APPLICATION - forestcovered

[hygeiolatry]

Name/Work Name: Blackbile / Melancholy. It’s implied that ‘Blackbile’ might not be his real name; if this is the case, the Witch can have taken that one AND his in-canon use name.
Canon: wreCk
Canon Point: Just before facing off with C and V at the bridge.
AU/CRAU: N
Age: 19
History: Not much is known about the background of any character in the game wreCk, which is still very incomplete and being worked on.

Word of god pins Blackbile as having been a very anxious, sickly child with an older brother as family. 'Blackbile' has also been mentioned as unlikely to be his real name – he was probably called something else as a kid (out of interest he's called 'Pill' in all the game files). Other than that, there's not really anything to work with. Presumably his obsession with health stems from his childhood as a germ factory, though.

We first meet Blackbile in the game when we take control of C, an angel on a mission, and try to cross a bridge to reach a train station. Blackbile blocks the way and crowds into C's personal space, insisting that ey are too unhealthy to do anything but have bedrest. He repeatedly speaks over C's explanations and jumps to conclusions about eir health before he pushes em back in the direction of the town. C is forced to find a way around Blackbile and eventually finds eir ally V and convinces him to speak to Blackbile for em (or to push him off the bridge depending on which mission you chose for C). V agrees to help and they head back to the bridge.

Upon arrival, Blackbile appears to have vanished, but has left the electric fence he was standing beside live. Since they still can't get past, V suggests going back to the forest and getting the train from deeper in, which is surrounded by monsters. They do just that, but find the train and the tracks have been completely destroyed. They also find from the wildlife in the area that the water has turned black deeper into the forest and is affecting the animals who drink it, turning them in turn completely black and making them forgetful, listless, and unwell. One enemy even attacks them for ‘bothering’ it when they try to check it out. The creature is much more violent than its non-melancholic brethren, and puts up a pretty alarming fight.

Further in, they see Blackbile standing on a ledge and staring off into the distance before wandering back off in the direction of the bridge. Naturally, V attempts to talk Blackbile into letting C cross. Depending on the route taken, Blackbile will either take offence at a perceived slight by V (he thinks V is saying he isn't healthy enough to be a good example); he'll be offended by C refusing to listen to his advice and insulting his hat; or he'll be so alarmed by C's behaviour that he'll fight both C and V to make them realize how extremely unhealthy they both are. Every single outcome leads to his boss battle.

When he's eventually defeated, Blackbile will apologise, open the gate, drop his weapon, and go slink off to the side of the bridge to recuperate and feel bad. For the remainder of the demo, he'll simply be standing there and apologising whenever he's interacted with.

Personality: Well, the first thing you'll notice about Blackbile is that he's loud, overbearing, a worrywart, and utterly obsessed with health. He's exceptionally anxious about promoting the importance of good health and insisting people who are not healthy get plenty of bed rest. If he believes that someone is unwell, he won't listen to a thing they say to the contrary – them or their friends.

Overbearing doesn't begin to cover it. He'll enter directly into a person's space if he's concerned about them; he'll talk right over their words as he tells them what their health issues could be or ‘are’; and he will actually advance towards people so rapidly that he'll force them to walk back to avoid him bowling them over. Now, he does seem to be genuinely concerned for the health and safety of the person he's dealing with, but it's in an extremely domineering way. He never actually appears to listen to them and decides for himself.

Word-of-god suggests that there's some reason for this. Blackbile was an exceptionally sick and anxious child and it's likely that his obsession for good health has stemmed from this. His revulsion for ill health might edge straight into nosophobia – after all, he's far from rational about it. This is further backed up by how angry he'll get at V when, during Heal C's route, he believes the preacher is implying that he's not healthy enough to set a good example to others.

He's also extremely literal and likely to jump the gun about other things. For example, when V tries to introduce C by name, Blackbile consistently talks over him and insists that 'to see', 'the sea' and 'the letter c' can't be people since they're already other things, and doesn't let this go until C actually says 'My name is C', at which point he accepts it as a name instantly.

From his constant interruptions and jumping to conclusions, one could easily view Blackbile as an extremely rude individual. While he is aggressively overeager at times, he is actually fairly polite when being spoken to. If V is introduced he will compliment V on being 'tall and well fed' and speak to him quite politely. He's careful to gender C correctly when talking about em and even compliment sandwiches C in one route when criticising eir health. When C and V have a whispered conversation right in front of him, he doesn't try to interrupt and waits until he's spoken to again before re-joining, so it only seems to be when he's a part of the conversation that he'll be quite so rude and such a disruption.

After his battle, he's very apologetic to them both and if he won it, he'll actually heal them up and kindly tell them to go rest, no matter how angry they'd made him before. If he loses, he readily admits how wrong he was, apologises for getting in their way, and gets out of it to go feel sorry for himself elsewhere. The way he words his apologies – not to mention his name – seem to imply that he may have depression, and is now in a downswing after expending so much energy fighting people. It’s quite pathetic in the literal meaning of the word – despite him being a big bullish idiot, you can’t help but feel sorry for him when you talk to him after fighting.

In fact, despite his boss battle and the sinister hints in the game files, Blackbile seems to be quite a gentle person at heart. He just gets things pretty wrong and lets his irrational fears and anxieties get the better of him. Thus far, he doesn't seem to be a bad guy despite being a villain. Now it could be the case that this'll change in later updates, but so far it doesn't seem so. While he might have a more sinister mission that we're not currently privy to, seems to be an eager-to-help individual who is very passionate about keeping people healthy. He's kind of stupid, has a hair-trigger temper, and more than a bit obnoxious with a temper on him, but he's a decent enough person if one knows how to handle him.

Debt: To stop himself and those dear to him from ever getting as sick as he had been as a child. His childhood as a walking virus dispenser has made Blackbile loathe illness to the point of nosophobia – he never wants to go through that again, or for anyone he is close to to deal with such debilitating sicknesses.

Abilities: First off, he’s twelve feet tall and very, very strong. His generic physical attack hits at around 150 HP. Considering C and V might just have over 1000 HP if you grind a lot before meeting him, it's a sizeable attack. As for special skills, he has:

- Conversion Disorder – poisons/mutes/paralyses an enemy. It can do all at once, two, or one. Paralysis isn't permanent but poison and mute have to be healed.
- Cough – considerable damage to multiple enemies. This can hit for over 200 HP and is a pain in the ass. Presumably, he coughs out a cloud of the black sludge that drips out of him.
- Timely Check-Up – significant healing power. 300 HP if we're going by game mechanics. He's also seen to fully restore C and V's health and skill points after he fights them, implying that he has even greater healing powers than shown in his battle.
Blackbile also literally leaks black bile from his body. It seems to primarily seep out of his mouth when he’s incensed, but when he’s beaten up we also see it leaking out of his eyes like tears, and dribbling out of clothing like blood. It’s safe to say that all the fluid in his body, if not actually the black bile, is quickly overtaken by the stuff as it leaves his body.

It’s heavily implied that this stuff is what’s causing the melancholia of the animals in the forest – in the game files, the portraits for the blackened animals are listed as 'BB' and the background music for the forest area where you fight monsters is called BLACKBILE FOREST. If this is the source, then it seems that Blackbile’s black bile can cloud water and turn it murky black. When ingested, it turns a sufferer lethargic, listless, affects them with memory loss, and can in some cases make them extremely aggressive.