Deerington Application

[discocop]

IN CHARACTER

Character Name: Harrier Du Bois ("Harry")
Canon: Disco Elysium
Canon Point: Shortly after waking up in the Whirling-in-Rags, on the first day of the game. Key plot points are:

• Harry has met up with Lt. Kim Kitsuragi
• The corpse has not been taken down from the tree, though Harry has attempted to examine it (and failed)
• Harry has not had any meaningful conversations with any other major characters (Joyce Messier, Evrart Claire, Klaasje, etc.)
• Harry has not recovered his badge and gun (though he is aware that he is missing them)
• Harry has recovered his ledger, but has not opened the secret compartment

In-Game Tattoo Placement: Over his heart.
Current Health/Status: While not suffering from any wounds, Harry is currently extremely hungover, running on the fumes of the speed coursing through his system, and suffering from both episodic and semantic amnesia... induced by a bender of historic proportions... and also severe depression. He's an alcoholic and an addict. His liver's probably shot to hell, too. Also, his face is stuck on "The Expression," a sort of lopsided, failing grin. A real piece of art.
Age: 44
Species: Human

Content Warnings: severe substance abuse, suicide ideation

History:
Wiki articles: Harry, Revachol, Revachol Citizens Militia.

CRAU History and Impact: N/A

Personality:
As described in the final moments of the game, Harry is a man pushed flat against the innumerable inputs of the world around him. He's a true representative of his city - its harsh contrasts, its gleefully self-destructive tendencies, its glorious history and the shattered ruins left behind... and the few people left who want to make something better out of it. Throw that all together and what do you get? A man fully aware of his total breakdown, but as though watching it occur from far away. He knows there's some things he can do to make it all better, but he's also fairly certain that his doom is inevitable - which makes it so hard to really give a damn. So he approaches the problem with an almost comical air, pushing the pedal to the floor when it doesn't really matter... and reining himself in when it does.

Sometimes he gets the two mixed up, though. Especially when he's been drinking.

As a man defined by the world around him, we understand him best by learning of the big things: of Dora Ingelrilt, Revachol, and the Revachol Citizens Militia.

Dora Ingelrilt
Harry was working as a high school gym teacher when he started living with Dora Ingelrilt, who later became his fiancee. His love for her began with physical attraction - he focuses often on the warmth of her skin, her impossibly blonde hair, her unbelievable beauty. But the love grew to rely on other things as well. She truly loved him. She said he had a vast soul, talked about how leaving him every morning brought sadness over her entirety, and how coming back home to him made her smile and run down the street. Him - nothing but a teacher from Jamrock, in Revachol West, the downtrodden half of the city. She worked in Revachol East - in the Académie de Arts, among the richest people in the world (and its largest tax haven). And she was pure. Good. Loving.

It was Dora who made Harry want to be more, to be better. She was the reason he quit his job and applied to the Revachol Citizens Militia, the RCM, the volunteer police force that keeps together what little is left of Revachol West. It was Dora - it was her pride and love of him - that gave the RCM one of its best detectives ever. He wanted to live up to the way she saw him. He wanted to deserve it.

But the RCM took its toll. It brought out the best in Harry, but the worst as well. Jamrock was already the underbelly of the world, and now Harry plunged face first into the worst of it - the crimes, the drugs, the ideologies. He slipped into impulsive, abusive behavior. Alcohol became the crutch he leaned on to get through each day. The tenderness he feels for Dora became smothered under layers of selfish despair. As he slipped further into his newfound self-destructive personality, his relationship with Dora grew more and more strained... over the next twelve years.

And then, six years ago, she left him. This is probably the most influential moment of Harry's life. Over half a decade later, he still often drives himself into the abyss of alcoholism over losing her and her love for him. His entire world is now the RCM - "Detect or Die!" he drunkenly screams at random people while waving his gun in the air - is Jamrock, is Revachol West. Dora was the anchor keeping Harry tied to who he once was and who he could have been, and her departure has left him adrift in the disgraced former capital of the world.

Since then, he's been getting worse and worse. But it's so hard to care. Why should he, when Dora doesn't?

Revachol
There is no place in Elysium that is more a melting-pot of ideologies than Revachol. The city is part of the New New World. It was discovered when humans, under the influence of Her Innocence Dolores Dei, pushed out through the Pale (the void between pockets of reality) and eventually discovered the Insulindian isola (one of the pockets). On the large island of Le Caillou, around the delta of the river Esperance, was established the city-state of Revachol. People from many countries and isolas began to settle in the city, and over time it grew to be the center of the world.

Revachol was originally ruled by the powerful Suzerain of Revachol, a monarchy that was fascist at its core. The monarchy declined over time (especially because of Filippe III, also known as Filippe the Squanderer... or "vicious syphilitic murderer"). Kras Mazov's communist Antecentennial Revolution in other isolas eventually spread to Revachol, where it bloomed largely due to the inadequacy of the Suzerain. It became the communists and anarchists (the "whites" and the "blacks") versus the loyalists (the "browns"... or fascists) in a bloody urban war. After the Revolution's success came the short-lived Commune of Revachol. Other isolas formed the Coalition of Governments with the intent to quell the Commune, put an end to the communist experiment, and establish free market capitalism in Revachol. They succeeded... by practically leveling Revachol West, holding mass executions of loyalists and communists (and anyone who might be a loyalist and communist), and sub-dividing the city-state into internationally run regions. Revachol East was split into the Mesque Zone and the Occident-Graad Zone, and grew into one of the richest places in the world. Revachol West became the International Zone... or, more honestly, the "No One Gives A Shit" zone.

No one gives a shit about Revachol West. After it was ruined by the Coalition invasion, none of the other governments wanted to take responsibility for it. Hence the "International" Zone. Jamrock, Harry's hometown and his precinct's coverage, is part of Revachol West. He was born in the Old Military Hospital during the communist revolution, surrounded by dying soldiers. As a child he played in the ruins of the city, in the slums and sewers. He grew up constantly bombarded by words he only later understood - "fascist," and "communist," and "moralist" (the political-philosophical leaning of the Coalition, which is to maintain the status quo of free market capitalism), and "liberal" (the only people that the Coalition really allowed to live after their invasion). He saw Revachol West try to pick itself up and fail constantly - the citizen-funded nuclear reactor that almost immediately went into core meltdown, the failed attempt to turn Martinaise into a tourist attraction, the RCM rising up to fight the mob bosses.

Harry doesn't fully subscribe to any of the big ideologies... but he's been exposed to them his whole life. They each seep into him a little bit, eating away at each other, turning his guts into a rancid mix of conflicting ideals. He's a flea on the underbelly of the world, taking in its diseased blood. He's all about the gray areas - and Revachol has so many blacks and whites that it might as well all be gray. It's part of the reason he's come out so badly. In truth, Harry is a very empathetic man, living in a brutal, ransacked, abandoned city. As a detective he's constantly plugged into the people and the events around him. No wonder he's an alcoholic. Who can blame him for wanting to forget everything? Or from waving his gun at his own face?

Nowadays Harry takes some joy in parodying the ideologies, like a caricature of the city's face. What's more, he's taken to believing his gut instinct that Revachol - and the entire world - is plunging toward a final apocalyptic end. His self-destructive tendencies are only advancing this on a personal level.

There's still that one good thing Harry believes in though. One thing that hasn't let him down completely yet: the RCM.

Revachol Citizens Militia
The RCM is a police force founded to restore order to the imploding Revachol West. It has actually succeeded to some degree (where the Coalition had failed - it will likely never forgive the RCM for this slight). While the RCM is truly a citizen-funded and volunteer-run organization, its authority is granted to it by the Coalition. Through this authority, the RCM keeps some tenuous semblance of peace - and through the RCM, the Coalition maintains the status quo of capitalism, staving off revolution and strife.

As a result of the Coalition's minimal interest in Revachol West, the officers of the RCM operate with a great degree of freedom. This means that many officers are corrupt and abusive. There are still a good number of idealistic officers, though - ones who actually believe in the RCM's ability to save lives and protect the innocent, while understanding that the Coalition's support is a necessary almost-evil. Harry's precinct, the 41st, is known for having some of the best (and most straight-arrow) officers, but also for being understaffed to cover such a large area as Jamrock.

Harry's abilities flourished in the RCM. In 18 years of service he has solved 216 cases, putting him far above the 90th percentile of detectives. He has only killed three people, again an impressive feat for 18 years (and a testament to Harry's humanism). He reached the rank of lieutenant double-yefreitor... which is a lieutenant that should have been promoted twice in the past but was passed over for some reason not related to his performance (there was no available position above him, or he turned it down to remain on the field). Somehow he has managed all this while being a drunkard and sliding into insanity.

He's good at his job. Just not very good at being a person. Along with his partner Jean Vicquemare, he re-envisioned the C-Wing of the 41st Precinct into the Major Crimes Unit. It did very well for a little while... until Harry's craziness slowly drove away many of its members.

Harry's been described as a can opener: he opens people up, gets them talking, extracts information and confessions. He's quite logical as well, drawing strong conclusions from disparate clues and messy crime scenes. He knows when he can bend the rules and by how much, especially when it serves a greater good. When the case is on the line and shit needs to get done, he hunkers down and does it well - when he can find the time to be sober.

He really does believe in the RCM and what it does. He's just not so sure that it believes in him anymore.

In Summary
He's a madman. A drunkard. He's internally balancing far too many conflicting ideas - he's the "Detective God", the one that will "save Revachol", the superstar cop that will elevate the RCM to rock-and-roll fame. Or disco fame. But he's also a worthless asshole, the RCM's going to ditch him like Dora did, the apocalypse is coming and no one can stop it. It's too much. He needs a drink. A very strong one.

He cares about people. He wants to save lives, even though it probably won't matter in the long run. Sweet oblivion calls out to him, but he just keeps clinging on. He wants to win Dora back, but he knows he doesn't deserve her. He never will.

So screw it. All he has is the RCM. Detect or Die!!!

Abilities/Powers/Weaknesses & Warping: Harry is actually a really good detective, because he's logical and empathetic. In-game skills that I've decided to focus on are mostly the Intellect and Psychology ones (Inland Empire, Empathy, Suggestion, Espirit de Corps, Logic, Rhetoric, Drama, Conceptualization, Visual Calculus, and Shivers). He understands people very well - and he has a knack for getting them to talk and knowing when they're lying. He has a gut instinct for the people and the events around him, one that pulls him down obscure leads. Even the town itself is like a person to him - once he gets to know it better, he'll sort of be able to read its mood and understand where it's headed. He knows how to read crime scenes and piece together clues. Finally, he knows how to put all of it together to draw a conclusion... which actually comes out fairly correct most of the time.

What he's not good at is anything physical. He's not strong or tough, not perceptive or quick. His gym days are certainly behind him.

Inventory:

• His ledger
• Flashlight
• Clothing - green blazer, flare cut trousers, horrific necktie, white shirt, crocodile shoes
• Prybar and chain cutters

Writing Samples: One and two.
(Let me know if I need to provide more, if these are too short!)

OUT OF CHARACTER

Player Name: Julio
Player Age: 28
Player Contact: artfullydodged or PM this account

Other Characters In Game: Max Caulfield (Life is Strange)
In-Game Tag If Accepted: Harrier Du Bois: Julio
Permissions for Character: Here
Are you comfortable with prominent elements of fourth-walling?: Yes! Hoping for warnings ahead of time, but certainly comfortable.
What themes of horror/psychological thrillers do you enjoy the most?: Descents into madness, hallucinations
Is there anything in particular you absolutely need specific content warnings for?: Very unnatural kinds of sex
Additional Information: