the diadem application.

Player Information

Player: Jen
Contact: aurajen @ discord/plurk, or PM this journal
Invitation OR characters played: Mod invite!
Are you over 18?: Yes


Character Information

Character: Henry Creel
Canon: Almost immediately after his banishment to the Upside Down.
Age: Canon is inconsistent about this, but the best estimates are anywhere from early to mid-thirties. I'm headcanoning 35 if he is ICly asked.
History: Link
Possessions: A (ruined) white orderly uniform.
Weapon: He relies on his abilities for offense, so he's not qualified to bring a weapon.

Powers/Abilities:

TELEKINESIS - The ability to move solid objects with his mind! Henry is able to do this with both small objects and large, showing very little strain with either. He's able to manipulate them with relative precision, as well.

PSIONIC BLAST - Basically using his telekinesis in a much more forceful, offensive way, Henry is able to create a blast of force with his mind to push objects away or otherwise break them.

TELEPATHY - At its most simplistic, Henry can read the thoughts and emotions of others. When he was younger, he'd pick up stronger instances without even meaning to, though now, as an adult more in control of his abilities, he can shut out outside "minds" if things get too loud or overwhelming. Passively, however, you can always assume he'd be getting passing impressions of someone's emotions.

Moreover, Henry can also reach into the minds of others, viewing their memories and past experiences. From there, he can transpose his own consciousness and manipulate the events within. Like this, he is in total control of the scene unless interrupted physically (this leaves both him and the other individual in a trance-like state) or the other person can break his hold on them. If he manages to make someone relive enough of their traumas in this way, he can actually kill them, too — the least confusing way to think about it is his powers generating so much energy that it basically "discharges" into maiming the person in question.

PAIN INDUCEMENT - Mere side-effects of using his abilities on others include discomfort, headaches, and nosebleeds. More intentional application of pain is described in the "telepathy" and "illusion inducement" sections, but have no doubt that he certainly causes people pain with them.

ILLUSION INDUCEMENT - He can make people see things that are not there! From complex illusions to simpler changes, Henry does not require intrusion into someone else's mind to do this. If the illusion he conjures is dangerous or violent, it isn't a stretch that the victim's brain will translate any violence done unto them as "real" and actually experience that pain. (I will leave this up to the player OOCly to decide how they'd wish to play with it, however. Given how broad Henry's abilities are in general, I feel like there's leeway to accommodate many degrees of player preference.)

PSIONIC RESISTANCE - He is highly resistant to psionic powers that are used on him. In this instance, it usually comes down to a battle of willpower to resolve the conflict between two psychokinetic-powered individuals.

MINDSCAPE - This does not apply to the same degree from an earlier canonpoint, but it is fair to assume Henry still possesses his own "space" inside his mind; a zone that represents his own subconscious and one in which he can drag others' conscious minds into. Later in the season, we see that it is littered with visuals related to Henry's experiences, ones that he would not yet have undergone yet in-game. Regardless, this would merely manifest as an aesthetic change, instead; the concept would still apply.

PSYCHIC ABSORPTION - When Henry kills a victim, presumably with his telepathic powers infiltrating another person's mind, he absorbs their memories and skills, and if they are psionic like him, adds their power to his own. In his mindscape, these victims are represented as dead avatars, trapped in his head, but ultimately non-interactable since they are not conscious but merely a representation of what Henry has taken from another.

THE VOID - Through sensory deprivation, Henry enters a focused state in which he can find and observe others over far distances, as long as he has a general idea of who this person is. He can travel this metaphysical dark space of nothingness and "see" what they're doing in real-time, and they remain completely oblivious to his presence — minus maybe experiencing a vague feeling that someone is watching them.


Application Questions

Who is the most important person in their life and why? What might be different if this person hadn't been around?

As much as he’d never admit it, Dr. Martin Brenner is easily the most “important” person in Henry’s life, insofar as he was definitely the most influential, steering Henry’s experiences down a path he wouldn’t have tread otherwise. Brenner’s research was the inciting incident that led to Henry being trapped in an alternate dimension and obtaining his powers — all of which would eventually lead to Henry questioning his own “normalness”, his imprisonment by the US government for purposes of experimentation, and his eventual degradation of his philosophies trending down into a nihilistic and misanthropic state.

It’s clear that Brenner’s influence permeates in more than just his circumstances in life, too. Though hatred mostly exists on Henry’s end, there is a twisted sense of a family bond that the doctor is not only eager to exude towards his test subjects (calling himself their “Papa”), but one that he actually believes in himself. This “love” for his children is insidious for Henry; for someone who had always believed that his parents didn’t care about him, to be fostered by a man who claimed to do so paternally, even in abusive and toxic ways, still earned Brenner the title of father figure. Even if it’s a father figure he hates, it’s one that’s present and invested in him.

Henry and Brenner also share certain mannerisms in how they comport themselves to others, further underscoring the influence the man has had on his life. Pleasant, soft-spoken, and seemingly caring on the outside, with something very nasty living on the inside, as well as both of them believing they’re in the right. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree!

Honestly, if Brenner had not been around at all? Then Henry would’ve lived the normal life he had wished for (as a teen, anyway), and probably would have grown up with far less baggage than he has now. Without Brenner, there would be no villain for the show, and without a villain, Stranger Things would be a lot more boring.

Is there an event in your character's life that they'd do differently? How so and why?

Unfortunately, given Henry’s current mindset, many of the choices he’d make differently center around violent solutions. When he deigns to think back on his past and the problems he’s faced, it’s far easier to let his anger dictate his thoughts, plying “I should have killed them sooner” more frequently than not.

Going so far back as his teen years, he’d say that he should never have trusted Brenner, and he’d have been better off killed by him than allowed to imprison him. But to pick a more recent example, his handling of Eleven is something he’d change — moreover, that he wouldn’t have tried to convince her to leave with him after she removed Soteria from his neck, but rather have simply killed her afterwards and try to escape on his own. He is beyond the point of entertaining the idea that he could have convinced her to trust him by spinning another angle, or maybe even by not having killed the other test subjects at all.

I think this illuminates an unflattering habit of Henry: he simply lets his anger make his ultimate decisions for him, so even reflecting on the past, with the advantage of passed time, doesn’t necessarily mean that he will make better choices, but instead ones reflective of his unforgiving, pitiless, and wrathful nature.

You know, just the usual villain things!

What's the greatest challenge you foresee your character facing in the setting?

The greatest challenge he’ll face is simply adjusting to living in a society. This is a man who was kept underground for twenty years, with only scientists, fellow orderlies, and younger test subjects to keep him company. Before that, even his “normal” life was defined by a sense of otherness between him and his peers, his sensitive, awkward personality often distancing him from others. And though Henry can easily pretend to be nice, helpful, and generally inoffensive, this is all performative. Connecting with others in a sincere way for the sake of surviving (and god forbid, actually forming bonds with people) requires him to override his insidious misanthropy and general negative outlook on how humanity functions as a whole. While not impossible, this is a pretty grand feat for Henry, and will require plenty of influential CR and just as much time to incite.

What's the easiest thing you foresee your character adapting to in the setting?

The rough and tumble survival aspects? Henry's got that down in spades. He might look like a harmless lanky white dude, but even as a teen he managed to survive a stint in an alternate dimension rife with monsters. Further departed from the canon point I'm taking him from, he manages to survive seven years in the Upside Down. While Diadem might offer a few unexpected challenges, when it comes to fighting for his own survival and making the best use of both his wit and his powers, Henry will be a tough person to walk all over — much less kill.

Samples

Sample:
SAMPLE #1: ABRAXAS TDM TL (this was ages ago but not quite 3 years rip)
SAMPLE #2: THE CITY EVENT LOG TL
SAMPLE #3: THE DIADEM TDM TL