P L A Y E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Your Name: Koke
OOC Journal: rarebirds
Under 18? If yes, what is your age?: 26!
Email + IM: kokanshu[at]gmail[dot]com + galahadfalling
Characters Played at Ataraxion: Taylor "Tyke" Kee, Richard B. Riddick, Josias St. John, Mr. Gold (Rumplestiltskin)

C H A R A C T E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Name: Zeke Tyler
Canon: The Faculty
Original or Alternate Universe: Original
Canon Point: Just after being knocked unconscious in the locker room.
Number: 013

Setting:

Regular American high school in Herrington, Ohio, 1998. Football town, most of the school's money going towards supporting the team while other parts of the curriculum resources fall into disrepair. The teachers are cynical and underfunded, the students are chaotic and struggling with their own adolescent issues and social pressures, and most everyone would probably just like to get out of town, or at least out of the heat.

Then aliens invade.

History:

C H I L D H O O D
Not much is really said concretely about Zeke's life before the events of the movie. He was likely born 1979, to a very well-off couple, though it's not clear if they're established money or in highly paid and highly demanding careers. Either way their continual negligence of their son is heavily implied if not outright stated, and it's likely he did most of his growing up without them around - comfortably provided for monetarily, but without real parental care or guidance.

Between their evident absence from his life and the fact he has a clear reputation at Herrington, he probably started acting out and developing anti-social and anti-authority behaviours while still young, as well as failing to make any achievements academically. Going into high school (and puberty) with the continued lack of guidance and positive attention would have cemented this further. He started dabbling in low-level illegal ventures at some point - selling not only 'frowned upon' items like condoms, cigarettes and pornography to his fellow students, but also moving up to fake IDs and drugs. He probably does this mostly independently with no real affiliation, but the gun (and sofa) in his garage imply he sometimes has company there, and that his business extends beyond the students at Herrington High.

Likely due to a long-established apathy towards the education system rather than a lack of intelligence, he failed to graduate his senior year, and is repeating it when we're introduced to him during the events of the movie.


T H A T   T H U R S D A Y
When we first see Zeke, he's speeding his black and red 1970 Pontiac GTO into the school parking lot, music blaring. He parks across three spaces, grabs a load of white-powder filled biros from the trunk, and heads into the school. What we next see of him is probably just an average Thursday for him. He laughs at an angry couple having a fight in the corridor, sells fake IDs and drugs to some guys in the boy's bathroom, clowns around in class, flirts with the new girl, sells porn to some other guys out of the trunk of his car, and evades punishment (and well-meaning concern) from Miss Burke by chasing her off with condoms.

He's also witness to Casey Connor bringing a weird organism he found out on the football field into the science lab, where they examine it under a microscope and decide that it's definitely weird. Then Usher knocks a convenient beaker of water on and it makes some weird noises, so they put it into an also convenient fish tank. It comes alive, self-replicates, swims around and bites Jon Stewart's finger. It also has tentacles. Everyone finds this very cool and not particularly worrying, and with promises of it being sent on to 'the university' for research, life carries on.


T H A T   F R I D A Y
The next day, more weird shit has gone down, but Zeke doesn't know about that. Well, he notices people acting a little weird around campus, but that's about it. He starts his day off flirting with Marybeth some more and dealing some more drugs to the guys from the previous day. Only they start getting a little too eager to get all of his stash, and he gets suspicious and starts denying he has any more with him. At this point he's suddenly confronted by a radically changed Miss Burke, who viciously chews him out, hitting on various vulnerabilities before threatening him should she catch him dealing drugs on campus again.

Despite this, a little while later he leads Marybeth off into the science supply closet, purportedly to... steal supplies. Except they look likely to just be making out instead - at least until they overhear a conversation in the lab next door about the possibility of aliens taking over the school. Thinking this sounds hilarious, Zeke bursts into the lab pretending to have just been attacked by an alien, which mostly seems to involve clutching his stomach like he's been stabbed. It works to startle the fuck out of the four talking in the lab - Casey, Stokely, Stan and Delilah - but they don't react well to his continued intrusion and mockery of their dilemma.

Then Jon Stewart turns up, wondering what they're all doing in there, and when the whole 'aliens taking over the school' discussion is explained to him, starts to act quietly menacing, rather like a faculty member that's been taken over by an alien. A messy confrontation follows, wherein Jon Stewart gets his fingers chopped off - which then slither along the floor independently - sprays a load more of those weird organisms at Zeke, has a drug-filled pen stabbed into his eye, then throws Zeke dramatically through the fishtank. He's about to attack Zeke again when he starts having a nasty and violent reaction to the drug in the pen. He falls down behind a desk and appears to be dead, covered in white foam.

Deciding that it's pretty damn evident aliens are in fact taking over the school, the gang then decide this is a very good time to get the fuck out of there.

They very warily make their way out through the student (and possibly alien) filled school corridors, to the parking lot and pile into Zeke's car. Though they initially attempt to drive out of town, there are police blockades in the way, so Zeke takes them over to his place - his garage, specifically, which also seems to double as a drug lab. Zeke spends a short while doing a series of experiments on one of the little alien slugs Casey scooped up from the science lab - cutting a part of it off, watching it pull itself into a mouse's ear, killing the mouse, extracting the now full sized parasite from inside it. He figures out that the aliens need the moisture from inside a living host, which is why the possessed have been drinking so much water and why his drug - made mostly out of caffeine pills - kills them.

They discuss what exactly to do about the whole situation, drawing on Stokely's science fiction knowledge to come to the conclusion that all the aliens are connected, led by a central queen, and if the queen is killed the rest should all be freed. But then they descend into paranoia over the idea any of them might be possessed, viciously attacking each other for 'acting weird' and eventually decide to take turns ingesting Zeke's drug in order to prove they're still human. This all goes fine until only Marybeth and Delilah are left, but when it comes right down to the line, Delilah drops the pen and reveals herself to be one of the aliens. She trashes Zeke's lab, bursts through a wall, and manages to leap into a waiting car and get whisked away.


T H A T   F R I D A Y   N I G H T
Figuring they've only really got one chance to survive the whole thing - find the queen and kill her - they drive to the school and the Friday night football match going on there. Deciding the queen has got to be Principal Drake, they spot her in the crowd before reconvening in the empty gym to try and work out how to get her alone. Thankfully they don't actually have to, as she's followed them in there. They throw a net over her, shout at her a lot, and ultimately fail to get her to voluntarily sniff the drug. After a lot of wavering about shooting her, Zeke grabs the gun off Stokely and just does it, but it appears for a moment that she was human and they've simply killed her. Then she gets up again, alien slugs coming out of the bullet wound in her head, and Marybeth panics, throwing the entirety of the remaining drug over her. This is effective in killing her, but it leaves them without any more of the drug and not knowing if it's worked on freeing everyone else.

The football match outside has ended or been called off due to the heavy rain now falling, and Stan volunteers to run out and check to see if the team are human again. He comes back a while later saying they're not and asking to be let in again, but when they tell him to take the last dose of drug they've got to prove he's still human, he throws it out and mocks them.

They're left with no drug and no idea who the queen is, but Zeke realises he might have a solution to the former. He has more in the trunk of his car - but that's outside, in the middle of the aliens. He and Casey venture out - Casey as decoy - to get across to the parking lot and to Zeke's car. Casey is successful in drawing the football team and Delilah away from Zeke, but when Zeke gets to his car - and finds out he doesn't have any more of the drug in the trunk - he finds himself confronted by Miss Burke. After a short threateningly flirtatious conversation, Zeke attempts to get into the car where he notices he has more pens in the front seat. This doesn't work out as she half climbs in through one window, and he desperately starts driving the car around the lot to shake her loose, eventually crashing into one of the school buses. Managing to survive the incident himself - badly scratched up - he then gets to witness Miss Burke's head (with tentacles) drawing itself along the ground, searching for the rest of her body. He gives up on dealing with that shit and turns to run back to the gym.

When he gets there, he finds Stokely and Marybeth arguing in the locker room, claiming each is the queen and has attacked the other. Though he appears initially inclined to believe Marybeth, he then realises she's naked for no good reason. She gives a speech about being an alien queen coming down to earth trying to make people happy, but when Zeke goes to stab her with a drug pen, Stokely suddenly grabs his arm, revealing herself to be possessed as well. Before she can spray any slugs at him, Casey appears and drags her off, locking her in the equipment cage, leaving him and Zeke alone to play hide and seek from Marybeth through the lockers. Before they can really get on with this, though, Zeke forces Casey to take a dose of the drug to prove he hasn't been possessed as well. He does, showing he's still human, but this unfortunately means he's dealing with a high for the next few minutes - which means he's no use at helping Zeke out when he's knocked unconscious by Marybeth chucking him over a load of lockers.


O N E   M O N T H   L A T E R...
It's at this point that Zeke will be waking up on the Tranquility, but just to finish off - Casey does some clever shit with the Final Form huge alien queen and the gym's collapsible bleachers, stabs her in the eye with the very very last drug pen, and saves the day. But then a month later everyone's had a Breakfast Club transformation into more socially acceptable versions of themselves, and I like to pretend the whole film was more of a social commentary on teens and subtle satire of teen movies than people generally realise in a desperate attempt to save the ending. For no logical reason, Zeke's now on the football team and seems to be having a better relationship - implied as possibly romantic - with Miss Burke.

I won't be using that bit.

Personality:

❝ I'M A CONTRADICTION. ❞

Zeke is the bad boy archetype, the 'criminal' of the film's Breakfast Club crew. He breaks and flaunts rules, has no care for authority, openly mocks education, and is generally a bit of a dick and a bully with his fellow students. He's older than all of them, too, having been held back a year due to not graduating his senior year, and has an evident reputation around campus for being exactly what he is - a delinquent, a drug dealer, and most probably dangerous. Apart from his shady dealings in the boy's bathroom (though it should be noted he doesn't bother to make the bathroom empty, first) and out the trunk of his car, Zeke is not quiet in any of this. He likes his music loud and his cars fast, he's openly flirtatious if not downright sexual with female characters, and he's got no problem barging in on a closed-room discussion or pushing a teacher out of his way if he wants a look down a microscope. He is absolutely confident in what he is and what he does, which is probably because it isn't everything he is.

Despite his academic failings and clear disinterest in the educational aspects of school, Zeke is smart. Really smart. He's knowledgeable, past the level of his peers, able to assist their science teacher in an analysis of the strange organism Casey found rather than just watch like the rest of the class, as well as using his literary understanding to make a masturbation joke regarding Robertson Crusoe and have it stand up as a legitimate (and insightful) comment when questioned by Miss Burke. Curiosity is a big motivation here, too, exampled by how he reacts to Furlong's examining the alien organism - previously sitting at the back of the class, coming straight up to push the guy out of the way so he can look through the microscope - and his knowledge goes beyond that of his peer group, clearly not guided by the curriculum.

This curiosity and intelligence extends to his more delinquent behaviours, too. He has an extensive business in selling stuff to students, everything from condoms to porn to drugs - drugs that he makes himself, not supplied by an outside source. It's also clear from the condition of his house, when we see it, that he doesn't necessarily need the money from these exploits, meaning that he's in them more for interest, probably some rebellious elements and maybe a touch of ambition.

What is a necessity is his independence, considering his parents are so absent from his life that he isn't entirely sure where in the world they currently are when asked about it. Not to say he lives entirely maturely, considering he's turned the garage into a drug lab and would rather carry on dealing to students than complete school, but he's more than used to looking after himself. This also bleeds into a resourcefulness that finds him stealing science equipment from the school in order to cook drugs, and means when he's stuck seemingly defenceless in a classroom facing down a hostile alien-infected teacher, he quickly rips the blade off a paper guillotine to use as a weapon.

What all of this means, though, is that lack of intelligence is not why Zeke is a criminal delinquent repeating his senior year - in fact, if anything, his intelligence has probably exacerbated the real cause, which is a lack of parental guidance and affirmation in his life. It's stated multiple times in the movie that Zeke has no idea where his parents are - travelling in Europe, somewhere, he thinks - and Miss Burke's use of this information when (alien-infected) chewing him out shows it's a long ongoing occurrence. He even goes to the extent of telling Marybeth that they're dead. Still breathing, but very much dead. This kind of absence from his life is a clear and obvious root to his anti-social and anti-authority behaviours - why be well-behaved and successful at school when there's no evident positive reward from the people that matter? Why be nice to people or connect with them when emotional attachments are meaningless? He most likely started acting out when he was young to get attention, only growing more resentful of authority figures when he was punished for it, leading to him being firmly established in the behaviour with no positive guidance to get him back on track.

This is what he's used to, which means when positive guidance does come along - in the form of Miss Burke's quiet concern - Zeke fends it off almost aggressively, mocking her and using sexual connotations against her meek and 'shy violet' character to get her to leave him alone. What's really telling in his reaction in the moments after she's gone, which is damn near regretful. He knows what she's said is the truth - that he could be a hell of a lot better than he is if he applied himself in the right directions - but isn't willing to step up and take the risk of revealing himself as anything more than the local bad boy and drug dealer. This small bit of hope for him and what it means to him is also evident in the scene where Miss Burke, alien-infected, confronts him for dealing drugs. He's got absolutely no problems with anything she has to say to him, goading her on and seemingly acting completely unaffected by any of it - and probably like he's heard it a hundred times before - but afterwards he's clearly shaken that she's turned into yet another negative authority figure.

❝ ALIENS ARE TAKING OVER THE EARTH. WEIGH IT. ❞

When the pressure really comes down, though, Zeke acts. He's pretty much the last addition to the ragtag group of central characters in the film, is in fact only in the science lab with them to mock the fact they're talking about aliens taking over the school, and yet when Mr. Furlong turns aggressive, he's the first to fight back. In a more classic story it would be easy to say he was the hero character, or at least the lead, as from then on he's the big guy driving the rest of the group on - maybe not necessarily the one with all the ideas, but definitely the one moving on them.

Despite the outsider/loner behaviour inherent in his brand of bad boy, and despite appearing to have no positive attachment to anyone there except a thin romantic interest in Marybeth - which was likely only transitory, if he keeps with the rest of the bad boy archetype - he still steps up as a leading figure, protective and driving. At no point in the rest of the film does he ever seem to consider bailing on them to save his own skin. While he's pretty firm in having Casey act as decoy for his run out to his car, he's still going out there himself, and when alien-infected Stan manages to say just the right things to make Stokely cry, Zeke is the one who reacts by aggressively threatening him.

While this shows he obviously cares about the rest of the group staying alive, and possibly to some small extent their emotional well-being, this isn't to say he's a secretly a really nice guy. He's still a dick to most of the characters throughout, insulting or mocking them at several points, and this could probably be taken as a big-brother type 'mine to bully but not anyone else' attitude - or that he never expects his type of mocking to hit down to any real level like Stokely's reaction to Stan.

It could also be said that his quick turns to action in the situation shows a familiarity with violence that the rest of the characters just don't have. Zeke is personally responsible for three (four, technically, if we want to count the mouse) of the four on-screen deaths the movie has - he's the one who stabs Furlong in the eye, the one who shoots Principal Drake in the head, and he decapitates Miss Burke by crashing his car into a school bus. He's shown twice taking the gun (which is his gun originally, as well) off of other characters when they're wavering about actually using it in order to shoot at the person they're having a hard time shooting. Though he misses Delilah, he doesn't miss Principal Drake, but seems utterly unconcerned about her possible real death. This, plus the way he forces people several times to ingest the drug to prove they're human, all examples something less like a do-gooder selfless heroic attitude and more like a 'do what needs to be done' pragmatism - and get it over with, because there's no point waiting around.

Good is not nice, etc etc.

❝ WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO? ARE YOU GOING TO CALL MY MOTHER? ❞

Despite all of his independence, confidence and cool attitude, Zeke is still a teenager. He's still wrapped in the clothes of a youth culture archetype, he still enjoys a good ostentatious adolescent display, he still talks fluent pop culture, he still mocks his peers for their differences, and he still thinks masturbation jokes are hilarious. Even though he is the most openly violent of the group and maintains a reasonably level head and ability to think fast in the situations they find themselves in, he still hits a 'I'm out' point when he gets to witness Miss Burke's decapitated head sprouting tentacles and pulling itself along the ground.

And he's still got some flexibility to his personality and self. The one and only time I'll draw on the last scene of the movie, but even if his joining the football team makes no goddamn sense, it's a good example of the fact he's still capable of some pretty big changes - though not too big, considering he hadn't quit smoking.

Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations:

S T R E N G T H
Zeke is young, tall, reasonably fit and quick on his feet. He's brave and resourceful, keeps his cool even when shit starts getting very weird, and has no problems taking necessary action against a threat.

A B I L I T Y
Has a clear talent for science, both biology and chemistry. He can dissect a mouse and an alien slug and successfully examine their insides to come to a logical (and correct) conclusion regarding their anatomy. He can make his own drugs out of caffeine pills and some 'other household shit'. It's not clear whether he made the fake IDs he sold the guys at the beginning of the film, but it's implied he did, which means he should have some experience with plastic forgery.

W E A K N E S S
Just a regular squishy human dude. No specialised training, though he knows how to fire a gun in a straight line. He smokes and cooks drugs, neither of which would be particularly good for his lungs. Also, he's from 1998. He'll probably adapt fairly quickly, but quite a bit of the technology on board the Tranquility is still going to be a surprise.

Inventory:

• one (1) white long-sleeved shirt.
• one (1) black t-shirt.
• one (1) pair of oversized blue jeans.
• one (1) pair of beat up sneakers.
• one (1) silver ring.
• one (1) lighter.
• one (1) pack of 20 cigarettes.
• one (1) pack of magnum-sized cherry-flavored condoms.
• one (1) biro pen filled with 'skat'.

Appearance:

Josh Hartnett as Zeke Tyler in The Faculty
Standing at 6'2", Zeke is slim built and good looking, though not conventionally handsome. He dresses in over-sized jeans and layered shirts, which doesn't make any sense considering the crazy heat is a plot point, but maybe he feels the cold really easily, I don't know. It was probably Tommy Hilfiger's fault. He also has a really stupid hair cut but he somehow manages to make it look okay.

Age: 19

AU Clarification: N/A

S A M P L E S
Log Sample:

Alien invasion and alien abduction were only two steps away from each other on the sci-fi freak shelf, Zeke was pretty sure. Stokely would be able to tell him, be able to fit it all together and what author real life was throwing up for them now, but she isn't here. None of the others are, as far as Zeke can tell, when telling is standing around in some spaceage locker room watching naked blue-goo covered people stumble over each other.

He's close to thinking it's some dream. The blow to the head he just took scrambling the past 24 hours of aliens and dead teachers around until it spat this out, except dreams are painless and his head is pounding, body still bruised from driving his car into a fucking bus. If this is reality, he can't assume it's safe, that everything's over. For all he knows, this was the next part of Marybeth's plan – even if that makes no fucking sense at first thought, invading only to take people away.

Not that the rest of it had made that much sense. For a second he feels like just giving in on all of it. Breaking loose and whaling on someone until things are normal again – rewind two days, go back to real life. But that's idealistic crap, naive and stupid. You can’t turn back the clock, and Zeke's got no intentions of losing his shit, becoming some alien puppet over momentary stupidity. He can play along. Keep his head down, at least for the minute. If these people are aliens or just people, most of them seem unconcerned about their surroundings, picking themselves up and heading in a disorderly manner over to the showers. He'd take comfort in the familiarity if it didn't add to the uncanny valley.

He'll clean up, follow the crowd, see if there's any answers in their routine – find some way to get some if none reveal themselves. If Casey and the others are here, if they're still human, he'll find them. If Marybeth's here, he'll kill her. And if it's neither, then he figures he's got another alien queen to hunt down and deal with.



+ an additional paltry three comments on last month's test drive

Comms Sample:

[That's a really nice view of a kitchen ceiling popping up on your comms. Forgive the 90's kid for his lack of experience in smart phones - or maybe don't, because it might just be he's too lazy to hold the thing up while he's talking. Or it might be where he's busy rifling through every food cupboard he can find, his talking punctuated here and there by the sound of food packets being investigated, shaken around, crinkled.]

Not that I want to disrupt all the great work you people've been doing here, but those two assholes you think are in charge - you checked they're human? Might wanna label it some post-traumatic shit, but recent experience has given me a healthy distrust of taking anyone as they appear. And it'd explain this situation better than any of the vague mysterious bullshit you've been going with so far.

[There's a pause, then the sound of a box of something or other getting torn open, and yeah, when he talks again he's obviously doing it around a mouthful of food. It's been a rough couple of days, and he's hungry. It's also good for covering up any glimmers of actual concern in his voice as he carries on.]

I'm missing some people. Yeah, you heard it all before. But you see a short bug-eyed freak called Casey running around, do me a solid and point him my way.