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let's set d o w n some ([personal profile] groundrules) wrote2021-01-08 03:30 pm
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applications


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



NEW PLAYERS



APPLICATIONS CLOSED


→ NAVIGATION MENU

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sankta: ＤＮＴ． (049. ❚)

Alina Starkov ( grisha series ) 1/2

[personal profile] sankta 2021-05-03 04:47 am (UTC)(link)
PLAYER NAME: Sam
CONTACT: [plurk.com profile] verities
INVITE STATUS: modly green light <3

CHARACTER: Alina Starkov
CANON: Grisha Series
CANON POINT: End of Book 2, just before her fight with the Darkling

BACKGROUND:
| ALINA STARKOV WIKIA
| SHADOW AND BONE (novel) WIKIA
| SIEGE AND STORM WIKIA


ABILITIES | POWERS:
GRISHA⇢ Grisha practice the 'Small Science' as it's called in their world. This means that they manipulate matter at its most fundamental matter. They cannot create matter, but only manipulate what exists to their advantage (note: they haven't fully explained how Alina's summoning works at a fundamental level so I'm not for sure on the logistics there myself). Alina is an Etherealki, a summoner. She summons fundamental elements that exist naturally and produces sunlight as a result. Using powers can exhaust a Grisha, even if in the long run the power extends their life. Alina feels more healthy when not suppressing her power, but using it in large bursts can also exhaust her and even make her pass out.

LIGHT : Alina produces sunlight from herself. Usually, she focuses it from her palms, but it can burst from any part of her. This light can produce heat, but she doesn't have the power to make enough heat to be damaging. She has used the heat to help keep herself as warm as possible while sleeping outside in a snowstorm. Alina uses this light in fighting to blind her enemies by bouncing it off reflective surfaces into the eyes of her opponent. She can manipulate the brightness of the light, how large out it goes, etc.

CUT : Recently, Alina has learned how to use her light to cut through matter. She's cut a ship entirely in half with her light and can cut a person cleanly in half as well. She summons and concentrates her light and uses it like a whip or a blade to cut. It's a quick attack to use. This is the only way that she's able to physically harm someone with her sunlight that's been shown in the book.

AMPLIFIER : Generally, Grisha are not meant to have more than one amplifier. There is no standard for having more until Alina. Alina has two amplifiers at this time. Alina's amplifiers are made from two, previously thought to be mythical, animals - a stag and a dragon. The amplifiers come from mythical animals - the stag, the dragon, and a third firebird - that were said to be created by Ilya Morozova, a Saint and a rumored Grisha, and are, as rumor goes, meant for only one person and that person is meant to have all three. The rumor is only known to a small number of people, and Alina's second amplifier is not common knowledge, only trusted with the same small number of people who know the rumor. Alina's amplifiers cannot be removed at all, and the expectation is that removing them will create a natural disaster on par with the creation of the Fold.

The collar around her neck made from the antlers of a mythical stag acts as a way to boost her powers. She cannot physically remove the collar herself. It's unsure if there's a way to remove it, or if only the Darkling can (as he controls half the amplifier). The amplifier helps her to use the Cut and create wider berths for her light. Should the Darkling ever be apped to eastbound, he could also fight for control of her powers through the amplifier. However, it has been shown that the connection goes both ways and she could take control of his own powers as well. In addition to the collar, Alina has a fetter around her wrist made of the scales of a mythical dragon. This amplifier does not tie her to the Darkling, as she killed the dragon herself and chose to make the amplifier herself. Her power hasn't seemed to change as much, slightly brighter and wider berths (up to a mile or more in light expansion) but the Cut remains the same. The fetter has affected her personality more than anything.


PERSONALITY:
"The problem with wanting is that it makes us weak."


Alina's never really had a place she's felt like she belongs in. When she was in the army, she was small and weak and hardly worth her weight as a soldier. As a cartographer, she was mediocre at best. The person she loved in secret never wanted her back. And when she first entered the Grisha world, she couldn't summon her power on command. She never had many friends, no one ever loved her, and she was never good at anything. Alina pined for the day when she could have any one of those things, to the point where wanting consumed her.

Once upon a time, Alina had wanted Mal in a way that consumed her. Mal had been everything to Alina. He had been such a force in her life, that she hadn't even realized the extent of his influence over her. And that was before she had ever known love with him. Before Mal had ever loved her back, Alina had unknowingly sealed her powers away for fear of being taken from Mal at the orphanage. That unknowing suppression had caused her to be weak and sickly throughout the rest of her life, but it kept her near a man that had never been able to love her like she had loved him. She pined for him all her life and kept herself down just to be near him. And when she discovered her power, what she feared happened. She was taken from him. Eventually they found each other again and this time Mal loved her. Mal chased her. And that was always the way of them. One of them was always chasing the other. They tried to make it work, Mal is the most important person in Alina's life. He was there when she was young and he was there when she needed him most. At their cores, however, they are two different peoples with lives taking them down paths that lead them further from each other. And the further apart they grow, they more Alina desperately tries to cling to him for some semblance of her old life. The more Alina clings to him, the more bitter Mal becomes over the discrepancies between them. The two never truly find happiness in each other, and while they can never leave each other they're never really good for each other either. Yet she would rather die than give Mal up forever.

And then there was the Darkling.

The Darkling was a more dangerous force than Mal had ever been. Alina could weather Mal's indifference, but the Darkling's attention had been unknown. It had been intoxicating. Alina had fallen into a trap she hadn't even realized was laid out for her. The Darkling said all the right things, did all the right things, and when he touched her it was like something inside her burst at his calling. He was the darkness to her light. Alina wouldn't realize until much later how accurate that would be. They were always in opposition of each other, yet neither could live without the other. The realization of the Darkling's betrayal and terror taught Alina what the monster beneath the mask really looked like. But the damage had already been done. Alina had learned to need him. Ever after, her life was filled with a need inside her that was entirely unable to be ignored. Something inside her demanded him no matter how much she rejected it. She fought it and hated it and reviled all that he was, but when she stopped fighting it and answered his call nothing in Alina ever felt more right. There was something in her that she had no control of that answered his calling, because he had always been right. Like calls to like, and there was no one else like them in the world. Just each other. But Alina knows the terror of him and knows the danger of wanting him. And always she denies that wanting, fearing the weakness that it draws out of her.

That was how the Darkling got to her. He knew how she ached with wanting and he fed her lies and promises until she fell madly in love with him. She fell so fast and trusted so fully, that she never stopped to think about why he was obsessed with Morozova's stag and getting her that amplifier. Alina learned from Baghra the truth of the Darkling. He had created the Fold, he wanted to control Ravka, and he had used Alina's wanting to make her do whatever he wanted. Alina was crushed by the truth of this. She was crushed by the knowledge that her wanting had made her blind to everything, and the Darkling had nearly put a collar around her throat she could never escape from. He had tried to control her and the wanting of him had made her nearly allow it.

That was when Alina vowed never to be weak again. Alina had depended on Mal and lost herself in him until her power was literally consumed by her need to be with him. And when she lost Mal, she replaced him with a man that sought to control her and put a collar on her. Alina realized that she had been so lost in the wanting of a place to belong, that she had forgotten how to think for herself and exist for herself.

Alina has a natural tendency to become co-dependent on others. She feels loneliness constantly, and the slightest sign of affection can cause her to sway. But though the Darkling and his servant Genya. who had become Alina's best friend at the Darkling's behest, both taught Alina to distrust people, she finds herself falling into the same trap with Mal all over again. Mal serves as a safe haven for her, though. They grew up together, and therefore he exists before her distrust. However, Mal ends up breaking her heart and running off to be with Zoya. A fresh sort of betrayal. Then there's Nikolai Lantsov, whom she meets after the Darkling's betrayal and tells lies like he was born to it. But slowly, Nikolai makes himself worthy of someone she can trust, even allowing him to choose her bodyguards among the people he trusts. And thusfar, Nikolai hasn't proven himself to be worthy of that trust. But Tolya and Tamar, the bodyguards Nikolai gives to her, are people Alina believes in wholly, and in the end even they betray her as she realizes they always worshiped her as a Saint and bought into her religion and worked with the Apparat. These betrayals take their toll on Alina, and she strives to keep herself isolated for her own sake. But at the heart of it all, she will always be the girl left wanting.

The Second Army soon becomes a place that can fulfill some of that ache, though. Where once the Little Palace was a house of lies, Alina's made it into a better place without the Darkling. And in doing so, found a place for herself in leadership and her own power.

Power and duty are two things Alina cannot escape. Despite what the Darkling did to her, Alina's place was always in the Little Palace among the rest of the Grisha. She was a Grisha. It was where she was born to be. And she was the Sun Summoner. The only Sun Summoner to have ever been found. The Fold can't be defeated without her.

Alina struggles under the knowledge that she is such an important figure. While she feels like she was born to be Grisha, she fears the responsibility pushed on her. Ultimately, she has to be spirited away and taken back to Ravka mostly against her will. She struggles with the desire to be nothing but a normal girl, but power and leadership find her still. And when Alina lets herself stop fighting it, she takes to both like she was made for it.

Leadership was never something Alina intended to seek out, but when forced back to Ravka she decides it'll be on her terms there on. To keep herself from becoming too dependent on anyone else, and strengthen what remained of the Grisha army after the devastating loss of the Darkling, Alina took command of the Grisha. Alina is the most powerful of the Grisha, and she knows more about current events than them. She knows secrets about the Darkling, what they are all really up against, and what needs to be done to defeat him. She's never been a leader, and she's newer to being a Grisha than the others, but she knows she's the only one who can do the job. And, despite not wanting her power before, she wants to see an end to the terror that is the Darkling. She wants to save her country and take care of the people she's lived amongst.

The people of her country, though, seem to be confused with what she is to them. Alina seeks to save them from the Fold and the Darkling, the darkness that her powers were always meant to fight against for them. The people come to see her as a Saint, though, and the Apparat only further builds this up. While Alina slowly embraces her duty to save Ravka, she never accepts the way the people of Ravka view her as Saint. Not everyone shares this view, most of the higher classes seem to regard it as nothing more than religious propaganda nad frankly Alina is more inclined to agree with them, but a growing number of the population at large do see her as Saint. Alina never feels comfortable with the worship they give her or the refugees that camp outside Os Alta and paint their faces with the sun for her or the people who sell fake bones as 'genuine Sankta Alina.' No matter how much Alina comes to accept her power and duty, she never can accept that she's anything more than a girl at the heart of it all. Worship sits uneasily with her and is the one thing she's positive she will never embrace.

sankta: (010. ❚)

2/2

[personal profile] sankta 2021-05-03 04:47 am (UTC)(link)
Despite a desire for a quiet and normal life and rejection of sanctity, Alina does take to leadership like she was made to it. There are struggles along the way, but Nikolai Lantsov has an interest in keeping Alina as leader and helps teach her ways to be a good leader while she learns other tricks herself. Alina takes away the things that kept the Grisha from becoming a whole and unifies her people to strengthen them. She finds a home among the remaining Grisha, and a duty to see to their survival and their strength. As they succeed, she finds pride in herself as a leader and a Grisha. And eventually, Alina realizes that even though part of her always yearns for a quiet life, a much stronger part of her will never relinquish her power for that life.

One of the lessons that Nikolai teaches Alina when he realizes that she tends to wear most of her emotions on her face is that weakness is a guise. He teaches her to hide her weakness and only use it when people need to see her as human. Alina uses this lesson to put on a stronger front to those in her command when necessary. Alina feels weak often, but she learns to keep weakness a secret from others and give them the Sun Summoner they need. Because of this, Alina struggles with a lot of pressure of being leader. The strain it puts on her relationship with Mal being one of those pressures. Alina knows she's losing her old life, but Mal desperately clings to who they once were. It's a major source of her confliction, and because of it there's a strain between them that becomes Alina's weakness. She hides the pain that this strain creates, never telling anyone what's really going on with her as it slowly eats at her. On top of this, the Darkling visits her constantly. He's in her room, at dinner, in the war room, on her walk home. Everywhere she goes, the Darkling is there. Except no one else can see him. When Alina realizes this, she doesn't tell anyone that she sees hm and feels him and talks to him sometimes too. She fears she's going mad, and the fear of becoming mad starts to drive her mad in itself. But it's a weakness she can't afford, and fears people calling her crazy. So she locks it away inside of her.

Because she hides her weakness, Alina hides the truth that while she loves her powers, she starts to fear them as well. Ever since she gained her second amplifier, an amplifier she was never meant to have and which seems as wild and untamed as the dragon she took it from, Alina has slowly started to become a more violent person that delights in the pain of others. These instances of anger and violence occur only a few times, but in between her temper can be short at times. At it's worse, she's wanted to kill a man who challenged her for leadership. She sought to cut him in half and make an example of him to the others who challenged her. The drive was so strong inside of her, that she already started the Cut when she realized her madness. She changed the Cut's direction at the last second, but already she came close to killing the boy just for challenging her. In addition to that, she makes Zoya talk about something painful and embarrassing to her, pressing the situation just to see Zoya squirm and delighting in her suffering. Alina catches herself in these moments, usually when she's the most angry with someone, and she fears that she's becoming like the Darkling and that power has driven her to a different kind of madness. Again, she keeps this to herself, not explaining to anyone what she's going through or what changes inside of her it's making. As time goes on, her anger and violence become less obvious and turn slowly into a girl who's more forthright and dangerous when she wants to be. But these subtle changes are worse, because even she doesn't see them and realize how much she's changing.

As madness, anger, violence, and worry plague Alina and Mal draws further from her, Alina fears the things she has to give up to realize who she is. She can't have everything, and she's losing things that are important to her. Alina grows weary of the games she has to play, the role she has to be, and the toll it takes on her life. She wants to save people, but the cost weighs heavily on her for it. To a point where she wonders about the purpose of her life, even tending to become suicidal towards the end of book two. She never actively harms herself, but she puts herself in two situations that nearly kill her willingly. If the world wants a Saint, after all, then she should give them a proper one. And Saints never live.

However, when Alina gets a moment to let go of leadership, power, anger, weakness, and all the other things that drive her to madness, she tends to be a light-hearted girl. She's fairly witty and enjoys bantering with people. She smiles easily and wants to trust just as easily. She used to trust as easily, and sometimes she gets close to falling into that trap again, but it's never quite the same. But when she's relaxed and herself, she gets a little closer to that girl she used to be sometimes. Alina has an ease about her that draws people to her, even when she doesn't mean to. When she's not busy hating the world or distrusting people, she can be a genuinely charming person who can be fun to be around. She likes to joke with others and likes to be around people generally. Even against better judgment at time. She is always the girl that wants to friends and a place to call her own and people she can love. And to those she does care for, she is fiercely loyal and will go to the ends of the world for. All of Ravka becomes this to her when she acknowledges who she is, and Alina will do anything to see it delivered to safety.

Alina is plagued by her past. She has done bad things, running from her country when she feared herself and feared responsibility. She has let people die for her freedom. She has dragged this war out and allowed herself to be used to hurt others. She has desired to hurt people and nearly hurt them. She is weak inside herself, aching always for a place to belong and never feeling like she has one. Feeling out of place wreaks havoc on her self-esteem and makes her wanting and weak and susceptible to more manipulation. She knows she's not the person that Ravka needs.

But she's what Ravka has. And she'll rise to the occasion. She will be everything that Ravka needs her to be for the good of her country and herself. Soldier, Summoner, and Saint.


SAMPLE:
+ LOG - TDM SAMPLE
+ NETWORK - VENEFICI
+ LOG - MULTIPLE
+ TFLN - MULTIPLE
+ NETWORK - RAVKAS
+ NETWORK - SHADOWFOLDS
+ NETWORK - MEWNIFESTOS


INVENTORY:
- Clothes on her back
+ 1 blue kefta shot with gold mixed into the blue stitching (Materialki stitching) and embroidered with gold hems
+ 1 pair of thick gloves
+ 1 pair of fur-trimmed boots
+ 1 white undershirt
+ 1 pair of tan pants
( all as pictured here in the center image - close-up here)

- 1 antler bone collar (power amplifier, cannot be removed)
- 1 dragon scale fetter (power amplifier, cannot be removed)


NOTES: n/a
groundrules: (Default)

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[personal profile] groundrules 2021-05-03 12:34 pm (UTC)(link)
groundrules: (Default)

ACCEPTED

[personal profile] groundrules 2021-05-03 02:06 pm (UTC)(link)


Aaaaaaaaall aboard… the absentee caravan! Thanks for applying and welcome to the game.

A few loose ends, for your pleasure:

ADMIN

  • When you have a second, have a last read through the game rules and comment to the TAKEN LIST.

  • Join [community profile] eastbound, [community profile] lostcompass, [community profile] westwhere.

  • All game-relevant updates will be posted on [community profile] lostcompass, but if you’re a fan of plurk memos, consider following [plurk.com profile] eastbound.


    • NOTES
  • We are currently in Arc I, Sa-Hareth. You can find information about our latest event and the upcoming May calendar here. Our recent ship rescue event spells out how incomers reached Sa-Hareth.

  • Not a problem right now, as there is currently no Darkling at Eastbound — but if one is applied in from a relevant timeline, I leave it at your discretion to discuss how you would both like to handle the power sharing. You can take the route of having a tug-of-war for powers (which seems to be the canon status quo, if I am reading your app correctly), or invoke the shift to a new location as a reason to dim or annul the bond. This is up to you, but I appreciate the two characters are highly inter-connected and you might want the additional option to make playing easier.

  • While the undead don’t critically suffer as a result of Alina’s light, they are greatly inconvenienced by exposure to it — most come from dark depths and are unused to intense light exposure. Unless they are highly agitated, they will typically try to recoil and withdraw, should Alina summon strong light in their presence.

  • For plotting purposes: how often was Alina subjected to the ship mirror, and what abilities or memories did she (temporarily) surrender each time?

  • Newcomers may still briefly access the House of Dew’s freebie magical network until their inevitable move-out. Alina will inherit the username knelt lady of swallow and song for that use. This username can be changed, if she procures or steals her own quartz translation device.

    • sankta: (Default)

    [personal profile] sankta 2021-05-04 08:59 am (UTC)(link)
    wonderful thank you <3

    For plotting purposes: how often was Alina subjected to the ship mirror, and what abilities or memories did she (temporarily) surrender each time?

    probably like once or twice a day at sea. her memories of Mal would have been messed with, as well as her ability to use the Cut. The latter would have made it a little too easy for her to escape with how powerful it can be. Or at least cause significant havoc.
    groundrules: (Default)

    [personal profile] groundrules 2021-05-04 09:53 am (UTC)(link)
    Thank you!
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