That Lass Over There
Constant Panic
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.)
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