victory road app

[wildfaunusfled]

Player
Name: Lyndon
Personal Journal: paranomasias
E-mail: flamberge2@gmail.com
AIM/Plurk/Etc.: lovebelievesin, AIM: Demon Mouthwash
Timezone: PST
Current Characters in Route: None

Character
Name: Blake Belladonna
Series: RWBY
Timeline: Post Volume 3
Canon Resource Links: Blake on the RWBY wiki

Personality: Out of Team RWBY, Blake is probably the most layered even before the start of canon, even if it's easy to write it off as Weird Faunus Angst. To most people she radiates an almost antisocial attitude, prickly and difficult to get to know, or at least she did before Beacon, as a result of her rather Troubled past, but her experiences at Beacon have shaped her into a different person... with the exception of the backslide caused by her past coming back to haunt her. And stab her. And cut her partner's arm off. Basically the way Adam relates to her arc is most of the subject of two upcoming paragraphs, is the point.

First impressions of Blake at this point would probably all point to “very sad, very conflicted, also very lonely.” She is not at all pleased about the way events in her life have turned out recently, so she is going to be more quiet, reserved, and maybe even prone to outbursts than usual. Trust will also be fairly low and hard to get since... well, she's been through some tough things recently, and it honestly comes more out of a lack of trust in herself than a genuine reluctance to trust others. She will be especially slow to acclimate to the idea of the new world, most likely, though healing is no doubt eventually possible. Probable, even. But for the time being she will be standoffish or, depending on the person, skittish. But not Skittyish. Since she's human now. Which will be wild for her let me tell you what, given that...

Much of the development of Blake's personality, especially before arriving at Beacon, occurred in one way or another due to her Faunus nature. A childhood alone and discriminated against led her to join the White Fang, a peaceful protest group that sought to correct the prejudices of the human with regards to the Faunus people. This is where her difficulties with trust originate from in particular: hiding her ears under her bow even from her teammates until absolutely necessary, refusing to open up to Ozpin during debriefings, and her habit of running away from her problems. We see that part of her as early as the Black Trailer, and it happens again near the end of Volume 1 when she runs after her outburst towards Weiss and at the end of Volume 3 when she leaves to try to protect Yang. Wait, protect Yang? From who?

The first major figure in Blake's life worth talking about in terms of their influence on her is, naturally, Worst Ex Ever Adam Taurus. While he was idealistic and nonviolent when Blake met him, and assumingly when she was in a relationship with him, at least at first, she watched him change into the vengeance-obsessed violent villain he has since proven himself to be. This ripples back later in Volume 3 when Blake's trust in Yang is shaken by the latter's apparent violent outburst during the Vytal Festival Tournament. It is worth noting, though, that she trusts Yang when she promises she isn't changing for the worse. She is genuinely scared of Adam and his strength, and does not believe he can be beaten, at least certainly not by Team RWBY, hence her leaving at the end of V3 in order to even possibly protect Yang from him. Even Blake can trust Adam when he promises to kill everyone she loves, after all. She can trust him to be violent and terrible.

The other major influence, naturally, is Team RWBY, especially Yang. Over the course of three volumes (one full school year at Beacon), exposure to them develops Blake from a standoffish antisocial loner into a girl who has gone to a dance of her own free will and enjoyed herself, is willing to openly make starry eyes at a bowl of fish (because cat, you see), and in all is just much more capable of having fun and being herself, mostly by proving time and time again that she was not alone and could rely on them. Too bad she had to abandon them for her own safety, huh? Haha yeah, what a trip. But she runs away this time not to save herself, but to try to save all of them, and that is the important takeaway.

Blake has the capacity for trust and kindness and love, of course, and none of those things will likely ever be completely absent from her again. However, the fact currently stands that she fully expects to never be forgiven by the only friends she had in the world, and she might have even come close to making peace with that if not for the whole moving to Pokeworld thing. Oops! She is not going to be thrilled about being here one bit, if only because, as they say, there's no running from a Pokemon battle! But she ought to mellow out and settle back into a normal groove eventually. She'll warm up to things, it just will take her a good long while. And depend on how her friends react to her, that too.

Strengths/Weaknesses:

+ Physically Strong/Capable
Perhaps the most obvious one – like all characters in this dang show, Blake is very strong as a result of lots of physical training and the occasional whipping Yang around on a giant ribbon to turn her into a cannonball. She would definitely work to keep in shape, even if not at full show level.

+Adaptable
Let it never be said that Blake Belladonna is unwilling to make big changes in her life as needed. Boyfriend turning evil? Leave the organization she's been in for most of her life and seek refuge/purpose at Beacon Academy! Friends in danger from that evil ex? Make the sacrifice to leave them behind so that maybe jut maybe she'll be the only one to die! Blake doesn't shy away from hard choices or tasks.

+/- Passionate
When Blake cares about something or someone, though it takes a while for her to, so long as she has reason to care for them and they're not slowly turning into a minor villain she will tend to care very strongly about/for those things she does care about. Faunus rights, for example! Or Yang. Or that time she stayed up a bunch of nights and worked herself ragged because she cared so much about advancing the plot.

+/- Stoic
When it comes to keeping her cool in a fight or in most of everyday life, Blake is pretty great. She is also not great at expressing emotions until she hits her boiling point, though? So that's a problem.

+/- Not approachable at first
Blake doesn't exactly make herself super available for friendship right away when meeting people, given her issues with trust. She can be befriended, naturally, and it is certainly easier now than it was, but when she wants to put her guard up Blake has a strong front to put up.

+/- Loner
Related to the above but distinct enough to justify its own entry, Blake works well on her own seemingly even ahead of working in a team, at least at first, and indeed one of the major challenges for her is learning to open up to others. On the flip side of the coin, though, she works well on her own being self-sufficient and such.

- Prone to running away
While I would not refer to it as cowardice, Blake's standard response to conflict, and indeed something she actively states she is trying to move away from, is running. Mostly for herself at first, as seen in her running away from the White Fang and running away from the Team RWBY room at the end of V1, but eventually she is forced, at least in her mind, to run away for the sake of those she loves even though multiple adult figures who could arguably take on Adam surround the team at Patch.

- Trust Issues
Boy howdy. Look, there comes a time where it's understandable: your ex is a murderous terrorist, you've been attacked and discriminated against all your life for your cute kitty ears, the writers keep waffling on how catlike you actually are, but no matter how you slice it (or Blake) she has some serious problems trusting others or even herself. Yang earns her trust, Ruby and Weiss win some of her trust, but that literally takes a full year and Blake still questions it at one point.


Pokémon Information
Affiliation: Trainer
Starter: Purrloin
Password: Atomic Fireball

Samples
First Person Sample:

[The video starts simply, Blake in her room without her bow on (and her hand occasionally moving up to grope at the area where she is used to having significantly more going on up there as the video goes), looking directly at the camera.]

Hello, uh, network. Someday I'll be good at this...

[She sighs, before getting to the dang point.]

I was wondering if anyone could offer me some book recommendations. Very few of the books from home exist here, and those that do are... different. It's a little overwhelming. I like a lot of different kinds of books, I'm just hoping someone has been here long enough that they could help me out a little. I've only been to a bookstore once, and, well...

[Her Purrloin, though, takes this statement to mean that her trainer has forgotten that she totally did buy a book! And from the corner of the screen, in clear view of the camera, lifts up a copy of...

Greninjas of Love?]

G-Gambol, put that down!

[She physically grabs it away from the Purrloin and immediately tucks it behind her back. Her next words come out almost as just one long word.]

...I thought it was something else. Please help if you can, thank you, goodbye.

Third Person Sample:

On arrival, Blake immediately set to looking through the network, scanning it for information but more importantly for any sign of anyone she knew. Anyone who knew... well, what she had done. What she had needed to do.

Weiss. Weiss would know, but she would probably understand. Not that she would be happy about it, but Blake could probably explain things to Weiss.

Ruby. That would be harder. It would take a while, but maybe... damn, why did this place have to happen to-

Penny? Technically a nonissue, but when she had run, Penny had been slightly dead. Just a little bit. This timeline nonsense hurt her head, and she had only just arrived.

But then, of course. Of course Yang was here. On the only way she had to contact anyone, on the network that seemed to be the only method of communication with anyone else sucked here from their world. A whole world away from Adam and right here were all the bridges she had burned trying to keep her team safe. A fitting punishment in the end, probably. One of those ironic fates reserved for literary antiheroes. If she could even call herself a hero at this point. She knew she had done the right thing, but... it certainly didn't feel good. And now it didn't even matter. She was alone for nothing. The situation could be explained to her former teammates, but would they forgive her? Would they even believe her?

She had two choices, going forward from here. She could go it alone and figure out this whole Pokemon thing on her own, using the network to figure out where the others were and how to avoid them. Keep running. They were probably better off without her anyway, here, without any need for fighting or even their weapons. Why even bother them?

“Purr?”

Blake looked over at her new... weird cat thing. It seemed to like her well enough. Which was heartening, really. It had no idea what she had done. She casually reached over to scratch it behind the ears.

“I don't think I'll be doing that for a while.”

Option Two, then. Blake swallowed hard as she cued up the device to record a post. After all, there was nothing left for her to lose, right?

Oh, she wanted to believe that.

EXTRA MOD NOTE QUESTION: Would Blake have her ears, given that they are small enough to be "easily hidden" in canon? It is fine if not, and feel free to get back to me about this however, and if no response I will say she's human now, but that would be kind of important to her character if those are present or gone.