GnD Application
PLAYER
[journal] timeskips
[age] January 6, 1987 (24)
[previous characters N/A
[character journal] bywiseguidance
CHARACTER
[series] NCIS
[full name] Ziva David
[age] 27
[gender] Female
[canon point] After the episode 'Enemies Domestic' (Season 8 episode 9)--she's made some kind of peace with her father after leaving Mossad and becoming a U.S. citizen/official NCIS agent last season. Their relationship is still somewhat chilly, but mending.
[reference] Wiki
[personality]
There's a lot to Ziva David. She's first and foremost a special agent, and in a lot of ways she's defined by her job. Really, this isn't through too much choice of her own, which is in itself another reason for some of the facets of her personality.
She was raised with the purpose of joining Mossad by her father Eli, against the wishes of her mother. Rivka David encouraged Ziva in the arts and playing like any little girl would--Eli blindfolded his daughters and took them out into the forest to leave them to find their way home and taught them how to handle weapons. All things that were deemed trivial weren't allowed, severely discouraged, or outright ignored by her father--he never once came to one of Ziva's ballet recitals or piano performances, especially when she started taking better to his training than her sister Tali. In time, she gave up on those artistic pursuits when they didn't gain her father's approval. This early encouragement of interests that would be of use in Mossad left Ziva enjoying more stereotypically masculine activities like sports and weapons training. Ziva likes being one of the guys--she dresses casually, even tomboyish quite a lot of the time, and doesn't wear a great amount of makeup or jewelry (aside from her necklace, a gold Star of David that she is almost never seen without.)
Despite being not overly prideful in her appearance, Ziva is very comfortable in her sexuality and has absolutely no problem with flirting or teasing or using her looks and body to her benefit--and as time goes by she starts to get more and more feminine with her self-expression, wearing more makeup and feminine outfits, and sometimes straightening her hair.
She's devoted to her family, problem there being there's really only one of them left. Tali was killed by a suicide bomber when she was 16 (it's unclear how old Ziva was, but she says she was already in Mossad at the time, so there was probably four to five years between the girls,) an event which impacted Ziva dramatically. She considered her sister to be better than her, more innocent and pure, which smacks of her having had her first kill mission already--despite being very good at what she does and sometimes resorting to it first, Ziva does not like killing. Ari, her older half-brother, went rogue and joined Hamas...despite being hateful and kind of crazy, Ziva loved Ari and wanted to protect him. It's evident that Ari loved Ziva as well, they went through very similar grooming and training by their father, and while he hates Eli passionately, he wouldn't be able to direct the same fury towards his sister. Her mother is almost never mentioned, it's unknown whether she's alive or dead.
Ziva's relationship with her father is complicated. He's the one who made her what she is--a skilled Mossad agent, assassin, spy. All of her skills are thanks to Eli David's careful rearing of his children, and she does not necessarily thank him for it. Up until being sent to NCIS in 2005, though, Ziva followed his orders loyally. In that year though, she was sent with orders to kill Ari in order to gain Gibbs' confidence. She still hasn't forgiven him for the order--which she did end up carrying out against her own intentions, but only to save Gibbs' life. Despite her anger at her father, Ziva holds family in high regard, and does care for him. But she doesn't think of him as a father figure anymore, and has instead focused on Gibbs to fill that role. If she's in trouble, it's Gibbs she calls, Gibbs she trusts--and she's said outright that he's the closest thing she has to a father.
Taught as she was, with her formative childhood years taken up by training to make her an ideal Mossad officer, and without having experienced adult life outside the military or Mossad, Ziva can be a bit awkward socially and emotionally. She doesn't often talk about any of her feelings, especially if they would be a distraction in the moment, and tends towards secrecy--this can result in her coming off as cold and uncaring, or emotionless. While she does function pretty well socially, she also tends towards keeping other people at a distance, especially early on when she just came to NCIS. She can also put people off just by her reactions--she's sort of a violent and threatening person at times, and sometimes people are afraid of her because of it. She tends to be blunt with most people--an exception is with children or people who have just lost family members, and even so she doesn't feel entirely comfortable talking with them. She doesn't see the value in mincing words unless there's something that needs to be kept secret--despite her preference for being straightforward, she is very capable of misdirection and keeping secrets. She's also capable of making healthy emotional connections--she's friends with the whole team at NCIS, though it's unclear how many friends she's made outside work. But the ones she has made, she is fiercely protective of and cares for greatly. It's only gotten easier for her to interact with people through the years she's spent living in America, away from Mossad, she's more at ease now and her emotions are more obvious, whereas before she would have hidden them out of habit. In Mossad, emotion was a liability, and she had to be able to turn off her feelings in order to function--between what she was expected to do and the violence surrounding her every day, it would be impossible to work otherwise. Now that she's out of that environment, though, she's relaxed and showed herself to be more caring and actually hurt by the violence she sees around her.
Aside from her bluntness, Ziva is also not incredibly patient by nature. She can be, but she prefers to to take an active role--whether it's being undercover and investigating, or being part of a strike team. She's not good with sitting around and waiting. Sometimes this extends to a bit of a playful and childish nature that she shows when she's comfortable around someone, such as in the episode "Heartland" where she and McGee meet Gibbs' father, and the two race to be the first to tell Abby and Tony about the man. She also likes to tease and joke with people she considers friends (notably, she very rarely does so with any of the Mossad agents she's been partners with, this treatment is usually reserved for the rest of the NCIS team.)
Ziva is also very proud of her heritage, her country, and her religion. She always wears a gold Star of David necklace--she says in one episode she'd rather die than take it off. The only time it's removed is when it's forcibly taken from her or she absolutely has to remove it, though she prefers wearing it under clothing if it has to be concealed. However, she is far from an orthodox Jew, she doesn't adhere to kosher practice, nor does she regularly go to synagogue, though she does go around the time of the High Holy Days and she enjoys celebrating what holidays she can. She also has no prejudices towards people of other faiths, and does her best to accomodate their beliefs where she can (for example, in the episode "Tribes", she covers her hair when entering a mosque while investigating the death of a Muslim man, and interfered with the autopsy on the behalf of the family when it went against their wishes.) Despite no obvious religious tendencies besides her respect for tradition, Ziva has stated that she believes in ghosts, spirits, and demons--things that can't be seen or explained by science. Or perhaps more accurately, she doesn't disbelieve in them.
In her down time, Ziva likes to cook and play piano--aside from being good at that, she also has a fantastic singing voice. She reads a lot of books, occasionally watches old movies, and listens to Israeli hip-hop music, either on her iPod or while driving like mad in her Mini Cooper. She sometimes goes out to bars--she likes her some mojitos.
[orientation]
Mostly heterosexual. Ziva canonically shows more romantic inclination towards males (all the UST with Tony comes straight to mind, as well as the tragically short romance with Lieutenant Colonel Sanders in season 4, and her relationship with fellow Mossad officer Michael Rivkin, she says she finds McGee attractive, etc,) but she doesn't seem to have any aversion to females either--she teases in a fairly equal-opportunity manner--she just smiles secretively whenever someone (Tony) implies her having a relationship with a woman. She also doesn't have much of a problem with the occasional one-night stand (she has picked up a guy or two at a bar before--not at the same time, heads out of the gutter) or using her sexuality to get what she wants--she's said before that she sees sex (or the promise of it) as a perfectly valid way to get information out of someone, one can assume that applies to both men and women if need be. Despite this open opinion of sex, she hates to be taken advantage of--if it's not for a mission or if there's no connection there, you better get that hand away if you want to keep it.
So tl;dr version: Attracted to guys, but a relationship with another woman is not out of the question.
[appearance] Nothing unusual about Ziver here.
[wish]
Ziva wants permanence. She wants to settle down and live a life where nothing--and more importantly no one--else will be taken from her. She's lost family, she's lost friends, she's lost her home more than once, and she's nearly lost her life, and all of that has taken a toll on her mental well-being. She doesn't want to go through it again.
[requested house]
Komainu
[misc notes]
Ziva's tattoo will not be cursed, at least to begin with. It will be located on her right shoulder blade.
She has no supernatural powers to speak of, but she is a highly trained agent of Mossad, and therefore does have some abilities worth mentioning as well. All of these are learned through training.
- Ridiculous marksmanship. If Ziva's shooting at you, you can probably expect to get hit--her aim is perfect. She's also got fantastic aim with thrown knives--thrown pretty much anything, in fact. She's winged someone's ear with a pen before (and stuck it into the bulletin board behind him.)
- Knowledge of explosives. Ziva can set, disarm, and identify explosives of pretty much any kind, military or homemade.
- Interrogation skills. Ziva's both intimidating and fantastic at reading people. You need an answer out of someone? Ziva can get it. By any means.
- Infiltration. Ziva's fantastic at going undercover and finding information, gaining people's confidence...she uses her looks and her other abilities to catch people off guard.
- Observation. Besides being able to read people, Ziva can focus on her environment or something right in front of her and immediately note if anything is off about it. She also has a photographic memory, or something very close to it.
- Hand-to-hand/close-quarters fighting. All Israeli special forces are trained in Krav Maga, Ziva is no exception--she also seems to have integrated some kickboxing into her fighting style, but that's neither here nor there--Krav Maga was created by absorbing what works from other fighting styles and improving upon them, Ziva has learned to adapt new ways to attack and defend into her style as she sees them. What is needed to be known is simply that she knows the most expedient way to dropkick your ass into next week, and she fights for keeps.
- Languages. Ziva's native language is Hebrew, she's also fluent in Arabic, English, French, Spanish, and Turkish, and also speaks Russian, German, and Italian. She can't read or write Russian well, can manage more in Italian, and is so-so at German.
SAMPLES
[sample 1# (Network Post)]
[The image of the screen is of Ziva, looking sharp in a new Ukiyo Guard uniform with shiny silver buttons and starched white collar--she's worn military uniforms before, this is different than she's used to, but still not completely unfamiliar.]
It seems my employment has been finalized; I have been given a position within the Ukiyo Guard.
[Obviously.]
As such, I'm expected to carry a weapon while I'm working. The pistol I was issued is servicable, though I would prefer to have my own sidearm back. This one jams, even if the accuracy is good.
[Of course she's tested it out already. She sounds unimpressed, but it's mostly because she prefers her own weapons, they're familiar. This one is good enough for now, and it's definitely better than nothing at all.]
Though that is not my main concern at the moment. I was also given a sword, which I do not know how to effectively use. If someone would be available and willing to teach me, I would appreciate it. I won't carry a weapon that I don't know how to use.
[sample 2# (Prose)]
Ziva was used to sometimes having to prove herself just as capable--in some cases moreso--than the men she worked with. It was just a simple fact of life. Many did not expect a woman to be as skilled at her job as she was. It was annoying, but a familiar rhyme and dance.
The Guard representative she was sent to talk to seemed all too eager to 'dance' with her. The first thing he'd done, when she'd walked in, was scoff. Apparently no one had told him she would be coming. 'You can't work here, you're a woman,' he'd said. He'd regret that.
Now, standing in the middle of the dusty courtyard, barefoot and dressed in the robe she'd been given, Ziva intended to make him eat those words, along with a large helping of dirt.
"Well? I do not have all day."
The man looked puzzled, like he didn't know what to do with her. Well, she had a few ideas herself. Closing the distance between them, ready to strike and defend, Ziva forced his hand.
He was a decent fighter, she had to give him that--he lasted more than 30 seconds. But Ziva had fought stronger men, well-trained men, honestly trying to kill her; and she had won. This man, who dealt largely with petty criminals, didn't stand a chance against a Mossad-trained agent.
"I hope that your doubts about my skills have been sufficiently quieted. If you give me that gun you left in your desk drawer hoping that I did not see, I can show you more."
[journal] timeskips
[age] January 6, 1987 (24)
[previous characters N/A
[character journal] bywiseguidance
CHARACTER
[series] NCIS
[full name] Ziva David
[age] 27
[gender] Female
[canon point] After the episode 'Enemies Domestic' (Season 8 episode 9)--she's made some kind of peace with her father after leaving Mossad and becoming a U.S. citizen/official NCIS agent last season. Their relationship is still somewhat chilly, but mending.
[reference] Wiki
[personality]
There's a lot to Ziva David. She's first and foremost a special agent, and in a lot of ways she's defined by her job. Really, this isn't through too much choice of her own, which is in itself another reason for some of the facets of her personality.
She was raised with the purpose of joining Mossad by her father Eli, against the wishes of her mother. Rivka David encouraged Ziva in the arts and playing like any little girl would--Eli blindfolded his daughters and took them out into the forest to leave them to find their way home and taught them how to handle weapons. All things that were deemed trivial weren't allowed, severely discouraged, or outright ignored by her father--he never once came to one of Ziva's ballet recitals or piano performances, especially when she started taking better to his training than her sister Tali. In time, she gave up on those artistic pursuits when they didn't gain her father's approval. This early encouragement of interests that would be of use in Mossad left Ziva enjoying more stereotypically masculine activities like sports and weapons training. Ziva likes being one of the guys--she dresses casually, even tomboyish quite a lot of the time, and doesn't wear a great amount of makeup or jewelry (aside from her necklace, a gold Star of David that she is almost never seen without.)
Despite being not overly prideful in her appearance, Ziva is very comfortable in her sexuality and has absolutely no problem with flirting or teasing or using her looks and body to her benefit--and as time goes by she starts to get more and more feminine with her self-expression, wearing more makeup and feminine outfits, and sometimes straightening her hair.
She's devoted to her family, problem there being there's really only one of them left. Tali was killed by a suicide bomber when she was 16 (it's unclear how old Ziva was, but she says she was already in Mossad at the time, so there was probably four to five years between the girls,) an event which impacted Ziva dramatically. She considered her sister to be better than her, more innocent and pure, which smacks of her having had her first kill mission already--despite being very good at what she does and sometimes resorting to it first, Ziva does not like killing. Ari, her older half-brother, went rogue and joined Hamas...despite being hateful and kind of crazy, Ziva loved Ari and wanted to protect him. It's evident that Ari loved Ziva as well, they went through very similar grooming and training by their father, and while he hates Eli passionately, he wouldn't be able to direct the same fury towards his sister. Her mother is almost never mentioned, it's unknown whether she's alive or dead.
Ziva's relationship with her father is complicated. He's the one who made her what she is--a skilled Mossad agent, assassin, spy. All of her skills are thanks to Eli David's careful rearing of his children, and she does not necessarily thank him for it. Up until being sent to NCIS in 2005, though, Ziva followed his orders loyally. In that year though, she was sent with orders to kill Ari in order to gain Gibbs' confidence. She still hasn't forgiven him for the order--which she did end up carrying out against her own intentions, but only to save Gibbs' life. Despite her anger at her father, Ziva holds family in high regard, and does care for him. But she doesn't think of him as a father figure anymore, and has instead focused on Gibbs to fill that role. If she's in trouble, it's Gibbs she calls, Gibbs she trusts--and she's said outright that he's the closest thing she has to a father.
Taught as she was, with her formative childhood years taken up by training to make her an ideal Mossad officer, and without having experienced adult life outside the military or Mossad, Ziva can be a bit awkward socially and emotionally. She doesn't often talk about any of her feelings, especially if they would be a distraction in the moment, and tends towards secrecy--this can result in her coming off as cold and uncaring, or emotionless. While she does function pretty well socially, she also tends towards keeping other people at a distance, especially early on when she just came to NCIS. She can also put people off just by her reactions--she's sort of a violent and threatening person at times, and sometimes people are afraid of her because of it. She tends to be blunt with most people--an exception is with children or people who have just lost family members, and even so she doesn't feel entirely comfortable talking with them. She doesn't see the value in mincing words unless there's something that needs to be kept secret--despite her preference for being straightforward, she is very capable of misdirection and keeping secrets. She's also capable of making healthy emotional connections--she's friends with the whole team at NCIS, though it's unclear how many friends she's made outside work. But the ones she has made, she is fiercely protective of and cares for greatly. It's only gotten easier for her to interact with people through the years she's spent living in America, away from Mossad, she's more at ease now and her emotions are more obvious, whereas before she would have hidden them out of habit. In Mossad, emotion was a liability, and she had to be able to turn off her feelings in order to function--between what she was expected to do and the violence surrounding her every day, it would be impossible to work otherwise. Now that she's out of that environment, though, she's relaxed and showed herself to be more caring and actually hurt by the violence she sees around her.
Aside from her bluntness, Ziva is also not incredibly patient by nature. She can be, but she prefers to to take an active role--whether it's being undercover and investigating, or being part of a strike team. She's not good with sitting around and waiting. Sometimes this extends to a bit of a playful and childish nature that she shows when she's comfortable around someone, such as in the episode "Heartland" where she and McGee meet Gibbs' father, and the two race to be the first to tell Abby and Tony about the man. She also likes to tease and joke with people she considers friends (notably, she very rarely does so with any of the Mossad agents she's been partners with, this treatment is usually reserved for the rest of the NCIS team.)
Ziva is also very proud of her heritage, her country, and her religion. She always wears a gold Star of David necklace--she says in one episode she'd rather die than take it off. The only time it's removed is when it's forcibly taken from her or she absolutely has to remove it, though she prefers wearing it under clothing if it has to be concealed. However, she is far from an orthodox Jew, she doesn't adhere to kosher practice, nor does she regularly go to synagogue, though she does go around the time of the High Holy Days and she enjoys celebrating what holidays she can. She also has no prejudices towards people of other faiths, and does her best to accomodate their beliefs where she can (for example, in the episode "Tribes", she covers her hair when entering a mosque while investigating the death of a Muslim man, and interfered with the autopsy on the behalf of the family when it went against their wishes.) Despite no obvious religious tendencies besides her respect for tradition, Ziva has stated that she believes in ghosts, spirits, and demons--things that can't be seen or explained by science. Or perhaps more accurately, she doesn't disbelieve in them.
In her down time, Ziva likes to cook and play piano--aside from being good at that, she also has a fantastic singing voice. She reads a lot of books, occasionally watches old movies, and listens to Israeli hip-hop music, either on her iPod or while driving like mad in her Mini Cooper. She sometimes goes out to bars--she likes her some mojitos.
[orientation]
Mostly heterosexual. Ziva canonically shows more romantic inclination towards males (all the UST with Tony comes straight to mind, as well as the tragically short romance with Lieutenant Colonel Sanders in season 4, and her relationship with fellow Mossad officer Michael Rivkin, she says she finds McGee attractive, etc,) but she doesn't seem to have any aversion to females either--she teases in a fairly equal-opportunity manner--she just smiles secretively whenever someone (Tony) implies her having a relationship with a woman. She also doesn't have much of a problem with the occasional one-night stand (she has picked up a guy or two at a bar before--not at the same time, heads out of the gutter) or using her sexuality to get what she wants--she's said before that she sees sex (or the promise of it) as a perfectly valid way to get information out of someone, one can assume that applies to both men and women if need be. Despite this open opinion of sex, she hates to be taken advantage of--if it's not for a mission or if there's no connection there, you better get that hand away if you want to keep it.
So tl;dr version: Attracted to guys, but a relationship with another woman is not out of the question.
[appearance] Nothing unusual about Ziver here.
[wish]
Ziva wants permanence. She wants to settle down and live a life where nothing--and more importantly no one--else will be taken from her. She's lost family, she's lost friends, she's lost her home more than once, and she's nearly lost her life, and all of that has taken a toll on her mental well-being. She doesn't want to go through it again.
[requested house]
Komainu
[misc notes]
Ziva's tattoo will not be cursed, at least to begin with. It will be located on her right shoulder blade.
She has no supernatural powers to speak of, but she is a highly trained agent of Mossad, and therefore does have some abilities worth mentioning as well. All of these are learned through training.
- Ridiculous marksmanship. If Ziva's shooting at you, you can probably expect to get hit--her aim is perfect. She's also got fantastic aim with thrown knives--thrown pretty much anything, in fact. She's winged someone's ear with a pen before (and stuck it into the bulletin board behind him.)
- Knowledge of explosives. Ziva can set, disarm, and identify explosives of pretty much any kind, military or homemade.
- Interrogation skills. Ziva's both intimidating and fantastic at reading people. You need an answer out of someone? Ziva can get it. By any means.
- Infiltration. Ziva's fantastic at going undercover and finding information, gaining people's confidence...she uses her looks and her other abilities to catch people off guard.
- Observation. Besides being able to read people, Ziva can focus on her environment or something right in front of her and immediately note if anything is off about it. She also has a photographic memory, or something very close to it.
- Hand-to-hand/close-quarters fighting. All Israeli special forces are trained in Krav Maga, Ziva is no exception--she also seems to have integrated some kickboxing into her fighting style, but that's neither here nor there--Krav Maga was created by absorbing what works from other fighting styles and improving upon them, Ziva has learned to adapt new ways to attack and defend into her style as she sees them. What is needed to be known is simply that she knows the most expedient way to dropkick your ass into next week, and she fights for keeps.
- Languages. Ziva's native language is Hebrew, she's also fluent in Arabic, English, French, Spanish, and Turkish, and also speaks Russian, German, and Italian. She can't read or write Russian well, can manage more in Italian, and is so-so at German.
SAMPLES
[sample 1# (Network Post)]
[The image of the screen is of Ziva, looking sharp in a new Ukiyo Guard uniform with shiny silver buttons and starched white collar--she's worn military uniforms before, this is different than she's used to, but still not completely unfamiliar.]
It seems my employment has been finalized; I have been given a position within the Ukiyo Guard.
[Obviously.]
As such, I'm expected to carry a weapon while I'm working. The pistol I was issued is servicable, though I would prefer to have my own sidearm back. This one jams, even if the accuracy is good.
[Of course she's tested it out already. She sounds unimpressed, but it's mostly because she prefers her own weapons, they're familiar. This one is good enough for now, and it's definitely better than nothing at all.]
Though that is not my main concern at the moment. I was also given a sword, which I do not know how to effectively use. If someone would be available and willing to teach me, I would appreciate it. I won't carry a weapon that I don't know how to use.
[sample 2# (Prose)]
Ziva was used to sometimes having to prove herself just as capable--in some cases moreso--than the men she worked with. It was just a simple fact of life. Many did not expect a woman to be as skilled at her job as she was. It was annoying, but a familiar rhyme and dance.
The Guard representative she was sent to talk to seemed all too eager to 'dance' with her. The first thing he'd done, when she'd walked in, was scoff. Apparently no one had told him she would be coming. 'You can't work here, you're a woman,' he'd said. He'd regret that.
Now, standing in the middle of the dusty courtyard, barefoot and dressed in the robe she'd been given, Ziva intended to make him eat those words, along with a large helping of dirt.
"Well? I do not have all day."
The man looked puzzled, like he didn't know what to do with her. Well, she had a few ideas herself. Closing the distance between them, ready to strike and defend, Ziva forced his hand.
He was a decent fighter, she had to give him that--he lasted more than 30 seconds. But Ziva had fought stronger men, well-trained men, honestly trying to kill her; and she had won. This man, who dealt largely with petty criminals, didn't stand a chance against a Mossad-trained agent.
"I hope that your doubts about my skills have been sufficiently quieted. If you give me that gun you left in your desk drawer hoping that I did not see, I can show you more."