Blake

Tace: Faunus

Gender: Female

Age: 17 years old

Blake Belladonna is a titular protagonist of RWBY. She is a Huntress, having been trained at the now-defunct Beacon Academy. Her weapon of choice is a Variant Ballistic Chain Scythe (VBCS) named Gambol Shroud.

She first appeared in the "Black" Trailer alongside Adam Taurus, her lover, partner, and mentor in the White Fang, a Faunus terrorist organization. After leaving the organization, Blake enrolled at the now-defunct Beacon Academy, where she became a member of Team RWBY alongside Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee and Yang Xiao Long.

She is also the daughter of Ghira Belladonna, the current chieftain of Menagerie and his wife Kali Belladonna.

Blake is a fair-skinned young woman with wavy black hair and amber eyes. Her Faunus trait is a pair of black cat ears on top of her head.

During her attendance at Beacon, she wears a black, buttoned vest with coattails and a single silver button on the front. Underneath this is a white, sleeveless, high necked, crop undershirt and tight white spandex compression shorts that reach her upper thighs with a zipper on the front of each leg, emblazoned with the YKK logo of the real-life Japanese zipper manufacturer.

She also wears black low-heeled boots and full stockings with a color gradation of black to purple at her ankles. Her emblem is visible on the outside of both thighs just below her shorts in white. On her left arm is a black detached sleeve with a silver cuff around her bicep, and black ribbons are wrapped around both forearms. A small, loose, black scarf is wrapped around her neck, and a gray magnetic backpack is strapped to her back, hidden by her hair. She often keeps her weapon attached to the magnetic backpack when she is not using it.

A black ribbon is tied with a large bow on the top of her head, with her cat ears hidden inside the loops. She wears purple eye shadow in cats eye style.

Blake is described by her voice actress Arryn Zech as being "mellow". She displays a cool, reserved and serious personality most of the time but does not lack a humorous side, which is usually in the form of dry wit and sarcasm. Blake is a righteous person, respecting other people's lives regardless of whether they are Faunus or not. She strongly despises those who judge and discriminate based on racial prejudice. Blake is outspoken, going so far as to indirectly insult the Schnee Dust Company in front of its heiress and defend Faunus of any kind. Despite her generally quiet demeanor, she can be surprisingly charismatic, as when she rallied the Faunus to defend Mistral against the White Fang after the attack on her home.

Blake is shown to be an introvert. Although she reads books to distance herself from the discussion at hand, as the series continues, she is shown to be more facetious and friendly. Blake appears most conversant when discussing the history and plight of her people.

As a Faunus, Blake has faced discrimination in the past and wears a bow when around Humans in order to be treated for her character and not her species. However, despite having no hate for Humans, she has seen how the real world works and wonders how she can undo so many years of hate and pain. After the Fall of Beacon, Blake discards her bow and does not cover her ears again, even around the presence of Humans, showing that she is no longer afraid to be seen as a Faunus.

Blake's past negatively influenced her personality, leading to moodiness, stubbornness, sleep deprivation and trust issues at times. She also has self-loathing issues, viewing herself as a criminal hiding in plain sight because of her past with the White Fang until her teammates convinced her that they still trusted and cared for her despite her being a Faunus and a former member of the White Fang. She also viewed herself as a coward who ran from her problems, as her Semblance was a prospect of her tendency to avoid conflict. She had even felt unworthy of her parents' love after leaving them behind for the White Fang's cause. However, her strong sense of righteousness led her to strongly disagree with the White Fang's increasing level of violence and hatred towards Humans, especially Adam's. It was thanks to her realization of seeing how spiteful and uncaring Adam was for Human lives she not only left the group but also decided to fight back after discovering Adam was planning to overthrow Sienna Khan and gain total control over the White Fang.

Blake's weapon of choice is Gambol Shroud, a sword that has three forms. When sheathed, the weapon is able to slice opponents in two with its cleaver-like cover. However, when unsheathed, Blake is able to use both a sword and sheath in tandem against her opponents. It can also transform into a gun.

Blake's Semblance, Shadow, allows her to create shadow-clones of herself. These clones push her in the direction of her choosing and can be used to trick and disorient opponents.

Blake can use Dust to give her clones additional abilities. Dust allows the clones to copy an element, with her afterimages becoming completely solid or even completely intangible depending on the chosen form of Dust. Fire Dust allows her to create fiery clones that explode on contact, Ice Dust allows her to create solid ice copies of herself (which opponents can get their weapons stuck in), Earth Dust allows her to create a clone of solid stone, and Lightning Dust zips her to another location quickly.