Ravengold

***Please refrain from using this character without permission - thanks!***

Ravengold is a former actress on the show *Bolt*, an Australian Shepherd, and is owned by VictoriousQueen88.

## Appearance

Ravengold is a little shorter than Bolt, with long fur, half-pricked ears, and a feathery, curled tail. She is a blue merle, albeit a little darker than the usual Aussie, with a blue-gray main body splattered with dark gray spots. The underside of her tail, underbelly, chest, neck, and paws are white, although her back legs are light cinnamon-brown (besides her paws). She has a white snout and blaze up to her forehead, and some cinnamon-brown fuzz around her black nose. Her eyebrows are white, and the dark gray spots in her fur extend to her face; just below her right eye, she has three dark gray dots.

All in all, Raven is a fairly normal Aussie, aside from her heterochromia. Her right eye is pale blue, whereas her left is brown.

(The producers loved that, by the way. What better way to show she’s DIFFERENT and SPECIAL?)

## Personality

In spite of the fact that she played a villain on *Bolt the Superdog*, Raven is not evil.

She’s fairly reserved, however, and friendly enough - she’s calm most of the time, and only really gets overexcited when someone prompts her. She is very sweet and can be playful, as well as affectionate and loving. She loves children and cats (perhaps more so than other dogs), and is eager to please and gain approval. Because of this, she follows commands and is very obedient; she’ll do whatever her handlers tell her, and is about as good an actress as a former street dog can be. Raven is loyal to the end, and passionate about what she believes in.

But, unfortunately, Raven has a lot of issues with abandonment. Before she gained a place on the show, Rae tried not to get too attached to anyone. She tried not to let her kindness get the best of her, but she always came close to failing, and so she’d run away, guarding her heart. She hoped, and hoped, and hoped she’d never been taken advantage of again. It’s a miracle that she managed to find somewhere safe before this ended up hurting her. Once she finds a friend, she grows attached and clingy, desperate to make them smile, desperate to be enough for them. She recognizes this is a problem, and she’s trying to get better, but it’s never seemed to go away completely, no matter how hard she tries.

Raven is learning not to be such a people-pleaser - you can’t make everyone happy, she always reminds herself - and is learning who she is, what she stands for, along the way. All in all, she’s a worthy friend if you manage to get close.

Her character was shown to be some sort of Harley Quinn-type dog, flirty and fun-loving and fully devoted to the people she worked for, but Raven couldn’t be farther from that in reality, and every little slip-up while on camera added to the majority of the fandom’s dislike of the dog she played in-show. In reality, Rae has absolutely no desire to hurt anyone whatsoever (she’d just feel so shameful, disgusted with herself, and guilty that her family would mistake her for being sick), and has no idea what to do when it comes to having even a *little* crush.

## History

Raven wasn’t anyone special in the beginning.

She was born in the home of a breeder, with many siblings that she barely remembers and a mother that was relatively kind, but distant, as there were many more pups than expected. The dog we now know as Raven didn’t even have a name at the time; that was reserved for her future owner. It’s not like it would matter if she was called something else then - every time she tries to reach back, all her memories of that time are fuzzy. She was taken away too soon.

Her first owner was a woman named Edalyn who lived in an apartment in the city while she studied at the local college. This lady was kind, sure, but studious and very involved in her work, determined to be a scientist one day. She tried to make time for her shepherd pup, but it wasn’t always easy - at the very least, though, she bothered to give the dog a name. “Ray,” the puppy was called. Ray, like one of the funny-looking creatures Edalyn would study.

But there’s a reason that Edalyn was only Rae’s first owner.

The stress of personal issues with her parents, a compulsive need to be the best and get all her work done, insomnia, and a lack of a support system began to chip away at the oblivious pup’s owner. Slowly, there were no more walks to the park. Slowly, there were no more cuddles at night - replaced with the glowing blue screens that the woman would stare into at night - and, slowly, the pup who would later become Rae began to feel alone in her own house.

One early summer morning, the Australian Shepherd, who was barely even six months old, woke up in an alleyway, curled in an old towel. As for where her owner was… she couldn’t tell you. She couldn’t tell you anything, except for the fact that the smog of the city and heat of the sun on her back made her visibly uncomfortable and anxious, and she wandered around in the streets for a while, barely managing to survive on scraps and hiding under bridges.

She bounced around neighborhoods for a while after that - sometimes, she’d feel like she really liked a certain human, or the way somebody smiled at her. But she always packed up and left when she realized that they already had a dog, or a cat, or she seemed to be getting too close. Cold, dreaded fear took root in her head, and she’d be gone without a trace by the time the sun came up.

She’s not sure how long she lived like that. She doesn’t want to remember.

One particularly chilly night, Ray - if she even remembered that name by this point - began searching wildly for someplace warm to sleep for the night. By chance, she managed to wriggle through a hole in a fence, where she came to some kind of compound - little did she know that a certain show was being filmed there. She hid from the flashing lights behind a crate, where she was found by a tall, slim man she would later come to know as one of her first friends.

This man was one of the actors, taking a brief break while they filmed overtime. He might have played the villainous Green-Eyed Man, Dr. Calico, but he wasn’t truly a bad person, and tentatively called out to the cowering shepherd. Gently, he let her sniff him and petted behind her ears, and quietly scooped her up to see what to do with her.

There, he, a kind and sweet-smelling woman (“Mrs. Forrester”), and a girl Ray would later come to know as “Penny” warmed her in a bundle of blankets, where she responded to commands and sniffed eagerly at the young girl’s coat, recognizing the scent of another dog. It had been so long since she’d seen her friends back in the city dog park, and she ached for company.

This behavior was noticed by the writers of the show that the people helping her worked on - a series called Bolt. The season was about to wrap up, and they needed to find a plotline or two for the next one… perhaps something involving a rival. “No, a love interest! No… both.” And they turned their eyes to the starving Australian Shepherd before them.

They named her *Ravengold* - a name without meaning, *sure*, but a name that caught your attention - and wrote her into the next season. Ravengold, also known as Raven, played the role of Dr. Calico’s newest minion, a flirty, strong, Troubled™ dog who was intended to be Bolt’s love interest. She latched onto her main coworker, the actor who saved her, and followed all her commands to the letter. Yet Raven found Bolt to be… a little more than strange, the more she thought about it. Although she was a more or less convincing actress - because of the kindness the Green-Eyed Man’s actor showed her, she was able to put true emotion into her performance whenever she felt he was threatened or needed her help - she, too, seemed to believe that everything in the show was real. It was like her own personal YA novel adventure; she loved her new, bizarre life. Everything was perfect.

Until it wasn’t.

The plotline of Bolt and Raven’s supposed romance didn’t go over well with critics nor fans. Some felt that the romance felt forced. Some didn’t like the idea of Dr. Calico suddenly including a random dog in his plans. Some especially dedicated watchers took screenshots of times where Rae seemed particularly confused, disgusted, or all too trusting of something Bolt did and claimed that it meant she never loved him and would only betray him in the future. Yet others questioned why two real-life dogs needed to go on puppy dates in the first place. With all the bad publicity and reviews, the producers had no choice but to jump ship on the arc.

Ravengold was kicked off the show the second filming was over; they ended the season finale with Bolt bidding her character goodbye as she ran across the country border to Canada, escaping the Green-Eyed Man’s wrath. Nobody quite knew where they’d put her - her fellow actors weren’t even consulted in the decision - and the producers might’ve started considering dumping her on the streets had one of the workers not raised his hand. He could take her, he called from across the room. He could bring her home as a birthday present for his son, who’d been begging for a dog all year.

And so Ravengold - now mostly called by her nicknames of Raven or Rae to avoid the connotations of her show persona - was gifted to a shy boy around Penny’s age named Grayson Garcia-Williams. After a moment of looking up at him with bright eyes, she greeted him with a wag of her tail and a lick to the cheek, and they soon became best friends. She inadvertently convinced him to meet more people and make friends - she was so excited to go to the dog park! So happy to meet more canines! So glad to be a normal dog again! He helped her to adjust to living like your average dog again. They’ve always been there for each other.

(Rae, unintentionally, may or may not be the reason that Grayson eventually became one of Penny’s best friends, or why Dr. Calico’s actor - also known as Uncle Hugo nowadays - ended up marrying Grayon’s father’s sister.)

And although Raven and Bolt might not be the world-ending, fiery, loving romance that they were intended to be (and they ***never*** will), they’re on good terms since meeting up again after Bolt’s adventure. And she has her family, every single kooky and wonderful member. And life’s so much more *perfect* than she ever dreamed it could be.

## Relationships

### Hugo Aristotle Whitaker

Also known as the man who played Dr. Calico, he's the human she worked with most often on the set of Bolt. He was originally planning on keeping her once he heard talk of the dog being kicked out of the production, but he wasn't told about the fact she'd already been given to one of the set workers' kids. After seeing how excited and happy she looked in a domestic, normal setting, he thought she would be happier there, and simply decided to stop by every once in a while to say hello.

He thinks she's a very good dog, and loves to play with her and give her scratches behind the ears. Sure, she's had her slipups on-camera and her character had backlash, but she's a *dog.* He can't exactly hate her for that.

*- small note: I chose a fanon name for the actor because none appeared in the movie. It's a mix of James Bond villain names, because Dr. Calico has been noted to be similar to many of them.*

### Bolt

Raven was supposed to be Bolt’s mate. Raven was supposed to bring in cash and, eventually, have his pups for publicity. And perhaps, if given time, she could have formed a real bond with him and lived a happy life by his side.

But she didn’t.

They just never really clicked romantically - he’d say something a little too harsh about the Green-Eyed Man, or she’d lock him out when trying to deal with her old issues, and then they’d have a silent stand-off like in the old Westerns. By the time she left the show and he had gone off on his adventure, they didn’t really have much in common, nor a desire to try and form anything remotely resembling a romantic bond. They’re just vague friends at this point who hang out whenever their owners meet up.

## Trivia

* She’s currently living by the beach, about an hour away from where Penny lives. Grayson comes over to visit his friend sometimes, and Rae likes to come along.
* When it was announced that she would be removed from the show, nobody really knew what to do with her - the idea of her being hated by the fandom was unheard of. The decision to send her off with some worker was a spur-of-the moment kind of thing once the realization really set in.

* Many viewers felt that her storyline was badly executed, and very predictable. She was removed from the show after the season finale (in which she runs away from Dr. Calico, crosses the border into another country, and bids goodbye to Penny and Bolt), and never mentioned again.
* Rae’s full name doesn’t mean anything - it’s just two mysterious-sounding words slapped together, a product of attempting to draw fans in with cool ship names. I looked it up once I’d settled on it, and apparently there’s a pedigree Golden Retriever named Ravengold, but other than that, she’s probably the only one with this name.
* Ravengold never goes by her full name, especially not in public (where she might be mobbed by fans or haters). She’s usually called Raven or Rae.
* Initially, her name was Mocha, then Lara, then Zara/Mara, then Amaris, and finally, Raven. Upon finding out there’s another character on this wiki named Raven, I figured it would be okay to keep the name if she shared no traits with the other Raven, but when I realized that the other character was related to Bolt, I backed out very quickly. Even though Ravengold and Bolt were never official, the show tried to push for them getting together, and I don’t want my character to be confused for a relative (for obvious reasons). So I played musical chairs with a few codename ideas (Dark Raven? Midnight Raven?) before settling on making the name even more ~mysterious~.
* Her design is a liiiiiittle genetically stretching it (as I haven’t seen any dogs that look exactly like her just yet), but I’m happy with it, and if Bolt can be the size of a beagle, Raven can have white eyebrows.

* Raven is a mixture of many different “dark” love interest tropes; specifically, I remember watching *Henry Danger*, where Henry fell in love with a criminal girl. And she just… never showed up again after a few episodes, except for in a huge love triangle that she didn’t even play much of a role in?? Why bother to give us a huge arc if she’s just gone? I wondered what happened to that girl. I wondered where her actress went. I wondered what would happen if that was on another show about superheroes, or super*dogs…*