OOC: Application - xavier_institute

[growingshield]

PLAYER INFORMATION

PLAYER: Blue
ARE YOU AT LEAST 16 YEARS OLD?: Yes!
IF UNDER 18 YEARS OLD, PLEASE STATE YOUR AGE: N/A
CONTACT: PM to psychopomposity or character accounts; Plurk at coffinliqueur
CHARACTERS PLAYED: N/A

CHARACTER INFORMATION

NAME: Jaune Arc
CANON: RWBY
CANON REFERENCE: On the canon wiki!
AGE: 16; is one year older in canon.
GENDER: Male
YEAR IN SCHOOL/FACULTY POSITION: Student - 11th Grade
APPEARANCE: Essentially the same here as in canon.

PERSONALITY: Jaune's a classic would-be hero with plenty to chase, prove, and live up to - with all of the wanting and will he should need to get him where he wants to be but not nearly enough of the discipline.

Jaune comes from a pedigree of heroes, he professes - his father was a Huntsman; he uses a sword that was his grandfather's; there's a statue on display at Beacon Academy holding what certainly looks like a very similar sword (there's also a shot of him staring up uncertainly at said statue in the first OP). But, alas, he's ill-equipped to be one - he's so poorly-read in lore and information relevant to being a Hunstman and/or fighting creatures of Grim to the point that he doesn't know what Aura is, or recognize star in-training Huntress Pyrrha Nikos until Weiss points out that she was on a cereal box. He may be a bit of a mama's boy - he sleeps in a very kiddie set of pajamas and remarks a flustered "but my dad said all women look for in a man is confidence!" when a bad flirting attempt winds up going, well, badly. He screams like a little girl when he's in visceral danger; he's absolutely not used to being a fighter.

With a bit of polishing, though, it's clear enough that he is potential bumbling knight in shining armor material - he sure does react shrilly to danger, but he is not a total coward and he's not a complete idiot; he takes risks he's prepared to take and toward goals he's willing to chase - he managed to get into Beacon Academy in the first place on forged transcripts and single-handedly (as far as he knows) kills a cabin-sized monster bear to save a life - the life, mind you, of a bully who'd blackmailed him over said transcripts up to the point of trying to get him to assist his cronies in "knocking [Pyrrha] down a peg", and so he can also prove in spades that he's got proper morality on his side even below general "well-meaningness".

When he does exercise his strengths, personality and otherwise, it's clearly as a defender as opposed to a fighter. When the going gets rough, even if he'll need a moment to steel for it, he'll go and protect what matters - his team, his partner, his and/or his team's honor, his chance at proving he can shape up from zero to hero.

Which transitions into the fact that another of his failings is pride in an uncomfortable, deadlocking, and probably very teenage mix with a lack of self-esteem - he's aware and worn-down with the fact that he's a bumbling mess, does his best to play it off, and, until what probably amount to an everyday epiphany after the incident in the woods, refuses the hypercompetent Pyrrha's offer to help him train as patronizing. If he can't salvage himself as an apparent failure, according to him at least prior to change of mind, all it proves is that it's what he is. Never mind that he's clearly somewhat reliant on guidance - it was lack of training that's left him flailing among the students at Beacon, he again cites advice from his parents from time to time, he went on trying his luck asking rather dreading questions of Ozpin before a mission that partly had "sink or swim" as its point, and he's trying to live up to a legacy, to boot.

Though he's fundamentally insecure, he's certainly not shy, or all that hesitant at doing anything at all that doesn't carry a lick of clear risk of actual harm. He's outgoing - very expressive and talkative, and the kind who on the contrary to getting bogged down by insecurities attempts to overcompensate and over-override them insistently whenever he thinks he might have a ghost of a chance. He tries to come off as cool, suave, and better than all-together, case in point his taking a sarcastic comment by Weiss as putting him in the clear to attempt to flirt himself onto a team with her (ignoring that everything about her was literally screaming as if).

He's got his charm, though, all right - he's earnest and shows genuine interest in people when he's not trying to prove a point, and if he wasn't genuinely friendly and, again, well-meaning, making a strong impression, being liked, and being something admirable surely wouldn't mean as much to him the way that they do.

POWERS/ABILITIES: Personal "aura manipulation" - in keeping with what above-combat abilities he's shown using in canon, he can focus his own energy into enhanced defense/durability or healing.

The former concentrates it just-externally into something along the lines of invisible, all-covering immaterial "armor"; the latter heals minor flesh-level injuries, easier to undo the less time they've had to either worsen or start healing naturally - Jaune could heal from a fresh graze by a sharp object or bruise with no more than thirty seconds of focus (about as long as he can maintain a shield), could undo a gash on a limb in about the same amount of time in exchange for about ten minutes of wooziness and effectively disabled powers that'd not be at full capacity for about half an hour to two hours depending on size/depth; undoing a two-inch scar would take a few days of on-off (thirty-second) focus sessions working against the actual scarring process; and he wouldn't be able to mend a broken bone at all rather than the tissue around it. He doesn't need to focus harder to alter what his shield will take - if he's channeling it at all, it's at maximum strength - but taking harder blows will wear it and his overal energy supply out faster; a hypothetical swing from a sledgehammer when it's only just activated would send him flying essentially unharmed, but shut off the effect immediately and disable him on the powers front until he's lasted another five minutes without trying to use them.

Either shielding or healing does take constant, active focus - no simple shutting a shield on or off - and doing either gives off a (like the shield, full-body) faint white glow.

AU HISTORY: Jaune's Life Is Average. He was a late bloomer as a mutant - no other known mutants in his family, no flare-ups, no nothin' until a short while before he turned sixteen. Up until actually setting foot in the famous/infamous Xavier Institute, his life's been as mundane as it can be in a just-like-the-comics world. He was doted on and a little over-watched by a couple of very nice parents who were very much in love, had very strong virtues, and thought it'd be a cute idea to name their son after both Joan of Arc and his status as one more in a family of blonds, which produced some laughs growing up. He went and attracted more by much too spontaneously jumping in on activities he misunderstood or plain wasn't ready for in order to fit in, impress, make friends, and made a bit of an ass himself repeatedly. Try to impress girls playing a sport you're not cut out for and look like a wuss; try to join the club of cool kids playing with trading cards and have nowhere near enough interest to actually read up on the game and wind up accomplishing nothing but wasting allowance. You know - all that junk.

He had enough friends to somewhat cover for establishing himself as "that bumbling idiot who is fun to watch squirm" - natural extroversion, air of a good attitude, and a kind of goofy charm managed that easy enough. Between push and pull factors, he was stuck in a superficial here-and-now growing up without much incentive to become any sort of fanboy or learn most of their names or even how mutant powers work or what kinds exist, but from what he did know of the X-Men, in the way that a perfectly plain pushed-around kid might, he was sympathetic to the X-Men and what they stood for. Pressure was always on mutants - but because they were genuinely something "special".

When a couple of campus big dogs in high school held him up for a bit of roughing-up culminating in a black and swollen eye (he'd proven that he was an easy target for dinging up when he made the ill-advised choice of trying for the football team after measuring the so-to-speak atmospheric pressure of the school's dating scene with just about no preparation), he focused through the figurative stars whizzing around his head one part to get him on time and another to burn of the flustering, got a few yelps from a couple others crossing his way down the hall, and actually took a look at himself to find himself glowing. Quick look in a window to ensure his eyes weren't playing tricks on him which turned into a longer look to watch the bruising under his eye fade clean away - and the light with it.

He was ecstatic to be a confirmed mutant, and one of his first thoughts was that, ooh, he was eligible to enroll at the Xavier Institute - be somewhere he'd belong a bit more (if nothing else, it'd be an attractive start over in the teenage social field) and among heroes - again, people who were "special", and could wring something meaningful and worth acknowledging out of it.

His parents had their reservations about sending him, but caved - surely it'd at least be a safer place for a mutant kid to go now than it was before and leading up to the Phoenix incident, and if he thought he'd fit in there as a place he could better himself, good for him; meanwhile, students and staff at his high school before his transfer were a bit glad to see him off - he might not have displayed any harmful abilities, but oh-ho, the world's seen what even one mutant can be capable of.

While it's a bit more formal, a bit more "big", Jaune's taking his entering the academy the way he's taken all his other shots at finding someplace he gels in the past, which is to say he's completely unprepared - gone and ridden enthusiasm on to the first day of school while still failing to brush up on the bare minimum of information on the campus, its staff, why said staff are notable, a certain number of the classes, etcetera etcetera - floating a bit at the point of clearly being over speed in one area for his previous peers and way behind it for his new ones.

SAMPLES

NETWORK SAMPLE:

[Incoming video transmission!

It's a new kid. Blond hair, big blue eyes - status might or might not be told even to anyone not familiar with absolutely everyone off the bat by his "costume cocky" tone. Too deliberately nonchalant, held lower but deliberately inflected.

Flashes a smile.]

Hey-y-y...!

Name's Jaune Arc. You might've... Seen me around campus today? [That might've slipped to a mismatched higher-height - quick twirl of his finger on "around".

Stops it for a moment - and points it upward.]

I got a quick poll for you here! Since - you know - tons of us are probably new to this whole training-in-superhuman-powers thing and all that.

Uh - [And loosens up.] What it is is...

How many of us -- have only defensive skills? Uh -- [Hasty:] -- and who's only got offense, too?

-- A-a-and those of us who've been in training longer, exactlyyy... - How far would you say you've -- you know, [Airquotes.] "evolved" whatever it is you got into this school with?

No -- ...special reason I'm asking! [Flips up his hands - and brings one to scratch the back of his head.] Just -- you know.

A little getting-to-know-you thing on the first day of school...

LOG SAMPLE:

Next on his schedule is combat training. Now, this, he does distinctly remember signing up for. (How'd that last class wind up on the list - did his parents approve that? Did the advisory board just... sneak it in? Either way, he's successfully crossed the school from that to this with... three minutes less than fifteen minutes late to spare; first day of class, it's got to be all understood.)

Out on the training ground, the instructor waves about waiting to conduct him to a spot, asks him what he can do.

"Uhhm, actually! Sir, I -- " From over-breezy to wriggling up high, there. "I~I~I..." - well you know. " -- have any. O-offensive skills, you know - "

Next cue is to stop right there, gets pointed to the equipment room, which is - drat it, he lost fifteen minutes of class already but it's close down. It's just back inside and on the right wall - works up a painful smile, keeps his face on and around the training ground, one last look at a supervised sparring session over there and a couple going to town on dummies (with - oh, good god, is that a super-speed boxing match underway behind them? Cr-r-ringe) long enough to get a "Yyyyeah! I can do that, sir, be rrright back - " through his teeth. He pulls himself away and stumbles over his own legs getting back to the door, makes a break down the hall.

Opens the door that - looks like it should've been this door. He passed three other doors, there are three other little door-framey little markers before it on the map.

It's... a wee bit bigger on the inside than he would have expected; what he had expected was a simpler supply closet; is it only the look of a mini weapons cache making it look like something... more, at the least?

He takes a moment to turn and pass the walls a few times eyeing everything up - checking if he can even recognize some of these, taking guesses at what everything else or any oddities on should-be familiar things are actually supposed to do. (Said guesses are wholly uneducated, but let's consider it a test with absolutely no key.)

And - that looks a bit like a training sword. Sudden smile to himself - ohh, classic!

Takes it up.

When he gets back to the training field he's going to find that he took another five minutes looking at equipment alone.