Sample Application: Townie
Player Info - for ALL character types
Player Name: Len [This can be your real name or whatever internet handle you regularly use]
Player Age: 25 [All players must be 18 or older; beyond that, you can tell us your specific age or not, as you please]
Contact Email: prince.of.bitca at gmail dot com [The e-mail you'd like the admins to use for contacting you]
Do You Want Other Players To Know Who Is Playing This Character? (Choose one answer, delete the other)
-- Yes - list my Contact E-mail and Player Name in the Character Directory, if accepted
-- No - list my Character E-mail in the Directory, and show my Player Name as [Private]
Character Email: thetoiletmile at gmail dot com [You only need to fill this out if your answer to the previous question was No.]
If a current player, who do you play at Fandom High?: Arthur Pendragon (alum), Sarah Kerrigan (expat), Peter Wiggin, Ender Wiggin, Dolf Wega, John Mitchell, Cable.
AIM Screenname: soldtoarmenians
How did you find us?: It's all Lainey's fault! [This is mostly for new players, to give us a general sense of how much familiarity with the game you might already have. Longtime players have been known to use this space for saying they discovered us while searching the couch cushions for change.]
Character Info
Character Name: Steve Taylor
Fandom: Coupling
Character Type: Townie
Potential Character LJ: thetoiletmile
Character Age: 30-something
Townies Only: Career Choice: Employee
Townies Only: Description of Business/Employment (read details carefully):
Steve will be taking a job at the book store while attempting to work on TV spec scripts in his free time. This has been pre-arranged with the store's owner.
Character Background
1. Assume we've never even heard of your show/movie/game/book/comic/play (known as 'canon' from now on). Please explain it to us.:
Steven Moffat's (yes, that Moffat) Coupling has been described as 'the better, British Friends', and they probably have a point, those describers. It followed the lives of Susan Walker and Steve Taylor as they began dating, moved in, and eventually had children. The rest of the cast was composed of their respective exes and best friends: Sally, Patrick, Jane and Jeff. Each of these supporting characters was devised as an extreme version of the two main characters, with Patrick and Jane exemplifying confidence bordering on the delusional, while Jeff and Sally defined the concept of insecurity in their specific genders.
Together, this motly bunch attempted to understand, or at the very least, survive relationships in the modern age, some managing better than others. Jeff in particular became a break-out character exactly because he had absolutely no idea how to manage, quickly getting distracted and obstructed by flights of fancy, random observations, and his complete inability to keep his own mouth shut. He was replaced by a character called Oliver in the last season. On the female end, it was hyper-confident Jane who often lapsed into the delusional, such as deciding that the sock puppet she was wearing was actually a real person with a real voice and winding up in bewildering arguments with it.
Over the course of the series, neurotic Sally and confident Patrick became a couple, but it took them a while. Up until then, we followed Sally's string of continuously disappointing boyfriends while she worried about the state of her neck (which she felt was twenty years older than her) and the rest of her looks; Patrick, on the other hand, mostly got in trouble due to taking on the wrong girlfriends, or too many at once, and otherwise letting his dick do the talking.
Susan and Steve are relatively stable and normal in comparison to their friends, but they, too, have their moments. Susan has a massive weakness for Australians, and in the words of her female friends, 'an arse like two puppies'. She's cheerful but a bit critical, prone to the odd bout of neuroses, but mostly confident and good at her job. As for Steve... well, we'll get to him soon.
With its British sensibility, the show was more frank about sexual matters than its American inspiration, and later attempts to remake it for the American market failed horribly. Thankfully, because that show was practically unwatchable.
2. Now onto your character. Please tell us about them. Appearance, personality, how they react to others in general and where they fit into the canon you explained above.
Steve Taylor... likes to think of himself as a bit of an all right guy, all around. He's sort of a feminist in a vague sense of the word, he respects women, he's not nearly as neurotic or sex-obsessed as Jeff, he's a clever writer... you know, that kind of thing. Out of his group of friends, he feels he's the reasonable one, the one with the right to give advice and to enact judgement of his male friends because they're obviously doing it wrong.
Sadly, Steve is deluding himself. When he gets going, he can be every bit as awkward as Jeff in his own way: many times does he get driven to the point of long rants on such topics as throw pillows and toilets in canon, often at terribly awkward points in time. He stumbles haplessly into trouble, such as by failing to say 'yes' when a woman in a bar asks him if he has a girlfriend ('But I just missed by one word!') and even asking Susan out while having sex with Jane in the pilot episode.
In other words, the best word you can use to describe Steve is weasel, which he is. He swings from one opinion to the other mostly based on what seems like the thing people want to hear at the time, even if he doesn't actually stand by it. In the process, he can wind himself up about the most inane things just because he hasn't spoken his mind about them - leading to the aforementioned rants. (Sometimes, this can be something as small as his girlfriend leaving shoes everywhere. 'Do they grow extra legs when we're not watching and run around the streets shouting WHERE ARE YOU GOING, WHERE ARE YOU GOING?')
That being said, he is clever, and exceptionally good with words. Which would be why he became a TV writer, no doubt, even if the show never makes that explicit. And he is, in his own way, always trying to do the right thing: it's just that he doesn't actually know what that is half the time, and simply assumes he does. (Years spent around soaking up Jeff's insanity might also not have helped.) He's used to being the pillar of relative sanity amongst insane people in insane situations, and reacts as such - even being forced by Jeff to wear matching Spider-Man costumes and dancing doesn't really get much more out of him than some very sarcastic comments about how Jeff designed the dances.
Mostly, he's just a normal, weasely guy, trying to do what's right, trying to do well in the world, and oftentimes just missing by the hair of a toilet.
3. Powers! Does your character have any abilities (powers, skills, training or weapons) that go beyond what a normal person would have?:
None whatsoever, unless you count the skill to come up with an eloquent rant on a completely inane topic on a whim.
4. Why is your character coming to Fandom and what kind of situation are they leaving behind at home? (ie: where in the canon timeline do they come from?):
Steve hails from right before canon. In what amounts to his fifteenth attempt to dump Jane, he has taken what he will later freely admit is desperate action: he has decided to attempt to move to the States, and maybe send some spec scripts to some companies in New York. Unfortunately, being a TV writer in England doesn't really leave you that rich, so buying a place in New York is right out. At least, until he gets some work out there.
Also unfortunately, Steve doesn't quite have the head for American distances, and having jumped on the first cheap property in the States he could find where they didn't immediately demand a green card, he's in for quite a surprise...
5. Is there any reason that they might cause trouble to other characters in the Fandom High setting due to behavior or abilities?:
No, unless one of his rants makes someone want to tell him to press a throw pillow very firmly against his bottom.
6. Links to character/series information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coupling_(UK_TV_series)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/coupling
Problem Solving: Things don't go how you expected them to and you find yourself in a situation where you don't get what you want. How will you react out of character as a player? How will you have your character react to the situation?:
[We're not filling this one in for you!]
Additional Notes/Canonmate Check-Ins: Have you contacted the players from this canon who are already in game?
There are no Coupling players in the game, so I'm good!
Business Check-Ins: Have you checked the directory for your business and contacted the owner/manager if necessary? (choose one answer, delete the others!)
* Yes. Arrangements have been made.
Do you have any other information you feel we should know about the character or you as a player that doesn't fit in the categories above?:
There are no receptionists in masturbation.
Writing Sample: please write at least 300-500 words *in character* having your character do something, anything, set on Fandom Island.
"Yes, I... agree that we've had a very nice time," Steve said, diplomatically, "But I'm sure you can tell that we are a little-- ah-- incompatible--" His voice had gone up an octave on the last word, he was fairly sure, and his palms were getting sweaty. He cleared his throat and leveled his voice (it got too gravelly in response) and added, "So we'd best go our seperate ways."
The unicorn on the other end of the table neighed back with angry denial. Steve winced, and held up his hands, placating it-- her-- as best as he could. "I know, I know," he said, "But we are from two very different words-- look, you know what I mean. I'm a human being, and you're... otherwise sentient. The twain were not meant to twine." He waved his hands about. "You're a very nice unicorn," he added, "It's not that. In fact, you must be the nicest unicorn I've ever met."
She was also the only unicorn he had ever met, but that was probably an insensitive thing to point out.
"But surely you're looking for more of a--" His voice was threatening to wobble again, "--stallion." And did.
The unicorn kicked at the floor of the cafe angrily with one hoof. She snorted loudly, and tossed her head in Tino's general direction. Steve rued the day he'd ever signed up for three minute dates, but did so quietly, and only in the back of his own head.
"Oh, look," he said at last. "You're a horse with a horn on it! I'm a man! These are two quantities that do not go together! You eat grass, I eat meat. I go to the bathroom in the bathroom, you go outside on the grass! We have two entirely different concepts of hygiene! And what if we had kids? What would they be, little centaurs? All the other unicorns would make fun of them for having their horns in the wrong place! No, I can't say yes to this. You'll have to remain on your side of the fence, and I'll be on my side where the bathroom is. I am a man. From time immemorial, we might have dreamed of sleeping with supernatural beasts, but we've never taken it seriously, we've never debased ourselves with glittery vampires or stout werewolves. No, we've only tended to such fantasies in our minds, where they belong! And even then, our fantasies still look humanoid! With breasts! We fantasize about breasts, and then we feel ashamed about it, and we never, ever ask our girlfriends to actually dress up as mermaids or angels or, god forbid, Ratman, because we are men, and I am a man, and I cannot in good conscience date a horse with a horn on it!"
The silence that followed was punctuated only by the unicorn's angry stampede through the door, and the zombie bassist's arm falling off, and the silence of every other attractive female in the room.
"That was six minutes. Six. Three of those didn't count."
Player Name: Len [This can be your real name or whatever internet handle you regularly use]
Player Age: 25 [All players must be 18 or older; beyond that, you can tell us your specific age or not, as you please]
Contact Email: prince.of.bitca at gmail dot com [The e-mail you'd like the admins to use for contacting you]
Do You Want Other Players To Know Who Is Playing This Character? (Choose one answer, delete the other)
-- Yes - list my Contact E-mail and Player Name in the Character Directory, if accepted
-- No - list my Character E-mail in the Directory, and show my Player Name as [Private]
Character Email: thetoiletmile at gmail dot com [You only need to fill this out if your answer to the previous question was No.]
If a current player, who do you play at Fandom High?: Arthur Pendragon (alum), Sarah Kerrigan (expat), Peter Wiggin, Ender Wiggin, Dolf Wega, John Mitchell, Cable.
AIM Screenname: soldtoarmenians
How did you find us?: It's all Lainey's fault! [This is mostly for new players, to give us a general sense of how much familiarity with the game you might already have. Longtime players have been known to use this space for saying they discovered us while searching the couch cushions for change.]
Character Info
Character Name: Steve Taylor
Fandom: Coupling
Character Type: Townie
Potential Character LJ: thetoiletmile
Character Age: 30-something
Townies Only: Career Choice: Employee
Townies Only: Description of Business/Employment (read details carefully):
Steve will be taking a job at the book store while attempting to work on TV spec scripts in his free time. This has been pre-arranged with the store's owner.
Character Background
1. Assume we've never even heard of your show/movie/game/book/comic/play (known as 'canon' from now on). Please explain it to us.:
Steven Moffat's (yes, that Moffat) Coupling has been described as 'the better, British Friends', and they probably have a point, those describers. It followed the lives of Susan Walker and Steve Taylor as they began dating, moved in, and eventually had children. The rest of the cast was composed of their respective exes and best friends: Sally, Patrick, Jane and Jeff. Each of these supporting characters was devised as an extreme version of the two main characters, with Patrick and Jane exemplifying confidence bordering on the delusional, while Jeff and Sally defined the concept of insecurity in their specific genders.
Together, this motly bunch attempted to understand, or at the very least, survive relationships in the modern age, some managing better than others. Jeff in particular became a break-out character exactly because he had absolutely no idea how to manage, quickly getting distracted and obstructed by flights of fancy, random observations, and his complete inability to keep his own mouth shut. He was replaced by a character called Oliver in the last season. On the female end, it was hyper-confident Jane who often lapsed into the delusional, such as deciding that the sock puppet she was wearing was actually a real person with a real voice and winding up in bewildering arguments with it.
Over the course of the series, neurotic Sally and confident Patrick became a couple, but it took them a while. Up until then, we followed Sally's string of continuously disappointing boyfriends while she worried about the state of her neck (which she felt was twenty years older than her) and the rest of her looks; Patrick, on the other hand, mostly got in trouble due to taking on the wrong girlfriends, or too many at once, and otherwise letting his dick do the talking.
Susan and Steve are relatively stable and normal in comparison to their friends, but they, too, have their moments. Susan has a massive weakness for Australians, and in the words of her female friends, 'an arse like two puppies'. She's cheerful but a bit critical, prone to the odd bout of neuroses, but mostly confident and good at her job. As for Steve... well, we'll get to him soon.
With its British sensibility, the show was more frank about sexual matters than its American inspiration, and later attempts to remake it for the American market failed horribly. Thankfully, because that show was practically unwatchable.
2. Now onto your character. Please tell us about them. Appearance, personality, how they react to others in general and where they fit into the canon you explained above.
Steve Taylor... likes to think of himself as a bit of an all right guy, all around. He's sort of a feminist in a vague sense of the word, he respects women, he's not nearly as neurotic or sex-obsessed as Jeff, he's a clever writer... you know, that kind of thing. Out of his group of friends, he feels he's the reasonable one, the one with the right to give advice and to enact judgement of his male friends because they're obviously doing it wrong.
Sadly, Steve is deluding himself. When he gets going, he can be every bit as awkward as Jeff in his own way: many times does he get driven to the point of long rants on such topics as throw pillows and toilets in canon, often at terribly awkward points in time. He stumbles haplessly into trouble, such as by failing to say 'yes' when a woman in a bar asks him if he has a girlfriend ('But I just missed by one word!') and even asking Susan out while having sex with Jane in the pilot episode.
In other words, the best word you can use to describe Steve is weasel, which he is. He swings from one opinion to the other mostly based on what seems like the thing people want to hear at the time, even if he doesn't actually stand by it. In the process, he can wind himself up about the most inane things just because he hasn't spoken his mind about them - leading to the aforementioned rants. (Sometimes, this can be something as small as his girlfriend leaving shoes everywhere. 'Do they grow extra legs when we're not watching and run around the streets shouting WHERE ARE YOU GOING, WHERE ARE YOU GOING?')
That being said, he is clever, and exceptionally good with words. Which would be why he became a TV writer, no doubt, even if the show never makes that explicit. And he is, in his own way, always trying to do the right thing: it's just that he doesn't actually know what that is half the time, and simply assumes he does. (Years spent around soaking up Jeff's insanity might also not have helped.) He's used to being the pillar of relative sanity amongst insane people in insane situations, and reacts as such - even being forced by Jeff to wear matching Spider-Man costumes and dancing doesn't really get much more out of him than some very sarcastic comments about how Jeff designed the dances.
Mostly, he's just a normal, weasely guy, trying to do what's right, trying to do well in the world, and oftentimes just missing by the hair of a toilet.
3. Powers! Does your character have any abilities (powers, skills, training or weapons) that go beyond what a normal person would have?:
None whatsoever, unless you count the skill to come up with an eloquent rant on a completely inane topic on a whim.
4. Why is your character coming to Fandom and what kind of situation are they leaving behind at home? (ie: where in the canon timeline do they come from?):
Steve hails from right before canon. In what amounts to his fifteenth attempt to dump Jane, he has taken what he will later freely admit is desperate action: he has decided to attempt to move to the States, and maybe send some spec scripts to some companies in New York. Unfortunately, being a TV writer in England doesn't really leave you that rich, so buying a place in New York is right out. At least, until he gets some work out there.
Also unfortunately, Steve doesn't quite have the head for American distances, and having jumped on the first cheap property in the States he could find where they didn't immediately demand a green card, he's in for quite a surprise...
5. Is there any reason that they might cause trouble to other characters in the Fandom High setting due to behavior or abilities?:
No, unless one of his rants makes someone want to tell him to press a throw pillow very firmly against his bottom.
6. Links to character/series information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coupling_(UK_TV_series)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/coupling
Problem Solving: Things don't go how you expected them to and you find yourself in a situation where you don't get what you want. How will you react out of character as a player? How will you have your character react to the situation?:
[We're not filling this one in for you!]
Additional Notes/Canonmate Check-Ins: Have you contacted the players from this canon who are already in game?
There are no Coupling players in the game, so I'm good!
Business Check-Ins: Have you checked the directory for your business and contacted the owner/manager if necessary? (choose one answer, delete the others!)
* Yes. Arrangements have been made.
Do you have any other information you feel we should know about the character or you as a player that doesn't fit in the categories above?:
There are no receptionists in masturbation.
Writing Sample: please write at least 300-500 words *in character* having your character do something, anything, set on Fandom Island.
"Yes, I... agree that we've had a very nice time," Steve said, diplomatically, "But I'm sure you can tell that we are a little-- ah-- incompatible--" His voice had gone up an octave on the last word, he was fairly sure, and his palms were getting sweaty. He cleared his throat and leveled his voice (it got too gravelly in response) and added, "So we'd best go our seperate ways."
The unicorn on the other end of the table neighed back with angry denial. Steve winced, and held up his hands, placating it-- her-- as best as he could. "I know, I know," he said, "But we are from two very different words-- look, you know what I mean. I'm a human being, and you're... otherwise sentient. The twain were not meant to twine." He waved his hands about. "You're a very nice unicorn," he added, "It's not that. In fact, you must be the nicest unicorn I've ever met."
She was also the only unicorn he had ever met, but that was probably an insensitive thing to point out.
"But surely you're looking for more of a--" His voice was threatening to wobble again, "--stallion." And did.
The unicorn kicked at the floor of the cafe angrily with one hoof. She snorted loudly, and tossed her head in Tino's general direction. Steve rued the day he'd ever signed up for three minute dates, but did so quietly, and only in the back of his own head.
"Oh, look," he said at last. "You're a horse with a horn on it! I'm a man! These are two quantities that do not go together! You eat grass, I eat meat. I go to the bathroom in the bathroom, you go outside on the grass! We have two entirely different concepts of hygiene! And what if we had kids? What would they be, little centaurs? All the other unicorns would make fun of them for having their horns in the wrong place! No, I can't say yes to this. You'll have to remain on your side of the fence, and I'll be on my side where the bathroom is. I am a man. From time immemorial, we might have dreamed of sleeping with supernatural beasts, but we've never taken it seriously, we've never debased ourselves with glittery vampires or stout werewolves. No, we've only tended to such fantasies in our minds, where they belong! And even then, our fantasies still look humanoid! With breasts! We fantasize about breasts, and then we feel ashamed about it, and we never, ever ask our girlfriends to actually dress up as mermaids or angels or, god forbid, Ratman, because we are men, and I am a man, and I cannot in good conscience date a horse with a horn on it!"
The silence that followed was punctuated only by the unicorn's angry stampede through the door, and the zombie bassist's arm falling off, and the silence of every other attractive female in the room.
"That was six minutes. Six. Three of those didn't count."