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mayfield_ooc2012-01-02 05:19 pm
mayfield_mods) wrote in mayfield_ooc2012-01-02 05:19 pm
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Applications
• Please read over all the rules and information before applying in order to minimize any confusion before joining.
• If applying for a character that has already been dropped, it would be a good idea, though not required, to know something of their previous interactions. You are also free to pick up a dropped character with no memories of their previous time in Mayfield.
• All content for the personality and sample entry in your app must be written or roleplayed by you; for the personality section in particular, we do not accept copied text from wikis or other sources. Obviously, you may not copy your app from other players, whether in Mayfield or other games. Application plagiarism will result in a ban from the game.
• If you wish for your character to be placed in a specific house, please mention this in the relevant section of the application and specify that permission was obtained by the PCs already residing in that house. We will be operating by the Honor System for this, and there is no need for others to comment their permission in this post!
• Other special requests would also best go in the beginning of the application. Remember, grammar and spelling are important -- if your app contains errors, you will be asked to revise.
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• Before applying, please look over any applications that were recently accepted to get an idea of what we're looking for.
• If you apply for a character that has already been reserved, we will inform you and ignore the application until the reserve runs out. You may not apply for more than two characters from the same canon. For the sample entry, you may write your own entry, or use a post from a musebox, dressing room, or other game. We recommend
• After you're accepted, please follow all of the instructions given. You will need to reply to the acceptance, post your journal to the friend add page and your canon post, join the communities, and use the friend add page to update your journal. Once you're accepted, please introduce yourself on the community when you're ready to play.
• If your app is "Pending", do not freak out! This means that we need you to make some revisions, and does not mean you're rejected. We generally give players a chance to revise before rejecting them, but we will reject apps that do not address the concerns stated when we asked for a revision. If you have been rejected, our reply will clearly state this to be the case. If we have not gotten back to you yet, under no circumstance does this mean you are rejected. If it has been over a week since our last reply, it would be a good idea to contact us with a reminder, otherwise, please be patient!
• If you have received a "Pending" notice, you will have one week to supply us with your revisions, or your reserve will be considered expired and that someone else is free to apply for the character.
• The typical wait for a reply on apps may be anywhere from a day to a little over a week. If any part of your application requires a pending, it may be another week after your reply to that before we can get to you. We process a high volume of apps every round, so please be patient.
• If you have not heard back on a pending for over a week after apps close, please send a PM directly to the mod account.
Haymitch Abernathy | The Hunger Games | Reserved 1/2
Personal Journal:
Contact Info: KawaiiSpinel42 (AIM)
Other Characters Played: N/A
Preferred Housing: I'm okay with randomizing, but should the Katniss on reserve app and be accepted, I'd like the two of them to be in the same house.
Character Name: Haymitch Abernathy
Character Series: The Hunger Games
Character Age: 41
Background: Here. His canon point will be just after the end of Catching Fire.
Personality: Haymitch is a case example of what you see isn't what you get- when we first meet him, he's a disorderly, loud drunk, taking stage dives, and generally not giving a rat's ass how he's perceived, only changing his tactic when presented with a good reason to, but that's all surface- not even that, it's part of the show. He may be everything he presents him to be- drunk, ornery, sarcastic, acerbic, and generally unpleasant, but he's also sound and fury, signifying a lot more than he'll let people know and by the time you figure it out, he usually has you right where he wants you.
But to understand the deeper meanings behind everything Haymitch does, you have to understand Panem and how it functions. It's the same story you hear every few centuries when shit gets real- the peasants revolted, they lost, and now they suffer for it. And that suffering comes from both starvation and a life of virtual servitude to an unfeeling Capitol, but also... From the Hunger Games, a death match that pits two children from every district against one another in a televised Battle Royale. Haymitch fits into this because twenty-five years ago, he won the Hunger Games, but winning isn't everything and one finds that once you've won the Games, you're always the Capitol's little bitch and it's better to die out there to live with what comes after.
But that's getting ahead of things. Before the Games, Haymitch was... Well, let's face it. He was always a sardonic bastard who won his appeals during the interviews by playing up his natural flippance and sardonic attitude and people found it weirdly charming- and he can be. In his own special, demented little way. These are core aspects of Haymitch's character that no amount of drink or trauma can shake out of him. Once a surly bastard, always a surly bastard, and Haymitch is one surly bastard.
He's always been clever- perhaps too clever. His tactic in the Games was to avoid conflict, if at all possible (and kill without mercy when conflict found him), and see if he could find the end of the arena and make a break for it. What he found at the end was nothing more than an invisible force field that threw you back if you tried to jump at it. In the end, that force field was what won him the Games- by ducking a blow from another tribute's axe and letting it hit the force field, richochet back, and kill her, he achieved his victory and essentially flipped the Capitol the bird for using their own tricks against them. Because of that stunt, he was made an example of- his mother, his brother, and his girlfriend were all murdered for his actions. Haymitch dealt with the trauma and guilt by turning to the bottle and shutting everyone out. The once-handsome, sardonic, mocking teenage boy was gone, slowly to be replaced by a messy, disgusting, even more sardonic drunk.
And yet some of that is merely an act. Yes, he's genuinely a drunk and doesn't fake any bit of it, but he has learned one thing from being on camera all these years- once the audience expects something out of you, then you can hide behind it. Keep them engaged, keep the show going, and they'll never suspect there's an ulterior motive and they'll always underestimate you. More than that, he's used it to hide from his responsibility- being forced to mentor 23 years worth of Tributes and watching them all die would drive any man insane, so he's stopped trying and people have stopped expecting anything useful out of him and he's stopped having to know he's failed them when they inevitably die despite his best efforts- until Katniss and Peeta came along. They were smart enough to see through him, call his bullshit, and force him to sober up enough to help. It should be noted how quickly his entire demeanor changes when Katniss and Peeta turn on him. It's not a drunk quietly defending himself, but someone changing tactics. Here are two kids who are actually fighters, not cowering, not allowing themselves to be cowed by his flippancy and temper. Seconds after the fight, he's gone from laughing drunk to someone who actually has decent advice to give.
That's the thing about Haymitch- what he can do and what he does do are greatly dependant on who's doing the asking. Haymitch has to feel he's getting something out of an arrangement, whether it be compliance with his wishes or just the wonderful sensation of not being let down for the twenty-fourth time in a row. He's not afraid to speak his mind and even gets up and arms with the Gamekeepers, themselves, to get his way. He might be dead drunk half the time, but when Haymitch Abernathy sobers up enough to make sense, people listen, and when they don't listen... Well, that tends to lead to situations where he threatens to weld communicators to teenage girls' heads, because that is what happens when you hang up on an ornery drunk.
He's surly, snarky, bitter, fatalistic, violent, and everything you could possibly expect from a temperamental, traumatized old fool with enough PTSD to choke a 'Nam veteran- which makes him utterly paranoid on top of everything else (he sleeps with a knife, won't sleep when it's dark, etc.). His drinking keeps the nightmares at bay and when he's sober, he tends to go into violent rages, shouting and starting at things that only he can see. He can be detoxed slowly, but it means a lot of solitary confinement and is not something you want to ever try if you don't know what the fuck you're doing. His moods can shift on a dime and while he might not be the first to react to an emotionally charged situation that might give up someone who actually has an iota of compassion, you can bet he'll be the first to react in anger when his orders aren't obeyed or someone gets on his nerves or generally pisses him off.
Manipulative, above all things, Haymitch can work everything from a crowd to a single person to his advantage and nothing throws him. He's adaptable to any circumstance and will lie and bullshit his way through even the most dire of circumstances. He's a survivor, which is odd for someone who hates life as much as he does, but once a victor, always a victor, and he firmly believes that he'll never quite leave the Games, so he maintains his strategies, perfects his deceits, and weaves spin so flawless that no one can tell whose side he's on until the last possible minute. Here lies a man with nothing to lose, and the problem with taking away everything from a man who slighted you once- it makes him all the more willing to keep doing it when he finally has something worth fighting for. It won't matter if he fails- he's failed enough to know how much it hurts, but it's nothing he can't drown out with a bottle. But if he succeeds... Well, maybe it was all worth it, after all.
He takes absolutely nothing for granted- Peeta says people aren't his sort of thing, which is true socially, but as far as getting what he wants and knowing what to expect? Haymitch knows all the angles to work. He pays attention to all the details, keeps an ear to the ground for the reactions, and knows exactly what to play up to get people to either respond the way he wants or what to look for to know how someone is going to react. He may not like other people, but he knows how they work and he knows how to lead them. It's not even just people he understands deeply like Katniss, but she's probably the best example. Almost nothing Haymitch does is without an ulterior motive of some kind. He may be a drunk, but he's a decent chessplayer and he's usually pretty far ahead of the game for someone who spends a good deal of time with his head in a pool of his own sick.
He's demanding and authoritative and more than willing to throw his weight around to get his way- and Haymitch will get his way. He rarely relents and can out-stubborn just about anything besides Katniss and will never admit he's wrong except in the worst of circumstances and even then, it doesn't come without trepidation. Being extremely confrontational, he'll pick a fight with anyone and gives absolutely no fucks about whether that person is in a position of authority or not. He doesn't censor himself in the slightest, but while he doesn't care what people think of him, he's self-aware to know when he's being necessarily harsh and will often backtrack and apologize when it occurs to him to- that doesn't always happen, however. In some situations, he's fully aware of how harsh he's being and owns it. It's a dark, horrific world, and he does not sugarcoat a damn thing about it. This leads to him being quite emotionally destructive to the people who have to spend any time with him, but you learn to get used to it... Or you don't. Either way, Haymitch doesn't tend to give much of a damn.
That isn't to say that Haymitch can't be nice. Quite the contrary- get him to care about you and he will make the attempt to be compassionate, even kind. He's emotionally withdrawn, keeping himself in check to avoid betraying his perfect poker face, but even his perfect mask slips on occasion- very rarely enough to get him to admit he cares, though- he's more calculated action that emotional reaction. In his mind, he shouldn't have to say it- the mere fact that he puts up an effort should be enough. And while he'll never admit it, he loves Katniss and Peeta as if they were his own children and would protect them with everything he has, even volunteering to go on a dangerous mission to save Peeta in Mockingjay, knowing he's not physically capable of it- and even if it's a joke when he mentions it and he knows full well that he wouldn't be allowed, he was still likely sincere. He's often cruel, and just as manipulative towards them as he is everyone else, but he loves them and, because he loves them, he understands the kinds of choices he has to make regarding them may not always be ideal, but it's what has to be done. They can hate him for it all he likes.
It's Katniss he's closest to, although their relationship veers between begrudging respect and seething hatred, depending on the circumstance. They will always be too much alike, too selfish in their own ways, and too pig-headed to ever relent. But he adores that stupid girl- she brings out his sentimental side and he can claim to favor Peeta all he wants, but Katniss is the one he always comes back to, even when they tear each other down and are utterly horrible for each other in so many ways. That foolish, headstrong girl who still has the fire that he doesn't have anymore, the determination that he doesn't focus properly these days, and everything else. She's stupid and often he wants to slap the shit out of her, but he adores her all the same. She and Peeta are all the family he has now, but he'd be loathe to admit that to anyone.
In fact, it's likely Haymitch's habit of digging his heels in emotionally that makes him the most frustrating to the people who actually manage to care about him. He lacks any sort of emotional context in his decisions and refuses to talk about himself unless it's actively forced, so while someone who doesn't know him well might see a cold-hearted decision, someone who knows him might see the significance of it- unfortunately, no one knows Haymitch that well and those who do are usually still pissed at him for making decisions regarding their lives for them. (He does that a lot, because... Well, Haymitch knows best.)
2/2
Sample Entry: How Haymitch Does Domestic.
Haymitch and Finnick can write a bad romance.
Spoiler: I like tl;dr
AND A DM ENTRY IN A PEAR TREE.
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