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Harris

Gifted

Basic stats | Appearance | Personality | Interests and abilities

Basics

Name: Harris Wesley Tweed

Gender: Male

Age: 23

Ethnicity: Mixed European

Nationality: American

Appearance

Hair: Light brown

Eyes: Brown

Height: 6'1"

Build: Lanky

Harris is tall, thin and slouches terribly. His light brown hair always looks messy, sticking up in every direction no matter how he tries to comb it. He's long since given up attempting to tame the mess and embraces the "just gotten out of bed" look. He can't grow particularly thick facial hair, any attempt at a moustache resulting in little more than a patchy fuzz. This hasn't stopped him from growing a ratty goatee, more out of laziness than any particular fashion statement.
His eyes are narrow, a medium brown colour and always a little bloodshot. His pale skin lightly freckled, especially across the bridge of his nose and his lower arms.
He has a Roman nose, thin lips and a long, narrow face. His jaw somewhat rounded with a prominent chin. His ears are ever so slightly pointed at the tips.

Harris has over-large hands and feet, which combined with his poor posture and generally scruffy appearance makes him look even more awkward.
He keeps his nails short, though they're almost always engrained with filth. His hands are rough and gnarled.

Occupation: Web designer – Harris works from home, which allows him to keep strange hours and means he doesn't have to actually leave the security of his room. He seldom, if ever, actually meets his clients face to face, which suits him just fine.

Power: Mass hypnotic suggestion and auditory hallucinations – Harris' power could, if he could control it, be a devastatingly dangerous ability. Fortunately for the rest of the world, Harris' subconscious prevents him from obtaining his true potential.
His ability manifests as mass hypnosis, causing those around him to burst into spontaneous song and dance numbers. Harris literally lives in his own nightmarish musical, complete with choreography and backing music. Problem is, Harris HATES musicals. He finds the entire thing humiliating, annoying and downright ridiculous, which naturally leads him to avoid situations that put him in contact with other people.

It all began about five years ago...
One night, after being dragged out to the theatre with a few friends, it just started. First his friends started to sing, one of the tunes from the Broadway show they'd just left. Harris was embarrassed, but they wouldn't stop, most likely because his discomfort and annoyance was amusing to them. He willed them to stop but instead, other people began to join in. Soon the whole street of strangers was holding hands and singing along.
Since that day, whenever he's begun to feel even slightly anxious, it happens. Every time it does, he becomes more paranoid and more afraid it'll happen again. It's a vicious cycle that shows no signs of being broken, Harris himself isn't even totally aware of why it occurs. His subconscious fears are colouring his innate ability, if he could only realise that, perhaps he could put an end to all this.
Instead, Harris spends his time idly scheming and plotting ways to destroy the world. Not that he ever manages to put any of his plans into action, he hasn't got the money or access to things like orbital death rays after all. But his delusional dreams of comic book villainy seem to keep him going, so his few friends just leave him to his insane rambling and unrealistic plots knowing full well he'll never manage to pull any of them off anyway.

Personality

Personality at a glance:

Harris comes across as cold, unfriendly and generally cruel spirited.
He seems to regard most of the world with general disdain if not outright hatred. He has a vicious and dry sense of humour which few seem to really understand, revelling in sarcasm and subtle jibes. He complains a lot, loudly. Never apparently happy with his lot in life or content to just let things slide, he will rant and moan and generally be miserable about the most trivial of things.

He has next to no patience with people on a face to face basis, preferring to communicate via emails or instant messengers rather than socialising in a more conventional manner. Online he can even come across as charmingly witty and intelligent; unfortunately the illusion shatters as soon as he loses the security of anonymity.

Socially awkward, Harris doesn't understand people very well. He's quick to judge, unable or unwilling to put himself into someone else's shoes. He claims he hasn't the time for empathy, but in truth, he just isn't very good at it.

Those few he could consider friends have developed a thick skin, remaining by his side more likely out of pity than loyalty. Harris does little to endear himself to others, but every once and a while a tiny glimmer of humanity shines through.

He's quick to help out with tech support, though his motivation is less about kindness and more to pander to his own arrogance.

He's unrelentingly blunt, says the wrong thing at entirely the wrong time and seldom apologises.

Digging a little deeper:

Underneath all the caustic venom and anger, Harris is a deeply insecure person. Ruled by his fears, he suffers terrible social anxiety and isn't at all comfortable around other people. He tries to avoid leaving the house if he can, selecting very late nights and very early mornings to do any essential shopping just to avoid the crowds.

His inability to read people makes relationships difficult and he's especially good at alienating people with thoughtless remarks. He's highly strung and driven by his anger toward the universe.

He actively sabotages the people he cares about, though even he couldn't explain why. He doesn't seem to know how to display his feelings in a constructive or normal manner. He plays childish and often malicious pranks, makes remarks that are even ruder than usual and appears to be doing all he can to make the object of his affection hate him. Perhaps this stems from his own self loathing, or perhaps he just fears true closeness because it means opening up and facing up to his personal demons. Harris tries to bottle his feelings up, but inevitably something snaps and he ends up lashing out at those around him and leaving him even more isolated.

In a relaxed and quiet environment where he feels safe, Harris can, on occasion, be almost normal. He displays rare glimpses of compassion and vulnerability but as soon as he starts to feel uncomfortable, his defence mechanisms kick in and he reverts to his usual self, driving people away to ease his anxiety.

Interests and abilities

Interests and skills:

Classical music – Harris plays classical violin and has done since a young age. He finds classical music comforting and often has it playing in the background while he works.

Computers – Harris' skills lie mostly in computing. He knows several coding languages along with html and css. Back in his teenage years he used to design simple video games to pass the time. He's quite capable of hacking into databases and systems, another remnant of his bored teen self.

Vector art – Harris is by no means a fantastic artist, but he can at least get recognisable ideas down on paper. Where he excels is recreating those ideas in digital form. His job requires him to have an eye for colour and composition and when it comes to simple logo designs, he shines.

Politics and current affairs – One can hardly plan to take over the world if they don't take an interest in world politics now can they? Harris is opinionated but informed on world events, pouring through the news on a daily basis.

Electronics – Harris always enjoyed building simple circuits in his youth, there was something satisfying about making machines do what you wanted them to. In college he learned how to rebuild and upgrade his PC and from there, he's devoted a fair chunk of his spare time into refining his skills. He's reached a level where he can, given the time and equipment, build simple robots and rig up complex systems of webcams and networks. He claims one day he'll build a death mech but that's probably just the wannabe mad professor talking.

Trolling – Harris can be charming online_ or he can be an even bigger jerk than usual. Nothing eases the stress of a bad day more than a good flame war. He gets some kind of kick out of inciting rage in others, snickering at his desk while forums go into meltdown.

Layout by Displayout
Art by Kyan (ME!)