William Blake

Bio

AKA: The flowering death

Status: Alive

Birthday: 28 November

Age: 14

Height: 153cm (5 ft)

Weight: 42kg (92 lbs)

Blood type: AB

Likes: Roses, chess, chocolate

Dislikes: Broccoli, homework, annoying people

Ability: The Sick Rose

Ability namesake: The Sick Rose

Job: Student

Affiliation: Paulownia Court (Prometheus Institute)

Appearance

William is a young boy with platinum hair in a bowl cut. His right eye is dark blue. 

Casually, William wears a white shirt under a beige sweater and dark grey blazer, with shorts of the same colour. His lower legs are covered by white knee-high socks with a red stripe at the top, under a pair of black loafers. His left eye is covered by a white medical eyepatch. 

Formally, he wears a white shirt with a jabot and collar brooch under a dark grey, gold and blue vest, and black shorts with a white and gold trim. Attached is a black and blue layered train. He sometimes wears a black cape over the top. His right eye is left uncovered, revealing a dark red rose in its place, with several leaves and sprouts protruding from it. The surrounding skin has several small cuts and scars on it from the sprout’s thorns. 

Personality

Despite being incredibly young, William is mature for his age, often having more common sense than many of the adults around him. He will often speak up about anything he feels is stupid or wrong, leading to more than one incident in which he has gotten in trouble with an adult for insulting them. 

He is still very childish however, mostly due to being a child, and is easily excited by new things due to his sheltered upbringing. Since he did not experience many things as a child, he tries to experience all sorts of new things within the Paulownia Court. He also does not always understand certain boundaries and rules, causing him to become frustrated or annoyed at them. 

Before his ability manifested, he was much more energetic and upbeat, however with all the suffering caused by his ability, he has become more withdrawn and nervous of people, hiding his fears behind a prideful veneer. Often, he will act somewhat arrogant in an attempt to seem more confident than he actually is. Only a few select people know the truth, however, that he fears what his own ability may do to the people closest to him, and he is insecure about his strange appearance. 

Nowadays, he finds it hard to properly talk to others and be vulnerable around them, however he knows how to play the part of a young, innocent child very well, and uses it to his advantage to get his way. His mother, before her passing, was very controlling of him, causing him to resort to manipulation in order to gain any freedom, which he still attempts to use often to gauge people’s reactions. He rarely causes harm through this, however, as people either catch on, or someone stops him before he can go too far.  

Deep down, William is a very bright, playful, curious and mischievous young boy. However, he was never taught to express this, and thus outwardly reprimands Shelley’s experiments and other childish behaviours in order to hide his inner glee at her antics. Over time within the Prometheus Institute, he has started to come out of his shell slightly, however there are still parts of him held back by fear and his mother’s memory. 

Ability

Name: The Sick Rose (病気のバラ)

Induces decay in anything attacked by the parasitic spores released from the user, causing flowers to bloom and leach energy from the victim’s body over several days or even months as they wither away and rot. The only cure (other than internal nullification) is surgery to remove the parasite’s roots. There appears to be certain triggers to his ability, however much of the specifics are still unknown.

Skills

• Floriography
  • William can identify most flowers very quickly, so long as he has seen them at least once. He also knows the meanings behind many of them.
• Human condition
  • William can identify the state of a person’s health (if they are ill/ dying, how far into decay they are) quickly and with a high degree of accuracy due to experience from his ability. 
  • He can also identify certain groups of chronic conditions quickly, however this is more difficult and he may not be able to tell the exact condition. (E.g: He can tell that Seichou has a long-term chronic pain condition that cannot be cured, and the majority of his symptoms- both visible and invisible- but is unsure of what exactly it is)

Background

William grew up in Buckinghamshire with his mother, after his father died before he was born during the Great War. The circumstances surrounding his birth are mysterious. His mother, who was deathly afraid of losing her son, would try and isolate him from the outside world, however this backfired on her when one night he woke her up, claiming that his eye hurt. As it turned out, this was the development of his ability, and his mother, the only person in regular contact with him, became severely ill and died within days, found with flowers growing inside of her. William was taken to an orphanage, where the same mysterious illness began to spread to others, and the orphanage, which had been recently refurbished, began to rot away. In that time, William’s eye had begun to be overtaken by a mysterious growth, forcing him to cover it up. 

It was then that Rossetti, on one of her trips into town, discovered William, and took him back with her to the Prometheus Institute. There, she introduced him to Shelley, and she made him a part of the Paulownia Court in order to protect him. Only a day afterwards, they were forced to remove his right eye due to the growth of his own ability within him.

Timeline

• 14 years ago
  • William is born
• 11 years ago
  • His ability began to develop
  • Mother dies
  • He is taken to an orphanage
• 10 years ago
  • Christina found him
  • Admitted to Paulownia Court
  • Had his right eye removed by Mary and Christina

Etymology

William: Resolute protector

Blake: Dark-haired

Namesake

William Blake

English poet, printmaker and painter who is considered a seminal figure of the Romantic age. Over his lifetime, he wrote many pieces of diverse and symbolically rich work, and is seen as a key proponent to both Romanticism and Nationalism. 

Trivia

• While the real Blake had no connection to Christina Rossetti, her brother William Michael Rossetti was a fan of Blake’s. 
• His ability, ‘The Sick Rose’ is named after an eight line poem by the same title, about corruption of either a physical or spiritual form. 
  • Due to the language used, there are multiple ways of interpreting the poem, making it incredibly difficult to form one concrete idea from it. 
• William sleeps the most regularly of all members of the Prometheus Institute, falling asleep around 9pm and waking close to 8am. 
• He does not drink coffee, but he does drink earl grey tea. 
  • Seichou sends him new teas to try. William ranks them and sends the rankings back. 
• He is the youngest member of the Paulownia Court, and one of two high-ranking members under 18.
  • The other member is Maria Luisa Bombal, the Dean of Chile.
• He has his eye (what is left of it) preserved in a jar.
• He is a ward of the state under the Paulownia Court, however on all his school paperwork, Rossetti is noted down as his legal guardian.
  

Appellations

Christina Rossetti

William first met Christina when she took him from the orphanage and helped him gain admittance to the Paulownia Court. At first, he was wary of her, and afraid of his ability affecting her, however she showed him ways to monitor and control his ability over time, allowing him to live more freely. He greatly admires her and is thankful for what she has done for him, seeing her as a mother figure, despite refusing to admit it. 

Mary Shelley

Upon first meeting Mary, when Christina brought him back, he thought she was a cryptid of some kind. Having gotten to know her better, he recognises that she is an outgoing person who just struggles to socialise with others, and so he tries his best to get along with her and help her when she needs it. He is thankful to her for letting him in the Paulownia Court, despite his young age, and for defending him against other members who question his being there. Despite this, he does still find himself questioning why on earth she’s a Dean at times. 

Seichou Matsumoto

William first met Seichou three years ago, when Seichou visited England. At first, he thought Seichou was an old man, however upon realising that Seichou was not, in fact, a grandpa (much to Togawa and Nakai’s amusement), he became nervous of accidentally getting Seichou ill with his ability. Over time, as he gained more control of his ability, he has become less wary, however of all the Deans, he is still the most afraid of accidentally affecting Seichou with his ability due to Seichou's already poor health. He likes Seichou a lot, as he will often send new teas for him to try, and helps him with his studies. 

Maria Luisa Bombal

As Maria is the only other high-ranking member close in age to him, William gets along with her fairly well. He finds her a little odd, but respects her strength in her position and thinks her ability is cool, often asking if she can use it for him. She finds him fun and teaches him about her work in Chile. 

H.P. Lovecraft

William first met Lovecraft when he visited England four years ago. At first, William was terrified of him, after being introduced to Lovecraft while his ability was active. Upon seeing him the second time, they got to know eachother better, and William found that he didn’t mind Lovecraft that much. He thinks that his relationship with Shelley (whatever that may be) is ‘gross’, but other than that finds Lovecraft fun to be around. 

Jean Genet

William first met Genet when the Prometheus Institute visited France three years ago, but he had heard of her from both Rossetti and Shelley before. Like them, he dislikes her, finding her to be an atrocious person with little regard for those around her, however he isn’t stupid enough to pick a fight against her. He does his best to make sure that the other Prometheus members don’t try and fight with her when they meet in person, but this rarely works. Other than that, he stays out of her way, afraid of what might happen if she used her ability on him.