Application for daybreakacademy

[sauerfacedcyborg]

PLAYER INFORMATION

NAME: Jess
CONTACT: firebenderjess or Firebenderjess#1255 on Discord
OTHER CHARACTER(S) IN GAME: Goro Akechi

CANON INFORMATION

CHARACTER NAME: Ziggurat 8
CANON: Xenosaga
HISTORY: Wiki link

STRENGTHS:

Strategic: Ziggy rarely acts without first analyzing a situation, often adjusting tactics as the situation changes. He values a clear head and logical action, and it's made him incredibly successful despite actively seeking out the most dangerous missions he can find.

Level headed: With rare exceptions, Ziggy is capable of staying calm in even the most stressful of situations. He acts on reasoned thought rather than emotional impulse, making him very difficult to provoke to rash action, and never hesitates out of fear.

Compassionate: While he might seem cold at first, Ziggy is capable of incredible insight into other people. On rescue missions, he'll pay careful attention to the hostages' emotional states, and stop to help calm them if necessary. He'll also, when called for, use this insight to offer advice to others who seem to be struggling with an aspect of their lives.
FLAWS:

Detached: As a result of the traumatic deaths of his wife and son, Ziggy has become incredibly emotionally closed off. Not only is he slow to open up to others, he also has a tendency to be cold in his pragmatism. In particular, this tends to bring him into conflict with more emotional teammates, as it can make him seem like he cares less than he does.

Traumatic memory: The memory of his dead family haunts him, leaving him uncomfortable with anything that reminds him of his past. It's the reason he rejects his human name in favor of his model number, as he strives to eliminate the last of his humanity. Anything that reminds him too strongly of particular events or dynamics connected to his wife and son can even cause him to become lost in a flashback, becoming still and unaware while the memory plays out.

Awkward: While confident in his strategic abilities, social interaction has always been something of a struggle for Ziggy, ever since he was Jan. Confronted with a situation that needs articulation of personal thoughts or feelings, he's prone to stumbling over his words...particularly when answering the awkward questions children are prone to asking.

CANON ABILITIES:
– Enhanced strength, endurance, and durability
– Fire and electricity generation
– Spell-like 'Ethers', primarily focused on self-repair, self-buffs, and drawing enemy focus
– Combustion-based flight
– Instant transportation of heavy weaponry
– Mechanical limbs with built-in weapons
– Short-range combat skills
– Immunity to monstrous transformation
– Replaceable/repairable limbs
– Augmented vision

AU INFORMATION

AU CHARACTER NAME: Ziggurat 8, formerly Jan Sauer, recently nicknamed 'Ziggy'
AGE: 100
POSITION: Instructor of close-quarters combat and Outlands survival strategy
AU BACKSTORY: Jan Sauer was originally a police officer and member of a Rune Company in Germany, trying to do good amidst the Nazi regime. When his country occupied Poland, he decided to move to the newly acquired territory in order to help the Polish citizens cope with or escape the German rule. In the course of his efforts to help the oppressed flee Nazi territory, he met and fell in love with a Jewish widow who was trying to care for a son by herself. The two married, and Jan quickly bonded with his new stepson, treating him as if he were a blood relative.

Unfortunately, it wasn't to last. One of Jan's fellow Rune Company members, who he'd thought to be a friend, revealed himself as a vampiric mass murderer known to the supernatural community as Voyager. Voyager had an unusual power, being capable of absorbing the very souls of his victims and keeping them trapped inside a mental landscape. Having grown obsessed with Jan and made a deal with a powerful fae, he killed the officer's wife and son in front of him, then offered him a choice: absorption, or contract with his fae patron for power and immortality. Jan took a third option, shooting himself in the head so that Voyager would be unable to trap him.

Around that same time, a mage family with connections to the German government had been working on a project, dubbed Project Ziggurat, to use a combination of necromancy and medical magic to create undead soldiers augmented with runic prostheses and implants. Since Jan had promised in life to donate his body to medical research when he died, the Project Ziggurat mages were able to get their hands on his corpse, and he became their eighth success.

Due to compulsions built into his runic components, the newly animated Ziggurat 8 found himself unable to harm himself or defy orders given to him by a figure of authority. For the remainder of the war, he was forced to carry out missions for the Nazis, fighting against his original cause. When the war ended, the Allied governments were horrified by the inhumanity of the project, and forced it to shut down. However, the compulsions were connected deeply enough to the animating magic that the best their mages and runesmiths could do was change the parameters so that he had to accept an order before it became binding.

He spent the next seventy years seeking out the most dangerous missions he could find, often striking out into the Outlands to areas others had failed to return from. His hope was to be killed in action, but time and again he proved successful, even where others had died trying..in part due to having manifested Flame powers related to powerful defenses and protection of others. The help of Squirrel Girl on one of his more recent missions brought a bit of strange levity to his existence, before his truly pivotal assignment: rescuing an artificial humanoid resembling a young girl from an extremist organization.

The initial infiltration proved easy enough, but a determined guard managed to hold onto consciousness long enough to sound an alarm after the girl was freed from her cell. With the full force of security at the site, including the military head of the organization, trying to stop them, the pair barely made it out...only escaping because Ziggurat 8's charge proved capable of helping in her own way. During the escape, while waiting for guards to pass by, the girl deemed Ziggurat 8's name to be too robotic, and gave him the nickname Ziggy. Though the name triggered a flashback to when he bought his son a dog and tried to name it after the breeding company, he accepted it without objection.

After the narrow escape, ending in an unexpected rescue, Ziggy contacted his client and was given further instructions: take the girl to Daybreak, and protect her as a bodyguard. In order to do this most effectively, he opted to sign on as a member of faculty.

AU PERSONALITY DEVIATION: The most significant deviation from canon is how Ziggy views his forced subservience. While his canon culture had normalized the idea of cyborgs having no rights, most people on Earth have reacted with horror or pity to his situation. Combined with having been forced to follow orders he had a strong moral objection to, he heavily resents his creators, and chooses to work without personal gain as a method of helping to counter the damage Project Ziggurat caused, often donating all but the money he needs to house and repair himself to charity.

Otherwise, he's not quite as old, and may be less stuck in his ways than in canon as a result.

RACE: Enhanced zombie
SECRET SOCIETY: In life, Jan was a member of an old Rune Company in Germany, but he chose not to return after the war. Now, he works essentially as a freelance Hunter, taking on missions he deems worth doing when they prove too dangerous for ordinary Hunters...particularly when reports of unusual vampires are involved, in the hopes of finding and destroying Voyager.

POWERS: The most obvious of Ziggy's powers come from the runic augmentations performed when he was reanimated. As a zombie, he has immunity to anything that only works on living beings, along with a much higher ability to handle injury. His limbs are made of a combination of mythril and dense wood, given movement by runes, and are both resistant to damage and much stronger than human limbs. Runes on his hands allow him to generate, and to an extent manipulate, electricity, while runes on his feet do the same for fire, also allowing short bursts of flight while his personal energy reserves hold up. These limbs can theoretically be replaced or upgraded by anyone specializing in runic prostheses, but he hasn't had this done more than repairs since he was animated.

Runic implants in his torso and head help support the strength of his limbs, as well as granting infrared and magic energy vision for functioning in the dark. They do, however, heavily limit his color perception by creating a red filter over everything he sees.

His Flame is based primarily in making him better able to take attacks for others. It allows him to heal himself a little at a time, as well as create an aura that weakens the impact of attacks – particularly if he's defending someone he's promised to keep safe. He can also, if he so chooses, focus his power on a single target and temporarily compel them to direct their attacks at him, regardless of their ordinary fighting habits.

Additionally, he has developed two incredibly powerful, but brief and exhausting, uses of his Flame. The first renders him immune to damage from non-elemental sources for a short period of time, while the other greatly increases the force of his strikes, allowing him to easily break through an enemy's defenses and daze them. He can only use them a combined couple of times before he needs to rest or otherwise find a way to recover his magical energy.

HOUSING: Living on-campus, will be sharing living quarters with a specific student.

RP SAMPLE
A Sample may be any of the following:

INTERVIEW SAMPLE PROMPT
(The following scenario is available to all characters who are apping in and is considered canon - all prospective teachers for the academy are interviewed by staff members to ensure they're a good fit. The definition of "good fit" seems to vary wildly from staffer to staffer.)

3. WHAT UNIQUE PERSPECTIVES DO YOU THINK YOU BRING TO THE ACADEMY?

I've lived through many historical events most teachers have only heard about from textbooks, including the greatest humanitarian crisis in the past century. Additionally, I've seen many of the dangers of the Outlands with my own eyes, and have gathered a wealth of experience in surviving in hostile environments.

4. WHAT, IN YOUR OPINION, IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING FOR A SCHOOL TO PROVIDE TO ITS STUDENTS

A stable environment. Students won't be able to learn effectively if they're distracted by outside stresses.

5. DESCRIBE YOUR COMMUNICATION STYLE AND HOW YOU INTERACT WITH COWORKERS.

I favor being direct. I take a professional approach when dealing with colleagues...getting personally involved would decrease my efficiency.

6. HOW DO YOU ENCOURAGE STUDENTS TO PUSH THEMSELVES AND TAKE THEIR SCHOOLWORK SERIOUSLY?

Our mission is crucial to the future of humanity. Students who don't take their education seriously in light of that most likely simply believe they're incapable of making a difference. In those cases, it's best to highlight how effective even a single individual can be if their skills match the situation.

7. HOW DO YOU MANAGE STUDENTS WHO ARE DEFIANT OR ACTING OUT?

I look for the root of the behavioral problem and go from there. As everyone has unique motivations for their actions, there isn't a single approach that can apply to every case.

8. HOW DO YOU ENCOURAGE AND MENTOR STUDENTS WHO ARE STRUGGLING OR DEPRESSED?

By making it clear that I'm available to talk to for anything that might be causing a student difficulties, even if it's not academic in nature. If possible, I would try to help them work through or solve their problem. Otherwise, I would refer them to a colleague that might be better suited to their needs.

9. WHAT, IN YOUR OPINION, IS THE MOST IMPORTANT LESSON TO TEACH EVERY STUDENT WHO WALKS THROUGH OUR DOORS?

The value of what they can contribute, and what's relying on them making their best effort. I've seen for myself how power can corrupt, and I want to make certain my students will put my lessons to a positive use.

13. HOW DO YOU THINK YOUR CURRENT BOSS OR SUPERVISOR WOULD DESCRIBE YOUR JOB PERFORMANCE?

I work freelance, but my latest client is pleased enough with my performance to request that I serve as a bodyguard for a student who's enrolling here.

16. ONE OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF ACADEMY FACULTY IS PROTECTING STUDENTS FROM THAT WHICH MIGHT DO THEM HARM. TELL US HOW EQUIPPED YOU ARE TO DO THIS.

I have seventy years of combat experience, combined with Rune Armor equivalent enhancements to my limbs and Flame abilities specifically suited to drawing harm away from others. Additionally, the best method of keeping someone safe is to teach them to protect themselves.

17. WHAT ARE YOU WILLING TO SACRIFICE FOR YOUR STUDENTS?

Whatever is necessary. So long as it's for the good of those I've taken responsibility for, I'll do whatever it takes to help them succeed and keep them safe.