Sample Application
Applications on rEvolution are made in the Google Form listed in the #applications channel in Discord. Note that these are only guidelines; for each field you are welcome to be more or less detailed, as you see fit; we don't ask for novels, we ask only that you provide enough to give us a clear concept of your character, and to justify the skills and powers that you want to use once you have been approved.
Below are some applications that have been approved on the game in the past that can be used as examples.
Avi Williams - Mutant, OC
Description
A teenage boy with dark brown skin and a thick crop of tight black coils, wide nose, wide mouth, wide smile. Avi stands 5'6" of wiry still-growing limbs. Though not large in stature he tends to make up for it in an excess of personality, warm and enthusiastic.
Personality
Cheerful, bright, enthusiastic, a bit of a people-pleaser. Avi is a resourceful kid -- he's had to be in a life where his parents and sister have been the only real constant. Unlike many Americans living in American-heavy communities abroad he developed a strong sense of curiosity about the other cultures he was around and by extension a strong knack for talking to and learning about other people around him. Parents who were often both highly stressed and strongly discipline-focused gave him a bit of a Complex about Doing Everything Right, and he has something of a problem with overextending himself and trying to put on whatever face he thinks is expected of him.
Background
An army brat, Avi's life has had few roots but strong vines -- he's never been particularly bothered by being from A Little Of Everywhere, though his family's largely unsettled life certainly strongly shaped him so far. He's lost track of the homes he had, lost track of most of the transient friends he's made from one base to the next to the next. His father is a career NCO, his father and his grandfather Army men before him; the family has moved through a long succession of posts -- Alaska, Italy, North Carolina, Korea, Georgia, Colorado, Italy, Germany, Missouri, Hawai'i. It was when he got to high school that his father actually got deployed, a shake-up from their routine -- his mother decided to settle down with Avi and his younger sister back in New York near where his parents both have lots of family. After a lifetime of itinerance, it's been weird to think he'll be in the same place for a long stretch, actually have the same friends and classmates for more than a year at a time, and no big shake-ups at all! Avi is unsure how to feel about that, but is good at getting used to new things and so far, has been enjoying getting to know New York and spend more time with the large web of cousins he used to get to see only infrequently on some holidays and over lots of Facetime.
Skills
Very adaptable; good at learning new ropes and new dynamics quickly, good at making new friends quickly (even if less good at forging strong BONDS and keeping them.) Picks up new languages readily (speaks basic, not fluent, Korean and Italian in addition to English). A strong haptic learner, he does genuinely enjoy sports even though he did get into them originally mostly to mask what an overachieving nerd he is. Good at basketball, good at track. Still young, still figuring out what he's good at beyond that.
Powers
Avi has the ability to create, generate and reshape ice to within about 100 feet of himself in every direction. He can manipulate any frozen water, but it is most intuitive for him to work with ice he created himself. He cannot levitate or move the ice directly, but can use it to move other things (including himself!) by building more ice underneath. The ice he creates "grows" layer by layer, rapid but not instantaneous, and the specific rate varies somewhat with the complexity of the form he is creating/reshaping -- it's extremely rapid for him to make very basic shapes but takes more time and concentration to make, say, a complicated sculpture. There is no theoretical upper limit to how much ice he can generate, but it does take concentration and like any exertion he will tire of it.
It is less taxing on an energy level for him to work with pre-existing ice, however the things he is able to accomplish with ice that he did not generate himself are far less detailed and intricate -- ice that he himself generates he has an extremely fine control over and a sort of proprioception for; it is far easier for him to shape ice as he generates it according to a mental picture he has, whereas ice that exists already in the world he is only capable of reforming into cruder structures. He can additionally work with existing unfrozen water in the same range to freeze it, but this expenditure of energy to is far more taxing still and will quickly exhaust him. He is not entirely immune to cold and freezing, but is highly unlikely to be susceptible to it as long as he is adequately hydrated and, particularly, while he is himself actively working with his ice powers -- he's oddly just as likely as anyone else to get hypothermia if he's not using his powers, though.
(Currently all of this is theoretical/potential, as Avi has not yet manifested and does not know how to do even one single thing with his powers.)
Resources
The support of a loving very large un-wealthy family.
Scott Summers - Mutant, FC
Description
Scott is reaching middle age with more grace than his omnipresent sunglasses and multiple motorcycles would suggest – he is tall and trim, standing just over six feet, with lean muscles and broad shoulders. He dresses mostly in unassuming workwear, with sturdy materials and good boots, and keeps himself clean-shaven and neat – well, as neat as any shop teacher can hope for. Though he's somewhat handsome, his straight nose and square jaw and full head of hair draw somewhat less attention than his ruby-tinted sunglasses or visor or, on occasion, the ruby-tinted beam of kinetic force that emanates from it.
Personality
Both personally and professionally, Scott projects an overall air of uptightness and rigidity. He takes things seriously, and is often annoyed and kind of offended when others don't have the decency to do the same. His role as a leader and status as an outsider have a kind of chicken-and-egg mutuality; whichever came first, they are both intrinsic to him and to his relationships with others, particularly Xavier and the other X-Men, as Scott often occupies an uncomfortable middle ground between them. He takes it upon himself to make hard decisions, and accepts the unpopularity that accompanies them with a kind of uneasy grace. Scott is extremely level-headed in a crisis, but in a calculating, strategic way that often bulldozes over people's feelings -- his and everyone else's. Most of the time these tactics are pretty effective, so he has no inclination yet to change them. He does have a sense of humor underneath all that, but you could be excused for thinking he doesn't.
Background
Scott Summers discovered his mutation in the same plane crash that orphaned him, when he fired a concussive blast from his eyes in a desperate attempt to slow himself and his brother Alex down as they plummeted to the earth. They both survived, but the crash left Scott with a TBI that would render it difficult for him to recall much from the turbulent years that followed, even if he had interest in doing so. What he does remember has not encouraged him to keep digging. A group home in Nebraska; his separation from his brother; recurring, debilitating migraines; abuse, bullying, and loneliness. At first he convinced himself he'd only imagined what had happened during the crash, but then it started happening again -- at first only in sporadic bursts, but with increasing frequency and intensity. He ran away when he was fifteen, terrified both of his destructive power and of what the others might do to stop it. He was on his own for only a week before Xavier found him.
Though Xavier's was nothing like the orphanage in Omaha (and certainly nothing like the abandoned barns and empty warehouses Scott had stayed in as a runaway), it became more of a home than a school to Scott, who was one of its earliest pupils, along with Jean Grey, whom he grew very close to over time. It was a foregone conclusion to Scott (and probably everyone else) that he would stay and help the Professor with the school once he'd graduated -- his mutation, which was controlled only by a pair of ruby-quartz glasses the Professor's colleague Hank McCoy fashioned for him, was too volatile for him to feel comfortable anywhere else. At first he just hung around doing odd jobs and tinkering with Xavier's cars, but as the school grew in size and in reputation, these odd jobs started solidifying into a more concrete role (eventually, it even had a concrete salary instead of an as-needs allowance.)
Scott was not the only one of Xavier's pupils to stay on after graduating; he and a handful of other alumni, including Jean, worked together to help the Professor locate and reach out to young mutants in crisis, honing and adapting their mutations to help with this -- as much to demonstrate the use and application of the X-gene as to assist their prospective students. Scott's mutation was more difficult to work around than most, but Hank and the Professor designed a visor that could use ruby-quartz to block, direct, and focus the effects of his power. The newer students called their group the X-Men, nicknaming Scott "Cyclops" for the one-eyed appearance the visor gave him. Under Xavier's guidance the X-Men grew into protectors and humanitarians, both for the local mutant community and for the world at large. At first Xavier actively oversaw these activities, but as their scope expanded, Scott began to take on more responsibility, and eventually was appointed the official team leader.
Between Xavier's School and the X-Men, Scott kept himself busy, focussing on his work more than on anything else (including Jean, which might have posed a more serious problem if they didn't work together.) His faith in Xavier was difficult to shake -- their infrequent disagreements couldn't override the sense of purpose the X-Men gave Scott, nor his dedication to his mentor's vision of cooperation and coexistence. It was more difficult to find faith in himself; as the X-Men and the broader mutant community faced worsening threats and disunity, Scott was faced with impossible choices and compromises, some of them devastating to him and to the team. He clung to the belief that they were still ultimately doing good -- that was what really mattered, right?
Skills
Can figure out how to drive or fly pretty much any vehicle you put him in (though he universally brakes too fast.) Very handy with vehicle maintenance and repairs. Very mechanically inclined – good at welding and machining, good eye for troubleshooting engines and other machines, working knowledge of electrical, pneumatic, and HVAC systems. Close quarters combat, firearms, and field first aid; keeps up to date on certifications and registrations and so on, nags everyone else to do so too. Much better at navigating situations with his eyes closed than the average sighted person. Could probably keep himself alive for a good long time if he were ever stranded in the wilderness. Shoots a mean game of pool.
Powers
Scott can punch you with his eyes. Actually, Scott is a walking, talking portal into an alternate dimension consisting only of preternatural kinetic force, and his eyes are the crack in the dam. He tries not to think about the mechanics; it's easier to just say he can punch you with his eyes.
Applications: It's not clear exactly how much force Scott is capable of funneling through his eyes, or through his visor. He's fond of throwing out hyperbolic guesses, but he's never actually ripped a planet in half or punched a hole in a mountain. (Perhaps he could perforate a small mountain; the planet thing is out of the question.) It's also not entirely clear what comprises his optic blasts; they seem to have properties of both light and force, traveling at the speed of light and capable of ricocheting off dense or polished surfaces while still packing a wallop. Due to this property, Scott has developed an uncanny trigonometric sense, and can pull off elaborate "banked shots" of up to five or six rebounds. He himself is immune to his own optic blasts -- this allows him a handful of low-tech cheats to modulate the force, from squinting to splitting the beam around his fingers, though these methods are imprecise and not very reliable. Absent any modulation, the optic blasts are about the width of his head and powerful enough to push a small car in neutral. His aim is fairly precise, but depends more on the direction of his head than where his eyes are looking; there is no recoil to worry about.
Limitations: Most obviously (and most notoriously), Scott literally can't turn it off – he is heavily dependent on outside accommodations to control the magnitude of his blasts and prevent accidental discharge; absent these aids his only other recourse is closing his eyes, which is disabling and inconvenient in a different way. The ruby quartz used in these safeguards also renders him red-green colorblind, and both the visor and his glasses restrict his peripheral vision. He can only blast his rays in straight lines based on his natural field of vision, and can only blast in one direction at a time -- the direction the visor is pointed, not the direction he's looking. Neither the visor nor the glasses is completely able to completely block the light his eyes emit; though this is more or less unnoticeable with enough ambient light, it makes Scott quite unstealthy in darkness, unless he closes his eyes.
Accommodations: Scott has a number of visors and glasses designed to help him control his mutation (he loses or breaks them at a surprising rate.) The glasses are just, like, red glasses; they can't do anything but contain the blast. The visor is capable of a good deal more -- it can narrow the beam to the diameter of a pencil, or widen it up to a 90 degree angle originating from the center of Scott's skull. The narrower the beam, the easier it is to concentrate a high amount of force, but the visor is capable of reducing the emanating force such that the beam amounts to little more than a laser pointer, as well as increasing it until the beam is analogous to a pressurized water cutter. The visor can be controlled with a dial at each of Scott's temples, or remotely via touch sensors in the gloves of his X-Men uniform; these controls are intuitive for Scott now, but they took him a few months to get the hang of, and he has a strong preference for the dials on the visor itself.
Resources
Through the X-Men, pretty much anything the X-Men have access to; his favorites are the plane and his bike. He also has two backup bikes, a Ford Ranger usually loaded up with maintenance tools and equipment, and a car that he mostly uses for auto shop demonstrations, which can no longer be said to be any particular make or model but is, despite appearances, still operational. Around Xavier's or the X-Men he has a little extra leverage due to his seniority (and, though he wouldn't admit it, no small amount of favoritism.) Multiple suits and visors that are able to contain and manipulate his mutation, and scads of ruby-quartz glasses.
