Understand the secrets and have some fun

[these_balls]

APPLICATIONS!
Currently: Closed!
Route 29 has closed as of May 30th. For the continuation of the game, please visit victory_road!

Applications will be normally checked during the weekend following the first and third Sunday of each month unless otherwise stated, and we will allow one application per person during one application cycle. Remember, the most characters one player can have at a time is currently set at five.

Applications received after 11:59 PM EST on Saturday of the first and third weekend of each month will be checked the following app weekend unless otherwise stated.

We now ask that potential applicants post their application in comments rather than linking. If their application contains explicit references to 'hard' spoilers (character death, unforeseen plot twists, big reveals, he was evil all along etc), players should put the application in their own journal or their character's journal and link it, making sure to mention the presence of spoilers within. For further clarification on our spoilers policy and whether or not your application needs to be linked, please check this page. Thank you for your cooperation!

The comment character limit on dreamwidth is 16,000 characters so apps no longer need to be split into multiple comments; however this is at players' discretion.

Please use the form below and post your application in comments rather than linking if you can. If you have any questions, feel free to ask either of the mods. You can reach us through emails, IMs, or PMs.

A reminder for those waiting to hear back, please don't be worried if we skip yours while going through them. It only means we needed a little more time to research!

Helpful links!
Taken: 1|2|3 / Reserves
Please do not app a character from either of these unless you reserved them!
Starter Pokémon!
A compiled list of the starter pokémon to choose from offered in Route 29!
Word Count Tool!
Word count! It has other pointless stats too.
Navigation


<u><b>Player</u></b> <b>Name:</b> <b>Personal Journal:</b> <user name=""> <b>E-mail:</b> <b>AIM/Plurk/Etc.:</b> <b>Timezone:</b> <b>Current Characters in Route:</b> <b><u>Character</u></b> <b>Name:</b> <b>Series:</b> <b>Timeline:</b> <b>Canon Resource Links:</b> Here we would have the links to wikis and other information sites. If none of those seem to provide enough information, feel free to add more about the character here. However, please do not use this section as a full history section unless your canon is ridiculously obscure. General rule of thumb: if there are a good amount of descriptive resources, please just link them and use this section to add in what may have been left out, as opposed to writing an entire history section. <b>Personality:</b> Give us at minimum 2-3 full paragraphs of how you understand your character's personality. Talk about basic characteristics, any major developments over the course of their canon, their motives, their social behavior, and anything else you can think of that shows off your knowledge of this character. <b>Strengths/Weaknesses:</b> Try to cover the good points of what they can do, their life skills (not necessarily powers, but things they're just good at). Go into their biggest fears and what they just can’t do. <b><u>Pokémon Information</u></b> <b>Affiliation:</b> What career path will your character be taking? Breeder, Trainer? Or maybe even down the dark path of becoming a member of Team Rocket? Note: All Rocket members start as grunts. (For right now, only those three positions are available, whether your character chooses to follow their assigned path or not.) <b>Starter:</b> What starter pokémon do you want your character to have? Please use the list linked above to choose from. Certain pokémon have an orange star next to their names; if you choose one of these starters (Deino, Zorua, Litwick, Pikachu, Scyther, Dratini, Bagon, Gible, Axew, Ralts, Riolu, Beldum, Larvitar, Eevee, or Beldum) you must provide reasoning. You do not need to explain your reasoning for pokémon other than those listed above. <b>Password:</b> This is where you'll put the passwords from the Rules and the F.A.Q. There are two words, to assure you've read both. <b><u>Samples</u></b> <b>First Person Sample:</b> The sample must take place in Route_29's setting. Eight sentences is the minimum. This is a PokéConnect post--one that will be on the character's journal, broadcast to the network. Although it is short, it needs to show how your character would communicate with others, as well as be descriptive enough to express the character's voice without sounding too generic. <b>Third Person Sample:</b> The sample must take place in Route_29's setting. The minimum is 300 words. Please note that what we are looking for is an inner working into the character’s thoughts and actions, and how the character responds to the setting, not something that could be taken as an excerpt fanfic. You may use other characters to bounce your characters actions off of, but everything should still be mostly from their point of view.

Comments

[these_balls]

Before we make our final decision on your application, we would like to request that you provide us with revised personality and strengths/weaknesses sections. The current personality section does a good job at covering the aspects of Kurata that make him an irredeemable monster; however, this also makes him seem shallow and one-note, when we are looking for a fleshed-out understanding of the character. In the revised section, please expand more on the traits that make Kurata a three-dimensional character in his own right. Also, the strengths/weaknesses section is too short and, again, contributes to the perception of Kurata as a shallow and one-dimensional character. In your revised section, please flesh these out as well.

Finally, you have provided us with the wrong application password. Before we can process your revisions, we must ask you to go read our FAQ and Rules pages again, and provide us with the correct passwords. We must also ask you to choose Kurata's secondary Rocket starter from the list provided.

You will have one week to complete these requests before the character is available again.

revisions

[complete_monster]

Player
Name: Razorsaw
Personal Journal: razorsaw
E-mail: razorsawtf[at]gmail[dot]com
AIM/MSN: RazorsawTF (AIM)
Timezone: Central
Current Characters in Route: None

Character
Name: Kurata Akihiro
Series: Digimon Savers
Timeline: post-series
Canon Resource Links: Here

Personality: We all know someone like Kurata Akihiro.

He may be the coworker who absolutely no one in the office likes, and yet the boss inexplicably trusts with everything because he has the right skills they need just right now to get the job done. He may be the bigot who refuses to budge on an issue because he's so completely set in his ways and his complete and absolute fear of the other that he can't concieve of a world where he isn't right. He might also be that person who wants something from someone else, and reacts so badly because he deserves it not you why won't you give it to him? The situation Kurata comes from involves many fantastic circumstances, but in these are all contexts where someone like him could very well exist.

Kurata has, in his own mind at least, spent his life in the shadows of others. When he was the assistant to Daimon Suguru, he was constantly awed and humbled by his superior, and felt that everything he did was inferior to the other man's. Suguru was considered a more brilliant scientist, he had a loving family (Kurata couldn't even get a girlfriend!), he was able to handle seemingly every situation with ei9ther his brain and with his fists, and everyone respected him. Meanwhile, Kurata was constantly looked down upon for his cowardice, and he was seen as "just" Suguru's assistant. On the exploration mission to the Digital World, Kurata tried to "defend" the team from digimon attacks with his gun, only to be called out for inciting the attack in the first place! Well, yes, that was technically accurate, but why shouldn't he have done that? The Digimon were so much stronger and terrifying than they were, it was best to shoot first before they had the opportunity! Why couldn't they see how right he was? How brilliant?! Well, like any self respecting mad scientist, Kurata eventually decided "He'd show them! HE'D SHOW THEM ALL!"

This thought process shows the core of Kurata's weakness. He can't bear to think he was wrong, and to think that someone was a better than him. In a sense, Kurata is ruled by his fear and his sense of inferiority. Everyone is so much more skilled and brilliant and STRONGER than he is, why isn't what he's capable of ever enough? Why can't his way of thinking ever work out as well as others? Why can't be be appreciated and admired and respected like Daimon Suguru was? Well, like any self-respecting mad scientist, Kurata saw this situation and decided, "HEY I'LL SHOW THEM! I'LL SHOW THEM ALL!"

That's not to say Kurata is completely pathetic. He's a brilliant scientist, he's created works and computed theories that normal, less "brilliant" people would be spellbound by. But while Kurata is capable of seeing them as successes, he doesn't feel secure in them. He sees them as ways to get what he wants, to prove his superiority to the people who didn't appreciate him beforehand; a sense of superiority born in inferiority, as it were. As long as things are going well for him, Kurata will be secure in his smugness, that his plans will work out in the end. Once that chips away... well, it's not pretty.

It goes without saying, then, that Kurata chafes when "beneath" someone. That situation plants the seed for passive aggressive and condescending behavior, and he will often do whatever he can to make others feel uncomfortable or worse off than himself. He will often make plays at appearing polite and respectful, but this is only a means to an end and he rarely seems as though he means it. As such, even when not playing the role of an "obvious" villain, Kurata has trouble appearing legitimately likable. Putting him in a situation where he is forced to work with others will undoubtedly lead to a situation where Kurata alienates and frustrates others with his pedantic and, at times, even childish behavior.

Kurata is also, as stated by other characters, "afraid of pain." In a way, this is related to his disgust with being seen as inferior, but t's also the cause for this complex. When Kurata sees something else, his first thought is about how this thing might hurt him. In a twisted way, it can drive him to apply himself... if only to so thoroughly understand it so that he can perhaps even control it and abuse it so that it will never be capable of hurting him. In Kurata's mind, the potential of something being a threat to him is as real as that threat being a certainty. This leads to him taking very little initiative to better himself or do things that one could see as legitimately admirable, as they are ultimately self-serving.

Of course, when he can't control something inside and out, he'll react with fear. Absolute, crippling fear. He breaks down, and will either violently and haphazardly attack it or run away screaming for his life. It goes back to the sense that to Kurata, it is his own needs and safety that matter most, and to hell with anyone else who might be in his way. He has to survive.

Then again, if survival were all Kurata cared about, his acts of genocide wouldn't have morphed into a desire for world domination. Once he's secure and safe sure he's not going to die, his thoughts turn to how he might assert his dominance over others. After all, it's not just that he be acknowledged, he also has to be seen as better than everyone else. Filling the void with what he doesn't have has become an obsession with having it all. And why not? He's suffered soooooo muuuuch, he deserves it, right?

Kurata uses people. His self-centeredness and drive to have what he doesn't leads to him having very little regard for the lives of others. In Kurata's own mind, such actions as, say, strapping a bomb to the neck of a young girl in order to assure her brother's loyalty, or twisting so-called "inhuman monsters" into unthinking machines, are completely justified. If no one saw his inherent worth, why should he see the worth in others? This manifests as an extreme lack of empathy, and he very rarely takes an interest in other people; we have never seen him with legitimate friends or people he cares about, only individuals he's using as tools or a means to an end.

However, if something positive can be said about Kurata, he's at least patient enough to play a long game. His plans back in his homeworld spanned several years, and he was able to ingratiate himself to the government well enough to be trusted with keeping the peace and developing weapons to be used against a potential digimon menace. From that, we can take that Kurata is very good at playing people who are actually corrupt, and manipulating situations where, while others might not like him, they will be forced to tolerate him. However, circumstances in his homeworld led to him having access to more resources and a more favorable position (digimon were feared and less well understood than Pokemon are here), so he wouldn't have as easy a time at it in Route as he would back home.

With his Pokemon, there will be an undercurrent of frustration and bitterness, and he will not be able to easily trust or bond with them. Like anyone else, they are either an imposition, or tools to be used to help him. They're also potentially terrifying, so violent means of asserting his control over them are a possibility. Of course, if the Pokemon are just as twisted as he is, that might make things considerably easier...

Finally, for good or ill, Kurata is a very brilliant individual. When he's driven to apply himself rather than seek the path of least resistance, he can create things that are truly amazing. However, these creations are ultimately twisted and destructive. While DATS created the Digital Gate, he created space time oscillation bombs, which violently punched holes in the dimensional fabric of both the real and Digital Worlds. While Suguru created the Digivice as a way to link humans and digimon, Kurata created Gizmon, whose hearts were removed and ultimately soulless automatons. While Suguru's son bonded with a Digimon, Kurata broke them down into data and bonded them with humans to create living weapons.

Ultimately, Kurata is a dangerous and unstable individual. The path he takes will ultimately be shaped by his interactions with others, but one thing is certain: they won't be very pleasant.

As one final note, Kurata can be bombastically theatrical. When enacting his plans or his various designs, he has a tendency to get overly excited and loud, gesturing wildly and making cartoonish faces. This is an extension of his sometimes childish behavior, and is often punctuated by loud declarations. In particular, his favorite is "IT'S SHOWTIME!" From this, we can infer that Kurata has some more benign, and even "otaku"-related interests, in that he picked up such mannerisms from anime, tokusatsu, and video games. Unfortunately, while Kurata sees this as being heroic in his own mind, it usually results in him looking like a supervillain. On a semi-related note, he enjoys sweets, such as lollipops.

... And as a final, final note, Kurata's prejudices and have led to a mild form of hypochondria on his part. He'll often act disgusted to interact with or touch people or things he considers beneath himself. He often covers this up with a sneeze. I say he "covers it up" in that he's not really being physically affected by it, but he legitimately can't control said sneezes and ends up doing them almost reflexively. Essentially, he's convinced himself this is happening. He also uses this an excuse to not have extended interaction with such things or people, and often makes an effort to keep his hands thoroughly "clean" and avoid "down and dirty" jobs.

Strengths/Weaknesses: Kurata's greatest strength is his mind. As stated in his personality section, he's mastered technology and sciences that would make most people's heads spin. In particular, he's adept in quantum physics, the creation of electronic devices, engineering, genetic engineering, computer science, and genetic engineering. How much of that will be applicable in Route is unclear (I mean, I doubt you want him creating time space oscillation bombs or combining human and Pokemon into hybrids), but it is in the application of these sciences that he excels. When convinced it's for his own self benefit (and glory), he can be a very hard worker, and create things that are both powerful and highly dangerous.

That said, Kurata is not physically fit at all, and his general cowardice and self-serving nature make him a poor fighter. He will often break down under pressure and be reduced to screaming and incoherency. He has shown the ability to lead men into battle, but it's always from behind a large number of soldiers and overwhelmingly superior technology. He tends to get nervous and act passive aggressive when told to do things. All in all, his skills are best served when sitting at a desk or a computer.

Kurata doesn't work well with others, and... well, his personality section covers how much of a team player he is. That said, he's good at manipulating others when he can get the right resources. Though he has trouble not appearing suspicious and coming off as genuine, he knows that you can get someone to follow you if you offer them something they want, and if that doesn't work... well, introducing something that threatens people's lives is always a good tactic. However, this also has the side effect of creating enemies and people who demand repercussions for Kurata's behavior.

Finally, he is loathe to get his hands dirty. Like actually dirty. If it means doing something gross or disgusting, Kurata will try to foist it off on someone else or avoid it like the plague. This limits the kinds of tasks he can perform, and if he's forced to, he'll complain the whole way and do a terrible job. This has the strong potential to affect his future as a Rocket.

Pokémon Information
Affiliation: Team Rocket
Starter: Porygon, Stunky
Password: Strawberry, Sherbet

revisions part 2

[complete_monster]

Samples
First Person Sample: So, hrm. I've been dragged into another world and given a monster as a "partner"? My my my, this whole enterprise seems a bit dangerous, don't you think?

Ah, perhaps I should introduce myself first. My name is Akihiro Kurata. Professor Akihiro Kurata. I'm quite brilliant, you know. I've done a fair bit of work for the government, actually... well, where I come from, I mean. I suspect the lot of you have no idea what the world I come from is like...

But ha ha, that's in the past, isn't it?

I want to learn more about these Pokémon creatures... the one I was given is a bit like creatures from where I come from. Porygon, I believe I call it? An artificial, digital lifeform... they're much like beings we call Digimon. Quite dangerous, those... they manifested in our world and posed a constant danger to humankind. It was absolutely difficult, but we had to enact extreme measures to protect ourselves. I led the way of course...

But enough about me and my contributions to the human race.

I want to learn about Pokémon as much as I can! I imagine that of course involves capturing as many as possible... But if anyone would be willing to lend their, erm, partners to the cause of science, I'd be quite grateful. I am particularly interested in how dangerous they are... no use in anyone getting hurt, correct?

Hm! I suppose that's all!

Third Person Sample: Kurata made himself literally cough as he finished typing his network post, having to figuratively choke back his anger and frustration the entire time he was writing it. He wanted to do nothing more than rail against the forces that had led to his defeat and exile to this... this saccharine hellhole, but he knew that he couldn't afford to alienate anyone now that he was here.

In all seriousness, he was rather lucky. When he'd been consumed by that dimensional rift, which had been no fault of his own, he'd thought that was the end of him; his essence strewn about the time space continuum like dust. But somehow, it had thrown him into this world that reminded him so much of that wretched Digital World... Similar except for the fact that, here, the digimon counterparts and humans lived in relative harmony...

It was absolutely disgusting. Living alongside monsters... battling them against one another like some kind of family-friendly cockfighting... he couldn't imagine how long it took before this world's stable veneer went teetering into absolute chaos.

"PORYGON."

Ugh. That bizzare little digimon knockoff was demanding attention again. Kurata suppressed a violent sneeze as he turned to the sentient mishmash of pixels. While a digimon at least resembled a real animal despite being an abomination, this artificial construct looked like a cheap CGI effect from an old science fiction movie... its presence was disorienting to Kurata, as if looking at it made him visibly doubt it was real.

"Eugh. What do you want now?" Kurata asked it.

The creature's polygon-shaped head turned at a thirty degree angle, while its eyes and what could generously be called an expression didn't move at all. "PORYGON," it repeated.

Oh, that was right. These wretched little beasts only said their names, didn't they? Ugh. This reminded Kurata of the hamster he'd owned when he was younger... the thing slept all day, and resisted Kurata's attempts to study it. The stupid little beast had died after two weeks.

He supposed he'd ought to avoid that happening this time. This was the only source of power in this world. He'd have to figure out what living special effects ate, apparently.

The sheer ridiculousness was not lost Kurata at all. In fact, it made him want to wretch. And sneeze, but both of those things were normal.

((my apologies on the passwords. I saw them, I was just working off an older application and forgot to replace that particular part. x_x I didn't mean to appear as though I didn't look at what I needed to))

[these_balls]

Unfortunately, we will not be accepting your revisions at this time. Concerns about your conduct as a player have recently been brought to us by current players, and upon reviewing those concerns, we do not feel that your behavior has measured up to the standards of respect we ask of our players in Route. As stated in Rule #1 of our game rules, which all our potential applicants are expected to read, we expect our players to be respectful to each other. Moreover, we expect players with problems and conflicts to bring them to the modteam for direct resolution. While we obviously cannot police what you choose to say on your plurk, we have the responsibility of maintaining a civil and respectful atmosphere within our game for our players. Again, while we cannot and should not dictate what people say and do outside of Route, we do have the right to determine the suitability of an applying player to our game. We feel that your conduct was disrespectful to our current players and uncalled for; as such, we are rejecting your application at this time.

We also regret to inform you that, due to your conduct, you have been temporarily banned from applying to Route. This temporary ban will last until February 24, 2014; any application you submit to us before then will be rejected without consideration. We wish you the best in your RP endeavors, and you may feel free to reapply for Kurata or for any other character in two months' time.