First of all we would like to state that your application for Wolfgang was very well-written and comprehensive, covering all of the things we would expect for an original character application and more. It is obvious that you are a good writer with a vivid imagination, and he, as a character, is very interesting and unique, and we would like to commend you on creating him, as he feels like a very real character coming from a real world. As stated on our application page, we hold original character applications to higher standards than canon characters, and aside from some minor concerns over his powers and abilities, your application more than meets them.

However, the reason we hold original characters to higher standards is that they are more susceptible to fluidity within the constantly moving medium of RP, and because they lack the distance between author and audience that they would have within a closed-canon medium such as a novel or film. Wolfgang has not just one, but many sensitive, real life and very current issues within his backstory. While we appreciate the amount of sensitivity you displayed in writing about them within his application, we are not comfortable allowing them to be represented by an original character in Ataraxion.

While we by no means believe that life should be devoid of discussions around important topics such as mental illness, sexuality, gender-identity or world politics, we do feel that there is a point where we must consider player comfort a priority. We already have players in-game who are themselves: trans*; living in Israel; affected by mental illness. While we don't speak for them, we believe they deserve to be able to use RP as a safe space and an escape from activism surrounding these issues. We also do not want to put our players in the uncomfortable position of playing out opinions they may not personally agree with, as forcing players to confront their opinions on inflammatory, sensitive topics often results in the blurring of OOC and IC lines and can devolve into accusations of real prejudice. While these things can also occur with canon characters, they are held to the more rigid parameters of their canon in addition to the rules of etiquette within DWRP. We also feel involvement from a creator who actively chooses to include these subjects in their text (whether for representation or to challenge certain attitudes) can greatly speed up the fraying of OOC and IC lines.

While the Ataraxion mods encourage the representation of minority characters, both in this game and across all of DWRP, we do not think it's appropriate for our game to be the stage for those debates.

As addressing these concerns would require an extensive rewrite of Wolfgang’s history and compromise his structure as the character you have created, we have chosen not to issue you with revisions, and have instead decided that unfortunately we must decline him.