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groundrules) wrote2021-01-08 03:30 pm
groundrules) wrote2021-01-08 03:30 pm
Entry tags:
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.
APPLICATIONS CLOSED
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Re: Regulus Black | Harry Potter
In school, his best subjects were (and he is highly skilled in):
• Ancient Runes - the study of runic scriptures, or Runology. Ancient Runes was a mostly theoretical subject that studied the ancient runic scripts of magic. (This is probably specific to the Harry Potter universe, unless the mod says otherwise.)
• Care of Magical Creatures (though his mother made him drop it after O.W.L.s) - As the label reads: learning how to identify and care for magical creatures. Regulus really enjoyed this subject and has a soft spot for all kinds of magical creatures.
• (defense against) the the Dark Arts (strongest emphasis on the "dark" part) - Hogwarts only teaches the defense of the Dark Arts, and Regulus was good at that, too. But he was born into a family devoted to the Dark Arts so he's well versed in much of it. (Sometimes more than other dark wizards).
He didn't receive top marks in these subjects but he is respectably competent in:
• Transfiguration - the study of magic that focused on the alteration of the form or appearance of an object
• Astronomy - the study of the movement of stars and planets.
He's very good at magical wards. Like all Death Eaters, he is adept at dueling and quick apparation/disapparation (using magic to transport from one point to another), and very talented in occlumency (blocking his mind from magical mental intrusion) and legilimency (using magic to intrude into other's minds). He knows his way around a flying broomstick, and though he's not physically intimidating nor could he win a fist fight, he is dexterus and quick.
He has a naturally curious mind, so is willing to seek out new information and is a self-learner. He is intuitive and perceptive. Lying and deflection come easy to him, like breathing. He compartmentalizes easily, and he can put on a charismatic act when he wants to.
He is well-spoken and well dressed. He knows about fifty different ways to tie a neck tie. He knows what distinguishes bespoke clothing from off the rack and the difference between an oxford and a derby shoe, and why you should never wear a derby shoe to a black tie affair. Probably not a useful skill in all settings, but he's proud of this knowledge.
He speaks English, French, and reads Ancient Runes and some Latin. Given that he's learned a few languages already, he'd pick up another quickly.
Note to mod: Feel free to nerf what is necessary for the game setting
but can he please keep his extensive sartorial knowlege?PERSONALITY: Naturally inclined to be quiet and tractable, Regulus has almost always followed the path of least external resistance. Those external pressures have shaped him into a wizard who on paper checks all the boxes for the perfect purist, while hiding someone with an amazing depth of empathy and a surprising capacity for heroism.
At an early age, Regulus learned the power of compartmentalization. It was easier to endure his mother’s rages when he dissociated from the moment. This has made him a profoundly skilled occlumens and legilimens, but emotionally stunted in so many other ways.
Dealing with his mother taught him that emotions are meaningless because crying never tugged at her sympathies (the woman didn’t have any) and showing any part of himself to her that went contrary to what she wanted from him was a kind of vulnerability that only made her angrier. So, he learned to dry up his tears, to hide who he was, to hide his personality; he put his own individual wants and desires on a shelf and substituted in his mother’s, just to survive in her house. Necessity was the mother of Regulus’ formative morals.
Instead of learning emotional self-regulation, he just learned how to separate himself from what he was feeling and how to put those feelings in a box. If they were tucked away, he never had to think about them (until the box gets too full and all those emotions come flooding out, which inevitably happens). He learned how to project a facade of cool detachment, just like his father.
He has a grasp of the basic emotions: happy, sad, anger, fear, envy. It’s the complex way emotions can mix together that he struggles with.
His cruelty is rooted most strongly in his ability to compartmentalize his emotions, and it made him good at acting like the perfect Death Eater. All he had to do is lock away those parts of himself that objected to what he was doing – all that shame, and self-abhorrence, his consciences, essentially - and lie straight to the faces of some of the most terrifying people on the planet. And to himself. After all, a lie was just telling people what they wanted to hear, something Regulus had been doing since childhood.
But the cold detachment can melt away into someone almost delightful. Regulus can be engaging and personable, extremely curious about life. He’ll let a few emotions out of the box and let a bit of his personality show. He doesn’t actually understand the emotions he feels, he just rides them as long as they serve him. This show of good nature is pure privilege – it is mainly a result of being born rich, of being the most pureblood wizard a wizard can be, of being easy to look upon (okay Sirius is better looking, but Regulus isn’t far down the list, and he still has a disarming smile), of having almost everything come easy for him. Self-indulgence bleeds into arrogant selfishness because he has almost never needed to think about anyone but himself.
When pushed far enough, when the box of his emotions overflows, his downward spiral takes two trajectories: small bursts of anger, or, more frequently, destructively inward. The former is never sustained for very long (save for one exception: Sirius-related outbursts), while the latter can last for extended periods of time, days, weeks. Generally, when the top blows on Regulus’ emotions, and he responds in the form of an angry outburst, those outbursts are hot and bright, but relatively short. The energy he has for these moments is burned up quickly, leaving him exhausted, but calm and collected once again. More often, he becomes still and eerily quiet, and then he seeks release through self-harming methods – mostly alcohol and drugs (the magical kind, or old-fashioned opioids like laudanum). He prefers solitude in these moments because other people are just another variable in an equation he’s struggling to solve (that is, his emotions). And other people have a habit of either offering to help (when he doesn’t understand what’s wrong to begin with, offers of help are profoundly annoying) or making things worse.
Despite all the arrogance and selfishness and a stunted emotional intelligence, he actually has the capacity to harbor strong feelings for others. Others such as his house-elf Kreacher, a few friends (Severus and Barty), and even his brother - though to show it for his brother would be the death of him. He'll never discuss it with anyone, but Sirius’ rejection and eventual leaving felt like a betrayal. He both simultaneously hates and loves his brother. And because of how bitter he is over everything involving Sirius, his brother is the only one who can keep him angry for an extended period of time.
Regulus desperately wants approval and acceptance, a want born from a need to fill an emotional void created by his mother’s cruelty, his father’s emotional absence, and Sirius’ rejection. Though he was the Golden Child in his family, Walburga clearly had a favorite son, yet he still never adequately received anything he needed, and she was still an abusive mother. So, an abusive childhood, coupled now with his actions as a young adult, have left him with a deep-seated yearning for any kind of what seems to him to be positive affection. However, he is profoundly mistrustful of anyone on first (even subsequent) meetings for the very same reason. He gives no benefit of the doubt, as that scale is tipped towards expecting cruelty and rejection. He will push people away, even to his detriment, because he's been twice bitten and shamed and is no longer foolish.
He is arrogant and selfish, but those can be stripped away. In his world, he literally Had It All (TM) by so many metrics: his talent with magic, his looks, his wealth, his pureblood family connections. He was even able to get away with murder. The privilege of privilege is never having to see how privileged you are. But despite how blinded by privilege he is, he somehow managed to find empathy for house-elves. Bravery doesn't come to him easily, he doesn't feel compelled to run towards danger, he is very often ruled by fear: fear of disapproval, fear of being tortured, fear of rejection. He's not used to self-reflection. At the moment of his death, he’d barely made the first steps towards doing something right. And still, of all the creatures in the magical world he could pity, he cares about house-elves, he saw the way his family and other purist families treated house-elves and formulated the thought at a young age that they deserved better than the abuse they received. That empathy is innately his and the source of all the regret, guilt, and remorse he feels for joining the Death Eaters, the source of his eventual betrayal of Lord Voldemort, and the source of any good thing he could potentially do.
SAMPLE: Sample 1
Sample 2
Sample 3
Sample 4
Sample 5
INVENTORY: His clothes (which look vaguely like he stepped out of a time machine from the rich half of the late Victorian era). His wand. A soggy pack of cigarettes.
NOTES: N/A
APPLICATION RECEIVED
no subject
privilegesartorial knowledge, though he might find himself financially challenged to apply it! Before I put together your admin acceptance note, what's your poison: do you prefer a plot-lighter or plot-heavier intro? Either option's a-okay and down to sheer taste.no subject
ACCEPTED
Thank you for your application!
ADMIN
NOTES
Occasionally, Regulus will be able to spot a tall, relatively young man with a prosthetic arm, trailed by a goat, who is received by the forest people with relish for meals or wine. He never stays long, and Regulus is kept out of his path. Regulus may also notice that the forest people deserve deep disdain for the nearby lake and seem to often sneak out to spit in it or throw rocks. They will speak in excitable anger, if he tries to point to the lake or inquire about it.
This budding friendship comes to an end when a pack of Sa-Hareth youth decide to undertake Anurr’s trials in the forest, shepherded by the wood tribes. Regulus is found by the sorceresss Karsa, when she joins the party in participating in Anurr’s rites. She passes Regulus a quartz translation and communication piece and explains the basics:
Regulus is one of several otherworld arrivals. Unhalad summoned the group to use their strength and resource in the power struggle against his once dethroned but resurging undead rival, Anurr. It is in everyone’s interest for the newcomers to depart this world through long-lost portals that reside eastbound, deep in the continent. Karsa’s master, the elusive Merchant, is organising a trip to that purpose, although the voyage has been repeatedly delayed by cold storms. It is hoped that the portals will take otherworlders to their own homes. For now, they must participate in Anurr’s trials and gain more information that could help with their departure.
Re: ACCEPTED
When it says above, "a figure the woods’ people appear to revere and associate with the forest trees." Do the woods' people have an actual icon they use in substitution for their worship when Anurr is not around? Or is this just an explanation of who Anurr is for my benefit?
Where it says, "They will make an effort to keep Regulus hidden from traveling miners, woodcutters and the human denizens of the farmhouse — as well as from the visiting groups of Anurr’s undead, who meet with the forest people regularly for what appear to be exchanges of information or instruction." Is this absolute isolation from these events, or does Regulus get to glimpse a few things before being stuff away like the disgruntled pigeon he probably acted like?
(Also just wanted to say this is a perfect start for him!)
no subject
1. That is just to describe the attitude the forest people have for Anurr. There is sadly no icon of him...! Or fortunately.
2. He can glimpse as much as you like, provided he doesn't get so close that it beggars belief the farmhouse brigade never saw him and the undead didn't kill him.
no subject
Reg can see just a little, enough to continue to "WTF is my death?" all through that week (and let's be real, it will continue beyond.)
And thank you so much for the clarification.
no subject