If you have valid concerns about any events/actions/players in the RP who have inarguably broken one or more of the rules, this is the post in which you should let us know. Any comments not made by personal/character journals of current players will be ignored and deleted.

Also keep in mind that before you use this post, you must talk problems out with other players and try to resolve issues yourself before you report them. (Of course, if you aren't part of a situation and you see something happen as an observer, let us know rather than trying to police things yourself.)

( More details under the cut. )

It's been asked. It's been questioned. It's been a confusing topic for mods and players alike, but finally, we have here the rules about just how languages work at Landel's.

BARE BASICS:

- Everyone can understand each others' main languages. A character whose main language is English would perceive someone whose main language is Japanese as speaking English, and vice versa.

- Second languages can only be understood by those who canonly understand that particular language.

- Characters perceive everything in the Institute as being written in their main language.

That's your refresher course, but for the full scoop, every player in the RP should read the behemoth underneath the below cut at least once for all the details.

( Language Laws at Landel's )

This is for both mods and players to be able to keep track of who is on hiatus. This will stop mods from signing up people who are on hiatus for therapy/M-U/SC/etc. or mistaking someone for being inactive when they are simply away for a while.

The longest amount of time any player can take a hiatus for is three months. If something requires you to be gone for longer than that, you may have to drop your characters until you are able to play again and then reapply. There are certain exceptions, of course, so if you are in a situation where you would have to be gone for such a long period of time, please contact one of the mods to discuss the circumstances.

How it works: If you are going on hiatus, please comment here with your name, the characters you play, and how long you are going to be gone for/when you will be back. If you are only putting some of your characters on hiatus (for example, if your situation is that you're a little busy and don't have time to play with all of them), only list the characters you won't be actively using. Please also annouce your hiatus in damned_lounge, since not all players will be checking this list all the time.

Once the mods see your comment, they will edit this post with your information and then delete the comment (much like the way it works with the Contact List and Requested Characters List). When you return, we would appreciate it if you commented here to let us know, but we'll probably just see the announcement that you're back in damned_lounge and then remove your name from the list.

( Players Currently on Hiatus )

Nightshift-Only characters are characters who are applied for, added to the roster, and then randomly selected each nightshift to antagonize the patient characters. (More on how to apply for one here.) To give more details on how much power NS-Only characters have and what they can do ICly, here's a list of rules and guidelines similar to the SC rules but tailored to NS-Only characters in particular.

1) Your character is working on the Institute's side, and their main goal is to stop patients from proceeding any further through the Institute's grounds and to get patients to go back to their rooms. However, your character doesn't necessarily need to be fully aware of their orders; for example, if you had a character in mind who was a robot specifically programmed to work for a particular company, they might have been reprogrammed/brainwashed to think that the Head Doctor is the head of that company and nothing much has changed about their orders.

2) Your character has all their normal powers, clothes, weapons, defenses, etc., so long as they aren't to a godmodding extent. Your character should be powerful enough to take on several patients at once and have the upper hand, but they should have enough weaknesses that they could be feasibly knocked out or forced to retreat.

3) Your character has explicit orders to NOT kill any patients. They can badly injure them, immobilize them, or knock them out, etc., but killing is a big no-no. (The only exception to this is if you work something out with a player who's looking to get their character killed off.) However, as the Head Doctor is the kind of guy who wouldn't want the patients to know they weren't in complete mortal danger, your character is in no way obligated to tell the patients this, and is in fact encouraged not to.

4) If your character is knocked out, they're free to be looted by other patients. Although all of their clothing, special items, weapons, etc, are free to be used during that entire nightshift by whoever grabs them, (albeit with some limitations if the items are overly powerful), only ONE possession taken from your character will still exist in the morning. (So, for example, your character has a gun, a bullet-proof vest, and a helmet. Although three different people take those three objects once your character is knocked out, only one of those people will still have the item they looted once the morning comes.) What gets kept and who gets to keep it can either be worked out amongst the players, or, if people decide to compete for one or more objects, we mods can be called in to randomize who gets what. ;)


As far as how attacking other characters works: Basically, you choose a location on one of the maps (a room, a hall, or an area outside), and run it by us mods to make sure no one else has claimed it or that it doesn't pose any logistical problems. Once you do that, you wait for an unsuspecting character or group of characters to enter your assigned area, and when the time seems ripe... BOOM! You attack! Still, some guidelines you should follow are...

1) All the fighting against your character should occur within one thread. Yes, we know that this makes posting harder than if one antagonist is going after smaller groups in different threads, but one person jumping from thread to thread is bound to cause some continuity errors or godmodding, regardless of how accidental those actions are. Also, this way, characters can skirt around the fighting if they want to or can jump in just as easily. The exception to this rule is if your character completes a fight with one group of patients (as in all their opponents have been knocked out or have run away), and decides to go on to a completely new bunch.

2) Your character may be powerful, but that doesn't mean they're invincible. By apping an antagonist, you are devoting the utmost responsibility to keeping up good communication with the other players in your thread so that there aren't any misunderstandings about attacks or how they damage characters. Also remember that it's just as easy for other players to slip into godmodding during a fight as it can be for an antagonist, so don't be hesitant to let us mods know if you think something is awry. It's happened before, and we're happy to help sort things out!

3) If no one enters your area after a couple of days or so, you're perfectly welcome to ask us to re-assign your character's area to somewhere that would be more active and fun.

4) Your character may not leave their assigned area without permission from us. We basically have the assigned-areas rule so that patients won't feel so ganged-up on as they would if we had NS-only characters running amok all over the place, but if you want your character to give chase and the players of the people you're chasing totally want you to do that too, you're perfectly welcome to so long as you run it by us and we give it the go-ahead.

M-U happens every other Nightshift, and four lucky players are selected at random from the Landamned roster to take part in it. (Once a player has taken part in it, they will be ineligible for selection (for SC, as well) until everyone else in the entire roster has also had a chance; players may also be considered ineligible for selection on a particular Nightshift if they are on hiatus or inactive.) Once four players are selected, the head mods will decide which of that player's characters would work best with M-U that night (this actually isn't as big of a deal with M-U as it is with SC, and chances are that we'll let you choose which character you want to volunteer for it), and then notify the player of their good fortune and of the mods' decision.

But what is M-U? It's... well, it's this (XD):

1) For one night, your character is at the institute's mercy (more than usual, anyway), and they are taken up to the Disciplinary Therapy rooms on the second floor to be experimented on during nightshift. The sort of experimentation they go through is more or less up to you and the NPC mod who is in charge of your thread. More on that later.

2) It is assumed that your character was taken from their room after dinner, sedated, and then moved upstairs. Given that we now have a dinner shift and possible roommate onlookers, you should inform your roommate's player that your character got M-U so that you guys can keep things consistent. The first post of the M-U thread (which the NPC mod will make using the damned_doctors account) will be the generic evil doctor setting up the scene, and then you reply to that with your character waking up and reacting to the unfortunate situation they have found themselves in.

3) Your character would be completely unable to get away until the experimentation is over. They will be strapped down or restrained in some way, not to mention the door is locked tight and the room is soundproofed, which means none of their screaming would carry to any other patients who might be wandering around. While it is common for patients to go on rescue missions for characters who have been abducted, they are unable to break in and would have to wait until the door is unlocked. The doctors assumedly are able to disappear quite mysteriously, so the rescuers don't get a shot at the people behind their friend's torture.

4) In order to work out what will be done to your character, you'll need to contact the NPC mod in charge of your thread through AIM, email, etc., and talk through ideas. We'll do our best to assign you a NPC mod who is familiar with your character and the series your character is from, but sometimes that isn't possible if your fandom isn't very well-known. Once you and the NPC mod figure out an idea to your liking, either one of you must contact one of the main mods to get the idea cleared. Once that's done, the NPC mod will start the thread.

And that's about that! If you're hoping for your character to get seriously screwed with, M-U is for you.

This is the list of all players who have kindly volunteered to serve as NPC Mods. :D A big thanks to all of them! The Duties section tells you which kinds of NPCs each person is approved/willing to do, and you're free to contact either Fey, our NPC Coordinator (AIM: Lustful Thing), or one of the individual NPC Mods if you need to ask them to join a thread or talk to them about an ongoing thread.

( NPC Mod List )

[ Mod Note: Although much of this information may seem needlessly overworded, keep in mind that this community was made for the purpose of fixing and preventing many of the problems that came up in its (TWO?!) preceding incarnations. Therefore, please be patient as you read through not only our policies, but our rationale as well. Thank you! <3 ]

1) Stay IC. No OOC comments within your character’s journal or plot posts, please, and if you feel that you need to contact another mun or mod with a suggestion or a question in regards to the thread you’re in, please use the Contact List, (you need to be logged in as your character to access it), or damned_lounge, the OOC community, to do so. (However, if you simply want to end with a link to a new thread or make a quick direction to jump to a new thread, that's okay, so long as you do it in a separate comment and delete the OOC correspondence once it's done.)

2) Speaking of damned_lounge, it is mandatory that you have it friended to either your character journal or, preferably, your personal journal. The reason for this is that it’s the community where us mods will be making announcements that you need to know about, such as updated rules, a warning of upcoming plot developments, polls that we want everyone's input on, and all that kind of administrative stuff. You’ll be held responsible for keeping up with the announcements, so make sure you do so. (If you're feeling confused about any of the updates, however, never hesitate to contact one of us with questions.)

On a lighter note, the OOC community is also your method by which to fool around and have fun with other muns! Share thoughts, opinions, silly comments, artwork, related fics... :D How can you go wrong? You’re free to post or comment there with either your personal journal or your character journal, and although you may vote in polls wih your personal journal, make sure to vote with your character journal when we specifically ask for it.

Also, on the topic of polls:

You may NOT vote in ANY polls if you--as a player--have not yet received an acceptance e-mail from us for at least one character and been given clearance to join the damned community. To us, voting with a character journal that has not yet been accepted--as is usually the case--is incredibly presumptuous, especially in polls that have a serious effect on the outcome of policies in the community, and gives us the impression that the voter assumes that they will be automatically be accepted, when, in actuality, we spend tons of time and effort reviewing each and every application for writing quality and correct characterization before we make our decisions. If you are not yet accepted and vote in a poll anyway, not only will you be giving us this idea about your RP etiquette, but your vote won't be counted towards the final tally. So please, please, please don't do this. Call it a pet peeve, but it really bugs us, especially since we use polls a ton and it's hard to keep track of the tallies as it is. :/

That said, if you haven't yet been accepted to the community, you are still totally free to post to damned_lounge with whatever questions you might have about the application process or to ask for clarification and/or more information about the RP comm before you make the decision to apply, etc. Again, however, we discourage you from getting too chummy with players within the OOC comm before you're officially accepted, as we'd feel horrible if you were having a great time in the OOC comm and we ended up having to reject you and rain on your parade. :/

3) Although this probably isn’t an issue for you if we’ve already approved your application, keep in mind that we expect you to maintain a good command over the English language as you RP. If you typo here and there in your plot posts, (we’ve all stayed up late at night RPing with our brains half-fried, so we know how it is), we’ll understand, but try to use LJ spell-check as much as you can even if you don’t proofread what you write. As far as posts in the OOC community... we're nuts in there with our ksdfjhskdljfhas and OMGs and WTFs all over the place, so no worries. XD;

4) ABSOLUTELY NO GOD-MODDING. What's god-modding? It’s when a player decides that their character is so awesome that he or she can beat up another character with no questions asked, kill a monster easier than anyone else can, or scale three stories with one jump. Stuff like that. D: Due to the power-limited setting of Landel's Damned, we tend to take this offense even more seriously than mainstream RPs, and let me make this perfectly clear: When you apply for the Landel's Damned RP, keep in mind that part of the whole point of entering your character into this RP is for the purpose of making them far more vulnerable then they usually are, most prominently through a lack of powers. Because of this, be open and prepared to have your character lose almost all of their powers or at least have them severely weakened, and be aware that we're going to be very strict about the extent of magical/special abilities your character can keep. Basically, if you're the kind of player who loves to kick ass all the time, this is NOT the RP for you.

Although we here at Landel's Damned try to be as fair as possible with powers and give anyone who has concerns individual attention, we're running a big RP here and we realistically can only devote so much time to each person. Therefore, if a mod finds herself haggling with a player over their character's powers for longer than should be necessary (an hour or more--it's happened!) be aware that we are the ones who make the final decision on what is fair, and if a player is unreasonable with the amount of power-hindering that we feel is necessary, we reserve the right to give an ultimatum of accepting our offer for the character's powers or the player dropping their character from the game. Harsh, we know, but we want to make it perfectly clear that this is not the kind of RP where your character's abillity to kick ass should even be a motivation for your wanting to play--rather, your motivation should be your character's lack of ass-kicking skills. (For patient characters, anyway, though even Nightshift-Only characters can get to the point of abused powers too.) Trying to haggle with us over how powerful your character should be is fine if you're a newbie who's trying to get a handle on how much your character should be hindered or if you feel we're severely shortchanging your character in comparison to someone else, but continual and unreasonable haggling with us over character powers will make us doubt your ability to RP without godmodding and will have the opposite effect on us than the one you intend: We will feel your character should have perhaps even less powers than the standard if you seem disturbingly keen on using them.

However, also keep in mind that we aren't asking for a lack of artistic license. The key here is that if you want your character to do something crazy, you can. The catch? You have to run it by the mods, the muns who’ll be affected by it, and finally, yourself. Are they all okay with it? Are you okay with it? Are there enough painful repercussions for your character to even out the good with the bad? Is it something that your character is physically capable of even with their powers diminished? Is it something that your character would choose to do? If the mods agree with you that your character meets all these standards, then chances are that any nefarious plans you’ve conjured up might be approved and even added upon! We love insanity and chaos as much as any of you guys, but we don’t like it when its done for the sake of someone’s ego or without consideration of how other characters might be affected.

By the way, this goes for NPCs as much as it goes for other players. If one of our Creatures mods or Orderlies is giving you a harder time than they should and dodging your every attack, we want to know straight away. It could be that you were unlucky enough to be attacked by some incredibly strong, impervious thing and that the NPC mod is being totally reasonable, but it could just as easily be an overstep in power--even just an honest mistake--and we want to make sure that there aren’t any contradictions or confusing breaks in policy.

5) This RP is a violent, gory, creepy, twisted thing, and it is for that reason that you need to understand that stuff like exploding brains and sex (possibly) will be happening, and that your level of exposure to it is your decision.

6) Ah, the topic of sex. Like we said in the previous rule, it’s allowed, but we have some very strict rules concerning it. Note: If you ever see the label "Adult Content" or "Mature" on any post to the main comm, keep in mind that it DOES contain graphic sex and it is YOUR decision whether or not to read it.

A) You must contact the mods before you progress to anything NC-17. If characters make out or do other stuff that's only vaguely described, you don't need to let us know, but if anything happens BEYOND that, (ie beginnings of getting nekkid) you MUST talk to us first to get an okay from us. Why is this? We know that some players can get way too crazy with sexing up their characters, and although that kind of behavior may be totally IC for some characters, we want to make sure the suddenness or frequency of it is realistic.

B) No sex involving characters under the age of 18. Sorry, but that's our limit, and it will be strictly enforced, especially after Livejournal's recent cut-down on... well, we're sure you know all about that already.

C) No sex during the day. Nighttime is your business, but it’s highly unlikely that two lovebirds could get very far with nurses and doctors watching their every move.

7) On the topic of romance, let it be known that pairings of all sexualities are welcome. That means shounen-ai/slash, shoujo-ai/femmeslash, or het. (Male on male, female on female, or male on female. ...Or female on male. What have you. XD;)

Of course, we don’t condone rampant sex everywhere with no rhyme or reason. Basically, as long as you keep your character IC, you can pair him or her however you like.

8) This is kind of a no-brainer, but you can’t kill other characters. The only possible exception to this rule would be if you, the other character, and the mods all worked it out so that a character who was about to be dropped could be killed off for the sake of plot continuity. This also goes for mortal wounds. For example, if one character injures another character so badly that the wounded character is literally incapacitated, which is definitely not fun for his or her mun. If you want to get into a patient-to-patient brawl, it’s a good idea to check with the other character’s mun over how much damage you two are willing to do to one another. Basically, respect your fellow players and how they have just as much of a right to kick ass as you do. Okay? X3

9) Read and comply with the other, more specific guidelines in damned_info. (Yes, there are even more rules.) Although the other guidelines there are self-explanatory, one of the biggest necessities of Landel’s is going by the Maps. They’re there for a reason, and that reason is comprehensiveness, continuity, and consistency, and you should also comply by the room descriptions when describing an area. (If you're in an area without a room description yet, please either contact a mod or make a post to the damned_lounge.)

10) Communicate! This is perhaps the most important rule of all. If muns don’t feel comfortable talking to their mods, people end up trying to “get away” with things behind someone’s back because they think their character will be stripped of all fun otherwise. Bad idea. What we want to encourage most is that we want to hear what you have to say! Complaints, suggestions, compliments--we want you to talk to us and ask us about anything you need. Do you think we’re being unfair about enforcing particular rules and not others? Tell us! Do you think our characters are getting cooler stuff done to them than yours? Let us know! We’d love to accommodate any wants or needs you guys have, but first, we need to actually know what your concerns are. Be aware that as long as we’re online, we’re probably totally available to be pummeled with questions, and we appreciate the pummeling. <3 In the same way that you guys aren’t imprisoned, we aren’t crazy doctors on an intercom who think that only we should have fun, especially at night. (During the day, admittedly, your character is going to have to deal with a lot stricter rules for the sake of realism, and we can’t really change much of that. :/) But still! Be open! Be honest! The last thing we want to be is unapproachable. <3

11) Stay IC. You thought we went over this? Well, we sort of did, but in this context, we mean IC in terms of your character. Just because your character is in a universe where a satanic mental hospital is the scope of their entire existence doesn’t mean that you can completely throw their characterization out the window. This is another reason why we’ll be paying so much attention to the quality of your application. We want to make sure that you have such a good handle on your character that, if he or she is screwed with mentally or physically in the way that Landel’s tends to do, you are skilled enough to ensure that your character remains the same character.

12) Have fun! Yeah, it’s corny, we know, but if you disagree with any of the policies here and feel you couldn’t deal in an RP with such detailed guidelines, you might not want to apply, or, even better, let us know why you don’t feel comfortable applying so we can try to improve what we can. The general point of Landel’s is to create an environment where your character is at such a disadvantage that you, the mun, are challenged to find interesting ways to get around problems that wouldn’t be such a threat to a character in their native world, and therefore, give you something new and fun to work with! However, if you feel that this community fails to facilitate that kind of experience, please let us know.

----

Read all of that? Not sure if you absorbed all those insanely dense masses of text? They’ll always be here for you to check up on, so if your memory gets hazy during the course of the RP, feel free to come back here and skim for what you need to know--or even drop us mods a line if you can’t find what you’re looking for! In any case, please add the words “this guy are sick” to the end of your application so we can make sure that you truly got through all of this. After all, you certainly deserve a reward for being thorough. <3

Failure to comply with these rules will result in contact from the mods through IM, LJ, or e-mail. If, even after multiple warnings, you fail to respond and/or refuse to change your ways, you will receive a final warning and be removed from the community.

Since we definitely don’t want to have to get to that point, make sure to stay in contact with the mods and let us know if you’re worried that you’re overstepping what’s allowed or if a policy should be tweaked. Forewarning and communication. That’s all we ask for. <3

We realize it's hard to gauge how long or in-depth your app should be without having access to anything that you can use for comparison. Therefore, here are five apps that were easily accepted by us Landamned mods.

Basically, the point we're trying to get across here is that when we say detailed, we mean detailed. The more information you give us about the character you want to take, the better we can see your interpretation of him/her and be assured that you'll do a good job. <3

Note: If you see any questions missing in these examples that are present on our current application, it means that those questions were added after the apps below were sent in.

Since the example applications can't all fit in one post, here are links to them. Also, we apologize about the weird spacing in some of them. We have no idea why LJ is weird. >_> Also, the Zabuza one was too long for one post, so it had to be in two parts. DAMMIT, MEL.

Example 1: Clark Kent (Smallville) // Genre: Live-Action Show / Superhero

Example 2: Claude C. Kenni (Star Ocean: The Second Story) // Genre: Fantasy/Sci-Fi RPG

Example 3: Javert (Les Misérables) // Genre: Classical Literature

Example 4: Usagi Tsukino / Sailor Moon (Sailor Moon) // Genre: Shoujo/Fantasy Manga

Example 5: Zabuza Momochi (Naruto) // Genre: Shounen/Action Animanga | Part 2

This is a list of characters who have been requested by current players as characters they'd like to interact with but who aren't currently taken in our roster. (Keep in mind that apping one of these characters does not mean that you'll be more likely to be accepted than if you app someone who isn't on the list.) This is not where you ask to reserve characters. In fact, we don't allow character reserves at all; more on that in the Application Guidelines.

If you are a current player and would like to make one or more requests, please comment on this entry with your requested character(s) and their corresponding fandom(s). Your comment will be deleted when your requests are formally added to the list.

Rules for Adding

1) Only current players may make requests.

2) Please be reasonable with how many people you request---requesting two or three characters every month is probably the limit, since we don't want this list to get too long, as that would dilute our general desperation to get these particular characters.

3) Also be reasonable with who you request. You may certainly request characters who are close to a character you already have, but please don't use this justification for requesting characters so minor or obscure that they wouldn't realistically stand on their own as an RPable character. Same goes for characters who wouldn't fit our "appropriate for setting" criteria, i.e. someone like Winnie the Pooh. If there is someone currently on this list who you don't think meets this criteria, please let us know; we might have missed it since we don't know all the fandoms.

4) Please comment with your personal journal or character journal for this RP so that we can make sure you're a current player. Any anonymous comments will be ignored and deleted.

( Requested Characters )

You may apply to take a Nightshift-Only Character, (that is, a character who works on Landel's side and hunts down patients at night) if you've had at least one character in play for a month or more. A Nightshift-Only Character, unlike regular patient characters, doesn't necessarily have to be human, humanoid, or even sentient. You may apply for both a regular character and a Nightshift-Only character during the same application cycle, though, like regular character applications, we will only accept Nightshift-Only applications whenever the userinfo states that general Character Applications are open.

Take heed, however, that we reserve the right to turn down characters who would be way too powerful or who we can't find a way to fit in at all. (For example, a dragon or monster of some sort that's bigger than the Institute itself---unless, of course, you're willing to wait until some patients make it onto the big expanse of grounds around the Institute or something. XD;)

If you want to app a Nightshift-Only character, please fill out the application below and send it to damned.mods[at]gmail[dot]com. Your subject line for your application should mention that you're planning your character to be Nightshift-Only.

Name/Handle:
Age:
Gender:
Timezone:
Email Address:
Personal LJ username: (if you have one)
AIM/other messenger screenname: (if you have one)
Character you're applying for:
Series the character is from: (game, anime, etc; if applicable, please specify if we should list your character as from a specific game or the series itself---for example, Final Fantasy VI, VII, VIII, etc, or general Kingdom Hearts, depending on if a series' sequels are in different universes or such)
Character's age: (if his/her age is unknown or different from how he/she looks, please give us both an actual age and a specific age that the nurses will claim as his/her real age and be consistent with his/her appearance)
Character's gender:

How long have you roleplayed your character, if at all?:

Where have you roleplayed in general and/or with this specific character?: (specific boards, LJ communirties, general AIM, etc)

Have you played the game/watched the movie or anime/read the book or comic, etc. that your character hails from?: (Please don't give us a simple "yes" or "no" for this. Instead, tell us how much of your character's series you've been exposed to and/or give us an explanation of how familiar you are with your character's series.)

Please give us a detailed personal history of your character: (Where he/she was born, who he/she was raised by, achievements, goals, etc. Note: Please do not link us to an outside source such as Wikipedia for this; we want you to demonstrate your knowledge of your character through your own words. If you give us a link instead of a bio, we won't read it unless it's supplementary information.)

Please give us a detailed description of your character's personality:

Please give us a detailed physical description of your character:

What point in time are you taking your character from when he/she appears at Landel's?: (For example, first episode, end of series, pre-game, post-movie, etc.? You can choose whatever you like, but please be as specific and detailed as you can--if possible, right down to the moment.)

What kinds of magical/special/crazy powers does your character have, if any?:

If these powers need to be weakened in order to prevent your character from outright killing the patients he/she preys upon, please explain how you would do so: (Please be as detailed and reasonable as possible; we're very strict about godmodding!)

Does your character have any other non-magical skills or abilities that we should know about?: (This could be anything from innate physical strength to an area of intellectual study.)

Why do you feel like your character would work out better as a Nightshift-Only aggressor?:

How would you justify your character fighting on the Institute's side?: (Is he/she an evil goonie by nature? A mindless monster? Possibly brainwashed slightly so that their original goals have merged with that of Landel's?)

Third-Person Sample:

Replace this block of text with a sample post for us with your character in third person, past tense. We aren’t asking you to use a preset situation; just write him or her doing something that will give us a better idea of how you interpret him or her and a better understanding of how you approach writing in general. Your sample should be 500 words or more, though keep in mind not all your posts in the actual RP have to be that long. ;)

---

Finally, please attach a picture of your character to your email so we can get an idea of who you're talking about. (An official, full-body photo/illustration would be best, but if such a picture doesn't exist, go for whatever best alternative you can find. If your character is minor to the point that you don't have any pictures at all, please say so here and make sure that your physical description is as fleshed-out as it can possibly be.)

NOTE: We are looking for quality in our writers. We reserve the right to reject your application if we feel you don't have a strong command of your character or of the English language. These applications will be held to high standards, so we expect for you to do your best to meet them.

1st Floor | Room Descriptions
2nd Floor
Basement | Area Descriptions
Doyleton | Town Descriptions

Awaiting:
3rd Floor Map
Med Wing Map
Grounds Map
Room Descriptions for all of the above, and the second floor.

The Weekly Schedule

Day 31 is a Tuesday.

Dayshift: 15 RL Days
((
1st Shift: 4 RL Days
2nd Shift: 3 RL Days
3rd Shift: 3 RL Days
4th Shift: 3 RL Days
Dinner Shift: 2 RL Days
))

Nightshift: 3 RL Weeks


Any patient who isn't comfortable with the activities during a shift may request to be escorted to the Sun Room instead with the exception of meals. (So if your character misses a shift, you can now say he/she was conveniently "napping" on a couch in the Sun Room rather than saying he/she was left in his/her room.)

These are the three different types of posts:

Plot Post: This is the normal post done in third person past prose to advance the plot. They will be made in the main community. We suggest that the subject line be as follows. “Day X Day/Nightshift: Location.” Basically, the day number, whether it is dayshift or nightshift, and where your character is located.

The dayshift is very structured, so most of the posting there will involve the characters all being in one area. You can make threads within that post, where your character interacts with whoever they please. (If you don’t understand, glance at posts in the main community and it will give you an idea of how things run.)

Journal Post: These will be posted into your character’s personal journal. They are written in first person and will basically be an account of what your character is going through. Since each character is different, what they write will be different. Some use it for taking notes, others for venting, and some barely write in it at all. Instead of being electronic, they are paper journals and for another character to make a “comment,” they would need to find your character’s journal and scribble a note in response. Make sure you’re realistic about something like that. Please be polite, and use a cut if your post is going to be longer then a paragraph or two, just like you would in the main community. This includes images and anything else of equivalent size. Many people use their Friend List to keep track of the game and large un-cut journal posts can make this difficult.

Bulletin Board Posts: These are first-person, IC posts to the damned_bulletin community, and are notes for other characters to read. They can be used to trade and barter items, make arrangements for meet-ups, smack talk, etc. Keep in mind that Bulletin Board posts can be read by doctors, nurses, and Special Counseling patients.

Now, to get onto the guidelines...

If you're in a thread with more than two people, please go by a posting order. By "posting order" we mean you continue posting in the same pattern in which people were originally added to the thread. For example: Character A and Character B are in a thread together and Character C decides to join them after B posts. They post in this order: A>B>C. If Character D decides to join between A and B's posts, then the posting order will be A>D>B>C, and so on.

It's totally okay to not go by these rules if you're in AIM contact with the other people in your thread and have a whole communication network going on and you guys decide post-by-post who should go next, or pre-arrange a particular scene, or agree to someone being NPCed slightly while their mun is away or something along those lines. However, if you are not online and have not worked out anything with the people who you're RPing with, please, please, please go by the posting order so as not to frustrate others who might be interrupted from a post that would be near-impossible to modify.

Yes, I know a lot of you don't like posting order, and yes, it is cumbersome and unrealistic. However, we have a lovely Contact List, so if you don't want to go by the posting order standard, (which is preferable, actually, for realism's sake), you've got everything you need to talk out a scene with a fellow mun and make it as kickass and flowing as possible. :3 However, if you're not available on AIM while you're actively posting, basically consider it an agreement to go by posting order so as to avoid confusion.

The optimal situation is that you're in close contact with whoever you're RPing with, but since that's usually the ideal and not the reality, consider posting order more as a default than a standard so that everyone can write their posts merrily. XD

Additionally: As tempting as it might seem to not have your thread squished off to the side, please only start a new thread if the character's movements dictate so--that is, if they move away from a main group or enter an area but don't interact with another group, etc., to keep everything organized. If you're doing one-on-one in a more remote thread, it's okay, but otherwise, please post to other characters rather than to the main post.

And Some More Things!: These are required, so listen up! For the sake of keeping everything nice and neat and organized, not only add a link saying "Continued here" or something along those lines, but also put "Continued from here" in the new post with a link back to the previous thread. Thanks!

Joining Threads:

1) Now, common sense dictates that if someone has just posted their character off by him/herself somewhere and isn't moving around, they're asking to be interacted with, and are giving the impression that you're perfectly welcome to thread with them. This is probably the most appropriate situation in which to post to someone else's character without any kind of forewarning is okay, as the character's player probably isn't in any rush to get them anywhere and is looking for someone new to thread with them.

2) If two characters are threading together, but haven't been attacked by a monster or anything, and you wish to have your character thread with them, the best thing to do would be to talk to one of the character's muns and double-check that it's okay to throw your character into their thread before you do so---just in case you aren't disrupting something the two muns have planned out or something. ;) Of course, if you're unable to do so, this is one of the situations where it's probably not so important (unless two characters are having a very long conversation during Dayshift or something).

3) If three or more characters are threading together (minus monster attacks) and you either want yourself or your group to run into them, you MUST talk to at least one of the other players in that group, (who should then double-check with their fellow group-members), before jumping in. After all, three characters posting together is a lot to handle as is, and adding any more people might truly make things confusing. (NOTE: If you are both a member of the first group and the second group, you still must make sure to consult your fellow members from the first group before jumping in.)

4) If you want yourself or a group to jump into a thread where anyone is being attacked by a monster or Nightshift-Only-antagonist (one patient, two patients, five patients; it doesn't matter), you absolutely MUST not only contact at least one of the patient-players involved in the fight (who must then talk to at least most of the fellow patients in the group), but the NPC Mod involved as well. This is not only to make sure that threads don't get confusing to the point that the NPC Mod can't handle all the patients anymore, but also because there has been a severe rash of threads where the original group's players have planned something out with the NPC Mod or are looking forward to having their characters get beat up, and a bunch of unexpected newcomers have rushed into the thread with the mentality of wanting to help by "saving the day." Although I know these newcomers have the very best of intentions and only want to help their fellow characters/players, it should also be understood that other players sometimes do want their characters to get beat up, and sometimes getting saved, even through another player's kind consideration, is ironically the last thing they want.

Now, as you read that header, you might wonder: "Wtf? Gtfo my character's profile, bish, >O" but what we're asking for here is a little more reasonable than that. XD;

Basically, we as both RPers and mods have noticed that sometimes, when you end up in a thread with a character you're not too familiar with or can't remember too well, you need a point of reference for physical characteristics so that your response can be all well and good. Although icons might suffice for showing how a character looks, sometimes they're colored in such a way that they're not all that accurate or what have you.

Anyway, bottom line is this, and because we feel it's so important, it's not optional: If you can, put a decent, (full-frontal, chest to head, whatever is reasonable for your character), picture into your userinfo, (preferably official), so that people RPing with you can have an easy reference. (A link to a picture also works if you want to avoid cluttering up the other stuff you might have there. XD;) Please also add textual information such as age, height, eye color, or hair color if you think the picture isn't all that telling. Here's a template that we strongly suggest that you go by:

Name:
"Real" Name:
Room Number:
Age:
Hair Color:
Eye Color:
Height:
Main Language:
Second Language(s):
Other Characteristics:

Additionally, if your character is a Landel's veteran and has some of the "modifications" from their original form that might go along with that title, please mention it under the category of "other characteristics."

RPing an OC or someone from a book or another form of entertainment in which pictures aren't very easy to find? No sweat! Just do a basic description like the one above and perhaps add a little more to flesh it out, and that'd be totally okay. :3

Basically, we're making this official so that RPing is easier for everyone and we don't have any of those "WHAT DO I WRITE?? T_T" moments. Although some people currently playing may be slipping by us at the moment, we're going to be checking the profiles of any new characters who come in to make sure they meet this criteria.

You may apply to take a doctor, (that is, you will be a mod whose tasks only include playing a doctor during therapy sessions), if you have have had at least one character in play for a month or more. You may send in an application whenever the userinfo states that Doctor Applications are open.

Your doctor must come from a pre-existing series, and you should play him/her with as much attention to staying in-character as you would a normal patient character. In order to be eligible to take on the role of a doctor, your character must canonly have the title of "Doctor" or "Professor" as part of his/her name, and must have some kind of medical or scholarly background, though due to certain circumstances that Landel's provides, that background doesn't necessarily need to be realistically related to mental health.

If accepted, you'll be filled in on the roles of the doctors, (as well as their level of knowledge of the inner workings of Landel's), straight away, and we'll discuss with you how your doctor should generally treat patients within the scope of their own IC-ness. Due to limited doctor slots, a player may only have one doctor character.

Note: Due to the fact that doctors are now way more interactive and have so much more freedom to move around than they did before, this application has become a bit more detailed due to the fact that they've become more like regular patient-characters and we must change our inquiries to reflect that.


Name/Handle:
Age:
Gender:
Timezone:
Email Address:
Personal LJ username:
AIM/other messenger screenname:
Character(s) you currently play at Landel's:
Doctor's Full Name:
Doctor's Age:
Doctor's Gender:
Series Doctor is from:

Have you played the game/watched the movie or anime/read the book or comic, etc. that your doctor hails from?: (Please don't give us a simple "yes" or "no" for this. Instead, tell us how much of your character's series you've been exposed to and/or give us an explanation of how familiar you are with your character's series.)

Please give us a detailed personal history of your doctor: (Where he/she was born, who he/she was raised by, achievements, goals, etc. Note: Please do not link us to an outside source such as Wikipedia for this; we want you to demonstrate your knowledge of your character through your own words. If you give us a link instead of a bio, we won't read it unless it's supplementary information. Also keep in mind, however, that we don't need a scene-by-scene summary of a series--more like a detailed overview of the important events in your character's life and how they shaped them into who they are today. If there's anything in your character's backstory that's canonly vague or not yet revealed, make as many educated guesses as you can and let us know that you're speculating on those particular aspects of your character's history.)

Please give us a detailed description of your doctor's personality:

Please give us a detailed physical description of your doctor:

What kinds of magical/special/crazy powers does your character have, if any?:

If present, how do you plan to tweak those powers to make him/her a more realistic addition to the Landel's daytime staff?: (Please be as detailed and reasonable as possible; we're very strict about godmodding!)

Although we already know your character is a professor/doctor, what, exactly, is their field of expertise?:

Does your character have any other non-magical skills or abilities that we should know about besides their field of expertise?:

What point in time are you taking your doctor from when he/she appears at Landel's?: (For example, first episode, end of series, pre-game, post-movie, etc.? You can choose whatever you like, but please be as specific and detailed as you can--if possible, right down to the moment.)

Why are you interested in playing this character as a doctor instead of a patient?:

How would you explain your doctor ending up as part of the Landel's staff?:

How would your doctor approach patients during therapy?:

Doctor Sample:

Replace this block of text with a sample doctor post for us in third person, past tense. Your sample should be 500 words or more.


---

Finally, please attach a picture of your character to your email so we can get an idea of who you're talking about. (An official, full-body photo/illustration would be best, but if such a picture doesn't exist, go for whatever best alternative you can find. If your character is minor or obscure to the point that you don't have any pictures at all, please say so here and make sure that your physical description is as fleshed-out as it can possibly be.)

NOTE: We are looking for quality in our writers. We reserve the right to reject your application if we feel you don't have a strong command of your doctor or of the English language. These applications will be held to high standards, so we expect for you to do your best to meet them.

You may apply to be an NPC mod, (that is, a mod whose tasks only include siccing nurses and monsters on fellow characters), if you have have had at least one character in play for a month or more. You may send in an application whenever the userinfo states that NPC Mod Applications are open.


Name/Handle:
Age:
Gender:
Timezone:
Email Address:
Personal LJ username:
AIM/other messenger screenname:
Character(s) you currently play at Landel's:

Why are you interested in playing the nurses and monsters?:

How would you determine who to attack and who to leave alone, as well as with what force to attack them with?:

Monster Sample:

Replace this block of text with a sample monster post for us in third person, past tense. Your sample should be 250 words or more.

Nurse Sample:

Replace this block of text with a sample nurse post for us in third person, past tense. Your sample should be 250 words or more.

---

NOTE: We are looking for quality in our writers. We reserve the right to reject your application if we feel you don't have a strong command of the NPCs or of the English language. These applications will be held to high standards, so we expect for you to do your best to meet them.

( Patient's Room Layout )

This how each two-patient room is laid out. The first listed patient of each pair in the Patients List is Patient 1, and the second is Patient 2. (The top two drawers of the dresser belong to Patient 1 and the bottom two drawers belong to Patient 2. The closet has a sliding door.)

We tend to be very strict about people being active at Landel's Damned, as there might be people that would like to play a character that you are allowing to sit and collect dust. Therefore, if you have not posted for two weeks or if you show a definite and continuous trend of going inactive for over two weeks at a time, you will be considered inactive. We'll email you as soon as we notice it/have the time, though we tend to send inactivity emails out in bulk. At that point, you can decide if you're willing to get more involved or if you would like to drop your character instead because you don't have the time or energy to participate. This is, of course, entirely fine. We understand that sometimes a game is too much.

If you get active, that's great. But we are strict, which means that if we have to email you about a particular character's inactivity three times, the third e-mail will not be a warning and instead be a notification that you've now lost your claim to that particular character. This might seem too harsh, but we are not your parents. You're the one that decided that you wanted to play in the game and if you can't be responsible enough to keep up with it, we'd rather someone more dedicated took your place.

Also. If an inactivity email is not responded to within one week, the player will be automatically removed from the community. However, said player, in the chance that s/he was out of town, had computer problems at the time, or for any other reason was unable to respond to the email, can tell us after the fact and get a second chance at keeping their character.

We know that sometimes life gets in the way of RPing. If you simply let us know that you're busy and will be able to get more involved later, that's completely fine. We just like to know when players have other obligations so we aren't wondering what you're doing and why you aren't posting. Basically, it's all right to be inactive if you let us know ahead of time and have a good reason. If you do need to let us know about a leave of absence of any sort, you can either make a post at damned_lounge or contact any of the main mods over AIM.

Finally, we would like to make it clear that posting exclusively on damned_bulletin does not count as being active. The bulletin is an optional addition to the main community since we understand that there can't be much commenting done through the actual character journals. However, posting on the bulletin doesn't require nearly as much of a commitment and might encourage some players to mess around ICly there without actually contributing to the main community as a writer. Therefore, you need to be posting in the damned community to be considered active.

Once you have been accepted, keep your eye on the main community for a post from the intercom announcing your character’s arrival. (It will be your character’s “real name.”) Once that post has been made, you can begin RPing. Your first post should be your character waking up in their room, speaking to their nurse, seeing their roommate, etc. After that, they can run into other patients and things go from there.

Once you have made your character journal and given the name to the moderators, you can start to join the communities. Make sure to reply to the Contact List with your information. (You need to be a member of damned_lounge to view the Contact List.) It might also be wise to make use of the friend add list.

If a player is inactive for two weeks, the mods will contact you and inquire as to why. If you have a legitimate excuse or intend to get back into play, you will be excused. However, if the inactivity continues without a proper reason, your character will be dropped. This is a fast-moving game and requires a lot of attention. Don’t apply if you don’t think you’ll have the time for it! On the other hand, it’s easy to explain why your character isn’t around for a while (i.e., sick in their room), so don’t feel bad if you have to be absent for a few weeks for whatever reason so long as you let us know you'll be on hiatus.

As a final note, there are a few nightshift-only characters that have posts that it would benefit you to reply to, seeing as it will make your character's interaction with them more interesting. While it's optional to reply to them, it's certainly to your advantage and will also help out these nightshift-only players, so please check it out! There's also a post for the benefit of people who play characters who are telepaths.

1. Pyramid Head.
2. Aquilas.
3. Telepaths.

If a character was played by another player and then dropped, you can apply for that character. The character will enter the game as though they had never been there before. They will have no memories of anything the old player's version of the character went through while in the institute.

Note: This does not mean that you necessarily need to kill your character off to drop them. You could, but if you just want to stop playing and have your character suddenly disappear from shift-to-shift, that's okay too.

1. Ultra durable flashlight. (Found under the pillow of your bed, also good as a makeshift weapon.)

2. Two sets of batteries. (Each set keeps the flashlight alive for four nights of continuous use.)

3. Small rechargeable radio that plays music during the day and from time to time at night spits out hints or locations of valuable resources.

4. Personal journal. (Found in the desk drawer along with the batteries.)

5. Key Ring (You’re on your own in getting keys for it.)

6. Closet full of gray shirts and pants, with a small happy face like logo on the front of the shirts. (Your only clothes for the place.) There is also underwear, of course.

7. Two pairs of indoor slippers and one pair of outdoor slippers. (In the bottom drawer of the dresser.)

8. An overlarge coat (in closet) and two large grey sweaters (in dresser.)

9. A roll of thirty disposable pens in a rubber band. (Found in the desk drawer.)

NOTE: This isn’t all that you can have, just what everyone starts out with so we can all be on "even ground," so to speak. You will find more things as you run around during nightshift.

While the doors are all locked during the day, everything (almost everything, anyway) unlocks at night. While the day is structured, night is chaos. Roam the halls, trash an office, loot another patient’s room—all of it is at your command. Depending on your character, they could team up, go it alone, use and abuse others, latch onto stronger people, and so on.

As you’ve probably figured out by now, everything is much more sinister during nightshift. The nurses and animals morph into monsters that will be after you, mainly during comments from damned_monsters or damned_nurses invading your post without warning. (You can also request for a monster or nurse to attack your character if your thread is getting boring.) You will have the radio helping you out from time to time, though—if your character decides to carry it around with them, anyway!

The intercom is still around during nightshift. The Head Doctor is decidedly worse at night, in fact. The posts will show up randomly for taunting the patients, rearranging the building, and so on. There could be a public post in the main community that will apply to all patients, or it can post in a comment to mess with a certain person/group.

The duration of nightshift is three weeks.

All characters have their powers lessened. Magic is weak, alchemy is weak, etc. They will become exhausted from using their powers much faster than they would back home. You don’t have to incapacitate your character completely—figure something out within reason. We trust you with this, but we will let you know if you’re granting your character too many powers. Once again, patients under special counseling have their full powers.

Special Counseling happens every other Nightshift, and three lucky players are selected at random from the Landamned roster to take part in it. (Once a player has taken part in it, they will be ineligible for selection (for M-U, as well) until everyone else in the entire roster has also had a chance; players may also be considered ineligible for selection on a particular Nightshift if they are on hiatus or inactive.) Once three players are selected, the head mods will decide which of that player's characters would work best with SC that night (i.e. if they're strong enough to pose a threat, but not strong enough that they'd destroy all of Landel's), and then notify the player of their good fortune and of the mods' decision.

But what is Special Counseling? It's.. well, it's this (XD):

1) For one night, your character is working on the Institute's side, and their main goal is to stop patients from proceeding any further through the Institute's grounds and to get patients to go back to their rooms. However, your character doesn't necessarily need to be fully aware of their orders; for example, if your character was a good guy who worked for a particular vigilante organization, they might have been temporarily brainwashed into thinking that the patients are the bad guys that they're trying to capture.

2) Your character gets all their normal powers, clothes, weapons, defenses---everything back. If you think your character is WAY too powerful for the purposes of SC in their normal state, however, you should certainly talk to us about giving them some limitations.

3) Your character has explicit orders to NOT kill any patients. They can badly injure them, immobilize them, or knock them out, etc., but killing is a big no-no. (The only exception to this is if you work something out with a player who's looking to get their character killed off.)

4) Your character cannot be easily "snapped out" of their brainwashing. The only people that would have even the slightest chance of affecting them would be people they were extremely close to in their original world, and even then, it would probably only cause enough of a hesitation to give a chance to said person to knock your character out before they did any more damage.

5) If your character is knocked out, they're free to be looted by other patients. Although all of their clothing, special items, weapons, etc, are free to be used during that entire nightshift by whoever grabs them, only ONE possession taken from your character will still exist in the morning. (So, for example, your character has a gun, a bullet-proof vest, and a helmet. Although three different people take those three objects once your character is knocked out, only one of those people will still have the item they looted once the morning comes.) What gets kept and who gets to keep it can either be worked out amongst the players, or, if people decide to compete for one or more objects, we mods can be called in to randomize who gets what. ;)

As far as what happens to your character before they appear as a bad guy: Your character is taken from their room by orderlies immediately after dinner (before the intercom's last dayshift post) and carted up to the third floor, at which point your character's memories get really fuzzy. (They might remember bits and pieces of being injected with serums or having their skull drilled into, being strapped down to a table--creepy stuff like that, but nothing vivid or tangible.) After that, they're put in the SC1, SC2, and SC3 cells on the second floor, and after that, they're unleashed on the unsuspecting public.

Given that we now have a dinner shift and possible roommate onlookers, you should inform your roommate's player that your character got SC so that you guys can keep things consistent. HOWEVER, neither you nor your roommate's player should tell anyone about the identities of the patients who got SC. Let's keep it a surprise, kay? >:]

Characters have all their former memories during SC, though they've been warped in whatever way the Institute sees most appropriate to make them work on their side. Your character will also remember all the events of Special Counseling (except for the aforementioned third-floor stuff) come morning.

As far as how attacking other characters works: Basically, you choose a location on one of the maps (a room, a hall, or an area outside), and run it by us mods to make sure no one else has claimed it or that it doesn't pose any logistical problems. Once you do that, you wait for an unsuspecting character or group of characters to enter your assigned area, and when the time seems ripe... BOOM! You attack! Still, some guidelines you should follow are...

1) All the fighting against your character should occur within one thread. Yes, we know that this makes posting harder than if one antagonist is going after smaller groups in different threads, but one person jumping from thread to thread is bound to cause some continuity errors or godmodding, regardless of how accidental those actions are.  The exception to this rule is if your character completes a fight with one group of patients (as in all their opponents have been knocked out or have run away), and decides to go on to a completely new bunch.

2) Your character may be powerful, but that doesn't mean they're invincible. As a player of an antagonist, no matter how temporary, you must take responsibility to keep up good communication with the other players in your thread so that there aren't any misunderstandings about attacks or how they damage characters. Also remember that it's just as easy for other players to slip into godmodding during a fight as it can be for an antagonist, so don't be hesitant to let us mods know if you think something is awry. It's happened before, and we're happy to help sort things out!

3) If no one enters your area after a couple of days or so, you're perfectly welcome to ask us to re-assign your character's area to somewhere that would be more active and fun.

4) Your character may not leave their assigned area without permission from us. We basically have the assigned-areas rule so that patients won't feel so ganged-up on as they would if we had SC patients running amok all over the place, but if you want your character to give chase and the players of the people you're chasing totally want you to do that too, you're perfectly welcome to so long as you run it by us and we give it the go-ahead. 

-Intercom (damned_intercom): Used by the mods, the Head Doctor uses to intercom to move the dayshift (and occasionally the nightshift!) around and spices things up if it’s getting boring. Intercom posts are also used for character introductions and moving from dayshift to nightshift. The game isn’t in real time because of the amount of people and time restrictions. One “day” at Landel’s will take a few weeks.

-Radio (damned_radio): This chimes in at night only, but unlike the Intercom, it gives the patients cryptic clues regarding anything from locating a helpful item to killing one of the nightshift monsters.

-Nurses (damned_nurses): If your character needs to interact with a staff member, but you don’t know if there is a NPC mod around to play with you, you may go ahead and NPC a random nurse once you clear what they're going to do by one of the head mods. (You can refer here for some template nurses if you'd like, though if you do, please adhere to the information given about that particular person when writing her to keep her IC.) You may not however, play nurses at night.

-Doctors (damned_doctors): These are used for therapy, which patients must attend every few days. There can be up to ten doctors. Your character will be assigned to a certain doctor and will have therapy with him/her each therapy session. The doctors may NOT be NPCed by the players under any circumstances; they should be treated like another character in play, which, in essence, they are.

-Monsters (damned_monsters): The NPC mods should make sure to get creatures after you during the nightshift, but if you aren’t being attacked and want to be, you can contact a mod to sic some horrible abomination on you.

-Patients (damned_patients): While killing off actual characters that people have in play wouldn't be practical, it's obvious that some patients should be dying considering how dangerous things are during nightshift. For that reason, NPC mods place random patients (not from any fandom, and only with a basic personality) into play for the sole reason of having them die in front of others. This is to increase the realism of the game and also to freak the characters out.

-Visitors (damned_visitors): Every Sunday (in the game's timeline), certain characters will be visited by "family members." These visitors will look very much like people near and dear to the character, and perhaps even act like them, but certain things will be decidedly off...

Note: WE DO NOT TAKE CHARACTER RESERVES FROM ANYONE. The reason for this is that we feel character reserves would put our rating system on too much of a first-come, first-serve basis, whereas being able to receive multiple applications during a single application period and being able to compare them for quality gives us a better ability to make sure the application we accept is the best deserving. Thus, characters are available for anyone to apply for until someone is officially accepted to play them.

HOW TO APPLY

WHEN
You can apply when the userinfo for damned states that applications are OPEN or when we announce that applications are OPEN in the damned_lounge. (Sometimes we forget to immediately change the status in the userinfo.) The nature of this RP requires that applications be opened and closed periodically, as it makes more sense for new patients to come in a big batch than having them filter in as we receive and review applications. We will have OPEN applications once every three months, whereupon apps will open for three days and close at midnight (PST) at the end of the third day. Applications will be reviewed and results will be e-mailed out as they become available. The app-review process could take as long as a month depending on how many apps we get (we've gotten as many as 100 during one app cycle), so please understand the work it takes and be patient when waiting for your e-mail.

Late Applications: There will be a 24-hour period after the three-day cycle ends wherein you can send in a late application. However, if late, your application will be put aside until all the other applications have been reviewed and stamped, and it will probably be a good while before you receive your results. Additionally, you cannot send in a late application for a character who someone has already applied for on time, even if you forewarn us that you'll be sending in your application late.

After midnight at the end of the Late-App day, we will accept absolutely NO MORE applications for that cycle. Any applications received after that point will be held until the next cycle.

WHERE
Send your application to damned.mods[at]gmail[dot]com once the app cycle opens. It can be in the body of the email or sent as an attachment. (We prefer it in the body of the e-mail, but if it has to be an attachment to have bolds and italics, we'd prefer it that way. For text attachments, please only use .rtf, .txt, .html, or .doc .) Please do not attach your pictures and text document as a zip. (It's a hassle for us. DX) The subject line of your email should be “Character Application [ (Full Name of Character), (Fandom Character is From) ]” or something along those lines. You MUST have at least your CHARACTER'S NAME and THEIR FANDOM in the subject line of the e-mail; otherwise, picking out your app from the slew in our inbox will be a big hassle. :[

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you forget to put something in your app--for example, the picture(s) of your character, the special line from the rules, or if you decide to add something to a section, etc.--please resend the full app with the attachments and/or added information instead of sending the additional stuff in a separate e-mail. This might seem weird, but it's much easier for us to evaluate and keep track of each individual application if we have all the information for one character in the same e-mail. (We'll just delete the old one and let the new e-mail take its place.)

HOW

1) You may only apply for one character per cycle, although if your character is rejected, it has no bearing on whether or not we will accept a character application for a different character that you send in the next cycle unless we see a trend of similar problems continue from the past apps into the new ones.

2) We do not allow any original characters. Our rationale for this is that there isn't any sort of characterization standard or background that we can be sure will be held true to in either an application or in actual RP, which makes it very hard for us to judge OC applications, especially if we aren't familiar with a player's writing and characterization ability.

3) Any given player may only have up to two characters from the same series. After that, if you want to take up another character from the same series, you must drop one of your current characters from that series. (However, having a Nightshift-Only character from the same series as two of your patient characters would be okay, as they don't show up so often.) You may not take characters who would interact all the time (i.e. one person shouldn’t be taking both Fred Weasley and George Weasley, but taking Fred Weasley and Albus Dumbledore would be okay). If we feel you're breaking this rule by taking two characters who would have to interact more than once