UPDATE 10/1/17: Hello everyone! I'm sorry to say that this is not the second chapter of the story. I just wanted to give you all an update of the story and the SYOC since I have not responded to any applications to accept or deny characters. The truth is that frankly, I'm not at all impressed with most of the OCs that have been submitted so far. I am definitely to blame for this because I haven't given you guys much to work with when designing your characters to interact with Delfino since, as some of you have pointed out, his personality is non-existent in the first chapter. Others have suggested to pump out a second chapter but I was hoping on using some submitted characters and I can't do that since I'm not satisfied with the ones I've gotten. One person reading this (or maybe more) will be thinking, "Well duh, SYOC's never turn out well." But I'm stubborn and refuse to go down without a fight! That being said, let's give this story a second chance. I am going to delete every message sent to me regarding this story so that we can start this off from a completely new slate because I am going to give you guys a new first chapter with a proper main character and an ample amount of information regarding the world that this story takes place in and the academy. In addition, roughly 80% of the applications were for the main rival slot. I wanted to evaluate the characters for what they could offer the story but part of the reason that most were unimpressive is that all of the characters gunning for the rival position were designed to be just that: a rival. They were strictly characters that ate, breathed, and lived to battle and although that is what I asked for, they offered little to nothing in terms of uniqueness – something to separate themselves from rivals we've already seen in the games and anime. I am starting to like the idea of designating specific roles to be filled with character personalities and arcs already in mind and just having you guys fill in the blank spaces with unique ideas. That way, since everyone wanting to submit a character for Delfino's Ranger best friend or the popularity-chasing roommate will more or less give the same personality, you will really have to get creative to stand out. For those of you who don't feel like being confined by a formula and work better when you are given room to be creative, I will also accept characters that fall outside of roles I give since some people in the SYOC community have absolutely brilliant ideas. Since I might want to put Delfino at the academy for the Prologue/First Chapter, like some of you have suggested, I will allow submissions to begin as of me posting this update so that I can have some characters to work with this time around. If you are confused about anything, just shoot me a message and I will answer your question as promptly as possible. Sayonara!

(P.S. For those of you who are wondering "Was my character really that bad?" The short answer is yes. The long answer is that it's not that it was necessarily bad but I was getting so many characters, mostly male, that they all sort of blended together. At one point, I stopped cataloging the characters onto a spreadsheet because they are all too similar and plain, mostly because most people were gunning for the rival position. That's why after a while, I would just open the application and gloss over the character. If it didn't appeal to me, I'd just leave it to catalog for later, which I never got around to doing. So part of it me not keeping up with recording the information to differentiate the characters but there were a few that did stand out. It's just that I don't have the time to go through my inbox and let all of those people know so I do hope they submit their character again. No characters were absolutely profound or perfect by any means so I suggest that everyone who wants to re-submit should read the application thoroughly and make adjustments to their characters. Some people need to make far more adjustments than others.)