[emp] application

[faunarchism]

⌈ PLAYER SECTION ⌉
PLAYER. grace
CONTACT. PM/discord@silkyboy#4259
AGE. 24
CURRENT CHARACTERS. -


⌈ CHARACTER SECTION ⌉
CHARACTER. Blake Belladonna
AGE. 18
CANON. RWBY
CANONPOINT. Vol 4 Ep 11, Taking Control: when she decides that she and her allies are going to take back the White Fang from the violent and power-hungry forces of her former mentor, Adam Taurus. It's a moment of confronting old fears and deciding on a course of action. The resolve, courage and determination she radiates in this instant are what draw her to Empatheias.

BACKGROUND: Wiki link.

Born to leaders of the revolutionary movement for Faunus rights, Blake broke from her parents' peaceful ideology to follow a darker extremist path with the White Fang. Eventually, out of a crisis of conscience, she left to enroll in Beacon Academy, which trains students to become Huntresses, warriors and protectors. She was there when the Academy fell to forces of darkness not yet fully understood by her and her teammates, and has been taking some time since to reexamine her life and her relationship to the Fang.

PERSONALITY:

"There's too much wrong in this world to just stand by and do nothing.
Inequality, corruption... Someone has to stop it."

The first impression Blake gives off is one of cool reserve. Of the girls of RWBY, she's the one who speaks the least, preferring to play her cards carefully and retain an air of mystery. Introverted and independent by nature, she's more likely to lose herself in a book than have a heart-to-heart with her friends. Even after she becomes close with her teammates, it takes her a long time to open up to them about one of the most important things about herself: the fact that she's a Faunus, with cat ears that she hid for a long time under a black bow.

There are a couple reasons for this. The Faunus are consistently discriminated against in the world of Remnant for the animal characteristics that mark them as a different species, and living openly as a nonhuman means ridicule, bullying, exploitation and segregation. As such, Blake is frequently distrustful of strangers and wary of revealing her species to others. Her relationship to her Faunus identity is even more complicated than that, however. She spent most of her formative years in the White Fang, an organization condemned for its extremist acts of violence in the name of Faunus rights. She was mentored by a leader named Adam Taurus -- someone she cared for deeply, and by whom she felt betrayed and threatened when he became more and more vicious and ruthless. It's implied that under his guidance, she participated in the Fang's terrorist acts. Like all associates of the White Fang, she's a wanted criminal.

But Blake has since renounced the Fang. She has a strong innate sense of conscience, and that conscience could not allow her to continue advocating extremism. Instead it drove her to enroll at Beacon Academy with the goal of becoming a Huntress and finding some other way to change the world for the better. She is still uncertain about how exactly to do this, but it's something that motivates her powerfully. Under her detached exterior lies deep moral and emotional conviction, and a sense of empathy for the pain of others. Her most eloquent moments in the series are when she's speaking about the plight of the Faunus and wondering how to bring about the elusive peace that she dreams can exist between species.

Blake's life as a Faunus and her time in the Fang has given her a realistic and occasionally pessimistic understanding of society. In contrast to the optimistic idealism of Ruby, the devil-may-care attitude of Yang, and the occasionally sheltered perspective of Weiss, she is deeply attuned to the struggles and injustices that shape their world. Even at Beacon she was always looking beyond the Academy, trying to piece together the larger picture of what evil was happening in the lands outside. At times this sense of urgency has driven her to obsession, and at her worst she can struggle with self-care and being able to relax. She's needed her teammates to pull her back from the brink with their compassion and concern.

Needing other people in that way, however, is something that can be almost fatally difficult for her. She has a deep sense of self-loathing and paranoia over her past mistakes; she often feels like she's on the run, terrified that old enemies will catch up with her and hurt the people she's come to care about. For that reason, intimacy scares her. And under it all, she's still all of eighteen years old, not quite done becoming an adult yet. She describes herself as a coward, suggesting that her shadowclone Semblance is a symbol for her tendency to cut and run when things go south, rather than face her problems. When she accidentally reveals her Faunus heritage to her team, she does exactly that, fleeing instead of talking to them about it. Worse: things end up going very far south at the end of volume 3, when Blake's old mentor Adam cuts off the arm of her beloved teammate Yang in the process of hunting Blake down. And what does Blake do? Stricken, she takes off for another continent, leaving her teammates to pick up the pieces.

At this point in canon, Blake is starting to reconsider this major character flaw. A friend of hers, Sun, called her out for running away to avoid accountability, for not accepting her friends' freely-given love, and for self-centeredly blaming herself for everything bad that happens in their lives. Basically, she realised she was being an angsty baby and also a jerk. Having reconnected with her parents in the Faunus haven of Menagerie, she's decided to do what she can to intervene in the White Fang's violent rise to power. How she achieves that remains to be seen, but it's a step on the path towards her being able to confront her past, recognize her own agency in the present, and move towards the future. A necessary step in order for her to become the hero that she wants to be.

ABILITIES.

aura & semblance.

In the world of Remnant, Aura is the manifestation of a person's soul, and those who consciously access its power can use it for a variety of purposes. Blake's is purple. Aura can heal minor wounds, protect against blows, and create physical barriers and telekinetic effects. Blake is even capable of channeling it in an offensive blast against her enemies, catalyzed by pointing her weapon as a conduit. Aura powers are not unlimited, however; once an Aura is depleted in combat, the wielder is left physically vulnerable and will need time to recover. In the world of Empatheias the powers of emotional energy and dunamis are analogous, and I can see her having success at dunamis if she works to learn their manipulation.

All Aura users additionally possess a Semblance: a supernatural skill unique to them and only them. Blake's Semblance is the ability to leave a shadowclone of herself behind in the place where she was a moment before, to serve as a decoy or distraction for an enemy. These clones are limited in power, only lasting for a few seconds and seemingly incapable of independent action. However, they do have some corporeality, as she has used them as springboards or stepping stones for jumping off. She can also project them ahead of herself to a degree, enabling them to deal damage to enemies before disappearing.

Her clones can also be elementally modified using canisters of Dust (the elemental essence that drives a lot of RWBY's worldbuilding) inserted into her weapon before she uses her Semblance, turning them into stone statues, explosive fireballs, or blocks of ice. The elemental cores of Empatheias could have a similar effect, if she modifies her weapon to be compatible with them.

combat & weapon.

Blake is an incredible warrior considering her stature and youth; growing up amidst violence between Faunus and humans, she fought for survival from a young age. She has above average speed, strength, agility, and endurance, as well as hand-to-hand and sword combat skills, and can achieve feats like leaping between rooftops or onto moving vehicles at high speed, outmaneuvering opponents with her lightfooted mobility. Her weapon of choice is Gambol Shroud, which is a cleaver when sheathed and a katana when unsheathed. The blade of the katana folds to convert the weapon into a pistol, with the barrel in the hilt. It also has a long black ribbon attached to it, which enables her to use it in a manner similar to a kusarigama, whirling it through multiple opponents at a time or using it to swing herself around in battle. She has also improvised it as a grappling hook, a lasso or a catapult when needed. Yes, all of those things. Yes, it's excessive. She forged Gambol Shroud herself -- a practice common among Huntresses -- and usually carries it strapped to her back.

Here are examples of Blake in action, including fighting style and Semblance. aka 1000000 overwrought fight scenes

faunus.

Blake's being a Faunus gives her some animal-like characteristics, primarily excellent night vision. She also has certain feline traits, such as an affection for laser pointers and tuna fish, and an aversion to dogs.

ALIGNMENT.

Thras / fear and bravery. Blake's character arc centers on her learning to face her past mistakes with courage and accountability, to relate to others without fear of intimacy, and to not let guilt drive her actions. She's not quite there yet; one of her recent major life decisions involved running away from all the people she loved because she was terrified of putting them in danger. But she's working on it.

OTHER.

Blake will be entering the game in her volume 4 outfit, consisting of a long white coat over a crisscross black croptop and black pants. She will be armed with her cleaver-katana-kusarigama-gun-weapon-thing, Gambol Shroud; the sheath is slung across her back. She has recently stopped hiding her cat ears, and they are visible on her head. She also has in her possession a dark blue flag with a stylized tiger head in a circle on it -- the old logo of the White Fang before their turn to violence.

⌈ SAMPLE SECTION ⌉

General Sample: TDM threads

Emotion Sample: Tag.


Questions: None right now!