in all honesty? if someone's gonna have a problem with a solo admin approving their own apps, they're just not gonna be a good fit for a smaller site in the first place.

i've ran a few small projects before where i was the only one running them, and i've always just approved my own apps (with the placeholder admin account if i could but on my own if that wasn't an option). it's not ideal, of course, but i think it's a better look than not having an approved character (especially for brand new sites since imo who are the incoming members supposed to thread with if there's no approved characters for them to thread with?) or to just sort the characters without doing the app process at all (since imo even if you go back and do the apps later, it just smacks of a "rules for thee but not for me" approach to admining that's a huge red flag).

if you're still worried about it, you can always have one or two core members who are super familiar with the site lore + app standards take a look at your app and okay it before approving (or afterwards, if you don't have anyone at the time, and you just have to take the l and make the edits then). but i really honestly wouldn't sweat it that much. whatever bad juju you might get from approving your own apps is gonna be more than offset by actually being able to interact with the community with your character + get some activity going.