Blake Richards

Blake Richards is a character pair in Journal of Sociology.

Biography:
Blake had a pretty ordinary childhood, he was generally well liked, he did well in school, and he genuinely liked it. He got great marks and studied hard and eventually made his way to the university, where he went into a relatively new field, that of Magical Science; a relatively new field concerning the manufacture and usage of a recently discovered liquid known simply as magic, and the science behind it. While he enjoyed it, and while he was kind of good at it, the field eventually overwhelmed him and he had to drop out.

On the bright side, over the course of his studies, Blake had finally asked out his one true love for quite some time, Sara Hooper, out on a date. The two of them hit it off extremely well, although considering that they'd known each other for a long time that isn't too surprising. He loved her tall and imposing figure, her bright smile, her loving voice, and he was almost like a puppy while they were dating. After some time, he proposed and they got married shortly after Blake's leaving the university and entering the workforce under an up and coming company, SourceCo Magic Co.

He lived a very good life, he bottling the magic that SourceCo produced on site and making sure that the mixes were able to be consumed and used without issue was a tough job. They were lucky to have him. A few more years and he probably would have worked his way up the workforce. However, there was the matter of the "accident".

Blake, straight arrow as ever, noticed something odd about SourceCo and their products. The factory didn't seem to have any process for waste disposal. Nothing and no one seemed to know anything about it, leading him to go snooping on his own. Eventually, he found it. The SourceCo Magic Co. Bottling Factory of Applied Magic's waste room was... an unethical addition, but not one hidden to those in charge. Blake opened the door to many vats and pipes, full of the magical byproduct that he had been searching for. As Blake was surveying the room and thinking about exactly to who and what he would say, he was pushed off the catwalk and left to die in a tub of magic waste.

Blake was suspended in the liquid magical waste for what felt like a long time. It was a feeling unlike anything else he had experienced. He was sure he was going to die, but somehow he didn’t. It was all a bit of a blur, the first thing he really remembered after that was being out of the tank and throwing up, with someone else nearby doing the same thing. He gazed in the other guy’s direction to see an exact copy of himself looking back at him.

"What?" "Who are you?" "I'm Blake Richards?" "What?"

The two of them stared at each other, in fear and curiosity. Was this even possible? Another him, standing right there? Or was it someone... or something else? The other Blake was the first to speak, standing forward in an assertive manner, "What the hell do you think you are doing, taking my face, my voice, my name?" Blake put up his hands in front of him and worriedly replied, "Calm down, I'm sure that this has something to do with the magical byproduct that we just came out of, I know that this might be hard to accept, but I think that you might be a clone of me." Blake stared at his doppelganger with a look of disbelief. It quickly turned into a frown. "If anyone is a clone here, it’s you, not me." "Excuse me?" Blake sighed. "You can drop the prim and proper act. If you really were me you’d know just how tiresome having to put on a show to fit in with everyone is." "You can't talk to me like that!" Blake stepped forward, shaking a little. The other Blake responded to that with a swift punch, knocking Blake backward.

The two Blakes stared at each other for a while as Blake stood up. The two were silent except for Blake's heavy breaths and the other Blake's snarl. Then, quite suddenly and at the exact same time, the two Blakes turned tail and ran as fast as they could.

Blake didn't trust the other Blake. He looked extremely similar, had the same voice, same clothes, but he was different. He was scary and imposing, and he had punched him! What if he did something bad to his loved ones, his friends, his family, or god forbid his wife? Blake scurried around the factory, trying to find one of the factory's storage rooms. He had just enough time to collect a random assortment of magic and general supply closet stuff, (pens, notepads, napkins, etc.) before he was abducted for a battle to the death.

Description:
Blake is your run-of-the mill breadwinner adult male. He's got that nice short hair, blonde with blue eyes, and a smile that just captures you. He's of a normal build, not too chubby but not really the most fit guy around. Really, almost everything about him around the average. He isn't dressed up very nice, while he would love to have gotten a chance to look his best for this sort of thing, he was sort of stuck in his normal gray uniform, shirt, slacks, gloves, with the black stripes, along with the sparking white SourceCo Magic Co. logo right over his heart. The shoes are a nice brown, he's pretty attached to them, and he has a pair of safety goggles (can't be too careful!).

Blake is just a nice guy, you know? He pays his taxes on time, he sends letters back home, hasn't been late a day in his life, he just generally does what's good. He has the average intelligence a normal factory worker would have, maybe a bit higher in some respects. He's always willing to lend a hand to those in need but is still wary of strangers. How much you like him really depends, hanging out with someone that pleasant can boost your morale or it can really grate on your never. He can't please everyone and he accepts that, but he tries damn it!

Items/Abilities:
First and foremost, Blake knows how to bottle, mix, and classify the new liquid known as magic. In Blake's world, magic is something that just about anyone can do in theory, as it exists as in a liquid form. The liquid can be refined into different kinds of potions, ranging from your fire and ice magic to radio or cloth magic. Potions can either be consumed, giving the user more control and extended use, or applied directly, which results in a much more explosive spectacle. His uniform had a very concentrated amount of magic applied to it, which prevents minor spells and curses from affecting Blake.

He also has a company bag, similar to his uniform in color and composition, that currently holds a random assortment of magic and other assorted spoils of a factory storage room and probably the ability to use it well enough.

Biography:
Blake was a pretty ordinary kid. He resented going to school, got on with some kids, got picked on by others. The usual. One thing that was notable was that he was always sort of aware of his father’s dead-end low paying job and he vowed never to end up in that position. It was this desire to be better than his father that drove him to work so hard. At university he focused his education around Magical Science; a relatively new field concerning the manufacture and usage of a recently discovered liquid known simply as magic, and the science behind it. Its newness meant that new discoveries were being made all the time and it was clear to Blake that this was where the big money was to be made. He learnt a lot about magic here but fell down when it came to actually using it in a practical situation. He had to drop out.

At roughly the same time he went out with a girl called Sara Hooper. He’d known her for a while and had kind of had a thing for her. She was seriously hot; tall, gorgeous brown hair, fantastic rack plus she was good in bed. When he dropped out of Magical Science he ended up on a drinking binge that lasted a couple of weeks and the relationship just kind of stuck. It wasn’t something he would have started up himself, but she was attractive enough and she was his. Why would be put an end to a good thing. At some point he proposed and they married, more out of obligation and sense that she would leave him more than any real sense of love.

He got a job with SourceCo Magic Co at one of their magic bottling factories. It seemed a good fit considering his knowledge on the subject and he wasn’t ready to give up on the vast heaps of cash that could be made in Magical Science just yet. He was a good worker and he took initiative to streamline some of the processes in the hopes it would earn him some points with the bosses and he’d be looked upon favourably when it came time for promotions. They were really lucky to have him, he figured. Who knows how far up the career ladder he might have climbed had he not stuck his nose where it didn’t belong.

You see he was better educated in terms of magic than most factory workers, he had more of an idea how this stuff worked and he couldn’t really work it out where all the magical waste was going. An investigation led him to a hidden back room, a catwalk over numerous vats and pipes all of which were filled to the brim with the unpleasant magical waste. The first thought that crossed his mind was the money he could earn just by keeping quiet about this room. SourceCo was a big company and as it seemed from the unethical disposal methods they were employing they weren’t all that big on morality. He was gathering evidence when he was pushed from the catwalk and into the tub of magical waste below.

Blake was suspended in the liquid magical waste for what felt like a long time. It was a feeling unlike anything else he had experienced. He was sure he was going to die, but somehow he didn’t. It was all a bit of a blur, the first thing he really remembered after that was being out of the tank and throwing up, with someone else nearby doing the same thing. He gazed in the other guy’s direction to see an exact copy of himself looking back at him.

“What?”

“Who are you?”

“I’m Blake Richards?”

“What?”

The two of them stared at one another, in fear and curiosity. Was this even possible? Creating a perfect replica of himself? He’d never heard of such a thing. Was it really him or someone, something else? Blake was stressed, his temper frayed, his world turned upside down. “What the hell do you think you are doing, taking my face, my voice, my name?”

The other Blake made gestures designed to placate him. “Calm down, I’m sure that this has something to do with the magical byproduct we just came out of, I know that this might be hard to accept, but I think you might be a clone of me.”

Blake stared at his doppelganger with a look of disbelief. It quickly turned into a frown. “If anyone is a clone here, it’s you, not me.”

“Excuse me.”

Blake sighed. “You can drop the prim and proper act. If you really were me you’d know just how tiresome having to put on a show to fit in with everyone is.”

“You can’t talk to me like that!” The other Blake stepped forwards, shaking a little. Blake panicked and lashed out; responding to the other Blake’s advance with a swift punch, knocking him backwards to the floor. The two Blakes stared at each other for a while as his clone climbed to his feet. Aside from the other Blake’s belaboured breathing and Blake’s guttural snarl it was silent. Then, almost in synchronisation, each Blake turned away and fled from the room.

Blake did not trust his double, and why should he; he barely tolerated other people. Why would some imposter, some crazy magic concocted duplicate of himself be any different? Adrenaline pumped through his veins from his physical exertions and his mind raced, scenarios of what the other Blake might do and what he should do to stop him. He might not have had the best life, but it was his life, it was not this damned duplicate’s life. He managed to grab himself a box-cutter as he darted through the corridors, a primitive weapon with which to defend himself. But before he got much further he was simply gone, abducted for a battle to the death.

Description:
Blake is a normal looking guy, the kind of guy you could walk past every day on the street without so much as a second thought. He has short blonde hair, blue eyes and a winning smile. The best way to describe him is about average; about average height, about average weight. You’d probably have trouble picking him out of a line up. At the time he was chosen he was rather unfortunately to his mind wearing his uniform; dull grey shirt, pants and gloves with occasional black stripes and the logo of SourceCo Magic Co. on his chest. He also has brown shoes and a pair of still damp safety goggles. He isn’t massively fond of the uniform truth be told.

Blake’s pretty much a regular guy, you know. He’s no saint; let’s not beat around the bush here. Sometimes he’ll bend the rules in little ways; he’ll run a red light or push in the front of the queue if he’s in a hurry. It doesn’t make him a bad person. Mostly he does what he is supposed to; what society has told him he should be doing. He’s not exactly happy with a lot of his life, but he’s always been taught to just accept it; to suck it up, stop complaining and get on with it. He’ll help someone out if they need it, maybe (?), but more likely than not its because he’ll feel bad later if he doesn’t. He’s reasonably intelligent, more so than his colleagues at the magic factory anyway. Honestly he sort of feels as though his talent is wasted there. When it comes to interacting with other people he can be charming when he wants to and mostly he will be polite, but honestly other people just annoy him. He can’t really empathise with other people and their constant demands upon him, he much prefers it when people just leave him alone. Sometimes he just wishes that he could shut them up forever; just one slash and that would be the end of his annoying landlord who has absolutely no leeway on his rent. But that’s normal right? Everyone thinks these kinds of things every now and again. He’d probably never act upon it.

Items/Abilities:
Blake has quite a knowledge of magic, at least the kind of magic that is present in his world. This is because of his job working in the SourceCo Magic Co Bottling Factory of Applied Magic. However he doesn’t really think that any of this information is going to be relevant to him, seeing as he doesn’t have any magic with him and he was never all that great with it anyway. His uniform carries an enchantment that is designed to prevent minor spells and curses from working on it, mainly as a safety feature.

What he does have is a box cutter and the sort of cunning that has never really had the opportunity to be used before now.