[Accepted] Bokaza's Unathi Application

[Bokaza]

BYOND Key: Bokaza

Character Names: Soma Kartesian, Elena Raschnikova, countless other of little note

Species you are applying to play: Unathi

What color do you plan on making your first alien character (Dionaea & IPCs exempt):Black

Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: Of course not, I hate Jackboot's writing. Well... yes.

---

---

Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph format. One paragraph minimum per question

Why do you wish to play this specific race: I had a stroll of inspiration that made me make this app. I liked an idea for an unathi character. However, as these things go, I do not know if I'll actually like it if once I get it considering I've never played as one.

Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: Strange species with strange smell and strange eyes, living in strange buildings and walking strange paths, on strange planets and strange ships with no clear intent or order. They do not understand me and I do not understand then, yet, I am forced from my home into theirs. I live, I work and I die for NT, for it is the only thing that really binds us. For it is what keeps me here, my job. As for the simpler stuff, the obvious are speech impediment, conservative leaning, tribalism, lower stamina, heat sensitivity and more non-verbal expression.

 

---

---

Character Name: Yamaza Vasaki

Please provide a short backstory for this character, approximately 2 paragraphs

Yamaza hatched as a one of three to clan Vasaki, a tiny insignificant clan of herders and farmers. At the age of three, she could barely understand the world when the Contact War broke out. Seeing the men in her family increasingly called to war under the Coalition, she would be pressed to work as soon as she was able, with the women in her clan doing their best to educate her within the limits of what was considered appropriate. Being hard-pressed to feed themselves with the lack of workforce, raiders and military confiscations, the nuclear apocalypse would see that reality made even even worse. The fallout would take many of her family members and all of livestock, then ravage the land into a near-wasteland. At age of eight, she would be betrothed and sent to a nearby clan that was in a better situation than the rest, while the remaining family would stay in their land, too stubborn to leave. The ever escalating violence would see the last of her clan almost completely wiped out, and sending her adopted clan fleeing for the last bastions of order on the planet. She would find herself living in destitute slums of S'th.

By the end of the war, she and her betrothed, Saz'kin would be married. With their lands now completely worthless, they would be no better than guwan. Saz'kin, since he was few years older and male, would already have started working as laborer, earning a miserable pay that allowed them to survive through the following years. While he was kind to her initially, the chain of tragedies would turn his heart cruel. Despite that, she would always rely on him and try and remember her place in the order. With several dead clutches, she would eventually have a clutch of her own at an age of twenty. Having experienced joy for what seemed like the first time in her life, she vowed to do her best to keep them safe. Saz'kin, having turned to taking various mind-altering substances, would eventually turn to beating her and threatening to hurt their children. With no family to turn to for help, she would one day take her kids and leave home. Homeless and worst of all, without skills, she would sign up with NanoTrasen and leave for Biesel in search of a better life. She would work the odd jobs at NanoTrasen facilities, as well as receive good amount of money from 'mandatory' flue shots. Having little experience with this alien culture, she would eventually find herself duped into crippling loan. Seeing an immediate need for a change of pace, she would take an accelerated program for Hydroponics and end up on Exodus.

What do you like about this character? She has a driving force that pushes her to act, and she does not let what she is stop her from that goal. A stubbornness seemingly inherent in all the station unathi. This is what I have observed from more experienced unathi players on aurora and I chose to imitate. Imitation is the highest form of flattery after all.

How would you rate your role-playing ability? 8/10. Admittedly, non-verbal communication is my weaker side, which will make this role challenging. I also tend to compromise my RP quality in tense situations and have a habit of getting overly attached to characters.

---

---

Notes: No, this app isn't satirical.

This app has been changed to be less satirical.

Edited March 16, 2017 by Guest

[Kaed]

To be perfectly honest, you've already got my irritation just from prefacing this application with the word "liggerina'. This is not a good way to start if you want people to take you seriously, and you seem to be aware of this, since you add a note at the end of your application insisting that you're serious about it. It might have served your time and application better just to not use the ligger joke it it at all and use the actual species name.

That being said, her tragic backstory of hardship seems a little dry. It's interesting to be a family of herders and farmers, as I would think that growing plants would be a not terribly lucrative job in a species of carnivores. But maybe they sold something like spices or herbs for flavoring food. The rest seems fairly standard fare, contact war, NT are jerks, crippling debt, yadda yadda. It's not anything new, but it also isn't, technically, bad I suppose. Not everyone needs to be a snowflake.

We don't use a voting system anymore, but I wouldn't accept your application when you don't seem to be taking this species very seriously. Maybe consider cleaning up your application to remove the dumb joke title.

[Shadow]

This app has the seal of headmin approval.

He's been here since ages and I like his RP style.

I don't mind these jokes because everyone knows he and boot have an intimate relationship.

+1.

[DatBerry]

To be perfectly honest, you've already got my irritation just from prefacing this application with the word "liggerina'. This is not a good way to start if you want people to take you seriously, and you seem to be aware of this, since you add a note at the end of your application insisting that you're serious about it. It might have served your time and application better just to not use the ligger joke it it at all and use the actual species name.

That being said, her tragic backstory of hardship seems a little dry. It's interesting to be a family of herders and farmers, as I would think that growing plants would be a not terribly lucrative job in a species of carnivores. But maybe they sold something like spices or herbs for flavoring food. The rest seems fairly standard fare, contact war, NT are jerks, crippling debt, yadda yadda. It's not anything new, but it also isn't, technically, bad I suppose. Not everyone needs to be a snowflake.

We don't use a voting system anymore, but I wouldn't accept your application when you don't seem to be taking this species very seriously. Maybe consider cleaning up your application to remove the dumb joke title.

 

i don't see how you could deny an app over a single (often used) joke. i can see that you either don't know bokaza much or that you're salty over something in the past. bokaza is one of the more serious players around and I've interacted a lot of with the two characters mentioned, and I can assure they take their RP seriously .

though i agree the story is a bit bland, not much of the character is shown other than that they're traditionalist and motherly.

+1

[Bokaza]

That being said, her tragic backstory of hardship seems a little dry. It's interesting to be a family of herders and farmers, as I would think that growing plants would be a not terribly lucrative job in a species of carnivores. But maybe they sold something like spices or herbs for flavoring food. The rest seems fairly standard fare, contact war, NT are jerks, crippling debt, yadda yadda. It's not anything new, but it also isn't, technically, bad I suppose. Not everyone needs to be a snowflake.

though i agree the story is a bit bland, not much of the character is shown other than that they're traditionalist and motherly.

 

I had to summarize someone's life in two paragraphs. She is also hardworking, poorly educated and trusting, as demonstrated by her choices. As for the blandness, that is intentional. I am firm believer that a character's quality is measured by their personality, one which I intend to try and demonstrate. This is what should make everyone stand out, merits, not past. I could've went with security and produced a story of why my unathi is a mech pilot, even if they are female, but I ultimately chose not to. I chose a character whose story is rarely walked through, and may contain interesting surprises. As for the Contact War, I believe there is no individual Unathi that has not at least somewhat been effected by the event, basically a WW2 on nuclear steroids. An event of such magnitude and horror would very likely be the one thing that defines all unathi.

As for the farming, yes. I didn't want to go into detail but the herding is the obvious primary food source. Cinnamon, cocoa, tobacco and spice peppers are not really digestible by humans. They give no nutritional value. Yet they are still important branches of agriculture. And let's no forget that large scale herding would be impossible without farming, considering the vast majority of livestock subsist on feed, not pastures. Sometime since developing a brain unathi would've figured out they can plant crops to feed their animals, even if they are just making better pastures.

 

To be perfectly honest, you've already got my irritation just from prefacing this application with the word "liggerina'. This is not a good way to start if you want people to take you seriously, and you seem to be aware of this, since you add a note at the end of your application insisting that you're serious about it. It might have served your time and application better just to not use the ligger joke it it at all and use the actual species name.

I think it was a good joke, but maybe I'm just biased. As for the non-serious attitude to my app I may have demonstrated with my reply that I am serious about the application.

Thank you for your feedback.

[Kaed]

I would deny the app because it is overall bland (neutral) with some negative aspects that, in my opinion, drag it down to a no. Fix the bad parts, and it's just neutral.

I also don't know this person, nor have I ever roleplayed with them. I am judging this application purely on its own merits, no based on a previous friendship. Previous companionship with the player shouldn't be enough for immediate acceptance of an application, anyway. A bland story like this, while not actually a disqualifying factor to me, doesn't really speak that you have a lot to give to the unathi community.

What role will Vasaki bring to the station that adds life and flavor? Will she lurk in hydroponics quietly growing peppers and cocoa? Is meeting her in-game going to give me more of an impact than 'oh look a gardender who happens to be unathi. she sure does roll her ss's well, C+" Maybe you can pull of an interesting character, sure. I don't know you, like I said. But I feel like that should be considered as more important than how often anyone has seen you play non-unathi before.

Because, what the vibe of this app, is that playing unathi is just a fun new thing you want to try. You've put the barest amount of effort in, and furthermore treat the idea like a joke, using 'hilarious' ooc terminology for them.

Edited March 15, 2017 by Guest

[Bokaza]

I think it is okay to judge an application on previous merits of the applicants. I do so and I don't mind other basing their critic on this, I have to admit I've actually counted on it, thus the joke. I am not going to fix the application because you are just being a killjoy at this point. I may fix it if enough people are bothered by it.

As for the last, there was no question in the app as to what my character brings to aurora and unathi community. If you believe that those questions are relevant, please contact Jackboot to improve the application format.

I will attempt to improve the story as my original intention was not for it to be bland, but to present someone who was a regular person struggling through the world.

Thank you for your feedback.

[Fire and Glory]

I would argue that whitelist applications are less for judging whether someone can make an interesting character and more for judging if they actually have an understanding of the race, the lore, etcetera, so they don't try to make a lizard from the moon planet of Greenville inhabited by a clan of amazonian lizard warriors.

I don't really think Unathi 'ought to be a special clique of carefully selected players who 'give something to the Unathi community'.

But anyways, onto the application.

The title of course is immediately obvious, but so long as people can actually tell what race you're applying from the title alone I don't really think it matters all that much.

 

Why do you wish to play this specific race: The breacher suit. The homogenous, more restrictive culture and behavior is also a plus.

Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: Speech impediment, conservative leaning, tribalism, lower stamina, heat sensitivity, more non-verbal expression.

At the mention of tribalism I think I can hear Jackboot getting triggered. Anyways, the application calls for a paragraph format and I get the feeling you can probably do better anyways, I'd personally like to see expansion on the second one, though you do seem to have generally put down the bones of what's notable for Unathi.

 

Character Name: Yamaza Vasaki

Please provide a short backstory for this character, approximately 2 paragraphs

Yamaza hatched as a one of three to clan Vasaki, a tiny insignificant clan of herders and farmers. At the age of three, she could barely understand the world when the Contact War broke out. Seeing the men in her family increasingly called to war under the Coalition, she would be pressed to work as soon as she was able, with the women in her clan doing their best to educate her within the limits of what was considered appropriate. Being hard-pressed to feed themselves with the lack of workforce, raiders and military confiscations, the nuclear apocalypse would see that reality made even even worse. The fallout would take many of her family members and all of livestock, then ravage the land into a near-wasteland. At age of eight, she would be betrothed and sent to a nearby clan that was in a better situation than the rest, while the remaining family would stay in their land, too stubborn to leave. The ever escalating violence would see the last of her clan almost completely wiped out, and sending her adopted clan fleeing for the last bastions of order on the planet. She would find herself living in destitute slums of S'th.

By the end of the war, she and her betrothed, Saz'kin would be married. With their lands now completely worthless, they would be no better than guwan. Saz'kin, since he was few years older and male, would already have started working as laborer, earning a miserable pay that allowed them to survive through the following years. While he was kind to her initially, the chain of tragedies would turn his heart cruel. Despite that, she would always rely on him and try and remember her place in the order. With several dead clutches, she would eventually have a clutch of her own at an age of twenty. Having experienced joy for what seemed like the first time in her life, she vowed to do her best to keep them safe. While the situation on Moghues was getting much better by this point, the dream of a better tomorrow would be cut in its infancy by the sudden death of her husband from lung cancer. The minor jobs she was doing by then were barely enough to keep them fed. Finding herself without known family, homeless and worst of all, without skills, she would sign up with NanoTrasen and leave for Biesel in search of a better life. She would work the odd jobs at NanoTrasen facilities, as well as receive good amount of money from 'mandatory' flue shots. Having little experience with this alien culture, she would eventually find herself duped into crippling loan. Seeing an immediate need for a change of pace, she would take an accelerated program for Hydroponics and end up on Exodus.

After reading this, what really stands out as iffy to me is the name, I'm not completely sure how name changes work after marriage, either IRL or in spessmans, but as far as my knowledge goes, if she is a woman who was born into the clan Vasaki, and then she was betrothed and married to someone from another clan...I think her last name would default over to the name of the clan she married into.

I'm not really sure if I like or don't like the backstory, maybe that means it's bland. But Unathi women on a human station are rare because most of them are either married or controlled by their clans, and from what I'm reading, it's plausible/believable for this woman to be working in space due to events in her life being what they are.

So basically the story strikes me as being reasonable, it's not horribly offensive to my willing suspension of disbelief, I'm not seeing much of an issue with it.

I don't have anything to comment on for the rest of the application.

OOCly, I think Bokaza can be really salty sometimes and a bit of a stick in the mud, but my experiences with them in and out of game say that they're not the sort to be something of a chucklefuck with their whitelist when they have it.

Literally none of my own whitelist applications were conducted entirely with straight-laced seriousness after all, so I don't think it's something to judge too much.

[Bokaza]

Right, then I'll wait for Jackboot's input before I make the alterations.

[Bokaza]

After non-existent input from Jackboot, I've changed the app to be more sincere and more serious. With that, I will leave this app to cook, as I have little else to say other than the waiting will eventually rob me of any inspiration I currently have to play Unathi.

Thank you for your input.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Hello! There's quite a bit of feedback on this application.

Ligger jokes are almost always in poor form but it's not going to sink the application; a bad joke is just a bad joke.

The character is an interesting one because of her bland origins, to me. Many, many Unathi applications focus on the village that was wiped out, the warrior that faced a trial in the wasteland, or some soldier or refugee coming to grips with the war. Vasaki is a usually untold part of war; the non-combatant trying to rebuild a life and a future for themselves. A rural farmer swept into the slums of the big city, trying to accommodate to this huge, deep ocean she's been thrown into without a lifeboat.

On specifics: Unathi don't get nutrients from plants, but humans don't get nutrients from a large amount of products we grow - sugar, cinnamon, and cocoa plantations are massive, sprawling global businesses but can't be called nutritious. Unathi still have a sense of taste, and while they are perfectly fine consuming raw meat from a fresh kill, that's not the norm for urban Unathi or modern food guilds; there's big business in seasonings and garnish. They could also be growing a staple crop to feed herd animals - the criticism on her clan's employment is an odd one. and not a detriment to the application.

The last name is a minor sticking point. Women typically take on the last name of their husband when married, because they're marrying into the clan. There'd have to be a weird set of circumstances for her to retain her original clan name.

In all this application shows you have a decent grasp of Unathi culture and society, which is what a whitelist is meant to show.

I'll let this sit for a few more days to gather more feedback.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

We had a brief conversation on the character's last name. With that settled, and no more negative feedback, I'll accept this application.