#and now i guess blake can't be a faunus in their universe

[clar-a-m]

Justice League Blake!! Really love her design

[waheelawhisperer]

Ch'en Arknights, and Weiss RWBY? (Disregarding any V9 influence.) Also, I know you've said you aren't up to date on or remember Bonkle lore, but just as a general question, any thoughts on the "love isn't canon" shenanigans there?

Ch'en Arknights

NOTP: Ch'en x Talulah. I don't much care for incest, a sentiment a number of Arknights fanartists do not seem to share.

BROTP: Ch'en x Bagpipe. This one's kinda canon since they were really close friends during their academy days and I really like the idea of sweet, happy Bagpipe winning a surly and driven Ch'en over.

OTP: Ch'en x Hoshiguma. The classic. Love this one so much.

Second choice pairing: Ch'en x Bagpipe, Ch'en x Swire. Both of these are really good in different ways. Swire and Ch'en bickering is hilarious.

Fluffy pairing: Ch'en x Bagpipe. Piper's one of the nicest, friendliest operators in Rhodes Island. Ch'en can't do fluffy to save her life, but Bagpipe is there to handle it for both of them.

Angsty pairing: Ch'en x Hoshiguma. Chapter 7. Just... Chapter fucking 7.

Favorite poly ship: Ch'en x Hoshiguma x Swire (x Lin Yuhsia). Let the LGBT Guard Department have 3 girlfriends each. They deserve it.

Weirdest pairing: I don't have a super weird Ch'en pairing but in a non-romantic sense watching her deal with Candela Sanchez during Dossoles Holiday was amusing. Candela's such an Awful Fucking Dog.

Weiss RWBY

NOTP: Ironweiss (Ironwood x Weiss). Please.

BROTP: Freezerburn (Yang x Weiss), White Rose (Weiss x Ruby), Monochrome (Weiss x Blake). See the Yang post for my thoughts on Freezerburn.

OTP: It was White Rose until Volume 9 made me significantly less high on Bumbleby (Blake x Yang), but now it's Freezerburn.

Second choice pairing: Freezerburn pre-Volume 9, White Rose post-Volume 9. Monochrome and North Pole/Schneekos (Pyrrha x Weiss) after that.

Fluffy pairing: White Rose, Freezerburn. The sisters are very sweet and would absolutely adore Weiss and shower her with love.

Angsty pairing: Monochrome. There is so much potential for angst and conflict with Weiss's status as the heiress to the largest company on Remnant, known for abusing Faunus labor, and Blake's status as a prominent Faunus rights activist who has outright attacked Weiss's family's company before.

Favorite poly ship: Sigh... Bee's Schnees, I guess? See the Yang post.

Weirdest pairing: I don't really ship Weiss with anyone other than her teammates and Pyrrha, but whatever the hell Weiss x Marrow is called sounds incredibly funny. It has a similar foundation to Monochrome, Weiss, at least, seems to like Marrow, and there's a lot that can be done with their fight in Volume 7.

As for the Bionicle lore... I admittedly don't know the context there, but from what I remember of reading the various Bionicle books, love was very much present in that universe in some sense, and I'm not very fond of any kind of setting where love simply doesn't exist. I feel like I am missing a ton of information that would inform my opinion on this specific question, though.

[lunatriense]

Blake for the character bingo, as the only last member of Team RWBY that you haven't covered yet.

Okay, this one's going to be a little... special, because as we all know, Blake was replaced several seasons ago by her doppelgänger Blek, and the two have very little in common. Even less so than Ruby from early to later seasons, and that's a real accomplishment! Uh... I guess.

So here we go!

Wasted potential

You know the drill, and like Yang, Blake has this one in spades. She's a member of an oppressed minority fighting for equality for her people, who left the revolutionary organisation she was part of because the faction she was with grew too bloodthirsty and lost their way, so now she'll fight the good fight alone. That won't stop her though! She's been brought up outside the safety of the kingdoms, where you live by your wits and your blade, so although it hurts to see her comrades fall from the path she continues on unfazed, even in the heart of oppression where she must conceal her very nature to avoid the grinding bootheel of injustice!

Except it turns out that the bloodthirsty faction actually make up most of the revolutionary organisation. And they're the only people in the world trying to get equality for faunus. Ouch, not a good look there.

Okay, okay, but Blake didn't know that and she left when she saw what they were doing, right? So we'll just... we'll just put a pin in that for now. A very... very large pin. Ahem, moving on.

Right, brought up outside the kingdoms, that's a good one! She's lived a hard life with no safety net, probably an orphan or a member of some sort of warrior clan or something. Whatever it was, it can't have been easy.

... Aaaaand she was a princess on a tropical island. And not like a 'my family is trying to kill me so I must flee' or 'there was a coup and I have a massive bounty on my head' kind of princess either? Her whole family is almost universally beloved and respected? Oh come on!!

Fine, fine, she's still an oppressed minority who has to hide herself to avoid the systemic bigotry. That part at least will still resonate for sure.

What's that? Only like three people care that she's a faunus, and one of them gets over it within a day in world?

I give up. No wonder she just retreats to the corner to engross herself in her smut mature fiction.

They're deeper than they seem

That's because she's a passionate fighter for the cause of justice and equality stripped of the systemic abuses and injustices her character needs to thrive. She belongs in a show that stays in one place (for the most part), where she can connect with the people and make real, lasting change, not in a macguffin hunt travelogue where she barely even speaks to another faunus.

On the other hand, there's Blek. Blek shouldn't exist. She's a cardboard cutout that looks similar to Blake with a bad haircut and a bodysuit she picked up from the discount bin at the local fetish shop.

Blek's raison ďêtre is to undermine Blake's character. Where Blake is passionate, Blek is timid. Where Blake is dedicated to the cause of faunus rights, Blek blames them for their own subjugation, insists they need to show their oppressors how good they are by just... taking more oppression... (??) and giggles about the slave owning company who brands faunus owning the entire city of Atlas.

I'm pretty sure Blek is a replicant created by the SDC to sabotage the fight for faunus rights. She's the newest weapon in the COINTELPRO arsenal.