passingmod | Applications

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applications

Applications

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APPLICATIONS ↓
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sample app how we review

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

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Your name: Effy
Your journal:

ineffabilities
Contact: AIM - doesnotlikesoaps, Plurk (never used) - sugarhoneyderpishly
Other characters played at Passing: I used to play Whitlea, Laharl, Barnaby and Mao, but I've since idled out.

Character name: Sherlock Holmes
Character fandom: Sherlock (BBC)
Version: V1
Canon point: Post-A Scandal In Belgravia
Importing development from old game? Nope!
Background: List of Sherlock episodes on Wikipedia. Sherlock's page on the BBC Sherlock wiki.

Changes from canon, if AU: N/A

Personality:

Arrogant showoffy sod. The end.

...no, wait, not the end.

Sherlock Holmes is, yes, an arrogant, showoffy sod. He's very intelligent, yes, but he's also the type to insult people by deducing, say, their entire life stories from some minute detail about them, and saying their private issues out loud. He thinks very highly of himself, as Irene Adler once says in Scandal, "No, I think you're damaged, delusional and believe in a higher power. In your case, it's yourself," and as seen pretty much every day. He thinks that everyone around him is an idiot, and makes no secret of it. He's blunt and straightforward about his opinions and what he's deduced--he won't sugarcoat it for you just to soothe your fragile ego.

Unfortunately, that same bluntness can also be described as, well, tactlessness. He's been known to shout that he wanted a "nice juicy murder" for Christmas. At Santa Claus. In front of a bunch of kids and their parents. He also gets excited by serial killers, because according to him, "there's always something to look forward to". Sometimes it's just a bad case of timing (see: The Hounds of Baskerville, when he finally solves the case and is going, "This case, Henry! It's been brilliant." After Henry Knight, his client, has just discovered that the man he thought was his father's friend actually killed him and, beforehand, almost ate his gun), but at other times, he just has no sense of what to say.

And most times, it's deliberate. He doesn't really care what other people think about him, so long as he gets cases, so long as he doesn't get bored. He also does not care if his clients are important or not, he makes it very clear to them that he only wants the interesting cases. He's the sort of person who, if he's wearing only a bedsheet at the time, would refuse to put his clothes on if he had to go to Buckingham Palace. (And yes, it did happen. See Scandal.)

But he is very intelligent. He wouldn't be Sherlock Holmes, if he wasn't. Aside from being able to deduce something from someone at a glance, he's also written an article on 243 different types of tobacco ash on his website (later taken down), managed to crack a code that baffled Britain's best cryptographer in less than eight seconds, and solved a case while at home wrapped in a bedsheet, among other things. The only thing he doesn't know is the solar system, general pop culture and anything that does not relate to solving crimes.

He also describes himself as a "high-functioning sociopath". Don't ask me how it works, I'm no psychologist, but apparently, it means he doesn't really care for others. Which is, as the series goes on, completely false. He does care for other people, he just has a weird way of showing it, and he doesn't have many people he cares for, owing to his personality and general attitude towards others. But when he does care for someone, it's to the point where he's fiercely protective of them--going so far as to throw someone out the window for Mrs. Hudson and, later on, to throw himself off a building so John, Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade won't get shot.

Doesn't mean he won't manipulate them, though. He can be rather manipulative when he feels like it, often using what he's learned about someone against them, or pretending to be someone he's not to get what he wants or needs. He's used a morgue attendant named Molly Hooper's crush on him to be able to see some bodies that she doesn't have the authority to take out (see, The Blind Banker), and put sugar in John's coffee in the belief that there was a drug of some sort in the sugar (see, Hounds, and no there wasn't, which just goes to show that not even Sherlock is infallible). He's also a very good actor, on one occasion pretending to be a recently-mugged vicar to get into someone's house (see, Scandal).

Throughout this app there's been mentions of his only taking interesting cases. It's because he's...well, you could say he's an addict to the feeling he gets when he solves a particularly baffling case. He practically craves that high, though cigarettes and nicotine patches seem to be an acceptable substitute, so if he's denied a case and access to nicotine, he's liable to throw a temper tantrum, point harpoons at people and generally be meaner than usual (as seen in Hounds). And simple cases won't do it for him, he wants the ones that baffle even the police, the ones that seem almost impossible to solve.

He's also a terrible flatmate. Won't talk or eat for days, plays violin at 2 AM, keeps body parts in the kitchen (sometimes beside the food), shoots the walls when he's bored...he's generally not much good at keeping house, and he doesn't see any reason as to why he should change that.

So. In summation, Sherlock is an arrogant git who, nevertheless, has his redeeming factors.

Abilities:
- Deductive abilities: pretty obvious already, but he's very good at deducing things. He can tell a person's life story at a glance, though something sometimes trips him up. (Irene Adler and Jim Moriarty hold the honor of having thrown off his trademark scan.)
- Mind Palace: it's, basically, a mind mapping technique where you deposit memories and facts somewhere in your head. For some reason Sherlock's chosen a palace. Don't ask.
- Reasonably good at combat, though he's probably never formally trained. He prefers guns.
- And speaking of guns, he's also rather adept at shooting. This is the man who shot a smiley face into the wall.
- Very good at playing the violin.

Writing sample:
(Notes: the character this sample is about isn't Sherlock himself, but another person from another canon. Said sample has been lifted from one of my more recent fics, but if you want, I can write another one!)

It’s as he’s walking back to the hotel that he bumps into someone. Or, well, to be exact, he collides into a brick wall, except brick walls don’t move. And they certainly don’t wear green-and-purple monstrosities with yellow-and-red trousers.

…who even wears those these days? Outside of the Fools’ Guild, anyway.

“Oh, I’m so terribly sorry,” a voice booms, and William thinks, Oh, yes, there go my eardrums. “I wasn’t looking! Clumsy of me, really…”

“No,” he manages, “it’s fine. It’s fine, really.”

He staggers to his feet and almost chokes back a groan.

Oh, he’d recognize that face anywhere.

“Mr. Wintler,” he begins, “I thought you weren’t allowed to travel to London.”

The man gives him a blank stare, then laughs. “Oh, but I’ve always been in London!” he exclaims. “You must be mistaking me for my cousin.”

…oh, gods, Wintler has a cousin. Well, it isn’t like they probably share the same poor sense of humorous vegetables in common, right?

“And you,” Wintler’s cousin continues, “must be William de Worde, right? My cousin’s told me all about you! You’re famous in our family, the bloke who started the Ankh-Morpork times!”

“I’m flattered, really,” William weakly replies. “But I should really go, I have to get back to my hotel…”

“Don’t go yet!” the other man bellows, and again his eardrums are ringing with the sheer force. Doesn’t he know how to turn down the volume on his voice? “It’s just that I’ve got a really funny leek for you…”

I really should’ve expected that.

“Actually, sir,” he finally says, “I’m not here for humorous vegetables, I’m here for the Sherlock Holmes story. Please dump your funny leek somewhere, I’ve had quite enough of vegetables for a lifetime, especially ones that have a silly shape or a human face.”

Unfortunately, the man is, after all, built like a brick wall, and could probably mess up his head and break his arms if he so chooses, and so somehow the words get rearranged and scrambled from brain to mouth into, “Erm, really?”

The man beams. “Yep!”

“Well, unfortunately,” he manages to say, “I’m rather peckish right now, and whatever vegetable you might have on hand may just be eaten. And I don’t have a camera so I can take a picture of it before I do, so. You can save it for later, perhaps?”

He silently revels in his victory as the man sighs. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll bring a camera tomorrow, then! And then you can put it in your newspaper, and we can all have a laugh the next family reunion.”

“Yes,” he weakly says. “That’s…rather thoughtful of you. Thank you. Please go, though, I’d like to go back to my hotel.”

Voice sample:
Meme thread with Ami
Meme thread with Conan

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!

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Applications

Sherlock Holmes | Sherlock (BBC) | reserved

Re: Sherlock Holmes | Sherlock (BBC) | reserved

Re: Sherlock Holmes | Sherlock (BBC) | reserved

ACCEPTED!