headbin

Character study - Blake

Blake Reference Image Gallery

Blake Melanie Harken (16). Born in Bargo, NSW, Australia. Growing out of being a tomboy. Unassuming. Questioning. Fiery intellect. Determined to be taken seriously. Naturally inquisitive, a natural talent for controversy.

5'1, 55kg. She slumps about the home in a less than lady-like manner to the despair of her generation Y parents. Not an unattractive kid but one that stubbornly refuses to primp, in the real world at least.

Thick black hair. Sits awkwardly above cute elf-like ears. An unkempt fringe partly obscures blazing green eyes. One concession to vanity - a discreet nose stud which, truth be told, her parents were relieved to discover, given her otherwise inward focus. Her look is utilitarian, functional. Her clothing goes with her preferred footwear, shoes that become a form of roller-blades on-demand.

Blake is a very serious person and she has not dealt with either puberty or social pressures gracefully. At school, she can be a bit of a slacker, confident but detached. She is quick to anger and yet shy to friendlier approaches by other kids or teachers. She has already been tagged by the educational system as a trouble-maker because she got caught in the school's computer system at age seven (the age at which she learnt to cover her tracks).

Blake was one of the first generation of kids to grow up using the Reactive Interface Grid (a non-invasive mind-machine interface). Blake was always going to have an affinity with virtual space that her parents lacked. Dad's influence meant that Blake went one stage further.

Never on to seek out the company of others, Blake emersed herself in her virtual world, Kerela, learning by osmosis the history of Australia and developing an understanding of the natural landscapes that it contained. Kerela is Australia, a virtual simulation of its present and past eco-systems.

Kerela is her dreamscape, a literal dream. A world that can be crossed at the speed of thought, a vast continent that has been simulated to perfection.

Dad and Mum met as young activists, trying to stop the uranium mining in the far north of Australia at Jabiluka . Blake has little or no idea of his goings-on outside the home.

She yearns for more social contact with her peers but after the events in Sanctuary she becomes ever more removed. She becomes obsessed with the downfall of the State - the regime under which her town and its wilderness has suffered. Her only touch of romance has been an awkward crush on a boy in the senior year who has had several brushes with the law already.

Her parents are trying hard but a little nervous about her development. Blake has a phobia about dancing and considers it supremely unnatural (a communal malfunction? a nervous tick?). She has little social contact with peers outside of school and has spent considerable time being home-schooled by her dad, a world authority on computer security and a local computer science professor. She loves her parents but rejects Dad's attempts to teach her total respect for authority. She is unaware of Dad's activist involvement.

Mum, on the other hand, has a more hands-off relationship with her daughter, whose intellect she finds somewhat intimidating. She is around but could be dead as far as her relationship to Blake at the moment. Blake shows no interest in the activities that her mum enjoyed at her age and this has put a distance between them. Blake finds it hard to respect any woman she views as a victim of the patriarchy.

Whereas most girls her age are busy creating their own identity through their wardrobe and networking in the school yard, Blake has undergone a different route. Growing up in a household overly familiar with bleeding edge technology, courtesy of her gruff but affectionate academic father, Blake has focused on constructing virtual identity and has quietly run rampant in cyberspace for several years. Her online identity is older (Blade), the identity she feels most comfortable with. The frustration of having to hide her virtual accomplishments from her class-mates is starting to wear away at her.

Blake is clever enough to have covered her tracks and even has invented a virtual companion for Blade, CD (aka the Customised Dude) as a way of disguising her origins. Blade does however wear Blake's real world affiliations on her sleeve. Blake is a wanna-be eco-activist who is experiencing constant frustration by the failure of others to take her seriously. She is too young, and too much a girl for the local eco-activists to take seriously.

Logging on at night and becoming Blade in the virtual world of Cityscape is a perfect escape valve for the young hot-head. Her fluency with computers is a welcome distraction from growing up in the modern world of the near future.

Posted by .M. at January 6, 2005 04:25 PM