Application for The Institute

[antinihilist]

 

<span style="font-size: 16pt; font-family:courier new;">PLAYER INFORMATION</span>

<b>PLAYER:</b>

<b>ARE YOU AT LEAST 14 YEARS OLD?:</b> I’m 21.

<b>CONTACT:</b> obrovicht@yahoo.com or PM me here

<b>PERSONAL JOURNAL:</b> None.

<b>CHARACTERS PLAYED:</b> None.

 

<span style="font-size: 16pt; font-family:courier new;">CHARACTER INFORMATION</span>

<b>NAME:</b> Radovan Zeravic

<b>CANON:</b> Original Character

<b>CANON REFERENCE:</b> N/A

<b>AGE:</b> 37

<b>GENDER:</b> Male

<b>YEAR IN SCHOOL/FACULTY POSITION:</b> English and Literature teacher; offers high school and college level classes

 

<b>APPEARANCE:</b> http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/_/41657561/eljko+Joksimovi+grehnjenemajkeserija.jpg

<b>PERSONALITY:</b> It would be forgivable to, upon first getting to know him, think of Zeravic as totally, utterly serious. He’s not particularly light hearted or cheerful. He is, however, a born caretaker-nurturer. He has an inherent need to try to make things easier on people, young people in particular, and is highly protective of people he sees as vulnerable, even if they’re really not. Zeravic will not offer an ‘it’ll be alright’, he’ll try to give advice or draw quotes from something to offer up hope things will improve. Though by nature a solemn person, he is deep down an anti-nihilist, someone who sees things are hard and sticks to his morals, standards and dreams for the future anyway.

This makes for a passionate Lit teacher, as you’d imagine, but also a surprisingly funny grammar teacher. Due to his virtually flawless poker face, this man can deadpan and use sarcasm with a straight face like no one else. Having grown up as he did and lived the life he did, not much draws a big reaction out of him anymore, and a raised eyebrow or one liner is often his response to the insanity of life all around him. His fondness for quoting things also supplies him with an endless fountain of material for most situations; he just doesn’t tend to snark around people until some time has passed and he’s gotten to know them better.

A great way to describe him at his most relaxed is domestic. Students can expect to find him baking in the kitchen with some frequency, especially if it’s late at night and he can’t sleep. He knows how to sew things and has a sewing kit in his desk fully stocked at all times, he will notice if people are missing meals, and come holidays no one decorates with as much self-deprecation and tiny satisfied smiles as he does. Some part of him wants to father over the students, as unhealthy as that probably is psychologically once you’ve read over his history, and he expresses this by basically trying to make the Institute feel more like home in any way that he can manage. The stress baking was always an instinct, though, so in times of solely personal crisis there will still be an abundance of food that just appears over the course of a sleepless night. It’s easier than trying to talk to someone.

On that note, personal relationships are difficult for him. He’s had his share of trauma, and it’s hard to discuss that with other people, so he keeps the focus on them or redirects the topic off himself if possible. Zeravic has what could probably be accurately called a complex, a sort of it’s-all-my-fault-insert-thing-here-is-happening crossed with I-must-solve-this-problem, and if it seems like that overwhelms his individuality or needs as a separate person, that’s because it does. Oftentimes it’s just easier to focus on other people than himself. The truth is he doesn’t like himself very much. He wishes he were stronger, smarter, more assertive, and less prideful, but it’s that same pride and sense of not wanting to be pitied that makes him keep a lid on his entire life and internal dilemmas and a spotlight on other people’s.

 

<b>POWERS/ABILITIES:</b> Photokinetic; can control and manipulate light to form bright, burning beams, dim or brighten an area, and generate light from his hands. Light, when focused, is essentially heat, and will therefore leave burns on anything hit, but will rarely set fire to anything in and of itself. Light generated to brighten an area will not heat it up significantly, and although summer days generate more light to work with and therefore more ‘ammo’, so to speak, Stevan is not immune to the heat of summer in any way. Dimming an area is harder than brightening it, but at night it’s easier than during the day and vice versa; it’s easier to push something closer to one end of the spectrum than haul it to the other end entirely. Technically he’s capable of bending light around himself to go invisible, but all offensive powers are null and void when he’s doing this due to how much focus it takes, and there’s a definite time limit on it due to how hard it is – he’s never managed to last more than three minutes in one shot, or more than twice in twenty four hours even at peak form. A poor diet will result in both a lack of control and inconsistency in his powers, as will insufficient sleep. Despite his powers being tied to his health, even if extremely worn down they can potentially flare up in a life or death situation – but they would be utterly out of his hands at that point.

 

<b>AU HISTORY:</b> It wouldn’t be accurate to say life always sucked for Radovan Zeravic; it started out pretty great, actually. An only child, his parents and part of his extended family owned and worked in a bakery in his town. He grew up in a small town in Serbia (then Yugoslavia) in the mountains, where his life was basically on the edge of lower and middle class but happy. Although he was decent at making food, he wanted to be a teacher, which his parents approved of. His older cousins were already in line to take over the family business, so his parents were proud to send him off to the nearest university in order to go chase his dream. There, he worked part time as a waiter to pay off his school bills and met his future wife, Katrionna, who he began dating.

Everything seemed to be on the right path for him for a while. He graduated college, worked up the nerve to pop the question to Katrionna, and they settled down to start a family. His mutant powers were still dormant when his son Tihomir was born. Their family of three settled down in the thriving city of Novi Sad, where Zeravic was able to find a good job teaching while Katrionna stayed home and took care of their son. What he would later recognize as trouble on the horizon came when there were rumors of war should the USSR fall and therefore accidentally relinquish Yugoslavia from the forced unity they had never been comfortable with. But such a thing was seen as impossible, and though they lived in what would become a major hotspot for the incoming Yugoslav Wars, they were oblivious to it.

Zeravic was forcibly awakened to the reality when his wife, being of Albanian heritage, was murdered by Serbian nationalists along with a series of other crimes that hit mixed marriages before the USSR officially fell. When it did, a still mourning and shocked Zeravic was forced to stay where he was, unable to afford or find clear passage out of the country. His son’s name was Albanian enough his life was endangered if he left the apartment, and it was in defense of his child that Zeravic’s powers first manifested. The lighting changing was the first sign, followed by blasting a man clear down the stairs when he tried to extort money out of the run down family of two. The burn marks drew enough attention he was forced to flee, his world turned upside down by the revelation of what just happened, but he decided that with this strange power he could try to make a run to where his parents lived, far from the fighting.

They didn’t make it out of Novi Sad. Or rather, Tihomir didn’t, because even with his powers Zeravic was no match for the displaced mobs of extremists in the streets. Though he burned his way through a large chunk of them in the struggle to keep his son safe, eventually a lack of nutrition and rest combined with overwhelming numbers left him powerless as his son was killed and he was left for dead in the streets. When he woke up in a hospital a week later, it wasn’t hard to slip away and get himself out of the country. The problem had always been in getting two people out.

Feeling guilty and not really wanted by other countries who were busy condemning every nation involved in the Yugoslav Wars, he found a job teaching Serbian in England. His degree and clean record kept him employed in the face of prejudice, but internally he was a wreck. He spent years as a functional alcoholic, haunted by every family he saw, and too guilty to call his parents and let them know what a failure he’d become. Life felt overwhelmingly empty, even as his powers flourished under a steady diet. He kept the experimentation he did with them to himself, having no friends to share secrets with even if he could bring himself to talk about his life.

Eventually he left for the United States in order to see if putting more physical distance between himself and everything he used to know would help. After his move, he found himself at Chicago, one of the cities in America with a large enough Serbian population to have a Serbian Orthodox Church. There, he reconnected with his heritage, found his faith again, and pulled himself back together into a functioning human being. Through faith he finally let himself mourn properly instead of just hating a vast litany of things from his fellow Serbians to humanity itself. It took several years there for him to get everything turned around, but he went to Alcoholics Anonymous, he reconnected with his parents and extended family, and outed himself as a mutant to them. Their acceptance helped him heal, but he could never really get over the guilt of failing his wife and child so horribly.

He focused on building up a career to make something out of what he could salvage of his life. He felt it was God’s plan for him to keep teaching, perhaps help some kids out there to make up for all his failures. Zeravic became highly involved in everything that went on at his school and moved up the ranks of promotion, only to be ultimately fired from a university level teaching position after his powers flared up over the summer session two years into it. Though it was a relatively quiet dismissal, it was enough to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. People during the Yugoslav Wars hated his wife for being Albanian, hated him for being an immigrant and poor, and now he was being thrown out for being merely different despite his excellent record.

Thus he turned to the Xavier Institute, where he could teach, and help others learn to control their powers. All his learning was by himself and agonizingly slow; now, he could support others and help them with that issue so it wouldn’t take years of struggle and pain. Now more than ever before, Zeravic is the closest to at peace with himself and the world as he’s ever been. Life is cruel, it is harsh and cold and hard, but it can always get better, and it’s not over until it’s over. Even if things look hopeless, they’re not. He knows that now. Though he has lapses into hopelessness, he refuses to sink back into that lethargic depression that had a stranglehold on him for so long. 

To quote a Serbian proverb, yesterday ended last night.

 

<span style="font-size: 16pt; font-family:courier new;">SAMPLE</span>

<b>1ST PERSON SAMPLE:</b>

 

This semester, we’re going to be going over Shakespeare. To avoid the usual sighing and groaning that Romeo and Juliet induces – with due reason on both parts – I decided to go with Othello. Firstly, it will allow for a more interesting reading time. Secondly, there is tasteful violence, which will hopefully incite some of you to pay attention. Each of you will be reading along with the class, but in-class we will examine certain scenes and turns of phrase. This also means we will relentlessly mock some plot contrivances. As Mortimer Adler once said, “Work that is pure toil, done solely for the sake of the money it earns, is also sheer drudgery because it is stultifying rather than self improving.” You’ll learn more and get better grades from me if you question the material, preferably out loud. Class participation, as in all my classes, is around 15% or your total grade. Absences are per school policy and you won’t be asked to make up participation if your excuse stands. However, skipping class and getting caught will result in my own personal Hell of a punishment: reading out of <I>Eragon</I>, one of the most boring, generic fantasy works ever penned, for twenty minutes or until I’ve had enough. Any questions?

 

<b>THIRD PERSON SAMPLE:</b>

 Zeravic made his way down the school halls to his room, despite it being dinner time. For one, he could make something later out of scratch if so motivated. For another thing, his first day had been tiring, and he sank down into his desk chair gratefully. He was going to try to personalize his room a little bit in the future, but at the moment the monotony of it was a small comfort. It was a quiet place, far from prying eyes. After stretching and unbuttoning his shirt, he held out his hands in front of him, curling his fingers. Light gathered within the space, and released with a sigh. He let himself clear his mind with pulling it into loops and balls, banishing shadows while casting new ones, vanishing into the ether as he let it. He could feel his muscles lose some of the tension in them. His eyes fell to the golden cross around his neck, a gift from his wife long ago. It was always on him. It often made him pause and think.

The thought struck him like a knife that if Tihomir had lived, he would be the right age for this school. He flinched, brown eyes shutting hard, exhaling as the shadows in the room flickered around him. Though Christopher Marlowe had once penned, “Things that are not at all, are never lost,” the fact was that grief overran that kind of reasoning the way water overran a rock in the stream. Maybe there would be a day it didn’t hurt, but that was not this day.

He pulled his lesson plans out of his briefcase, focusing on the words in front of him. If he was going to keep up a good impression, he had to adjust his plans according to the students’ academic performances. Things were that simple. 

He absolutely wasn’t running from his guilt – it would be there when the plans were done. Of that, he could be sure.