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APPLICATIONS ARE OPEN!
The next processing date is Friday 11th October
IMPORTANT: PLEASE POST YOUR APPLICATIONS HERE ON THE NEW APPLICATION PAGE
We're so glad you're thinking of joining us in Haven, where we are all safe.
In order to apply for a canon character, please fill out the information below and post it in a comment in this entry. For an OC, please apply using the OC information. Please do not link to applications, all applications must be posted here. Please do not delete your applications; if you do not want it to be seen, you can request for it to be screened after a decision is made.
You may apply for two characters every two weeks, to a total of six characters. Only two of these may be from the same canon, and they cannot be too familiar with one another. Please make sure to mark the header of your comment(s) with RESERVED or NOT RESERVED, as well as the character name and canon. App challenges are not allowed currently.
Try to remember spelling and grammar are important, and in app length quality and not quantity is what matters. If you wish to request a specific apartment, please do so in the relevant part of the application. All parts of the application must be your own work, plagiarism will not be tolerated, though you are welcome to reuse your own old applications.
If you are asked for revisions, please don't panic! It doesn't mean the mods don't like you, only that we probably need more information before making a decision. If you are asked for revisions, you will have one week to supply them.
Every attempt will be made to place a character in their chosen apartments, though this may not always be possible depending on the slots available.
Applications are open constantly, but are only processed every other Friday at 7PM EST. The Saturday following acceptance, an IC mingle log will be posted for characters to be introduced to the game.
We now have a test drive community athaventest which is continuously open. Posts there may be used in lieu of a sample in the application. You may also link posts, logs, or threads from other games and memes in lieu of samples, though we ask that they be no more than one year old.
To see what we are looking for:
Canon Characters:
Sample Application (Faith Lehane)
Sample Application (Iroh)
Original Characters:
Sample Application (Mors)
Sample Application (Vera de Barr)
Previous Game History:
Sample Application (Abel Nightroad/Mayfield RPG)
Sample Application (Bolin/Discedo)
Applications will be processed on the following dates:
11th October
25th October
8th November
22nd November
6th December
20th December
To apply for a canon character, please fill out this form:
To apply for an original character, please fill out this form:
Rikku | Final Fantasy X/X-2 | Reserved [1/2]
Contact Info: PLURK: verismilitude
AIM: gimmeyourgil
DW account: quiddity
Other Characters Played: N/A, also apping Usagi.
Preferred Apartment: None
Character Name: Rikku (no last name known); no known nicknames.
Canon: Final Fantasy X/X-2
Canon Point: Post canon of X-2.
Background/History: http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Final_Fantasy_X, http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Final_Fantasy_X-2,
http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Rikku
Previous Game History: None. However, if you look at her journal (plunderful) you will notice that there's a ton of information posted there for the game Exit Void. I am playing her there simultaneously BUT independently (that is, never shall the two meet).
Personality:
Rikku comes off a lot of the time as a well-intentioned wild-child. She is usually bold, upbeat, outgoing, trusting and friendly. She welcomes strangers into her life just as easily as friends or family she has known for years. She carries herself with courage and a confidence that can sound like arrogance; she has been known to respond to compliments by affirming her talents. Rikku is rarely afraid to speak her mind, even when it makes her sound childish, naive, or silly.
She has an adventurous, curious streak, the kind that makes her poke her nose into other peoples' business and pry her fingers into treasure chests. This kind of behavior can and does regularly get her into trouble. She's also playful and enjoys teasing people and showing her affection for them, sometimes in slightly aggressive ways.
While not mean-spirited or vicious, Rikku's not the kind of person to back down from an argument if she feels she's in the right. The same goes for difficult battles where the odds might seem insurmountable to a normal person. Monsters won't easily frighten her either: this is the same girl that helped defeat Sin. Don't count on her thinking she can't win: she might be small and skinny, but so are sticks of dynamite. Not that she has any intention of exploding, mind you: there’s no point in winning if you’re not alive to enjoy it.
It's impossible to tell whether it's entirely due to her skill or partially because of her status as the second-child and only daughter of the leader of the Al Bhed, but she's been responsible for scavenging expeditions and in a position of leadership over small groups of Al Bhed since at least around the time she was 15. And she's good at it. If that wasn't enough to indicate she's quite capable, she has an extensive knowledge of machina (machines) , is an artificer of armory and other equipment, is a decent deceiver, is an accomplished thief and treasure-hunter, and is bilingual to boot. So in spite of her impish and even puerile behavior, she is in fact an intelligent and clever girl.
There is absolutely nothing that Rikku will not do to protect her loved ones, even if it means risking her life. She has an empathetic streak that makes her a real softy to people in need. She’s also familiar with living in the face of difficulties and uncertainty. Rikku was helpless but to watch her family and friends be slaughtered by fiends because of the Guado Yevonites, and then the survivors had to destroy the remains to get rid of all the monsters. Somehow, despite numerous painful experiences that have killed family members and friends, and might have crushed another person’s spirit, embittering them to other human beings, Rikku keeps on going and is able to open her heart to others, indicating that spiritually she is hardy and loving.
Though quick to irritation, Rikku isn't good at holding a grudge. Her anger usually dissipates pretty quickly, and she's usually able to see some of her responsibilities in making the problem. She tends to become (briefly) quieter with shame until she can find some way to make up for it. She's not very good at expressing regret or apologies, but she does sincerely mean it, however she shows it. Even with larger issues that would usually be a deal-breaker for most people, Rikku can make up with someone who's sorry for mistreating her. She’s usually eager to patch things up after a fight despite her sense of pride. She spent much of her life having very few friends outside her tribe; it stands to reason that people who genuinely like her are very precious to her, and she would probably do (just about) anything to keep the ones she does make.
Rikku is not exactly a skeptic, but she’s more than able and willing to question ideas handed down to her to see if they actually make sense or are substantiated. She works well under pressure, and can lie and hide information suitably well.
Underneath her effervescing exterior is a more turbulent interior, a teenage girl who doesn't really know what she wants out of life. Her friends are all moving on in their lives without her, settling down to have families and give up their adventures, but she doesn't feel ready yet. She's swiftly moving out of the last vestiges of her childhood, but feels there is nowhere for her to go, and no one to be with, a very difficult concept to deal with for a girl who hates to be alone and is used to being surrounded by good family and friends.
Despite being intelligent and wanting to be treated like a competent adult, Rikku can be very childish. She suffers from poor impulse control, for one thing, and can be nosy in detrimental ways. She is very easily teased, and hypocritically protests when other people tease her. She can be hypersensitive to criticism to the point of taking offense at comments that are not actually meant to be insulting. She's easily won over by compliments and kind words and gets excited by the prospect of treasure or a good time. She can be whiny and bratty when things aren't going her way. She's not above trying to guilt trip people into getting what she wants. She is often impatiently running ahead of everyone else, unable to wait for them. She can be clever and mouthy but reckless when arguing, saying things that might be hurtful just because she doesn't give herself time to think. When frightened or flustered, Rikku can easily become aggressive, punching first and asking questions later. In fact, when she’s not very happy, she’s usually irritated by something or someone, which she tends to vent aggressively.
Additional immaturity is evident in her dependence and sensitivity to the people around her. Criticism that comes from her friends and family, as can be seen both in her relationships with Wakka in X and her father in X-2, is reacted to particularly badly. She also reacts poorly to feeling neglected, pouting and occasionally indulging in passive-aggressive behavior. She is also preoccupied with ideas of "fairness" and "niceness" and is quick to correct people if she feels they're being too harsh on her or people she loves. Although her strong sense of loyalty is usually a good thing and makes her the kind of friend you'd want to have, it also means that Rikku has done (and may do again) things for loved ones that others would probably find morally abhorrent. Rikku worries easily about the people she loves and problems that feel bigger than herself. In fact, she is prone to frenetic mental stewing which leads to stress, frustration, anger, and rashly acting out if she can't find a way to handle the tension.
Sometimes she gets in trouble because, despite her confidence, she's not really at the top of the food-chain. It may be that she doesn't properly prepare herself when she gets excited or that she's used to working in teams, and therefor having somebody at her back. Secondly, she's good enough to be unaccustomed to losing. But lose she can, and does occasionally. She might hate to ask for help, feeling it's a sign of weakness, but she does genuinely appreciate the help when she actually needs it.
Rikku is exceptionally private about her deeper, particularly negative, emotions. She bottles them up inside until they can’t help but explode out of her. She does not cry easily or often because she usually able to vent her frustrations through small aggressions, and it takes something big to trigger real despair. When she does break down, it's a very complete (if brief) thing: crying and sobbing, the whole nine yards. Actually confiding in somebody before breaking down, or having that kind of emotional breakdown in front of them, is a huge sign of trust coming from her. It would take someone really special for her to feel comfortable enough to express herself; she fears both being seen as weak and immature and sees crying as a sign of both those things.
Rikku's values and morals can be a complicated mess to understand, because she tends to be more concerned with achieving her results than how she gets at them. Being a thief and Al Bhed, she has to some degree always lived outside of general society's prescribed values, so she doesn’t worry about what is and isn’t against the law or valued by some higher authority. While she does have a kind of code of honor, it merits the people she loves, her survival, and her sense of right and wrong (which is probably pretty flexible) rather than society's dictations, which can feel arbitrary and nonsensical to her. Once she's decided which course of action is the right one (factoring in the people she loves and whatever moral ramifications she would actually be concerned with), she will stubbornly follow it, even if it alienates her from her family and friends or means that her actions today contradict yesterday's.
It's likely that, given her mother died when she was very young and her father and brother were the closest people to her, a lot of concepts about femininity and a woman's role in life as a mother and caretaker are unappealing to her at her current age. Although she’s stated she would like to have a family with lots of kids eventually, for now, she apparently wants none of it. She particularly resists her father's urges that she give up sphere hunting to find a husband and start a family. She seems to be treating Sin's defeat as an extra-inning of youth, but is finding it spoiled by having no one to share it with.
While still wanting to enjoy her freedom, Rikku badly wants to be seen as mature at the same time. In FFX, while at the bottom of Lake Macalania and talking with Tidus and Kimahri, she admires how together and mature Lulu seems. She says that in five or six years, she will be too. However, by the end of X-2, she still hasn't gotten there, and I think there could be insecurity there. After all, kids always want to grow up faster than they do, and she really is a young woman now.
The radical change in clothing-to-skin ratio between games is (in my head-canon) Rikku attempting to physically emulate the maturity of older women that is embodied by wearing more revealing clothing (see Lulu, Dona, Yunalesca, etc). She smiles to pretend she's happy until she actually is; I think she might try the same psychological trick with clothing. While aware that she is "cute," even "pretty," she would like to actually feel attractive, though comments and flirtations from other people about her dress are actually just liable to fluster and embarrass her. In fact, there's evidence to suggest that she really doesn't know how to handle attention from boys, in that she reacts to being flirted with or teased with embarrassment and (mild) aggression. She possesses the typical kinds of insecurities about her body image that most girls her age have, regardless of how cute or pretty they really are. Not that she hates her body, but how many girls do you know wouldn't want to change one or two things about themselves?
Rikku's attitudes about religion and the supernatural are complicated. The major religion in Spira, Yevon, made her family outcasts, but as she tells Wakka, it's wrong to presume that the Al Bhed hate Yevon. They simply refuse to follow teachings that have no factual basis. They don't perform the customary prayers to Yevon and are morally opposed to the idea of sacrificing summoners for the world's happiness. However even they know and seem to take some comfort in singing the Hymn of the Fayth, since her brother and father both sing it as they prepare to blow up Home. There is some indication that they may even choose to go visit the Farplane, the in-game equal to heaven on earth I suppose, if they so wish. However, Rikku makes the choice not to go inside, saying that "she'd rather keep her memories inside" because what people see in the Farplane are pyreflies reacting with peoples' memories to construct illusions of lost loved ones. Perhaps this might make it look like she's not actually a very sentimental person, but I think that the truth is more likely that Rikku is simply very private about her deeper emotions.
Other odds and ends about Rikku's personality include a fear of snakes and a love for beautiful, sparkly, and/or rare things. She used to suffer from a fairly severe case of astrophobia after having been hit by a thunder spell when she was a child. According to FFX-2, she spent a week out in the Thunder Plains (where it constantly storms) working to rid herself of it, and has tamed the more irrational, debilitating aspects of it. Based on her age and her overall bashfulness with boys (covered earlier), she's probably sexually inexperienced. She's also something of a word-smith, which fits her playful, creative nature. In her canon, she never curses, which is notable since several other characters do. Rather, when she insults people, she resorts frequently to childish name-calling in the first game. I like to have her use her whimsical word-building (disasteriffic!) to give more creative insults now that she's a little older, and I generally use substitutes like "sweet Shiva" or "holy chocobos" in place of "oh my God" or "Jesus Christ" etc. And if she's really, really angry with you, she may just tell you to "go get sent."
Rikku | Final Fantasy X/X-2 | Reserved [2/2]
Rikku is bilingual in a common tongue spoke in Spira as well as Al Bhed, a cypher-based language native to her people. It's clear from her abilities in the first game (where she customizes weapons and defense items, and takes apart machines in the heat of battle) that she is a competent machinist/engineer/artificer, and will likely be able to help design and upgrade weapons (provided she has the right materials, of course). Additionally, she has a history in both games of being able to "mix" items to create upgraded/home-made potions, explosives, and other helpful items; again, with the right materials, she should be able to do something similar. She is also an accomplished thief and treasure hunter capable of taking apart locks and stealing items off monsters and humans alike during battles.
Although Rikku is well-versed in combat and is capable of utilizing magic using her dresspheres, I am assuming she will not have access to the latter in Haven (at least, at this time). This is because "dresspheres" are items (magic spheres) that attach to another item known as a "garment grid" in order to be used. They change her default clothes, abilities, and default weapon to suit her job. Although she will not be arriving with her knives, Rikku is quite capable at using those weapons as well as a variety of others (guns, machines, staffs, swords) and can also fight hand-to-hand.
Sample Entry:
http://exitvoid.dreamwidth.org/380223.html?thread=38703423#cmt38703423
&
http://exitvoid.dreamwidth.org/380223.html?thread=38703679#cmt38703679
(These are two parts to the same thread, but because of the sequential way I posted one then the other, I needed to post both of them here to make sense. Whups!)
Sample Entry Two:
Haven: the name implied safety, a place to rest. Like Home. But for who? It seemed to Rikku, surveying the ugly, boarded up buildings (like patched eyes refusing to look at them) that there was something really, really wrong here. No explanations, no real residents—just the other people who had shown up here, just like her, kidnapped. And where were her knives, her dresspheres, all the little odds and ends and healing goodies she'd had before she wound up here? Gone, probably to that same place where the missing sock in the laundry always ended up. Or worse.
"But it's not so bad," she told herself. She'd taken to talking to herself out loud a little since arriving, at least when she was alone. It helped to make up for the awful, eerie silence of the place, made her feel just a teensy bit better. "At least there's everyone here, with you, and you're not alone…" But why? Why them? And why so many?
She had a feeling the answer wasn't going to be so pretty. Hopefully they'd be prepared by the time it came.
Note: If these samples are not satisfactory because of the limited range of emotions provided, I can link to other thread(s) with a wider range for your approval.
-> ACCEPTED