application for → penancerp;

[robobees]

OOC Info
Name: Tsu
Age: 34
Contact: problematic / problematic#7999 on the disco
Current Characters: Takashi Shirogane


IC Info

Name: Henry Cheng
Canon: The Raven Cycle
Age: 18
Appearance: PB is Ok Taecyeon and he is a very attractive menace.
Canon Point: The Raven King: Epilogue
Background: Okay, since Henry's Wiki page is a boneyard – not even that, actually – let's go through what he's been up to before his first appearance and then onward. Good? Good. I'll at least try to make this fun to read so you'll get a laugh out of it. c:

Henry Cheng was born. He grew up. He remained the awkward child of a Chinese-Korean family, the son of a father that worked in robotics and a mother that would eventually become Seondeok ( after a breakdown of the mental sort ). The change in her career path would be what put her into contact with one ( 1 ) Niall Lynch, and that's where things start getting interesting.

As Seondeok, Mrs. Cheng would find herself dealing with all kinds of things, magical in origin and highly sought after – and what better sort of person to find an object to perhaps help her son with his awkwardness, with the way that he resides more within himself than without, than a man that can dream up any sort of thing that could come to mind? So, you guessed it; Niall was able to come up with a robotic bee capable of reading Henry's thoughts, of communicating with him via an application accessed through his cell phone, and though Niall himself ends up showing the bee to every single one of his potential buyers, he gives it to the Cheng family. At a fraction of his usual price, mind you, which I'm sure you're well aware would manage to piss a bunch of people off. ( People that want that sort of "technology" for themselves, would do anything and everything to get it into their possession, yadda yadda. )

So. When Henry is ten, he gets kidnapped. By a group of men that refer to themselves only as Laumonier, a group of triplets that pull no stops when it comes to getting something they want. They keep the poor boy for ransom, inside a tiny little hole in the ground they dug just for him – scarcely large enough for him to fit into, much less move around – and Henry himself is made to call his mother in order to explain to her in detail what the brothers intend to do to him if she doesn't pay the ransom they're calling for. Now, Mama Cheng ain't no bitch, and she doesn't negotiate with terrorists. She flat out tells them that she won't pay for damaged goods, and after nearly a week of poor Henry being stuck in that hole, an agreement is made and he's released. ( But at what cost? What sort of child can say they came away from something like that, and not find themselves deeply scarred? Henry's no normal child, of course, but it still stands to reason that he's taken something away from this that he can never give back, and that something has been taken away that he can never recover. )

Fast forward a little bit. Niall Lynch is killed – by someone that I really wish I didn't have a reason to like, but has managed to redeem himself over the course of a couple of books and I'm still a little made about it – and that means that his oldest son, Declan, will find himself in charge of the affairs of a dreamer. Henry's mother needs a way to stay in touch with him, frequently, and that would be the sole reason that Henry is enrolled at Aglionby. ( Kind of a hell of a move from Vancouver to Henrietta, but you do what you gotta do when you don't have very many options to begin with. ) So, now we have one ( 1 ) Henry Cheng and the beginnings of making a name for himself within a prestigious academy, and then –

In walks Richard Campbell Gansey III. Seondeok tells her son to keep a close eye on him; make friends with him, learn his secrets, that sort of thing. And to his credit, Henry doesn't quite fall short on the job, even if his first attempts at getting the other boy's attention are a bit more subtle than President Oblivious is used to. ( Seriously, child. What were you expecting to gain from putting your name on the sign-up sheet for the crew team and then crossing it out by the end of the day? Honestly. ) A whole two years passes before he finally gets it in him to make a move toward trying to make a foundation for friendship, and it takes Gansey himself having an anxiety attack at the Ravens festival for more than just passing quips to be exchanged.

He invites him to a toga party at Litchfield House. Blue goes with him. Some people get drunk ( we shall name no names ) and invite certain other people ( again, no names ) to travel to Venezuela. At this point, it's becoming clear that they're all on their way to being one big, happy family. Of goobers.

It isn't long after that that Henry divulges the secret of RoboBee. ( Literally the next day, okay fine … ) And he doesn't just tell Gansey out in the open; he takes him down into a crawlspace somewhere beneath Aglionby, with further exacerbates the fear that had been attached to being in such an enclosed space when he'd been kidnapped, which he also divulges. It's a huge step in trusting the other boy, laying everything bare like that, but Gansey comes away from it with a new outlook, not only on Henry himself, but the world around him and how he perceives it, how he accepts the things he both can and cannot change.

Giant step. Huge, ginormous step.

And then Henry gets kidnapped in his underwear. Except it isn't a kidnapping so much as a gathering of information. ( By that same guy that I'm still made about. I've resigned myself to thinking that I will never have a solely negative opinion of him ever again and I'm still not sure how I feel about that. ) But, surprise, who shows up once a neutral location is reached, and it's been made abundantly clear that Henry has indeed not been kidnapped for a second time in his young life, much less in his underwear and an embarrassing Madonna shirt?

Bingo. The brothers that tried taking RoboBee for themselves years before. Man, those assholes never stop. They just don't know when to quit. Suffice it to say that Blue is a freaking little evil genius and gets them out of a sticky situation, and Henry finds it in him to ask if that means they're friends. Blue says it should be so, so … it is.

And then brunch with the Gansey family happens. And Henry is a charmer. No surprise there. Somewhere along the line, he tells RoboBee to let him know if Gansey ever needs help, finds himself in trouble, that sort of thing – and wouldn't you know it, he gets dragged full-throttle into the boy's quest for Glendower when he finds him stranded on the side of the road ( THANKS, PIG, BY THE WAY ), in desperate need of following a flock of ravens flying high overhead and leading him to where he's convinced his sleeping king lies.

So. They follow the birds. And who didn't see this coming – but they end up in the very same place in which Gansey had been stung to death by hornets seven years previously, compelled by his own search to delve into the dank, dark, enclosed space beneath the house. Henry doesn't particularly want to go in there, and Gansey doesn't ask him, but he does offer up his Aglionby sweater to keep him warm, and at that point I was pretty much wail-sobbing on the floor waiting for the inevitable to happen.

Spoilers: it doesn't, not yet, but Glendower is like five thousand years dead and nothing but dust and rotting cloth, and Gansey doesn't know what to do with himself, because every aspect of his life for the past forever has been dedicated to this cause.

Did I mention that there was a demon? Hell-bent on unmaking the whole of everything? And that with Glendower out of the picture, the only way to stop it was to offer up a willing sacrifice on the ley line? And that after the demon itself has managed to attack both Adam and Ronan, Gansey gives himself up to it in order to stop it all from progressing?

Yeah. Uh. That happens. They all watch Gansey die, right there in the middle of the road, while Ronan is in the car being unmade and Adam is still trying to get himself back together after having his eyes and hands taken away from him. And all Henry can say, all he can think is that this group of people, these miraculous individuals are all supposed to be Gansey's magicians, and that they need to do something about this.

So Adam has an idea. And it works. And the three of them – Gansey, Blue and Henry himself – can carry on with their plans of traveling after graduation. In the dream-Pig that Ronan has so graciously gifted them. ( Thanks for that, by the way. Real bro. )

Personality:

It wasn't that Henry was less of himself in English. He was less of himself out loud. His native language was thought.

Where to begin about a boy who happens to be much more comfortable in his own head than anywhere else? You would think, probably, that someone like that wouldn't have very many friends, or wouldn't want to seek them out in the first place. That he would be more than content to exist in his own little world, exclude everyone and everything else from it, and exist solely within himself.

That ain't how this boy works. He's loud, flamboyant, both in voice and fashion sense. ( How many Madonna t-shirts do you think he owns, anyway? ) And that loudness borders on just a little too much, both literally and figuratively, and anyone that finds themselves in his presence for longer than a handful of minutes will probably accept it for what it is and just keep right on rolling with it. There's a reason all the kids at Litchfield House have attached themselves to him, in the sense that loyalty means something even with a group so young, and it means in no uncertain terms that it goes both ways.

Which is to say that Henry is fiercely loyal when he finds those worthy of his loyalty in the first place. Even barring his mother's insistence that he keep an eye on Gansey and learn all of his secrets, he'd ultimately found something within the other boy that had merited the spilling of his own well-kept secrets, the history that had made him the kind of person that he is now, and with that in mind? It takes a hell of a level of trust, blind or not, to be able to admit that sort of thing to someone you barely know. Beyond the surface, anyway. You don't just go around telling strangers that you were kidnapped at the age of ten and kept in a tiny hole in the ground and that your mother wouldn't negotiate your release because she doesn't negotiate with terrorists. Which brings me to –

"If you can't be unafraid, be afraid and happy."

Fear has played a rather prominent role in Henry's life from a very young age. Which, really, no one can blame him for that sort of thing, especially when not very many people can say that they've been kidnapped for the sake of wanting to gain the ownership of something like a robotic bee that can read one's mind. ( I mean, it's a pretty sweet bee, all things considered. I want one. ) The difference between Henry and any other human being that finds themselves in fear of something is that he's already taught himself that fear isn't the sort of thing that he's going to allow to take him over. Fear is a building block upon which the foundation for something greater, something more substantial can be built, and with a presence as large as what he exudes at any given time, it isn't something that he's going to let bring him down from how far he's come. It's just not in his head. Not something he allows himself to think, even for a moment.

I mentioned that he was loud and obnoxious, right? Okay. Glad we got that covered.

Given that he has a tendency to be more comfortable inside his own head than outside of it, it gives rise to the fact that he's pretty damn good at reading people. Empathizing with them, understanding what they're trying to say before they even come out with it. ( This is another instance in which RoboBee comes in handy, filtering all those thoughts into things he can use, organizing the little things into something bigger, like pieces of a puzzle fitting together almost seamlessly. ) He's all smiles and encouragement when someone needs it from him, effortless and easy and so much of everything that he shows on a daily basis, erring on the side of carefree so much to the point that it almost comes off as too much. Like he's flippant enough in his own life that it bleeds into everything else, when it's only one of the facets that he puts forth for the rest of the world to see.

Upbeat, upbeat. That's a hell of a word to use to describe him. Outspoken could be another. ( You know, you remember the fact that he has a tendency to make jokes about Koreans without prompt, or any sort of outside influence? He does it before anyone else can, gets it out in the open and out of everyone's system before it can do any real damage. In that respect, he cares more than he lets on, and you'll never catch him saying otherwise. )

Basically, he'll be anything any of his friends needs at any given time – within reason. He'll be very loudly supportive and charismatic one moment, and dryly sarcastic the next. Whatever the situation calls for, there's an app a Henry on tap for that.

He has an open mind and, for the most part, an open heart. His capacity for understanding others lends greatly to his acceptance of the unconventional, and it miiiight just have something to do with the fact that he owns a dreamed-up magical bee that can sort through his thoughts and make sense of them, but … hey. Maybe he's just that perceptive, that accepting all on his own. He always wants more for himself and those around him, both in a literal and figurative sense, when it all comes down to it. To be happy and fulfilled, to chase down every dream that may come along the way, that's just one more facet to the Henry that those that get to know him get to see on a regular basis.

He cares. He cares greatly. And sometimes that care takes the form of offhand comments, horrible jokes and anything in between, but it's always going to mean the same thing: that it's never going to be anything other than genuine.

"What do you mean Ronan's a magical entity? Is he a demon? Because this all makes sense if so."

And then there are the times in which he thinks making comments like that are going to help matters, which, while it might be enough to pass for comedic relief? It just makes everyone within earshot roll their eyes at him. More than once. Probably a couple of times. Maybe three, just for good measure.

Weaknesses/Temptations: Really good coffee. Alcohol. Anything that resembles the luxury he's used to, because literally every single Aglionby student ( except for Adam Parrish ) comes from a wealthy family. They all got them rich bitch problems.

Sins: — hedonism
— underage drinking
— lying
— making racist jokes ( about his own heritage, mind, but still )
— entrapment with robobee

Powers/Abilities: All things considered, Henry is a pretty normal kid. ( The fact that he's constantly followed around by a dream-bee notwithstanding. ) But considering he was accepted into a very prestigious private academy, it goes without saying that he's above average intelligence. He's quick-witted, always at the ready with something funny or sarcastic to say, which is a hell of an ability in and of itself. He could very well have a career in politics in his future if he so chose, if they haven't killed him by that point. He's also a hell of a charmer, which really goes hand in hand with the politics part, but that kind of goes without saying. Probably fluent in both Korean and Chinese in addition to English, coming from such a diverse background, and he sort of has a knack for sitting around in his underwear. That is some mad skill, yo. Mad. Skill.

Items: ➜ RoboBee ( a dream-formed, mechanical bee that can read Henry's thoughts and can communicate with him through an application on his phone. basically a pretty damned useful thing to have. especially when one needs to take into consideration when his friends are going to be making out and he needs to be elsewhere. )
➜ this shirt, because goddamn it, of course
➜ and these shoes
➜ and these
➜ and these
➜ wallet with various credit cards and receipts
➜ cell phone ( complete with the app used to communicate with robobee, which i assume will still work even though the phone itself won't have a signal? if not, just lemme know! )

SAMPLES

Network: Take your pick.

And for your amusement, a very, very old network post during his time in Hadriel: because he has priorities.
Log: TDM top-level