Ah, the first day of school for Magic Academy students. The first day is not one of school-work. Instead, it is one of re-adjusting to the school and finding your room in the apartment tower. There are many students, but for now, we only focus on a few.
— Bluesunnyday in the opening post.
Magic Academy is a Play-by-Post roleplay hosted on the TV Tropes forum, centering around the daily lives and adventures of a group of magic-practising students.
Twenty years ago a catastrophic blast of magical power shook the world, killing millions and splitting the continent formerly known as Europe into five parts, that have since been waging war with each other for five years and counting. However, for every one person killed another two were given magical power, a miraculous trait that then passed down to their children. This event became known as "The Day The Magic Came Back", or M-Day informally.
In 1976, in order to accomodate the sudden outburst of magical children, Garret Gamman founded one of two magical academies in the world (his being situated in New York while the other was created in Kenya due to Africa and North America gaining the largest magical populations). Kids were typically enrolled at the age of 15, when their magic tended to fully manifest, but while they are safe from the former-Europe war in the academy, other dangerous factions are making sure their school year remains highly eventful.
The roleplay was created by Bluesunnyday, who has since stepped down as a GM and player. The position has been taken over by Nick The Swing, who along with various antagonists and NPCs also plays student Reitt Blenforte.
Other characters and their roleplayers, past and present, include (in order of sign-up):
- Elisare Felle - Speedchesser
- Marcus Scius - Savato
- Nate Forwin and McKenzie Sarling - whizzerd
- Taurin and Gemina Reylus - Replica
- Samantha 'Sammy' Taylor - A Crack In Time
- Alexander 'Alex' Solano - Stratofarius
- Brendan Burke - spiralalg
- Gretchen von Goethe - deathpigeon
- Xavier 'Zavi' Taylor - Luthen
- Kaleb Wilkins - Karl Kadavar
- David Johnson - Bluesunnyday
- Fantasia Spark, Nyro and Amber Ignitos - Nicktendonick
- Eduard Loche - chadderbox1618
- Charlotte Desmoulins - Nomadic Young Nymph
- Nathan and Jenna Reid - Musik Maestro
The roleplay can be found here
. For anyone interested in joining, the Discussion and Signup threads can be found here and here respectively.
This roleplay provides examples of:
- Anachronism Stew: The students use wands and live in a tower, but modern day appliances like phones and computers are still used.
- Artifact of Doom: The Gem of Might, made by Mobius Blackmore, has this role. There are forces who want it back, others who want to destroy it, and others still who want to use it for selfish purposes. And it definitely has some disturbing effects on people, though not much else than "corruption by the forces of darkness" is known.
- Boss in Mook Clothing: The Geigs. They all look exactly the same with their helmets on...but draw in appearance from the Red Eyed Knights of Demon's Souls. And just looking at them, one can tell they're not Mooks. Far from it...
- Cerebus Syndrome: A reasonably light-hearted first day is followed by a dreaded criminal committing murder and the revelation that they have someone in the school working for them, a virtual reality battle going somewhat too far, the dark backstories of several characters being explained in even darker detail, a user of fear-based magic using it to essentially torture someone, and much more.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Qord is mentioned in a news report the day before he infiltrates the school.
- Civil War: The five continents that were formerly Europe are now fighting with each other. Possibly expedited by the Esoterica and Damien Ignitos.
- Cursed with Awesome: The Power of the King is a dark deconstruction of the subject. Lets see, it lets you occasionally see visions of things that have happened and things to come, you get access to a massive database of magic depending on what you've seen, and you don't even need to use Paint, the magic circles just appear from thin air. Downsides? You are viewed as a monster, hunted down ruthlessly because there's a persistent chance you could go berserk and kill everyone around you. Oh, and this increases your eligibility for possession by the Greater-Scope Villain. And you are also being hunted by the various powers of Europe, who'd like nothing more than to use you as a human nuclear device with no regard for your life, safety, or life of your family nor friends, and you are even viewed as monstrous by the closest things to Gods in the setting, and even the Dark ones want nothing to do with you. Good luck with those oh so awesome magic eye powers.
- Deadly Upgrade: Caelus. Even from a severely fatigued state, it will supercharge the user with magic, allowing them to draw runes almost instantaneously, activate vocal attacks purely by thought, power-up their normal magic, and other beneficial effects, but it weakens the mental state somewhat in use, leading to generally weakened morals among other things, and causes considerable problems once ended, not to mention the fact that some injuries will cause the user to explode.
- The Dreaded: Mobius Blackmore. He is still terrifying, even after he has died. Not much else is known about him other than that he is incredibly evil and fearsome. He was also apparently a Misanthrope Supreme, almost completely immortal, and incredibly powerful besides. Very, very good reasons to fear him.
- Dysfunction Junction: The Students by a large part.
- Leonard: Identity problems, doubts about his father, knowing that some of his magic might well be evil, knowing that most everyone hates him for his resemblance to Mobius, and a Dark and Troubled Past involving a horrifying slaughter and losing a girl he cared for.
- Nate Forwin: Makimura Mind Rape'd him, he was put through trauma by a couple different situations, and then the solution his most trusted friend had involved brainwashing and mind control, a frighteningly similar idea to what Makimura had tried.
- Duke: Gayngst meets Armored Closet Bisexual. Duke has a more traumatic past than you'd expect a bully to have, and its inferred that he and Albert were purposefully separated by their parents. And then Duke's dad died and he was stated to have been bullied himself for being related to a Dark Wizard of Esoterica.
- Evil Tastes Good: Albia describes Nate's blood as 'delicious'.
- Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Vampires, djinns and demi-gods are only some of the fantasy creatures present in the work.
- Forbidden Zone: The Forbidden Garden just outside the academy. Alex and Fantasia were all too happy to go and try to check it out.
- Functional Magic: The main theme of the roleplay. While the original source of magic was an explosion, all the students have the inherent gift version (being specialised in one type of magic but able to study others), and magic is performed through the use of painting runes with their wands. They specialize in various types of magic, like Elemental Powers and Summon Magic.
- Garden of Evil: The forbidden garden. When Nathan and Gemina break into the garden, it turns out to be full of carnivorous plants, that try to draw the two in. Nathan soon breaks the spell though, thanks to talents of his own.
- Genius Loci: The school seems to have a mind of its own, changing the architecture whenever it wants.
- "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Nate tries to talk Alex out of his insane state, but fails.
- Immortal Immaturity: Vector is 100 years old. To his race, that constitutes the equivalent of "young teenager".
- Knight of Cerebus: Daigo's first appearance was the first time two characters fought in the roleplay. Even more so is Qord, who sneaks into the school and brutally murders two students.
- Mind Screw: The Gem of Might Arc brings with it very tangled character motivations and ideals, exactly who is really the Big Bad is cast into question, and every bit of information revealed seems to be contradicted by newer information.
- The Mole: Apparently there's a student in the school who snuck Qord in. Suspicion has fallen heavily on Fantasia and Leonard Diskenth, largely because of his resemblance to Mobius. Turns out that it was in fact Reitt, who was unexpectedly giving the information back to his parents.
- Mood Whiplash:
- At one point Sammy and Gretchen are having a tearful discussion about the former's dark past. There's then a brief cut to Alex cheerfully whistling as he walks down a hallway.
- After a relatively normal and cheerful first day, two students are found gruesomely murdered in the main hall the next morning.
- Necromancer: Gretchen, in the classic 'talk to the dead' sense.
- Necromantic: The principal sets Qord free from his imprisonment, manipulates Leonard his entire life in the hopes he'll gain Mobius's powers, and brings the Guard to the academy where some of them, especially Makimura, deliberately bring misery onto the students. Why? Because his wife died when the magic came back, and he wanted to bring her back. A more clearly evil example seems to be Qord, who mentioned needing to "find" his son after he saw him die, after which he later descended into evil.
- Painting the Medium: Alex's dialogue is in green, Sammy's thoughts are in pink, and Gretchen's speech is in blue and is written in small text to show how quiet she is. Caelus, by the one using it, is in the paint colour of the mage using it to reflect the magic surrounding them, in Taurin, the only one currently known to be able to use it, a brown-ish colour.
- Ship Tease: Naturally given the age of the students. Most prominently is Alex's feelings for Nyro, Daigo's status as The Charmer, and Fantasia's habit of flirting For the Lulz.
- Shock and Awe: Fantasia. Reitt can use black lightning.
- Shrinking Violet: Gretchen. She breaks down crying when too many people surround her.
- Summon Magic: Taurin, as well as his NPC sister Virginia, can summon animals from the zodiac, though he prefers bulls. Reitt has Dark Summoning Magic that allows him to summon black golems. Eduard has fire summoning, Charlotte has healing summoning, and Fantasia before the story started summoned a phantasmal entity as kept him as a pet.
- Taking You with Me: Accidental example, with Nickle and Taurin both being killed, in the virtual reality of sphere-space, by the explosion resulting from tearing a patch of Caelus-charged Taurin's scalp off.
- Thinking Up Portals: Qord's speciality is Portal Magic.
- Time Master: Daigo, whose ability can freeze time for everyone...except for him.
- They Know Too Much: It seems someone did not take kindly to Nate poking around...and now even Amber might be in danger of being targeted by Ein Woe.
- War Is Hell: The war currently ongoing in former-Europe has had a devastating effect on a lot of people's lives, some of the students included.
- Xanatos Gambit: Qord created one, in that both outcomes benefited him. Either the Geigs rose, and destroyed the Academy, and cleared all his objectives in one sweep, or the Geigs were destroyed and Rakyo was defeated, which would liberate his airship Zanackt.
- Yandere: Albert is shown in one of his first scenes to be this for Duke. When Nyro almost went to grab her knife, his response afterward was to threaten to chop her into pieces.
