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Applications
THIS APPLICATIONS PAGE IS NOW RETIRED. TO SUBMIT AN APPLICATION, GO HERE.
As of April 1st, 12:00CDT, applications have opened.
The Application Explained.
Please post the application to the character journal and post a link to this page. In addition, please check for spelling and grammar prior to submitting the application. Applications that are error-ridden to the point of severely affecting clarity may merit revisions or rejection.
OOC Information:
Name: Whatever handle you go by.
Are you over 15? If not, sorry but stop here.
Contact: Should we feel the need to contact you privately, what is your preferred method?
Current characters in the game: Include preincarnation's name and canon, or none if applicable - please do NOT delete this section entirely!
IC Information:
Name: If the names of the Preincarnation and Reincarnation are different, please specify. Remember that your character will have a human name.
Canon and Medium: Please note that only well-established (significant source material published, with viable translations available in English) canons are acceptable here; we do not accept self-published canons due to potential conflicts of interest.
Age: If the preincarnated age and the new life's age differs, please specify.
Preincarnation Species: Their original species, if known.
Preincarnation Appearance: A concise description or link to an image will do.
Any Differences: Remember that only a normal human appearance will be acceptable, except in cases when the character will begin as a terrestrial animal.
Starting Location: What Echo boundary is your character starting in? Current locations: 1) Locke City, NJ, USA. 2) Las Vegas, NV, USA.
Preincarnated History: What happened to your character in their canon? You don't need to explain the entire series to us, just the relevant parts in regards to the character's development, and some context to make sure it makes sense. Headcanon should be written in italics.
If you prefer you may write a bare-bones history and post a link to a wiki or resource that covers more details. If the character is an original character, please outline the world they live in as well.
Reincarnated History: What happened to your character that got them to this point in their normal, human life? While a lot of information isn't necessary here, please give us a clear picture of who they are now and where they'll be headed in the context of the game. If you're re-apping a character you previously played, please include their experiences in-game and what they've been doing in the mean time as well.
First Echo: What caused their first Echo, and what did it give them? Players may choose events from the timeline or a canon recurrence. Keep these Echoes simple, but meaningful, and keep in mind that returned effects/objects caused by canon recurrences must be directly related to the event giving them back. If re-apping, please include all of their previously-obtained Echoes.
Preincarnation Personality: What sort of person were they in their past life? Headcanon should be clearly marked in italics. This section is important, as it helps us gauge your grasp on the character, so spare no expense here.
Any Differences: You are encouraged to deviate from the original personality in three or four major ways, made to make their personality logical to the setting and their new history (which, by default, varies from their original life). If the personality does not differentiate significantly, or if the differences do not make sense given the rest of your app, revisions may be asked for.
Abilities: What abilities did your character's preincarnation have? To what extent were they used? Include any equipment they had access to and any skills they had. Headcanon should be indicated in italics, as before. You may write a brief synopsis and link to a more detailed resource if you wish. Favor conciseness here, and try to limit (or else otherwise elaborate upon) canon terminology to avoid confusion.
Roleplay Sample - Third Person: Some form of extended, third-person prose exhibiting strong voice and key behaviors of your character. If the voice is weak or the characterization appears to be off, revisions may be asked for.
Roleplay Sample - Network: Same as above, but in network-style format, using text, video, audio, etc. This MUST be on the network.
*Note: One of the samples (of your choice) must be done from the perspective of the reincarnated character, set within the game. Samples from the test drive community may be used for this purpose.
Any Questions? If you need to clear up any lingering questions or concerns, here's the place to do it.
Combo Applications Explained.
We allow applications for multiple characters that are deeply linked and will only count as one towards the player's character limit and activity, although to prevent disappointment, any combo apps must be requested beforehand. This is for characters that are deeply intertwined to the point that if they are ever apart, it's a moment worth noting, including characters that are physically incapable of being apart and ones that are so often together that being apart would affect their personality drastically. There is no upper limit to the number of characters that can be in a combo app, aside from as common sense dictates. Combo apps are opt in, so characters suitable for a combo app could also be played individually. Combo apps can be retroactively applied in these cases at request.
To request a combo app, please fill out this form.
OOC Information:
Name: Whatever handle you go by.
Are you over 15? If not, sorry but stop here.
Contact: Should we feel the need to contact you privately, what is your preferred method?
Current characters in the game: Include preincarnation's name and canon, or none if applicable - please do NOT delete this section entirely!
IC Information:
Names:
Canon and Medium:
Why should they be combined? What makes them suitable for a combo app? Be as detailed as you feel is necessary.
Once approved, you may fill out a single application with all the approved characters.
Note: Applications are dealt with as they are received, by a majority vote process among the mods. While we try to get to each app in a timely process, ultimately speed may depend on busyness and the need to discuss some apps before a decision is made. Regardless, if your app has not been seen to within a week of its submission, or if it's been three days since you answered a request for revisions, please feel free to drop us another line here or by some means of mod contact here!
Characters being re-apped: While you may use the same application as before, if you intend to have them be the same reincarnated character, please make sure that the application has not changed, and to include new information covering what happened to them in-game and what they have been up to since losing contact; if they are keeping their Echoes, please include them under the regular 'first echo' heading. Also note: characters who dropped or idled while having a strike can not be be reentered until their first strike has expired (four months past the activity check they failed). For example, a character who took a strike in the September AC must wait until February to be reapplied.
no subject
Basically, if a character has an abusive past, we'd like to see them deal with some more realistic consequences. Not that Briar can't be a positive, upbeat, strong person -- she totally can, more power to her -- but childhood abuse has lingering, hard-to-shake effects, and we'd like to see Briar either have to deal with these, or have less severe trauma in her past.
Thank you for your patience! We hope to hear back from you soon.
no subject
As for realistic consequences, I believe that building your entire professional career around making sure that you can help others like you is a very real consequence. She's devoted her life to this, I don't believe that is a minor fact. I am just confused as to what you consider a more realistic consequence.
no subject
In addition, child abuse comes with a whole host of long-term physical, cognitive and social effects, and even with the best therapy, these won't just disappear. As an abuse victim, she would have to overcome things like mistrust, difficulty forming close relationships, and an unconscious attraction to people who remind her of her former abusers. Briar is perfectly free to have a happy, fulfilling life, but glossing over the nastier effects of child abuse trivializes it in a way we are not comfortable with.
We would accept a specification of the issues that therapy helped her overcome, the issues she still struggles with, and an awareness of the importance and difficulty of keeping her less healthy personal feelings out of her professional work.
no subject
My goal was not to trivialize the facts of her past or what effects that would have on her, please do not take my hesitance to include those ideas as such. I am very aware of the problems it adds to an adult life. I would never assume that she would be perfectly healthy and I apologize for not making myself clearer on that fact. I just don't see her as a textbook case, and as such was hesitant to add anything like that to her profile.
After giving it some thought, I have added some information to her reincarnation history, which I'll put here so you don't have to search for it, but it is there:
After being removed from the home, Briar was put into a foster home, one of the lucky ones where the adults were nurturing to her. She was also placed into therapy, once it was obvious she would need some help. The therapy was not only to show her how to deal with the emotions that would come from no longer being with her father, but with night terrors that developed immediately after being removed from the home.
As she got older, she continued to see a therapist until she finished with high school, and continued to maintain a relationship with her therapist for when she thought she needed the extra help. While she grew out of the night terrors, nightmares would still plague her into her adult years, especially while working with other abused children. Yet, Briar remained shy around people whom she was not trying to help, uncomfortable with strangers. She began reading romance novels when other teenage girls were dating, and that fairy tale style of love became her ideal, keeping her from having any real romantic relationships.
Then added in at the end of that section:
As a social worker, she has had a tendency to take child abuse cases first, when she has a choice of case files to begin. She has a habit of getting involved in the lives of her clients, especially children, and has gotten in trouble before for going beyond the bounds of her job description to help those children. She was also apt to not accept help at work or outside the job, simply because she was never able to get over the hurdle of trust that her father breeched many years ago.
I believe this addresses consequences such as the reoccurring nightmares, the inability to trust professionally and personally, the lack of personal relationships in lieu of preferring daydreams instead, and getting too involved in her work.
no subject
Ultimately, we've decided to reject Briar Vartan's application. We are very sorry, especially since you've stuck with us through multiple rounds of revisions, but we feel that Briar's abusive backstory has not been handled with enough understanding to make her a good fit for Save the Earth.
Though you've technically given us what we asked for, the underlying reasons for Briar's capacity for forgiveness and reluctance to form romantic relationships don't reflect what a real person in her position would be experiencing. The claim that Briar is "not a textbook case" only goes so far to explain this discrepancy, nor can therapy explain it away. Furthermore, the problems that she still has do not seem to handicap her in a way proportionate to the trauma she's suffered. It's also troubling that in order for Briar to suffer any problems of consequence, we had to prompt them through multiple sets of revisions that seriously altered the character: inability to trust personally and professionally is not a trivial detail.
Perhaps Briar would do better in a game with a more fairytale trope-heavy setting, but for the sake of Save the Earth, both the initial app and the revised versions demonstrate insufficient familiarity with the real-world problem of abuse to be acceptable in this game.
We thank you again for your patience and your enthusiasm for this game. Please feel free to reply here or send a PM to the moderator account,