[OOC] Academy 218: Why

[Heathen]

WHY DOES EVERY CHARACTER HAVE TO BE A GOOD FIGHTER? WHY CAN'T WE HAVE BUTCHERS? BAKERS? CANDLE-STICK MAKERS FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!?

@Maxx

Welcome to the Roleplayer Guild.

[Spoopy Scary]

@Mr Allen J You clearly haven't met kids where I live. I've both been in and helped teach an MMA class, kids much younger than me were actually very good fighters. Once again, by 'street fighting' I don't mean super badass Street Fighter ninjutsu shit, I basically mean self taught fighting. While, I think it is fair she would have a harder time fighting those older than her, it's not at all impossible nor too far fetched given her personality. I never said she'd be able to beat the shit out of someone older and more experienced, just that she'd willingly accept a challenge and actually stand a chance.

@Shikaru

I took karate. Both my brother and I did. We were even good at it, could spar against black belts in our class. Hell, we also grew up in a ghetto. When a gang of 5 or so kids at least 4 years older than us started bugging us, none of the training in the world would have prepared us for the terror and pressure of being chased through downtown and through the parks. Even with karate under our belts, that didn't give my brother the bravery to stand up to older teenagers who pushed him to the ground and repeatedly kicked him in the ribs. That didn't stop me from crying as I ran into the store just outside the playground to grab my mom and tell her everything that happened in a blind panic.

An eleven year old doing the sort of crap you claim is bullshit. You haven't seemed to live in this situation. Don't argue with Allen. Change it.

[Shikaru]

@Spoopy Scary Fair enough. But. This is also a roleplay, she is also part lion to a degree. I'll simply make her a bit older because quite clearly the terms 'roleplay' in an unrealistic yet realistic setting is hard to grasp to..anyone.

[Shikaru]

@Mr Allen J There. Better?

[Spoopy Scary]

A suspension of disbelief applies to the idea of the existence of superpowers, not to the sudden banishment of the laws of physics or the behaviorism of children. If you want to get sucked into a fantastical world, the characters have to be believable.

If you want to stay and join, fine, but what the hell, is it okay to metaphorically enter someone's house and condescend to everyone? "Nobody here can grasp my concept of fantasy", oh my gosh, comedy gold.

[Heathen]

[UrbanEvolution]

WHY DOES EVERY CHARACTER HAVE TO BE A GOOD FIGHTER? WHY CAN'T WE HAVE BUTCHERS? BAKERS? CANDLE-STICK MAKERS FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!?

@Maxx

"I've been thinking. We dont have enough... Bread making vikings!"

[Shikaru]

WHY DOES EVERY CHARACTER HAVE TO BE A GOOD FIGHTER? WHY CAN'T WE HAVE BUTCHERS? BAKERS? CANDLE-STICK MAKERS FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!?

@Maxx

If it makes you feel any better Melissa is a skilled cook? Lol.

[Maxx]

<Snipped quote by Maxx>

If it makes you feel any better Melissa is a skilled cook? Lol.

@Shikaru

OH, SO NOW SHE CAN KICK MY ASS WITH ONE HAND AND MAKE A PERFECT FRITTATA WITH THE OTHER? HOW COMFORTING.

[FernStone]

That would be a pretty terrifying sight to witness

[Shikaru]

<Snipped quote by Shikaru>

OH, SO NOW SHE CAN KICK MY ASS WITH ONE HAND AND MAKE A PERFECT FRITTATA WITH THE OTHER? HOW COMFORTING.

@Maxx

Well, at-least you'll have food to eat while you recover :>

That would be a pretty terrifying sight to witness

@FernStone

It would be hilarious to watch, in all honesty, xD.

[Luminous Beings]

[hider=Arianna Madrigal]

Basic Information

Name:

Arianna Madrigal, the Songbird, the Showstopper. Nicknames are mostly "Ari" or some other derivative.

Age:

17

Gender:

Female

Appearance & Attire:
[indent]Arianna stands at 5’4 and weighs around 115 lbs. She has excellent posture as a result of probable years spent sitting behind a piano, letting her fingers dance across the keys. She has dark auburn hair that falls to her shoulders, normally pinned back in a ponytail or a bun. Arianna’s family was not exactly lacking, and her ramrod straight smile and clear skin are results of the care her parents were
able to afford. She’s transitioned well into adulthood and moves fluidly, with the sort of self-confidence that isn’t off-putting enough to be arrogant. Arianna is Caucasian, and has a slightly tanned complexion hinting at Eastern European origins (so, perhaps literally Caucasian). Her eyes are a light blue. She dresses nicely, and usually fairly modestly. Arianna’s fashionable, but not ridiculously so, and always manages to look pretty well-put-together without coming off as flaunting her wealth or trying to steal the spotlight. She has the lithe build of a dancer or performer, which is fitting given her history in gymnastics and dance. A jogger, Arianna’s in good shape and comes off as moderately athletic. [indent]
Skills/Talents:
[indent] Music or anything to do with performance – she’s a natural onstage, and loves any form of acting, song, or dance. Arianna is a natural people person, a gift only augmented by her power, and is generally considered bubbly and charismatic. She’s a natural diplomat and problem-solver, and prefers to mediate conflicts with words rather than solve them forcefully. She’s well-educated and a quick learner. Arianna has spent a fair amount of time dealing with high society and a handful of corporate higher-ups, and while she’s new to the political game, she picks up quick on social cues and is adept at conversation and persuasion. Additionally, she’s fairly self-disciplined. Years of practicing music have resulted in her being able to hold her breath for a very long period of time, and this is improved on by her relatively solid fitness regime (she’s no Ronda Rousey but she jogs frequently, swims, etc). Additionally, she is extremely dexterous and nimble, with a great sense of timing, and works well with her hands. She could pick up finesse-based skills fairly quickly.[indent]
Brief Backstory:

Her parents initially feared their child was schizophrenic – she kept hearing music. Fortunately for them, their child was a prodigy and not suffering from any conditions other than severe case of being a metahuman. Arianna was literally playing instruments before she could walk, and her musical career only picked up from there. She was enrolled in a private academy to help her improve upon her gifts, but there was little the teachers could coach her on. She was considering signing onto a label when she heard about the Academy, and decided to postpone a professional career until after her education was finished. Given the happy endings these RP’s always have, I’m sure that was a good choice.

Power Information

Power Class:

Other

Power:

Put simply, Arianna is a reality-warper, but it is much, much more nuanced than that. To explain, you’ll need to indulge me in a moment or two of metaphysics.
Firstly, imagine every living thing as creating a “beat”, or a pattern of some sort. Heartbeats, electrons playing tag with each other at the atomic level, so on and so forth. This even applies to non-living things – the rumble of a car engine, the systematic rate of fire of a machine gun. So on and so forth. Think of all these things as a “song”, following vague rules of when to play, when to stop, so on and so forth. Your heartbeat reaches a crescendo when you’re afraid, and its music slowly gets quiet when you go from this world into the next. Shakespeare wasn’t shitting you about the whole world being a stage.
Now, combined, all of reality forms one gigantic symphony, with every single thing playing its own little instrument. Arianna is capable of hearing and comprehending this music. It is a sense to her just as eyesight or touch or hearing is to everyone else. This gives Arianna a wide range of gifts, and is a rather versatile power. I’ll go into more detail of the specifics.
Firstly, and least supernaturally, Arianna is a prodigy at any form of music. Vocals, instruments, etc, she’s a natural at it. It comes as plainly to her as walking does to other people. This has caused no degree of irritation with music professionals, but that’s beside the point. She is an extremely skilled vocalist and has a supernatural degree of control over her voice, coupled with over a decade of rigorous training. She has tremendous range; mimicking voices or extended breath holding would not be out of the question.

Secondly, her voice has an almost siren quality to it. Just as someone can harmonize when singing in a choir, Arianna subconsciously begins to harmonize her voice with the Symphony. She is not able to control minds or do anything so drastic, but her voice naturally sets people at ease and she has a slight psychic boost to persuasion. Arianna would be a skilled diplomat and is able to talk people down from anger rather easily.
Thirdly, Arianna is capable of hearing the Symphony. All reality represents itself as music to her. If nothing significant is going on, it may resemble elevator music, or the score to a movie, something there to set the ambience. However, if things shift – let’s say she’s at a bar and two people pull guns on each other – it will change to reflect. Using that example, the music might become an Ennio Morricone style showdown song, or maybe break into heavy metal if a full-out brawl started. This gives Arianna, to an extent, precognition and clairvoyance. She cannot directly see into the future, but she is able to get vague impressions of the future and the present in her immediate vicinity thanks to her music. Arianna could perhaps detect a trap by hearing the music shift into something more ominous, or realize that something terrifying was going to happen soon if the Psycho soundtrack started playing. She’s also able to vaguely hear “echoes” of the past, which gives her a rough inclination as to what happened previously. As her ability develops, she will be able to develop an almost synesthesia-like skill with deciphering the Symphony, and be able to comprehend it beyond simply listening.
Fourthly, Arianna is capable of altering the Symphony. Through singing or playing, she can nudge the Symphony one way or the other. Think of it like this – a conductor cannot totally change the song that’s playing. He can’t wave that little stick and get the message across to the orchestra they need to stop playing Beethoven and starting playing Michael Jackson. But he can make one section louder, get one section to quiet down, speed up, so on and so forth. So, if someone got shot, Arianna couldn’t sing the bullet out of existence. She could sing and make the person’s heart rate slow down to help buy them some time, however.

Limits:

Directly weaponizing her ability is difficult. While she could have more direct applications – she could easily shriek and shatter glass or something similar, these are not the most easily controlled and not the best ways of handling a straight-up confrontation. If you, as a devout student of the “Leeroy Jenkins” school of martial arts, straight-up rush Arianna, there’s very little she can do. Her ability requires her to set a rhythm, get a song going, etc, etc.
Additionally, the Symphony is like any other sense – it’s filtered by her mind. You don’t constantly feel everything you’re touching, pungent smells appear to fade after a few minutes, etc to avoid sensory overload. If Arianna is focusing on something else, she may not notice what’s happening with the Symphony.
Finally, everything has entropy, so the more changes she makes, the more energy it requires. Singing someone out of existence would require such a stupid amount of energy that she physically couldn’t muster it. Her power is better geared towards making subtle, more focused changes for a greater strategic effect than causing an immediate result.

Weaknesses/Drawbacks:

For all her preternatural ability with her throat, Arianna’s tongue, mouth, and throat are just as vulnerable as any humans. A common cold, straining her voice, etc will render her vocal abilities useless. She can use instruments to the same effect, but she’s not as skilled and the result will be more crude.
Altering the Symphony inherently makes noise, which means that it’s difficult for her to use her powers stealthily.
Arianna’s power is taxing on her voice and listening closely to the Symphony for too long will wear away her focus and fatigue her. Additionally, the Symphony as a power is essentially a sense that perceives realness. If someone shines a very bright light in your eyes, your organs that process light are overwhelmed. Similarly, if “reality” overwhelms Arianna she’ll be less able to perceive the Symphony. For example, if she got shot, or if she was about to kiss someone she loved for the first time, so on and so forth. It takes focus to keep her mind on the Symphony and not what’s in front of her.
Additionally, the more “noise” the harder it is to pick out any one thing. More drastic actions or changes to reality are “louder”. She would have a hard time listening to one person’s song in the middle of a rave.

Relationships

Family:

She has a mother and father and is an only daughter. Her parents are very wealthy. Yeah, I hate family sections.

Dynamics:

Basically your character's relationship with other characters.
{Character Name} | {Impression (Good/Bad/Neutral} | {Relationship (Friend, Rival, Crush, etc)} | {Character Thoughts via in-character quote} |

Other

• Your mom.

[/hider]

[/hider]

[Mixtape Ghost N]

Posted the IC. Take the time to interact and develop your characters. Then we'll get around to getting everyone roomed with each other - then we'll either skip to the next day, or chill in the school lounge a bit.

[Luminous Beings]

l

[FernStone]

Sweet I'll post with my two currently accepted characters sometime tonight (I don't wanna be the first to respond that's scary xD)

[Maxx]

Casey Calahan

Basic Information

Name:

Casey “Honeybadger” Calahan

Age:

19

Gender:

Female

Appearance & Attire:

Casey is a tough-looking girl. A former lacrosse MVP, she has an athletic body and well-developed musculature. She has pale skin, something which she somewhat resents, and freckles which dot her body and are heavier on her cheeks. She has a powerful-looking body, tall (5’10”-ish), with a thick, strong core, strong legs, and medium-sized breasts for her build. She weighs something like 145 lbs. She carries herself with her head high, her chest puffed out, and her legs shoulder-width apart, like she’s always playing a sport. She speaks with hubris and a bit of aggressiveness, like she’s always in a game. She has a small scar on her stomach and another on her right knee. Both are small, one from a car crash and one from a childhood hockey accident.

Casey has a somewhat heart-shaped face, long and narrowing down to her chin. Her eyes are vaguely almond-shaped and are a light blue. Her cheeks are dotted with freckles and her eyebrows are a little thicker than average. She has a wide mouth and somewhat thin pink lips. Her teeth are straight and white, but all of the teeth on the bottom left side of her jaw are artificial. Her hair, as well as her eyebrows, is a dark brown, bordering on black, and is quite long, coming down to the middle of her back when let down. She generally keeps her hair in a single braid going down her back.

As far as attire goes, Casey isn’t winning any fashion contests anytime soon. Her closet primarily comprises of yoga pants, leggings, sports bras, and tank tops, mostly made of athletic material like Under Armor or Nike. She tends not to wear a jacket most of the time, claims she moves so much that she doesn’t need something to keep her warm, but when it gets very cold she dons a North Face jacket. She always wears Nike running shoes, and has several pairs of them. Most of her clothes are whites, pinks, blacks, and bright oranges. She doesn’t wear any jewelry (unless a Fitbit counts). She wears a pair of pink and black fingerless weight lifting gloves when she goes to the gym.

Skills/Talents:

SPORTBALL. Casey is a gifted athlete, strong, fast, and agile. She was on a national all-star team for lacrosse and in the fall was a very good soccer player. She had several offers from D1 lacrosse schools (UMD, Duke, Syracuse), but once it was known that she was a metahuman, she lost all of them. When she was little, she did gymnastics, and though she hasn’t done it in a while, she still possesses a degree of acrobatic prowess (her power helps). Despite Casey’s strength and agility, she has never taken any classes in fighting, so she lacks the training to keep up with better-trained opponents. Despite that, she knows how to throw a punch and doesn’t mind getting her hands dirty. Because of her sports, Casey doesn’t have many other talents that don’t involve throwing or kicking balls. She doesn’t really have much academic talent (a B and C kind of student, average, but not overly impressive. An A is an accomplishment for her). She’s done a little bit of outdoors work, but not enough to be a scout.

Brief Backstory:

Casey was born in a suburb sound of Richmond, Virginia to a wealthy family. Her father was a lawyer and her mother was a university professor. She grew up a natural athlete, the kind of girl who instead of jumping rope or drawing with chalk goes shoot hoops just to stick it to the boys. She was an aggressive child, and got into a few fights with boys in her neighborhood. She acted like a bodyguard for her scrawnier brother most of the time, and the two became close. She went to a stuffy all-girls middle school and an all-girls high school as well. It was here that her powers manifested.

So Casey was a big-time athlete at her high school. Her school had one of the best lacrosse teams in the country, and she was their best player. She was a midi who was famous for scoring long-distance goals and throwing checks that sent her opponents into tears. In addition to playing lacrosse, Casey’s lacrosse team was also famous for partying. She was at a particularly large party one day and through the course of the night got quite drunk. She was with her boyfriend, doing coupley stuff, when he ran out of the room and started talking to another girl on the phone rather loudly. Not drunk enough to find his words unintelligible, Casey beat the shit out of him. As he tried to drive away, though, he ended up running the drunk casey over with his car. He was going low speed, but even then, when a human gets hit by a car they tend to, you know, be injured. Casey got up and walked away with nothing but a forearm bruise.

Word spread and soon she was getting hate messages stuffed into her locker. She was kicked off of the lacrosse team (having a metahuman on the team made them look bad), lost her boyfriend (not that she wanted anything to do with him anymore), and in one case was almost stabbed on her way home from school. So, her family moved to Black Fall, where she completed high school. Then, though, there was the event at which Victor’s powers manifested, and after seeing his destructive potential, NEST advised the Calahan family to send their children to Academy 218 to learn how to use their powers to benefit society. Now Casey is here, ready to find something that she can do with her life now that she’s lost her beloved sports.

Power Information

Power Class:

Super System (Biological)

Power:

Advanced Collagen Casey’s powers stem from a change in the protein structure of her collagen. Collagen, for those who do not know, is the biological “glue” which holds tendons, ligaments, muscles, and skin together. It is the most common protein in the body. Casey’s collagen is about ten times stronger than average human collagen, and it is much more flexible than the collagen of an average human. This gives Casey a variety of superhuman abilities. Firstly, Casey is supernaturally flexible. Because her collagen is so strong-yet-stretchy, Casey can very easily attain extreme levels of flexibility, such as being able to effortlessly bend backwards and grab her ankles. All of her limbs are double-jointed as well, so she can bend in ways that humans don’t look like they should be able to bend.

Casey’s enhanced collagen also makes her skin super durable. While most skin is easily cut by sharp objects and is easily torn by bullets, Casey’s skin is much harder to damage. Her skin resists knives and deflects both arrows and low-caliber bullets (small stuff, like a .22 or a .9mm. The bullets will still hurt, but they won’t break her skin. Anything higher than that would still turn her into swiss cheese). This, combined with her more durable muscles, bones, tendons, and ligaments, makes Casey much more difficult to damage than your average human. To put this into perspective, Casey survived a deadly car crash with nothing but a cut on her abdomen and some bruises. Also, her hair is nigh-unbreakable, for what it’s worth.

Finally, Casey’s enhanced collagen gives her a strength and agility increase. Because her muscles contain her super-powered collagen, they are difficult to tear and can fire at speeds faster than that of an average human. This gives Casey incredible acrobatic skill. She is capable of jumping an entire body length into the air from a standing position and can run at speeds of about 40 mph. Her strength is quite impressive, with her capable of lifting four times her body weight.

Limits:

Owing to the nature of this power, there’s nothing to really put here.

Weaknesses/Drawbacks:

A few things here. Firstly, Casey still feels pain when she gets hit. If you shoot her, though it may or may not break her skin, she will still feel like she got shot and will likely be in a tremendous amount of pain. Also, while an impact on Casey’s skin may not break her skin and cause external bleeding, nothing is causing her to not bleed internally. Casey still bruises when she gets hit hard enough, and if she’s hit in the right spot (like, shot in the kidney), the internal bleeding could kill her in the same way that shooting through her skin would. Things with very low surface area, such as darts, can also penetrate Casey’s skin. Serrated blades, because they grip and tear skin as opposed to just cutting it, work better on her than non-serrated blades.

As far as Casey’s flexibility goes, while she uses her flexibility powers she becomes more prone to being damaged. This is because feats of incredibly flexibility stretch her empowered collagen to their absolute max, so hitting areas of high stress can break much more easily than areas of low stress. While in most places it’s near impossible to break one of Casey’s tendons while she’s resting, when she’s stretched to her max, she can be hurt about as easily as a normal human could.

Relationships

Family:

Dynamics:

Basically your character's relationship with other characters.
{Character Name} | {Impression (Good/Bad/Neutral} | {Relationship (Friend, Rival, Crush, etc)} | {Character Thoughts via in-character quote} |

Victor Calahan | Good | Sibling | “Victor is cool. We’ve always been close and stuff, but sometimes I find him to be too introverted for my taste. Like for God’s sake, stop playing League of Legends and go kick a soccer ball or something! Someone should really get him a girlfriend. Hope she likes it hot...” |

Other

• Anything else? You can put personality tidbits here.

Both characters up. I will post soon.

[Raijinslayer]

@Mr Allen J In regards to the skills, I gave him skills in order to better differentiate them, hence the lack of correlation, but I do agree that some of the more physical skills aren't as realistic for them to have to any reasonable level, do I'll either remove them or lower them down to interests or something like that. As for Michael's personality, I think that I fucked up the explanation as I read over that, cause I kinda rushed those personalities in. What I'm trying to get across is that Michael has a very simple view of the world, where doing things for friends and family is good, and things that threaten or deface those things are bad and should be dealt with accordingly. Due to this flawed view, he has no problem using his ability to mess with someone using their deepest fears, traumas, or psychological issues, which is basically torturing then psychologically. I think the best way to describe him would in essence be a higher functioning psychopath in the sense that he has trouble relating to people on certain things, but will( generally) follow the laws because that's what society would expect of him.

In regards to powers, any suggestions on what to cut, what to weaken, and what to keep the same, as well as weaknesses to add on to that. I could do that myself, but I always find that it's easier to have other people suggest things due to the fact that they're less attached to it and can look at things more objectively.

Are there any other issues with my character that I should know about, or was that all?

[Shikaru]

@Mr Allen J I also edited Serena a bit, if further edits are needed feel free to tell me.

[Maxx]

<Snipped quote by Maxx>

Well, at-least you'll have food to eat while you recover :>

@Shikaru

Well, I do like a nice proscuitto frittata when I'm healing from bruises and broken bones.

Victor is open for interactions. Once allen accepts Casey, I'll post as her too.

[Shikaru]

I'll post relatively soon.