Application - Zack Addy, from 'Bones'

[zacko_the_nerd]

((Permission granted by Hodgins!mun! And Bones!mun, obviously, because... that's me XD Zack's italicized things are his written responses.))There were two thoughts running through Zack Addy's head, for the time being, and he wasn't entirely sure which to focus on first. On the one hand... Oh, man, this castle was too cool. Intricate brickwork,

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[toujours_sirius]

Sirius approached Zack with a wide grin. "Nice choice for Question 4. I like her hair, too." He extended a hand. "Sirius Black, of the same question. Nice to meet you. What sort of DVDs do you have to offer? And what exactly is a robot?"

[zacko_the_nerd]

(( God, sorry about the delay! My inbox never told me about this D: ))

Anatomically speaking, Lily Evans-Potter hair was aesthetically pleasing. Natural red was a rare color, so far as hair went, and tended to appeal to the eye, didn't it?

Zack shook Sirius' hand, a little loosely. He wasn't used to shaking hands. "Zack Addy." He thought of adding something about being sorry for not picking Sirius on that, no offense, he just didn't swing that way, but... that might have been a bit awkward, on Zack's part. "And... you don't know what a robot is?" Screw the DVDs, that required attention! "A robot," he repeated in a flat tone, as if that would spark some memories. "Electro-mechanical anthropomorphisations." Oh, yes, because he was going to understand that so much better.

[toujours_sirius]

((No problem! LJ has been really twatty with notifications lately. WE ARE ALL VICTIMS OF ITS LAZINESS!))

Whaaaaaat? Sirius didn't get the monotone at all, and while he understood 'electro-mechanical', sort of (his reading up on electricity and motorbike mechanics had paid off), he had no idea what they meant when linked to the last word, which was complete gibberish to him. (Wizarding education was fairly lacking when it came to English and literature.)

"Come again?" he asked Zack in a somewhat bewildered tone.

[zacko_the_nerd]

(( LOL, when in doubt? Blame Kojiro >:( Who is, apparently, now, my net, because it is srsly not letting me post >>; As Dean, at least! ))

"Electro-mechanical anthropomorphisations," Zack repeated in that same definitive tone, shrugging a bit, as though he'd just said something as simple as 'the cat is Bob'. Okay, judging by Sirius' blank look, he'd have to break this down a bit, didn't he? "Electro-mechanical. Being that which combines the sciences of electromagnetism of electrical engineering and mechanics." Little more than that, Zack, not everybody's IQ's almost as high as DaVinci's. "Calculators, electrical motors, loudspeakers," he added by ways of example. "As for anthropomorphisation, that would be applying human characteristics to nonhuman beings, or inanimate objects."

In simple terms... that means it's a little, mechanical human.

[toujours_sirius]

Sirius was still having trouble understanding how all this added up. "So," he said, poking his wand against his leg, "you're talking about transfiguring something like a motorbike into a person? I don't see how that would work. Or what the purpose of it would be. I don't think my motorbike would want me to ride it if it had human characteristics, you know?"

But if it were human, it would definitely be a girl.

[zacko_the_nerd]

No. No, no, no. Zack looked frustrated out of nowhere, eyebrows furrowing into a glower. "No," he replied in an even voice nonetheless. Impatience was obviously going to occur here. Zack had grown too accustomed to explaining things to people who actually knew science. Sirius, he didn't know much outside the wizarding world, did he? Turning a motorbike into a person? Not right. At all. And kind of made him twitch a little, actually.

"It's... making a mechanic thing." With him so far? Yes? Yes? Okay. "That generally represents a person." This was so dumbed down, it was paining him. "Or a person's actions. Perhaps a machine to... make a grabbing, fist motion. Or... a machine to... be taught how to walk, or turn."

[toujours_sirius]

Poor Zack. Sirius was beginning to get it now, but he wasn't getting it. "Now, why in Merlin's name would you want to build a machine that looks like a person? Is it because you can't have children of your own?"

[zacko_the_nerd]

"I wouldn't know, as I've never been with a woman long enough to find out, but I'm fairly sure that, given the time, if I wanted to have children, I could," Zack replied in a terse voice, fixing Sirius with a look. "They're useful. They can do their job perfectly, when engineered correctly. Plus, you know. They're... They're cool." Ahh, so there are signs of humanity in there...!

[toujours_sirius]

All right, Sirius has not asked him if he was a virgin. He considered suggesting that Zack go to Miss Swan to solve that problem if he gets desperate, but thought better of it. Zack seemed a bit uptight, and anyway Miss Swan was likely riddled with diseases. Then again, he had heard the house-elves chattering about Miss Swan and that weird dome-top machine thing (Was that thing a robot? It didn't look much like a person....), so she and Zack had something in common, didn't they?

"They're cool?" Sirius could understand that. "Right, so if I asked you to give me one, what sort of job would it do for me?" Obviously not his TA job, since that more than occasionally involved doing illicit things with the professor. Sirius was trying to imagine just what sort of job he needed done that he couldn't do himself with magic or the Black family jewels.

[zacko_the_nerd]

That wasn't at all what he'd meant to ask, actually. Zack didn't ask many questions subconsciously. He tended to be... painfully blunt by nature. And probably just would have asked Sirius outright, leading to much fluster and possibly some swearwords. It couldn't be as bad as Booth, at least. He had kind of threatened to shoot Zack between the eyes when the poor boy had tried to bring up inquiries towards sexual positions. Besides, he wasn't a virgin. Totally not a virgin. A fact that he would be extremely quick to point out, had Sirius voiced his thoughts aloud.

What sort of job would it do? "Well... anything you want, really. It could... make your bed, get your shoes, make you a sandwich - although that design could take a while. Even destructive robots. Like Battlebots!" Oh, that conjured some excitement. "Chainsaws, hammers, crushing motions. Although I wouldn't condone to them as much as the former robots." He winced slightly then, in memory. "Battlebots are great." Glare at the floor. "Until they turn on you."

[toujours_sirius]

Hmmm. Lily made their bed. She often put his shoes away when he left them out, and he was perfectly capable of bending down and getting his own shoes when he needed to go somewhere. The sandwich making could come in handy, although nobody made sandwiches like Lily, and if she wasn't around, there was always the house-elves. And while Sirius was a lousy cook, he did know how to make a sandwich.

He had no idea what Battlebots were, but they sounded dangerous, or at the very least, irritating. It would be sort of interesting to send one of those after Snape; the thought of a chainsaw or hammer combined with Severus Snape was quite pleasing to Sirius. But then Snape would destroy the robot, and Sirius was starting to get interested in the idea of taking it apart and studying it.

Maybe there was something he needed. Well, not something he needed needed, but something that would be cool. Something he could use, but would be no loss if he took it apart and couldn't get it back together again properly

[zacko_the_nerd]

Battlebots were dangerous, and hardly irritating. In fact, they tended to be made of awesome. Yes, that was the technical term for them.

But, hmm. Deliver mail? The owls were pretty sinister. He didn't blame Sirius for asking about a new possibility in the way of delivering it. He stroked at his chin, frowning in thought and contemplation. Deliver mail. It wasn't impossible. "It would... take me a while..." Considering he still tended to have problems with that whole 'following orders' thing with robots. "But... I suppose."

Vote: Ravenclaw

[toujours_sirius]

"Right, then." Sirius grinned. "Sounds like a deal to me. I don't mind waiting. Whenever it's ready, just send it on to me. If it's owl-like enough, it'll know where to go."

He voted Zack into Ravenclaw, because any bloke who could make a machine into a person deserved to be with the rest of the smart ones. And with the bar, in case it all got to be too much.