But seriously, what is this all about? We've had more applications for this than we know what to do with, to the point that during my inital scan of an app (I scan once and *then* read - scanning is for spelling, grammar, and length) if I see the words "Half-Earthbound" or "Half-Atlantean" or even "Missing parent", my mind immediately chucks the application into the rejection pile. And this is damaging to some applications that are otherwise not that bad.

"But Laris!" I hear you complaining loudly. "What about Lamatsu? What about Sailornirah?" Well, let's take a look at these two. Lamatsu was the first person to apply for an Atlantean of mixed origin, many moons ago. Hence, the concept was NOT overdone at that time. Not only that, but she had explained in detail in her application that this was one of the reasons Lamatsu got to where she is today - the ridicule of a young woman with very poor magic skills (this is, to Atlantis, the equivalent of not being able to feed yourself properly or tie your own shoes), her eventual expulsion from school and the shame brought on her family, her search for missionaries on the Earth's surface leading her to Marduk when she had nowhere else to turn. This all fit together, this all made sense and gave her a background that works for a villain type person. But most importantly, NO ONE ELSE HAD DONE THIS YET. Now, on to Nirah. Nirah is descended from a tribe who had been the slave labor during Atlantis' time of ascention. Her people have an intense hatred of all the Enlightened Ones, and Nirah is no exception. In her app, she explained that Nirah's mother had followed the Clan tradition of finding a father for her child in an outside land - she was to bear the next leader of their Clan. The man she found herself having feelings for turned out to be an Atlantis scholar surveying the surface for signs of surviving civilizations. Nirah herself does not know this, nor does anyone except her mother. We allowed this because, in the opinions of the reviewers, this gives Nirah a reason to reassess her opinion of "Sky-Devils" at some time in the future - a sort of tempering factor to calm her hatred of Atlantis. She explained in great detail the whys and hows of her character's unusual heritage, and the character's personality gave no hint that Nirah would ever, EVER, angst or lament this fact. She was only the SECOND person to use this in her character concept.

Now, moving along to reasons why we don't want to see any more characters suffering from MEPS (or, the closely related MAPS - Mysterious Atlantean Parent Syndrome, for Primal Senshi or Acolytes originating from Earth). First, there is the simple matter of numbers. Assuming that the senshi come from a wide variety of backgrounds - just about all walks of life, in fact - WHY would so many of them have one of the RAREST backgrounds that one could possibly have in their world? Half-and-half people are extremely, extremely rare things in the Genesis world, because the physical and mental barriers between the two peoples is so strong. Earthbound people have absolutely no way of activating a magical portal or teleporter by themselves, and any Enlightened One who is permitted to travel to the surface is strictly monitored. Breaking the law by using one of the teleporters in secret can be met with extreme punishments, and depending on who is prosecuting, sneaking to Earth is actually a crime on the same level of severity as treason. The odds of two people getting together under these circumstances do exist - but so rarely that seeing any more half and half senshi running about is going to totally skew the population - suddenly the senshi become a liberation front for cultural acceptance, and that is NOT what they are. I wrote the strict boundaries into the theme so that each set of senshi would have their own world, their own adventures, and their own perspective on the threat of Marduk and his followers. Eventually, the two meet up, and they have to learn to resolve their differences without any easy way out. They have to struggle, otherwise the story lacks some of the drama originally intended for it. Having a whole slew of half-earthbound-half-enlightened senshi is an easy out. And quite frankly, it's too forward-thinking for the time they live in. Try back again several generations *after* the two worlds more or less have to collide to keep from being destroyed by a power-hungry villain, and you might see more mingling. But not in the time the game is set.

Second, there is the matter of overlap. This can be an ugly subject, because everyone's idea of what constitutes overlap is different. In some games, characters with something as slight as a zodiac sign repeated more than once or twice will be looked on with scrutiny. In other games, the GM may not even care if there are six red-headed Aries senshi that all have extremely similar personalities and all wear fukus in shades of blue, as long as they each have a different first name. It depends on the number of characters, the type of game, and the GMs' preferences. Laris will try to explain her tastes when it comes to overlapping here as best she can. Firstly, how often I allow repeating elements depends on how unique they are. For example, I will accept several quiet, introverted characters - this is common - but only *one* who has sealed themselves off from the rest of humanity and lives as a hermit up in the hills to avoid excess human contact - this is rare. The same goes for physical attributes, histories, and everything. The more unique something is, the more I only want to see it once - not only because we get a wider variety that way, but because it keeps people from feeling as though their own original idea was stolen by someone who came along later than they did. Being a half-Earthbound is something that I deemed unique enough to see twice - and only that much because the second application offered enough detailed explanation and treated the subject in a way that we deemed acceptable.

I do hope this clears everything up for applicants. Throughout my rant I've been referring to "senshi" as the subjects discussed, but these statements go for the Acolytes too. The Acolytes are also from all walks of life - admittedly, the less *savory* side of each - but they're a diverse group nonetheless. Lamatsu is the rarity. If there's another acolyte with a similar background, not only will Lamatsu be cheated of some of her uniqueness, but again, the villains are starting to be skewed into a strange sort of special interest group. We don't want it to look like mixing of the two groups always leads to a life of crime, anyways. :P

So in closing, allow me to summarize - your app for a MEPS character will already be racking up points against it, because it has been done before, and it's been done well enough that we'd rather not see it any more. We're satisfied with what we have. This does not mean your character is going to automatically be rejected - maybe you can make us eat our words by showing us a unique and well-thought out character with the mixed background that works so amazingly well that we are forced to bow and scrape in our shame for discouraging your concept.

I'm telling you right now, though, I sure as heck couldn't do it. o_O So be warned. ^_^

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