Wonder. Dreams. Hope. Things that were easier to hold on to when you were younger, when endless possibilities stretched ahead. As you grew older, though, your ideals slowly faded. You learned that not everyone achieves their ambitions, that love and friendship rarely last, and that no matter how ragged you run yourself, you'll be lucky if anyone notices, let alone appreciates you for it. Some days, all this becomes particularly draining. You brush off your lethargy and low moods as sleep deprivation, but unknown to you, there's another reason.

Magic does indeed exist, although not all of it is the sparkly benevolent kind. The Shroud, an entity that has existed for as long as darkness has in the human heart. From within pocket dimensions known as Cocoons, it spawns wraiths from human despair, hate, malice. It would have consumed the world long ago if not for an opposing being representing hope, joy and justice, the goddess Caelia and her army of priestesses, otherwise known as magical girls. At the end of a lengthy war, Caelia perished, but in her last moments was able to seal away the Shroud.

At least, mostly. To this day, like a dormant volcano, it has surges of activity, awakening in parts of the world and giving rise to unexplained disappearances as it draws people into its Cocoons. There, the captives remain in stasis as their repressed negativity forms wraiths, which grow stronger by draining away the life force and emotional wellbeing of people in the physical world. On rare occasions, they may grow strong enough to break free from their dimensions and wreak havoc; this is where many legends of yokai and monsters come from. Only when the wraith is destroyed will the cocoon dissolve and the captive awaken. There's no telling when these activity bursts will happen - centuries may pass between them, or they may be mere years apart. Right now, stirrings of it are happening in Tokyo.

But as the darkness grows, the light rises to it. Remnants of Caelia's essence take the form of fairies, small feminine beings who recruit and empower new magical girls. One such fairy, Lux, has recently spawned from the light reacting to the newest imminent threat. Instinctively, she has a sense of what to do, but there's one thing she overlooks. New recruits are typically in their teen years, with their ideals mostly intact, without the weight of adult responsibilities, quick to learn and adapt. Around the same age Caelia's priestesses used to begin their training.

This, however, is lost on Lux as her intuition brings her to Ayame High, where she senses Shroud energy and witnesses a student disappearing into a Cocoon. In a hurry, the fairy appears before a gathering of seemingly ideal candidates. Most of the teachers in the school, as per Japanese social norms, are female, and it's currently a group of women sitting in the staff room, of which you're a part. Naturally, you're all startled out of your minds. With a student in peril, though, there's only time for the briefest of explanations before Lux makes the offer that will change your lives.

So, on top of your extremely demanding workload and dealing with sassy teenagers day in day out, how will you cope with being a magical girl - or rather, magical schoolteacher? Will it prove too much, or will you manage to work together and rediscover that sense of wonderment you thought you'd long since left behind?

---

• Languages (Japanese and foreign languages) [Claimed by geminironin]
• Mathematics [Claimed by Vertigo]
• IT [Claimed by Silver Carrot]
• Science [Claimed by shagranoz]
• History [Claimed by LuckyBlackCat]
• Gym [Claimed by TheNoCoKid]
• Home Economics [Claimed by BrokenPromise]
• Art [Claimed by Crimson Flame]
• Music [Claimed by Ponn]
• Psychology [Claimed by Emeth]
• Metalwork [Claimed by Bright_Ops]

(Since your characters will specialise in a subject despite teaching a wide range of them, for an added fun touch, try to have their powers connect to the subject in a way. For example, a math teacher could get geometric barriers, or a languages teacher could get something based on a famous piece of literature.)

---

1) Please try to post at least once every two weeks - I've had too many RPs die from inactivity. If you hit a busy patch or other delay, please let us all know.
2) I'm not looking for super long posts, but make sure you give us at least two paragraphs to work with.
3) If you need to drop out, please say. I know it's not easy, but we'd rather you said something than just disappeared on us.
4) Be respectful of each other OOC, conflicts can happen IC, but try to resolve any that arise outside of the RP in a civil manner.
5) One character each, and posting WIPs is fine as long as you tell us when they're finished. If you need help with your character concept, ask away!
6) Have fun!

---

Just saw this in interest checks and noticed you’ve already got the OOC up. There room for one more or are you full? Seems like it could be fun. 👀 I actually have an idea for the gym teach if it’s not taken!

The Mundane

Name: Nakamura Emiko

Age: 32

Regular Appearance:

Emiko has long dark hair that falls into loose waves past her shoulders. She has warm brown eyes that radiate friendliness. She is about average height for a Japanese woman, and has a slim figure.

Emiko’s clothing style is a reflection of her artistic and creative personality. She often opts for outfits that are colorful, expressive, and comfortable. She enjoys mixing and matching different patterns, textures, and colors to create unique ensembles that stand out. You might find her wearing flowing skirts, floral dresses, or pants with intricate designs. Emiko’s wardrobe includes a variety of artistic and handmade accessories, such as statement earrings, beaded bracelets, and unique necklaces. She loves to support local artists and artisans, often wearing pieces she’s collected from art fairs or small craft markets.

Subject: Art

Personality: Emiko’s passion for art is a big part of her her life. Even during her free time, she can often be found drawing, painting, or doing some other type of craft project. She approaches everything with a creative mindset and encourages her students to explore their own artistic talents, and to think outside the box.

Emiko is a dreamer at heart. She dreams of finding love and personal fulfillment in her artistic career. Her dreams are what give her motivation. Emiko has dreams of finding true love. She had a rough childhood, and dreams of having the family she never had. She enjoys romance of all kinds, and often gets invested her students and other teachers love lives. She’s an eternal optimist and can see the good in everything. Although she often lacks common sense, and that can make her come off as ditzy at times.

Emiko is known for her genuine kindness and empathetic nature. She cares deeply about the well-being of others and goes out of her way to support and uplift those around her. She understands the value of providing her students with emotional support along with artistic guidance.

While she outwardly projects confidence, on the inside, she’s actually rather insecure. Even though she wants love for herself, she’s apprehensive about putting herself out there. She fears rejection and can be hesitant to take risks in her personal life. So, she’ll often live vicariously through romance novels, movies, or the people around her. Despite being an art teacher and encouraging her students to embrace their creativity, Emiko’s insecurity can hold her back from taking creative risks herself. She’s hesitant to share her own artwork, or actually try to become an artist outside of teaching for fear of not being good enough.

Bio: Emiko’s childhood wasn’t exactly pleasant. Her father walked out on the family as soon as she was born because he wanted a son. This left Emiko’s mother as her sole caretaker. She worked a very stressful demanding job, and turned to alcohol to ease some of the stress. Of course, the alcohol would often make her drunk and angry, and she would take out her frustrations on Emiko.

Emiko didn’t have a stable or supportive home life, as such, she found solace in her artistic pursuits. From a young age, she would lose herself in creating vibrant and imaginative artworks that allowed her to escape from the troubles of her reality. She wanted to be an artist, but her mother always told her she was wasting her time, and that she should get a real job to support the family.

As soon as she could, she left home for college to study art. Her professors recognized her talent and dedication. She assisted professors and mentors in art-related workshops and classes. This experience opened her eyes to the impact that a passionate and dedicated art teacher could have on students’ lives. It was the most support she ever had. Upon graduating from college with a degree in art, Emiko embarked on a path to become a certified art teacher.

She is happy in her position, although she still wishes for more. She wants to be more successful in the art world, but also a husband, and the supportive and loving family she never had. But even with her accomplishments, her mother’s words still echo in her mind about how she’ll never be good enough.

Other: Has cut contact with her mother.

The Magical

Transformed Appearance:

Weapon: A giant paintbrush

Emiko can summon magical paint. She can manipulate that paint for a variety of effects.

Paint Power: Can paint colorful blasts of energy into existence.

Manifestation: Whatever Emiko paints with her giant paintbrush and magical paint can come to life. She can paint small inanimate objects that become functional for five minutes before melting back into regular paint. If she paints something sentient into existence, it will only last for three minutes.

Visual Illusions: Emiko can use the enchanted paint to create intricate illusions, manipulating light and color to deceive the senses. These illusions can serve as distractions, disguises, or even means of communication.

Reality Distortion: Emiko can temporarily alter aspects of reality within a localized area by painting symbols or patterns. This could include creating doors where none exist or changing the properties of surfaces.

Healing Art: Emiko’s magical paint can have healing properties when applied to injuries or ailments.

Barrier Creation: By painting protective symbols or patterns, Emiko can create barriers that shield her or others from harm.

Other: Emiko’s magical form isn’t bound by the insecurities that her human form has.

So, I've been thinking about characters for this RP and I've found two taking shape:

The first is a very traditional Japanese teacher who weaves magic into her poetry; something of a support role, but still willing to remind others how the pen matches up against the sword.
”A Cocoon is here;
the wraith lurks, fearing justice.
Sisters, be prepared."

The second is a more comic character, an English teacher on exchange from the US. While she tries her best to fit in, her transformed persona reflects a very... stereotypical particular idea of American culture.
”But why is my weapon a lasso? I've never even seen cattle, I'm from Massachusetts!”

I'd welcome ideas or input as to which will better fit the RP.

Gonna work on a sheet later this week! Unsure what aspect to go for yet though; might do something with probabilities and random chance (she could be a gacha addict for additional flavour), or maybe a buffer/debuffer with an addition/subtraction theme. Also damn, now I gotta look up math terms in English...

So, I've been thinking about characters for this RP and I've found two taking shape:

The first is a very traditional Japanese teacher who weaves magic into her poetry; something of a support role, but still willing to remind others how the pen matches up against the sword.
”A Cocoon is here;
the wraith lurks, fearing justice.
Sisters, be prepared."

The second is a more comic character, an English teacher on exchange from the US. While she tries her best to fit in, her transformed persona reflects a very... stereotypical particular idea of American culture.
”But why is my weapon a lasso? I've never even seen cattle, I'm from Massachusetts!”

I'd welcome ideas or input as to which will better fit the RP.

Damn, both ideas sound awesome! I like the latter for a comical spin/having fun with all the stereotypes Japanese have of Americans, but a haikubot teacher would be amazing too. Also glad to see separate ideas for a Japanese teacher or an English one, because I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be one person teaching both/all languages, those are very different careers.

This is going to sound strange, but I’m interested in the idea of the gym or metal work teacher being male and there being… well, a misunderstanding from Lux that resulted in them getting caught up in things.

I just find the idea of someone in the group who has been awakened to the magical side of things but isn’t magical themselves… but is still willing to pick up something heavy and slam it into the face of a wrath because A) the kids need protecting/ saving and B) being able to punch a mental health problem in the face is surprising healthy.

@TheNoCoKid Hey there! Yep I'll accept one more.

@Crimson Flame I like Emiko, as a bubbly optimist she'll be a nice foil to my grump! And she has a good amount of depth with the secret insecurity.

I have to say though, the magic is a bit much. Versatility makes sense for her, but she can do a lot of different things, so her abilities need more limits. For example the multi-elemental paint, there are already people who want to claim elemental powers, so she'll be able to do everything they can and more. I'd change it to either generic energy blasts, or make it so she has to take time painting a flame, a wave etc before she can summon an element.

About the manifesting artifacts/artistic animation, how long do her creations last naturally, and how easily do they break? Is she limited to creations of a certain size? Also I'd recommend merging those abilities into one because they're highly similar.

Hope that helps!

@geminironin Either one sounds great! The first would have a great deal of potential for creativity, and the second would be hilarious. Tbh I feel the second would fit the wacky feel of this RP best.

@Bright_Ops Ehh sorry I missed your post! I was typing as you posted. Sounds like a fun idea, but NoCo claimed gym. Thanks for showing interest though, and I'll let you know if a spot opens up.

@LuckyBlackCat

Understood. But does Japan not have woodworking/metal working kind of classes? Sort of an introduction to those things if someone wants to go into a craftsmen trade.

@LuckyBlackCat

Understood. But does Japan not have woodworking/metal working kind of classes? Sort of an introduction to those things if someone wants to go into a craftsmen trade.

Yep, as a vocational course, so that'll be fine if a spot opens up later. There's always the possibility of a non-magical person getting dragged in at some point.

What the hey, I'll open up just one more spot. This already has a bigger cast than I anticipated, but your concept is too good to pass up.

@LuckyBlackCat
Thanks! I’ll get a sheet underway. We shall fight evil with truth, justice, this sword I made and hope!

@LuckyBlackCat Ok, I think I fixed it.

@LuckyBlackCat Ok, I think I fixed it.

Much better, accepted!

Name: Nōno Izumi

Age: 33

Regular Appearance:


Subject: I.T.

Personality: Izumi does not have an excitable demeanour, instead being very casual and understated. She has an understated warmth to her when she talks. She rarely grins or laughs but always makes you feel welcome. She has a dry, cheeky wit that can match that of any troublesome student. Her in-depth knowledge of anime, video games and geek pop culture may also take many of her students by surprise, as her demeanor and style of dress are very demure, modest and unassuming. New students might even think she's going to be a boring and dry teacher the first time they take her class. But her spirit, passion and sincerity wins them all over in the end.

Bio: Izumi was a very bright student who had always been good with computers, owing to her nerdy passions necessating frequent and heavy usage. One of her particularly skilled hobbies was C++. So much so that in college she studied Network Administration for the sole reason that she didn't want to lose the joy of coding by having it be her gruelling day job.

At the age of 23, she graduated from college and went straight into an office job, being the floor I.T. Admin for the sales team of a big company. While not exactly a black company, Japanese workplace culture was rampant in that office. The more people stayed overtime to meet their deadlines, the more overyime she'd have to do becaue if the network went down, people couldn't do their jobs and she wasn't there, there would be hell to pay. And the more overtime became the norm, the more employees would stay, the more work for her.

It was when she was 29 that one of her friends from college wanted to catch up, and they compared lives, that Izumi woke up to what has happening. She wasn't having fun. She'd lost contact with her friends. She only saw her parents on holidays. She had never been on a single date since college. She barely had time for her hobbies anymore including coding, and most of her free time was spent idly scrolling her phone or watching television. 'recharging' was the term she used to justify a life where she was doing nothing constructive. Even at work, she never got thanked. The same problems came up over and over again with no end and people couldn't do their work, the blame was passed to her.

After this revelation, she quit her job and became an I.T. teacher. She has been working as a teacher for four years now and though it's certainly not easier, she finds it far more fulfilling. Just being able to ee the difference you're making, and being appreciated for it has hugely increased the quality of her life. Teaching basic code doesn't even feel like work to her and she relishes the opportunity to talk about it. She may still be called on if there is an I.T. problem in the school itself but she will always be thanked when she resolves the issue.

Other: Her fashion sense outside of school can range from casual t-shirt and jeans, to a more cosmopolitan brown coat, sweater, skirt, boots dark hose combination. Inside school, however, she almost seems to be dressing old on purpose, conforming to the idea of what 'teacher clothes' were when she was a teenager.


Transformed Appearance:


Weapon/Equipment/Magic: Izumi's equipment consists of four floating robots, a small tablet, and a visor and earpiece, all powered by her magic. The six robots take both her verbal and typed commands, and can both fire energy blasts as well as create personal forefields. Izumi can adjust their power output to either make their functions stronger, or to let them be used for longer periods of time albeit weaker. They can also work together to combine their beams into stronger ones, or chain their forcefields into a wider network of shields, protecting her or any human-sized target. Her earpiece can let her give commands to her robots as well as make or receive phonecalls. Her visor brings up a HUD display in her field of vision, and can scan or track targets.

The real bread and butter of her arsenal, however, is her tablet which is a magical supercomputer that lets her override the security of any other computer she can connect to the network of, as well as automatically creates a database of any enemy she scans, with any info she has managed to gather. It also lets her issue more complicated, written commands and subroutines to her robots.

Other: Izumi may be able to increase the number or size of the robots, as well as their max power output, as she becomes more accustomed to her transformations and grows in magical power. She will also need to figure most of these abilities out herself.

@Silver Carrot Nice! So very Sailor Mercury. Accepted, feel free to move her over to the characters tab!

@geminironin The second idea reminds me of Naddy from 100 girlfriends. I think she's literally an English teacher too

@Emeth Looks good! Two things though, the pictures aren't showing, and the weapon is meant to be a conventional weapon (or item that can be used as one) alongside the powerset, rather than the powerset itself.

Edit: Huh, the pictures didn't show on my phone for some reason, but they're showing on my laptop.

@Emeth Looks good! Two things though, the pictures aren't showing, and the weapon is meant to be a conventional weapon (or item that can be used as one) alongside the powerset, rather than the powerset itself.

Edit: Huh, the pictures didn't show on my phone for some reason, but they're showing on my laptop.

I saw your character had 3 spells, so I just gave her a 4th one that could be used as a physical attack instead.

But others have more than 4, soooo...

I'm not sure what kind of physical weapon would suit her! I have a funny mental image of her forcing her enemy to sit on a therapist's couch in some kind of Bayonetta-style move that causes massive emotional damage, which would be funny if this was a fighting game, but. Currently no serious ideas for a physical weapon as of now. So I've edited in something of a tool that fits her transformation's classy lady vibe.

Let me know if you like it, and I'll move her to the character tab.

@Emeth If she’s a counselor, what if the pen she used for making “notes” on students transformed into a weapon? Like her wand/staff, but it still looks like a giant pen?

Tell me what you think.

Edit: For the record, the image is AI generated. I couldn't find an existing picture for my purposes.