☠ app (splendorocity)
Player Information:
Name: Elle
Journal: noelleno
Method of Contact: PM
Previous characters: Cheyndulamaribannb, Lina Inverse
Character Information:
Full Name: Captain Harlock
Series: Space Pirate Captain Harlock: Endless Odyssey (Outside Legend)
Canon point: Post-series
Age: Never given, estimated late 30s, early 40s
Species: Human
Appearance/PB: Jolly Rogers everywhere
Appearance upon arrival: Samesies as above.
History:
Previous RP memories: N/A
Bringing someone along?: Mr. Bird (as shown in the appearance image)
Character History:
Leijiverse canon histories between shows and such never really link up, but for the sake of making a somewhat-cohesive history (for fun and profit), I'm taking the liberty of trying to string them together feasibly. They're really all different Harlocks, but a lot of the stuff between them is shared despite that.
According to the origin story-esque movie My Youth in Arcadia, the man known as Harlock was once a member of the Earth's military, back when the Illumidas race had come from distant space to occupy the planet. Dissatisfied with the indifferent attitude of the government, Harlock took a more rebellious stance, going so far as to damage his own ship to ensure he didn't have to work for the Illumidas he hated. He finally left the uniform behind after an ambush attack that left him half-blind and his girlfriend/wife/love interest person injured, taking up the skull and bones as a sign of his freedom and leaving for space.
For the sake of the game I'd like to alter just slightly to include the Cosmo Warrior Zero continuity. It won't alter his personality, just add on a couple more experiences and a particular acquaintance already in the game. LIKE THIS:
In Cosmo Warrior Zero, Harlock is still very young in years, giving the government grief as the Earth is under occupation (it's a running theme) by robotic men. Harlock doesn't want to cooperate with the truce in place, choosing life as an outlaw, pursued by one Warrius Zero to be put to justice. They cross paths several times throughout the colonized planets in the galaxy, and as the plot thickens, Harlock is given faulty intel that ends with him all but massacring a colony of robot civilians (not as planned). The main Big Bad is revealed, and after hassling Warrius to pitch in, everyone joins forces to defeat said Bad with the power of love and justice (space lasers, actually).
His ship of fame, the Arcadia, is still under construction that point. The canon continuity crossover would alter his origin to having known his bff/the ship builder Tochiro Oyama back during his Cosmo Warrior Zero days, back when the robots were still in control. After that fades to pass, in come the Illumidas, and Harlock joins the military to fight with his ship Deathshadow, enlisted as a military battleship. Once he goes rogue, continuity will be just as it is leading up into the 1978 series, Space Pirate Captain Harlock. As Cosmo Warrior hinted, Tochiro's been working on the Arcadia (except in that show he had it hidden on a space mushroom at first.....in a subspace basement......that you could argue he could move to earth to fit in with movie continuity okay).
Here he is still a rather young man (early-mid 20s, according to rumor/unconfirmed sources) but has a notorious reputation for pillaging ships for goods and booze and being a thorn in any good lawman's side. His few instances on Earth are only for the sake of Mayu Oyama, his goddaughter. Shortly after delivering her a birthday gift, events start revealing the secret invasion of yet another alien race! This time it's the Mazone, a race entirely comprised of females with plant-like biology (that...spontaneously combust whenever they're shot). Harlock couldn't give two shits about the poor and ignorant citizens of Earth, but he promised Tochiro that Mayu could grow up safe and happy down there, so if anybody's threatening the fulfillment of said promise, Harlock's taking off the earrings and getting his gun.
Harlock and his crew on the Arcadia spend 42 episodes of space adventuring here and there, blowing up alien chicks, hanging out in a secret pirate beach inside an asteroid (idk man), being awesome and so on and so forth. Harlock nearly single-handedly drives off the Mazone and tells his crew to basically go forth and live the lives they want off his ship. Cue the shift from Harlock '78 on to Space Pirate Captain Harlock: Endless Odyssey.
EO makes vague references to My Youth in Arcadia, but can be manipulated to fit this timeline I'm trying to make here. The only thing that really needs to change is Tadashi Daiba's presence: he was a part of the cast (and a huge pain in the ass early on) in Harlock '78, but in EO he's reintroduced (as a huge pain in the ass early on) with fresh new plot points. I'd like to establish EO Daiba and scrub '78 Daiba for consistency.
As things start off here, it's been at least a decade after the events in space that made the crew of the Arcadia famous and wanted by the law, but I believe it's near 15. The government has been slowly rounding up the crew here and there, nearly capping it off by capturing Kei Yuki, the token boobs of the crew. Harlock resurfaces on a planet creatively called the Planet of Rubbish Heaps for all the dumps everywhere. He encounters a quartet of zombies possessed by an evil entity called the Noo shortly after Daiba finds his father dead in the room with them. Harlock bitchslaps a grieving Daiba and tells him to grow a pair and board his ship. Daiba eventually does, but not after much screaming and some excessive exposition from some creepy space lady with a galaxy in her crotch (yes).
The Arcadia takes off and heads for Panopticon satellite where the Arcadia crew is set to be executed (as a trap to lure Harlock in!!!). It naturally doesn't work because Harlock rams the entire ship right through the satellite and rescuing everyone (without them suffering in the vacuum of space?). They go off adventuring, eventually getting tangled up in this evil plot where the Noo, revealed to be a demonic god trapped in an alternate dimension, has zapped the Earth into said dimension to drag it all the way to the gate in space that would free Noo and make the entire universe chaos. Good times. The exposition princess (twin sister of the galaxy crotch girl) begs Harlock to save the universe because there is obviously nobody as awesome as he is to do it.
Harlock says "screw that" and leaves. Exposition princess says "well shit". Story goes on.
LONG STORY SHORT Harlock does end up getting mixed up in the events to save the universe, but he actually isn't...the guy who does it. He basically allows himself and his ship to get shot into the alt dimension the Earth's hiding in, which turned out to be the dimension where people go when they die. So he meets his bff Tochiro! And so Tochiro basically does everything and saves the universe while Harlock just stands there with his cape billowing. But he looked really good, so we don't care.
The show ends with the big revelation that it was in fact Harlock himself who killed Daiba's father, not the zombies! And since Harlock swore a manly oath to help Daiba get revenge against his father's killer, he hands over a space gun to the kid, marches across the room, turns and draws and the scene blacks out and NOBODY KNOWS WHAT THE SHIT HAPPENS AFTER THAT THE END.
So that's my mashup timeline spanning multiple continuities that kind-of relate in ways and kind-of don't in others. If you'd rather not allow setting precedents like that, please just apply the My Youth in Arcadia + Endless Odyssey portions and you get basically the same guy. Just with gaps of years and such.
Personality:
The first word that is associated with Harlock is freedom. Don't fuck with his freedom to do...whatever the hell he wants. It doesn't matter who you are he will do what he wants and screw your morals or rules or propriety. He can come off as really cold or insensitive in this sense, but it's not to say he ignores other people's feelings. He just moves according to his feelings. If someone else manages to resonate with him, then he'll do something for them - but only if he wants to.
That said, if he does view someone as a comrade/friend/loved one, Harlock will be much more attentive to that person than, say, some douchey military guy trying to arrest him. His affections are almost never directly vocalized, rather shown through the things he does or doesn't do.
His ideals on freedom apply to his friends: they are free to help or be helped, to come or go, live or die. He openly admits to Daiba his conflict of wanting to save his crew (as they were right on the executioner's block), because when they left his ship, he had given them permission to live their lives where they'd lead, even if it meant dying before a firing squad. Like I said, though, he lives by his emotions, and it was his emotions that wanted his friends alive and by his side, and that's why he slammed into the satellite to save them.
Years of battles and the endless cat-and-mouse with the law has taken a physical and emotional toll on him. Back as a younger space pirate, a smirking, cocky Harlock confided to a Mazone spy that he had no real ambitions in antagonizing the invaders outside of protecting his goddaughter and seeking out a grand death. It could be said the only reason the guy's still alive is because nobody's offered him a good enough end, and until then, as he told Daiba, he's still wandering, looking for that place where he belongs. It's not on Earth, and as of yet, he's not found another planet that suits him.
The indifference and lethargy of the Earth had jaded him on most society, and he even seems to be ill-liked (and outright feared) in the circles of outlaws across the galaxy. He seems to only be truly at ease among his crew of 42 or so that have been with him for so long. He's not a brash youth anymore, though, so his idea of relaxing is less laughter and more of a somber, reflective quiet, staring out into the lonely emptiness of space.
He's a man full of memory, much of it conflict and loss. Even so, I wouldn't call him depressed. Somber, maybe, but not depressed. He doesn't regret his decisions - it's only unfortunate when some outcomes weren't as he would have liked. Even if he could, he would never go back and change his life to fix those sadder things. They're all valuable and deserve (demand, even) his respect.
In general and outside of a fight, he is a quiet presence, much more a man of action than words. There's a dialogue or manly speech now and then (though usually brief), but he lives by example, not a bunch of words backed up by empty air.
He expects much of the people that challenge him (anyone who draws a weapon at him has instantly accepted death at his hands, for example). He will speak when he feels like it, but it's not often. More often than not, he prefers to be the observer, enjoying the company of those he likes and watching them like some kind of quiet sentinel. He is very fond of children, particularly his goddaughter, and seems to be gentler with those too young to shoulder their own responsibilities. But if you are at the age where you need to start taking care of your own shit...you get no sympathy from Harlock. Grow a pair, he'll say.
Endless Odyssey has pretty much canonically solidified Harlock's fearlessness. In the face of an entity that can sway the hearts of humans with fear, Harlock doesn't even bat an eyelash. He is not ignorant of things to be feared, but rather he is unwilling to allow them to affect his choices. Been there, done that. Scare tactics and threats just won't sway him on fear alone.
It should be noted that even at this more refined, aged state, Harlock is still very much the father of GAR. He is not so soft-spoken in his battle tactics, doing outright ballsy stunts that seem to only work on the fact that he is just way too badass to lose and to hell with the very idea. If it's a fight to the death you want, then someone is going to drop dead by the end of it, regardless of who it is.
Lastly, tying into his fierce love of freedom, Harlock is a man who firmly believes in the binding power of a promise. If he gives his word to do something, then dammit, he will do it and obstacles be damned. It doesn't even have to be the right thing, either. He's going to do it just because he promised to.
Fierce, principled, fearless, etc. That's Harlock.
Extra:
Character Abilities: Harlock is an expert marksman and seldom seems to miss a shot. Given the style of gun he uses, he's also a very fine swordsman to boot, but probably not anything too extraordinary (swords aren't very big in spacetimes).
Possessions:
• Dragoon (basically a pistol that shoots lasers)
• Gravity gun (the laser gun that's styled like a sword)
• Mr. Bird (the giant squawking bird on his shoulder)
Anything else: N
Samples:
Action/Communication thread/post sample:
[today, Harlock is traversing the alpine district, marching up the slopes like a friggin' boss. Mr. Bird is circling overhead like the most hideous vulture ever, crowing now and then just because he can. now and again, wind shrills through the seal in place of his voice until he comes to a stop and turns his back to the gusts.
silence persists a while longer before his voice is heard, quiet, but by no means weak:]
Men of Earth no longer scale their mountains anymore. They don't remember the smell of snow as they hide in their urban fortresses. They've built walls to hide away from nature, picking and choosing only the things that they find pleasant. Green things. Warm things.
They've forgotten the beauty that comes out of the struggle against nature. It's no longer a part of their identity.
[a slight pause, staring out at the varied districts.]
The source behind this city is picking and choosing only the things that pleases them, putting barriers and walls up against the things they reject. It's only as diverse as that source allows.
[a spark of contempt:] This is just a glorified cage.
Log/Prose sample:
There was as much time to make decisions about Splendor as Harlock wished. Those rumored and hardly-tested rules were only as much a factor as he allowed them to be; had he wanted to leave right away, he simply would. Whatever rules that were fated to surface would be confronted as they came, and no sooner. Whether he even wanted to challenge those limits was still up for debate, and the decision would, of course, be utterly his and no one else's.
For now, Harlock had decided to take the role of explorer, much as he did those first free years at the helm of the Deathshadow. There was a wealth of contradictions and curios in one district alone, let alone the city altogether, to keep a curious mind busy for months (years, possibly). It was a place that Tochiro would have delighted to find. Perhaps.
Maybe if there were more women of age wandering about.
The idle thought tugged the fainted quirk of a smile as he strode, ignoring and ignored by the general population. It did him no offense; the lack of shrilling officers or over-hyped bounty hunters wasn't missed. Really, if a few good friends decided to show up, Harlock would probably be inclined to stay.
For a time.
As it was presently, though, it wasn't his place. The fit wasn't utterly right, though accommodating enough to keep him placated for the moment. It was entirely possible that his comrades would be around the next corner, after all. He saw no problem with turning that next corner ahead, and the next thereafter.
The only one that seemed to be antsy at the moment was the bird that swapped between fidgeting about on the outlaw's shoulder and flying back and forth, squawking with impatience. Harlock gave an eventual glance upward, granting the bird just a little of the recognition it was demanding.
All right, Mr. Bird. They could stop to find something to eat.