readingrainbows | application;

these arms of mine were made for lifting up
and when i set things down again
i hope they are
better than they were

GENERAL

NAME: Zachary Zheng
NICKNAMES: Zach!
AGE/DOB: October 2nd, 16 (turning 17)
BLOOD STATUS: Halfblood
GENDER/PRONOUNS: Male, he/him
SEXUALITY: HEY, this is IN FLUX, but at this point, probably aro/ace.
HOMETOWN: Tacoma, WA.

CONCEPT: Tag-along prefect adventures in the name of harm-reduction

PHYSICAL

APPEARANCE: Zach used to be really bad about his uniform, but now that he's a prefect, he's always on top of it. Lookin' sharp, buddy! Out of uniform, he has an unusual fashion sense; catch him in pastels and funny prints and overalls and a bunch of other looks that really, really shouldn't work... but somehow, kind of do. In part, he's because Zach is wonderfully unironic in the way he dresses, and it's all so very him, that he tends to pull it off.

HEIGHT: 5' 10"

PB: Kai Ko

PERSONALITY

LIKES: Reading (particularly tales of adventure, fiction or non-fiction), History of Magic, his leather-bound atlas & collegiate dictionary (his 11th birthday present and part of an Encyclopaedia Brittanica set, he thinks; the matching encyclopaedias, if they ever existed, went missing long ago), trying food from around the world, making people laugh, bright colors, puzzle games, eating, cats, younger kids, people who listen to him, people who are unapologetic about who they are, hot hot weather, abstract art, and despite everything: his 'hood (44th st., motherfuckers!)

DISLIKES: Prescriptivism, math, bullies, people who take themselves too seriously, most contact sports, sweating in general, the way he always oversleeps if he hits the snooze button in the morning, old people cereal like Raisin Bran, when his mom has to work over the holidays, when people use "genre fiction" as an insult, the Dewey Decimal System (he sees the utility, but there has GOT to be a BETTER WAY)

PERSONALITY:

Inquisitive, intelligent Zachary can usually be found with his nose in a book. The more swashbuckling the tale, the better — although a few minutes with Zach makes it clear that one man's adventure is another man's dryass textbook. In short, he's a big fat nerd — a passionate, excitable little weirdo with way too much to say about some very boring shit. But the fun kind of nerd. Always the fun kind.

Although some classmates may recall a Zachary that was quiet and distrustful, Gooseberry has allowed him to let down his guard. A natural storyteller, not to mention something of a ham, Zachary loves an audience. Not all the time — he's not dead set on becoming the next celebrity — but he likes when people listen to the things he has to say, and he's not above being a little silly to keep their attention, if that's what it takes. When he speaks, he does so unselfconsciously and without fear of judgement. It's more important to him to communicate effectively than to look cool.

Zachary likes sharing his favorite things with others. His cabinmates can expect to hear all about Phillipus von Hohenheim's adventures in Parseltongue or Herpo the Foul's foray into basilisk breeding — and to be fair, Zach makes a good tutor, in part because he's non-judgemental, and in part because he has a knack for making his favorite subjects fun. Zachary can personify a block of wood, pluck a narrative out of nothing. God help them if they're also in History of Magic, though, because then, they may very well be hearing these stories twice.

He isn't always loud. A daydreamer, reality seems to have an impermanent hold on him; it doesn't take much for Zachary to fall face first into an imagine spot. Not intentionally, of course, but between his short attention span and his creative personality, it's not surprising that he has a tendency to get lost in his own head. It means he's never bored. Unfortunately, it also means classmates of his can surely remember a number of occasions where Zachary eagerly raised his hand in class, only to respond with a belated "...huh? Oh, sorry. What were you saying?" when he was actually called on a few minutes later. His backpack is a mess. Someone really needs to teach him to put his homework into folders. Organisation, both in his head and in his daily life, is clearly not his strong suit.

Zachary grew up without many models of traditional success, and although he's on the right track now, the road ahead feels so long and so hard. At times, he has a difficult time recalling why he's here busting his butt when there's a perfectly easy path leading back home. He needs people to remind him that he has the capacity for something greater, and to convince him that all this effort will pay off in the end. The latter, especially, is hard for him to remember; Zachary is easily overwhelmed and prone to fatalist thinking. A good friend will indulge him when he skips class to learn about the invention of toothpaste. A best friend will tell him to get back on track.

As a prefect, Zachary is a good kid with a natural inclination to follow the spirit of the law. He tries to follow and enforce the letter of the law, too, but there's a little more leeway there — although he's determined to avoid trouble (he has too much to lose), his natural inclination is to see rules as guidelines more so than mandates, and he's willing to overlook infractions he sees as harmless or in benefit of some greater good. Perhaps unfortunately, his love of adventure means that he can also be coerced into turning a blind eye to slightly bigger violations, if all parties swear it's in the pursuit of something great.

So. He wants to be the fun prefect, but even more than that... Zach wants everyone to trust him. There's nothing more nightmarish to him than imagining his cabin (or any of his class, really) getting themselves into trouble into trouble, simply because said peers were more afraid of getting punished than they were of getting hurt. He knows that people are going to party, to explore, to do stupid things, and he would much, much rather it happened in a relatively safe and controlled environment. And what with the seances and spooky happenings that always seem to be popping up, he'd really rather he not be left in the dark. Zach feels better being able to keep an eye on things himself, but that said — he's often worried he goes too far.

What if his friends see his presence as proof that risk-taking is acceptable? Do his tag-along tendency read like a tacit endorsement of dangerous behaviour? He doesn't want that. He just wants... to help. More than anything, Zach is the kind of person who wants to live by the campire rule — to make this world a tiny, tiny bit better for being in it. Not in a sweeping, social justice sort of way, but quietly and on an individual level. Unfortunately, he has no idea if he's going about it in the right way.

Never has Zach felt that particular weakness more acutely than during and after the events of the endgame. When it came to rescuing his classmates, he never hesitated; of course, he would venture into the woods. It was his job, not just as a prefect, but as a fellow human being and a friend. But quickly, Zach found himself back at a familiar crossroads. Was he doing the right thing? Should he be more cautious? Where was the line between bravery and foolhardiness? His heroes were dashing and daring and wonderful, but also... most of them were either fictional or dead. In the end, he was rewarded for action; his friends were returned home, safe and sound. But the trauma of it exposed him to his own uncertainty, and now, he finds himself thinking about it a lot.

Seriousness doesn't suit Zach, but it may be creeping up on him nonetheless. There are days when he feels much older than 17. Luckily, maturity and fun aren't mutually exclusive.

SKILLS

LANGUAGES SPOKEN: English and decent amount of sign language — he's self-taught, but doing his best so that he can chat more easily with fellow junior prefect, Milo.

PATRONUS: EDIT: Zach can, after some tutoring from Kenzie, cast a Patronus! Here are some very cute pictures, for future reference: 1, 2, 3, 4

SKILLS: Zach is a strong writer and a good storyteller. The latter is especially true in person: he's no actor, but he loves to talk and share the things he's learned, and he tends to throw his whole body into it, gesturing wildly. The overall effect is very silly, but also captivating. And well, everyone can read, but Zach is an old pro at all sorts of library related Skillz. He's a good researcher, a budding archivist, and he even knows how to work a file system, which is a minor miracle in this day and age.

His interpersonal skills are pretty strong, too. He's good at resolving conflict and stepping into situations before they escalate. This has helped him as a prefect, and gained him a reputation as someone who can be trusted to settle things fairly and to provide honest, open-hearted advice.

Also, Zach can do some pretty sweet tricks with his butterfly yo-yo.

HISTORY

FAMILY MEMBERS:

— Patricia Zheng; mom, works as a clerk at a shop around the corner from their house and has done for as long as Zach can remember
— Bai Zheng; dad; currently unemployed
— Nicholas Zheng; half-brother, 12 years older than Zach, very cool. Zachary isn't exactly such what it is Nick does all day, but he's always bringing Zach random presents, like new books or shoes.

HISTORY:

Zachary Zheng is a scholarship student. Not a particularly impressive one, either; he wasn't not a sports star or a musical genius or even at the top of his class. He's only here because of a friend. A teacher-friend, from his local public school.

Tacoma, Washington is on the up-and-up these days, but the Hilltop neighborhood where Zachary was raised hasn't enjoyed particular prosperity (at least, not in the 2000s). His parents struggled to find and keep work. The apartment they shared was messy and chaotic, with strangers floating in and out at weird times. Sometimes, he wouldn't see his dad for days. Still, while there were many times Zach felt unsupervised, there was never a moment where he felt unloved. They tried their best, he knew. It's not their fault life doesn't always go as planned.

Zachary's parents got him a library card for his 6th birthday. He signed the back himself. The children's librarian wore a polka dot dress and read them Harold's Purple Crayon; he can still remember that, somehow.

He went there a lot after that, sometimes every day after school — and every day, over dinner, his mom asked him what he'd learned. Little Zach loved this ritual: he loved his mom's attention, he loved being able to share his day, he loved feeling like he was teaching his mom something instead of the other way around. By the time Zach had hit his teens, his mother had stopped asking, but feelings never quite faded. Soon, the library, with it's dingy bus-seat pattern carpet and cheap plastic chairs, had become his oasis, his "safe space" protecting him from his troubles in the real world. Fiction or non-fiction, it didn't matter — Zachary's imagination transported him to wherever, whenever he read.

To be fair, anywhere was better than home.

In contrast to Seattle, the wizarding community of Tacoma — many of whom were muggleborn or "first generation" wizards — is neither wealthy nor large, with the majority of families living over a few cramped square blocks. Zachary knew most of the families in his large apartment complex very well, having grown up roaming the streets with their children, and it wouldn't be uncommon for him to wander in and out of their homes the way he would his own. He saw his block as his turf, a worldview encouraged by the older kids in the neighborhood. Despite his fondness, though, even Zachary had to admit that there wasn't much in the way of opportunity there. None of the people he looked up to as a kid grew up to be healers or aurors or pro-Quadpot players. The ones who stuck around mostly did... nothing.

His school, a local public for magical teens in the sparsely-populated area between Snoqualamie and Yakima, known regionally as "East" or "East School," was an hour away by school bus. (Of course, he should have been zoned to Seattle, but there was some school board fuckery that mysteriously affected his neighborhood.) To describe East as "economically depressed" would be charitable; it seemed to be one of those places that just slipped through the cracks, forgotten — or, less charitably, written off— and operating with the bare minimum. The teachers were tired, the curriculum uninspired. Bored stiff, Zachary spent most of his days daydreaming in his seat and ignoring the world as it spun around him. Teachers found him to be alternately checked-out and mouthy. His grades were abysmal — which says a lot, considering the academic standards of the institution. In short, he was on track to go nowhere fast.

That changed when, somehow, he caught the attention of his 8th grade teacher, Ms. Chrysanthemum Day. Extensively credentialed and an Ilvermorny grad, Ms. Day had grown up in a small, Washington logging town, and she was happy, not resentful, to be teaching in her home community. She was a good, observant teacher — but still, she was surprised to find Zachary, who had been long-dismissed as hopeless by others at her school, reading in an unlocked classroom during lunch. After a few minutes of cajoling, she was able to draw the then-shy, suspicious Zachary out of his shell enough to tell her about his book, and before long, he was excitedly chattering away about the incredible things he had learned that day. Ms. Day was flabberghasted; far from being the class dunce, Zachary Zheng had... potential.

In him, she saw a boy with promise, a little sponge just waiting to soak up knowledge. Instead, it seemed, he was being steeped in hopelessness. The magic of his local library had taken him as far as they could, and although Zachary didn't know it, there wasn't much left for him here. Over the semester, it became clear he was on the verge of giving up on school entirely. Ms. Day knew she had to make some calls for next year.

Zach was nervous about leaving home. GBHS was so incredibly different from his old school that he could barely begin to fathom it. The wealth alone was alien: while in the registration line, one kid spoke animatedly about his horse and, to be honest, Zachary kind of thought he talking about heroin until somewhere down the line he realised, no, he meant the animal. By the time he was brought to be sorted, his stomach was churning. He was convinced he'd flunk out within the first semester.

Then, once again, a miracle of education. He met Mr. Merrill in the Sorting Cave.

It was platonic love at first sight. This guy! He was everything Zachary wanted to be. He was so fun and cool and it really seemed like he cared! Mr. Merrill didn't roll his eyes when Zach forgot to pretend that books were dumb; he shouted along with him, cheering for every fact he recited and every theory he spun. Almost immediately, Zach became his little freshman duckling.

It was Mr. Merrill who prevented Zachary's wash-out prediction from becoming a self-fulfilling prophesy. When it became evident that Zachary was seriously behind the rest of the class, he pulled the boy aside and listened as Zach tearfully confessed to feeling stupid and overwhelmed. He didn't want to be bad, he just couldn't seem to catch up on his own. Now, he was tired of working hard when, it seemed, there was no point to it all. Should he give up? Go home?

Of course not. Mr. Merrill, investing much of his own time, arranged for tutoring sessions and checked in with Zachary regularly, just to see how he was keeping up. And it paid off. By the end of his freshman year, Zachary's grades had improved from low Ds to solid Bs. He stopped being the kid who stared out the window all day and started asking smart questions in class. Made a ton of friends. And he realised that, actually, he loved it here at GBHS.

It was a little bit of a risk, offering Zach prefectship, but boy, was he delighted and determined to prove that it was the right choice. Whether or not he actually achieved that is ... debatable. He loves his cabin — that much is undeniable — and truly wants what's best for them. They're all good kids, and they more-or-less listen when he tries to lay down the rules. Of course, by "laying down the rules," he mostly means making enthusiastic SAFETY SUGGESTIONS and then handing out candy. It works for them, okay?

All in all, the year seemed to be going pretty well, but as the events of the endgame drew nearer, Zachary found himself increasingly embroiled in the then-sophomores' various investigations. He did his best to make everyone had snacks and back-up plans, but when their seance in the woods brought forth a little more than any of them had bargained for, he began to question if he'd made the right choice. There wasn't much time to ruminate on the idea, as shortly thereafter, he and others awoke in the forest, only to find that some of their classmates had been kidnapped from their beds. The rescue mission was perilous (he's not sure he'll ever really be comfortable swimming in the lake again), and it didn't end there. Before the long night was over, he and a half-dozen others were called to protect Gooseberry once more, and together, they ventured back into the woods to seek the Heart of the Forest. And... they found it. They... won.

This summer, Zachary worked part time at a burger shack and spent the rest of his free time back in that library he used to see as a second home. It was strange. Zach has never seen himself as "above" anything, but slinging french fries seemed kind of... unimportant after everything that had happened. That disconnected feeling was alien and unfun, and he's hopeful that it'll fade away now that he's back at the school he loves.

SCHOOL

YEAR: Junior (Grade 11)
HOUSE: GO BLUE JAYS
SORTING: Zachary's sorting required arbitration, but he has grown to be a right little Azurcrest. Ebonhide saw his intelligence and a transient teenage sullenness that could be shaped into seriousness, albeit with a little introspection. Ribbonfin saw his peacekeeping nature and promised that in that house, everyone would stay friends. Azurcrest saw sparkle, color, and wit. The three emblems (uncharacteristically, Coppertale mostly kept its nose out of the mix, although the fox did make one particularly salient point about the role of competition and drive in the pursuit of self-improvement) bickered and coaxed for a solid 5 before Mr. Merrill popped his head into the cave and tugged Zachary along. No regrets. He loves his house and it's a great fit.
WAND: Applewood, opaleye heartstring, 14.5", quite bendy
FAMILIAR: A dwarf hamster named Agamemnon; he was a present from his parents as a reward for being made prefect this year. He's bitey.

CLASSES: HISTORY OF MAGIC! Also: Charms, Potions, Transfiguration (SNOOZE, TBH), Hermeticism (YIKES), DADA, and WIZARD LIT. Also, Muggle Studies (see below).
ADVANCED STUDY: Zach is neither particularly isolated from no maj life, nor particularly interested in computers and technology... but he is Mr. Merrill's #1 Fan, and the class looks like a lot of fun. Pretty please? With sugar on top? He'll keep his grades up, he swears!
SENIOR PROJECT: Long way off, but he has Ideas floating around about building an archive.
ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE: Zachary is... well...

For the right kind of teacher, Zach is a dream. Although he started his freshman year lazy, overwhelmed, and well behind his peers, Gooseberry has managed to tap into his genuine love of learning, and his academic performance has been soaring upwards with every day since his arrival. He's the troubled teen success story, the kid who was brought out of his shell and taught to see the beauty of academia and education. His hand is always up and he is always listening... or trying to listen, anyway. Teachers who value passion think he is "a joy to have in class."

Teachers who value reliability, organisation, by-the-book thinking, or perfectly neat, uncrumpled homework probably have a less positive view. He has a tendency to get distracted by stray facts and research rabbit holes; send him off to learn about the Gold Rush, and he'll come back babbling excitedly about 1580s Russia. Reading a Zachary Zheng essay always promises to be a wild ride, because it might be stellar or it might be an exciting 5 page long tangent. His grades can zoom from "A" to "F, ungradeable, once again, did not follow instructions" — although his transcript is fairly solid, mostly Bs. Sometimes, he skips class to read in the library. Actually, he's always in the library, books piled high around him. He's determined to win Ms. Petrichor over, despite his tendency to return them late.

Ultimately, his theoretical knowledge outstrips his practical skills by far. He needs to spend more time waving his wand and less time reading about it. But he's trying hard to catch up, he really is! He'll get there, in the end.

EXTRACURRICULARS: LARP, Outdoor Exploration, Drama

OOC

NAME: cameron
EMAIL: captainkickflips@gmail.com
CDJ: funnylookingkid
OTHER PREFERRED CONTACT: dropbox pls
TIME ZONE: gmt

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