passingmod | Applications

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applications

Applications

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APPLICATIONS ↓
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WHAT TO KNOW

Applications are ALWAYS OPEN, and will be processed as they are received. They must be posted in the comments, NOT linked to.

Before applying, read the rules & setting page and this post in their entirety. Use the potential applications page or the FAQ if you have any questions about the process. There is also a sample app and an explanation of how we process apps if those interest you. The wanted characters list may also be helpful.

In general, however, we would rather have a shorter, better written application than a longer one, every time. That said, length is one of the least important factors in our applications. We look primarily at the voice samples, then the personality section and writing sample. The voice samples are by far the most important section, and we prefer that these be thread links, because they give us a sense of how you play the character rather than simply how you write an application for the character.

The application page from the former site can be found here.

MISC. RULES

We do allow challenge apps, but we wait the duration of the reserve for the other app to come in before processing them against each other.

Applications or parts of applications (such as the initial comment containing contact information) will be screened on request.

There is a one week grace period for dropped characters during which applications for them will be held pending. The former player can choose to pick up those characters at any time during that week without re-applying.

If you are asked for a revision, you have one week to submit them before your app will be automatically declined. You must resubmit your app in its entirety if that happens. Always feel free to ask us to clarify what we're looking for on revisions; we won't bite.

If you are rejected, we encourage you to re-apply. We like seeing players that have taken our critique and worked on improving their portrayal. The exception is a character rejected on the grounds that they would be difficult to impossible for others to play with. Playability is an important factor.

Our plagiarism policy is as follows: the first offense will be met without consequence. The second offense results in a one month ban from apping. Subsequent further offenses will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis but most likely incur longer bans, up to and including indefinite bans.

APPLICATION IN DETAIL

Your name:
Your journal: A sock is fine, or a commonly used character journal if you don't have a personal one. Just please be consistent with your identity for ease of reference.
Contact: AIM/plurk/email/etc., whatever you prefer to be contacted.
Other characters played at Passing:

Character name:
Character fandom:
Version: V1, V1.# or V2+ should be the only options.
Canon point: What point of their timeline you're taking them from.
Importing development from old game? If yes, where from?
Background: Link to the Wiki entry on it, or if the series has its own wiki, the character's page. A comprehensive fan site is an acceptable substitute. If you cannot find one of these that works well enough for us to get a good grasp of your character from a third party, please write out the standard 'history' section for this on your own. Please include this even if applying for an AU version of the character. OCs need the history section written out as well, obviously.

In general, though, this should be a link whenever possible and not a written history. We use it to compare an unbiased third party account against your represented version of the character. If you include a written history, we will ignore it completely and look up whatever is available for that character on Wikipedia ourselves.

Changes from canon, if AU: What it says. Detail here how the AU world is different from canon, or what events have happened in their previous game that have lead them to be different.

Personality: The meat of the application, and self-explanatory. We want to see that you understand what makes them tick. If AU, try to include explanation for where and why the character has changed from canon.

Abilities: What are they particularly good at, or if they do have superhuman powers, what are they? A bullet point list will suffice.

Writing sample: At least 200 words of your own writing in third person prose, preferably about the character you're applying for. Samples about others are allowed, in any setting. This is to gauge your writing style and technique, not your grasp of character. That's the next section.

Voice sample: You may either write 200 words of your character speaking to himself, or you may link to threads, or you may request to thread with a mod character.

Regular voice sample: If choosing option one, the standard first person sample rules apply. The word count applies only to spoken words, not action in brackets, and since 200 words is a lot for some quiet characters, more than one different samples are allowed.

Linking to threads: If you are linking to threads, make sure they are lengthy ones that demonstrate your understanding of the character. We don't need a million of them, but remember that this is as a substitute for a sample, and we will evaluate it the same way. Threads that took place in other games, museboxes, or

dear_mun are all fine.

Threading with a mod character: You may also request to thread with a mod character - please do so in the body of your application when you submit it, rather than contacting a mod privately. The first available mod will respond back as soon as possible and discuss with you who your character would be best suited to play off of of their characters, and then you will agree on a time to sit down and crack out a thread.

These will be 'quick log' style in brackets and not prose to make them go faster and keep the focus on dialog. These do not have to be masterpieces of wonder, but your application will not be judged until you have finished the thread (at least 20 comments on your part), so think carefully before choosing this option. The mods will make every effort to respond to your tags quickly.

BLANK FORM

Comment here with this!

APPS ARE NOW PROCESSED EVERY SATURDAY AND SUNDAY

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Your name: Ves
Your journal:

anonfantry
Contact: AIM (atticfloor), Plurk (gravejuice), PMs
Other characters played at Passing: None.

Character name: Cloud Strife
Character fandom: Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core
Version: V1.1
Canon point: Chapter 6, just after the mission to Modeoheim
Importing development from old game? Nope.
Background: Cloud Strife @ Final Fantasy Wiki

Changes from canon, if AU: Technically same universe as canon, but only following through the events of Crisis Core.

Personality:

“I'm just a normal grunt. I couldn't get into SOLDIER. That's all I am; a normal soldier.”

In his own words, Cloud is nobody special – of course, it's natural for most people to be their own biggest critic, but few tend to take the job as seriously as he does. Beneath his rather reserved, shy-bordering-on-standoffish exterior, Cloud is driven by an uncompromising determination. Once he sets his mind to something, he isn't one to give up easily (or, more often, at all), always ready to push himself past the limit for any worthy cause. All of his goals in life center on this single track: to prove himself, and to do so by becoming stronger than he is, now. He's grown up hinging the entirety of his self-worth on this seemingly unattainable strength, and because of this, he takes his personal failings to heart more deeply than may be strictly healthy. No matter how big or small the perceived inadequacy, he's prone to beating himself up endlessly over each and every failure (not being able to stop Tifa from falling on Mt. Nibel, never making SOLDIER, his inability to stand out under Shinra's employ at all), and, in applicable cases, he's perfectly capable of carrying the guilt with him for years. This type of thinking has resulted in predictably low self-esteem; for example, when thanked, even in separate instances, for having helped comrades come to some important realizations of their own, Cloud appears genuinely perplexed by the thought of having inadvertently done well. He's willing to forgive a great many things of others (especially his idols), but very few of himself. As intensely negative as the tangled motivations that hold him up can be, though, Cloud isn't a total downer.

For all of the time and effort he spends doubting himself, all of the shame and anger he internalizes over his weaknesses, he's still more than resilient enough to bounce back – no matter how many times he's knocked down, Cloud is always ready to get back up and try again. He never stops looking for the next chance to be somebody, though it isn't all selfishness, either. Below that desperation, there is a genuine desire to be helpful, useful, to protect the people who are important to him. Once a person's place is cemented in his heart, whether by conventional means or via the not-so-occasional case of hero worship, he'd do anything for them – though, actually, he's liable to go to extreme lengths for just about anybody, given the right circumstance. Even put in charge of guarding complete strangers' lives, he is willing without a second thought to throw himself into fights where the enemies vastly outclass (not to mention outnumber) him, for their sake. He has a bad habit of never once pausing to assess the risk to himself in these types of situations, however, and very often ends up getting into trouble well over his head because of it.

Then again, perhaps it's to be expected, with or without his lacking sense of self-preservation, when the list of things that are so totally out of his league drags on so long. Even some of the simplest matters can send him ducking back under the cover of his guarded facade. Given the turbulent nature of his childhood (after being blamed for Tifa's fall, he was found to be fighting with the other children all of the time – that is, when he wasn't avoiding them entirely), Cloud has fairly little experience in healthy, ordinary social interaction to fall back on. As a child, he managed to rationalize away his stubborn inability to connect with his peers by building himself up in some backwards fashion from within the safety of an open disdain for them.

In the years since, he's become a considerably less volatile person, but the propensity for such harsh judgement remains, along with a buried streak of that fearsome temper. These days, his anger is mostly directed inward, lashing out reserved more for dire situations, while the rest of the time, Cloud's much more likely to take the opposite route. When pressed on sensitive subjects, he reverts back to that time-tested technique of walling himself off, a shift that's always very overt in his body language: he'll most likely turn away, go defensively silent, all but announce aloud that whoever has pressed one of his buttons is about to get the cold shoulder for some indeterminate amount of time. Even with positive emotions, he tends to take the easy out, though (telling Zack how much he admires him in what basically amounts to a text message, for instance, as well as later inviting him to visit at his home in the same fashion – even though he has more than ample opportunity to simply ask something so straightforward in person).

In a lot of ways, though, he's still just the average awkward teenager, beneath all of his insecurities and mildly obsessive aspirations. He won't hesitate (or not for too very long, anyway) to speak when spoken to, tending toward concise (if not necessarily decisive) replies, and doesn't even have much problem joking around with people who show good humor toward him, first. Without obvious cues to lead him, though, his wallflower nature becomes more noticeable; Cloud is a reactive personality, rarely apt to take the initiative unless it's in the line of duty. He's easy to confuse, conflicted as he is in his own wants, quick to find himself tongue-tied, at best, and totally in the wrong, at worst. Which is not to say Cloud's an absolute failure at empathy – it's simply deciphering these hidden messages in others' emotional states that he's not so good at. Perhaps because he has such a hard time with simple expressions, himself. As great as his desire for strength and acclaim and even just friendship may be, articulating these feelings is not something he'll ever grow to excel at.

As eager as he is to change himself, however, maybe it's not a completely lost cause.

“Even a lowly soldier like me can do something. If I can't even save one life, I don't belong in SOLDIER. I'm going to fight!”

Abilities:
Cloud has a couple of years of basic military training, knows how to fire and maintain an automatic rifle (though he isn't very proficient with it, on the former), can cast "magic" with the use of equipped materia (of which he presently has none, given that's equipment a little above his pay-grade), and has the necessary knowledge of survival skills one would expect of both an infantryman and a kid who grew up fending for himself way out in the boonies. But for the most part, he is limited to the abilities of an ordinary human being. Physically, he's quite weak, and mentally can be even more so (being both a very driven individual – and far more by his emotions than he tends to want to let on – and one prone to making rash decisions based on this drive).

However (through the magic of imminent protagonist status) there are two exceptions to the rule:

1) Under the absolute most extreme duress, Cloud is capable of tapping into an exceptional well of willpower, which transfers into seemingly inhuman strength (i.e. throwing Sephiroth across a room by the end of his own sword while still being impaled upon it, or lifting the Buster Sword with ease)

2) He has an apparently natural skill wielding swords, unlike with his standard issue weaponry, and is capable of striking far more devastating blows this way (this skill, however, also appears to be something of a desperation move – after the first incident in which he successfully wields a sword instead of his gun, he claims to have blacked out and have no memory of how he managed to take the opponents out with one swing)

Writing sample:

(From this thread.)

It's spring, already, but there's a chill lingering in the air yet, icy fingers in the breeze reminding recently thawed ground of a winter just passed and amplifying the cold grip anxiety has settled over his heart. He hadn't dressed warmly enough, back then, either -- months that felt years gone, now. The last time he was here, standing in the crisscrossed shadows of the water tower's splintering wooden supports, waiting beneath the picture perfect, starry night sky.

There's no moon by which he might tell the hour, this time, and he's never owned a watch; so he waits, counting out the minutes each instant he hesitates and convinces himself it's safer to wait just a little longer. The lights in the houses around his hiding place were all extinguished long ago, lit out one by one as snuffed candles, families settling in for the evening, for the night. He might have run from where he stands, still, back shortly to the safety and warmth of his own home, where his mother sleeps, unaware of his plans to abscond far earlier than he's promised.

There's a different promise he intends to keep, though, as he ducks out from underneath the water tower at last to steal into the open, running quietly as he can to that painfully familiar spot-- There's no light in the window he peers up into, either, and some vital chord in him pulled taut with tension hums another foreboding note to his terrified mind.

(Because at all of fourteen and with precious little else to his name, the prospect of fatally wounded pride is surely something to be terrified of.)

She's not there that ugly little voice whispers. Or maybe it's She's changed her mind. Which is worse? He doesn't want to decide. In one final flash of bravery, he tosses the pebble practically crushed into his palm up to hit one dark windowpane. Though the rock he'd carefully selected in his time spent waiting is far too small even to crack the glass, he still has to grit his teeth at that little clatter of sound. It's more noise than he's made since taking up his hiding spot beneath the tower. Since some inconsequential, noncommittal answer he'd mumbled over the last homemade dinner he'll ever have in the only home he's ever known. Ages and ages ago.

A part of him (probably the same part that keeps reassuring him she's off somewhere laughing with her friends, right now, or telling on him because she's still angry that he let her fall) is certain that he's just made up this whole thing. That it must've been a dream he had, that if she even shows up at her bedroom window, it'll only be to look down on him like he's lost his mind. But back when he'd so flatly suggested that she run away, too, he still remembers--

He thinks he remembers--

Counting down the seconds between breaths, Cloud stops thinking and waits. He can afford to, for just a little longer.

Voice sample:
One.
Two.

You've been accepted! Welcome. :) There are a few things to go over.

ᘚ Please join the comms. These notifs haven't been working lately, so if a day goes by and you haven't been accepted into the communities, feel free to nag us.
ᘚ Comment to the taken page.
ᘚ Our activity requirements are 20 comments each month for each character, and please remember to tag every post your character comments on - this is how we keep track of activity for ACs.
ᘚ If you use plurk, you might also consider following the mod account, though this is not required.

Do all of that, introduce yourself on the OOC comm, and start playing!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Applications

Cloud Strife | Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (V1.1) | Reserved (1/3)

Cloud Strife | Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (V1.1) | Reserved (2/3)

Cloud Strife | Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (V1.1) | Reserved (3/3)

ACCEPTED