Daisychain Paradox Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dcparadoxmods) wrote2018-02-24 09:35 pm
dcparadoxmods) wrote2018-02-24 09:35 pm
Apps
Apps will open on April 10th.
Apps will remain open, except for when there is a game-encompassing mod plot (which will happen fairly infrequently).
Unfortunately, at this time, OCs cannot be apped. This includes tabletop characters, characters from fan-made spinoffs, and canon OCs.
Up to three versions of any given character will be accepted. This includes canon AUs and CRAUs. For example, you could have Zelda from Ocarina of Time, Zelda from Breath of the Wild, and Zelda from Breath of the Wild with memories from her time in Fade Rift. No more than one CRAU of any character will be allowed. Different canon points on the same timeline do not count as different versions of a character. What-if or fanon AUs are not accepted.
Characters with very little canon will be decided at the discretion of the mods based on the strength of the app. Generally, though, minor characters with small storylines are more likely to be accepted than minor characters with less than a minute of screen time, as the latter can essentially be an OC depending on player interpretation.
Most importantly, your character needs to be someone that CFP-DNR would have recruited and would have accepted said recruitment. Put some thought into how and why your character would become involved and function and what missions they would be best at. (To this end, most outwardly villainous characters would be difficult to app and play, as the government would have a hard time trusting them outside of extreme duress. Doctor Director Leonard Church might be actively recruited, and you might be able to get away with a Prince Lotor here, but nobody’s going to recruit the Joker. Additionally, the government will be hesitant to recruit a teenager but may do so based on their powers and/or skill set; they will absolutely not recruit a small child.)
Post your app in a comment below with the subject line “Application: [Character’s Name] | [Character’s Canon].” All apps will be screened when posted and will be unscreened upon acceptance. Revisions will not be unscreened unless they are later accepted, and denials will not be unscreened.
Please feel free to contact the mods if you have any questions pertaining to your app.
APPLICATION
Player name:
Plurk handle (or other contact if no plurk):
What other characters do you play?
Character name:
Canon:
OU or CRAU?
Canon point:
History: Please feel free to provide a link to your character’s wiki page or other linked history. For characters with very little canon, please write out a history fleshing out your character’s part in the story. For CRAU characters, please note at what point your character diverged from canon and what development they experienced.
Personality: Tell us what makes your character tick. Include internal motivations as well as external actions. (Please keep this section under 1000 words.)
Why did the CFP recruit them? CFP-DNR came to your character for a reason - tell us why. This is the place to talk about your character’s powers or special skills. Be sure to give the mods a good scope of what they’re capable of. Powered characters will come in with their full powers within reason; if your character is incredibly overpowered (think Gohan, Destroyer of Worlds) or has a power that could break the game (dimension hopping of their own, etc), then they may find their powers diminished or disabled. Use your best discretion and contact the mods if you have any questions; the mods may ask for revisions if we feel your character is too powerful for the setting.
Equipment: What is your character bringing with them? This can be their standard equipment; anything they would reasonably have on them. This cannot include overly large weaponry, vehicles, or live animals, with two exceptions: if the live animals are the reason your character was recruited (e.g. Pokemon trainers) or an integral part of your character’s abilities (e.g. Caleb and Frumpkin from Critical Role).
Samples: One of your samples should be written out and should be at least 100 words. You have the option of providing a link to a previous game for the other sample; said thread needs to be from within the past 3 months and needs to have at least 5 comments from your character.
Network Sample:
Prose Sample:
Apps will remain open, except for when there is a game-encompassing mod plot (which will happen fairly infrequently).
Unfortunately, at this time, OCs cannot be apped. This includes tabletop characters, characters from fan-made spinoffs, and canon OCs.
- Malleable protagonists - protagonists from Skyrim and Pokemon, for example - do not count under Canon OCs and instead fall under the “very little canon” rule.
- The exception to tabletop characters is largely-known tabletop games, i.e. Critical Role, The Adventure Zone, Friends At the Table, etc. Essentially, you cannot play your own tabletop character - tabletop characters must be from canons widely accessible to the public.
Up to three versions of any given character will be accepted. This includes canon AUs and CRAUs. For example, you could have Zelda from Ocarina of Time, Zelda from Breath of the Wild, and Zelda from Breath of the Wild with memories from her time in Fade Rift. No more than one CRAU of any character will be allowed. Different canon points on the same timeline do not count as different versions of a character. What-if or fanon AUs are not accepted.
Characters with very little canon will be decided at the discretion of the mods based on the strength of the app. Generally, though, minor characters with small storylines are more likely to be accepted than minor characters with less than a minute of screen time, as the latter can essentially be an OC depending on player interpretation.
Most importantly, your character needs to be someone that CFP-DNR would have recruited and would have accepted said recruitment. Put some thought into how and why your character would become involved and function and what missions they would be best at. (To this end, most outwardly villainous characters would be difficult to app and play, as the government would have a hard time trusting them outside of extreme duress. Doctor Director Leonard Church might be actively recruited, and you might be able to get away with a Prince Lotor here, but nobody’s going to recruit the Joker. Additionally, the government will be hesitant to recruit a teenager but may do so based on their powers and/or skill set; they will absolutely not recruit a small child.)
Post your app in a comment below with the subject line “Application: [Character’s Name] | [Character’s Canon].” All apps will be screened when posted and will be unscreened upon acceptance. Revisions will not be unscreened unless they are later accepted, and denials will not be unscreened.
Please feel free to contact the mods if you have any questions pertaining to your app.
APPLICATION
Player name:
Plurk handle (or other contact if no plurk):
What other characters do you play?
Character name:
Canon:
OU or CRAU?
Canon point:
History: Please feel free to provide a link to your character’s wiki page or other linked history. For characters with very little canon, please write out a history fleshing out your character’s part in the story. For CRAU characters, please note at what point your character diverged from canon and what development they experienced.
Personality: Tell us what makes your character tick. Include internal motivations as well as external actions. (Please keep this section under 1000 words.)
Why did the CFP recruit them? CFP-DNR came to your character for a reason - tell us why. This is the place to talk about your character’s powers or special skills. Be sure to give the mods a good scope of what they’re capable of. Powered characters will come in with their full powers within reason; if your character is incredibly overpowered (think Gohan, Destroyer of Worlds) or has a power that could break the game (dimension hopping of their own, etc), then they may find their powers diminished or disabled. Use your best discretion and contact the mods if you have any questions; the mods may ask for revisions if we feel your character is too powerful for the setting.
Equipment: What is your character bringing with them? This can be their standard equipment; anything they would reasonably have on them. This cannot include overly large weaponry, vehicles, or live animals, with two exceptions: if the live animals are the reason your character was recruited (e.g. Pokemon trainers) or an integral part of your character’s abilities (e.g. Caleb and Frumpkin from Critical Role).
Samples: One of your samples should be written out and should be at least 100 words. You have the option of providing a link to a previous game for the other sample; said thread needs to be from within the past 3 months and needs to have at least 5 comments from your character.
Network Sample:
Prose Sample:
Application: Brook | One Piece (part one b/c I broke character limit like a doofus)
Plurk handle (or other contact if no plurk): PMing this account is fine.
What other characters do you play? None.
Character name: Brook
Canon: One Piece
OU or CRAU? OU
Canon point: Very early in the two-year timeskip, a couple of days after confronting the crowd and beginning to play music in his cage at the freak show. He hasn't been discovered/gotten a record deal
or changed his wardrobe and required new iconsyet.History
I'll spare you trying to read the whole wiki: Long ago, in a sea called the West Blue, there was a boisterous crew of music-loving seafarers known as the Rumbar Pirates, led by Captain "Calico" Yorki. Brook was first mate in those days, a man who'd once dutifully served a kingdom now dutifully serving among outlaws at sea. The Rumbar Pirates had all manner of adventures, as pirates tend to do, and then one day they happened upon a little lonely baby whale they named Laboon. Laboon loved music, as they did, and he followed their ship everywhere it went. But something in the hearts of pirates cannot be satisfied forever by the waters of their home sea; the greatest sea of all, the Grand Line that circled the world, beckoned all brave souls to pass the point of no return.(The Grand Line had many names. One was "the Pirates' Graveyard.")
When the time finally came the Rumbar Pirates tried to leave Laboon behind in the West Blue, but the stubbornly loyal little whale would not be dissuaded and went tumbling into the Grand Line after them. Because the path ahead was no place for a child, even a whale child, they finally convinced Laboon to wait in the care of the lighthouse-keeper, and when they had finished their adventure and gone all the way around the world they would complete the circle. They would come back to the lighthouse, and Laboon would sing with them again. It would only take two years, perhaps three. Laboon would be big and strong by then, and they could all go anywhere they wanted. Just wait for us.
It would not be two years. It would not be three. The Grand Line was a place where the very laws of nature and sense soon fell apart; the climate itself and almost everything in the entire ecosystem was out for blood. Within two years of entering the Grand Line the captain and half the crew were laid low by a terrible illness, with no choice left but to quarantine themselves in the contaminated ship and limp, defeated, towards an uncertain fate. Brook assumed command of the remaining men, and they got themselves a new ship, and they carried on for the sake of those that couldn't anymore. They had adventures again, as pirates do. But two years after entering the Grand Line, just shy of halfway around the world from where it all began, those Rumbar Pirates that remained encountered a terrible enemy in a dark stretch of ocean called the Florian Triangle.
The men that still lived after the battle were, all of them, dying. And there in the lonely fog they regretted that they would die there, in that dark place, and never make it back to Laboon. Then Brook told them to sing. He had, after all, once eaten a Devil Fruit, and if such things were truly possible he would return from death and carry the recording of their last song onward for them. Without fail. And so they laughed in the end, and sang the song they and their lost friends and little Laboon had all loved most, and died.
Three years after the Rumbar Pirates entered the Grand Line, one year after the last song ended, one of the weathered skeletons sprawled on that ship took a breath. He got up. And, alone in the fog, on a battered and drifting ship he lacked the means to repair, Brook began to gather up the bodies in silence and gently put them away to sleep.
Ten years after the Rumbar Pirates entered the Grand Line, Brook was laughing at things that weren't funny and talking to people that weren't there. The line between dreams and reality blurred. When he played music and sang, it was only the recorded voices of dead men that played and sang with him. Again, and again, and again.
Forty-five years after the Rumbar Pirates entered the Grand Line, his aimlessly drifting ship was discovered by an absolutely enormous island-ship steered by far more frightening things than himself, hunting for victims in the fog. The island's master was a thief of shadows, and he cut Brook's shadow away and used it to make another minion for himself with the withered corpse of a warrior named Ryuma. Brook escaped back onto the island before they could set him drifting again, and hunted down Ryuma to take his shadow back - for without it, he had less hope for the future than ever, because the light he so missed would kill him. He wreaked havoc across the island until he found Ryuma; he did not take his shadow back. After their brutal duel Ryuma sent him crawling back to his own ship, wounded and disgraced, wishing he could finally allow himself to die.
Fifty years after the Rumbar Pirates entered the Grand Line, a younger ship and a younger crew sailed into the fog and heard an eerie voice echoing across the silent sea. They found a very old and very badly worn ship still drifting in the dark, and the living bones of a weird, desperate man, who only half remembered how to behave in the company of others, watching them from the railing. Luffy, captain of the Straw Hat Pirates, immediately wanted to keep him, but as much as Brook longed to stay among people and see the sun again he could only say no. Out in the world without a shadow, the sun would strike him dead.
Luffy offered to help take the shadow back. Brook pleaded with them all to run while they could; he would somehow find a way on his own. They didn't run. A great deal of chaos followed, scrambling and fighting on that monstrous island in the fog, until the shadow-thief's power was broken and all the victims freed. In the quiet time after, Luffy told Brook he still wanted a musician for his crew and also something else: the Straw Hat Pirates had met Laboon. The whale still lived, still waiting at the lighthouse. It was not for nothing.
Though Brook had no eyes anymore, he wept.
Too short a time after that - perhaps a week, but not more than two - the Straw Hats, like the Rumbar Pirates decades before them, were overwhelmed by terrible enemies. The only thing that spared them all from certain death was one particular enemy's status as a double agent: Bartholomew Kuma, the Tyrant, used his power to scatter them across great distances, shattering the crew as ordered but sparing their lives.
Brook flew through the air for three days and three nights before landing on Namakura Island, crashing down directly in the middle of a ceremony by desperately poor people attempting to conjure up Satan himself to deliver them from their enemies. The terrifying figure that appeared before them was of course not really Satan, but he helped them just the same. He wrote a song that made their spirits confident and strong, hoping to teach them to stand up for themselves, to try, even if he ended up having to join them and do most of the fighting in the end.
The people of Namakura celebrated afterwards, but Brook's thoughts were elsewhere. He'd found a newspaper, and while they were separated his new (and after all, very young) captain had suffered the death of his brother. Brook only wanted to go back to him, but that wouldn't happen just yet. The enemies of Namakura broke their word and turned on him the moment they were freed, capturing him and taking him back to their country to be enslaved as a profitable freak show exhibit.
He sat in a cage as people screamed in horror and disgust, his empty eye sockets staring down at the latest newspaper. It held a coded message from Luffy, instructing them all to meet up again in two years' time. They were hard orders to receive, but the crew did need to become much stronger if they had any hope of further progress. Brook had once waited longer for the sake of people he loved, and endured worse, and so he stood up in his cage and said So this is a freakshow, is it? Go on then, do your worst!
Though he was by himself, he was not alone.
Personality? Tell us what makes your character tick. Include internal motivations as well as external actions. (Please keep this section under 1000 words.)
"Every single day was filled with pain. To be honest, I couldn't see a ray of light. But you know, Luffy-san...I...I...I'm glad to be alive!"
"Of course you are!"
One Piece is one of those canons that swings wildly from silly characters and zany comedy routines to drama, horror and sadness, and Brook cranks up both halves of that equation particularly high. He is a ridiculously oversized and overenthusiastic comedy skeleton with fabulous hair and a lot of feelings that trembles nervously when it comes to things like curses, ghosts, the dark, and talking skeletons. He regularly says bizarre things in the most intensely polite way, goes about social situations as wrongly as possible, obliviously overshares about his love of panties and trashy novels, has a little difficulty controlling THE VOLUME OF HIS VOICE, and makes unending jokes about the fact that he is, did you notice, a skeleton, sir! And the jokes are so, so bad.
Brook is also a very old man who once died a slow and painful death; he comforted those around him as he'd always done, but, in his own last moment, he was alone. He has held the skulls of friends in his hands, and spent almost five decades (the greater portion of his life) in constant physical, psychological and emotional pain - starving, consumed by grief, slowly losing his mind, abandoned in superstitious terror by the few passing ships that briefly saw him - an ordeal he survived more out of his sense of duty to those he loved than any real hope that his situation would ever get better if he kept on living. He is a gentle, emotionally sensitive extrovert who emerged from long solitary confinement as a physically off-putting and socially awkward monster, entirely aware that he might end up as lonely outside the fog as in it. He is a man who knows exactly how creepy and gross a talking skeleton is, is hurt by it, and yet finds it in himself to go out there and be eagerly friendly to the world just the same. If some people scream and reject him
and put him in a cage, so be it: whatever anyone else says or does, he knows he has a place to go back to and that he is never really alone after all.In short, the punchline to the real skull joke is that being reduced to a skeleton isn't actually very funny but he keeps laughing anyway.
As a long-ago high ranking member of an unspecified kingdom's military he retains all sorts of formal, almost foppish mannerisms, steadfast notions of honor and duty, a very proper way of speaking and one hell of an Authority Voice. He has a pirate's adventurous free spirit, song repertoire, and willingness to get loud and wild and stupid at parties and in general. Though rescued from the Florian Triangle his mind will always be a little strange; his thoughts still go down peculiar paths, his laughter is still too sudden and loud and occasionally poorly-timed, he still carries on one-sided conversations, and he doesn't sleep well when by himself in dark, silent places. He is someone who, offered help by the Straw Hat Pirates after five decades of suffering, said I could not ask you to die for me when we've just met, but he was himself immediately ready to aid them in their battles and then basically take a bullet for them less than two weeks later. He is the kindly 'demon' of Namakura Island, who encouraged the people to be brave and hopeful and stand up for themselves against the enemies that troubled them, and the caged monster of the Tehna Gehna Kingdom that ultimately cared more for thoughts of his young captain's troubles and the needs of his crew than the disgusted screams of the crowd. And at the end of these two (in-canon) years he will very easily cast aside fame and the love and devotion of millions to go running right back where he belongs.
There you have it: "Dead Bones" Brook, a lively fellow with a warm heart and a happy grin, utterly delighted to make your acquaintance.
Although, of course, he died, and he has no heart, and a skeleton's grin is eternal.
Skull joke!
Re: Application: Brook | One Piece (part two)
There is no denying that, even with the aid of holograms, Brook is a liability at best when it comes to missions that require quietly blending in with society and avoiding any diplomatic fumbles. But as troublesome as he can be in some situations, he is incredibly effective in others and will only get more effective with time.
His speed (which can reach "not even a blur of movement" in short bursts), light weight and nimbleness grant him tremendous horizontal and vertical mobility, and the particulars of his skeletal state result in a body that doesn't bleed or grow weaker over time when injured, and that can't suffer "flesh wounds" at all. In an emergency situation he can go without food or water indefinitely, though it isn't fun, and owing to the fact that he has no body heat to lose he can scamper about unaffected in freezing temperatures. Poison that isn't inhaled or ingested is useless. He can cause grievous bodily harm so quickly that the human eye can't tell he moved at all, or disorient/disable groups of targets via his music powers without leaving a single bruise or scratch. And those same music powers can inspire courage and positivity just as easily as cause chaos. (That said, he is unquestionably a precision instrument, lacking in raw destructive power. If an enemy is without physical or tactical/situational weak points he can leverage, he rapidly runs out of options for direct action. He tends to be very "hilariously swift and devastating victory" or "is having serious problems" with little in between.)
So while his mission partners should probably handle all the delicate socializing, Brook is extraordinary in the role of mobility, utility/support, stealthy infiltration/scouting and crowd control. Perhaps more importantly, behind his eccentricity and bouts of foolishness there is a surprisingly intelligent, cunning, and patient mind that remains quite capable of gathering information and devising and executing plans on his own, even carrying them out subtly...sometimes. He is also about as kindhearted and altruistic as a pirate with literally no heart can be, and looking past the fact that he doesn't quite remember how to interact with other people he has a powerful sense of honor and integrity; he may be a weird man, but he can be trusted to keep his word, repay his debts, and to never act out of maliciousness or (unfeigned) treachery.
In addition to blending in and delicate diplomatic scenarios where the first impression is the only impression you get, Brook's other primary weakness is one shared by everyone who eats a Devil Fruit: submersion in standing water. This isn't something he'll try to keep secret; it's common knowledge in his home setting and he'd certainly prefer any mission partners know they'll need to drag him to the surface if something unavoidable happens.
(As Brook is taken from the start of a two-year training timeskip, besides generally strengthening his music over time he has the possibility of unlocking entirely new abilities in the future. I will contact the mod/s to discuss this further if a good situation arises.)
Equipment:
-His cane-sword
-His violin (This is where I should mention that Oda makes almost no real effort to to show Brook carrying instruments before he needs them and even less effort to have any explanation make sense. Brook has casually whipped out an entire guitar from his coat that's bigger than his torso. Please don't ask me to explain this. I'm just going to say that since he was playing his violin in a scene on Sabaody Archipelago and still has it after the timeskip, it was on his person when Kuma smacked him. And we can just never question that ever.)
-A piece of Rayleigh's Vivre Card which will do absolutely nothing outside his home setting.
-And, of course, one seashell hidden inside his head.
Samples:
Network Sample: [VOICE]
[The voice sounds small and distant at first and the volume cuts in and out as it goes, almost as though the speaker is someone who doesn't entirely understand technology and is carelessly gesturing with both his hands in his excitement.]
Hullo! Good morning! Ah, I don't know if I did it...perhaps I ought to have asked a few more questions about how to use this clever little thing properly, or else better remembered the answers, but there is ever so much to take in and I can be such an awful scatterbrain- [He suddenly and quite uncontrollably cackles.]
But let's do be serious now. [The only one rambling and fooling around was him.] My name is Brook! How do you do! I suppose we shall all be working together for a time; I'm looking forward to it very much! [The sound gets bad here, but he might have added 'though I have no eyes' before he started laughing again. Did he say that? Maybe you just misheard.]
Also, if you would be so kind, please recommend your favorite songs and singers! It's for professional reasons; I am a musician myself, and it has recently come to my attention that I am terribly old-fashioned. This seems like a lovely opportunity to catch up, what with recorded music apparently being a good deal easier to come by these days and everyone hailing from so many far-off places. If we can get our hands on it, I'll listen gladly!
All right, well! Thank you! Good morning!
Prose Sample: "You really do take us for fools," said the little man outside the bars, his face shrewd and unsympathetic in the moonlight.
"Not at all, sir!" said the man inside the bars, who was not so little - and whose face was neither shrewd nor anything else, for he had none, only two empty sockets and a grin that never faltered. "I only thought it a small thing to ask of you, and after all, I have been profitable these last few days and never troubled you for a bit of it."
"Ha! You wouldn't get any if you did ask. We caught you fair and square, and caged birds don't get a cut."
"True," Brook said, idly stretching his long legs out before him. "But I should think it an awful shame if I missed my cane so terribly that I became too downhearted to sing. Ah! Though I have no heart regardless..."
The little man rolled his eyes.
"...but even so, lazy bones are not profitable bones, are they? I might be mistaken for a doll again. Only a bit of sleight of hand and stage magic. And all because we quarreled over something that is already mine, and costs you nothing to give me."
"I say it might cost me a lot, giving a thing like you a weapon."
Brook laughed, high and loud and sudden. "Shall I pick the lock with a fencing sword, sir? Saw through the bars? Now that is a gut buster of a joke, and here I am without any guts at all! I'll gladly surrender it before anyone opens my cage, if you like. But I have had that blade a long time, and I should very much like to have it back."
The little man's eyes narrowed, considering. Brook tapped the sides of his shoes together once, twice, and waited.
"I guess having a sword didn't save you from being caged in the first place, did it? But one trick from you - even one - and you'll be real sorry. You'll be sorry for a long time."
"Certainly, sir."
The little man left. Brook grinned. Brook was always grinning. He hummed to himself, watched the moon, counted a few stars. The little man returned, and one double-elbowed arm pushed a seemingly unremarkable cane between the bars before jerking back out of reach like one wary of a snake. It was not so quick that Brook couldn't have caught him, if he'd had a mind to do so.
"Tomorrow, you sing."
"Certainly, sir," he said again, and the little man left, and did not return.
The skeleton, left now to his own devices, took up the cane in his long fingers and twisted just so until the handle slid free and the blade - nearly as much a part of him as his own limbs - caught the moonlight. "Hullo again, old friend. It does my heart good to see that our hosts haven't mistreated you."
The old blade offered no opinion on the matter of his little joke. Well, he was used to it. He sheathed it and lay the cane across his lap, and reached over to tug his equally old violin case close against his hip, and leaned back against the bars of his cage with a yawn.
He closed the eyes he didn't have.
Later, when the cage bars at his back vanished and he fell backwards with a quiet clatter, he opened them again - not to cold bars and moonlight, but to a room filled with peculiar machines and serious-looking people in suits. Brook grinned, as ever, and picked himself up, and picked his belongings up, and held up his cane.
"Thank you! I've got it, and I'm quite ready now. Ready to work my fingers to the bone!" He laughed again, loud and wild.
"We're gonna regret this," someone muttered, and not a one of the serious-looking faces in suits looked ready to admit it was them.
Accepted
Then head to the contact list and provide your info. Feel free to join the game Discord server; the link is on the contact list. Please let the mods know if you have any questions, and welcome to the nexus!
Re: Accepted