(no subject)

[hacktivated]

OOC INFORMATION.

NAME: Kei

CONTACT: begleiter / kikeito on Discord

AGE: 30+

OTHER CHARACTERS: N/A

IC INFORMATION.

BASICS

CHARACTER NAME: Penny Polendina

CANON: RWBY

CANON POINT: Volume 8, episode 12; immediately after opening the vault, but before she gains a human body

AGE: 19ish mentally and physically, true age unknown; she's a robot likely only built within the past 5-10 years

BACKGROUND

HISTORY: Here

PERSONALITY:

What impression does your character give when meeting someone for the first time? How does the first impression differ from your character’s true nature?

To those that aren't aware that she's a machine Penny quite easily passes for human. She's a bright and friendly person, cheery and sociable and always interested in the people around her. She shows no signs of hesitation or awkwardness when she meets new people, just excitement and delight. This isn't an impression that really changes as people get to know her, either, but it doesn't take much to figure out that there's more to her than just a bubbly attitude.

Penny has a tremendous sense of personal duty and believes that her considerable power must be used to protect others, even at the expense of her own safety. Risking her life in order to protect the people she cares about, and who care about her, is something she considers to simply be part of who she is. For example, at one point Pietro attempts to stop her from doing something that's incredibly risky but would help protect her friends and the entire world, saying that he wants her to have a chance to live her life. Penny counters by pointing out that taking this risk for the sake of the people she cares about is her living her life. It's a startling undercurrent of somber sobriety to her otherwise cheerful demeanor, and not something many people expect from her.

What are your character’s ambitions/goals? Why are they important to your character?

Penny's goals can be summoned up quite simply: she wants to know what it means to be a normal girl. Penny isn't so much 'sheltered' as she is a 'closely guarded military secret' or, later, 'an extremely valuable and effective piece of military hardware'. That's not even counting the fact that Pietro sees her as his actual daughter and has a streak of paternal over-protectiveness driving him to try to keep her from harm. All this means that she's had very little exposure to normal life. It's instilled her with a fathomless curiosity and endless drive to know and learn about the people and places around her. New experiences never fail to delight her and she's not above sneaking away from her guardians in order to explore a new city and meet new people.

And, of course, the most essential part of being normal is having friends. Penny's fondest wish - to make at least one friend - came true years ago when she met Ruby Rose. And while no one can ever replace Ruby, she doesn't want just one friend. She wants to meet and befriend as many people as she can, and learn as much about the world as they're willing to teach her. Though she's aware that she's not human, she's extremely eager to learn and understand what it means to be human, and she doesn't let anything like uncertainty or inexperience stop her.

What are your character’s fears? How do they hinder or challenge your character?

Penny's life is one that has been marked by a persistent loneliness, and behind that loneliness is her greatest fear: that she's not really a person. She may look and act like a normal human girl, but Penny is a robot and she knows it. That fact alone doesn't bother her much she's greatly troubled by how it causes others to view her. While there are multiple people - namely her friends Ruby Rose and Winter Schnee, as well as her creator and father Pietro - who insist that she's a genuine person, most people seem to view her as just a machine, if a particularly advanced one.

And she doesn't get to forget that fact. When someone raises concerns about whether or not Penny is safe to be around her commanding office doesn't respond that she can be trusted, but that she's 'completely under my control'. Later, when Winter says that Penny wouldn't understand a family issue, Penny is quick to assume that it's because she doesn't have a 'normal' family (though Winter is just as quick to assure Penny it's not because she's not human, but because Winter's family situation is highly complicated). An enemy accuses Penny of only protecting her friends because she was programmed to. A hacker implants a virus that overrides control of her body and causes her to attack her friends. All of these incidents leave her visibly uncomfortable, disquieted, or outright despairing, and she spends the entirety of her arc prior to her canon point questioning if she really has the same degree of heart and worth as a human would.

POWERS

SKILLS/ABILITIES:
• Aura
Aura is the 'manifestation of one's soul' in Remnant. Aura is primarily used in a defensive manner, cloaking the user in a shield that protects them from damage and can even reduce the discomfort and harm of being exposed to extreme temperatures. It will also passively speed the healing of any injuries its user may have, though it's left ambiguous how much this applies to Penny given that she's a robot. Any use of Aura will steadily deplete it, though it can be recovered via rest. Once it's gone, Penny can be injured just like any other android and will no longer enjoy any other Aura benefits.

• Winter Maiden
Penny holds the power of the Winter Maiden, granting her access to magic beyond the capabilities of the typical Remnant resident. She has the ability to use many different forms of elemental magic - control over wind, fire, ice, and lightning are all explicitly shown, and control over water and earth presumably falls under this same purview. These elemental powers are incredibly flexible and everything from simple offensive blasts of elemental energy to manipulating wind for the sake of flight to creating elemental weapons is shown. While her skills give Penny an undeniable edge over most other Remnant residents, they by no means make her invincible. She and the other Maidens can and have been matched and overpowered by non-Maidens using clever tactics in the past, and her powers are never shown nor stated to give her any sort of innate immunity or resistance to any elemental magic apart from her own.

• Android Body
Being a robot made for combat comes with a handful of useful perks! Pietro was given a considerable budget and the backing of the military while constructing Penny, and imbued her with the following traits.

• Enhanced power, agility, and endurance; she is tireless, fast enough to solo a fight with multiple other powerful opponents, and strong enough to stop a speeding, fully-loaded cargo truck dead in its tracks.
  
• Exceptional durability; she suffered no damage with stopping the above-mentioned cargo truck
  
• Flight via the thrusters built into her legs; a top speed is never given, but she can easily keep pace with helicopters.
  
• Infrared and night vision capabilities
  
• The ability to directly interface with computers and wireless networks
  
• A self-destruct mechanism, which is presumably capable of dealing a great deal of damage to her immediate surroundings

NERFING:

• She will only be able to use her Aura, enhanced vision, and ability to interface with computers for 60 seconds per day.
  
• Her durability, power, agility, and endurance will all be reduced. Instead of keeping up with multiple powerful opponents, she can keep up with one. She will have the endurance of an marathon runner instead of a robot. Instead of being able to stop a fully loaded cargo truck, she will be able to stop a fully loaded Honda Civic.
  
• Her flight capabilities and magic will be reduced in both duration and speed. Her magic will not hit as hard and she will only be able to make a single elemental construct at a time, which will be much more fragile than what she is typically capable of. Instead of outpacing helicopters she will be able to outpace a Vespa. In addition, she will only be able to use these skills at their nerfed maximum for 60 seconds per day. Afterwards, she will be reduced to hovering at a walking pace (for flight) and creating small flames, ice cubes, static shocks, and so on (for her magic).

WEAKNESSES: Hacking and computer viruses; at her current canon point a hacker infected Penny with a virus that is compelling her to retrieve a magic artifact and then immediately self-destruct. While the virus itself won't be active upon arrival, it will provide a vulnerable back door for any other skilled hackers to infiltrate.

SAMPLES.

LINK - Thread with Fiddleford McGucket (Gravity Falls) in Deer Country
LINK - top level comment in Deer Country