character guidelines ;;
character guidelines
What is an appable character?
Any character that has a history, personality, and is capable of higher levels of thought and communication is an appable character. They do not have to be human and Il Promenade does not require that they take a humanoid appearance.
What isn’t an appable character?
Any character that does not meet the above criteria and any character that cannot exist (or literally function) without another character at all (not “at the current point in their history”) is not an appable character.
Pet or Appable Character?
Pets are allowed in Il Promenade! While we are aware that some characters may have more ‘special’ pets than others, there is a line between pets and appable characters. For example, Pokemon are allowed in Il Promenade as pets, but Legendary Pokemon are not, as they are capable of higher levels of thought and communication. Team Rocket’s Meowth would also be considered an appable character. Red XIII/Nanaki from Final Fantasy VII would definitely be considered an appable character, while Angelo (Rinoa’s dog) from Final Fantasy VIII would be a pet.
Split Personalities, Possession, and Body Sharing
What is a split personality?
According to Wikipedia, a split personality or “dissociative identity disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis and describes a condition in which a person displays multiple distinct identities or personalities (known as alter egos or alters), each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment. Each sub personality or alternate personalities have a unique set of memories, behaviors, thoughts and emotions related to each specific personality.” If you have a character who is nice and happy on the outside but mean on the inside, they do not have multiple personalities.
How do possession and body sharing work in Il Promenade?
While characters who share a body with another or are possessed are welcome in Il Promenade, there are some guidelines these characters should adhere to. If the other character is an appable character, despite sharing a body, then these are especially important.
The secondary character should not be present in a majority of the main character’s posts/replies. If they are in too many posts or replies, or the post/reply is mostly conversation between the two characters, it is both hard to reply to and seen as playing two characters at once (instead of one character and ‘that guy who shows up sometimes because they’re in my body’).
The secondary character should not overtake the main character. Internal struggles are fine, and overtaking as a plot (preferably with permission from the mods) is also fine. However, the main character must regain control.
What if someone wants to apply for the ‘other half’ of my character?
If the other half of your character is considered an appable character, they may be applied for. However, so that we do not inconvenience our current players, we ask that people applying for the other half of a character already in Il Promenade please communicate with their player.
Original Characters and Believability
While we love original characters at Il Promenade, please keep in mind that all the information we will have for an original character is their application, as opposed to fandom characters with established and easily accessible canons. Therefore, we will be judging them more stringently than fandom characters. Here are some of the criteria we will be using to judge original character applications:
Names: Be consistent! If everyone is named Bob and Tom and your character is named Amberayne Krystallynn Moonstar, we’re going to assume something is off. If your character was born and raised in a traditional Japanese culture and their name isn’t even remotely Japanese, tell us why. Likewise, if your character was born and raised in the suburbs of middle-class America and their name is from a different culture all together, tell us why!
Language: Remember that the PORTALs in Il Promenade translate everything. Written characters such as cyrillic or kanji and spoken languages such as Spanish and Mandarin are to be typed as English within the game. Honorifics and occasional words in other languages are fine (think Ezio in Assassin’s Creed), as are the use of foreign languages for spells.
In addition, adhere to linguistic rules! While we understand that languages may be different in your original universe, we won’t know that unless you tell us. For example, an apostrophe within a word typically indicates some sort of separation, such as to separate the root of the word (l’Cie, Cie’th, fal’Cie in Final Fantasy XIII), a glottal stop (T’Pau in Star Trek), or as a mark of elision (coupd'état, maître d'hôtel). While it may look cool, putting random apostrophes in the name of your characters won’t make sense to others without linguistic rules of the universe, if they differ from the norm.
As a note, we do not discriminate against ESL individuals. If English is not your first language and you think it may be something that could come up, please let us know.
History: While the world is important, the history is more so. This is what has shaped your character, and while we don’t require it to be written out for canon characters, we have no way of knowing the history of original characters without you telling us. Their history is what has made them into who they are today. While we enjoy seeing examples from their history in personality sections as support, we do take the events of their life from the history section into account when we read your application to see if things are consistent.
World/Society: The world of your character, if it differs from our own, should be well thought-out and believable. If there is magic, what are the rules for that magic? If there are societies of non-human creatures, how do they differ from typical human society? In addition, how do all of the societies differ from each other? Are there racial tensions or class distinctions? While in your application we only require what is relevant to your character, their world as a whole is something that should be thought out by you in case it comes up -- and it is likely that it will.
Other Characters: We are not only judging the actions of your character, but the actions of the characters that have influenced them. These characters must also act in a believable manner, or else the story and world you have set up fall apart. Medical students must go through a certain amount of training and education before they become doctors. Prison guards are not going to let an inmate walk out of prison without serving their sentence without a very good reason, and therapists are not going to let a highly dangerous or disturbed individual continue to live life as normal.
Powers: If your character is not aware of certain powers, you must include them in your application. If you do not, they will not be considered valid in Il Promenade. If your character may gain powers through canon-updating and you do not include them on your app, please run them by the mods first.
I still have questions!
If you still have questions, feel free to leave a comment to this entry or contact one of us directly! We'll get back to you as soon as possible and address your question to the best of our ability.