Xavier Institute Application

[markofthewise]

PLAYER INFORMATION
PLAYER: Masamune
ARE YOU AT LEAST 14 YEARS OLD?: Yes
IF UNDER 18 YEARS OLD, PLEASE STATE YOUR AGE: N/A
CONTACT: dammitmasa @ plurk/aim
PERSONAL JOURNAL: dammitmasa @ dw
CHARACTERS PLAYED: N/A


CHARACTER INFORMATION
NAME: Sokka Amarok or Amaruq
CANON: Avatar: The Last Airbender
CANON REFERENCE: Avatar Wikia
AGE: 17 (born February 25th, 1995)
GENDER: Male
YEAR IN SCHOOL/FACULTY POSITION: Senior (HS4)

APPEARANCE: Here
PERSONALITY: On the surface level, Sokka appears to most as a goofy kid prone to self-inflicted pain and constant sarcasm. He has simple passions. He likes telling jokes, he likes to think he’s cool, he loves meat, and he loves personal little gadgets that can use for anything. But in spite of first appearances, there's a bit more to Sokka than just a carnivorous kid who likes to crack jokes. Growing up as a military kid, Sokka never really had an attachment to any one place. In fact, one of the longest placed he lived anywhere was San Diego as a kid, but they moved away when he was six and he barely remembers any of that. Though he is a complainer, he’s very much a person who is adapted to change and flexibility. Picking up and starting over comes second nature to him. So he makes quick friends, but he’s slow to build close connections with anyone. Finding new playmates is easy, but losing people you care about is something he just doesn’t want to go through.

Sokka has had very few constants in his life. Until four years ago, they were his mother and sister. While his father was there, he was always leaving for months at a time. At a young age, Sokka always had difficulty grasping why his father would sometimes be away during holidays or birthdays. But growing up around other military families, he had little opportunity to compare other fathers. So he accepted it. But his mother had been there every single day for them, so they day they lost her changed everything. It’s left him with just his sister. Though the two argue and have a typical sibling relationship of give and take (often more the latter than the former), she’s everything to him. Which complicates things, because he grew bitter over her mutant ability. It was never enough that she had to stick her nose into people’s business over what she thought was ‘right’ and he’d have to bail her out, but her new abilities made her a target for hate and became their dirty family secret. But it wasn’t just that. Sokka would never admit it, but he’d been jealous of her power. As someone who thrived on being masculine and the strong protector, it bothered him that his little sister was packing so much power. Now that Sokka has discovered he’s a mutant, there’s still some anti-mutant feelings and though he secretly enjoys his new powers, he hates that he’s a ‘freak’ now. Especially since it meant he lost his entire future to it and it threatens to take over his entire identity.

From his father, Sokka has inherited a strong sense of patriotism and a desire to protect. He identifies with being strong and a ‘warrior’, which is why he intended to enlist once he turned eighteen. For these reasons he latched onto his uncle’s life as a hunter. Though it was different than what he ultimately intended to do, he savored the chance to be tough, to become a survivor, and be able to live on just his instincts and experience. Having made Barrow into a more permanent home, he eventually decided to take up sports, something he’d never never taken seriously in a school setting before. As a result, he got into basketball and came to savor the teamwork that came with it, not to mention the perks like popularity and girls. Even when he was growing up around military bases, he’d learn everything he could about the ‘army culture’. He never got to attend any kind of summer boot camp, but convinced that he would eventually join, he took a self-disciplined approach to things by learning to regularly work out and keep himself physically fit.

But that paints only half of the picture of what Sokka is like. While all those things may be true, Sokka is a lot more light hearted than the above would seem. He can be downright childish at times, especially in regards to his sense of humor. Whenever his dad would return, the two of them would often cause the rest of the family to groan with their non-stop back and forth of lame puns and silly jokes. He enjoys having fun and while he may be pretty serious about some of the things he does, it takes little for him to go from an intense moment to pelting a snowball at the back of someone’s head and laughing at their reaction. Beyond that, he’s very much a lover of possessions, far more than the rest of his family. As a kid, he loved going to the market and begging to have any cool item that caught his eye, no matter what it was or how little he’d actually want or need it. This changed little in Barrow, though it has been hampered by a small city having little variety to choose from. When he can get away with it, he’s been known to sneak on the family computer to spend an hour just shopping for things he could have. His interests widely vary. It could be cool clothes, neat weapons, electronic devices, or something as random as furniture. It’s fortunate that he can only order online when he convinces his uncle Bato to order something for him (deducted from the pay Bato gives him for his help), otherwise he’d be in a mountain of debt. Going into a city with shopping malls all the time will be a big experience for him.

But Sokka is a ‘realist’ and doesn’t quite see the world in the same optimistic light as his sister. He’s already loved and lost, he’s lost a mother, and most of his relationship with his dad is done via video conference calls. A lot of this comes across in his attitude, where often his default mode of dealing with people is with a touch of suspicion and a ton of dry sarcasm. When it comes to questions of morality or right and wrong, Sokka is a very ‘big picture’ kind of guy and prefers to pick his battles. While his sister may be more inclined to get involved with any injustice she comes across, Sokka is more likely to stay out of something unless someone is in actual danger. He doesn’t believe you can change the world by throwing yourself at every single problem, so often times he’ll just ignore it. This may make him seem insensitive and in a sense, he often is, but it’s only because he sees things in a broader sense. For Sokka, he way of making the world better is joining the military and fighting against things that are wrong in a bigger way.

He can often seem impatient with people, which is true, because he doesn’t suffer ignorance or stupidity lightly. As someone who has embraced science and the natural order of the world, he’s someone who doesn’t take things that challenge this notion of ‘how things work’. Which makes it rather difficult, since mutant powers go against that entirely. He’s not a very religious person and while he follows along with some of the traditions of his culture, he doesn’t believe in anything presented to him that can’t be scientifically proven. This isn’t to say he dislikes his culture, because it’s quite the opposite and he feels a strong connection to where his family comes from. But he’s very modern minded, highly intelligent, and far more eager to embrace the world at large. Consequently he’s more likely to quickly adapt to living at the Xavier school and the big city than his sister is, even though she wants to be there far, far more than he does.

POWERS/ABILITIES:

Tactile Elemental Transmutation - Sokka has the ability to touch and alter the shape and density of matter, so long as it is not organic and he is in contact with it. This alteration is performed primarily through his fingertips, where he possesses the most control over it, but he has the potential to enhance this ability to alter it with any part of his body. It is primarily controlled by dexterity (hence why his hands are most apt for control) and an understanding of an object’s composition. He has a small, latent ability to understand the composition on a molecular level, but giving them shape and purpose is dependant on his own knowledge and understanding of mechanics. Most commonly he uses this ability to create weapons on the fly, with a favored weapon being boomerangs as projectiles. He possesses a lump of black meteoric metal that he typically alters into the shape of a sword, which he can modify to be dense enough and sharp enough to cut through steel. He modeled the sword after a jian he saw in Japan from a swordmaster demonstrating his skill.

Mild Kinesthetic Enhancement - A passive ability Sokka has possessed since puberty, but never identified as a mutant ability until later. This small enhancement is what allows Sokka (and his sister) to learn and pick up physical abilities quickly. Though they still must do the work to learn new skills and talents, they're usually ahead of the class on mastering new disciplines. This has already been applied to Sokka learning many skills, such as swordplay and martial arts.

Enhanced Strength/Speed - A latent ability that makes Sokka just a bit stronger and faster than your average human. It's not enough to keep up with some mutants, but it does give him a slight edge in combat (and sports!)

Beyond his own mutation, Sokka possesses military knowledge from his time on the base with his dad, which includes some combat training and self-discipline. Due to working with his uncle, who is is a licensed hunter for controlling the local wolf population, Sokka is a capable hunter and tracker. He is skilled in using both bladed weapons as well as firearms.

AU HISTORY: Sokka is the older of two siblings, born about a year apart. Their father, Hakoda Amarok, was an officer in the United States Navy. They were both born in Barrow, Alaska, where Hakoda and his wife Kya both grew up. During this time, Hakoda had already finished attending the naval academy and visited his home town frequently, but the demands of being an officer eventually prompted him to move him and his family to San Diego. Kya was a career nurse, but was largely the caregiver for the children, due to their father being gone for months at a time due to his duties. It wasn’t a bad life and whenever Hakoda secured time off, they would return to Barrow to visit family.

After 9/11, Hakoda’s career called for him to spend time in the Middle East, operating out of Bahrain. Although he insisted on Kya remaining behind with the children, she refused to let them go without a father and went with him, making a home for them there. Even after the fall of Baghdad, this carried on as Hakoda was reassigned to Naples in Italy. By then the two kids, eight and seven, started to pick up on the local language and make friends. But after two years, Hakoda’s promotion had them once again picking up and leaving to live in Guam and later Japan. During these years, they would make infrequent trips home to Alaska for family, especially for holidays.

By then, the two were thirteen and twelve and had adapted to moving around and saying goodbye to friends, resulting in a very close bond between the two. Japan was not an easy place to live for two foreigners like them and though they made friends, they were few. They did manage to pick up the language better than their parents did, though. Life there was interesting and they started to shape their perceptions of the world there, things ultimately came to a halt when one day Katara was in the fish market with their mother. Her mutant power manifested in front of several other shoppers. The onlookers mistakenly believed Kya to be behind it. Fearing her power, they turned on her. And then Sokka and Katara had no mother.

Hakoda was unwilling to give up his naval career, not knowing any other way to provide for his family. Unable to be there for them like Kya, he took them back to Barrow to be cared for by his mother, Kanna. Though they weren’t unfamiliar with Barrow and Sokka had never disliked it, living there was different than spending a few weeks or months there. The first year was the hardest. Although Hakoda had been granted leave to stay with them for several months and to take care of his affairs, he wouldn’t be there indefinitely. And eventually it was just Sokka and Katara, with an old woman who was loving to them, but at a point in her life she couldn’t quite be the caregiver they needed.

They stepped up. Katara, mostly, in taking care of the home and keeping them as a family. Sokka did his part, but he didn’t like being at home. So he found other outlets. He joined the school basketball team and proved to be exceptional (thanks to his still unknown mutant abilities) and when he was fifteen, his uncle Bato (his mother’s brother) started to take him out hunting. While his sister continued to practice her special abilities in secret, Sokka began to resent the fact she had powers he did not. There was also a small amount of bitterness that he had promised his father to protect her, which she made it very difficult to do since she wouldn’t just stop trying to be a mutant. Or insisting to go to that Xavier school. She wanted to be a freak like all the others on TV and Sokka didn’t like it.

During his junior year, Sokka was just biding his time. He did well in school, since he didn’t rock the boat much, was good at what he did, and performed important work with Bato in controlling the wildlife population. He was also on the basketball team and had become quite popular at the school, even joining the student government and getting to meet the state senator. He’d managed to earn himself a rival at the school, a student named Hahn, who had grown up in Barrow and always been the jock at the school, routinely being the star player of any sport he played. Unfortunately, Sokka was a quick learner and just a little better and started becoming the star player in his place. Around this time, Sokka and Katara came upon a car accident after a particularly bad snow storm. It was the mayor’s daughter, Yue, trapped inside and unable to get out due to the doors being frozen. Sokka was unable to power it open, so Katara used her mutant ability to unfreeze the door. From that incident, Katara gained a friend who knew her secret. For Sokka, it was something a little more.

Yue spent more and more time with Sokka and eventually she broke up with Hahn. Or tried to. He didn’t accept it and just saw it as Sokka stealing his girl. More than once it came down to a fist fight that got them both in trouble with the school. Unfortunately it came to an unhappy ending when Hahn caught the two of them out on the ice. While the two of them got into a shouting match, an upset Yue gave up on trying to defuse the situation and turned to leave. She stepped onto a weak spot in the ice and nearly drowned. The two boys brought her to the hospital, but she had developed pneumonia. Because she had already been rather frail as a child, the sickness hit her hard and the doctors concluded that staying in Barrow might kill her unless she remained indoors at all times. Her father, Mayor Arnook, warned them to stay away from her and eventually sent her to go live with family further south so she could get better.

Miserable and feeling like he’d lost his one true love, Sokka wasn’t happy with his life. But he decided it wouldn’t have to for much longer and in just one year, he intended to leave Barrow and sign up for the navy like his dad. He didn’t like leaving Katara behind, but he couldn’t stay there forever. That was the plan, anyway. While out on a hunting expedition, he and Bato had the misfortune of running into an angry polar bear mother. Bato was severely injured and the rifle itself had been broken. In a moment of surprising clarity and a demonstration of his power that he still has yet to top, he transformed the rifle into a metal spike that swiftly impaled the beast and killed it. After the two had recovered in the hospital, Sokka discovered his ability was no freak miracle, but that he could manipulate things that he touched into various shapes. No, he was the freak now. Just like his sister.

A few months later, Hakoda arranged for them to go to the Xavier Institute. Their father had finally decided that it was hard enough to keep one mutant secret, but it would be impossible to keep them both secret. Especially with Sokka receiving so much attention for saving his uncle. So the two were sent to the institution to begin the new school year. For his sister, nothing could be better. For Sokka, his life was over.

SAMPLE
1ST PERSON SAMPLE:

Apparently I’m supposed to talk about myself and tell you who I am. Fine. I’m Sokka Amarok and I’m new here. I used to live in Barrow, Alaska. You’ve probably never heard of it. I can’t blame you. The place is as far north as you can get that actually has people living there. Things that I like? Well there’s meat. I like to hunt, play basketball, and video games. Oh. And I’m a mutant. Lucky me.

THIRD PERSON SAMPLE:

Sokka and Katara - before heading to the Institute.