Character University is the twenty-first installment of the Character Development Thread. It features an Oxford-like university that is mysteriously empty.
The thread can be found here. It started in June of 2012 and ran for three months before coming to a close.
Character University includes examples of:
- Bizarrchitecture: The university is a minor example of this. Nothing as strange as the Bizarrchitecture page image, but stuff tends to change to prevent there being continuity errors caused by differing descriptions, as it is a shared story thread.
- Bolt of Divine Retribution: Discussed by Tina, who suggests that the lightning used to destroy the New Moon book was sent down by the gods.
- Book Case Passage: In the library. Leads, circuitously and through several traps, to the hideout of the Religion of Evil.
- Chekhov's Gun: The Book of Inter-Dimensional Travel was introduced in post 19 of the thread and used 278 posts later in post 297
- Fainting: Prisha passes out from exhaustion after casting one of the most advanced spells in existence.
- Faint in Shock: Maxwell faints after reading a graphic page in a Yaoi Book.
- Gas Chamber: One of the trials within the secret passage. Actually a smoke chamber intended to suffocate trespassers.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Some of the conversation between Linna and Jeremiah discusses how the university does not seem to have been created by someone who went to a real university.
- Mood Whiplash: The library scene. It starts off with the lighthearted destruction of a Twilight book, causes someone to reveal their tragic past, and ends with a discussion of Yaoi.
- No Name Given:
- The auditorium's musician has dodged every attempt to get his name so far.
- Green's name is not Green. Maybe. It's complicated.
- Only the Knowledgable May Pass:
- The trials in the secret passage. Though quicksand pit is a bit of a subversion, the smoke chamber was made to be a straight example of this. But the intruding group were able to think their way through it anyway.
- Permanently subverted when Green uses her Powered Armor to punch a hole in the wall and fuses several wires with a laser rather than deal with an obscure puzzle.
- Our Vampires Are Different: The Twilight Saga was destroyed partially because of its inaccurate portrayal of vampires, at least in relation to the characters' worlds.
- Ragnarök Proofing: Most everything still works despite the place being abandoned.
- Religion of Evil: The hound-worshipping cult who built the chapel at the end of the passage.
- Serial Escalation: The library scene started with talking about throwing Twilight out the window, and led to Ena burning the entire Young-Adult Romance section down.
- Sickly Green Glow: Ena's eyes flash green for a brief second in the library scene.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The destruction of New Moon, done by attracting lightning to it with a non-magical lightning-rod.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Frequent, relatively speaking, as even those from worlds without magic or modern technology adjust rapidly to their new surroundings.