have a home outside of the Valley, making sure Zhou Zishu accepts Chengling as his disciple, keeping Zhou Zishu alive. He cooks, he cleans, he keeps his house orderly. He’s very much an act of service love language kind of guy when it boils down to it. He has a lot of love in him, he just doesn’t always know how to show it. He wants desperately for the people in his life - namely Zhou Zishu - to believe he is a good person, that there is more to him than the ghostly part. He hides away who he is because he wants so desperately to be perceived as human. There are ample opportunities to tell Zhou Zishu who he is, Zhen Yan, or Valley Master Wen, but he never takes them, choosing instead to live in ignorance. He sees himself at the core as unloveable, why would someone continue to be near him were they to know who he truly is?

He is also strangely enough, quick to sacrifice himself for people he loves. Wen Kexing is a beast of survival, but he throws himself into danger without thought if a member of his family is in trouble. He offers Chengling the opportunity to kill him once the truth of his identity is out, he almost dies in the battle with Mo Huaiyang, and when they finally find their way into the armoury, Wen Kexing knows he is about to sacrifice his life for Zhou Zishu’s. He does not suffer loss well, and in turn would rather it be his own life than anyone else’s.

The longer he is out of the Valley, the more human he becomes. That leads to a certain level of self-doubt, and introspection. Wen Kexing changes personality so often because he simply does not know who he is without the act he wears. But there is a heart to him, one desperate to be good. In game this will eventually come across as helping his castmates.

SAMPLE:
• eastbound test drive / thread with xue yang.


INVENTORY:
• One ( 1 ) set of robes + one ( 1 ) silver hair ornament ( the key ).
  
• Battle fan, steel edged.
  
• Bottle of unidentified medicine, presumably for poison.
  
• Tiny tub of oil, for reasons.
  
• A xiao in case anyone needs a lullaby.


SUITABILITY: help the bear, cause that bitch gon need it I believe that once Wen Kexing finds his feet he will be more than interested in the plot and the inner machinations of the game. He is naturally curious, and he has reason enough to want to go home ( saving Zhou Zishu from himself and Chengling from a Master who can't cook ). He'll be naturally suspicious of people but within time will learn to work together with others to find a way out.

NOTES: No! I wasn't too clear on my canon point when I was test driving so there might be some minor things I'd have to retcon ( although I kept most of my responses vague enough as I knew I wasn't sure when writing ). I don't think there's going to be much of an issue though.

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT PLOT INVOLVEMENT OFF THE GROUND OR A SETTLING-IN PERIOD? Settling-in please, if only to find my feet in a game setting again.

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

merrin ☾ star wars

[nochnaya]

PLAYER NAME: britt
CONTACT: britt @ discord, matriarchy
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: i am owed penance for being forced to remember my cringe early 20s

CHARACTER: Merrin
CANON: Star Wars
CANON POINT: Post-Jedi: Survivor

BACKGROUND: Link. I also put together a bulleted summary here that's hopefully a bit easier to digest!

ABILITIES | POWERS: As a Nightsister, Merrin uses magick. In canon, magick is considered to be an aspect of the Force, the energy that connects all living things in a galaxy far, far away, though it's applied much differently than the way a Jedi uses the Force. While traditional Nightsisters tap into the dark side of the Force and the energy of Dathomir itself for their magick, limiting what they can do off their homeworld, Merrin has self-actualized her way to a more sustainable light side-based approach.

Her magickal abilities include:

▶Telekinesis
▶Teleportation
▶Creating magickal ichor, which manifests as a green mist and can be used to attack, defend, or immobilize
▶Cloaking objects or people
▶Enhancing a being's physical strength
▶Raising the dead (and putting them back)
▶Manipulating the earth
▶Creating fire
▶Healing
▶Sensing magickal and life energy
▶Communicating magickally across long distances
▶Putting people to sleep
▶Creating solid objects out of ichor
▶Using hammerspace
▶Creating illusions

Non-magickally, she's proficient in combat with her preferred weapon, a knife that she can magickally transform into a spear and back. She's also Dathomiran Zabrak, so she has two hearts for more endurance (that's how biology works, right?) and natural night vision!

Nerfs: For her teleportation, I usually limit it to places she can see and/or has already familiarized herself with, so she's not just, like, teleporting past all the fun stuff. I'm also good with nerfing her abilities to create objects and use hammerspace to hell and back because... oof.

As a note, when she raises the dead, they're definitely zombie-like and not like... alive again. She mostly uses this to make the undead fight for her, like creepy little puppets. :) Not sure if this'll need to be nerfed, but I'm good with that too!

PERSONALITY:

On the surface, between her impenetrable poker face and reputation as a spooky space witch, Merrin can come across as intimidating and unapproachable—not that she minds. In fact, she's perfectly aware of the scary impression she gives off and is more than willing to play on it when it suits her, either to intimidate others (on purpose) or to amuse herself.

She's the kind of person who couldn't care less about what other people think of her, and doesn't try to hide it. Her air of confidence and self-assurance isn't an act, which wasn't always the case. Because so much of her identity is tied to the Nightsisters and her magickal powers, her self-confidence took a hit when she struggled with her magick—luckily, she got better, and the poise and composure she tends to project comes from the soul-searching work she put in.

She's also incredibly straightforward—when she says something, she means it. Unlike many Nightsisters, she's honest and forthright, sometimes to the point of being a little too blunt, which is what made it much easier for her to connect with Cal and the rest of the crew back when they were enemies. While she's mindful of being outright rude, she rarely minces words and she'll call it as she sees it. Trust me, you'll always know exactly where you stand with her.

Her sense of humor is dark, dry, and deadpan, which can make it very difficult to tell whether she's joking about sacrificing your limbs or harvesting your blood for her magick—she is joking, right? Right? Yes, she is, but it sparks joy in her to tease people and provoke an alarmed reaction out of them.

That said, scratching even a little bit beyond the surface reveals that she's kind, compassionate, and thoughtful. Even when she was supposed to be a villain, she was quick to warm up to Cal once she learned his history and his (good) motivations. She has a soft spot for people who have been through hardship, which is just about everyone in her galaxy at this point, and often shows kindness by protecting and supporting people who need it.

Though she didn't start out that way, because of her upbringing, she's grown into a lot of emotional intelligence. Especially with her friends, she tends to read people well and know just what to say to make them feel better. With Kata, a scared, traumatized child, she's extremely gentle and uplifting.

Her values and altruism have only solidified with time, and she doesn't stand by when someone is in need, even if it means putting herself in danger. It's mentioned that when she was traveling the galaxy on her own, she would step in to help where she could, as well as assist the Hidden Path in keeping Force-sensitives safe.

That said, she's a fighter at heart and is willing to kill in the name of self-defense or justice. While her fervor for killing fascists has cooled off a little since she's worked through the trauma of losing her sisters, she still isn't that sorry about it. In contrast to Cal, she's a bit more hardcore about doing what needs to be done—he's the one who convinces her to give Bode another chance to surrender after everything he's done, and she mostly agrees to the idea out of compassion for Bode's daughter, Kata.

This intensity extends towards the people she loves. While she can be cautious and slow to trust, due to her experience with Malicos manipulating and betraying her, her loyalty, once won, is fierce. She would do just about anything for her family's happiness and safety, all the way from bringing them a hot cup of tea to taking half an Imperial garrison head-on to save them from the dark side.

Finally (I'm struggling to fit this in somewhere, I'm sorry), she's very curious and inquisitive by nature! It was her entire motivation for striking out on her own to see the galaxy, since she felt like she grew up far too sheltered on Dathomir and didn't know enough about the galaxy at large. Like the Little Mermaid, she wanted to be where the people are.

SAMPLE: Link.

INVENTORY:

▶Her talisman
▶Her knife
▶The clothes on her back

SUITABILITY: Sleuthing, action, and the undead? It's just like home. :) Dathomir, where she grew up, is an extremely hostile planet, and the galaxy at large isn't much better right now. As mentioned above, she's the curious type and has the motivation it takes to unravel just about any mystery. She's also a born fighter and wouldn't hesitate to jump into the fray, especially as a means to help or protect others. This woman is squared up at all times.

And the undead? Those are her Gs. Doesn't bother her in the least.

NOTES: None that I can think of!

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT PLOT INVOLVEMENT OFF THE GROUND OR A SETTLING-IN PERIOD? plotty stuff would be fun?? surprise me!

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

anduin wrynn | warcraft

[massrez]

PLAYER NAME: Diya
CONTACT: isadiya
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Jack, who plays Wrathion (blackscales)

CHARACTER: Anduin Wrynn
CANON: Warcraft
CANON POINT: Post Battle for Azeroth, Pre-Shadowlands

BACKGROUND: Here!

ABILITIES | POWERS: Anduin's abilities as a priest are many and varied. His most powerful connection being with the Light, his specialty remains being a healer and protector above all else. This strong connection and his faith allow him to repair even mortal wounds and revive his allies, as well as provide shielding and barriers against blows that may fall against them. Of course, when all other opportunities exhaust themselves, the Light is a mighty weapon as well, particularly effective against undead or demonic opponents.

(He's also canonically managed to bring someone back from the dead a couple of times now, but we're just. Gonna nerf that for the game. Since it would be pretty game-breaky.)

He's also able to use Shadow magic as well, the other side of the Priest coin. While he avoids using those abilities where possible, he has managed to Mind Control his guards into looking the other way when he needed to get past despite his father's orders, and he's able to use Psychic Scream to disorient his enemies and send them fleeing in fear for a few seconds.

Throughout his life Anduin has trained and become proficient with a number of martial weapons, including swords, bows, guns, and throwing weapons.

This power doesn't really have a name (and I refuse to call it Bone-sense), but when Anduin was near mortally wounded in Pandaria by Garrosh, the intense healing he underwent to save his life and repair his broken body seemed to have a side effect. Now that Light magic lies residually in his bones themselves, which will ache in warning when Anduin is being cruel, thoughtless, or courting danger.

A list of the abilities he’s used thus far in-game can be found here, if helpful!

PERSONALITY: Anduin's greatest strengths are easily embodied in the principles of the most influential part of his life -- his training as a priest of the Church of the Holy Light. The Church believes in The Three Virtues: respect, compassion, and tenacity. No three principles could better embody the King of Stormwind. Anduin believes in honor, the power in one's word and that even an enemy may be found worthy of respect and dignity. His willingness to do so has earned him allies across factions, including notable members of the Horde such as High Overlord Saurfang and Baine Bloodhoof. Consequently, if a person ever proves dishonorable beyond the pale, or breaks their word, Anduin tends to pass judgment as final and treat them accordingly.

Compassion is one of his more notable qualities as well, though some of his allies see his gentler side as a weakness, or naivety that must be grown out of. His father once believed this as well, though Anduin gradually convinced him over time of its importance, especially in wartime. He seeks to understand those who stand in opposition to him in the hopes that they may find common ground, and bridge the divides between them. He also feels strongly for the plight of the common people who suffer most during the war, and for the soldiers who give their lives to the cause. Any loss of life is a painful one, and though some principles must be fought for, it is a last resort as far as he is concerned.

His tenacity might not be immediately apparent, considering. But Anduin was a precocious and curious child, constantly seeking to learn more about the world around him despite his father's protective stance. This would often result in him sneaking out from under his father's watch -- or those of the guard assigned to him -- or outright refusing to listen to his father when his mind had been made about a certain matter. The two notoriously had a falling out when Anduin chose to take up the path of the priest rather than that of a warrior, and though they did reconcile years later it was clear that Anduin was committed to doing what he felt was right over anything else. Some might consider that stubbornness and more of a failing than a virtue, and it's telling that most of his enemies don't just want him dead, but want to find a way to break his will.

Alas since the death of his father, the weight of ruling the kingdom and also commanding the various factions of the Alliance has fallen quite heavily on his shoulders. While Varian ruled mainly through respect earned in battle and a reputation as a valorous but tenacious warrior, Anduin struggles to follow in his footsteps while still striving for more peaceful solutions. He's aware his people like him, even respect him, but they don't believe in him quite as much as they did the former king. Anduin's insecurity lingers well into the Fourth War as the potential for a bloodless solution grows scarcer by the day. He is aware that all eyes are on him, waiting to see what sort of leader he will turn out to be, and that some of his allies are unhappy with the fact that he is not as quick to aggressive action as his father before him. Far more a diplomat than a warrior, he still finds himself desperately trying to live up to the legacy left by his father, grandfather, and so on, even donning armor and wielding his father's sword in the front lines of the battlefield, despite clearly not being as well-suited to that style of battle.

Considering that he still hasn't fully recovered from the trauma of losing his father and suddenly shouldering a responsibility to half the world, he is somewhat prone to melancholy as he struggles to find the balance from the way he wants to rule. It's clear he's suffering from depression, but unable to take time to deal with it when so much is still urgently at stake. In the most recent novel, Anduin has been taking more and more time to slip out of the castle in disguise to go among his people unnoticed. He admits to a family friend that he needs those few hours to himself, to not be King for a time, because he feels like he's about to crack under the mounting pressure. Though still fearless in the face of his enemies, Anduin feels some of that resolve slipping from him as the complexity of ruling settles in. He's become more aware of how sheltered he's been during his childhood, the fears and struggles of the common people under his rule, and there's a measure of guilt for not recognizing the suffering just outside the keep walls. Every failure is felt more keenly, and ties in to that feeling of somehow failing his father's legacy.

SAMPLE: Here!

INVENTORY:

1. Shalamayne, a two-handed sword that once belonged to Anduin's father. It can split into two one-handed swords, Shalla'tor and Ellemayne.
2. Suit of battle armor
3. A brass compass.
4. A letter from Varian to Anduin, written just prior his death
5. A small carved box containing a set of rings that belonged to his mother, Tiffin

SUITABILITY: Anduin will actually be grateful for a mystery to solve and things that can be done to progress the situation. He's a very pro-active and curious character who is helpful by nature, and he thrives off encouraging collaboration and cooperation. Depending on who all he has to work with, I feel he'll thrive here.

NOTES: Nope, all good.

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT PLOT INVOLVEMENT OFF THE GROUND OR A SETTLING-IN PERIOD? Let's hit the ground running with the plot, go go go!

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

lucy carlyle — lockwood & co

[justreckless]

PLAYER NAME: emma
CONTACT: baleinette @ plurk, dostoevskyish @ disco
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: emily (iluvroadrunner6), in time i will follow her anywhere

CHARACTER: lucy carlyle
CANON: lockwood & co
CANON POINT: 1.08, after the battle

BACKGROUND: WIKI | i choose to abide by the books over the show only in that i want lucy to have six sisters and only her mother is mentioned in the show. this changes her personality or the narrative trajectory of her arc in no way, it just gives her sad background a little more depth that is important to me.

ABILITIES | POWERS: because lucy is a child still, she can see and hear ghosts and her talent is actually quite good.

listening: lucy is an incredible listener and one of two people to ever talk to a type three ghost (her best frenemy the skull,) her power is strong enough that ghosts are attracted to her because they know she will hear them

touch: she also has a strong sense of touch and can read objects well and learn about the history of the object or the ghosts related to it

sight: look, a ghost has to be literally on top of her to see them and it's really tragic, her sight is still better than an adult's sight — which is none.

PERSONALITY:

brave: lucy has been in training to be an agent since she was eight years old, she was an agent and had her rapier by the time she was eleven, she is constantly staring down ghosts and living to tell the tale and she keeps doing it. day in, day out, she risks her life to do her job and keeps a calm head (most of the time) in the face of it all.

empathetic: despite her judgmental nature (lucy tends to make snap judgments and then stubbornly refuse to back down from them and she finds it difficult to make friends, especially with other girls,) lucy has an endless well of empathy. maybe it's a byproduct of her listening or her neglected childhood, but she feels so much. it can be dangerous, like when she grows attached to the ghost of annabel ward, but often it is seen in how she knows when her friends need comfort they won't ask for — reminding george that they need him, that he is part of portland row and they would all be useless without him, giving lockwood every second chance he asks for

self-worth of a satsuma gone off: like many a teenager, lucy has a lot of issues with body image, helped along in part by her mother telling her often as a kid that she isn't pretty. good thing she's got a talent, because she didn't pretty. not only that but lucy was relatively neglected by her mother and often left to her own devices or the care of her older sisters. at first chance, her mother farmed her out to apprentice at an agency, taking all of lucy's pay in the process. a lot of lucy's worth is tied up in her skill at her profession so failure is gutting. unfortunately, when lucy was 14, she and half a dozen other agents were attacked on the job, lucy had tried to warn them and get them out but no one listened and she ended up being the only survivor, to say she has survivor's guilt is an understatement, she was crushed by the event and ran away to london in an attempt to escape the memories

reckless: ya girl runs on instinct alone and those instincts have no time for safety lectures. she steals a source and wears it, she communes with a ghost in a bath where she could fully down, she repeatedly cusses out a type three source because she doesn't like his attitude. while lockwood may be the more suicidal of the duo, lucy is a dab hand at willful self-endangerment, falls asleep with a source in her hand, smh, the audacity of youth

SAMPLE: TDM top level; also a thread with lockwood where he smiles at her and her higher brain function shuts down and a thread with nanaue which is just adorable ngl

INVENTORY: clothes — blue and black leather jacket, blue fuzzy sweater, blue shorts, black tights, black boots, there is a pattern here; a diamond necklace that belongs to lockwood she simply has not returned; sprig of lavender and a lighter in her pocket, a belt for her rapier but no rapier, a torch. at her canon point she has the skull in a backpack, but that seems insane so that can stay home with georgie.

SUITABILITY: i would like to meet the bear. in all honesty, the kids in lockwood & co are literally made for this. their job is to hunt ghosts in the uk and adults can't so they bear the brunt of saving the entire stupid island all on their own. this might be a refreshing turn around where other people help and adults aren't uselesS? wild.

NOTES: lucy has a bandaged hand and wrist!

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT PLOT INVOLVEMENT OFF THE GROUND OR A SETTLING-IN PERIOD? probs settling in period because school starts soon and that's a whole THING

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

Lan Mandragoran | Wheel of Time

[thewarder]

PLAYER NAME: Three
CONTACT: endtransmission
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Jean!

CHARACTER: Lan Mandragoran
CANON: Wheel of Time (TV)
CANON POINT: Post season 1 episode 5

BACKGROUND: wiki link here

ABILITIES | POWERS: Lan is an expert swordsman and a master with a bow and arrow after all of his years of training.

His powers given to him by his Warder bond and training include increases stamina, greater capacity to resist evil, the ability to detect evil at a distance, and increased resistance to injuries from physical weapons.

PERSONALITY: The saying "still waters run deep" is a saying that sums up Lan's personality well. He's trained heavily as a Warder, the perfect companion to protect and assist an Aes Sedai. Because of the bond, and the ability for his bond mate to feel his emotions whenever they run powerfully, he tempers them and can use his excellent poker face when need be. He is so calm under pressure with regards to this that it has lead some to accuse him of being Moiraine's lapdog.

Only when things are safe, do we see him let down his guards and let his emotions flow. In Episode 4, we see Lan tease his fellow Warders and take it, showing a good range of humor when they spend the evening by the fire. We also sees it when he teases Moiraine about her tendency to get emotional when he drinks, brushing off any of his own emotion that might be tied there in one quick teasing comment.

When it comes to even stronger emotions yet, when he finds Stepin dead and his funeral following. His tears during the funeral are strong enough to bring those to Moraine in turn. It's one of the rare times through this canon point that we see their bond.

He loves those that he cares about deeply. He lost his family as an infant when the Kingdom of Malkier fell to the blight. He was saved by one of his fathers guardsman, Zahir, who then raised him in Fal Dara. Though they raised him as family, it was a complex relationship as Zahir still considered him the uncrowned king of Malkier.

So when he meets Moiraine and becomes her Warder it's his first true love, even though it's non-romantic. He shows there that he would go to the end of the world for those he love and continues to do so for twenty years. Quickly though, upon meeting the kids from the Two Rivers we see him develop a flirtatious relationship with Nynaeve even though he insists that there is nothing there repeatedly when asked, you see his reactions to the rest of the Ta'veren change as a reaction to that.

He cares about Nynaeve, she cares about the rest of the Ta'veren so suddenly they are more then just the dragon that they were hunting for after all those years. His priorities continue to shift based on his relationships and love for others.


SAMPLE: TDM here!

INVENTORY: His set of grey cloaks with his hadori. His sword.

SUITABILITY: Lan has spent the last 20 years assisting Moiraine on an adventure across his world to find and fulfill a prophecy looking for the next dragon. He's up for adventure, the most interesting thing for him to navigate will be not having a partner here to make the decisions on how to be navigational himself. Using his own judgement and not just automatically differing to someone else as to what the best call is will be the most challenging part for him.

NOTES: We haven't really gotten into a lot of the depth of what Warders do in the show yet so a few things are unknown. In the books all warders have a color-shifting cloak which I think it would be cool for him to have if you're open to it?

My suggestion for what to do with the bond is to have it feel masked / think that it's broken due to not feeling it thanks to being on another world, but then be confused when the powers are still in tact. But if you'd rather severe the bond completely based on plot and have him lose his powers I'm down for it!

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT PLOT INVOLVEMENT OFF THE GROUND OR A SETTLING-IN PERIOD? Settling-in please!

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

Benedict Fox | The Last Case of Benedict Fox

[companionsgrasp]

PLAYER NAME: Aisu
CONTACT: aisuyoukai @ literally everywhere. PMs to journal are best bet tho
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Lae is a Good and invited me. <3

CHARACTER: Benedict Fox
CANON: The Last Case of Benedict Fox
CANON POINT: post full canon

BACKGROUND:

This game has been out for a few months now but in case anyone wants to play it for the first time without knowing the outcome you have been warned that below here there are some spoilers including the end of the game. Noted where most relevant.

Benedict was born in 1892 after an ancient, dark ritual was performed on his unborn life. This did two things: permanently bound an Eldritch Voidling to Benedict, and killed his mother in childbirth. With the death of his beloved wife, Benedict's father gave up the newborn child and never saw him again. The orphaned Benedict was given to the Ordo Ira Dei and raised as part of their specialized fighting unit, the ORG, meant to watch over the First Circle members that were viewed as sinners and dark occultists that were committing atrocities to the detriment of all mankind. There he was trained in combat, basic knowledge of occult practices and how to counter it, and given the name Fox. At some point in his youth his protective mask was damaged while in the void where the air is noxious and surely he should have died--only he didn't, and it came to light that he had the Eldritch Being attached to him. Thought of as a traitor for making a deal with a demon, Benedict was ostracized by the very organization that raised him.

Instead of sticking around to either be tortured, experimented on, or put to death, perhaps all three in good time, Benedict escaped and went to live a life on his own. It was shortly after this moment in his life that Benedict met the famed Harry Houdini and befriended him by selling him an artifact known as the Book of Shadows. He may have lied about it's significance just a little in order to sell it to Houdini, but the interaction was the first in a long line of them to come. Benedict professed himself a detective and began to survive by solving cases with his unique abilities. He continued to sell various strange paraphernalia that he found along the way to Houdini and formed a familial bond with the older man. Thus Houdini became the closest thing to kin Benedict ever had.

///SPOILERS:
Years later, Benedict finally got a lead on his own case: to solve the mystery behind his lack of blood relatives and to find a way to undo the binding between him and the Eldritch Being. He stole into an Orda Ira Dei office and retrieved files about himself that gave him a name for his father and an address where to find him. Unfortunately, his amplificator was damaged in the escape. He called Harry to ask for a replacement and then headed to the address in the file. Even more unfortunately, Benedict found his father in the basement, dead upon his arrival. In order to solve the circumstances of the very recent death, Benedict dove into Limbo with the help of his Eldritch Companion. Benedict navigated the twisted, spooky dimension with the help of the demon in his head and slowly began to unravel the mystery and find the pages to the ancient ritual that created him in the hopes that he could undo what was done. Along the way he got help from Houdini, was introduced to a Weaponsmith that upgraded his instruments, faced monstrous eldritch creatures and hordes of demons, rescued the Tattooist from the mirror realm, gained more power from artifacts and tattoos picked up along the way, discovered the dead body of his father's second wife, navigated the labyrinthine dimension of Limbo, fought off the ORG members sent to hunt him down, formed a reluctant alliance with the Inquisitor Tomás that was later broken, had a distinguishing moment of self-discovery as he learned a whole lot about himself and his emotions and those of his Companion along the way, and relived the memories and felt the earth-shattering emotions of the deceased as he uncovered the truth.

In the end, Benedict was told that he could not undo the dark ritual that bound him and his Companion together. That it would instead kill them. Believing this to be their end, Benedict almost dove into despair. However, he was asked by the Tattooist to save the life of another. Of a child dubbed the Pure Being. It was a demon created by the strong emotions of the family that wanted to have a child and had too much hardship against them to do so on their own. The strong connections to the void that the family and house held formed the Pure Being into being. Benedict took this as his last case. Once he solved the mystery of how to find it's hidden form, he helped save the life of the Pure Being by sacrificing himself in order to prevent Inquisitor Tomás from killing the infant in order to open a portal to a new realm. Benedict died. The Companion took over and killed Tomás in revenge. They both fell to their death. Except...Benedict opened his eyes in the end and bade his Companion to wake as they had "a long journey ahead of [them]."
END SPOILERS\\\

ABILITIES | POWERS:

• detective's intuition and observation
• trained physical fighter and firearm operator
• trained to fight demons and users of dark arts (occultism, Cthulhu mythos, etc)
• ability to open portals that travel to Limbo/the Void (essentially nulled unless a plot comes up to make it useful/fun to play with, will ask ahead of time before playing with it)
• ability to pick up emotions and memories from objects, places, and people (case-by-case basis for playability, only with permission of other PCs, and very easily passed by because sometimes it just doesn't work/give useful information)
• supernatural physical abilities which include: forming a shield that negates physical harm to himself, a "triple jump" ability, a "dive" attack, a "power slide" maneuver, and various grappling techniques via tentacle projection. yes, i'm not sorry, this boy has tentacles. only visible when he uses the abilities. these all require energy to perform and drain him if used consecutively for too long a time.

PERSONALITY:

INQUISITIVE: Benedict has always been an inquisitive soul. It's what led him to become a detective once he struck out on his own. He asks questions instead of holding back and rummages through everything he can get his hands on. He collects a lot of random and sometimes useless junk this way but also uses it to piece together full pictures of a story waiting to be uncovered. He's not afraid to obtain information illegally either such as committing a little B&E to snatch up files from the Organization that raised him and is trying to hunt him down.

COMPASSIONATE: Even while seeking the mysteries behind his own past, Benedict goes out of his way to help others. When he ran across the Mysterious Lady stuck in the mirrors of Limbo he followed the trail to the end so that he could get her out. At the time, he had no idea who she was or what might happen if he did the deed but he still did it anyway. He also often expresses his sympathy for others as he discovers what motivates them and what sorrows befell them. And he feels bad whenever he doesn't feel much for the dead because he didn't know them--and then goes out of his way to solve the mystery behind their death. And when asked to save someone right after he learned he was doomed to die despite all he had tried to prevent it and was spiraling into despair? He decided to do it because what else did he have to lose. At least he could help someone else out in the end.

DETERMINED: Benedict starts off his personal case determined to discover the means to free himself from his demon. Despite the odds that stack against him, he continues to move forward and does not give up. He's willing to fight demons, literal and metaphorical, to solve a case. He'll traverse unforgiving landscapes, stumble his way through labyrinths, and solve complex puzzles to get what he wants all without hesitation. Even once he learns the truth of his own fate, he then becomes determined to finish his last case and doesn't quit until he's solved the mystery and even plays along with the enemy until he can figure out what to do to save the life he promised to help.

CLEVER: Another aspect that led Benedict to becoming a a detective. He's quite clever. He solves complex puzzles with nothing more than bits of papers with scribbled notes on them and puts together clues with impressive speed. Sometimes his demon helps with vague hints or gains him access to certain evidence but typically Benedict solves the mystery on his own merit by asking questions and coming up with the answers. In his youth this aptitude earned him the name 'Fox' along with his red hair and inquisitive nature, and he was constantly put on trial for it. He was more than happy to put his smarts to good use and escape the clutches of the Organization whenever they discovered his demon and turned on him.

REBELLIOUS: From the time of his childhood, Benedict has always been more deviant than the other orphans around him. It probably never helped that he had a demon watching over him from the time he was born, but perhaps even beyond that he would always have been destined to have a rebel's soul. The beginning narration not-so-subtly states that he is not the type of person who is willing to be controlled. And the first thing the audience sees is Benedict breaking into the main archive of an Organization office and stealing classified files. Even his first meeting with Houdini is to sell the entrepreneur items that are, essentially, junk proving that he isn't above swindling in order to survive. Sometimes this rebellious nature can get him into trouble as he acts impulsively (following a damsel in distress despite knowing nothing about the situation) and recklessly (in his impatience to get to the house to investigate he drives dangerously fast along a serpentine cliffside road). His adventures are bold and he shows no fear in the face of great adversaries. There is a cocky assuredness to his physical bearing and demeanor whenever he moves, and he can be eager to quip if given the opportunity. Even when confronted by other Order members he stands up defiantly to them and fights his way to be free. Including the Inquisitor that frightens him. He's cautious then but still speaks his mind whenever Tomás talks about wild theories and murderous intentions. In the end, it is his deviance that allows him to overcome his enemy and save the life of another despite the consequences.

ORPHANED: This may seem like a dubious descriptor but hear me out. It sums up a majority of Benedict's negative traits by virtue of what causes them. Although Benedict typically exudes confidence in his abilities and demeanor, there's enough lingering self-doubt that causes him to hesitate when confronted by a higher authority figure. Even when trying to act defiant he automatically honors and defers to an older or more experienced person in the room as seen when he cautiously approaches the Inquisitor. He can go from cocksure detective to meek orphan child in a matter of seconds. There is also something intrinsically naive about Benedict despite both his age and experience in life. It's as if he were sheltered from a lot of normal things and somehow retained his childlike wonder for the world even though he was trained as a soldier and participated in the first world war. It can be a positive thing, but it can come off as awkward and sheepish at times. Benedict has a deep-seated desire to please other people and be of use to them. If he can accomplish this, if he can please other people then he can be loved by them and feel validated for living. Otherwise, he thinks he is a mistake and a horrible waste of life due to the nature of his birth and orphaned state. He fears the day that the people in his life turn their backs on him and shun him for realizing what a freak of nature he is. Generally, these are all things deep down in the psyche of Benedict Fox but they do subtly play a role in his nuanced behavior sometimes.

SAMPLE:

One: tdm link

Two: meme link --warning for gruesomeness, fighting, killing, and vague lovecraftian descriptions

Three: a thing i wrote --prose in canon scenario, introspective.

INVENTORY:

• bayonet
• flare gun
• journal
• flashlight
• amplificator which amplifies his connection to his demon
• kogai pin that acts as a lockpick and a throwing dagger
• conundrum device and key (completely useless here unless you want to play a game of cyphers)
• his clothes, belts, and pouches that carry all his stuff

SUITABILITY:

Benedict loves a good mystery to solve and he's used to dealing with action and the...dead. Undead will be a bit new to him but it's not any more weird than demons and golems, right? Right. If he can handle Limbo, he can handle whatever dimension this is. He'll get along fine and help the team out best he can with his various skills, detective's intuition, and supernatural abilities.

NOTES:

I have a question about Benedict and his Eldritch Companion, but my app is bordering on too long so I will shoot it at the mod contact. Fufufu...

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT PLOT INVOLVEMENT OFF THE GROUND OR A SETTLING-IN PERIOD?

Settle-in period if only because I am moving to a new apartment this month and hooboy I'm not ready.

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

Marty McFly | Back to the Future

[pepsifree]

PLAYER NAME: Lance
CONTACT: PM this journal
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Someone on my Plurk list posted a link to the TDM, so I started poking around it. I graciously received an invite from starlingroad later on! Here's my EMP comment.

CHARACTER: Martin Seamus McFly, A.K.A. "Marty"
CANON: Back to the Future
CANON POINT: After Back to the Future: The Game - Episode 5: "OUTATIME"

BACKGROUND: Wiki for film trilogy events up until Reunion with Doc. Game canon can be seen here.

ABILITIES | POWERS: Marty has no special powers, unless you count shredding his axe like a rock 'n' roll legend as a power. (He certainly does.) Otherwise, he's got some proficiencies, such as:

• Music, considering he's a skilled guitarist and singer
• Acrobatics and athletics, in the sense that he's great at moving around and using his surroundings to his advantage
• Basic survival, but in an "I go camping sometimes" kind of way
• Sharpshooting, as seen in his adventures in the Old West
• Engineering, both of the electrical and mechanical types, which he's improved after being a local inventor's research assistant for four years
• Fistfighting, and he's got a killer right hook to prove it
• Improvisation, because Marty's inability to think ahead is usually compensated for in his quick-thinking

If asked, he'll also say he's a great kisser. This is subjective.

PERSONALITY:

One of the very first scenes in Back to the Future has Marty pulled aside by the principal of his school. To his face, the man says, "Why bother? [...] No McFly ever amounted to anything in the history of Hill Valley." And Marty's reply is quick in turn: "Yeah, well, history is gonna change."

This set-up summarises Marty's entire life story. In the beginning of his canon, he's established as a loser of the 1980s: a boy whose only meaningful friend besides his girlfriend is the dangerous, kooky inventor the whole town regards with disdain. It isn't the first time Marty's had a terrible connection, either-- his father, George, is a spineless man abused by his supervisor; his mother, Lorraine, is an alcoholic unhealthily obsessed with purity; his older brother, Dave, is a long-time fastfood part-timer with no passions of his own; and his older sister, Linda, is obsessed with finding a boyfriend without working on herself. This is his family, and ignoring the fact that he has hobbies and interests he thinks are cool-- skateboarding and making his own rock 'n' roll music, for example-- by the unspoken laws of Hill Valley's small-minded gossip mongering, it's been decided by everyone around that Marty McFly has no hopes, either. Naturally, Marty has always resented this.

Each time someone compares him to his father, Marty dies a little inside. If you ask him, he likes to think he takes after his best friend more than anyone in his family, and this is something he can proudly say. Said best friend, Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown, is as much a social pariah as any McFly, but unlike them has never cared that it was part of his public identity. And after meeting him, and seeing that these two things could co-exist, Marty finally began thinking of breaking the cycle his family's been trapped in for himself. Since working for Doc, Marty's tried to adopt what he believes are his best traits and philosophies: his unwavering passion for his dreams, his belief in all that is good and kind, and his bravery in the face of every issue that comes his way. Naturally, he isn't nearly as innately good or altruistic as Doc is, but spending plenty of time with a man of so much kindness changed Marty for the better.

"If you put your mind to it," Doc's often told him, "you can accomplish anything." And because of Doc's influence, Marty became the first McFly not just to have a goal, but to actually work towards it. This is evident not just in his hopes that someday he'll be a rock star, but in the efforts he's made to start a band and actually make audition tapes too. He's also the first McFly to boldly stand up for himself as well as the little guy, as seen when he stares his father's abusive supervisor down without hesitation (and when he downright decks the guy when he travels back in time and sees him bullying his teenage parents). Despite his father's insistence throughout his life that Marty keep his head down and avoid confrontation, Marty's headstrong nature makes it impossible for him to listen. He isn't the sort of person to "grin and bear it", whether for himself or others, and he's always ready to fight for what he thinks is right. Hell, he's so dedicated that he takes a bonafide murdering outlaw down when he travels back in time to 1885 simply because he's terrorising everybody around.

As an impulsive, quick-thinking person, the best way to stop Marty from doing anything foolish when he gets excited is having someone he trusts providing a voice of reason. Most days that someone tends to be Doc, but recent developments have had him learning how to be "better" about taking care of himself, too. In the past, he was so bad at holding back that the simple implication of being weak in any way had him becoming needlessly reckless (in one timeline, this recklessness led to an accident that left him unable to play guitar for the rest of his life). These days, however, Marty's become mature enough to learn to pick his battles with more discretion. Sure, meeting jerks who hurt others for no good reason is usually enough for Marty to start throwing punches, but at least he does his best to be clever about it instead of going in guns blazing. He knows he's not the biggest or the strongest guy in any room, but it doesn't stop him from having the creativity and the guts to be great at fighting, especially if a little violence is necessary for the greater good. Just because Marty knows about the high road doesn't mean he always takes it; he's not afraid of cheating here and there if he has to, so long as no-one is hurt too badly.

Despite the larger than life circumstances of Marty's experiences, he's a typical teenager in many ways. He cares what people think of him even if he shouldn't (he couldn't tell his parents about his girlfriend out of fear of what they'd think), he suffers from uncertainty and a lack of self-esteem (one rejection for Battle of the Bands almost had Marty give up on sending tapes to record companies altogether), and he hasn't got nearly enough wisdom to even pretend he has anything under control (he flies by the seat of his pants through the whole Back to the Future series, and is decidedly awful at pretending to fit in other timelines). What goals he has are less realistic and more idealistic-- wanting a new truck or ending up on MTV, for example-- and he still carries the naive hope that everything will just work itself out. He's young in his mind and his heart and is ready to live life the way he wants to, and having recently turned eighteen, he's prone to all the trappings of "wanting freedom" that number presents as well.

At least Marty doesn't live under any delusions that he knows better than anybody. Being best friends with a genius in his 70s means he's always had someone to turn to if he ever failed to understand anything, and he's well aware that he doesn't understand a lot about the world. Occasionally this leads to a high susceptibility to being manipulated without his knowledge, and we see this in a potential timeline where a Marty in his 40s loses his job because of it. Mostly, though, accepting his limitations makes Marty more down to earth, and reminds him to always try to be kind to others if he can manage it. Sometimes this kindness leads to changes in the space-time continuum, but after all the trips through time that Marty's made, changing the course of history is only par for the course. As far as he knows, he's changing these things for the better, and having a mild saviour complex is a small price to pay if it's for what he perceives to be good. His terrible foresight in these matters is another matter entirely, but he's often so unaware of it that it tends to go on the back burner, anyway.

After all his adventures, history did change as Marty said, but not out of nowhere. History changed because he took charge with his own two hands and made it happen. Unlike everyone else he grew up surrounded by (Doc most certainly not included), Marty doesn't want to be afraid to actively make a difference, and whether he does so for deep, meaningful reasons or to make someone smile isn't important. Though he still struggles with self-esteem issues (he's quoted as saying, "Jesus, I'm starting to sound like my old man!"), he never wants to become the version of his father that he grew up with, and he never wants to be someone who just dies having never accomplished anything.

Marty has a lot of growing to do, and as a fresh high school graduate he's only just begun his journey into adulthood. Fortunately, he's more optimistic for the future now than he's ever been, because as far as he knows, "your future is whatever you make it, so make it a good one."

SAMPLE: one, two

INVENTORY:

• His classic outfit, Nikes included
• A picture of his father
• His Walkman and headphones, with Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet inside
• His wallet, including his school ID, driver's license, and a picture of him and his siblings
• The keys to his Toyota 1985 SR5 Xtra Cab

SUITABILITY: Marty's whole deal in canon is getting into adventures, shenanigans, and all other manners of hooliganism. Being transported to a world he's utterly unfamiliar with isn't new at all, nor is trying to cope with these new surroundings, even if he may not go about it in the smartest way. He's not the best at subtlety, and chances are he'll accidentally throw pop culture references that give his time period and universe away constantly, but just because he's not the best at fitting in doesn't mean he'll do nothing.

Sure, outside time travel and its potential consequences, he's as normal as normal can be. But after screaming his head off at the fact horror tropes are real in this world, in the end he knows there's work to be done. Just because the hairs on the back of his neck are all standing up doesn't mean he's useless-- Marty's a man of action, even if his foresight leaves a lot to be desired. He's done all kinds of crazy things, has teamed up with all kinds of crazy people, and at this point has accepted that "normalcy" simply isn't in the cards for him. He's going to be fine (or so he'll continue to tell himself all throughout this venture).

NOTES: N/A

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT PLOT INVOLVEMENT OFF THE GROUND OR A SETTLING-IN PERIOD? Plot involvement works for me!

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

Ratonhnhaké:ton | Assassin's Creed

[mustact]

PLAYER NAME: Tossino
CONTACT: Tossino
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Invited by Gee!

CHARACTER: Ratonhnhaké:ton / Connor (Kenway)
CANON: Assassin’s Creed
CANON POINT: After the Boston Tea Party

BACKGROUND: Link

ABILITIES | POWERS: For the most part Connor is just a regular human, but many who have fought him would be able to vouch for the fact that he’s more durable than any human should be. Not only can he take a beating, he can walk away from being very near cannon fire and still hold his own in a fight against the most skilled warriors. It’s pretty ridiculous.

So he’s good at fighting, obviously. Swords, axes, daggers, pistols, bows – he’s very good at using all of these, and likes to wield two weapons at once, like an axe and a dagger. He’s ambidextrous. He’s also a skilled hunter and tracker.

One of the reasons he’s a good tracker is the skill called Eagle Vision, which is a sort of enhanced sight that comes from having genes of the people who came before humans (the precursor race, also known as Isu). Eagle Vision means that tracks and other signs of people or animals having been somewhere, like broken branches and blood, appear brighter to him when he uses it. Basically, it enables him to find clues, and it also enables him to mentally reconstruct what happened and where someone went based on those clues.

Eagle Vision also marks hiding spots, enemies, targets and allies with different colours, such as red for enemies and blue for allies. It’s helpful in showing who you can trust, but it’s not always completely reliable, as it could for example show enemies as allies, possibly because of the user’s own perceptions of a person.

PERSONALITY: Upon first meeting Connor, you’d probably get the impression that he’s a quiet, contemplative and stoic person. He doesn’t speak much, usually because he doesn’t see the need, and doesn’t mind letting others take the room or lead the conversation. When he does speak, it’s likely that he’s not saying the first thing that came to mind. In that way, he is contemplative. He’s also very careful about showing what he’s really thinking or feeling, most of the time.

On the other hand, he’s often many things that are the opposite of that: Brash, quick to anger, obsessive, and honest to a fault. Although he’s an assassin, it’s to his mentor’s chagrin that he prefers to take on problems head-on instead of sneak around or deceive. You might describe him as a bull in a China shop. This doesn’t mean he’s incapable of sneaking or being subtle, he’s just pretty picky about which situations he opts for that option.

To take an example: When a Templar by the name of William Johnson arranged to buy the land his people lived in, he at first set out to kill Johnson, despite his mentor warning him that Johnson was a powerful man. However, when a different way of stopping the sale presented itself, he opted to take that instead. Johnson was funding the purchase through taxes on tea, so Samual Adams presented Connor with the option of getting rid of the tea. In a way, this was a perhaps less rash option than immediately going for the kill, but it’s not a particularly subtle way. At the end of what came to be known as the Boston Tea Party, Johnson arrived to see the damages. Connor took a box of tea, walked over to the side of the ship facing Johnson, and looked him in the eyes as he dropped the box in the sea. Up until then, he’d been just about unknown to the Templars, so showing his face like that was perhaps not his wisest move. Even so, he could approach the issue with Johnson with a relatively level head.

His attitude toward another Templar, Charles Lee, is considerably different from that. Because Charles Lee was the man who assaulted him as a child before he woke to find his village on fire and had to watch his mother die, even seeing Lee sends him into an almost uncontrollable rage. This occurs after the canon point he’s taken from, but it’s the best example of this and still applies: When he attends Washington’s induction as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental army, and he’s surrounded by people in a very formal setting, the moment he hears Lee’s voice, he stands up from his seat and has to be held back by Adams before he, from the looks of it, tries to punch Charles in the face. His need to get revenge on Lee is obsessive and almost all-consuming.

Perhaps most importantly, however, he is kind and compassionate. At the time of his canon point, the Davenport Homestead is still in its infancy, but he has given a place to live to two loggers that were out of work, a wife and husband who needed somewhere else to build their farm, and a woman hunter who was injured by poachers on his land. Over time, he will help more and more people in need, building a close-knit community that protect and look after each other. They become a second family to him. Much of what he does is driven by his compassion for both the people he cares about and by strangers in need. He seeks out the Assassin Brotherhood out of concern for the Kanien’kehá:ka and his village, he recruits new assassins from people who are either victims of oppression themselves or trying to help those who are, and the homestead consists entirely of people who didn’t have anywhere to go.

Despite his pretty traumatic and awful past, Connor deep down believes in the goodness of people and the possibility for everyone to live in peace. That is what he seeks to foster within the Davenport Homestead and the branch of the Assassin Brotherhood that he eventually builds. And he has taken it upon himself to try to make that happen, even though he wishes he didn’t have to fight for it.

SAMPLE: TDM top-level
TDM tag-in to Anduin

INVENTORY: Weapons, and lots of them:
Bow and arrows
A pistol
A dagger
A tomahawk
Poison darts
Rope darts
Smoke bombs
Trip mines
A pivot blade concealed on the inside of his wrist

Other than that, he carries snares and bait primarily for hunting, and some useless old American currency.

SUITABILITY: Connor is a capable fighter and tracker who doesn’t flinch in the face of danger. I’d say this makes him pretty much perfect for the game. Maybe there’s a risk he might at some point lose his temper and screw something up by being rash, but we can’t all be perfect.

NOTES: N/A

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT PLOT INVOLVEMENT OFF THE GROUND OR A SETTLING-IN PERIOD? Bring it on.

APPLICATION RECEIVED!

[groundrules]

I just want you to know at 17:25 I made a bet there would be no more apps incoming, and now I've lost it, and my penalty is that I cannot have ice cream tomorrow.

But I still love you're here!

[nothinglikefather]

PLAYER NAME: Jon
CONTACT: nileflood on discord
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Sel has invited me :)

CHARACTER: Jacob Frye
CANON: Assassin's Creed Syndicate
CANON POINT: Jacob arrives just after the events of Sequence 6, after he's accidentally crashed the British Economy. (ooops?)

BACKGROUND: History

ABILITIES | POWERS: Jacob has been trained since the age of six to follow his parents footsteps, becoming a capable assassin and skilled in stealth, fighting with various weaponry, parkour, and has a sharp wit. He's also (even if he doesn't know it) decended from the Isu, and has better healing abilities than normal humans, as well as a power called Eagle Vision, which allows him to see through walls, ground surfaces, chests and other containers. It also helps him identify three types of people: allies, targets, and enemies.

PERSONALITY: Jacob is a rash, violent, stubborn but passionate young man from Victorian England, trained from the age of six to be an assassin by his father. Jacob could not be any less like his father and his twin sister, who are studious and logical. Jacob acts first and thinks later. He lives in the moment and has brilliant ideas, but can't deal with real future planning.

For instance, knowing that the head of the Bank of England was a Templar, Jacob hastily put together a plan to assassinate him. He found a way into the Bank, incapacitating the thugs hired to protect his target, and then finished off his target with a blade to the throat. He didn't consider the repercussions of his actions- the first being that the British economy would go into turmoil because of the sudden death, nor that in the immediate chaos that followed enterprising criminals would flood London with counterfeit money, further worsening the economic crisis. His sister then had to step in to help restore order, blaming his lack of foresight.

Unfortunately because of this personality clash between Jacob and his father, he's never felt a real love or respect for the Creed, personified by his father and his stifling presence. He'll follow it when he has to, but it's not through love or devotion. Where his sister is the letter of the Creed, he himself is the spirit of it, if far more unbridled. He wants to help people and will do so, even if it does involve rolling his eyes or a sarcastic comment.

Jacob's sarcasm and stubbornness often causes conflict between the siblings. When they butt heads, neither of them will back down. Jacob doesn't realise his mistakes - focusing on the ends rather than the means, and therefore does not admit when he is wrong or apologise for it. He doesn't even back down when his relationship with his twin almost completely breaks down and they agree to finish the job at hand and stop working together.

Jacob first and foremost fights in the here and now, with the problems that are in front of him, and is clearly considered a loose canon. He wants to get in and get the job done and doesn't care if he has to kill a lot of guilty people to do it. His interest in being an Assassin really lies in battling evil in society, whether in the form of the Templar Order or other corruption, and he has no interest in the First Civilisation and their Artefacts. While some would say their purpose was to stop the Templars obtaining and controlling humanity through those objects, he considers it far more important to help people in the here-and-now, rather than perpetuate a war that's lasted countless hundreds of years.

SAMPLE: test drive meme link

INVENTORY: Jacob arrives with the clothes he stands up in: his top-hat, his coat, and his weapons, which are always tucked about his person, either in pockets or in his belts. He carries:
Knuckle dusters,
His hidden blade,
A half-full hip flask

SUITABILITY: Jacob is well suited for this world- he's a sneaky bastard by nature and nurture, and inquisitive. He wants to put the world, any world, to rights and will throw himself into danger, or at a bear, to protect others.

NOTES: Nope!

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT PLOT INVOLVEMENT OFF THE GROUND OR A SETTLING-IN PERIOD? Off the ground would be great!

[nothinglikefather]

I appreciate it's literally an app at the last minute, my apologies. My home internet has been a bit unreliable this week but I am getting new stuff installed next week :)

lucyna kushinada < cyberpunk: edgerunners >

[edgerun]

PLAYER NAME: Sam
CONTACT: verities
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: ruxi ofc - also given mod extension for app

CHARACTER: Lucyna Kushinada
CANON: Cyberpunk: Edgerunners
CANON POINT: end of s01e08 - shortly after getting her brain fried trying to take out an enemy netrunner

BACKGROUND:

| LUCY WIKIA
| CYBERPUNK: EDGERUNNERS WIKI
| CYBERPUNK: EDGERUNNERS EPISODE WIKI

ABILITIES | POWERS:

At her core, Lucy is an average human of average strength, agility, etc. She does physical exercise, as well, to keep up her body stamina and strength, but does not appear to have any augmentations to her natural physical strength and speed.

CYBERWARE > Like most citizens of Night City, Lucy has a number of cyberware augmentations to her body to enhance or gift her skills she wouldn't have naturally. Please note, so far she does not appear to have a heavy number of physical enhancements, but these sorts of augmentations can be more subtle. Until creators confirm otherwise, I am only listing augmentations she blatantly seems to have. If creators say otherwise, I will reach out to mod before implementing. Her current cyberware enhancements include:

CYBEROPTICS :: Lucy has cybernetic eyes that allow her to read displays from her neuroimplants as if in front of her, scope her eyesight in to view things from long distances, comes with anti-dazzle protection to protect her vision from harsh sunlight and flares without the use of sunglasses, establishes a targeting display when using her weaponry, has low-lite function to give her clearer vision in the dark, and has image enhancement capabilities to keep her vision clear and defined.

CYBERDECK :: Lucy's neural system is integrated with an unknown but highly advanced cyberdeck system. This system allows Lucy to read out information about technology around her, hack systems/other people, jack into systems from a distance, and more. Her advanced deck allows her to do these things with quicker speed and efficiency than most other hackers like her. Cyberdecks also allow users to connect with their phones to take calls/text messages using their own neural connections.

MONOWIRE :: In both of Lucy's arms is installed a monowire. A monowire is a long range, string of energy that can be wielded almost like a whip. It is thin and strong enough to slice limbs off with ease. It relies on battery charge to sustain the wire, and needs to be 'holstered' back in her arms to recharge.

INTERFACE PLUGINS :: These are ports located on the body that allow the user to 'jack in' directly to a network system and interface in the cyberspace for more direct hacking and netrunning. Lucy has a small interface port that allows her to jack into lighter technology pieces (computers, atms, etc.), but Lucy also has a larger port in the back of the base of her skull that she keeps covered with a cosmetic piece. This allows her to lie in tubs of ice and use stronger connections to enter cyberspace more fully and interact on a more direct level.

COSMETIC CYBERWARE :: Lucy also has some cosmetic cyberware pieces to enhance her body as she personally sees fit.

NETRUNNER > A lot of edgerunners and mercs have cyberdecks that allow for basic to low-level hacking skills. Lucy is what is known as a netrunner, in that she's trained specially to hack, create viruses, and more when it comes to software technology. Her cyberware is corporate/military-level advanced, and her skills rival any other known netrunner.

SKILLED COMBATANT > Having been raised by a corpo to be a netrunner, Lucy's physical skills were also not neglected due to corpos being strongly tied with militaries as well. Additionally, stronger physical prowess gave netrunners more stamina to withstand longer times in cyberspace and face down the daemon viruses within. As such, Lucy is skilled with hand to hand combat, melee weapons, and small arm weapons like pistols.

PERSONALITY:

Lucy is a dreamer in a city that crushes dreams.

Raised in a corporate (corpo) environment, Lucy was taken from her family before she could even remember them. This was due to Lucy having the physical markers of a strong netrunner, and then showing an aptitude for the technique once taken in by Arasaka. Lucy was raised along with twelve others to believe they were special. That she was special, and thus her unique talents would lead her to well-placed career within Arasaka, sent out into the world to share her gifts with the corporation that gave her her best chance at a good life. It wasn't until her training was complete in her early teens that reality crushed her. Lucy and the others were not freed, but instead hooked into cyberspace for hours/days on end and made to datamin the cyber frontier post cyberspace cataclysm. This life was physically grueling and mentally scarring, and Lucy watched one by one as her brethren died before her eyes.

The flaw in Arasaka's logic, however, was instilling in Lucy that she was special. The best. Which meant that those who held her captive were weaker. Lucy and her remaining brethren used this logic to embolden themselves to stage an escape using their hacking abilities to release their technological bindings and fry the brains of their captors. However, it is strongly implied that Lucy was the only one to have made it out alive in the end with guns shooting at her from behind.

With this upbringing, Lucy set out to make her own path. Lucy used her training at Arasaka to strengthen herself, mask herself in cities, and become an edgerunner (another word for cyberpunk outlaw/mercenary). Her logic was that cities were so big and loud, hiding right under the eyes of the corpos in all that noise would cover her trail. An effective strategy that helped her live into her early twenties.

During this time of survival, Lucy learned to become a mysterious woman that revealed little to others. However, she did see the need for survival in numbers and joined a edgerunner group as a member of their team. This helped her both earn money to survive and round out her weaknesses with members that excelled where she lacked. Kiwi, the woman that brought her into the group, told Lucy not to trust anyone, though Lucy would say she didn't need that lesson after what Arasaka did to her.

Truthfully, however, even Arasaka hadn't been able to kill the good spirit that still resided within Lucy.

Lucy's outward behaviors displayed that of a woman who was indifferent to the world around her at worst or amused by it's trivalities at best. She can come off pragmatic in her logic, but reckless in her treatment of others. Almost as if everything is a game in her mind, keeping others guessing at her next moves.

In reality, Lucy is a dreamer still at heart. She carries with her the ideal of moving to the moon, far away from where corpos can reach her so she can be free to live her life as she pleases. This sort of thinking is rare in Night City, as few believe they can obtain a better life of any kind so don't dare to dream of it.

However, it's not only Lucy's dreamer-like mentality that Arasaka failed to snuff out. Despite having plentiful reasons to distrust others after the abuse at the hands of corpos and Kiwi's warning to only look out for herself, Lucy cares deeply for those around her. Especially those in her crew. She hates seeing what society ruled by corpos does to others, though often she feels at a loss on what she can do to help. But with those closest to her, she does try to help however she can. She wants to protect them the way she didn't protect her brethren, and to also protect the innocence that she had destroyed herself. Lucy finds herself to be cynical and too far gone for the world, despite being someone who still cares about others more than most. This particularly shows when Kiwi, the one who warned her, ends up being the one to outright betray Lucy. Showing that Lucy let her guard down and trusted someone close to her when she shouldn't have.

Lucy likes to act like she's jaded, but in reality she's still the dreamer Arasaka raised her to be. All she wants is a better future for herself, but also those that are victims of the harsh realities of life.

SAMPLE:

LOG + NETWORK TDM

INVENTORY:

+ Clothes on her back
+ Cyberware implants
+ Unity pistol

NOTES: I don't know if Lucy's implants would continue working as-is or if they'd need to be like magic compatible? They run deep in her neural and physical systems, however, so they do need to maintain functionality, but it's heavily implied that cyberware operate using the physical body to maintain their power levels as people with cyberware never have to recharge anywhere and too much cyberware can lead to cyberpsychosis from messing with the bodys system and brain too much. - just going with them being magic compatible like before would work!

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? Plot heavy if possible!

RE-APP ACCEPTED

[groundrules]

ADMIN

Join eastbound, lostcompass, westwhere and comment to the TAKEN LIST within 72 hours of your acceptance note. A game-wide OOC intro / CR meme and plotting post goes up on 14 August.

All game updates are posted on lostcompass, but you can also follow eastbound. You’ll get a private message with an invite to the informal game discord server, once you comment to the Taken List.

While Eastbound is fantasy-horror geared, if you OOCly have a common trigger that is likely to make you very uncomfortable in gameplay (ex: spiders), please flag it here. Best effort will be made to content warn and avoid pictures of it in event write-ups.

Take a look at our optional custom codes to help you set up a character inbox or permissions post.

While some participation is expected, your character is exempted from full activity requirements this month.

NOTES

Same provisions about her implants as last time!

Have a think if you'd like her to come back with her game memories or with them erased!

Your character receives a shiny new pocket watch pendant with a mirror inside, which serves as a translator and communicator for written, video and audio interaction. It can read out translations of messages written out in native tongues.

Since she had a network username previously, you are welcome to have her keep it!

INTRO

Lucy can either join the party during its sojourn at the House of Manouk, or appear when they escape via beacon time travel into Akhuras… to a place of sweet, sweet respite. The only difference is whether you'd like her to have witnessed any part of the events of the House of Manouk.

There will be certain opt-in quests available in this period — including one exclusive to newcomers. Participate in whatever you like 😊

Sanji | One Piece

[legsbenedict]

PLAYER NAME: Frames
CONTACT: oopsallsadboys | disco: oopsallsadboys

CHARACTER: Sanji
CANON: One Piece (Netflix)
CANON POINT: end of s1

BACKGROUND: (and spoilers ahoy)
When Sanji was young and working in a ship’s kitchen, they were overrun by the dreaded Cook Pirates, led by a captain by the name of Red-Leg Zeff. Rather than have his food seasoned by a pirate, he attacks Zeff and boldly proclaims that he won’t die until he finds the All Blue- a mythical place in the Grand Line where all four bodies of water meet. As a large wave capsizes both ships, Zeff saves Sanji and they both end up deserted on a rocky island, lost at sea. They’re stranded on the island for 85 days and after being told to keep a lookout on one side of the island, delirious and starving, Sanji confronts Zeff on the other side of the island, only to find the man missing a leg. The pirate had given him all the food there was and eaten his leg to survive so that Sanji would fulfill his dream of going to the All Blue- something Zeff had been looking for all his life, something he wanted Sanji to carry on in his place.

After their rescue, they work together to build the Baratie, a floating restaurant in the middle of East Blue with one important mission- if someone is hungry, they will feed them. Baratie becomes a place where pirates, travelers, and Marines alike come to eat. Sanji and Zeff work side by side, feeding the hungry and butting heads at every turn. Despite feeling like his talent is being held back by slinging the same overcooked food, he’s reluctant to leave Baratie because of everything Zeff has done for him. He took Sanji in, taught him to fight without using his hands (a chef’s pride and joy), and helped his passion for cooking flourish. He also finds it hard to look past the fact that Zeff sacrificed his leg for him and knows there’s no way to repay that sort of kindness.

It takes meeting Luffy and his crew, saving Zoro from what could be a life-threatening wound on his chest, and the threat of Arlong attacking Baratie for him to even consider leaving and following his dream of the All Blue. Even then, there’s a final confrontation with his mentor about how quitting would be staying at the restaurant and giving up his dream. That push is what Sanji needs to become part of the Straw Hat crew. He fits himself in by being their cook and traveling with them to Arlong Park to get Nami back.

PERSONALITY:
-compassionate
-chivalrous
-loyal
-flirtatious
-short-tempered

SAMPLE: https://westwhere.dreamwidth.org/53938.html?thread=9843890#cmt9843890

NOTES: Sanji will be arriving with the clothes on his back, a pack of cigarettes, and a lighter. No accommodations, just a man with a dream and a kick as intense as his passion.

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

\o/

Ben Hargreeves | The Umbrella Academy (Netflix)

[stomacles]

PLAYER NAME: Jean
CONTACT: metaljean or discord midknightcat

CHARACTER: Ben Hargreeves (Umbrella Flavor) | Number Six
CANON: The Umbrella Academy (Netflix)
CANON POINT: Season 2, episode 9, right at the time of his spiritual death

BACKGROUND: Trusty wiki

PERSONALITY:
While he was afraid to go into the light after he died in 2006 - not ready to leave his family, fear of the unknown - he was still brave enough to posses Viktor - then Vanya - and help him come back to himself and not cause another doomsday event.
Rational and supportive, put together, but still sarcastic.
He wants credit for saving Diego, so prefers to get his due.
Tentacles coming out of his stomach are painful - he still uses them to save his siblings, so he won't hesitate to help despite that.
Determined
Has to play Klaus' "conscience" for a time.
Cheers him on to get Klaus sober
A bit serious, but still willing to play paddy-cake and juvenile pranks.
He does get very exuberant and gleeful when he possesses Klaus and gets to feel and experience a body again after seventeen years of being a spirit just at Klaus' side.
Very caring of his siblings.
Is empathetic and rises to the occasion when needed.
While Sparrow!Ben is not Umbrella!Ben, Sparrow!Ben still deserves a mention. His personality traits of aggression, impatience, arrogance and abrasiveness might have ended up being Ben's as well if he had been raised in the same situation, with different siblings, and with a different number in the family that comes with different expectations and responsibilities.


SAMPLE:
link to TDM
also here

NOTES:
His powers technically open to a different dimension but there will be no way to use that to get out. Too much tentacles, hole too small. Other than a solid body, I don't think so. If having a solid body again means he's in a debt, I'm good with that!

Nothing on him but the clothes his spirit wore.

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

Buggy the Clown | One Piece (Netflix)

[theflashyfool]

PLAYER NAME: Chi
CONTACT: noassgardian/chi1986 @ discord
REFERRED BY: Jean (metaljean)

CHARACTER: Buggy
CANON: One Piece (Live Action)
CANON POINT: S1/E08

BACKGROUND: Wiki. Since there are key differences between the manga and the live adaptation, I'll include a rundown of what information we can take from the LA canon:

Early Life

Buggy has pretty much only known life as a pirate. When he was a boy, he started as an apprentice crewmember alongside Red Haired Shanks as part of the Roger Pirates. The two were apparently fairly close, sworn friends and brothers, until a betrayal set them apart. Buggy says it's because Shanks was jealous of his star shining too brightly. This caused a lot of resentment on Buggy's part, which led to him ultimately leaving and getting his own ship.

Somewhere during this time period, Buggy ate the Chop Chop Devil Fruit.

After obtaining his own crew, The Buggy Pirates operated in the East Blue. During this time, Buggy adopted his clown persona. His crew also adopted the act of circus performers, where Buggy seemed to insist they learn and put on performances.

Current Canon

We first see Buggy in the show in current time in Orange Town, where he's taken the villagers as a captive audience and utterly wrecked the entire village. We see him angrily complaining about the performance his crew is putting on since it's ill-practiced and ill-timed. This is after he's managed to kidnap Luffy, Zoro, and Nami.

This is additionally where we learn that apparently Buggy had been planning to steal the map to the Grand Line for weeks before Luffy managed to walk right in and get his hands on it. Angered by this, he devised a plan to kidnap him with every intention of taking it for himself.

With Luffy refusing to give up the map, Buggy decides to torture him. During this, he learns that Luffy knew Shanks and reveals that he served with him. He tells Luffy of the struggles in an effort to relate, but Luffy isn't interested in hearing anyone talk badly about Shanks.

Ultimately, when he can't get the information he wants, he decides to drown Luffy in sea water. When Zoro and Nami come to save Luffy, we get to see Buggy use his Chop Chop abilities to their full capacity.

Ultimately, it still ends with Buggy in a miniature form and most of his limbs in chests. After Luffy and the others depart, Buggy is left to piece himself back together. With his crew scattered, Buggy is alone when Arlong's crew come to him. To get out of becoming lunch, Buggy makes a deal to help track Luffy and the map.

The next time we see Buggy, he has been reduced to just his head, with the Arlong Pirates keeping his body hostage at Arlong Park. Too far away to retrieve it himself, he agrees to help Luffy locate Nami and Arlong.

Buggy travels along with Luffy and crew, but predictably, the minute he gets a chance to get his body back, he ditches them (even after promising to help them fight).

Later on, we see Buggy in one piece at a tavern somewhere, looking at Luffy's new wanted poster. He swears revenge on him and seems to meet the fellow pirate captain, Alvida.

ABILITIES | POWERS:

Chop Chop Devil Fruit

Having eaten this devil fruit type as a young man, it's granted Buggy the ability to be cut up and diced but always able to reassemble his body. It doesn't seem to end there, either! He can separate his limbs at will and control them all independently. While he seems to maintain sensation in his dismembered limbs, this ability allows him a variety of attacks. Using his favored knives, he can launch them at foes and separate himself into pieces too tiny to easily fight off.

This seems to stem from the ability to levitate almost everything on his person except his feet and some form of telekinesis with the dismembered limbs.

That said, the fruit has a downside. Being exposed to sea water could prove deadly. Not only does it weaken him to the point where he can't swim, but he loses all abilities related to the fruit.

Knives

Buggy keeps a number of knives on himself. His favored method of using them seems to be slipping the blades between his fingers like claws.

Luck

This may as well be an ability. Buggy has the extraordinary ability to fail upwards. While he likes to see himself as cunning and manipulative, he seems to survive by mostly being in the right place, at the right time, and often uses this to his advantage. He's also good at talking himself up and convincing people to follow his ideas.

PERSONALITY: Above everything, Buggy is vain and egotistical. Pride is important to him. As shown by his treatment of his captive audience, he doesn't mind if he instills fear in others or controls them through bullying if it gets him the reaction he wants. He's a flashy kind of guy, who's never really seen without his clown persona firmly in place. He says he wants to be loved, but he doesn't seem to know how to even begin to accomplish that.

Additionally, while he's very self-conscious of his appearance (especially his nose that's just naturally that big and red), Buggy has seemed to choose the method of embracing your biggest weakness so the world can't use it against you...

Except it doesn't work when even the mention of anything that remotely sounds like nose is enough to send him into a fit of rage. Luffy casually mentions how he bets everyone knows him and we see Buggy rage about how he's making fun of his nose and complains that it's stuck in his head now. He has a lot of deep-seated insecurity for sure. His appearance has definitely led him to feeling like an outcast and an easy target for people to demean.

He tries his best to not let that bother him anymore.

But that does bring up his short-temper and violent tendencies. He's cruel and callous, even towards his own crewmates. Age doesn't seem to deter him either, as he was perfectly happy to torture Luffy and threaten a child that was captive in his audience. Looking out for number one is very important to Buggy, even if it means playing along with types like Arlong or even Luffy to his benefit. That's because Buggy isn't necessarily brave when push comes to shove.

Actually, he's a bit of a coward. So Arlong wouldn't eat him, he agreed to track down Luffy, who he then later agreed to help in return when it seemed that would be more beneficial.

When it came to the big fight against Arlong though? Buggy was quick to take his leave as soon as he got his body back. He may be a practical clown who can work with those he may not like, but he knows when to step out if a fight seems stacked against him.

Buggy sees himself as a performer and an artist. Showmanship is very important to him and appearances are everything. He's also playful, even if it's in a way that seems to annoy others more than genuinely entertain. He can't help but poking and prodding at others, whether that's by making ill-timed taunts while Usopp is trying to work with explosive material, or singing a delightful sea shanty about Nami's ass. Without a threatened audience forced into laughing, it becomes very clear that only Buggy finds himself a true performer.

Simply put, in reality, Buggy's sense of humor is lacking. He thinks he's hilarious, but his jokes tend to be bleak and unsettling to most. He also doesn't seem to have much compassion for others, fully embracing the plundering and pillaging lifestyle of a pirate if it gets what he wants. He even seems to take some joy in it.

Ultimately, it's safe to say that Buggy seems to see himself as a tragic figure of sorts, if the way he talks about his own difficult relationship with Shanks is anything to go by, and how he seems to think art comes from a source of pain. Buggy isn't always one to recognize his own flaws after all.

Buggy is also greedy and selfish. He loves treasure, he loves getting berry, and he will go to any lengths to hunt it down. He's shown to be enraged that Luffy has what he's decided is his map. He doesn't like people taking what's his and he can hold a grudge forever..

As a matter of fact, his anger seems to be what fuels him a lot. He seems to harbor a lot of resentment towards not only Shanks, but Luffy as well. It's safe to say that if he ever got the upper hand, he'd delight in making their lives miserable. Being bitter seems to be a core motivating factor to Buggy, and showing everyone how foolish they are for underestimating him.

SAMPLE: TDM

INVENTORY: 1- Clothes on his back.
2. Knives. He has an unknown number of small knives on his person.

SUITABILITY: While not necessarily the heroic sort, Buggy is an adventurer at heart. Give him action, give him new things to see (and potential treasure to steal), and he'll be all in. He may not be the bravest if he genuinely thinks his life is on the line, but Buggy is also a talented fighter with his Chop Chop abilities and knives. Dealing with the undead or any other foes that crop up won't be too much of an issue. He'll be properly motivated to keep himself safe after all, and to keep his life as comfortable as it possibly can be. He's also the rather... curious sort. As he says, he has eyes and ears everywhere (and he usually means that very literally) and would be useful when it comes to finding out intel or figuring out ways to solve mysteries if it means being a fly on the wall.

And hey, he's not above torture either, if it comes down to it.

NOTES: N/A.

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

Nami | One Piece (Live Action)

[cartographie]

PLAYER NAME: chel
CONTACT: dm or baoshan

CHARACTER: Nami
CANON: One Piece (Live Action)
CANON POINT: End of Season One

BACKGROUND: cw: mentions of parental homicide, child abuse, and self-harm

Nami spent her early childhood in Coco Village, a rural community, where she was raised alongside her adopted sister Nojiko by Belle-mere, a former Marine who had rescued them from a town decimated by war. Her childhood with her adopted family was peaceful and idyllic to some extent, but being poor and hungry to learn more about the world around her and foster her talent for making maps drove Nami to try stealing from the local bookstore, something her mom set her straight on but not before Nami's resentment over having to grow up with almost nothing boiled over into an explosive fight between mother and daughter. After lashing out at Belle-mere and running off, the pair had a heart-to-heart conversation that was ended abruptly by the violent arrival of the Arlong Pirates - fish-men with strength that far outmatches most people - to the Conomi islands.

After being unwilling to say she didn't have any children and unable to pay the tribute price the invading pirates set for every adult and child in the village, Belle-mere was shot and killed by Arlong in front of Nami and Nojiko as an example to the rest of the villagers about what happens when Arlong's demands are not met, and the two girls were left orphaned again.

True to her pragmatic, cunning nature, a young Nami struck a deal with Arlong, agreeing to join the Arlong Pirates and use her gift for drawing accurate maps and sea charts to help him expand his grip on the East Blue in exchange he agreed to let her buy back Coco Village and the freedom of everyone living there for 100 million berry.

Eight years of robbing pirate crews and running various cons later, Nami, now an accomplished and highly skilled thief, was coming extremely close to meeting that price when she crossed paths with Monkey D. Luffy and Roronoa Zoro in Shells Town. After she and Luffy stole a map to the Grand Line (something Nami had been tasked with by Arlong), she stayed with Luffy and Zoro while they made their way toward the Grand Line, continuously rebuffing Luffy's suggestion that she join his crew. After a stop in Syrup Town left them with not one, but two new crew members (Usopp and their new caravel, The Going Merry) the group reached Baratie, a floating restaurant in the Sambas Region of the East Blue.

This stop proved to be an ordeal for the Straw Hats. After a run-in with the Marines and the revelation that Vice-Admiral Garp was Luffy's grandfather, Nami felt a renewed urgency to return to the Conomi Islands and Arlong with the map to the Grand Line, too close to finally paying off the price of her village to want to get mixed up with the Marines and risk getting caught. Intending to double-cross the Straw Hat Pirates as she'd done so many pirate crews in the past, Nami's plans for a swift exit were delayed by Zoro's decision to challenge Dracule Mihawk to a duel. While staying behind meant she was able to lend a hand and be there for Zoro when her efforts to talk him out of fighting someone so much, it did nothing for how conflicted she was about her decision to leave them. After Arlong arrives at Baratie and Luffy engages in a near-fatal battle with him, Nami intercedes, revealing her betrayal and leaving the group with Arlong and the map to the Grand Line.

Despite telling her friends she never wanted to see them again, the Straw Hats (plus another new member, Sanji) followed Nami to the Conomi Islands, where, with the help of Nami's estranged sister Nojiko they put together the pieces of Nami's past and her reasons for walking out on them with the map. Believing that she was about to pay off Arlong's price and set her village free, Nami and Nojiko crossed paths in Belle-mere's orchard, where Nami was digging up her cache of berry, and after a confrontation, Nami finally opened up about what she's been doing the last eight years while letting the villagers believe she had willingly joined the Arlong Pirates purely to draw maps. Just as the two sisters were finally able to repair the rift between them, Captain Nezumi, a Marine working under Arlong's thumb came, claiming he was there looking for stolen property and claiming Nami's chest of 100 million berry had to be that. Realizing that it was Arlong who put Nezumi up to this, Nami took off for Arlong Park, aware that Arlong would raze the village to the ground now that he had the money and the map to the Grand Line.

Giving in to the despair of the situation Nami goes so far as to harm herself at the spot where Arlong had her tattooed as a child, though is stopped by Luffy, and after Nami tries one more time to make him leave, she caves and finally admits she needs help. Following a final confrontation at Arlong Park, where her friends take down the fish-men and literally bring Arlong Park crumbling down, along with the maps Nami was forced to make Arlong and the room he held her captive in, Nami says goodbye to her sister and officially joins the Straw Hat Pirates as their navigator, both her and her village finally free from Arlong.

PERSONALITY:
‣ pragmatic
‣ clever
‣ sarcastic/cynical/dry as a bone
‣ direct
‣ self-sacrificing, willing to be perceived as the bad guy for the greater good
‣ a fast talker (read as: a bullshit artist)
‣ enterprising and very money-motivated
‣ the plain-spoken voice of reason among the crew, she's got the brain cell they all share more often than not.
‣ information-driven, she likes plans, knowledge, books, maps, and hard facts.
‣ not great at asking for help, but learning.

SAMPLE: TDM top level

NOTES: n/a

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

Roronoa Zoro | One Piece (Live Action)

[serio]

PLAYER NAME: Kiera (returning player)
CONTACT: dessin

CHARACTER: Roronoa Zoro
CANON: One Piece (Live Action)
CANON POINT: #108 - "Worst in the East"

BACKGROUND:

Episodic summary here.

PERSONALITY:

▼▲ P O S I T I V E S ▼▲ — "I serve a purpose."

BRAVE & FIERCE

Zoro spent his childhood training as a swordsman in a dojo in Shimotsuki Village. Being that his greatest wish is to someday be the world's greatest swordsman, he worked hard to become a skilled fighter. After leaving his village in order to achieve his dream, Zoro spent some time hunting down pirates in the East Blue for their bounty, earning him the title of the Demon of the East Blue. Relentless in his pursuit of his targets, he rarely lost a fight. Not one to back down from a challenge either, he doesn't scare easily; the more formidable the opponent, the better. With the reputation he'd built for himself, it would be easy enough to mistake him for some kind of bloodthirsty monster, but his desire to become the best, the greatest started with a simple promise he'd made to someone many, many years ago...

HONORABLE & LOYAL

Back when Zoro was a kid, he had the one friend. Someone who challenged him, encouraged him and taught him the value of never giving up. Kuina was the best fighter in the dojo, and Zoro made it his goal to someday surpass her. They made a promise to each other that they would keep training and fighting until one day, one of them would be the world's greatest. After Kuina died in a tragic accident, Zoro made it his goal to fulfil the promise they'd made. He stayed true to it until he lost his way (both literally and figuratively), and it wasn't until he met Luffy that he was reminded of his dream and of the vow he'd made a long time ago. Deciding to join Luffy's crew, he quit being a pirate hunter, taking on the role of the first mate instead. His willingness to help Luffy find the One Piece and become the King of the Pirates is due to his captain's own desire to see everyone else's dream come true as well.

COMMITTED & TRUSTWORTHY

His loyalty to Luffy and his crew is steadfast, proven by his decision to stick with the Straw Hats despite the number of times they've had to face numerous difficulties and challenges on their way to the Grand Line. It seems once Zoro's committed himself to a goal, he never gives up on it. When the crew was captured by Buggy, Zoro proved himself capable of working together as a team instead of going about things his own way. When he'd fought Mihawk in a duel, Zoro had persisted until the very end, refusing to give up on his dream even though he was losing and already at a clear disadvantage. Despite being injured and outnumbered while going up against Arlong and his fish men, Zoro never once considered not fighting together with the rest of the Straw Hats, even going so far as to team up with the damn waiter in that final battle against Kuroobi. Meh.

KIND & PROTECTIVE

That tough and gruff nature of his aside, Zoro will not hesitate to step in when someone's in need of his help, even if they're complete strangers. While having a drink at a bar in Shell's Town, Rika, the daughter of the bartender gets bullied by Helmeppo. Not willing to let that slide, Zoro interferes and gets into a fight with the brat which lands him into some trouble with the marines. He might choose to keep himself at a distance and tends to give off the impression that he's grumpy and aloof, but it's pretty clear to see that Zoro does actually care for those around him. At Baratie, he tells Usopp to pace himself while he's drinking, obviously concerned for the sharpshooter; not wanting him to get too drunk. He also takes notice of Nami's silence, and tries to get her to talk about whatever's bothering her. When Luffy seems upset after finding out the truth about Nami's past, Zoro goes to talk to him about it.

MORALITY & ETHICS

Zoro will not harm or kill unnecessarily. When someone picks a fight with him, he will often use the hilt of his sword instead of the blade, mostly acting in self-defense unless there's a need for further action. He also doesn't like stealing, which is why when he needed berry in order to survive, he decided to hunt down criminals for their bounty. His disdain for those who are disloyal, untrustworthy and selfish is also clear when he gets mad at Nami for trying to save herself and abandon the crew the moment they were surrounded by Buggy and his clowns.


▼▲ N E G A T I V E S ▼▲ — "Don't like what you see? Look away."

RECKLESSNESS

Zoro relishes every opportunity for a good fight, and he's willing to go to great lengths to prove himself capable of being the best, even going so far as to risk his own life for it. The moment he'd caught sight of Mihawk while at Baratie, he recklessly challenged the man to a duel to the death despite being no match for the warlord of the sea. Consumed by his need to fulfil that dream of his, he stubbornly refused to back down despite Nami's pleas for him to reconsider his decision to fight a losing battle.

RUTHLESSNESS, TEMPER & PRIDE

This green-haired swordsman's killed many pirates, often brutally, stuffing their body parts in burlap sacks in exchange for berry. He doesn't seem bothered by the body count nor the act of killing these men, so long as it's justified. He's not completely devoid of emotion however because whenever Zoro does get annoyed or irritated, he can become angry and lose his cool. He's also incredibly prideful. The more someone tells him he can't do something, the more he wants to prove them wrong about it. And if someone betrays his trust, he's quick to condemn them without bothering to find out the reasoning behind it. Case in point: after finding out Nami's been part of Arlong's crew all along, he was the only one of the Straw Hats who didn't seem to think she was anything but a lying, backstabbing thief.

THAT BEER & THAT RUM & THAT WINE

Zoro really, really likes drinking. There's nothing better than sitting down with a good bottle of beer or rum or wine. He might even be a little addicted to it, and if he's not careful, it might just be his undoing. Good thing he's got a high tolerance for alcohol, but even he's admitted to drinking too much once and ending up face down under a table. Yikes.

NO SENSE OF DIRECTION

This guy's sense of direction is so bad, he left his village and hasn't been able to go back there since because he doesn't know the way home. Zoro might be able to track down a moving target, but tell him to go to a fixed location somewhere and he's bound to get lost.

ATTACHMENT ISSUES RE: WADDY ITCHY MONKEY

The Wado Ichimonji is a sword used by Kuina which was entrusted to him by Kuina's father upon her death. Zoro carries it with him everywhere he goes and he is very attached to it. This sword is the reason why he uses the three sword style, where he wields a blade in each hand and the third in the jaw.

SAMPLE:

Logs + Network

NOTES: Aside from the clothes on his back, he's gonna come in with his two security blankets: the Wado Ichimonji sword and his bandana. And... can he haz hammock?

Thanks for taking the time to review this application. ღ

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]