Fandom Make Symphogear Good Again(?)

[That Lass Over There]

• Introduction
• Summary
• Rules
• Structure/schedule
• Character Sheet

• 
  Soooooo
  
  I'm just gonna roll with the assumption that most people don't know the magical girl anime "Symphogear", because I sure didn't until Gigguk offhandedly mentioned it as part of a joke in one of his many beautiful videos. The short of it is, a magical girl anime where the powers are given by song-fueled relics. The songs are honest and from the heart, and the use of the power is supposed to put a large strain on the user.
  
  I say supposed, because I'm probably being overly critical about the writing of a kid's show that I saw a lot of potential in. To list the issues I had with it, some points of which I realize are unfair, it would look something like this:
  
  - The songs are supposed to be honest, from the heart, and as such huge opportunities for character moments... But I can count on my hands the number of times songs were changed, rather than the different song every fight that would have been much more interesting.​
  - As per genre standard (or at least I feel like it is) a mechanic called "climax song" was introduced in the very first episode - a song where a character sings through the blood in their throat as they push past their limits. The first time, it resulted in death; the second time, when used incorrectly, in debilitating but not permanent injury. Beyond those two the bone-chilling meaning of one of the girls singing "Gatrandis babel ziggurat edenal" was lost.​
  - The story was really, really weak beyond season 1. Season 2 had an okay story I guess, but it wasn't very good.​
  
  So of course, I'm here to change all of these things, and hopefully provide a fresh experience to those who do know the anime.
  
• 
  (To make things easy on myself, this will be an AU. Don't expect things to be 1:1 with the show, I'll definitely be remixing a lot of plotpoints and mechanics.)
  
  London, 2049
  Vestia Music Academy is a school for aspiring musicians. And like many music schools around the world, it serves as a recruiting ground for those with high Symphogear compatibility, the last bastion against the threat known as "wraiths". Silent, impervious to conventional weaponry, and able to drain life with the slightest touch, these unnatural disasters have quickly cornered humanity. In response, the existence of Symphogears and their users were released to the public to prevent unrest stirred by fear. Singers wielding a portion of the power of old relics was quite the fantastical story, but when given proof in the form of the wielders and their sacrifices people were forced to believe in these prototype warriors. It still isn't enough though, and humanity is slowly but surely losing ground.
  
  Your characters will be Symphogear wielding candidates, newly inaugurated trainees, or newbies with a battle or two under their belt. It's fact that wielders don't tend to live long before they're pushed to make the ultimate sacrifice, but until that time you will be living a double life at Vestia to hide your identity as a wielder as much as possible. Whether you actually hide your identity is up to your discretion, though; non-disclosure is not an enforced policy.
  
  Symphogear wielders are not currently unified under any specific organization in england at the moment, and are given orders and support through the military. Many scientists are focused on studying the Symphogears and the Wraiths, attempting to find a path out of this slow death.
  
• 
  General rules
  
  - I am law.​
  - I am flexible. But still law.​
  - There'll be a Discord server for OOC discussion, and you won't be fully accepted until you join it.​
  - Be nice. Arguments are a natural part of conversation, but they shouldn't be out of control or harmful.​
  
  RP Rules
  
  - There are two options for you if your character is pushed to the point where they sing their climax song: they die, or they are severely wounded. I'll leave the choice up to you, but either way they will be permanently removed from combat barring extraordinary circumstances.​
  - In terms of player characters, death is absolute. If a body is found, the character is confirmed dead. Players are welcome to make a new character if their current one dies.​
  - I understand if you find it difficult to RP the singing or don't want to, but as it is a core part of the strength of this RP I can't just reward you for avoiding doing something interesting. What I've come up with is a middle ground; the idea that relics have an unpowered state that doesn't require singing, but does not provide any of the special abilities of the relic. It only provides a slight boost to physical abilities as well as the ability to touch Wraiths.​
  - On the topic of the songs, songs should be the character's honest, unfiltered feelings- even if the character doesn't know what they feel themselves. Failure to do so results in the Symphogear powering down to its base state and the weapon disappearing, as if the character weren't singing at all.​
  - Generally, since this is normally going to be wielders vs tiny mob wraiths, I'm not going to be too heavy on the power policing. But the moment two player characters are fighting or it's a bigger threat, I will be expecting people to be modest, allow for everyone to have fun, and keep a level playing field.​
  
  CS Rules
  
  - I like to play with 'private character sheets'. This means that only I and the player have the complete, true character sheet, and that the character sheet posted to the public thread may be lacking information or contain inaccurate information. This encourages organic interaction between characters.​
  - That being said, I expect people to update their character sheet as they reveal information about their character. The public sheet should reflect what all or at least most of the characters would know about the character.​
  - The above two rules mean you gotta PM me your CS. Let me know if you haven't reached your 10 posts and need me to message you.​
  
  I'm gonna be immensely proud of someone who looks at these rules not as limitations, but guidelines on what interesting things they might be able to do.
  
• 
  Weekdays are treated as mostly normal classes, where characters can freely interact with each other and either to cover for player absences or to have important character developments solo/small group missions may happen. On weekends a group battle will happen, where all available characters are called to fight the wraiths and further the story. I have most developments for what might be called the first season of this RP planned out already, so there should be few difficulties on that front.
  
• 
  Name:
  Age: (16 - 18)
  Candidate, Trainee, or Wielder?
  Appearance:
  
  Gender:
  Sex:
  Sexuality:
  
  Personality:
  Backstory: (it's alright to say "just boring normal teenager with no family issues or tragic backstory")
  Likes/Dislikes:
  
  Prospective Symphogear - the mythological or historical relic that your character is lined up to use.
  Name:
  Link: (to help me find information on obscure relics)
  Form the weapon takes: (some relics don't cleanly transition to symphogear and there are different versions of relics, so that's why this opportunity to clarify what form your symphogear's weapon will take.)
  Special Traits:
  - Plenty of relics, especially more complete ones or ones with high affinity to the wielder, have certain effects reflective of their legends. I will likely be very strict on this, so play with it carefully.
  Abilities:
  - The 'special moves' of your relic. Things like making your weapon really long, spraying out a barrage of attacks, and that sort of stuff that would take a bit more effort than regular attacks would fit here.
  Climax Song: (an opportunity to think about what will happen when your character sings their final song. What sort of powers they'll gain, how their appearance might change, how long the state will last. It's a character's last hurrah, so I plan on being pretty flexible. And no, this point is not required, I just want you to start thinking about this.)
  - Sample Singing: (another optional part which you can use to practice what your character's songs might look like.)
  

 

[That Lass Over There]

Just to be clear; you don't need to know Symphogear to join! I welcome anyone who is interested.

 

[SP3CT3R]

People other than me have heard of Symphogear? Impossible.

 

[That Lass Over There]

People other than me have heard of Symphogear? Impossible.

 

[SP3CT3R]

People other than me have heard of Symphogear? Impossible.

Okay for real this time

I really didn't pay much attention to the plot of the series because I was just there for the fights, but I'm pretty sure the explanation given was that it's based on sync rates increasing the more the Symphogears get used.

 

[That Lass Over There]

I payed a lot of attention (I had hopes after all) and I did not notice any such explanation. The explanation that did exist was Hibiki's ability to take the burden of others climax songs onto her body, and the fact that she was partially fused with Gungnir. Needless to say, I don't plan on allowing such a thing. As a character-heavy writer, even just the existence of an ultimate sacrifice mechanic gives great potential to characters because of the decision of whether or not that moment is worth it to them, but undermining that mechanic not only undermines that but gets a rid of many other stakes in the story due to the audience's suspension of disbelief being broken.

I don't really intend to go full dark murder spree, it's just not cool to kill characters without permission, but I do want that option of power at a price to always be looming over characters heads, and see how that plus the pressure of humanity currently being in a losing position affects them.

 

[SP3CT3R]

I payed a lot of attention (I had hopes after all) and I did not notice any such explanation. The explanation that did exist was Hibiki's ability to take the burden of others climax songs onto her body, and the fact that she was partially fused with Gungnir. Needless to say, I don't plan on allowing such a thing. As a character-heavy writer, even just the existence of an ultimate sacrifice mechanic gives great potential to characters because of the decision of whether or not that moment is worth it to them, but undermining that mechanic not only undermines that but gets a rid of many other stakes in the story due to the audience's suspension of disbelief being broken.

I don't really intend to go full dark murder spree, it's just not cool to kill characters without permission, but I do want that option of power at a price to always be looming over characters heads, and see how that plus the pressure of humanity currently being in a losing position affects them.

Alright. That's fair. Now to find a prominent mythological weapon for my character to wield.

 

[That Lass Over There]

I'm thinking about giving Napoleon's rifle a name and using it for my character.

 

[SP3CT3R]

I'm thinking about giving Napoleon's rifle a name and using it for my character.

...Is that legal? Can we just throw them together like that?

 

[That Lass Over There]

From my perspective, as long as it is something that meets the requirements of "historical/mythological relic", I'll allow it. It can get quite stale after so much RP seeing the names "Gae Bulg", "Excalibur", and "Durendal" for the thousandth time after all.

 

[waifu]

I'm just on season one of this (my friend begged me to watch this and I ended up loving it after just one episode). I'm still very early on though and don't know a lot of things, but it's great so far.

I'm interested!

 

[That Lass Over There]

I'm just on season one of this (my friend begged me to watch this and I ended up loving it after just one episode). I'm still very early on though and don't know a lot of things, but it's great so far.

I'm interested!

Welcome aboard! I’ve put the CS in the last tab, please let me know if you need any help filling it out. No worries about not knowing much, I’m gonna be changing quite a few things

 

[That Lass Over There]

Bump!

 

[That Lass Over There]

Bump~ I'd like at least one more to start.

 

[GrieveWriter]

Eh, never saw this thing but It seems interesting enough to give it a shot

A sucker for musical stuff so I'm down.

 

[That Lass Over There]

SP3CT3R waifu GrieveWriter Looks like we've got enough people! Go ahead and fill out the character sheet in the top post (it's in the last tab) and pm it to me. In the mean time I'll start organizing the discord server and the in character thread.

 

[That Lass Over There]

And please, if you have any questions feel free to ask.

 

[Gundam Watcher 27]

Room for one more?

 

[That Lass Over There]

Unfortunately, this never picked up off the ground since only one person sent me their character sheet. I appreciate the interest though! I’m considering turning this into a 1x1 in a week or two, so if you’re really interested then you could PM me or keep your eye out for that.

 

[Gundam Watcher 27]

Unfortunately, this never picked up off the ground since only one person sent me their character sheet. I appreciate the interest though! I’m considering turning this into a 1x1 in a week or two, so if you’re really interested then you could PM me or keep your eye out for that.

I'd like that.

 

[GrieveWriter]

I'm still here. Sitting on that charrie and everything

 

[That Lass Over There]

Sorry for the late message, but would you like an invitation to the 1x1? GrieveWriter