Invader Len

St. Fortuna's Academy for the Higher Arts

Minor announcement!

New countries have been added to the opening OOC page! Check them out when you can! If you have any questions about the countries, feel free to @ me, PM me, or ask in the discord!

St. Fortuna's Academy for the Higher Arts

@TheHangedMan

AAAA Review

Congratulations! Your character is accepted! Alice's ability is Echolocation! Using chirps, clicks, and taps, your character can map out their locations and detect opponents using sound, rendering the darkness useless! You have nothing to fear in pitch-black conditions, and even the invisible and cloaked can't hide from you! Currently, you can detect people in a range up to 20 ft. However, with more practice, you can expand your range and detect objects in more detail, creating a perfect mental replica of your surroundings! Totally radical!

@liferusher

Mui Rei review

Okay, let’s goes through these one by one, as we read off.

I’m rather bitter about one line in particular in the personality. “Just like any other girl, deep down she likes cute stuff and is always extremely excited when they were dressing up neatly.”

…
Do you understand you’ve just taken an entire 50% of the population and reduced them to dolls and dress up? What was going through your head when you wrote this? Apart from how offensive this is, this kind of generalizing is shallow and is a terrible reason for why your character loves dress-up or cute stuff. Scratch the any other girl part, it’s needless and honestly rather stupid.

Now onto the problems in her history!
First up: Dubai

Dubai.

Dubai???


This Dubai???

Let’s play a game. Look at a globe, and point out on it where Prydain is.

…

Can you find it? Cause I can’t.

This is a made up fantasy world with made up fantasy countries and a made up fantasy history. Why is Dubai here? It doesn’t belong in this universe, it doesn’t exist. Remove this part, it clashes with the world.

Now for the father's job. He is "owners of a small company in plants".
Plants???

These plants? Is he a florist? A botanist? An agricultural scientist? A fertilizer manufacturer? An agricultural landowner? Does he specialize in rare and exotic plants? Does he run Prydain’s Home Depot garden department? Be more specific, because right now, “a small company of plants” makes it sound like the plants are, well, working for him.

Next up, the timeline for her neglect. She cooks for herself. While staying at her aunt or grandma’s house. Are they comatose? How old is she?? Is she just getting up like little Matilda and making herself pancakes?

Don’t do this. If she’s staying with a competent adult, then that adult should be caring for her needs. She’s cooking and eating by herself and staying up late for her parents to come home. WHERE DID THE AUNT/GRANDMA GO? This isn’t consistent with previously stated facts and is really a poor way of making her “neglected”. Her parents are rich enough to hire a babysitter or nanny. Give her one or use the relatives, but either way, scrap the Baby’s First Cooking bit and give her a curfew.

Also, do you understand what neglect is? Because this neglect seems fairly short lived in your character’s life, or well compensated with outpourings of love and affection. Here are some examples of neglect!
-Not feeding or clothing your children
-Not supervising your children
-Not taking care of your children’s education

So far, there are only two characters in the backstory that fit the bill. The Aunt/Grandmother hybrid that disappears after being mentioned once. Like some kind of Russian boogeyman. You need to fix this, or remove the neglect altogether, because it’s just so incoherent.

And then, this bit.
“Luckily they got a good lead from one of employees. His son used to go to this fantastic, high caliber school overseas.”
Overseas. Do you mean to tell me your character is not even in Prydain?

Nope, nuh-uh, nada. You have to be from Prydain. If you had asked beforehand, we would have allowed this, but this is world building. You’re not allowed to world build. World building is our job. Remove this part and make her from Prydain.

Then onto her likes. Jpop. As earlier addressed, this is a made up world. There is no Japan. Jpop does not exist. Remove this.

Now onto her quiz! I have high hopes for this!

“1. What is your character's greatest regret?
"Probably the time I beat a classmate in middle school, I punched the poor guy a blood nose after I thought he trashed my lunch onto the ground which was an accident off course, ugh I still feel bad."

I’m sorry, but I don’t see “Prone to outbursts of violence over misunderstandings” in your character’s personality. A guy accidentally knocks her lunch tray over, and she punches him? That doesn’t fit with anything in the personality. Fix this and make it more explicit in her personality that she is violent, or take this out entirely. And remember that a criminal record immediately gets you rejected from St. Fortuna’s.

And then question 6. Another case of the Twilight Pets.

The bunny doesn’t appear anywhere else in the character sheet. It just comes and goes as it pleases. Pets, important heirlooms, and missing family members should never be mentioned as passing in quizzes. Mention the bunny in the history or misc, but don’t just stick it here and say nothing about it. If it’s important enough to save, state why.

In sum, this character still needs work. You put too many places that don’t exist in canon in the backstory, you need to specify on what her father actually does for a living instead of saying “plants”, fix the poorly attempted neglect plot line in her backstory, and rectify the issues with the magically appearing bunny and the sudden show of violence in her personality.

Also, make her taller. I’m tired of tiny petite high school girls. It’s a trope that has gotten exhausting really quick. I don’t care how kawaii she is, put her over 5’2”. -GM Len

Hi, I'm going to go into some more of the problems with her personality.

"She is quick to snap at others and becomes irritated the moment something doesn’t fit her boat which isn’t really helping her to make any more new friends."
So this says to me that Mui is irritable, spoiled, and is generally angry a lot at other people and most likely bossy.

"Some people see past that and only see a shy lonely girl that is just not confident on how to talk normally with others."
Now, this completely contradicts all of that. Shy people don't snap at people, and if someone bothers them they'll usually back out of the situation. And if people see her snapping at others all the time and being irritable, people probably don't think she's lonely because she can't express herself, they probably think she's alone because she can't express herself in anything but a negative way around people. It's not really something they would feel sorry for her for as this line suggests.

"Due to her reluctant and shy nature, she had difficulty making any new friends."
If people's first impressions of her are "Oh, that's the spoiled girl that will fly off the handle on you" then it wouldn't be being shy or reluctant that's the problem.
"She didn’t blame others for not approaching her, though, as a snappy rich girl, she didn't feel like she was all that easily to approach"
Is she shy and reluctant or is she a snappy spoiled rich girl? She can't be both because both those personality types clash with one another.
"Friends that did get close to her found her to be quite cheerful and less gloomy than she had first let on."
Once again, people's first impressions of her seemed to be that Mui is an angry spoiled girl. She doesn't like she looked gloomy at all just mad.
"Just like any other girl, deep down she likes cute stuff and is always extremely excited when they were dressing up neatly. A smile can always be found on her face when she is at home doing her own stuff like reading or playing games. Or when she is enjoying something like shopping. It can make her a tad embarrassed though knowing that people she didn’t know saw her as antisocial."
And this part just clashes with the rest of her. Like this feels too happy go lucky if she's short tempered and spoiled. If she's shy and reluctant then the part where she's at home would fit but it seems a little outgoing if she's out someplace. Also from how you describe your character, either way, she comes off as kind of anti-social because she either ends up pushing people away or is too shy to interact.

"Mui got quite responsible in handling daily tasks this way but became quite reluctant being at home alone all the time. She didn’t really know how to make any friends and would often put great strain on herself for messing up even the slightest bit of a conversation."
Also, there's no real sign of any of this in her bio. She sounds like a mature little girl who just wants to be a good daughter to her parents who never has a short temper or acts spoiled. Like, did she not go to school to become reluctant by staying at home? Because she would still be interacting with people at school. Also, that bit about her putting strain on herself for messing up a conversation sounds more like Social Anxiety then being shy. Also being left alone doesn't really make you socially reluctant or shy, maybe if she was forced into being away from being around others at school via some bullies or something but not just by being along when she got home from school. Did she not make any friends or anything growing up or interact at all?

Well, I think that's just about it-
"Probably the time I beat a classmate in middle school, I punched the poor guy a blood nose after I thought he trashed my lunch onto the ground which was an accident of course, ugh I still feel bad."
What?

"Give them both a beating. Kidding, I'll try to get them away from each other for a little bit to talk"
WHAT???
That's not how a shy and reluctant person would act at all! It fits with her short-tempered personality but if she's supposed to be this sweet kind shy girl then she would go around hitting people she thinks wronged her on purpose or joke about beating people up!

Okay, what I suggest is that you try to pick a more consistent personality. Do you want shy and reluctant or do you want a short tempered pampered princess? Or maybe pick something else if you're so inclined, it's all up to you. -GM Neno

:) -GM Error

Edit: I forgot to put this is, But Alice will be partnered with Mikayla! And Mikayla's magic is electricity! With electricity, you can send out powerful shocks, but requires a small copper ball to focus their spells. Without a familiar, your powers and wattage are rather low. But with a familiars help, you can increase your powers and unleash devastating shock! Wow!

St. Fortuna's Academy for the Higher Arts

@Invader Len well thanks for calmly explaining what was wrong...

@liferusher

I would watch that attitude, I am the GM of the RP you’re applying to. If you can’t respect me, my rules, or my critiques, then you quite simply aren’t mature enough for this RP. My critiques are not personal attacks, they are corrections of character. And frankly, this character needs to be thrown out and completely rewritten.

I don’t appreciate disrespect, and it sends me a big red flag. Because if you can’t respect me, then you won’t respect my story, my rules, or my players. If you can’t handle your tragic past Mary Sue being thrown into the trash compacter, then perhaps low casual is a more appropriate fit.

I’ll have you kicked from the Discord until you submit a new CS and have it accepted, and I’d advise you to watch your salt. And read our rules, while you’re at it.

St. Fortuna's Academy for the Higher Arts

@liferusher

Mui Hira review

First off, let me start with a question.

What. The. Fuck.

Did you even read our rules? We have it very clear in our rules that abuse, imprisonment, and torture are NOT ALLOWED. Your character has child abuse, emotional abuse, beatings, neglect, domestic abuse, and assault! How could you think ANY of this would be allowed under our rules?! In addition to this, the reason for the abuse is COMPLETELY IMPLAUSIBLE. They hate her because she’s a familiar. Did you forget to read the story too? Mages and Familiars are seen as EQUALS. There is no “lowly familiar”. So not only is your character’s backstory grossly inappropriate and rule breaking, it is just. plain. stupid.

Oh, and lets not forget that after being viciously assaulted by her father, there is ZERO trauma to show for it in her backstory or personality! In fact, let’s cut to her personality right now. She hates when people point out her height? She’s exactly 3 inches below average for a 16 year old girl, and given that she’s apparently asian-coded, is of a perfectly reasonable height for her age! That hatred makes no sense! It also seems like you’re trying to make a tsundere character, but there’s hardly enough personality here for any character! Four sentences, two of which are redundant, and also have no reference to any trauma or abuse she has suffered.

What’s up next? Oh yeah, how about the fact that your character committed criminal assault? This has been said many times before, but if you have a criminal record, you do not get to go to St. Fortuna’s. There is no way Mui would ever be accepted at the academy for violently snapping and committing a criminal act, even if it was followed with abuse. She would be immediately rejected, especially since this case is apparently of a high enough profile to warrant a LAWSUIT. And apparently the emotional abuse and neglect have been going on her ENTIRE LIFE, but no one cares enough to stop it? Not even the savior uncle? Just wow.

After this traumatic event and lawsuit, your character miraculously has 0 emotional trauma, and just goes on with her life like nothing fucking happened. Then she takes the money she got from suing her parents (FYI, that is NOT how criminal court cases work) to attend the most prestigious school in the country. Just cause. Just to “train her ability a bit better”. No career plans, no ambitions, and just whipping out $30,000 a year to go to an incredibly intensive boarding school, just like that. I’ve seen Disney Channel movies with more coherency than this. Her sister never gets mentioned again, her parents magically disappear after getting only a year in jail (which is NOT how jail time works, beating your own children is NOT a misdemeanor), and her uncle disappears after helping her with a lawsuit. The family members are all just plot devices. The parents are there to provide suitable angst, the sister is there to make the character feel worse, despite no record of them interacting much at all, and the uncle is there to play superman and save the day. It’s like a soap opera with cardboard cutouts. A cliche sad story with no emotional depth except how awful things are for your character.

Also, you’re missing a very important part of your CS. Where is your quiz?! You MUST attach a quiz to your CS, otherwise this means nothing to us.

Finally, you don’t have a password. So you didn’t read our rules at all. That explains everything.

I’m not even going to dignify this CS with a solution. It goes against so many of our rules, personality is too short and redundant, and you don’t even have a quiz. Scrap it and start over again. We’ll give you another chance, but I want a complete CS this time, and I want you to read our rules. If you can’t be bothered to do that, then this simply isn’t the RP for you.

St. Fortuna's Academy for the Higher Arts

THE RESULTS ARE IN!

Our Monster Design contest is over, and it's time to declare the winners! The winning five monsters get to be made canon and added to the bestiary, and the top two monster makers get to make an additional character! _{Note: These characters are still subjected to reviews, and must be accepted and partnered before stuck in the IC.}

We got a lot of good monsters, and exactly five! So they will all be added to the Beastiary! And now, without further ado, our winning monsters!

Rankings:
1st place: @Raijinslayer's Shadow Dragon
2nd place: @TheHangedMan's Corpse Snail
3rd place: @Discontent's Eremite
4th place: @Redmarshmellow's Trickster
5th place: @Sorrelmyst's Chikoddee

In addition, our participants get a bonus prize! 5 extra points to spend as you please! Thank you all for your wonderful monsters, they'll be added to the Bestiary soon! And don't forget your points!

St. Fortuna's Academy for the Higher Arts

@Hammerman However you do it is up to you. Sudden change of heart, volunteers telling them, etc. It's up to you.

St. Fortuna's Academy for the Higher Arts

Announcement

Just a reminder that this is the last day of the monster contest! We will be ending the contest around 10:00 PM PST! If you want to make a submission, this is the last day to do it! We'll be judging and discussing monsters over the next few days, and will have a decision on the winners before Wednesday.

Strange World

One of Andy's earliest memories was when he was only a little younger than five, and his mother had been forced to bring him along to the diner where she worked one day. He had very little recollection of the place aside from his mother, but he knew the sights, the tastes, the smells. Being so young and unable to hear, the new environment was chaotic, with many different faces, different people smiling at him or shaking their heads in some sort of sympathetic disappointment.

But there was one group of people who stuck out in his memories. Big, beefy men with thick mustaches and black clothing, with a woman with very red lips and a missing front tooth. His mother constantly shepherded him away from them, but he had been curious about them, of course. He constantly approached them and stared. Whatever they might have said, he hadn't heard, and anything they might have asked, he couldn't answer. When his mother's shift got off and it was time to go home, the woman with very red lips and a missing front tooth gave him a small wrapper filled with clear candies. He had eaten half of them before his mother found what he had, and her face paled in horror as she threw them away in the parking lot, then drove him home and put her fingers down his throat to make him throw up. He felt horrible for several days after that, and it left him in a delirious haze where visions of fire and rotten teeth danced in front of him.

This hellish city reminded him of those days in delirium, filled with confusion, anguish, pain, and a surprising lack of morals. And he didn't mean that in a puritanical sense, though he wished people would have more common decency. No, he was referring the the brawls, blood in the streets, mysterious body parts that might or might not have the rest of the body with them, and the seedy way people looked at them, even as a passing glance. This city, which had seemed so jubilant and full of life at first, now felt like a scene of constant danger. Andy didn't know if he was seeing things or just paranoid, but he swore they were being watched.

They left the main streets for the alleys, hoping for more security away from the open spaces where fights could easily spring out. This turned out to be a mistake, as two men stepped from the shadows, and suddenly they were surrounded by dozens of well armed lackeys. First they asked if any of them knew how to fight, then angrily demanded an answer. Andy tried not to flinch visibly at the roughness in his voice, but probably failed. He looked at Ricardo and Abby, then at Camilla. The other two were city folk, and Camilla was just a little kid. Andy might have lost more fights and beatings than he'd won, but he had endurance. And he knew how to throw a punch.

He slowly stepped forwards, trying to appear calm and cautiously put his hands up. He knew his stammering might screw this up for him, but it was worth a shot. And it wasn't like they could kill him. Maybe.
"I-I-I d-do. I-I c-can fight and sssshoot a-a-a rifle. H-H-Had p-plenty of p-practice on c-coyotesss." he said, managing to keep his voice cool and steady despite his stammering. Tough guys could smell fear off of you, and showing it meant that he would be fresh meat, like the other man said. He had to keep his act together.
"N-N-Name'sss A-Andy. C-Can't t-talk well, b-but I-I think alright. W-Write b-better. U-Usssed to b-b-be deaf'n m-mute. O-Oklahoma, 1980." Good so far, shorter sentences were easier to get out than long ones.
"W-Who're y-you? W-Why d-do you want usss?"

St. Fortuna's Academy for the Higher Arts

Just another bump! This RP is always open to newcomers! We're looking for more people!

St. Fortuna's Academy for the Higher Arts

Minor Announcement

Due to their extended absence, @General Scales has been put on the waiting list. They are not being kicked, however, they have not been on in several days and have not told us where they've gone or when they'll be back. Once they return, we'll gladly do our best to get them back into the RP.

That leaves us with two mages without a partner now. @Avanhelsing, @karamonnom, we'll do our best to find a solution to this dilemma as soon as possible.