wilderlands app

[notbystrings]

APPLICATION

Player Name/Handle: Blue
Plurk Handle: bluecitrine
Preferred pronouns (optional): They/Them
Player Status: Current Player
Other characters: Cammie, Holly
Invited by: N/A

Character Name: Penny Polendina
Fandom: RWBY
Character Journal: notbystrings
Canon, AU, CRAU, Canon OC, or OC? Canon
Canon point: End of RWBY Volume 8 Episode 12, right as team RWBY and Penny walk through the portal
Age: Mentally around 17-19, looks about the same age. Chronologically, estimate around 4-6. Human body is less than 10 minutes old, but she's had at least two robotic bodies that each lasted a couple years.
PB: N/A

SETTING BACKGROUND

RWBY takes place on the world of Remnant, a world where it is only truly possible to live with relative safety within the boundaries of four Kingdoms. The world outside of these settlements is dangerous and overrun with the Creatures of Grimm, soulless beings attracted to negative emotion. Many teenagers enter combat schools to train to become Huntsmen and Huntresses, individuals who utilise the innate powers every human and Faunus can theoretically access thanks to their Aura—a projection of their soul that protects and empowers them—to fight the Grimm.

Unbeknownst to most of the population, the world is under constant threat from mysterious forces of darkness with unimaginable power. Until recently this conflict was fought in secrecy by only a few individuals in a generation, but now it's broken loose, and everyone is at risk. It's fallen on the shoulders of a group of particularly plucky teenage Huntsmen and Huntresses to do what individuals more powerful than them have failed to do, and, more often than not, to fix the mistakes these people have made in their attempts.

OC/AU/CRAU REQUIREMENTS

N/A

PERSONALITY

Penny wasn't always a fleshy human; created by her father, Pietro, she is totally unique in that she started life not really 'alive' at all. Penny was the first synthetic person capable of generating an Aura—the first synthetic being with a soul, and as a synthetic person Penny struggled with personhood and autonomy.

The classified nature of her existence resulted in her spending the early years of her life extremely sheltered, only able to go where she could be accompanied by guards, interacting with few people her 'own age'. When she first revealed she was synthetic, she called herself 'not a real girl' and expected a poor reaction. Whenever a villain learned of her nature, it was used against her—she's had her death orchestrated and broadcast on international TV; she's had footage doctored to show her murdering people, knowing that unless disproved she'd be 'deactivated'; she's even been hacked, at the orders of someone who was once an ally, forced to attempt things she would never do of her own accord like a puppet on strings.

Her time as the most sheltered, classified teenager on the planet also left Penny remarkably socially unaware when she first began to interact with people. She didn't know how to act like a 'normal' teenage girl; she tried to hold a conversation whilst still lying unnaturally still on the floor after being knocked over, she awkwardly repeated herself, she got up in people's personal space. When Ruby casually called her 'friend' when saying goodbye, she immediately ran after her to check she really meant it. Whilst more exposure to people began to become more socially competent, she still often has to ask about human behaviour, and still acts a little odd in social situations.

Her excitability is one such trait that often seems to go beyond what many would consider 'normal' levels. She's extremely enthusiastic about everything; she can be hyperactive, is often so excited she starts bouncing, and hugs with so much enthusiasm that she can and will bowl people over, or hug them far too hard for someone with a metal body. The first time she was offered a fistbump, she was so overjoyed she forgot to moderate her strength when returning it. When someone declares themself her friend, however casually, she leaps upon that opportunity (sometimes literally) with reckless abandon. Penny loves existence, and there's very few things in life she can't find a way to be excited about.

She's also a very curious person. She used to sneak off to explore new places when she was meant to be with her guards. She asks a lot of questions about things like friendship and emotions, trying to understand these things that she hasn't got a lot of context to understand on her own. These questions range from the extremely mundane and inconsequential to questions like if it’s normal to ‘feel like I wish I could do both the things I need to do and the things I want to do’. Now that she’s in a body made of flesh and blood for the first time, this curiosity is likely to peak—one of the first things said after her transformation was ‘do hugs always make you feel this warm?’ and there’s a boatload of things she’s never really experienced to try, now.

More than anything, Penny is intensely kind-hearted; she wants to do the right thing, to protect people. Penny sees the best in everyone and wants the best for everyone. She's been described as 'strangely wholesome', and it’s true. The only times we've seen Penny angry are in defence of people she cares about, or when they've been hurt. She is at her happiest surrounded by friends who treat her as a ‘real’ girl despite her not always being so sure that’s what she is. She doesn’t, by nature, lie; in fact, she’s usually pretty bad at lying and pretending at all. She is an intensely sincere person who wears her every emotion on her sleeve, every smile, laugh, compliment, but also every hesitation, every moment of sadness or regret. Penny is mostly an open book.

However her desire to protect has led her towards self-sacrifice. When removing the virus controlling her seemed impossible, she told her friends to kill her so she could make sure the maiden powers went to Ruby; at a point later than her pull point, she is mortally wounded and again asks to be killed so she can make sure the powers go to Winter, this time. Jaune does, and we see Penny seemingly happy with her choice as she hands the powers off to Winter in a dreamscape. Penny has, you see, always seen her role in the story she’s a part of as smaller than it is; she regretted accepting the maiden powers, wishing she could have stayed just the Protector of Mantle instead of a piece in the bigger war against Salem. There’s no doubt that she would have fought alongside her friends, she wanted nothing more than the freedom to do so, but she never wanted to be the centre of attention.

Penny is an energetic, kind and loving teenage girl who wants to be just that. She loves life, she loves people, and when you really get down to it she loves who she is—it just took her a while to see through her own once-synthetic skin to accept that.

CANON POWERS

Aura: A manifestation of the soul that everyone in Remnant has, but not everyone has unlocked. ​An unlocked aura powers various sub-abilities, from shielding to attacks to special powers called semblances. Everyone's aura is a different colour, Penny's being green, and how much aura someone has varies from person to person, but cannot be changed. When this pool of aura is depleted, it breaks, and you can no longer access these abilities until it recharges.

• Shielding: Activated aura can be an always-on shield, until the owner takes sufficient damage or uses it enough to deplete it completely, at which point it breaks with a very dramatic flash of colour.
• Attacking: Aura can be used to make weapons hit harder, or projected into a shockwave as an independent attack.
• Extrasensory Perception: Essentially a danger sense, you can sense if an enemy is in the area. Not foolproof or entirely consistent.
• Healing: Inconsistently treated in canon. Can sometimes heal injuries of various severities immediately, sometimes takes a lot longer. More aura, quicker healing.
• Semblance: Basically individual superpowers that are a manifestation of your aura, everyone can theoretically have one, but only if your aura is unlocked, and not everyone who's unlocked their aura has necessarily discovered their semblance. Penny is one such person; whilst she has aura, she has not unlocked her semblance yet.

Penny's aura is unique in that it used to be someone else's, her father/creator somehow took some of his own aura and used it to give her a soul whilst she was still synthetic. She thus probably has a pool of aura on the smaller end of the spectrum, but still substantial enough to protect her.

Winter Maiden Powers: You'd think these would be specifically winter themed, but as it turns out the season titles mean basically nothing. Maidens can use essentially any elemental power, though most are weather based. Penny specifically has been shown to create/use:

• A powerful gale, strong enough to blow people off their feet.
• Storm clouds that generate hail and green lighting, which she can also siphon to empower energy blasts.
• Blasts of ice, giant chunks of ice, and weapons made of ice.
• Magical replacements for her swords that she no longer had in her human body
• Green flames under her feet that act sort of like rocket boosters so she can fly.

When a maiden is killed, their power automatically passes onto the last woman she thought about. If the last person she thinks about isn't a woman, it goes to a random woman under 30 or so.

POWER SELECTION

POWER TYPE
Canon Superpowers

FREEBIE POWERS
N/A

GAME POWERS

Canon superpowers:

Aura - I'd like to keep her Aura-based abilities partially intact, with appropriate nerfs, which might well need adjustment from what this attempt. Specifically, I want to completely remove the healing and offensive capabilities, and set a firm time of a full hour without taking damage to recharge her Aura once it breaks, plus a fifteen minute delay before it starts recharging at all from any damage. She only has to take a direct hit from a physical attack 5ish times for it to break, or 3ish from magical attacks. Falling without catching herself from any height greater than maybe 10ft shatters it immediately. Even when her aura is up, she is not totally immune to feeling the blows she's taking, and she can be worn down; it's not actual invulnerability, it's more of a buffer—the difference between superficial and real injury.

The danger sense is weak as it is, and doesn't give more than a few seconds heads up that you might be about to be attacked, but that'd also make it easy to ditch entirely.

Maiden Powers - Obviously these are definitely too OP, so I'd like to just keep her ability to form her floating swords, but limit it to 4 swords instead of 8 and she can only keep them up for 15 minutes before she has to wait an hour to form them again, and the ability to create narrow, single-target blasts of cold/ice with limited range and strength—no stronger than like, a cantrip level spell using cold damage.

ABILITIES

Combat - Penny fights primarily with her weapons and Maiden Powers, but does have knowledge of other basic combat skills that were originally programmed into her, but now she would just remember. Her first instinct when jumping back into a fight in her newly human body was to throw a punch, she didn't immediately use her magic.

Intelligence/Observant/Learning - This was previously aided by having artificial processing power, but Penny tends to pick up on things (that aren't to do with social interaction or emotions) faster than the average person. She figured out that Blake was a Faunus after meeting her once, despite Blake hiding her cat ears with a bow; she also understood Ruby's semblance quicker than she did, figuring out that Ruby was actually deconstructing herself at a molecular level and negating her mass rather than just moving at superspeed. She also picks up on how to use the maiden powers faster than previous maidens, apparently.

SAMPLES

Network Sample

Oh, woooow. [ Penny leans in too close to the mirror, so close the ginger child on the other side would be getting almost a fish-eye effect ] I didn’t even know I had an inner child! Look at you, you’re so small. I was never that small, but you know that, don’t you? Because you're me, and this is all one big metaphor!

[ She still seems to be genuinely enthusiastic about the whole thing, though, one big metaphor she's being forced by a spirit to take part in or not. She's never seen what she might have looked like as a small child! This is exciting! ]

I’m supposed to do— what, again? Oh, right! [ she hits the side of her closed fist against the open palm of her other hand ] Wisdom and emotional honesty! I can do that!

Listen. [ it's almost like a switch flips, because suddenly she looks at her inner child with a sort of soft sincerity ] You are going to make so many friends. More than you ever thought would even be possible! Just by being yourself! They don't care that you're made of nuts and bolts instead of squishy guts, and you shouldn't either.

We're a real girl. [ she says this with deadly seriousness, and yet a note of giddy delight ] You don't find out in the best way, but the important part is it's true! It's always been true, we just needed a little push to see it. The synthetic bits, they’re just a part of you, not all you are.

Things haven’t exactly been easy, and I still don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about the way everything is changing and the horrible things that keep happening, but I think that’s okay! I think we don’t have to figure that out right away! We’ve got time, and friends that will help us, and— oh! Hugs are just as warm as we’ve always imagined they must be, and we can have all the hugs we like as we figure this all out!

[ Apparently satisfied, she bounces once on her the balls of her feet, straightens her back, and flashes the spirit a smile. ]

There! How was that?

ADDITIONAL INFO

At her canon point Penny was carrying a very important relic known as the Relic of Creation from her world that would definitely have it's abilities rendered non-functional/locked upon arriving, but I'd kind of like her to just get to keep it as a staff anyway, it has two sizes, the shorter shown in the image and the longer being almost as tall as Penny. She's meant to protect it and it simply vanishing would be pretty alarming!