ataraxites: (Default)
axmods. ([personal profile] ataraxites) wrote2012-11-06 04:29 am

APPLICATIONS



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A P P L I C A T I O N S   ( C L O S E D ).
Applications will open on a monthly basis, beginning 00:01 AM AUGUST 1st, EST. They will close after a week ( 11:59 PM AUGUST 7th, EST ).

Reserves are not necessary to apply for a character. As stated on the reserves page, if you have placed a reserve, your app will be looked over first. Challenge apps—or applications for the same character a player has previously reserved—will also be reviewed accordingly; a reserve only guarantees that we will wait until you have submitted your app before reviewing any others. In the event that challenging apps receive the same verdict, the reserve-holder will have preference. As with the reserves, the number of characters you may app is limited to two per round.

If you are asked for revisions, they will need to be made within 72 hours of the initial request and resubmitted for reconsideration before the deadline. Revisions will be requested in order to address sections of the app we feel are underdeveloped, vague, or confusing. We will endeavor to make our requests as specific and comprehensive as possible. If you fail to submit your revisions during the specified time period, your app will be declined. If you feel you are unable to complete the revisions within the 72-hour period (due to RL difficulties or other complications), you are welcome to ask for a reasonable extension.

Your application will be declined if we feel your application does not meet the minimum basic standard for this game. We will never decline applications without reason, and we strive to give clear, detailed reasonings for our decisions. We do encourage you to reapply in the next app round, but bear in mind that if an app for a single character from the same player is rejected three times, we will no longer consider any future applications for that character from that player.

If your app is accepted, please be sure to read the welcome notice. Do not post to the network or logs comms until after applications close.

Please refer to the following for notes on what we'd like to see covered in each section:


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P L A Y E R   I N F O R M A T I O N
Your Name:
OOC Journal:
Under 18? If yes, what is your age? Please keep in mind that no players under the age of 16 will be allowed into the game, regardless of application quality.
Email + IM:
Characters Played at Ataraxion: If applicable.

C H A R A C T E R   I N F O R M A T I O N
Name: In Western order, or first name followed by family name.
Canon: If your character is an OC, please put "original". Please note that we operate a cast cap of fifteen characters. If there are more applications than available cast spaces in any one app round, they will be considered in order of submission.
Original or Alternate Universe: For original characters, please put "n/a".
Canon Point: At what point in time are you taking your character?
Number: This is the number that will appear on your character's arm upon arrival. The first three digits will indicate what jump they arrived on, but you, the player, will choose the last three for your character. It must be three digits long, and only the numbers 001-200 are available (i.e. 001, 068, 112). You cannot choose 000. If you have no preference for a number, or if the number you've requested has already been taken this application cycle, the mods will choose for you via RNG.

Setting: For canon characters, a wiki link will generally suffice, although more references are always better—especially if you are applying for a minor character. For OCs, please give us a reasonably thorough idea of what the world they come from is like. Is it modern-day Earth, but with superheroes? Is it a space opera set a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away? How does your character fit into this universe?

History: There is no minimum length requirement, as we realize that some characters may have little canon available; however, you must demonstrate a thorough understanding of your character's available screentime. Unfortunately, we do not accept wiki links in lieu of a character history.

For characters who are on the borderline of acceptability, we need to feel that the history and personality written for us provide a complete and well-rounded character without an excessive use of headcanon. Evidence for characters' suitability for application can include—but is by no means limited to—their history, psychology, voice and vocal tics, reactions to the setting, and any canon relationships they may have.

Our general guideline for minor characters' applications is that they may not be more than two-thirds headcanon or extrapolation from canon. This rule is not an exact ratio and can vary depending on the canon and the character's amount of screentime, as well as any supplementary canon that may exist. We do not judge characters by a strict time limit of how much screentime they have, but how much of their character is shown in that screentime and a player's understanding of that character in their application. Headcanon (which includes facts about the character that are drawn from analysis of the canon but not explicitly stated, as well as facts that are simply made up) should be used sparingly and made as clear as possible in the application itself.

We reserve the right to apply the same two-thirds rule to applications from very early in the character's canon as we do to minor characters' applications. While we understand the desire to play development through in game, if you choose a very early canon point for a character and cannot substantiate that canon point with a comprehensive and thorough overview of their personality and history up until that point, as well as any other relevant history necessary to understand their choices in canon, we may reject your application or ask you to reapply in the next round with a more well-rounded canon point.

Personality: Please describe your character's personality! Ataraxion is primarily a psychological horror game, and we're interested in seeing how well you understand your character's psyche. We are primarily interested in your understanding of how your character's experiences shaped their motivations and actions in canon, and how those actions will translate to their time on the Tranquility, as well as any personality flaws or weaknesses they might have. You are welcome to refer back to events in a character's history in order to illustrate certain aspects of his or her personality, but this section is where we want to see your analysis of canon events rather than simply reading points repeated from the history section.

There is no minimum length for this section, as we realize that some people are more concise in their analysis than others, but your overview of your character's personality, motivations, and flaws should be both thorough and comprehensive.

Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations: These include both mental and physical abilities and weaknesses. Superhuman or mystical powers may be limited, depending on their strength; although we will ask you for suggestions, as hopefully you will know best how to reduce your character's powers without rendering them unplayable to you. We may ask you to restrict your character's powers further in a revisions or acceptance notice.

Inventory: Please remember that characters should only find a few small items in their lockers. A set of Tranquility-issue clothing, including a jumpsuit in their size and the appropriate underclothes, will be found in all characters' lockers regardless of their requested inventory. The inventory section will be all that your characters will have with them for two months, as characters cannot make item requests until their second month in the game, so choose carefully!

Any supernatural, hypertech, or similarly powered objects may find themselves nerfed, similar to inherent supernatural abilities. Should this become necessary, the mods will address this via a note on characters' acceptance notices.

Appearance: Characters who are being altered by game mechanics, characters with no canonical appearance, non-visual mediums, and OCs should all provide a thorough physical description.

If your character has a PB ("Played By", an actor representing them in their icons) please provide their name and a link to a picture, in character if possible. While we would also like a written description, it should focus primarily on physical traits not initially obvious in the pictures.

If your character is from another visual medium (animated or rendered) you may also link a picture here, and we would prefer you do not use a PB except in exceptional circumstances, such as being physically altered by game mechanics. Applications that substitute a PB in cases we do not consider to be exceptional may be subject to revisions, and mod permission must be granted in order to substitute a PB once in-game.

Age: Keep in mind that Ataraxion is a game that will contain mature and disturbing concepts; while we have no guidelines set for character ages, character maturity should be taken into account when deciding who to apply.

AU Clarification: If applying for a canon AU, please use this section to tell us how the characterization (and setting + history, if applicable) differs from the original universe. Remember that Ataraxion will only accept alternate-universe applications from characters bringing in CR from previous games, canonically-shown alternate universes--for example, Cloud from Final Fantasy VII and Cloud from Kingdom Hearts are both appable characters--and malleable protagonists from games such as Mass Effect, Fallout, and Dragon Age.

For CR AU applications, we're mainly looking for an answer to the question: How is this version of my character different than in canon? Have they experienced any character development—mentally or physically—during their time away from canon? What events have they undergone in the game, and how did they change your character? Links to relevant threads aren't required for this section, but if you include them, please be sure to give us a description of the thread and how it's important to your character's development, as well as any content warnings that might be necessary.

If you are reapping a character that you have previously played in Ataraxion and are keeping their memories of their time on the ship, we prefer that you please update your samples to reflect their re-arrival on the ship, but this is not strictly considered a CR AU unless another existing version of the character is currently in game. In these cases, we strongly encourage potential applicants to speak to the existing cast. (NOTE: If you have killed off a character during their time in Ataraxion, you are not permitted to reapp them under any circumstances, whether they are a CR AU or fresh from canon.)

If you have questions about your character's specific circumstances, please contact a mod before submitting your application.

S A M P L E S
Log Sample: At least 200 words, please! We're mostly looking for a demonstration of your character's motivations and thought process in this section. While samples from characters' initial arrival on the ship are permitted, it can be difficult to adequately demonstrate characters' unique viewpoints and opinions upon their immediate arrival on the Tranquility. Be sure to consider carefully whether your grip on your character's inner voice will be easy to demonstrate through an arrival sample. If in doubt, please feel free to use a prompt either from your character’s canon or from later in their time on the ship for this section!

This section cannot be linked.

Comms Sample: This should be a sample post indicating how your character will use the network. Ask a mod for permission before linking samples in this section, or we will require revisions.



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N A V I G A T I O N
captainfuckingmagic: (Default)

Re: REVIS̶I̸O̸N̴S̸.

[personal profile] captainfuckingmagic 2014-02-12 03:33 am (UTC)(link)
History:
Embrey, Indiana. "When in doubt, cut up a pig", faithfully serving as the town motto since 1802. The biggest thing that happened in that town was that one Hollywood flick that went through about twenty years ago, and it wasn't even big. Starring some actor who went on to change his name and become fifteen times as successful after he did it, the most notable thing the town ever produced happened to be people who were leaving it. They all left for different reasons, but the point is, people are from Embrey, they don't actually live there. It's the kind of town where it just works out better that way. Big fish, small pond. Hell, average sized fish, tiny pond.

Harry Lockhart is a pretty normal-to-small sized fish himself, which is probably why it took him longer to leave. He went to high school with this girl, you see, who left first, sometime in junior year. Harmony Faith Lane was a pretty big fish, to continue the metaphor, and she left the little town to go hit the big one, get famous and rich in Hollywood as an actress, and then come back home and save her little sister. The film alludes pretty irrevocably to their father being a pedophile, in what is otherwise a fairly light-hearted storyline, which ultimately winds up being both motivation and plot point later on.

Anyway, this is all flashback. The story starts in earnest with... Well, it starts with a party. (Well technically before that it starts with a different flashback – there's this whole magician thing. I'll come back to it.) Harry's smoking, offending Angelenos by smoking, rescuing moths from pools – whatever. Flashback to New York, where Harry spends most of his days now, boosting car radios and trying to steal toys for his niece for Christmas with his buddy. His admittedly semi-sophisticated alarm hack wiggles free when a train goes by, they run out into the alley, and lo! New York City is full of tough chicks with guns who are apparently totally okay with shooting people who are trying to tell them that their guns aren't loaded. Harry tries to get his friend to drop the gun, his friend insists on waving it around and shouting back at the lady, and she winds up shooting him in the chest – but not before the bullet passes through Harry's arm as he tries to get the guy to back away.

Wham, bam, Harry takes off running again, thank you ma'am, and in evading the cops runs right into –

… an open audition? Okay, sure. Someone else hands him a script and now it's cold reading time. Hilariously, "reality and fiction blur" and this scene happens to be about a guy who got his partner shot during a robbery gone wrong.

Well. Owing to – ahem – recent experiences, Harry nails the fuck out of that audition, going off-script and emoting more methodly than Russell Crowe on his best day ever. He wows everyone in the room, and earns himself a one-way ticket to LA for the rest of the shoot.

Kay, so, he was at a party, remember? The moth in the pool? Awesome. Flashback over, back to the party. He's here to meet up with Gay Perry, the guy who is a rl private eye and is going to apparently teach Harry how to pretend to be one for the movie. Now, while he's waiting on that to happen, he comes across this douchnozzle feeling up this one girl who fell asleep on a pool table?? at a party in LA?? while reading some books that reminded her of her childhood in this stranger's house??? (spoiler: this is harmony reading Jonny Gossamer books, the books that the movie in Embrey were based on that made her decide to become an actress, sort of, so, you know.) Harry stands up for this girl who is being felt up in her sleep and calls the guy out for being an asshole and that hey, maybe they should take this outside where he's going to clearly open a can of whoop-ass up all over this gu-

quick cut to harry getting his ass handed to him in the grass outside. This dude slams his face into the ground, and then just kicks him a couple of times in the side for good measure before sauntering off. Nice try, Harry.

Anyway, he meets Gay Perry now, who helps clean him up, and he meets Corbin Bernsen Harlan Dexter, whose party and house this actually is. The party is for his daughter, woohoo, big reunion between the two of them suddenly for no apparent reason. Totally not plot relevant. On the way out, Harry mentions that he thinks that girl was The One That Got Away, from back home. Perry tells him where he can find her, because everyone in LA knows everyone else, apparently, and he happens to know who she is.

FLASHBACK again btw Harry used to be a magician (see I said I'd come back to it). Harmony helped him with his tricks, namely, where he cut her in half. She scared the living bejeezus out of everyone one day when she started screaming while the chainsaw was eating through the box, and then when the lid was opened and the chainsaw was gone, she was just doing it for attention. "I'm going to be an actress some day." They've been friends since like around age 7 to at least 16, when she left, and in Harry's eyes, she's been the one, the dream girl, ever since he started recognizing girls for the beautifully wonderful things they can be.

/flashback.

So he meets up with Harmony at this other bar, and shows off how clever he can actually be when he feels like it. ("Man, I feel sore. I mean, physically, not like a guy who's angry in a movie in the 1950s.") He doesn't even recognise her for who she is at first – which makes sense, since they haven't seen each other for like fifteen years. She's a quick one though, and she pegs him immediately, and they have a nice little evening and then they go back to his hotel room and –

he gets plastered drunk and apparently sleeps with her friend. Oops.

Narrative happens – they bicker, she apparently cuts the ties, slams the door in his face, he looks really sad, yadda yadda. He goes on to have a stake-out with Perry, the first of his PI lessons with the man.

Okay now cue the ridiculous shit.

Perry was hired by this lady to spy on some dude in a cabin. So they're out there, someone gets in a car and leaves, they follow them, and then the car flies over them and lands in a lake. Okay, sure. They dive in to get the people out of the car, and find a body in the trunk. Oops again. Haul her off – Perry accidentally shot her in the head getting the trunk actually open, even more oops, so no cops – and they leave her by the side of the road. On the way back, they get a phone call from the... cops. Harmony apparently shot herself in the head, and they're supposed to treat all suicides as homicides. It's all very sad, but Perry has to leave, and Harry goes up to his hotel room.

When... Harmony knocks on the door. It wasn't her, it was her sister, and someone told her that Harry is a PI and she wants his help with the case, because her sister took her birth control pill for the day and so obviously was murdered and didn't commit suicide. Of course, because she's The One, he doesn't tell her he was lying, yes he totally is a real PI, and he'll totally help her. There's a spider and some touchy feely that doesn't actually get to the touchy part really and then she leaves because they fight a little because Harry is incapable of not breaking everything he loves, and he decides to take a leak. This winds up entailing a certain amount of... peeing on the body he's just noticed in his shower – surprise! It's the body from the lake. Again. Like the world's worst yo-yo, except that it actually did come back. Cue him and Perry trying – again – to dispose of the same body.

Some more narrative happens, backstory I already gave you, it's well-delivered and pretty and everything's good. Harry and Harmony go off and chat – she tells him that due to the incest she told her little sister that their dad was actually not their dad, that some actor on this one movie was her real father so she she would feel better, and hey, it worked – and Perry has to get back to his actual case – the one with the girl who wanted him to spy on some dude in the cabin? Still important. Harry and Harmony catch the news at this point too, and they discover that the corpse that's been following Harry around LA is actually Corbin Bernsen Harlan Dexter's daughter, the one that party was for. Weird, right? Oh well.

Perry tells Harry to get out of LA, because shit is getting real, and oh by the way you were never actually going to be hired for the movie, they were just using you to shave a few thousand dollars off of Colin Farrell's price tag. Sorry Charlie Harry. Don't be too sad, and yes, actually do leave please, because you're oddly endearing and something bad will happen to you if you stay.

Well, Harry stays.

Bad things happen.

Actually, he was going to leave, he was all the way in the airport like a good boy, when it clicks. He realizes that Perry's case, and his case, "are the same fucking case", and he runs off to tell Harmony about it.

She shuts the door on his enthusiasm, and his left ring finger, which is promptly cut off in the door, because things like that actually happen in real life. He's off to the hospital to get it sewn back on, and then he meets her at a party later only a little bit high on Demerol. Anyway, they learn that surprise surprise, that no-name actor who was in the Jonny Gossamer flick back from Embrey, Indiana went on to change his name (I told you) and became, drum roll please, Harlan Dexter. Shock and amazement! Her sister had hired Perry to spy on the guy in the cabin, had reasoned out that Harlan was apparently her real father, and then was apparently murdered for some reason.

Well both Perry and Harmony also still have real jobs, so the Scooby gang splits up again for a while, and Harry gets cornered by these two tough guys who rip his finger back off and tell him to go back home to NYC. Harmony starts to take him to the hospital again, but gets side-tracked when she realizes Perry's stake-out is a set up, and wow apparently everyone in LA has guns because a macho nacho vendor shoots the shit out of one of the thugs while Harry falls asleep in the car, and a pink haired chick in on the set-up drives him to her house by mistake?? (i'm not even kidding this movie is ridiculous)

Pink haired chick gets shot while Harry is hiding under the bed, and it's super duper sad, and then he shoots the shit out of the guy and is even more sad because Harry is actually very nice and empathetic and doesn't take killing people lightly.

Harry and Harmony have a nice second touchy feely moment that actually gets more with the touchy than before until she tells him she slept with his best friend and they argue again and split up.

And then he runs into Perry who tells him Harmony figured everything out and accidentally kills someone again by complete mistake and feels even more bad about his growing kill count.

And then they get captured by Dexter and he gets his balls electrocuted by way of torture for information but everything's mostly fine aside from where he has a hard time walking.

Things start to happen really fast around here, in case you hadn't noticed.

Harmony steals a car with a coffin and the corpse of Harlan Dexter's daughter and the bad guys chase her. Harry and Perry attempt to catch up, and do, and things are fine in this somewhat small scale shoot out until someone shoots at them both and the bullet goes straight through Perry and hits Harry in the chest too and knocks them both out. Harmony, who fell off the side of an overpass, calls Harry, rejuvenates his heroic aura or whatever, and he gets up and kills basically everyone left, including shooting Harlan after catching a handgun that had landed on the coffin that had landed on the sign on the overpass with the arm of the corpse that he's hanging off of dangling out the side. (Just, take a moment to picture that properly. It's magnificent.)

Harry saves the day, they learn all of it had to do with Harlan having the pink haired girl pose as his daughter while the real one was safely locked up in a mental institution, all so he could "reconcile" with her for – what, you guessed it – money. The universal motivator. Harmony's sister was tailing Harlan, and saw him having some extra-curricular fun with the pink haired girl he'd hired to play his daughter. To her, this looked like incest all over again – real life intrudes in on the semi-fairy-tale narrative once again as we learn that Harmony's little sister did indeed commit suicide. "First her real father, then the shiny new one."

Anyway, everyone else lives, everything's happily ever after, except that Harry's still missing a finger. He stays in LA, and works with Perry now, a real life private eye that in no way at all likely actually hinders Perry's work instead of helping. At all.