We've been having some issues with reserves and applications. First off, our apologies that it's taken us this long to get on it and clarify things. Second, two points to go over here!
1) Just to clarify: reserves expire at
11:59 pm Eastern Time on the date listed on the reserves page. So if someone has a reserve that is listing as expiring on
April 1st, you cannot apply for the character in question or reserve them yourself until
midnight of April 2nd. If a reserve is made before someone else's has expired, it will be ignored by the mods. Please keep in mind, though, that the mods cannot be responsible for every player who might slip and jump the gun, so if you see someone try to challenge your reserve early, don't panic and hold back your application. Just get it done before your reserve expires and submit it anyway.
2) Sometimes, your reserve will expire, but no one else will claim the character, so you can put in an application anyway. This is fine. However, if you're going to do that,
check the reserves page first to make sure that someone else hasn't actually put in a reserve since yours expired. Remember that the mods can't be everywhere all the time and may take a few hours to update reserves.