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mayfield_ooc2012-01-02 05:19 pm
mayfield_mods) wrote in mayfield_ooc2012-01-02 05:19 pm
Entry tags:
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.
• Please post all applications or canon updates in this post; posting them elsewhere and linking to them from here may cause them to get changed later. Posting them here keeps us from having to save them.
When Applying, Fill Out the Following:
When Applying for an Original Character, Fill Out the Following
• 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.
Raleigh / Lost at Sea / Not Reserved
Personal LJ:
Contact Info: AIM – ihathatcats
plurk - accidentalacrophobia
Other Characters Played: N/A
Preferred Housing: N/A
Character Name: Raleigh (canon never provides her a surname, feel free to give her one)
Character Series: Lost at Sea
Character Age: 18
Raleigh / Lost at Sea / Not Reserved
To elaborate, Lost at Sea's narrative is a bit odd. It takes place from Raleigh's point of view, but she elaborates in a very strange way. It's as if she's having a conversation with the reader rather than telling story, and she's simply trying to come up with the details off her own head. Events are told out of sync, and Raleigh has a way of explaining things in the vaguest way possible. Regardless, she does have a background, albeit very vague.
Raleigh's story does not begin with her being born, or with her parents. According to her, she was born a very normal child. She does not talk much about her parents, or even mention their names for that matter. They divorced when Raleigh was in middle school. Her mother is a woman who worries about her image, and although Raleigh lives with her she has no idea what she does for a living. After the divorce, her mother went on to find a very successful job and became very financially successful. The only time she mentions her father is during a flashback. Raleigh describes him as an "emotional hobo", and that he was a better father than he was a husband.
The story begins, supposedly, with her best friend. Her name was Claire, and they met during the third grade. Raleigh doesn't remember how they became friends. Claire was everything Raleigh wasn't. She was confident, faster and stronger, a leader. They would always play outside with their "boy activities". Claire would always leave, and Raleigh would always follow. They were both from two different worlds, but Claire never resented Raleigh. She accepted her. And Raleigh was always willing to tag along.
Things were weird for Raleigh back then. Around the same time, the people at the school took her out of class and told her that she was gifted. They put her in the class with other kids, ones that the teachers told her were put there in order to make her feel better. They met once a week, and she states that it was probably her favorite class. It really put her in a weird frame of mind. She thought she was special, and it took her a long time to see how much it "totally fucked her up."
Her childhood was simple. By middle school, however, things started to fall apart. In grade six, Raleigh was put into another gifted class. However, this class was much larger. And there were real gifted kids this time, no fake ones. Raleigh wasn't special any more. What could have been interpreted as a new way to interact, a way to relate to others, Raleigh saw something else. She was resentful. Age eleven and she was completely disillusioned.
Grade eight came. The marriage between her parents was falling apart, and worse of all Claire had to move away. Raleigh has never truly forgotten about her former best friend. While she has a terrible memory, she somehow manages to remember just how long it has been since she's last seen Claire.
The marriage was over by the following summer. Her father moved to California. Her mother was at an impasse. During the summer before high school, Raleigh's mother took her on a trip to Mondestro, California, to stay at her Aunt's. Once they came back, things began to pick up. Her mother found a new job and financial success. She paid for a new house, a new Mac, everything. More importantly, it put Raleigh in Sturton Academy, a private school.
Raleigh found that she had broken from her old life almost overnight. The friends she had at the time were cut off. Raleigh stopped talking to them, and soon she fell out of contact. Raleigh went through Sturton Academy, quiet, unnoticed, with few friends. That was until her eleventh grade English teacher told her to visit a writing forum on the internet.
Everything changed. And that's when she met Stillman.
Raleigh never divulges much about Stillman. She says that he's a couple years older, in university and American. She met him from that very same forum she was told to use. They started to talk, both on the internet and on the phone. They talked about everything, and Raleigh didn't have to worry about messing up. Raleigh felt safe. They were talking for over a year before it happened. Raleigh was graduating, and Stillman had invited her to stay over with him in California. And Raleigh, trusting him fully, agreed.
So Raleigh lied to her mother and told her she was going to see her father. She bought a ticket. Raleigh thought her time there would be perfect.
And it was. It was perfect. Everything was perfect. From the moment she got there to the Up until when she had to leave, where Stillman dropped her off at the train station but couldn't stay because he had to work. Until she found a letter in the bag of her suitcase, addressed to her from Stillman. As she found it, Raleigh found herself crying, sobbing so hard that she completely forgot about her train. That letter threw her out to sea without a life preserver.
Raleigh / Lost at Sea / Not Reserved
A cat stole it. Or at least that's what she tells people. At least, that's what she would tell people if she told people anything, but that's besides the point. She is definite about not having a soul. It's just something she can feel, that she just knows without question. She used to just think it, but lately she's been really thinking it. She believes a cat stole it. She does have a different hypothesis, but It involves her own mother selling it to the devil for financial success and the devil giving the soul to a cat.
It might sound crazy to you, but it does make a great deal of sense... to her. While she has no proof other than an empty feeling in her chest and the inability to connect, the lack of a soul could answer so many of her burning questions. Why she feels so separated from everyone else? Why she can't have any friends? Why she is absolutely terrified of everything? Why she is so abnormal? And why do cats keep following her everywhere? All of these can be easily explained by her having no soul. It's all logical, really.
On the cusp of adulthood, everything seems to be rushing Raleigh at once, and it's leaving her confused. She has a lot of her mind, many questions that she can't safely answer. She just wants to find all the answers, and to do that Raleigh is willing to connect some imaginary dots, "little thoughts begetting little thoughts, rampantly speculating every possible outcome to every possible situation." Hence her belief of having no soul.
Raleigh's thoughts are very jagged and mixed up. Scatterbrained is the first word one thinks of, and Raleigh finds herself going off on tangents in her mind constantly. She can be very forgetful too, or at least very neglectful about information where she doesn't mention Of course, there are things that Raleigh can't stop thinking about. Stillman, for example.
Don't let her inner thoughts fool you though. Raleigh is very smart and at times thoughtful. Raleigh was singled out at a very early age for her intellect. She appears to be very adept in writing especially, having joined a writing forum on the suggestion of one of her English teachers. She is also very much into reading, and is bilingual in both English and Spanish. Raleigh does not reveal much about her hobbies past that but she does let it slip that she isn't so much into girl activities. The idea of dressing up and putting on makeup is not out of the question, she simply isn't a fan. She did not grow up doing those sorts of things, spending more time in the woods with her best friend. She does have girl friends, ones that she does spend time doing girly things, but she considers them cold, gray useless friends. To match everything else.
Raleigh would much rather say that she has no friends because that's how it feels like to her. She describes herself as a "horrible person". She also states that she is very awkward, painfully so. She states that she “stumbles over her words” and that conversations with her “always lead to dead ends.” However she never really shows any of these signs. In fact, at first glance Raleigh can come off as very cool and self-assured. The worst thing she says is an occasional "Um," or slight hesitation punctuating her speech.
It's not so much a fault of her own that makes it hard for her to socialize. She just doesn't talk much. A very reticent girl, prone to living in her head, Raleigh is not open about her own thoughts and feelings. She appears embarrassed whenever she has to share her own opinions, like others will judge her for it. She would much rather let others control the conversation rather than the other way around, because it allows her to coast without much difficulty. She just prefers not to talk unless she has to. She especially does not like to talk about the important things on her mind, preferring just to "skirt" around them (perhaps because, again, she's afraid of what others will think).
Of course, socializing would be easy if Raleigh was not completely afraid of... well everything. Anything is a cause for worry, from the way someone is staring at her to how she makes someone laugh, from getting to sleep to the conversations happening around her and everything in between. She even jumps when her hair falls in front of her face, which is why she always clips it back. Socializing is just one of these fears - every passing moment spent with strangers gets "longer and hotter and smaller and darker.. and so so so much worse in comparison" to the one before it.
However, there is one fear that is unconscious but much more potent than the other. Her fear of change. Of moving on. The fact that her mind still lingers on her best friend, counting down the days, minutes and seconds since she last saw her, is a huge indication of this. And Stillman... this fear says a lot about her, really. Deep down, Raleigh wants things to stay the same. She does not want change. She doesn't want to grow up.
This also ties into her fear of socializing. When her best friend left, Raleigh felt that she couldn't make friends anymore. She just couldn't make friends, or if she could make them it would be too awkward. She could never relate to them and things would just fizzle out quickly. So she just decided not to bother. It's just suffocating trying to socialize with anyone...
But Stillman. Stillman was different. Stillman understood. Raleigh never indulges much about Stillman, other than he is in university and American, but it's clear that they had a very romantic relationship. Raleigh likes to paint Stillman as the perfect guy. It's clear that Raleigh found solace in Stillman. He reminded her of a time with Claire, where she didn't have to worry about being awkward. He tolerated her. This relationship is one she yearns to hold on to and has trouble letting go of. And yet, something happened between her and Stillman. The only indication we are ever given is a single sealed envelope. Regardless, it was powerful enough to bring her to tears and to leave her so lost. Now she can't get him out of her mind.
Now Raleigh is in a very vulnerable state. Everything and everyone feels alien to her and the last thing she wants to do is think about it. She doesn't want to, but she thinks about it anyway. Because she has to.
In short, Raleigh is at a crossroads. She increases every problem she has tenfold, she is constantly worried about everything and she finds it hard to connect. She has difficulty connecting and is completely afraid of what people will think. She is just an oddball. Like all of us.
Raleigh / Lost at Sea / Not Reserved
Sample Entry:
A) [Phone]
You know, I've been thinking. The more time I spend here, the more I forget about the things I used to enjoy. Is that weird? Like, um I used to listen to music. I'd carry my CD player to places, with my headphones around my neck. They were one of those noise-canceling ones so I could just put them on, close my eyes and not have to worry. They have music here, yeah but... It just isn't the same without that... disconnect? I think that's the right word.
[Awkward silence.] Is there anything you miss?
B) [Action - around town]
[Oh! Sorry, please excuse Raleigh. She's busy having a staring match with a gray cat.
That isn't what she's doing right now, actually, but it certainly looks like that. She is sitting on her haunches, hunched over, staring straight into the cat's eyes. The cat is staring back dispassionately, tail swaying. It's getting pretty intense, as evidenced by the very serious look on Raleigh's face.]
[The cat looks bored. It starts licking at it's paw, and Raleigh continues onward. She keeps staring, eyes squinting. Raleigh seems way too focused on... whatever the hell she's doing to notice anyone else. Go bother her.]
Accepted!
• Join
• Add your info to your canon post
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Go ahead and introduce yourself in the main comm and tell people where your character will be living!
no subject
My character journal is hasnosoul! By the way, would Raleigh be put in the wife slot, or a child slot? She's of age so I'll just go by the rules, but I just wanted to make sure.