[Denied] Absynth's Head of Staff App

[Absynth]

BYOND key: Absynth

Character names: Sofia Pennington

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How long have you been playing on Aurora?: I'm not actually sure. At least 6 months?

Why do you wish to be on the whitelist?: I feel I can bring something a bit different to the RD position, which is often empty at crucial times.

Why did you come to Aurora?: I'm strongly attracted to heavy roleplay.

Have you read the BS12 wiki on the head roles you plan on playing?: Yes.

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Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph each.

Give a definition of what you think roleplay is, and should be about:

Roleplay is pure immersion, and immersion is believability. It's not enough to simply see a person talking and respond to them; it's not enough to simply behave like you would in Real Life; the real goal of roleplay is in making people see beyond what's on the screen. You can't just pretend to be someone, you have to be them. Think like them. Immerse yourself in their world - yet always maintaining a level of out of character awareness in order to accurately and properly separate the two. Roleplay is action and excitement, it's energy and making things happen.

What do you think the OOC purpose of a Head of Staff is, ingame?:

I feel a head of staff is fundamental in tying a department together on a long term basis and fostering RP and encouraging at a base level. The lamest part of the game is when people go SSD because there's nothing to do - it's the ultimate goal of a head of staff to push their subordinates and keep them active and interested in their jobs. The actual work itself is secondary (or success, which is optional) - it's making the work fun that's important. Heads of staff provide a raft of security and safety in an otherwise chaotic workplace, a clearly in-sight individual who will listen to their grievances and can actually do something about it.

What do you think the OOC responsibilities of Whitelisted players are to other players, and how would you strive to uphold them?:

Ultimately a whitelisted player has the responsibility to maintain a level of exemplary roleplay that other players can use as a standard for themselves as well as a level of competence in whatever they do, that proves they actually deserve it; whether it means having a complex backstory for a species, or knowing your department inside and out as a research director. There's always some minimum of effort required.

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Please pick one of your characters for this section, and provide well articulated responses to the following questions.

Character name: Sofia Pennington.

Character age: 35

Please provide a short biography of this character (approx 2 paragraphs):

Sofia is a young, fearless seeker of ultimate truth in the universe. Her pampered and spoiled upbringing on Mars primarily instilled her with a fervent thirst for knowledge and a general lack of personal safety standards. Rumor has it she was given some kind of advanced genetic intelligence therapy as a child, which gave her both an eccentric personality and an IQ over 200. While she might not particularly care about her own safety, Sofia has repeatedly risked her own life to save those of co-workers and has racked up just as many commendations and awards for her work as she has warnings.

What do you like about this character?:

Dr. Pennington is a blast to play. I know all areas of science pretty well and I can play her with a good degree of both competence and riskiness. Though she's been arrested once or twice, she's settled down a bit in more recent months.

What do you dislike about this character?:

Occasionally, playing Sofia almost goads me into going more over the top than I'd expected; she's the kind of character that will risk losing her job in order to make a weaponized tomato.

What do you think makes this character fit to be a head of staff?:

Honestly, Sofia has a lot of black marks on her record, but just as many successes - probably more so, really. She's average-to-competent in a wide range of fields and is capable of filling in when places are empty. Most importantly she's well known as being a constant presence in R&D and one who never backs down from a challenge, and I think a small degree of legitimacy would go a long way in both tempering Sofia's behavior and the reactions of her co-workers to her.. various shenanigans.

 

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Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions.

How would you rate your own roleplaying?:

I would say my roleplaying is strong. I play believable, flawed, colorful characters that have goals, dreams, and philosophies. I have excellent improvisation skills and have adminned my own RP games (and DM'd many D&D sessions) many, many times in the past.

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[Synnono]

Hi there!

I like Sofia, despite her tendency to end rounds in custody for filling the station with radioactive fungus. My lab assistant has developed a new respect for her after a very negative first impression was gradually turned around.

However, I worry a bit about her eligibility for leadership from an IC viewpoint. Like you point out, she has a history of rule-breaking and a disregard for personal safety. This translates to me as a perceived lack of respect for the regulations she'd be expected to uphold, and for the crew she'd be expected to keep safe and on-task as a Research Director. If I were looking at her record on the HR desk, I'd have to give it some serious scrutiny. She doesn't give many reasons to prove she's worthy of being an administrator on paper.

She also seems to love hands-on science, and while she excels at a lot of it, taking the step towards Command means backing out of the field a bit, and trusting other people to do the dirty work. Do you consider that natural progression, for someone with her lust for experimentation?

On the OOC, I appreciate the attention you call to making a round cohesive and fun. We're all playing a game, at the end of the day, and those are supposed to be fun. You're a strong writer in my mind, and seem to have other players in mind while you're writing. If the character and her potential new duties could be reconciled, I can see this working out.

[Absynth]

I actually prefer, as most assistants who've studied under Sofia know, to have other people do the work while I look on and munch Donk Pockets. There's never a shift where there's nowhere empty in R&D; there's always something I can busy myself with if things get slow, so I'm not too worried about Sofia getting all up in everyone's business all the time and doing their work for them.

As for the rule-breaking.. I think it's best to look at the situation much like a university with a professor. While many profs will follow the regulations to the letter (as best they can remember them), there will always be a few who flaunt such regulations and tend to get away with it simply because they excel at their job and get genuine, cost-efficient results. Indeed, in any workplace you'll find eccentric individuals or those who tend to defy authority -- Sofia as Research Director would be the kind of RD that people don't have to be afraid about approaching with their bizarre or dangerous science project ideas without feeling like they're being buried in paperwork. Minimal effort - enough to please Corporate - maximum results.

[Taintedglory]

I'm going to be one hundred percent honest here. -1

I do not think you nor the Character you applied with have the maturity required to become a Head of Staff in any capacity. I do not have round specific examples of the shenanigans you and your character has done, but things like the following:

 

• Growing biological experiments outside of the designated Biology zones, causing IC biohazards across the station
  
• Blatantly disregarding Standard operations in Safety and Equipment use, causing many issues with bringing harm to yourself and others.
  
• Ignoring and/or fighting against a superiors direct and valid orders on multiple occasions when not Antag.
  
• Acting like a child in most situations when involved with your shenanigans.
  
• Destroying Research objects such as artifacts to "Get to the good stuff at the bottom"

 

And on top of all that, I have watched your employment records very closely in game. My first complaint ever with you was your age versus your job. I've seen you have finally made your character at the age of 35 which is appropriate for your job, but you've been seen with her at 18 and acting god awful with your RP about it.

[Absynth]

Wow, the first point there sure, at one point. The rest I pretty strongly disagree with.

[Taintedglory]

Then I will attempt to give those examples as best my memory serves

 

• Blatantly disregarding Standard operations in Safety and Equipment use, causing many issues with bringing harm to yourself and others.

 

I have had to, twice, come find you dead as a door nail on the asteroid, because you didn't take enough air or supplies to survive out there.

 

• Ignoring and/or fighting against a superiors direct and valid orders on multiple occasions when not Antag.

 

I've given you an order to not let your biological experiments run rampart in the station proper. You ignored that order and said "Its not causing any harm!" And got very irritated with the security and Heads of Staff when we forcefully started ripping your plants up out of the hallways, for the rest of the shift you made less than mature remarks over the radio about it.

 

• Acting like a child in most situations when involved with your shenanigans.

 

See above

 

• Destroying Research objects such as artifacts to "Get to the good stuff at the bottom'

As your Research Director, Not one but two shifts in a row I had to get onto you for Breaking asteroid rocks with artifacts in them just to get to the anomaly at the bottom. You threw away what artifacts you actually found like it was trash.

[Guest]

-1 on my end as well.

I've seen you manage to release harmless-to-harmful levels of xenobotanical specimens outside the research lab. Ranging from ambrosia deus with the vine mutation, destroying angel mushroom vines, and various other combinations.

In combination to what has already been stated as the above, I cannot say I can support an irresponsible scientist that respects the chief tenant of mad science: Playing it safe. You automatically lose your career if your research causes irreversible damage. Even in the age of cloning, the death of another employee as a result of your carelessness would get you canned.

For these reasons, I do not support you as a candidate as a whitelistee.

[Fire and Glory]

there will always be a few who flaunt such regulations and tend to get away with it simply because they excel at their job and get genuine, cost-efficient results.

Although I have never interacted with Sofia in person, I have seen the results of her Xenobotany experiments.

In no planet is filling your entire area of work with out of control plants considered to be ultimately get genuine cost efficient results, while if they made good results I imagine they may keep their job, I very much doubt Nanotrasen'd promote someone who can't keep their experiments under control, the typical mad scientist who plunges into everything wildly tends to turn a large radius around them into a horror show that needs space marines to deal with, not exactly something a corporation'd want.

1-.

[Absynth]

I only ever release out of control plants when I am antagonist. Surely if I actually did any of the above I would have been job banned by now. I think if you ask anybody I work with regularly they'll have a vastly different opinion. You need to look past the rumor.

[Taintedglory]

I have actually worked with you regularly, as is why I am -1ing this app. You should not assume that everyone enjoys you antics or thinks that you would make a great Head of Staff just because you work with them regularly. This is why I am -1ing the app, I have spent many rounds observing you and your work and it does not appeal to how a Head of Staff should conduct themselves in an IC situation, especially the character Sofia Pennington. This character is little more than a Child personality with to many toys and not enough supervision.

[whiterabit]

I have to agree with what the others have posted, I have serious reservations about seeing Sophia as a head of staff. Immaturity and her habit of ignoring protocol, safety or even common sense when it comes to her work are not traits that go well with being a head of staff. There's a time and place for everything sure, and having someone willing to sign off on some of the more interesting ideas is great but there's much more to being a head than than just approving or shutting down experiments. I don't feel like she would work well with coordination with other heads, and if any sort of conflict came up I don't see her being able to work through it in a constructive manner.

Honestly, I don't know much about you as a player either and all I have to go off of is this one character and your posts in this thread. Maybe you'd be fine with a whitelist and my complaints would be solved if this was simply a different character, but I have no way of knowing that. I wouldn't trust this character as a head of staff and I'm not sure how to feel about the player, some time spent on a character with a bit more professionalism would go a long way for my trust in the player but even then I still wouldn't want to see Sophia as RD.

-1

[Jboy2000000]

In short, no.

In long, hell no.

Every single round I see Pennington, she plants everything she wants outside of xenobio, MASSIVELY breaching SoP, and they're overly confrontational to anyone who has anything to say that she doesn't like about her doing her work, her way, going as far to yell and curse at heads, security and synthetics over the radio when they rightfully tell you to move your projects back into science under Directive Four. As far as Im concerned, this is the last type of person that should even be in the science department, let alone a head.

[Pyrociraptor]

Nope, every time I see Pennington, she's just breaking directive four, planting shit outside of the science department without any paperwork, creating fast spreading random plants that usually end up in Engineering charging with fireaxes, and a lot, if not everyone, being unhappy with the results.

-1

[Synnono]

[...]there will always be a few who flaunt such regulations and tend to get away with it simply because they excel at their job and get genuine, cost-efficient results.

 

I agree with this, and would even enjoy that dynamic on the Command Staff, but to successfully skirt the rules and still be taken seriously, I would also argue that she needs to be at least a little subtle. Her tendency appears to be to not only ignore procedures, but then aggressively challenge and fight all the people who are trying to do things the "right" way by checking her. She's constantly on the radar, not getting results beneath it.

She can also get very hostile in the process of doing that. I think being known for having a hot head is something that would discourage Corporate from giving her a chance to prove her own brand of leadership.

Edited September 4, 2016 by Guest

[Faris]

I was initially impartial to this, but after the current round, I've reached a conclusion. I didn't see someone with a great intellect, nor a person with any form of professionalism when dealing with a matter, constantly shouting vulgar and insulting rather than trying to be calm when dealing with the situation. Even your excuse of "I only plant when I'm an antagonist" is false, as you had planted in the garden, which correct me if I'm wrong is a violation of station directive four, a directive you as a Research Director should be aware of to actually enforce it.

Personally, I'd like to a see a change of attitude from the Character, Nanotrasen wouldn't appoint someone to Research Director that violates protocols but is efficient, since there those that are efficient and follow regulations. If you want to expand the scope of your research, more trays can be requisitioned and other areas refit and relabeled for your experiments. For now I don't believe Sofia Pennington to be deserving of the position of Research Director but there's always room for change and the possibility of myself and others changing our vote should the behavior of the character be within what we believe to be fitting of a Research Director or even a player entrusted with the Head of Staff whitelist.

For now, -1, which can always change.

[DatBerry]

id post my opinion but i would just look like im copy pasting other people, sofia is an ok character, nothing really wrong with them on an OOC point of view, well mostly...

but ICly? i wonder how they're still even hired, let alone be promoted to RD, the only positive ill give them for their "research so good it covers up their bad habits" is that they offer gardeners/chefs to mutate their most needed plants to grow outside trays for infinite supply, which is nice, but they also have the habit of growing shit out of their lab and arguing about it, openly on the comms, which should be monitored canonically by CC via the blackbox in the AI core, the only reason they still keep their job is that no IR was filed/DOs are lazy.

so id say you rework the character or start from scratch, the latter might be a better option to clear up the bad taste. so for now? -1

[TishinaStalker]

Application denied.