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Sky of Diamonds Moderators ([personal profile] resetbutton) wrote2012-02-01 03:00 pm

♢ APPLICATION


APPLICATION
How to

Applications are OPEN.

♢ We accept applications for: fandom (OU), original (OC), alternate universe (AU), and fandom original characters.
♢ Please check the taken and reserve pages to make sure the character you wish to apply for is available.
♢ Up to three versions of a single character may be in the game at once.
   ° NPCs do take up one of these character slots. They count as AUs.
♢ We allow only one OU version of a character, out of a total of three versions. (That means we can have a combination of either one OU and two AUs, or just three AUs before we stop accepting applications for that character.)
   ° Alternate universe characters are marked by silver borders on the taken page.
♢ If you are given a revision, you have two weeks to fill it out before we issue an automatic decline.
♢ In the case of a decline, you must wait two weeks before reapplying.
♢ We don't do app challenges.
♢ Headcanon is allowed.
♢ Don't worry about apps getting long. If it takes a lot of words to get across what you're trying to say, then go ahead and use them.
♢ Our goal is to have apps processed within a week of their posting.
♢ Existing players, please make sure you can manage activity with your current characters before applying for more.
♢ Applications are screened. Upon acceptance, you may ask us to unscreen them if you wish.
   ° Remember: Dreamwidth allows you to reply to your own screened comments!

If you're unsure of who to apply, we suggest the potential app discussion page. Filling out the small form might give you a better idea of who would work better for you and the setting!

Example
Player
Name: What would you like to be called?
Username: [personal profile] username
Current/former characters: Are you already in the game? Were you here before?

Sleeper
Character: The character's name goes here, obviously.
Username: [personal profile] username
Canon: What series is your character from? If an original character, feel free to come up with a fake canon name to be listed on the taken page, while also listing "original". Mark AUs here.
Canon point: Where in their story do they come from?
Age: Tell us how old they are. If your character's age would be altered upon acceptance into the game, make sure to note that you are changing it here, and what their new age will be.
Appearance: Height, build, hair and eye colors, demeanor, even a general fashion sense if you want. Tell us what we would see if we took a glance at your character.
Personality: The meat of the application! This should be around four solid paragraphs describing who your character is, both inside and out. We want to make sure you understand the character and will play them accurately to the setting.

If you'd like, you can also include a paragraph on how you see them reacting to the game environment.
History: Your character's life. You may link to a wiki here, but we would love to hear your own take on it! This is nearly as important as personality, as we will be using both sections to compare to the City history and make sure it's appropriate.
Powers/skills: Be sure to explain how they'll be changed or powered down in the case of non-humans turning human or those who are overpowered.

Characters who are canonically powerless may pitch to gain a power here. All new powers need to enhance an aspect the character already has, whether it relates to their personality or lifestyle, and you will have to explain how you believe it fits with this requirement.

Skills gives us a better idea of what this character is good at in mundane terms, so that we can help with a City position if you're coming up blank.

City
Name: This shouldn't allude to their canon name.
Position: Profession or other pigeonholing as necessary. Basically, "What laws do they abide by?" for us mods to consider. This will tell us what job the character will be assigned in the Cave, as well.
History: Two paragraphs minimum, but this section doesn't need to be very long. You can contact the mods to work with us on this. Absolutely needs to relate to the character in some way or another. Ironic placement, while fun, would not work for the setting. Any powers they may have in the Cave will not be present in this history.

Remember that you need permission if you plan to include other PCs in this history.
Proof: This is what will be waiting for a character in their living quarters when they first wake up in the Cave. It should be a photo, a voice clip, a video, etc., anything that would feature the Sleeper in a way that could be recognized. An item that would make a very solid case for your character living in the Diamond City before the Disaster.

Playing
First-person sample: (Should be at least 5 or 6 sentences. Links allowed: 15 comments minimum. If AU, samples must be of the same AU.)
Third-person sample: (At least 300 words. Links allowed. If AU, samples must be of the same AU.)
Did you read the rules?
Apply
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itemfinder: (Default)

Chivy Darrell // 1/2

[personal profile] itemfinder 2012-04-21 04:56 am (UTC)(link)
Player
Name: Curry
Username: [personal profile] glitch
Current/former characters: Pollution ([personal profile] oilyhands)

Sleeper
Character: Chivy Darrell
Username: [personal profile] itemfinder
Canon: Original (Knickknacks)
Canon point: 2054 — about four years after he started work as a courier
Age: 29 (born on 3/21/25)
Appearance: Chivy is about 5'5" and has reddish/orange hair, light green eyes, and a cheerful disposition. Even though he's twenty-nine, he still gets frequently mistaken for a teenager — from a combination of his height, lack of a more adult career (or bearing), and tendency to wear loud clothing. He's usually wearing small-framed glasses with yellow lenses — he's far-sighted, but not super happy about it. He also has a nasty habit of wearing outlandish colors, and no concept of what colors clash and what colors don't. He's usually in jeans (thank goodness), but his shirts tend to be ridiculous and bright — which is good, because that kind of thing's pretty easy to find in a thrift store. He's usually at least a little scruffy (it happens when you spend the grand majority of your time outside and active) and he's on the skinny side of things. Although his cold-infused gloves won't be available in-game, he's likely to seek out a pair of fingerless black gloves before too much time passes for the sake of his own comfort.

Personality: Chivy is extremely loyal, and places a lot of value in how others perceive him. This can get somewhat tangled in the way he lives his life — he's had to learn to be okay with taking things without asking, and sneaking about — but he tries his best to justify it to himself by returning as many of the things he finds as he can and helping out whenever possible. In theory, if he can do enough random good, he'll balance out his karma. He's never wanted praise for bringing back the things he finds (not that he doesn't bask in it when given), but is just happy imagining that he's brightened someone's day by returning something they thought was gone forever. Now that he's older, he's more secure in just walking up to people to return things. Even if they may accuse him of taking it in the first place, he's confident enough in himself to shrug it off and hope for better next time. (That they sometimes demand to know where his parents are is both entertaining and a little frustrating. Chivy does his best to take his height and youthful appearance in stride, but sometimes...)

He tries to stay focused on the positive — often stubbornly, considering the paths his life has travelled — and when he can't mask the bad with good, he just ignores it. He spent several years convincing himself that he left home to find his father, rather than because he needed to stop being a drain on Lynna, and it was very disconcerting when he did find his father and had to come to terms with the lie he'd been telling himself. He doesn't do it as often now as he once did, mostly because there is a lot of positive to the life he's living. Sure, it isn't perfect, but whose life is? He has a job he's pretty competent at (and, even better, enjoys doing), several very close friends (Sefton, Adria, and even Devon), and a reason to wake up every morning. Life is dandy.

Guilt is a major motivator for Chivy. It's what drove him from home in the first place and kept him moving from town to town. He hates it when people assume that he's stolen the things he finds, but he's grown more able to deal with the judgment of others. He still takes a lot of care to make certain that he's not making things harder on others, and purposely works to make things easier when possible. He's a big fan of small-talk, which is absolutely a plus in his current working life. He loves getting to hear all of the little daily experiences that make up a person's individual view on life.

He's possessive, but not to the level of obsession. He just feels responsibility for the things he finds and wants to believe that he can get them to where they should be. This carries over to his friendships, when he has them. He has a hard time walking away from a problem without trying to fix it, even if it's not necessarily something the person wants to deal with. He does know when to back down, he just has a knack for toeing the line. This isn't an entirely selfless priority — if his friends are happier, he's happier, and even moreso if it's because of something he did, so he's doing it just as much for himself as for them.

He's very stubborn about trying to be helpful. If he feels like there's something going on in a person's life that he, personally, would be able to help with, he will take responsibility and try to push his way in — until and unless he's given an acceptable reason to back off. "It might get them angry with me" is not actually an acceptable reason, especially if it's something that he feels is really causing unhappiness in the person's life. This is, essentially, what happened with Sefton. Chivy didn't think it was right that Sefton was alone, so he declared himself the one to fix the problem.

History: Chivy lives in a world very similar to our own, but with a few twists. It's 2054 and technology as we'd term it (internet, mobile phones, etc) is actually slightly behind present-day, but there's been a lot more advancement in the realm of "green" tech. Automobiles are more environmentally friendly and less widespread since most people prefer to use public transportation. There's also a bit of what we would term magic mixed in — it's possible to infuse objects with elemental properties. Refrigerators, for example, are electronically powered, but can also be infused with cold so that they use less power and work more efficiently. Blankets can be infused with heat, driers infused with wind, et cetera. This kind of technology is fairly rare, although it's becoming more and more widespread.

In addition, some people are born with abnormal abilities — knacks, if you will. It can range anywhere from being more likely to flip heads than tails to knowing how to speak several languages with relative ease. The more powerful the knack, the more likely it gets noticed, but a lot of them just slide by, especially since there are a lot of unpleasant people who would be really excited to get their hands on someone with an abnormal ability.

Chivy was born on March 21, 2025. A short time after Chivy's second birthday, his mother disappeared, leaving his father to raise him alone. Galvin, Chivy's father, made a living in carpentry, and spent a lot of time traveling to other nearby towns for jobs, which meant Chivy was often taken care of by his father's friends and an elderly neighbor, Lynley, when his father had to go away. The stress of being a single father and trying to keep himself and his son fed, clothed, and sheltered was hard on Galvin. It wasn't so bad at first — work was good and his friends were glad to help — but after about three years, the company he had been working for dissolved and many of the jobs and most of the support moved to other areas and workers. Galvin started spending more and more time away from home — usually gambling or finding some reason to avoid the situation. At the same time, Chivy started spending more and more time with Lynley (or Lynna, as Chivy calls her). Eventually, his father just... never came back.

It was a gradual enough change that Chivy didn't much mind it, especially since Lynna had already been almost as close as family for most of his life, and no one seemed to care that his parents were both gone and he was living with someone of no actual relation.

Chivy didn't have many friends growing up. Most of his childhood friends were the sons of the people his father worked with, and they moved away when the business fell apart. Because Chivy rarely spent time away from his home or school when he was younger, he didn't have many chances to get himself into trouble with his odd proclivity for finding lost things. His classmates didn't mind having someone who often returned things to them, and Lynna certainly had no problem with the fact that anything lost around the house didn't stay lost for long.

When trouble did show up, however, it showed up in force. A little over a month before his fifteenth birthday, Lynna fell ill. The doctor couldn't say what was wrong, but she spent more and more time asleep as time went by. Between taking care of her, school, and the odd jobs he started taking on to help pay for medical costs, Chivy was more busy than ever. On the way home from school about a week later, he happened to pick up a wallet that was lying on the side of the road. Finding identification inside, he went to return it, but the man it belonged to called the police as soon as Chivy left. It wouldn't have been too big of a deal — people return lost items all the time — but all of the money was missing from the wallet before Chivy picked it up, and it wasn't the first time his name had been associated with that kind of thing. The police arrived during one of Lynna's infrequent periods of relative wellness, and Chivy heard them explain the situation to her from the other room before grabbing what little he could on short notice and leaving town.

After Chivy had been on the road for about a year and a half, he ran into tripped over a particularly prickly teenager, who Chivy eventually learned was named Sefton — not a terribly earth-shattering event in and of itself, but they continued to run into each other. Chivy didn't really have a lot of people he was able to stay close with as he ventured from town to town, he was funding his journey mostly through the sale of things he found along the way (with a few boosts from odd jobs and kindly old ladies), and avoiding getting too attached. The last thing he wanted was to make friends, have them realize what he could do, and run him out of town again. By no means did he avoid interaction with others, but moving around as often as he did and trying to keep from getting a huge amount of attention made it difficult to make any strong friendships.

Which is where Sefton Lowell fits as a giant exception. Luckily (or maybe not) for Sefton, Chivy decided pretty much immediately that he would be Sefton's friend — the jury's out on whether he's convinced Sefton of that yet. Sefton's oddly contradictory actions (claiming that he didn't like people while still being a nice guy, essentially) piqued Chivy's curiosity, and the fact that they kept running into each other allowed him to pursue answers. If you asked Chivy, he would blame their frequent meetings on luck and the fact that they were both keeping moving and there are only so many ways for a person to go from one city to another. Part of it was luck — there was no particular reason that Chivy and Sefton happened to be in the same general area at the same time when they first met — but a great deal of it can actually be blamed on Chivy's knack. He just never realized his ability had pinged on a lost boy rather than a lost item.

A little under a year after meeting Sefton, Chivy met with an odd peddler from whom Chivy got a pair of gloves infused with cold. Something of a niche item: they weren't useful for many things, at least on a normal scale (who wants a pair of gloves that constantly give you ice fingers?). On an abnormal scale, though, the fact that they were cold-infused meant that they negated Sefton's knack and made it possible for Chivy to wake his friend by means of shaking, as well as touching Sefton in general without provoking a panic attack or putting himself at risk of emotional-manipulation.
itemfinder: (Default)

Chivy Darrell // 2/2

[personal profile] itemfinder 2012-04-21 04:56 am (UTC)(link)
Things settled down for a little while, just Chivy and Sefton travelling and often crossing paths, but then Sefton's face started showing up on wanted posters. That made it harder for the two of them to get work and stay under the radar (Sefton because his face was on wanted posters, Chivy because he is a stubborn child and didn't want to leave Sefton to fend for himself). It all came to a head when the wrong person recognized Sefton at just the wrong moment, and Sefton was brought into custody for who-knew-what. Although he tried, Chivy couldn't find a way to get Sefton free, but luckily the other teen was released a few days later — thanks to the meddling of a man named Devon who seemed to have the boys' best interest in mind. The posters thinned out again, but both of the boys were much more wary about life in general — Sefton because he had been abducted by the government, and Chivy because he felt responsible for what had happened to his friend.

Immediately following the abduction, Chivy stuck near Sefton, worried that if he got too far off something bad would happen, but about a month afterwards (having learned more about Sefton's father and how he worked with the government to find his son) he realized that most of the reason Sefton had been found was that Chivy was easily noticed. He tried to cut back on how often he stuck by Sefton. It helped that he was able to stay in touch with Devon, who was trying his best to offer guidance and help, and get to know Adria, Devon's niece.

The next year, Sefton happened to be working in a music repair shop when Galvin, Chivy's father, walked in with his guitar. Noticing the resemblance (and with Galvin's name for future retrieval of his instrument), Sefton was able to let Chivy know and Chivy finally found his father. It was a somewhat awkward reunion, but it did have the positive effect of forcing Chivy to confront the fact that he'd been avoiding Lynna for no particularly good reason, and just in time. Chivy dragged Sefton along to go and see her, which was a much more emotional experience (for Chivy and Lynna, at least). She passed away about a month later.

Sefton had started work toward getting his GED, Galvin had been found, Lynna had died... Chivy was feeling rather at a loose end, especially since he didn't really have anything resembling a long term goal. In true teenage fashion (he was just at the tail end of nineteen), he moped about it. Sefton, Devon, and Adria tried to help, suggesting different things he could do to occupy himself, but nothing really stuck. He did end up with a pair of glasses, when they discovered, through their efforts, that he was farsighted and the glasses made it much easier to read. Chivy wasn't super appreciative, though, losing the glasses fairly frequently. (Which, really, was more effort than it seemed, considering he's a walking itemfinder.) After he managed to actually break them, he ended up getting a new pair with yellow lenses, which he considered neat enough that he actually deigned to wear them.

During this time, he grew much closer with Adria, who was a big help in keeping his spirits up. (Sefton helped, too, inasmuch as the prickly was able, but he also was focused on his own pursuits. Of knowledge.) They even ended up dating for a time, which was a positive experience on both sides. They broke up not because it wasn't working, but it just wasn't quite right. They were close enough as friends, although neither one regretted giving it a shot.

Shortly after he and Adria broke up, Chivy happened to end up hitching a ride with a courier, who spent most of the ride talking about his job and life. Chivy was fascinated. It sounded like almost the perfect plan — he still got to move around, he'd get to talk to all sorts of people, and he would have a hand in making sure things ended up where they belonged. After a bit of fact-finding (and a little fundraising), Chivy purchased a bike of his own and started work as a courier.

He's been working as a courier for almost four years now, not bothering to try expanding or anything since he's perfectly content doing it on a fairly small-time basis. He still meets up with Sefton occasionally, and is in touch with both Devon and Adria, and things are continuing rather smoothly.

Powers/skills:
In canon: Put simply, Chivy finds things. More specifically, he has a knack for sensing the location of lost objects and people. This manifests itself as a mental urge to move closer to whatever nearby lost object that grows stronger the more he tries to resist it (in essence, a headache that decreases as he goes in the right direction). He doesn’t have to follow the urge as long as he actively focuses on going in a direction that isn’t the one the object is in, but if he doesn’t the headache amplifies itself, which isn’t a fun experience.

One would think this kind of thing would make a person popular – who hasn’t wished for a foolproof way of finding their keys once or twice in their lives? – but actually living with it is a little more problematic. At first, you might be happy to have a random person show up asking if this necklace (that one you swear you put on your nightstand) might belong to you, but after a little while you begin to wonder if he’s taking things to somehow get credit for finding them or just planning on making off with them in the first place.

In-game: Pretty much the same as he had outside of the game, but with more control and less stamina. Instead of being in a kind of always-on state, he'll be able to focus on finding things — and be able to focus on finding something specific, which is something he never really got the hang of back home. He also wouldn't be able to return to the always-on state if he tried — it would tire him out (mentally) too fast. If he's looking for something (or someone) specific, he has to be familiar with it. The less familiar, the more difficult it will be. If he doesn't know anything about what he's looking for, he's better off sticking with the general "are there lost things nearby" kind of way.

Skills: He has a lot of experience living outdoors, reading maps, falling asleep in uncomfortable situations, and judging the average worth of random objects (as they are in his world, at least). He also has a pretty good sense of direction.

City
Name: Trevor Kirby
Position: Daycare helper
History: Trevor's mother was living in the middle ring of the Diamond City when she gave birth to him — she only met his father the once, and never saw him again. For a time, she was able to take good care of Trevor, although they were often low on funds. By the time Trevor was seven, though, she had fallen into gambling, which quickly meant that they had to move further and further out in the rings. They had almost run out of distance to cover when she got sick, and died a short time after. Trevor ended up on the streets, on his own, for a few months before someone realized he was without a caretaker and he was taken into the foster system.

He ended up moving between foster parents fairly rapidly, mostly because he had a tendency to take and hide possessions that were in the home around him in an attempt to feel more secure. It wasn't until he was taken in by an older woman that he was able to settle down for a time. He was with her until nearly his seventeenth birthday, but her finances had hit a rough spot. He overheard her telling someone that she wasn't certain she would be able to continue to support him and afford her own lifestyle, so he preempted her passing him on by running away.

He drifted throughout the Diamond City, trying to find some kind of work that would stick, before finally ending up as a helper for a daycare in the middle ring.
Proof: A picture of Trevor with about five children all attempting to use him as a very short jungle gym in front of a sign for DC's Day Care.

Playing
First-person sample: Why did I even bother counting this? They talk so much.
Third-person sample: Life had fallen into a rhythm. Wake up, drop off the key if he'd stayed indoors (or just pack everything up if he hadn't), and hop on his bike to get to wherever he was needed next. He'd thought a few times about getting a car of some kind, but the physical exertion was part of what made the delivery work worthwhile to begin with -- sure, it sucked in poor weather, particularly the colder months, but it was all manageable. Adding a vehicle to the mix would mean he would have to take on more jobs to make sure he broke even, considering the cost of fuel and repairs, which would then mean he wouldn't be able to spend as much time per job.

Not that it wasn't possible in the future. Anything was possible if you went far enough out, look at where he'd ended up. From a teen with no ties to anything or anyone to a man with a few rock-solid friendships, the ability to go where he pleased, and a growing network of mostly professional contacts. And, really, the friendships were what mattered the most. Without Sefton, Adria, or even Devon, day-to-day life would be a much bleaker prospect. Not that they kept in constant contact or anything, everyone had their own lives to lead in their own ways, but just the fact that he could dial up any one of them and have the possibility of a conversation was a comfort. Or, if he really needed to, drop what he was doing and actually head their way. Things were much more settled now, even if he was still mostly on the move -- he had a support network, made up of good people who he cared for, and who cared for him.

And that wasn't to say everything was perfect. Not by a long shot. The bike was periodically in need of repairs, miscommunication about deliveries happened, sometimes there just wasn't anyone in need of things delivered. He'd gotten pretty good at quickly identifying bike fixes that were within his realm of understanding and finding the right people to go to for everything else. Plus he had enough set aside that, barring some kind of major injury or other catastrophe, he could handle most work-related setbacks. His lifestyle wasn't the most expensive, day to day, and he'd never really gotten into the habit of spending a lot. He did sometimes buy random things to send to his friends, particularly if he hadn't stopped by in a while. Not out of a sense of obligation, but honestly because he was thinking of them and whatever he'd run across was something he thought they'd appreciate -- or simply something he appreciated the thought of giving, like the little blue hedgehog he'd sent to Sefton, or the water-gun camera he'd gotten for Adria.

The whole point, though, was that life went on -- and that was anything but a negative. Every day, easy or hard, was an experience worth having, which meant it was past time to stop daydreaming, get on his bike, and face the day ahead.
Did you read the rules? Couple of times.
itemfinder: (Default)

[personal profile] itemfinder 2012-04-21 05:40 am (UTC)(link)
Yep, this's the journal. Unscreening's fine.