Characters / My Huntsman Academia Team TABY

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Team Tabby (TABY)

In General

Team Tabby

Team TABY (pronounced "tabby", after the type of cat fur) is a first-year team at Beacon Academy that's composed of Tenya Iida, Tsuyu Asui, Blake Belladonna, and Yang Xiao Long.

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• Foil: Like Team MNVW and Team RSBR, Team TABY's members serve as foils to each other.
  • Tenya to Tsuyu. Both of them are highly mobile combatants who don't rely heavily on a Semblance in combat (and in Tenya's case, he doesn't have one). But Tenya is wealthy and uptight due to growing up as part of a world-famous family of industrialists and Huntsmen. He frequently jumps to conclusions based on limited information due to how serious he is about everything, which can rub people the wrong way. In addition, he speaks with exaggerated hand gestures and overly formal vernacular. Tsuyu grew up in a much more humble family in Vale with a large number of siblings and cousins. She's far more down-to-earth and humble, insisting that her friends just call her "Tsu". Her Faunus features make it hard to tell what she's thinking at any given time and she's keenly perceptive, picking up on things that others would not and never hesitates to speak her mind.
  • Tenya to Blake. Tenya was born into one of Remnant's most prestigious families while Blake's parents were the founders of the White Fang in its peaceful days and lead the people of Menagerie. But while Tenya is proud of his lineage, Blake desperately hides her past out of fear of being judged by others. Tenya is also gentlemanly and formal in his mannerisms, while Blake is aloof and sarcastic until she warms up to others. Tenya also wears highly conspicuous armor that boosts his speed and is emblematic of his family, while Blake doesn't wear any particular form of protection and relies on stealth.
  • Tenya to Yang. Tenya is orderly, gentlemanly, and studious due to being born into a family of esteemed Huntsmen and industrialists. Because of this, he cares deeply about his family's good name and takes his responsibilities extremely seriously. Yang's parents were both famed Huntsmen as members of Team STRQ, but she was forced to take charge of caring for her younger sister after her father became emotionally shutdown with Summer's disappearance. Because of this, she's far more relaxed, flirtatious, and fun-loving. She doesn't care for her studies as much as she ought to and doesn't flaunt her family's name much at all. While Tenya doesn't have a Semblance to rely on, Yang relies heavily on her Semblance when facing tough opponents.
  • Blake to Tsuyu. They're both Faunuses who have faced adversity for their heritage and use bladed weapons as well as their natural mobility to their advantage. But while Blake is an only child and spent many of her years in the White Fang, Tsuyu grew up humbly in Vale with many siblings and cousins. Blake is secretive and aloof, while Tsuyu is down-to-earth and straight-to-the-point. Blake enjoys reading by herself as a hobby until Izuku decides to join her, while Tsuyu cooks due to taking care of her siblings while her parents were away at work. And finally, while Tsuyu is honest to the point of Brutal Honesty, Blake keeps many, many secrets from her team... including that she is a Faunus.
  • Blake to Yang. Yang and Blake are diametrically opposed in nearly every way. Blake is secretive about her romantic preferences and is embarrassed about her liking for Ninjas of Love. Yang is openly flirtatious and had more boyfriends than she has fingers by the time she was Ruby's age. Blake spent her years on the run after leaving her family to be part of the White Fang. Yang grew up in a small, tight-knit community with her sister and father after both her mother and stepmother vanished for reasons unknown. Blake's fighting style is all about misdirection and control, while Yang is straight-to-the-punch and gets in her foes' faces as much as possible. They both have feelings for Izuku and are the closest rivals for his affection, but by the time Blake truly noticed her feelings for him, Yang manages to snag him.
  • Tsuyu to Yang. They're both loving older sisters to younger siblings with a strong independent streak from taking charge at an early age. Tsuyu tends to carry herself as the responsible, mature one and engages in some more feminine hobbies like cooking. She isn't particularly open with her emotions and her Semblance doesn't have direct combat applications as it's only a storage tool. Yang is a fun-loving party girl who loves muscles, motorcycles, and brawling. She's fiery with a bit of a Hair-Trigger Temper and a powerful Semblance that gives her serious punch when things are rough. They also have a Straight Man and Wise Guy dynamic with Tsuyu and Yang having those roles.
• The Team Normal: Next to Tsuyu and Blake, the two Faunus of their team, Tenya and Yang form the normal human half.

Tenya Iida

Tenya Iida

The leader of Team TABY, Tenya comes from a long line of Huntsmen and industrialists in Atlas. Although he is studious, uptight, and a stickler for rules, he is a compassionate person who cares deeply for his fellow man. But his gentlemanly upbringing can be offputing for those who want a more casual, friendly relationship.

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• Adaptational Badass: Like the rest of the transplanted My Hero Academia characters, Tenya benefits from having an Aura. In addition, that costume of his is more than just a costume in this world — it's a set of Powered Armor.
• Adaptational Wimp: Unlike his canon counterpart, Tenya's speed isn't inherent to him due to his lack of a Semblance. Instead, it's part of his armor.
• Character Tics: Tenya tends to gesture stiffly like a robot while he's speaking, particularly when he's outlining certain points.
• The Comically Serious: He is a stickler for rules to the point that he makes a roll call at every Beacon Leadership Council meeting even when it's blatant who is and isn't present, like Izuku sitting right next to him. The one time he accidentally breaks the rules, he's reduced to a sobbing mess and has Izuku confront Pan Minos in his place to avoid getting scolded.
  • He is also extremely embarrassing whenever relationships between boys and girls are brought up, chastising Izuku for being an exhibitionist after a poorly phrased comment from Nora. His opinion flips around when the situation is clarified, but that just makes it even more embarrassing for Izuku. He's also the first to bring up the topic of safe sex after Izuku and Yang start dating. When he learns that Izuku received a box of condoms from Inko, Tenya immediately assumes that Izuku is a serial philanderer who intended to get in the pants of several girls at Beacon from the start.
• The Engineer: Tenya hails from a proud line of industrialists, giving him a wealth of knowledge on the use of Dust, machinery, and hydraulics. He can happily speak with Yang for hours on how to modify and customize motorcycles, but he admits that weaponsmithing is outside of his area of expertise when compared to Ruby and Mei.
• Entertainingly Wrong: Tenya has a tendency to jump to conclusions when presented with incomplete information. As mentioned previously, he immediately leaps to the conclusion that Izuku is an exhibitionist after hearing that he ran out of the shower in nothing but a towel (Nora had called for help to see what Izuku would do). He later concludes that Izuku is a serial philanderer after learning about Izuku's box of condoms.
• Fastball Special: He flings Izuku at the Giant Nevermore during Initiation at the latter's request, allowing Izuku to prepare to use One For All for the first time.
• Fights Like a Normal: The Iida family isn't conducive to developing a Semblance. Because of this, Tenya relies on his family's brand of Dust-powered armor instead.
• Heroic Lineage: He comes from a proud line of Huntsmen and engineers. Much like Weiss, his gentlemanly and affluent upbringing in Atlas leaves him somewhat out of touch with his middle-class friends.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Tenya is very proud, honorable, and responsible... but that does lead him to make mistakes at times and disproportionately take the blame for things. He fears Pan Minos not just because she's genuinely scary, but because his crime would have tarnished the reputation of the whole team — the crime of "running in the halls." In an earlier case, he blames himself for having drawn the attention of the Giant Nevermore in Initiation, because the Grimm saw the sunlight reflected off his armor from several miles away and decided to investigate (an action Tenya didn't know about but still took all the blame unto himself).
• Honor Before Reason: He's fully aware that if his brother couldn't beat Stain, he himself won't stand a chance and will probably end up similarly crippled or worse, but intends to go for it anyway because he can't satisfy his anger and resentment otherwise.
• Jerkass Ball: After Stain cripples his brother, Tenya starts drifting away from his friendships and responsibilities, sometimes lashing out in anger and lying through his teeth about his intentions. The contrast with his usual upstanding, earnest and honest demeanor is striking.
  • After Izuku attempted (and failed) to discourage him from going after Stain, his behavior goes from fairly distant to downright hostile whenever someone tries to discourage him from going after Stain or when Izuku's name gets brought up, doing things such as insulting Yang and Izuku to Yang's face (even going as far as to accuse Izuku of not being serious about his dream), taking advantage of Ruby's kindness, and rebuffing Tsuyu when she outright told him he was going to get killed. He ends up regretting it in the aftermath of the Fire in Vale and proceeds to make amends and patch things up with everyone.
• Last-Name Basis: Due to his gentlemanly upbringing, he tends to call people, even his close friends, by their surnames rather than their first names, referring to Izuku as "Mr. Midoriya" and Ruby as "Ms. Rose". Izuku has to work hard to get him to loosen up and call him by his first name. He also lapses back into this when he's feeling stressed.
• Not So Above It All: While he normally is willing to abide by the system, he's terrified of Pan Minos because she caught him running in the halls once (thanks to the Bathroom Bombings) and refuses to face her... despite that being the right thing to do. So he willingly throws Izuku to the wolves to save his own skin.
• The One Guy: The only guy in TABY.
• Out of Focus: Compared to the other two first-year team leaders, Tenya gets the least amount of focus and Izuku doesn't hang out with him often outside of Beacon Leadership Council meetings. In fact, all of his teammates actually get far more screentime than he does.
• Powered Armor: Tenya and his family make up for their lack of Semblances with their own signature brand of specially made armor that provides sturdy protection and allows them to run at breakneck speeds with the help of the Wind Dust canisters laid within.
• Real Men Cook: Like Izuku and Ren, Tenya is a surprisingly good cook, which Coco comments on when she first joins the Beacon Leadership Council.
• Superhero Speciation: Out of universe, this is the reason for his powerset change from "Speedster," to "Powered Armor" — the author already knew that Ruby was going to be that in the setting and so didn't want to have two super speedsters or them to compete.
• Super-Speed: The Iidas' Powered Armor uses Wind Dust to run at incredible speeds.
• Team Dad: He's responsible, strict, and insistent on doing everything by-the-books. He's there for his friends and teammates whenever possible and tries his best to be a composed leader figure.
• Token Boy: Like Izuku, he's the leader of a team with three other girls.
• Un-Sorcerer: Not to the same degree as someone who is Broken, like Izuku, but people of the Iida line have a deficiency in their souls — they can produce Aura just fine, but it's incapable of producing a Semblance. As a result, the Iida family builds Powered Armor to compensate. According to the author, this was done deliberately to distinguish him from Ruby, who also has Super-Speed.

Tsuyu Asui

Tsuyu Asui

^{Click here to see her combat outfit} 

A frog Faunus and Yang's partner. Her unique features makes it hard to tell what she's thinking at any given time. But she has a penchant for speaking her mind and the truth of a matter, no matter how unpleasant that might be, and is especially observant among her peers. She's close friends with Ruby.

Her weapon is a simple machete contoured so that it can be easily used with her tongue or her hands.

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• Adaptational Badass: Like the rest of the transplanted My Hero Academia characters, Tsuyu benefits from having an Aura.
  • In canon, her Quirk is that she's got frog powers. In this story, she still has those frog abilities, but in addition to that she also has a Hammerspace Semblance.
• Adaptational Species Change: She has been retooled into a frog Faunus in the quest.
• Adaptational Superpower Change: Most of her abilities in canon came from her Quirk being "Frog" — long tongue, secretes toxins, strong legs, etc. Here, those (with the exception of the toxins, see below) are the result of her being a frog faunus. Her Semblance is a Hammerspace pocket in her stomach.
• Adaptational Wimp: A very minor case, but in canon she could secrete a midly toxic substance that was irritating to the skin as part of her powers. She could also stick to walls easily. Here, she has to mix the toxin herself, and said toxin allows her to stick to walls.
• Affectionate Nickname: She tells all of her friends to call her "Tsu", but Izuku frequently forgets.
• Boring, but Practical: Tsuyu carries a simple machete instead of a fancy Mecha-Shift weapon. This is eventually averted, as she gets a Bowie-knife-Shotgun hybrid from a member of the White Fang who surrendered to her.
• Brutal Honesty: Tsuyu is never afraid to speak her mind, even if she ends up coming off as brutally blunt.
• Chameleon Camouflage: She can apply a special substance to her suit that allows her to do this, making it useful for sneaking up on others.
• Dope Slap: Tsuyu gives these to people if she feels that they're being annoying or foolish, like Izuku when he's mumbling or after he busted up his arms or (most frequently) Yang after she acts on her Pungeon Master tendencies, by slapping them with her whip-like tongue. It apparently manages to sting badly even when it doesn't break through one's Aura.
• The Engineer: She has the "Gadgeteer" skill, letting her make her smaller pieces of equipment with the necessary materials, time, and know-how. She created her combat outfit herself and specifically designed it to be able to release specialized toxins that can either allow her to stick to walls or stun her opponents on contact.
• Fantastic Racism: As a Faunus, Tsuyu is on the receiving end of this trope from Team CRDL, insisting that she's just as qualified to be as Beacon as they are while they just call her an animal. Yang quickly intervenes and puts Cardin in his place.
• Feminine Women Can Cook: Played with. Tsuyu isn't overtly girly, but she often cooked for herself and her siblings at home.
• Green-Eyed Monster: She's jealous of Weiss, though she is aware that it's petty and works to overcome it. Specifically, she's jealous of Weiss' natural beauty, the relative lack of struggles Weiss has had to go through, and her wealth.
• Hammerspace: Her Semblance allows her to store anything she wants in her stomach up to a space of ten cubic feet. However the amount she can hold directly ties into how long her Aura holds out and how big she makes the space. As a result, the amount of Aura she needs to burn to maintain her Hammerspace increases with the size of the object. She also has to be able to swallow the object.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: Her frog Faunus traits don't sound like much, but they give her impressive natural mobility and a powerful whip-like tongue that can be used as a prehensile limb.
• Hidden Depths: She's good at physical fitness and made schedules and workout routines for both Ruby and Weiss.
• In a Single Bound: Her powerful legs allow her to leap enormous distances with ease.
• Lame Pun Reaction: While everyone is prone to groaning in response to Yang's puns, Tsuyu is the only one willing to Dope Slap Yang for it, doing so dozens upon dozens of times in just ten weeks at Beacon.
  • She's shown as being willing to do it to her other friends too, as Izuku finds out after his Glenn Smash-filled spar with Yang.
  • Izuku eventually negotiates with Tsu to let Yang have three puns per day without punishment.
• Little Bit Beastly: Tsuyu has a frog-like face and mouth. She also has a powerful, prehensile tongue that can painfully slap others even through their Aura. As a downside, she's also exothermic, becoming sluggish and sleepy in cold environments. She's quick to swaddle herself in a thick fur coat after being forced to fight in the middle of winter.
• Machete Mayhem: She carries a simple machete into battle rather than a particularly fancy or complex Mecha-Shift weapon. Its handle is specially designed so she can effectively use it in-hand or with her tongue.
• Mix-and-Match Weapon: She takes up José Cuervo's bowie knife/Sawed-Off Shotgun at his request.
• Multipurpose Tongue: Tsuyu's tongue can be used as a weapon and to grab and transport things and people. It's most often use is to give people who pun a Dope Slap.
• Nerves of Steel: She's incredibly good at keeping calm, even when things are getting rough. She never raises her voice, even in combat, and is never seen losing her composure even with the wackiness surrounding her.
• Nice Girl: While she can be a bit blunt, Tsuyu is always kind and is never actively malicious.
• Oh, Crap!: When Yang learns that Tsuyu ran the betting pool on when Yang and Izuku would get together, she initially demands money... until Izuku talks Yang down and convinces her to negotiate for how many puns she can make per day without getting a Dope Slap. It marks one of the few times in the story that Tsuyu completely loses her cool.
• Overly-Long Tongue: One of Tsuyu's Faunus traits is a powerful and long tongue that can be use as a weapon or to grab things.
• Shipper on Deck: She ships Izuku and Yang together, particularly while spying on them with Ruby. She goes to collect her betting money after she watches Izuku accept Yang's offer to start dating each other.
• The Stoic: It's hard to tell what Tsuyu is thinking at any time since her frog features give her a nearly perpetual neutral expression. She's also very good at keeping her cool even in the most stressful situations.
• Straight Man and Wise Guy: She has this relationship with Yang, being the far more responsible and serious foil to Yang's wisecracking and Blood Knight tendencies.
• Super-Senses: Like all Faunus, Tsuyu possesses night vision.
• Surprisingly Normal Backstory: Out of the core twelve characters, her background is the most normal. She was born into a nuclear family that was busy, so she had to take care of her siblings occasionally. The worst she has is the occasional anti-Faunus racism, and that her father was a member of the White Fang... but left peacefully once Ghira left, which was years ago and doesn't bother the family at all. She's not famous, doesn't come from a noteworthy family, isn't part of some heroic legacy, isn't rich, doesn't have a history with the others, wasn't Broken, she isn't an orphan in tragic circumstances... she's just Tsuyu.
• Verbal Tic: Ribbit, ribbit.
• Wall Crawl: She can use the toxins she coats her suit in to stick to walls. She can use this same substance to make her foes stick to each other.

Blake Belladonna

Blake Belladonna

A quiet and secretive young woman who loves books. She is secretly a cat Faunus and a former member of the White Fang, leaving the group after a dispute with her superior, Adam Taurus, who would have killed an entire train crew just to sabotage the Schnee Dust Company.

Her weapon is the Gambol Shroud, a "Variant Ballistic Chain-Scythe" that acts as both an automatic pistol and a melee weapon that she can freely manipulate with the ribbon attached to it, allowing her to effectively fight her opponents at any range.

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• Action Bomb: Thanks to her learning to infuse Fire Dust into her clones, she's learned how to make clones that explode in a huge fireball when destroyed (much to Ren's irritation when he tests that out).
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Thanks to the mixed-up teams and a dose of For Want Of A Nail, her canon friend, Sun, has barely had six lines with her.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: While she certainly didn't have a good opinion of herself in the original RWBY series, Blake's self-esteem is in the pits in this story, believing herself to be an utterly horrible person and a fraud for constantly lying to her friends. It's also implied that she has blood on her hands, directly or indirectly, as a member of the White Fang, which was only barely alluded to in-canon. It takes Izuku becoming her confidant to give herself an outlet to vent and feel better about herself.
• Adaptational Badass: Blake has begun to learn how to make multiple clones at once, which she couldn't do as of the beginning of season two of RWBY.
• All Take and No Give: Blake feels that many of her closest relationships have been this, joining the White Fang with her parents and refusing to leave when it became extremist, letting Ilia fall into its hateful ideology, following Adam while slowly watching him turn into a monster, and hanging out with Izuku and venting without really offering him anything in return.
• Alliterative Name: Her first and last name start with "B".
• Animal-Eared Headband: The bow she wears on her head is designed to invoke this, giving the illusion of cat ears while hiding her real ones. In one canon omake, it actually worked- Yang caught her in the shower with her bow off, and thought she still had her bow on.
  • Another canon omake did draw Weiss away from the truth, but for the wrong reason- Weiss thinks Blake is a human who wants to support the Faunus (similar to real world "Straight Allies" of people in the LGBTQ+ community) and wears the bow to symbolize her support... but at the same time is misguided and doesn't know how best to help the group she claims to support.
• Animal Stereotypes: She's a cat Faunus and her favorite food is fish. She's aware of this and horribly embarrassed by it. She's also terrified of dogs, hiding atop a bookcase when Lulu trots up to her.
  • What separates the fear of dogs from other traits of hers is that while liking fish and falling asleep where it's warm aren't necessarily bad things, being afraid of dogs isn't something she can control. She herself is not afraid of dogs (she even lampshades that with her training, Aura, and powers, there is no dog on Remnant that physically poses a threat to her), but her body forces the fear response when a dog is around. It's embarrassing and anger-inducing to her.
• Anti-Hero: Blake is oftentimes aloof, anti-social, irritable, and paranoid around others. She can be rather callous about the feelings of others, writing off Izuku as being too skittish to become an effective Huntsman and ditching him while barely saying goodbye when they reached the Main Hall together. Despite all of this, she's committed to helping others and protecting those she cares about. She also harbors intense feelings of self-loathing for her tendency to run from her problems and abandon those she gets close to, making her afraid of growing attached to anyone.
• Badass Bookworm: As a former member of the White Fang, Blake already has a wealth of combat experience that gives her a leg up above her peers. She also loves reading literature in her free time and ends up starting a little book club with Izuku where they discuss novels they've read and the philosophies behind them.
• Becoming the Mask: When Toshinori catches Blake stalking Izuku, she lies and says she has a crush on Izuku to make her behavior less suspicious. As the two spend time together, she actually begins to fall for him because of just how gentle and understanding he is of her circumstances. Despite this, she remains terrified of hurting him the way she feels she hurt her parents, her friend Ilia, and her superior and lover Adam. So when Izuku and Yang start dating, Blake is quite supportive and happy for their relationship, but she admits to Yang that she'd be lying if she said that the thought of dating Izuku never crossed her mind.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: As a cat Faunus, Blake has a pair of Human ears and a pair of cat ears on her head.
• Blatant Lies: Blake says that she would rather fight with Izuku than Katsuki because Izuku could keep his mouth shut in a fight... even though Izuku screams all of his attacks at the top of his lungs as part of his Semblance. Although given the other option is Katsuki "Constantly screaming that his enemies should die" Bakugou, it might just be relative.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Gender-inverted with her and Izuku. Blake is melancholy, filled with self-loathing, and somewhat paranoid around people because she fears that her Dark and Troubled Past will come to light. While Izuku suffers from similar amounts of Heroic Self-Deprecation, he is a gentle and trusting soul who does his best to try and cheer her up, having nothing but good things to say about her and offers her constant comfort and companionship. He shrugs off all of her attempts to push him away (figurative and literal) or try to convince him that she isn't a good person and gives her an outlet to vent and tell her secrets to without fear of reprisal. A lot of his attempts to do so end up making her embarrassed when he buys into her impromptu excuses, like when she says that there's a guy she's interested in and tries to convince her to ask this guy out.
• Combat Pragmatist: She prefers to get the jump on her foes and take them down stealthily from behind, slowly moving through enemy ranks until no one is left standing.
• Combat Stilettos: Blake's fighting style is highly mobile and acrobatic even though she runs around in high heels. Justified in that she has grown used to them and uses the heels to hide lock-picking tools and a compartment for storing items and messages.
• Covert Pervert: She enjoys Ninjas of Love, which is a romantic novel series filled with smut. She's embarrassed when Izuku reads the first few pages of the second book at Tukson's bookstore and ends up buying it for her as a gift, oblivious to its raunchier contents. She also apparently went all the way with Adam.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Blake is a former member of the White Fang, a protest group that transformed into a terrorist organization over Anti-Faunus discrimination, committing various acts of sabotage, theft, and other crimes in hopes of leveling the playing field. But she deserted the organization when she realizes that her partner would have killed an entire train crew to get away with the Dust on board. She is terrified of letting her past come to light.
• Dark Secret: She is ashamed of her status as a former member of the White Fang and terrified of what her friends will think of her should they find out. When she finally confesses to Izuku, she's stunned when he says that he'll continue to stand by her.
• Demoted to Extra: For the Docks arc only, where she's just one of many people fighting the White Fang. Compare this to the canon Docks arc, which was entirely focused around her, her species, and her past.
• Doppleganger Attack: Played with. Blake's Semblance can create shadow clones to distract opponents and take attacks for her, but she can't actually manipulate them in any way.
• Dramatic Irony: While battling the nameless grunts of the White Fang, they refer to her as a "fucking Human bitch" as she takes pot shots at them from behind.
  • In order to get an advantage over Izuku, whom she thinks has figured out that she's a cat faunus due to a misunderstanding, she starts stalking Izuku so that she can have a secret she can hold over him as collateral. Fortunately for everyone involved, she fails and admits that the big secret about Izuku is that he has no big secret- he's an honest and kind person who is exactly as he appears to be. Which isn't quite accurate, as she barely misses, on several occasions, finding out about One For All, Toshinori, and the connection between him and Izuku.
• Dual Wielding: Blake can wield her Gambol Shroud this way, holding the main body with one hand and the sheath (which also possesses a cleaver-like cutting edge) in the other.
• Entertainingly Wrong: When Izuku asks her for some yarn to help him repair his shredded clothes, Blake comes to the conclusion that he was onto her true identity and accidentally blurts out a Suspiciously Specific Denial. Thoroughly convinced that he knew about her secret, she became a Stalker without a Crush in hopes of finding some dirt on him that she could blackmail him with to get him to keep quiet. She later realizes that her efforts were fruitless as Izuku is utterly guileless and didn't realize a thing until she spelled it out for him.
• Establishing Character Moment: In-Universe. One thing that confuses Blake so much about Izuku is how all over the map her first impressions of him were. When they first met, he was stuttering and stammering so much when trying to talk to a girl she wrote him off as a useless loser who was trying to ask her out (and failing), then the second time he shattered his arm one-shotting a Giant Nevermore and then asked if she was the one who was okay.
• Fairy Tale Motif: Blake's motif is Beauty and the Beast as the "Beauty" to her former partner and superior Adam Taurus's "Beast", following a moral path after becoming disgusted with Adam's callousness for Human lives. Her surname means "beautiful woman" and Adam is popularly believed to be the Beast's original name in the Disney film.
• Fragile Speedster: Her Strength rating is significantly lower than bruisers like Izuku, Yang, and Nora at a middling 16. But she has a high 21 in Dexterity by the time she encounters Stain fighting Tenya in Vale and can keep pace with Izuku while he's using 5% Full Cowl. This compliments her hit-and-run fighting style that focuses on capitalizing on her foes' weaknesses instead of taking them on directly.
  • This trope is especially the case for her clones, which can't even take one hit before disintegrating, but have all her strength and speed.
• Had to Be Sharp: She didn't go to combat school like her peers, having learned everything she knows about fighting as a part of the White Fang. Living outside of the protected kingdoms meant that she had to be able to fight or else she'd die.
• Hide Your Otherness: As a Faunus, Blake is terrified of being outed because of the torment she would get from people like the members of CRDL. She's even more scared of being connected back to the White Fang. This is what gets her to hide her ears with her bow. She eventually stops doing it in the aftermath of the Stain incident once she has decided that she can't run from it anymore.
• I Have This Friend: Over the course of the story, it's heavily implied that Blake is developing a crush on Izuku for being so warm and understanding to her despite her past. She hides it by saying that there's this guy she's interested in that Izuku would like a lot, describing him as "good", "kind and just", and "a stand up person", making up this description off the top of her head. Izuku totally buys it and says that he's confident that this "friend" would definitely take her out on a date if she asked. This just makes Blake even more embarrassed.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Fearing her nature to be toxic and that her relationship with him was All Take and No Give, she doesn't fight it when Izuku and Yang get together, wishing both of them well... even if she does slightly regret it.
• In the Back: She tends to take down her foes from behind rather than trying to take them in a straight fight.
• Instant Expert: The first time she ever goes bowling, she gets a spare every time she rolls the ball. Even she's surprised at this. In meta terms, it's because the GM figured that Bowling required a dexterity check since none of the characters had the skill, and Blake has the single highest DEX scores of the entire main cast, allowing her to ace all the rolls she made.
• Internal Reveal:
  • She reveals her identity as a cat Faunus and her past as a member of the White Fang to Izuku after the latter inadvertently guilts her into doing so with his earnest behavior. He is a little surprised at first, but takes it mostly in stride and promises to keep it a secret because he believes that she is fundamentally a good person.
  • Later on, during the Fire in Vale, she reveals the above to Tenya during their fight with Stain and, soon after the fight, finally confesses to being a former member of the White Fang to the rest of Team TABY as well as Teams MNVW, RSBR, MADE, and Sun (as well as Enji, Aizawa, Sorahiko, and Ozpin). Unlike Izuku, they don't take it in stride nearly as much as Izuku has and relationships between Team TABY members remain strained due to Tsuyu's stance on the White Fang and Tenya still dealing with the fallout from his behavior last week.
    • In addition to the above, this is also the point where she finally discards her ribbon and no longer hides her Faunus features while at Beacon.
• Irony:
  • Due to a misunderstanding, Blake starts stalking Izuku to find out his secrets. Toshinori finds her, misreads the situation, and she's forced to lie and say that she likes Izuku romantically to get out of it. Toshinori laughs and says that she should snap him up before someone else does. Later on, after she has fallen for him romantically, Yang manages to snap him up before she does.
    • Said misunderstanding is that she accidentally blurted that she's not a cat Faunus in front of Izuku when he asks if she has a ball of yarn to fix some clothes. This leads her to try to find blackmail on him so that he won't reveal her secret... which he didn't actually know (he didn't even remember her saying it when asked, and had originally asked because his teammates had a weird assortment of items so he thought other people might have other things he might need (in this case, string to repair his clothes from training One For All)), and this eventually leads to her revealing her heritage for real to him.
  • Despite it being secret, the Cat Faunus is put on a team named for a type of cat. She even lampshades this (and what's funnier is that it wouldn't have been named that if it hadn't been for the "B" in her name).
  • Blake eventually comes to the conclusion that Izuku is just a really nice guy with no real secrets, managing to miss his connection to Toshinori Yagi, his former Broken status, and him being the next host of One For All.
• Keeping Secrets Sucks: Blake hates the fact that she's constantly lying to her friends, especially Izuku, about her past and feelings in hopes of maintaining some sense of normalcy between her and them. It makes her feel like a fraud when they're trying their best to help her. Even after Izuku tries to talk her through it, she can't bring herself to be truthful to them because she's terrified of how they'll react to her as a criminal and a former member of the White Fang. It isn't until after the fight with Stain that she decides to reveal her past to everyone and, while there is indeed fallout from it (an extra week of detention, her relationship with Weiss and Tsuyu becomes strained, and she is more or less put on probation), she isn't alone in the fallout thanks to Tenya's and Izuku's actions (being a vengeful jackass and confessing to knowing Blake's past since Color Week respectively) taking a lot of the heat off her.
• Leave Me Alone!: She rebuffs Izuku's attempts to reach out to her at first, feeling that she'll just drag him down and get him hurt or worse. He disagrees. Even as he tries to work her through her issues, she's still secretive around her own teammates due to her fears of how they'll react when they learn about her past.
  Blake: I've been lying to you. Way before even the stalking, I lied to your face! You, someone just trying his hardest to help... who 'knows' that he can trust people... I've... I've lied about who I even am. On the most basic level... Izuku... you don't even know... [runs her hand through her hair, absentmindedly brushing it against her ribbon] Izuku... please, just go.
  Izuku: What? Blake-
  Blake: If you stay around me... I'm going to hurt you. That's... that's just in my nature. That's who I am. That's probably the most truthful thing I've ever said to you... [laughs bitterly, wrapping her arms around her torso as her head droops] Anyone who ever put a modicum of trust or faith in me knows that... and Gods... I don't want to be the person who does that to you Izuku. You're... you're "my friend"... but... [shakes her head and refuses to look up] But you're wrong... I'm not doing what I think is right... I'm running. I'm trying to get away... I'm... I'm not a good person. I'm not fit to be anyone's friend. So... so just... do yourself a favor, Izuku and don't bother with me. Please.
• Leitmotif: "From Shadows", a piece that transitions between gentle piano into techno into hard rock, representing the dichotomy between her outwardly stoic exterior and her repressed frustrations about the treatment of the Faunus.
• Little Bit Beastly: She's a cat Faunus, giving her cat-like ears on top of her head that she hides with a bow. She also has some cat-like behaviors, like her preference for fish or a fear of dogs.
• Luminescent Blush: Whenever Izuku is making her feel embarrassed, she starts to blush as well.
• Meaningful Name:
  • "Blake" is derived from two Old English words that mean "black" and "pale" respectively, reflecting her black and white color motif.
  • To "gambol" is to run or jump around playfully while "shroud" means to hide or conceal something. The chaotic and mutable nature of her use of Gambol Shroud as a gun, sword, and kusarigama as well as her ninja-like combat style make the name a fitting a choice for her.
• Mix-and-Match Weapon: The Gambol Shroud is a katana attached to a machine pistol. Because it's also tied to a ribbon, she can use it as a kusarigama as well. Even the sheath is able to be used as a cleaver.
• Ninja: She prefers to knock out people from behind before vanishing back into the shadows. She also makes shadow clones and is one of the best at sneaking around and gathering information. She's frequently referred to as such, with the achievement notification for fighting alongside her being, "WASHOOM! Ninja skills!"
• Ninja Log: Her Semblance allows her to create shadow clones that can take hits for her, tricking her opponent into believing they made a successful attack before getting the drop on them. They also boost her forward, enhancing her already impressive mobility.
• Rebellious Rebel: She began a a member of the militant White Fang, but she fled the organization after realizing how far it has fallen and hopes to improve the world as a Huntress instead.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Blake shares the role of Blue Oni with Tsuyu to Yang's red. Both Tsuyu and Blake are reserved and quiet when compared to the outgoing and boisterous Yang. Blake also wears dark colors like black and white while Yang wears brighter colors like yellow and brown.
• The Reveal: Thanks to a lot of stuff being changed in small ways, like her not being on a team with Weiss, not being the first to meet Sun, and good dice rolls, this trope is averted compared to canon- Blake getting revealed as a Faunus set up the final arc of volume 1 of RWBY, but here only Izuku knows that she's a Faunus, even after the docks. She confesses to being both a secret Faunus and a former White Fang member in the aftermath of the Stain fight. This also leads to Izuku confessing to his team as well as Teams TABY, RSBR, MADE, and Sun over the course of Spring Break that he knew about all this since Color Week and kept it a secret.
• Signature Headgear: She wears a bow to hide her cat ears. It fools everyone at first, except for perhaps Ozpin. But it feels constricting to her and she takes it off the first chance she gets while resting at Izuku's apartment. She eventually discards it in the aftermath of the Stain fight (the ribbon being used to restrain him) once she concluded that there's no point in running anymore.
• Sinister Scythe: Less so than Ruby, but the Gambol Shroud can be used like a kusarigama thanks to the ribbon tied to the gun and the blade.
• The Sneaky Guy: Like Ren, Blake is an expert at staying hidden thanks to years of being on the run with the White Fang.
• Stalker without a Crush: Blake becomes one to find something to blackmail Izuku with after a miscommunication and a Suspiciously Specific Denial makes her come to the mistaken conclusion that he knows about her identity as a cat Faunus. This is eventually revealed to be averted- while this trope was true at the start, she eventually did get some feelings for Izuku but stood aside to let him be happy.
• The Stoic: She tries to be this, but her interactions with others make it clear that she's just quiet rather than non-emotive and she can be exceptionally fiery when she's upset.
• Stunned Silence: Blake reacts this way when Izuku tries to introduce himself for the second time with an awkward and overly earnest greeting. She eventually snaps out of it and is tempted to ask if he's being serious or not.
  Izuku: [giving a big, quivery smile and holding out a hand to shake] Hi, my name's Izuku Midoriya and I'm here to be the best Huntsman I can be. Nice to meet you!
  Blake: [gaping for a moment before chuckling] I can't even ask if you're being real or not. Seeing is believing at this point with you.
• Super-Senses: Like all Faunus, Blake has night vision.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: She furiously denies that she's a cat Faunus when Izuku was just asking for a ball of yarn to help fix his clothes. She then came to the conclusion that he somehow knew her secret and tried to find blackmail to silence him. Meanwhile, Izuku is just wondering what he did to offend her.
  Izuku: You don’t happen to have any balls of yarn, do you?
  Blake: No… Why would you think I would have some?
  Izuku: Ah, I-I just wondering if you had any I could borrow so I wouldn’t have to go all the way to Vale to get some. Sorry if I offended you!
  Blake: N-no! Why would I be offended by that!? It’s not like I’m a cat Faunus or anything.
  Izuku: I’m really sorry! [confused] Wait, cat Faunus?
  Blake: Gotta go, bye!
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Blake vs. Sorahiko match involves her spamming Fire Dust Clones everywhere, which essentially means "Send out highly explosive bombs." She's the first one to pass his challenge (hit him once).
• Trademark Favorite Food: Fish. Although she tries to deny it to avoid stereotypes, she's practically drooling whenever it's brought up. Izuku is happy to make it for her when they're visiting his apartment and even offers to make boxed lunches with fish for her.
  • Oddly enough, as Izuku and later Tenya point out, real life cats shouldn't have fish all the time because the big cats modern cats are descended from often live in areas without access to seafood. Tenya even goes so far as to inform Blake that though fish is good for her, because she eats it so much instead of other foods, her diet is actually unbalanced and offers to help her make a food plan.

Yang Xiao Long

Yang Xiao Long

Ruby's older half-sister, Yang is a fiery young woman who wants to become a Huntress in search of adventure and excitement. A skilled brawler with a powerful Semblance, her passion for fighting is only matched by her flirtatiousness, confidence, and her penchant for cracking lame puns.

Her weapon is called "Ember Celica", a pair of "dual-ranged shot gauntlets". They're retractable bracers that turn into gauntlets during combat and can fire shotgun shells at nearly any range.

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• Accidental Kiss: Yang accidentally gives one to Izuku when he's trying to give her one last hug after a trying emotional conversation about Raven Branwen. Because of the suddenness of his decision and the fact that Yang is taller than him, he accidentally presses his temple up against her lips with a wet smack.
• Action Girl: She's one of the strongest students in her year and can easily pummel Izuku in their spars. When they're fighting for real in class, Izuku has to do everything he can to keep her far away, lest she overwhelm him in seconds.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Yang's Parental Abandonment issues are given a bit more time in the limelight than they were in canon, and it's shown how this has shaped her as a person. It drives a wedge between her and her Uncle and Father because in order to get confirmation that Raven didn't abandon her willingly, she had to go to Toshinori, a person who was essentially a total stranger and not her own family (which for years made her think that the reason that Raven left, and thus why her father had a mental breakdown and her uncle drank so much, was because she drove Raven away by being born. Toshinori confirms that that wasn't true, but that makes her upset that no one told her otherwise).
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Yang is primarily interested in guys with muscles, motorcycles, and attitude. Not just because they're "bad boys", but because she finds them intriguing and unpredictable, at least at first. This is subverted twofold. First, the reason why she's had so many boyfriends is because their machismo and rebelliousness eventually became routine for her, making them boring. Second, she's drawn to Izuku because of how unpredictable he is. One minute he's the bravest, most driven guy on the face of Remnant with a powerful and noble dream, the next he's a sputtering, floundering mess once a girl decides to hold his hand. This makes him simultaneously fun to tease and a guy who will never run out of surprises in her eyes. Of course, his muscles don't hurt either.
• Amazonian Beauty: According to Ruby, Izuku is "almost as big" as Yang when talking about the size of their biceps, implying that Yang is very well-muscled even though it's her breasts that tend to get the most attention.
• Am I Just a Toy to You?: This gets inverted when Yang asks Izuku if her teasing is making him uncomfortable, promising to stop if she's truly bothering him. Izuku responds that while it took some getting used to, hanging out with Yang has ultimately been a good experience for him that brought him out of his shell, thanking her instead and offering a bad pun off her name in return.
• Arm Cannon: Ember Celica allows her to shoot shotgun blasts with each punch, generating explosions and fire as she hammers her foes with her fists.
• Battle Couple: She gets to fight alongside her boyfriend Izuku for the first time while battling the White Fang at Yale's dockyards to thwart its invasion of the city.
• Berserk Button: Yang has two. Don't damage her hair and definitely don't try to hurt Ruby.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Yang is a warm and caring jokester who would like nothing more than to see her friends and little sister happy and healthy. She also has a serious temper and is one of the best, strongest fighters in her year, who was trained by one of the people who was in the running to replace Toshinori.
• Be Yourself: Yang advises Izuku to just be himself if he ever wants to get a girl like her to like him.
  Izuku: [after a night of romantic Chicken] Oh... so I didn't stand a chance, huh?
  Yang: Hmm... Well, I wouldn't say that.
  Izuku: What, you're serious? How?! What did I need to do?
  Yang: [laughing and patting him on the shoulder] You know what Izuku? Don't worry about it. Really, just... be you and that kind of stuff will work out. Trust me.
• The Big Damn Kiss: Her plan for one with Izuku was to give him his first kiss at the peak of Solstice celebrations. She goes so far as to meditate to help her stave off the urge to give him a kiss early. She succeeds, giving him his first gift- a sprig of mistletoe- so that she can hold it over his head while she does the deed.
• Big Sister Instinct: Yang is protective of Ruby and is seriously tempted to beat Katsuki's face in when he sees how much of an asshole he can be, promising to follow through on her threat should he even touch a hair on Ruby's head and visibly getting angry once she recognizes Katsuki as the probably reason why Izuku acts like an abused child. Her sisterly feelings soon extend to Izuku and her teammates, making Cardin back off for threatening Tsuyu and offering to get revenge for Izuku against Katsuki. She is also one of the many girls to put Cardin in his place when he starts bullying others, particularly those smaller and weaker than him.
• Blood Knight: She's a thrill-seeker by nature, extending her flight through the Emerald Forest with the recoil from her shotgun blasts, which inadvertently inspires Izuku to do the same as part of his landing strategy. She's also extremely excited when Izuku decides to continue fighting her even after he's broken several of his fingers to keep his distance, recognizing his desire to win and declaring that he was going to work for it.
  Yang: (grinning) You're really serious about winning huh. You want it bad... you really want it. [leaps at him] Well Slugger, looks like I'll have to step up my game and MAKE YOU WORK FOR IT!
  • When Izuku begins planning a raid on the White Fang's Dust heist at Vale's docks, Yang joins in without hesitation, looking forward to knocking some skulls together to blow off steam.
  • She's broken up with boyfriends before because they wouldn't go all out in spars with her, deliberately pulling their punches so they wouldn't hurt her. Given how strong One For All will get, time will see how this affects her relationship with Izuku.
  • She's known to deliberately activate her Semblance in order to give a good fight- in this case, it means deliberately hurting herself so she can activate it and fight at her best.
• Boisterous Bruiser: Yang knows she has the skills to pay the bills and is happy to let everyone know it. She is also prone to getting agitated when things aren't going her way. When Izuku manages to nearly beat her in their in-class spar, she starts rethinking her approach and redoubling her efforts to become even stronger, heeding her father's and Qrow's warnings about being a Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond.
• Boxing Battler: She primarily relies on boxing-style attacks in conjunction with the Ember Celica to deal punishing amounts of damage at point-blank range. She also integrates aspects of kickboxing when her fists aren't enough.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center:
  • Yang hits hard and fast in a fight and doesn't like to pull punches, but she's warm and friendly to those close to her and downright motherly to her sister.
  • She blushes when Izuku manages to surprise her with a gesture, like dancing with her at Pyrrha's party and giving her a piggyback ride in the Tunnels so she can recover faster.
• Can't Get Away with Nuthin':
  • When it comes to puns, Tsuyu will know, and she will apply a Dope Slap to Yang with her tongue.
  • This later gets subverted: Izuku negotiates with Tsuyu to allow Yang three puns a day. After that, Yang is fair game.
• Character Tics: She tends to play with her hair when she's nervous or if something is bothering her. After she gets together with Izuku, it's a fun Rewatch Bonus to see when his gestures got her worked up enough to get her to start playing with her hair.
• Cleavage Window: As her art shows, her outfit leaves her bosom exposed for all to see.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Subverted. Ruby worries that Yang would be this after learning that Izuku took Ruby out to an ice cream parlor the other day, but Yang simply responds that not every outing is a date and there's no reason for her to be jealous of anyone, much less her own sister, about hanging out with a male friend.
  • Later on, she teases Blake over thinking of dating Izuku, laughing about how good it feels to know that her man is desirable.
• Cool Big Sis: Yang is motherly and doting on Ruby, always rushing to her defense and wants the world to know how awesome she is. The two are so close that Yang once broke up with one of her boyfriends when he complained about Yang having to rush home to take care of Ruby and their dad.
• Cool Bike: Bumblebee, her signature yellow and orange motorcycle. She and Tenya later upgrade it to make it even faster.
  Yang: Now hold onto your butt Izuku, I wouldn't want anything happening to it on the ride over there! [revs Bumblebee's engine]
  Izuku: Huh, what do you mean by tha-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! [Bumblebee tears down the road]
  Yang: WOOO! TELL ME THAT MY BABY DOESN'T KICK LIKE A RACE HORSE NOW, SLUGGER!
  Izuku: IT KICKS LIKE TWO YANG NOW PLEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
• Critical Status Buff: Yang's Semblance allows her to dish out twice the damage she's taken to her Aura. So the more damage she takes, the more powerful she becomes. Glynda has to call off Yang and Izuku's match at the end because the amount of damage Yang sustained from taking back-to-back Glenn Smashes would have allowed her to deal serious harm to Izuku if her punch had connected.
• Dude Magnet: It's been noted by both Ruby and Yang herself that the latter has had a lot of ex-boyfriends, and a few more people who wanted to date her, over the years.
• Dysfunctional Family: One of Yang's biggest sources of stress is this. Her birth mother ran away shortly after she was born, her stepmother died or went missing on a mission, in the wake of said mission, her father collapsed emotionally and her uncle, her last remaining relative, is an alcoholic who's not around often. This led to Yang getting a Promotion to Parent for Ruby and gave her a hole in her life where she tried to find any scrap of information about Raven, looking for something to fill the hole. She's upset at her father and uncle for not giving her any concrete details about either of her mothers- neither she nor Ruby knew what Summer or Raven's weapons were, and Yang never even knew that Taiyang and Raven were married at all. She's even more angry that she didn't find out any of this information from her father or Uncle, but from Toshinori and Izuku, who, Symbol of Peace and classmate aside, are total strangers. What makes that worse is that because she didn't know Raven and Taiyang were married, or that Raven wanted Yang all along, Yang blamed herself for Raven leaving, and therefore felt at least partially responsible for the funk that her dad fell into. Finding this out leaves her feeling hurt, vulnerable, confused, and angry.
• Eating the Eye Candy: Yang is more than happy when she notices that a lot of the guys at Beacon are toned and buff, making suggestive passes at them for kicks. She does this with Izuku in particular while they're working out.
• Fairy Tale Motif: Yang is styled after Goldilocks, having an incredible mane of golden blonde hair and connections to Hei "Junior" Xiong, whose surname is Chinese for bear while his nickname refers to the youngest of the three bears in the story. The DJ in Junior's bar also wears a bear mask.
• Female Gaze: She sneaks looks at Izuku's bulging muscles while they're busy working out together and is pleased with what she sees. When Izuku and Yang announce that they're dating, one of the first things the teams ask her to do is to hold back on her public displays of affection.
• First Girl Wins: Yang and Ruby are the first girls Izuku meets in the story, and the first person his age we ever hear talk out loud. Yang ends up being the Official Couple with him.
• Finger-Forced Smile: Yang pulls Izuku's lips into one while giving him a You Are Better Than You Think You Are speech. Doubles as a Mythology Gag to when Nana did the same thing to Toshinori.
• Flanderization: Yang's punning has been greatly exaggerated in this story. She can dish out dozens of puns in a few weeks, prompting plenty of Dope Slaps from her partner.
• Gone Horribly Right: During the tunnels arc, she suggests- jokingly, as a way to fluster Izuku- that he carry her in his arms so she can rest longer. Unfortunately for her, Izuku thinks this is a great idea, even figuring out how this accomplishes the goal of letting her heal while keeping on the move. She's left flushed, stuttering, and playing with her hair when he asks her to get on his back.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: She's blond-haired, friendly young woman who won't hesitate to lend a hand to others.
• Has a Type: She's into guys who are unpredictable and can excite her. Typically she goes after muscles and motorcycles, but when that machismo gets routine she cuts her losses and leaves. She also hates it when her most recent date starts going easy on her in their spars and despises anyone who isn't understanding of her family situation. She finds the unconfident, shy guys "cute" in the self-affirming "thank you for noticing how hot I am" way but isn't into them unless they can subvert her expectations. Izuku manages to check off all of her boxes and Raven compares him to Taiyang, indicating that she's into the same kind of guys.
• Hidden Depths: While her flirtatiousness and vanity can make her seem shallow at a glance, Yang is a kind and understanding person who is more than capable of accepting the flaws of others and does her best to help her friends through them. She also admits to not having a particular goal or dream to guide her, devoting her efforts to helping her sister and her friends achieve theirs. She's haunted by doubts and guilt that she was the one to drive away her mother by being born, and secretly seeks any bits of information she can find about her. And because of that, she has a secret guilt and resentment for her father and uncle for hiding that information from her.
• Hypocritical Humor: So she can try to control herself better around Izuku, she starts writing down things about their relationship. Item 17 states "Stop coming up with what your future name's gonna be. Only weird girls do that." Item 17.1 is multiple scratched out attempts to do exactly that, finished with 'Yang "Xiao Long" Midoriya.'
• Image Song: "Gold", a song about her sisterly love for Ruby and her desire to help Ruby's dreams come true. She ends up singing it while at the karaoke lounge with Izuku.
• Incendiary Exponent: Fire swirls around her while her Semblance is active and she prefers fire Dust rounds for Ember Celica.
• Inelegant Blubbering: When Toshinori tells Yang that Raven did want to raise her but had no choice but to leave, Yang runs away and Izuku has to comfort her. He notes that this proves that it's not just him, no one looks good crying - his shirt his heavily stained by the time she's done.
• Irony: She ditches Izuku and Ruby to force them to talk to each other and become friends. In the long-run, Yang ends up spending much more time with Izuku than Ruby and even starts dating him.
• It's All My Fault: Because of Taiyang's and Qrow's refusal to open up to her about Raven, Yang has spent much of her life believing that she wasn't wanted and that Raven left because of her. It isn't until Toshinori tells her that Raven was in fact excited to have Yang that she learns otherwise, leaving her torn between feelings of relief and a sense of betrayal after her own father and uncle couldn't work up the nerve to tell her this simple fact while a near stranger like Toshinori did.
• Laser-Guided Karma: During Pyrrha's birthday party, she drags Izuku onto the dance floor so that he'll be embarrassed. What she didn't expect was him to grab her, and begin dancing really well. It's implied that she was blushing up to her ears when she finally got off the floor.
• Leg Focus: Her stockings are short enough to show off her legs.
• Leitmotif: "I Burn", an "I Am Great!" Song that represents Yang's confidence in herself and her belief that she's unstoppable if she puts her mind to something. She sings it when her and Izuku go out for Karaoke.
• Let's Wait a While: A non-sex example. She's made it clear that she likes Izuku, but she's conscious enough of his foibles that she makes it very clear that she's willing to move at his speed. Which is good, considering he's reduced to stuttering when he's asking her if they can hold hands.
• Like Mother, Like Daughter: Raven bemoans that Yang has the same taste in men as her - utter dorks with strong sense of values, high degrees of cuteness, and massive strength.
• Luminescent Blush: While she's usually the one inspiring these in Izuku, he's managed to turn the tables on her a few times.
• Made of Iron: She can shrug off the shockwave from a Glenn Smash without too much of an issue, though it sends her flying backward. Taking multiple hits begins to wear her down and Glynda has to stop Yang's and Izuku's match because Yang was suffering internal bleeding while Izuku had broken all ten of his fingers.
• Meaningful Name: Yang (阳) is the Chinese character for sun and/or light. Xiao (小) Long (龙) means "Little Dragon". Yang's yellow hair turns to flame when her Semblance activates, she's predominantly a fist-fighter, her surname is a reference to Bruce Lee's Chinese stage name "Li Xiaolong", and her father calls her "my sunny little dragon".
• Missing Mom: Izuku is surprised to hear Yang refer to Summer Rose, who was listed as MIA 13 years ago, as her mom. Yang also has deep-seated abandonment issues about Raven Branwen's, her biological mom, departure, which happened suddenly not too long after her birth and with little reason. She also isn't happy to hear from Izuku that Raven was spotted as a bandit in Mistral.
• Mix-and-Match Weapon: Ember Celica is part shotgun, part Power Fist.
• Ms. Fanservice: She's the biggest source of eye candy amongst the girls, given her generous bust, exposed legs, flowing hair, and provocative outfit.
• Muscles Are Meaningful: Yang had her own intense training regimen under her father, Taiyang, making her more muscular and stronger than Izuku with and without her Aura at the start of the story. Case in point, she was able to win the strength game on Hunter's Day easily even though Izuku couldn't.
• Mythology Gag: When giving Izuku a speech on how he's not as bad as he thinks himself to be, she uses her fingers to pull his lips into a smile- a move pioneered in BNHA canon by Nana Shimura, seventh holder of One For All and the one who chose Toshinori.
• The Nicknamer: She calls Izuku "Slugger" for their mutual reliance on hand-to-hand combat and his status as her sparring partner. It also helps that he took out a giant Nevermore in one punch. She also takes to calling Weiss "Weiss Cream" and "Ice Queen".
• Nobody Touches the Hair: Yang is proud of her flowing mane and touching it without her permission is one of her biggest Berserk Buttons. It's a sign of just how much she likes him that Izuku is largely exempt from this rule.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: Yang realizes that her dad and Qrow were right to warn her that she will face opponents that she can't just power through with her Semblance when Izuku manages to force a near-draw with her by constantly firing Glenn Smashes at her. So she decides to try and branch out and not rest on her previous victories over other close-range fighters who were below her level.
• Opposites Attract:
  • She and Izuku are opposites in almost every way imaginable. Izuku is shy and lacking in confidence due to his Broken background, growing up an only child with only his ordinary mother for company because his father is always working overseas. He's extremely driven to achieve his goal of becoming an amazing Huntsman who saves others, but is inexperienced and lagging behind his peers when he comes into Beacon. Yang is proud of both her abilities and her appearance, growing up with her father, a prestigious Huntsman, and her half-sister Ruby because Raven Branwen and Summer Rose both mysteriously vanished when they were young. Yang is much more relaxed and happy to party but lacks a driving goal or dream in her life. She's content to simply help her loved ones achieves theirs. They end up becoming close friends and later start dating.
  • Oddly enough, when it comes to their fighting styles and powers, this is averted - the two both rely on close range pugilism, both their weapons are arm-mounted shotguns that reload and fire when their user punches, both their Semblances grant Super-Strength, both require the user get injured (One For All does not play well with Izuku's body, and Yang's converts damage she's taken into extra power), and both come with a glowing, Golden Super Mode (Izuku's Full Cowl technique makes his skin glow gold, and Yang's makes her hair glow bright gold).
• Parental Neglect: Yang had to pick up the pieces and take care of Ruby while her father Taiyang became emotionally withdrawn after Raven's and Summer's disappearances.
• Passive-Aggressive Kombat: When she and Ruby head home for the Solstice Break, she engages a little bit of this with Taiyang, deliberately going out when he wants to spend time with her. This is due to the immense frustration and anger she has at that time towards both him and Qrow about not telling her anything about Raven, leading her to think that she was the reason Raven left for years.
• Patchwork Kids: Yang's appearance is a mix of her mother's facial structure and voluminous hair and her father's blond hair. Her lilac eyes are a blend of her mother's blood-red and Taiyang's baby blue.
• Playing with Fire: Yang has a preference for Fire Dust rounds that can generate powerful explosions on impact. Her Semblance can also set her surroundings ablaze as it converts kinetic energy into heat and power.
• Promotion to Parent: Taiyang was so distraught after Summer vanished that Yang was basically left to take care of Ruby by herself. Yang always puts her family first and once broke up with a boyfriend who dared to question why she was so insistent on taking care of a then fourteen-year-old Ruby. It says a bit that Ruby also agrees with this, freely admitting that Yang is basically her mother figure to Tsu.
• Proud Beauty: Yang is happy to show off her good looks and glamorous figure, noticing when Izuku is stealing glances at her and laughing about it. It helps that she's prone to the Female Gaze while they're working out together.
• Pungeon Master: Yang has a penchant for coming up with awful puns in every situation, light-hearted or serious. She gets constant retribution for this courtesy of Tsuyu, who uses her tongue to give Yang a painful Dope Slap. One of the reasons Yang enjoys hanging out with Izuku is that he enjoys some of her puns and doesn't react violently to them.
• Really Gets Around: Downplayed. Yang admits that she's had more than her fair share of boyfriends prior to coming to Beacon. She's kissed and gotten touchy-feely with numerous boys before they bored her and she moved on. But she's never had sex and she's still a supportive, loving person who takes her relationships seriously without most of the negative connotations that come with this trope. Even she starts worrying when she offers to go to the sauna with Izuku as a playful joke, not really expecting him to agree. Then she realizes that this is the most intimate she's ever gotten with a boy.
  • Her reputation works against her when she starts dating Izuku, leading to conflict when Tenya starts talking about safe sex as if she's going to start doing the dirty immediately.
  • On the other hand, Ruby comments to Tsu that at a month and change of dating, Izuku is approaching the role of Yang's longest-term boyfriend, and she shows no signs of the cracks in the relationship that had usually shown up by this point.
• Recoil Boost: Yang actively uses the Ember Celica's shotgun rounds for this when she isn't firing them at her opponents, guiding her trajectory in midair and allowing her to quickly close the distance for elbow strikes.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Her lilac eyes turn blood red when she's truly angry or when she activates her Semblance.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: She's the loud and outgoing Red Oni to Tsuyu and Blake's reserved and aloof Blue Oni. She also has this dynamic with the much meeker and less-than-confident Izuku.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: Her Ember Celica have built-in shotguns, which Yang can fire as projectiles or use for a Recoil Boost.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Downplayed. While she's usually into bad boys due to how unpredictable they are, she finds herself drawn to Izuku for his incredible drive and noble goal on top of being one of the bravest and kindest people she's ever met. Because of this, they get along swimmingly. Yang eventually asks if he'd like to date her; he says yes.
• Stepford Smiler: Her smiling and upbeat exterior hides a great deal of uncertainty and abandonment issues after the loss of both of her mother figures early in life, not to mention the strain of her father's mental breakdown in the wake of said loss, her Promotion to Parent for Ruby, lack of any particular goal (feeling herself as just a supporting character in other people's lives), and general strain of being in a high-stress job. After the talk with Toshinori, it hides her sense of betrayal from Qrow and Taiyang not telling her that Raven wanted her, which left her feeling for years that she was the one responsible for driving her mother away (and through that, driving her father into a deep depression and her uncle to drink more).
• Straight Man and Wise Guy: She has this relationship with Izuku and Tsuyu, who are both more serious and responsible than a wisecracking, party-loving girl like her. Izuku even says this is one reason why he's glad that they're dating- she manages to pull him out of his comfort zone and make him see that he's too hard on himself, while it's subtly implied that Izuku's responsibility and seriousness are attractive to Yang.
• Strong and Skilled: She's one of the physically strongest people in her year and has the skills to back it up courtesy of her training with her father, easily wiping the floor with Izuku in their first spars. During their in-class brawl where she's not holding back, Izuku has to do everything he can to keep her from getting too close lest she clobber him into submission, going so far as to fire off multiple Glenn Smashes in a row. Even after using Full Cowl, she still puts him down rather easily once her own Semblance flares up.
• Super Mode: After Yang takes enough damage, she can activate her Semblance to dish out twice the damage she took. It also makes her significantly faster.
• The Tease: She enjoys flirting with Izuku and watching his reaction for a quick laugh, knowing that he gets flustered easily. She's utterly taken off guard when Izuku decides to give her a taste of her own medicine by taking her into an unexpected fast-paced dance at Pyrrha's birthday party, making it her turn to be embarrassed. Later on, they end up playing a game of romantic Chicken to see who can turn the other one into a sputtering mess first while on a date in Vale. She then asks if she has been bothering or bullying Izuku with her flirtatiousness, only for Izuku to reassure her that it was ultimately good for him to help him come out of his shell. After this, Yang starts teasing him again while they're out on the town and Izuku decides to get his ultimate revenge by flashing his abs to her in while they're in a photo booth. He succeeds in making her blush and stammer at the sight, but it comes at the cost of his own embarrassment when he realizes that he did it on camera and that Yang now has a picture of him flashing her.
• Toxic Friend Influence: Played for Laughs. Yang spends so much time with Izuku that her Pungeon Master tendencies start rubbing off on him, which results in him punning without even meaning to. This gets taken to its logical extreme in one non-canon sidestory in which his team sits him down for an intervention when he can't stop punning. Izuku later realizes that Yang isn't rubbing off on him - she's bringing his own tendency to pun out, as he realizes when he remembers his joke shirts that say "T-Shirt" or "Sweater" on them.
• What If?:
  • The "Raven Stayed" AU explores a world where Raven stayed with Taiyang, and thus Yang is different. She's coarser and more rough around the edges, and has a hard time not insulting or boasting to others. She also figures out that she's interested in Izuku way earlier, but Cannot Spit It Out. In addition, Ruby doesn't exist because Taiyang never got with Summer, though she does have two younger siblings nonetheless.
  • The "What If They Met When They Were 13," AU is Exactly What It Says on the Tin, where she meets Izuku at that age due to her changing schools to Birch instead of staying on Patch and attending Signal. It also leads to her confronting Taiyang about Raven much sooner.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Yang is quick to notice how hard Izuku is on himself and frequently tries to give him pep talks when he's feeling down. This comes to a head when Izuku tells her that he isn't sure if he'll ever get a girlfriend because he just doesn't feel like a girl who could tolerate him exists, believing himself to be selfish and bullheaded. She's quick to refute him with a long speech combined with a You Are Not Alone right before asking if he wanted her as his girlfriend.
  Yang: [chortles and shakes her head] You, Izuku Midoriya, are a Hero... but Gods if you aren't just dead set and intent on beating yourself up rather than giving yourself that credit. Left to your own devices... you would focus on that. You would beat yourself up every time you didn't do something 100% right, you would think so little of what you've accomplished or what you're trying to accomplish... I think you're right about that much. Which is why you do need friends like us who can occasionally remind you to take it easy. [grins at him] Rather than running off and getting another job on top of everything else you do. Why you need people who'll support your dream to the hilt... Heck, you probably honestly need a partner who'll drag you out of your shell and keep you from getting in these funks, Izuku Midoriya. Because the only person telling you you're not heroic, that your dream is destructive rather than selfless, that you'd somehow be a 'pain' or 'not be worth putting up with' instead of being fun, kind and a joy to be around is you. At the end of the day the person you're best at beating up even after everything you've done is you... and you just need someone to stop you from doing that.
  [pulls his lips up into a smile] Because you're going to be the Symbol of Peace one day. I saw it in our fight, I saw it when you saved the people in those Tunnels and I saw it when you stood up for everyone against Cardin... and I mean, come on now.
  [flashes a huge grin at him] What good is a Symbol of Peace who makes himself forget how to smile?
  • Izuku gives her one when she admits that she's unsure about having a goal in life, as well as a driving force to find out more about her mother, Raven.
  • He gives a second one when she confesses to him that due to her having a Promotion to Parent, she's worried she may have screwed up and made Ruby think she has to act older than she does.