RWBY OC: Jubilee Vogel V.3

Name: Jubilee Vogel

Origin & Influences: Inspired by Lewis Carroll’s “Jubjub bird” from his famous poem “Jabberwocky”. Jubilee is used as an adjective in relation to desserts, and means flambé or to set aflame. The Golden Jubilee is one of the largest diamonds in the world and is a golden-brown color. Vogel is the German word for bird.

The golden pheasant is known in Native American to be closely linked with concealment and protection and is also closely associated with its cousin, the peacock, which is often portrayed as a guardian of royalty and nobility.

Species: Golden Pheasant faunus.

Most of her faunus traits are fairly obvious—a little plume of golden feathers just above her hairline that fluff and flatten with her heartrate; talon-like nails that she files down like one might for a pet cockatoo; and blue-green, scaly bird-skin at strategic places such as elbows, knees, knuckles, and (oddly enough) the meaty bit of her palms just below her thumbs.

Being part bird, she’s also inherited the odd little head-tilt when something puzzles her, the tendency to go stock-still when sensing a predator nearby, and an especially keen sense of hearing. This, of course, (along with her semblance) means that she can move in a manner even more quiet and unassuming than a mouse, though she goes to great pains to consciously make noise when not otherwise occupied.

Symbol: A multi-faceted, seemingly tiger-striped diamond. Stripes are actually the neck-plumage of golden pheasants.

Age: Seventeen

Appearance: Jubilee is five feet eight inches of sleepy-eyes and placid smiles, with a fuller stomach, smaller breasts, and wider hips than of the most other girls; she doesn’t look like much of anything, let alone a Huntress. A secret, though: those sleepy, turquoise eyes that are always closed during class? Simply the result of being especially heavy-lidded, as she’s actually just looking down at the textbook, dutifully following along with the textbook.

She keeps her dark gold hair confined in a tight braid most times, from the crown of her head to the end in the middle of her back—she also winds a spiked strap into it, just in case someone decides it’s a good idea to grab and pull. When wanting to keep the irritation of its length to a minimum, she’ll coil the braid into a tight bun at the back of her skull. Otherwise peach-skinned, she has sun-freckles across her almost beaky nose and absurdly high cheekbones.

She wears a loose, high-necked, and sleeveless shirt of bright scarlet; three small belts curled around either bicep, and three dangle loosely from her waist, which while originally decorative, she uses to hold make-shift Dust grenades and occasionally a few extra cartridges; occasionally she'll have a dark turquoise jacket that covers both arms and stops at her waist; and always a black-striped orange scarf around her neck. Jubilee also wears a myriad of turquoise-encrusted bangles and bracelets covering both wrists and a good deal of her forearms, and will attempt to go barefoot whenever she is allowed—often when she isn’t, as well—only willingly donning her sturdy leather boots for combat-training and field-work.

Jubilee also wears light-turquoise gloves, and ankle-length leggings of the same color beneath a gold-colored wraparound skirt made of a soft, fluttery material. It is generally either knee- or ankle-length, and flashes an inch-wide sliver of legging on the right side, as she modifies normal skirts herself and can’t be bothered add enough fabric lengthwise to close the gap. She ties the ends together in a large bow that can be undone with a sharp tug, allowing her to wear the style that she is used to from living in the Vera Woodlands, but also making it easy to be rid of any hindrance it may cause in battle. Pretty, but practical—because while she likes how it looks, it is somewhat ridiculous to fight in a dress, and she refuses to do so.

Personality: Jubilee is, as previously mentioned, not a particularly impressive figure, and uses that to her advantage. She uses the sleepy cast of her eyes to disguise a quick mind, that placid mouth to innocently house a sharpened silver tongue, and will bland with the best politicians in response to anything from insults to praise, preferring to be underestimated or thought lazy whenever she can. The bird-faunus knows there is power in opponents believing in their own superiority. However, when she does open her mouth, the results are promising and effective—whether she is repeating the intricacies the teacher’s lecture to them after blinking owlishly in response to accusations of napping in class, or explaining in her low timbre why in the Nines she puts lavender oil on her pillows and weaves sprigs of honeysuckle into her braid at night. The answer to those last questions lies with her deeply spiritual upbringing, or rather, what passed for it in her treetop-dwelling clan (see backstory).

However, that’s not to say she’s a typical “strong but silent type” or all quiet, understated genius—while she doesn’t believe in speaking merely to hear her own voice, a much more powerful contributing factor to Jubilee’s near-silence is straight-up disinterest. Most things (including most of her classes) tend to be mind-numbingly boring to the older teen, and as such Jubilee has to make a point of forcing herself to pay attention by taking copious notes for all her studies. Jubilee works hard for her decent grades, knowing that if she allows herself to drift or slack off, she’ll never regain that momentum. Because no matter how uninteresting the academics are, she’s attending Arcadia Academy to learn how to protect herself and others, so she’ll put genuine effort into it.

Affiliation: Arcadia Academy, first-year student

Relationships: On lukewarm terms with most of the students due to their initial belief that she’s lazy and will soon wash out, Jubilee prefers the company of the professors, particularly the off-color Master Maddox and ever-mild Mistress Aldora. Jubilee also has a soft-spot for fellow student Mistress Swindon. Most others mistake her attention to the pig-faunus as a naïve belief of her stories, rather than what it actually is—rib-cracking mirth in face of her bold-faced lies and ridiculous tales of heroism. Usually the only times she will glance up from her textbook/lecture notes/food/feet (or, from the view of others, wake from her naps) is to innocently interject into the other girl’s stories, almost strictly for her own amusement. Usually it will be under the guise of asking for clarification, then she’ll then hide her smile beneath a yawn when Swindon will increase a number or add yet another challenge she had to face during the harrowing tale.

Aura and Semblance: Her aura golden-brown with the occasional flash of turquoise in its depths, Jubilee’s Semblance is rather fitting for the bird-faunus—sound amplification, her semblance is used to break glass and distract enemies with its painful volume. However, on rare occasions that she has yet to master, or even consciously trigger, a cooing noise will be produced that has a kind of siren effect—though the longest amount of time it’s lasted has only been for a few brief seconds.

Weapon: “Skeeter”, as she calls him, has the look of a weaponized skateboard on steroids, mostly because that’s what he is—several inches thick, three feet lengthwise, and a foot-and-a-half wide, with four evenly-spaced barrels on both the “front” and “back” and. Meant for large cartridges reminiscent of shotgun shells, the rim of each barrel is a different color to indicate the basic Dust form contained within the shell, and each barrel fires independently of each other based an aura- or semblance-powered chirp or whistle from Jubilee. All barrels can be fired at once, if she’s desperate enough to try; this can be accomplished by using the rest her supply of aura in an ear-piercing whistle—therefore, when she runs out of aura, Skeeter can’t fire.

The feature that gave the creator the most trouble was, of course, the firing mechanism—while precedents had been set for weapons that were actually powered by an individual’s aura, it was a struggle to create something directly influenced by such an abstract semblance like sound. Eventually the creator came up with a solution: he made the mechanism with a microphone trigger that fired when it picked up sound of certain pitches and intensities, igniting the Dust within the shells themselves. Reloading is a bit of a hassle, because individual panels must be removed from Skeeter’s surface to access the barrels, therefore, it was also made several inches thick so there are three row of ammunition on top of each other, the next one dropping down when the previous one empties.

Since the laws of motion dictate that Skeeter will shoot in the opposite direction of the blast, Jubilee has made it her business to understand the mathematics involved and can predict where she’ll end up. She uses it as both evasion tactics during battle—the momentum allowing her to maneuver herself wherever she needs to go—as well as for speed when attempting to traverse distances.

Fighting Style: The name for her weapon, Skeeter, came from a comment made by someone who witnessed an unfortunate encounter with an especially large Ursa, who mentioned that the blasts from her board weren’t too effective against its hide, seeming to merely enrage it like an irksome mosquito. Jubilee takes this method to heart, though, preferring to be too quick to catch and not expend great amounts of energy on one particular attack—“death by a thousand cuts” is the way she’ll go if she can.

Though the Skeeter’s make is similar to a gun, the ammunition used are not real bullets but cartridges full of Dust, meaning that any one or two or half a dozen blasts are non-fatal to even people, let alone creatures of Grimm. As such, Jubilee will often take the first few moments of an encounter to determine the weakest point of its defense and then hone in on it, focusing all of her blasts on that one particular point. When she runs out of ammo she uses the make-shift grenades on her belt next to the backup ammunition, accomplished by locking unstable combinations of Dust in enclosed spaces. Since the various Dust forms within the containers are volatile, the application of force-energy (like throwing them really hard at something) causes them to ignite. Again, this is not fatal so they would only be used as a last-ditch attempt and/or distraction. Barring that, she has two small blades tucked into her boots, but she isn’t very proficient with them as she isn’t comfortable with close combat.

Backstory: Jubilee grew up in one of the close-knit communities of faunus in the Vera Woodlands that survived The Longest Night, but left for Ambrose when she reached her teens. She had disliked the almost superstitious undertones of her clan’s local spiritual practices and their zealous distrust of anyone who wasn’t already known to them, particularly humans; she found that the nine main divinities, whom she was brought up to follow and honor in various ways, weren’t feasible in light of all the modern accomplishments and discoveries. As such, Jubilee took off to see the world and find her place in it, preferably somewhere that didn’t expect her to shun all knowledge that wasn’t passed down from her great-great uncle or some such nonsense. Still, she was born and raised in that environment, so the young faunus still keeps an unassuming shrine with glass figurines to her three personal favorites in her room (Lunessa, the Great Huntress; Shahria, the Grimmslayer; and Jalen, Patron of the Unlucky), and keeps up with a few minor other practices. Despite her family’s disappointment in her choice to leave, Jubilee left her childhood home with their blessing and the promise that she’ll still be welcome should she ever choose to return.

She faced the typical troubles of being a faunus in a predominantly human society, occasionally hiding her feathers beneath a hat and claws under gloves, learning her infuriating placid smile during her time as a floor-scrubbing maid. Rather than rail and rage against injustice, or turn to crime as a way to pay back the bigots, she simply bore her treatment with bland neutrality and the rare display of temper (though purely for purposes of self-defense). Fortunately, however, her main employers were merely the kind of people who thought of faunus as objects to be used simply because that was what they had been taught and not because of any real spite or malice.

This was demonstrated quite clearly when the man of the family had a proper weapon made for Jubilee after she accompanied them through the Marvo Mangroves, and helped protect their little boy when the company was attacked by a pack of Beowolves. Having grown up in the Woodlands, she had to know the basics of defending against the creatures of Grimm, and picked up one of the guns dropped by a fallen guard. The skirmish was the point at which she discovered her semblance, so her employer commissioned something specific to it; he had also noticed that her preferred method of transportation was a skateboard, so the offer of a weaponized version for Jubilee seemed particularly appropriate. His one stipulation was that she would use it to protect their son and accompany them on any other trips through the wilderness as bodyguard.