Permissions and info

[hobocop]

First Impressions

Appearance

Appearance info:

• 5'11"
• Medium length dark brown hair, with some grey
• Green-grey eyes
• Looks to be in his mid-50s (actually 44)
• Has a small gap between his front teeth
• Massive "friendly muttonchops" facial hair
• Disproportionately big, beefy arms
• Paunchy
• Hairy af
• Basically, "You're a bear, Harry."
• Reddened eyes, ears and nose
• Dimpled
• Multiple scars peppered about

Fashion

It's not great, lads.

The beginning of Harry's descent into fashion hell came with his chance meeting with his horrific necktie. At a time where he'd pretty much lost all enthusiasm in life, the garish patterns told him, "you might be miserable, but with me, at least you'd have a funny necktie." From there, the RCM gear started disappearing, replaced instead with silk shirts with wide collars, alligator skin shoes and flares.

Since trying to reinvent his self, his fashion has only... worsened, really? Where at least there was a theme before, now Harry mixes and matches based how each individual item makes him feel. The outfit he'll arrive in looks at least mildly deliberate, but let me break it down for you: his hat is literally a trash hat that was absolutely used in a robbery by some other dude — it even has eye holes in it. The coat? It's his old RCM cloak, sure, but he hasn't bothered to mend where the bullets tore through it. The shirt is that same stinky-ass disco shirt from when he first woke up — the other, newer one he wore got covered in his own blood. The boots? Hey guys, this cool communist has chosen to wear the old boots of a fascist soldier, because they're the only footwear he could find on short notice that hide his hairy legs... which were previously peeking out of his three-quarter length sweatpants.

This is a man who will wear a t-shirt with a muscle-bound barbarian on it because it makes him feel tough. He once intimidated a pair of wannabe gang members into giving their leather jackets to him and his partner because he thought it would be cool if they had matching jackets — matching jackets with the words "fuck the world" and "piss faggot" written on them, I should add. He absolutely can not and should not be trusted alone in a thrift store.

Demeanor & Attitude

Harry usually first comes across as a fairly warm, genial... slightly irritating character. He seems to viciously see-saw between being very self-deprecating and incredibly self-aggrandizing. He's inquisitive, happy to go on a million and one tangents, and is very bad at leaving people alone. He's a perpetual smiler, too, only that smile of his is (on closer inspection) a tragedy to behold. Years of putting on a mask mean that he struggles not to fall into the combination of knitted eyebrows and rictus grin he's personally dubbed "the Expression". It makes him look either seedy or pitiful or a horrible combination of both. He's working on it.

Oh, and if he starts bringing up odd boxing metaphors, or mentioning Contact Mike, just... let him get it out of his system. He does that sometimes, and will move on eventually.

Scent

Scent notes:

• Astra cigarettes (strong tar content)
• Alcohol — beer, vodka and wine
• Cheap soap
• Sweat
• Dried blood

Movement

Harry's got a cool limp these days, and that'll take a while to heal up. Ignoring that, he has a distinct way of moving anyway! A furiously paced, stop-start approach, known colloquially as the "Jamrock Shuffle". It makes him a nightmare to walk behind, especially as he'll break pace to key in on any nearby doors or containers without fail. After all, they might contain clues! Or hats. Another man's trash, etc. etc.

He also runs a whole bunch. It can be very frustrating for those around him, but it's probably one of the few reasons his heart hasn't given out yet. It's also helped him build the stamina that allows him to dance really, really hard. Every limb gets utilised!

Zooming in a little, it's worth noting that he's fairly expressive with his body language in general. Whether it's the dizzying array of finger gun displays, bird-flipping or bear hugs, he's not a man to hold back and put on a poker face.

Voice

We never hear Harry's voice in game, but given that the Ancient Reptillian Brain is used for both "The bloated corpse of a drunk" — Harry's dream representation of himself as the hanged man — and his successful karaoke voice, I'm going to lean towards that and say his natural voice is similar to that, but with a bit of limbic in there. Listen to them both here. Or better yet, allow youtube multiplier to give you both LIMBIC AND REPTILIAN KARAOKE AT THE SAME TIME!

Absolutely stunning, yeah? For a slightly more straightforward, listenable option, picture Ray Winstone in 44 Inch Chest putting on a teeny tiny hint of a french accent.

Magic & Telepathy

Harry has zero protection from magic, or from having his mind invaded. Like, if someone started speaking to him (ie. a voice he didn't recognise), or if they were not-so-carefully moving about in there, his Volition would probably pick up on it, but he doesn't exactly have any way of stopping it.

As for what's actually going on in there, there's... a lot? He's chockablock full of intrusive voices he uses to help guide his actions — it's how he organizes his thoughts, and comes to conclusions about things. Someone reading his mind could absolutely come across their fairly regular contributions. Added to that, folks could probably access his thought cabinet, the side of him that works on ideas he's come across, before internalizing them into how he sees himself and approaches the world. His communist rhetoric sits there, next to the memory of being a street kid, down the shelf from the part of him that still thinks he's a superstar. I'll come up with a comprehensive list at some point with all the various things he's got stored there, but for now, let's just say it's a mess.

The big three things he'll be haunted by (ie. memories always sat in the periphery that I'm kind of okay getting picked up on?) are his loss of Dora, Ruby's suicide, and a big, existential fear of something called "the Pale".

General notes people can get from him if they're more... sensory, I guess, are that he's a big fucking alcoholic who's also addicted to speed, that he's trying to project something harder shelled (while being incredibly spongey), the colours green and orange, and a sense that something is missing. They also might pick up really fucking bad vibes from his necktie.

As for Harry's own "magic", his Inland Empire skill means that he talks to inanimate objects (and dead people) to gain hunches. From the outside, he'll just look like he's squinting at something real hard for several minutes. His other skill, Shivers, will have him stand there getting soaked in shitty weather while trying to garner even more hunches. He's a hunch based power dude.

CODE BY TESSISAMESS

OOC Permissions

☆ Threadjacking: YES! With reservations! Basically, super serious thread? Maybe ask first. Bullshit network stuff? Jump on in, bud.

☆ Backtagging: I'm going to be pretty slow on the whole, so backtagging is my bread and butter. If it's just a small-talk type thing, I might let it drop after a while though. Let me know if something needs continuing!

☆ Fourth-walling: Nooooo, please don't. Mind-reading is one thing, but Disco Elysium is the smallest canon, so I can't think of any real reason it'd pop up for anyone.

☆ Triggers: I'm good with most things honestly. As for Harry (and his canon) there are a fair number to flag up, so please let me know if you need me to avoid mentioning any of these in threads with you:

• Alcoholism — a big one. Any way you cut it, Harry's an alcoholic, and it has affected his life massively. He thinks about drinking a lot. Upon arrival he'll probably initially slip into drinking again, too, just because the one person he's relied on to keep him on the straight and narrow isn't here
• Drug use/abuse — Again, even if he doesn't repeat it, Harry has been a heavy user in the past (Mostly speed). Like with alcohol, Electrochemistry's presence will mean he'll think about drugs a whole bunch, too
• Poverty — A lot of Harry's rhetoric is drawn from his (incredibly poor) roots. He might get very vocal about this
• Suicide/suicidal ideation — Harry has thought about ending it a number of times, (has possibly tried to already on that big night of oblivion) and can in canon. More than that, he also failed to prevent a suspect from committing suicide, and absolutely carries the guilt of that
• War — the history of his world is like... fake world, real history inspired? There's a lot of unpleasant war stuff in it, and his conversations with the mercenaries will have filled his brain with some really awful imagery. Again, this has generally influenced how Harry thinks.
• Abortion — This likely won't ever come up in casual conversation, but Dora terminated her pregnancy, and Harry's still cut up about it
• Racism — Harry isn't a racist piece of shit, but he's encountered some real peaches, and they particularly aim their slurs at his partner. He therefore thinks about it a bunch. I should say, however, all the terms he's familiar with differ from our own.
• Mental illness — Harry can be pretty unstable, especially when he drinks. He worries about his sanity, sometimes. At the very least, he has depressive, self-destructive tendancies.

IC Permissions

☆ Physical Contact: Hugs, back-pats, hi-fives, impromptu partnered dancing? All good with Harry. Assuming he doesn't hate your guts, pretty much every form of friendly contact is fine by him, so go ahead.

☆ Relationships: HARRIER NEEDS EM, FOLKS. As long as you're not overwhelmingly an asshole, he'll happily put the energy into befriending you. It's super easy. And if you absolutely are an unrepentant asshole, but you fall into the 0-18 category? He'll still expend a bunch of energy trying to befriend you. There's a junior law official in your soul, and he will find it.

Also negative CR? Totally, totally doable. He's a sensitive soul at heart, and can flip out on people even when sober.

☆ Shipping: lmao, okay so I doubt Harry's going to be in high demand, but hey: First off, awkward one-night-stands and short flings are potentially doable if RUINED OLD MAN is your type? He flirts fairly indiscriminately with people past the mid-to-late twenties bracket, (with varying degrees of smoothness and success) but that's more him being "disco" than anything else. As for folks he actually crushes on, turns out he swings both ways in canon (EVEN IF HE HASN'T TOTALLY PROCESSED THAT YET) with his type sliding from soft and ethereal to angular and cool.

Realistically though? Anything real and deep would... take a fuck load of work. Possibly too much work. Harry's whole state is due to being really hung up on his ex-fiancée, and now he's trying to recover from his previous (shitty) attempts to recover from her, basically.

☆ Violence: DO IT. STRIKE THE DISCO MAN! He can absolutely take it til he absolutely can't. Then, you'll just be striking a sad old man. He might cry. It'll feel really, really uncomfortable. But yeah, you have my permission! Just ask if you want to inflict any injury that's going to last a while/do him in.

☆ Mind-reading: I'm going to include some info in the first impressions area over to the left there, but honestly? If you want to read his mind in thread you're welcome to, just give me a heads up! It'll give me a chance to include all the bullshit that goes on in there that I'm usually too tired to write in every normal tag.