Harry Tsai

[Polybius]

Name: Bocheng “Harry” Tsai
Gender: Male
Age: 17
Hobbies and Interests: Guitar, Japanese Horror, J-Rock, Visual Kei fashion

Appearance: Harry is 6’3” and 170 pounds, possessing a tall but lithe figure with long limbs and pale skin. His facial features are sharp and elegant, with high cheekbones, a sharp nose, a thin mouth, and a pointed chin. Harry has an impassive expression most of the time, his dark brown eyes expressing no obvious emotion other than boredom. Harry wears his hair long, falling his his collarbone and parted in the middle. His hair is naturally black, but he dyes it bright red.

Harry’s fashion sense is influenced by the visual kei style worn by his favorite Japanese bands, but the style is toned down to be practical for everyday life. He wears dark clothing, often sporting a shirt from a j-rock band. He supplements his outfits with jewelry and light make-up.

On the day of the abduction, Harry wore a black t-shirt with a large red X Japan logo on the front on top of a long-sleeved gray undershirt. He wore baggy black jeans with a silver wallet chain attached, and gray sneakers. Harry wore two silver chain necklaces, and covered his wrists with two silver bracelets on each side, as well as a black sweatband on each wrist. Harry’s fingernails were painted black, and he wore black eyeliner.

Biography: Harry Tsai was born as Bocheng Tsai in Xi’an, China. His parents, Jiujian and Fangying, both worked in administrative roles for technology companies, Jiujian as a middle manager and Fangying as an administrative assistant. Harry lived in a comfortably upper middle-class household, an only child with all of his needs met. At an early age, Harry performed higher in reading and math than most of his classmates. However, he was introverted and somewhat self-absorbed. Harry felt like the other kids just couldn’t keep up with him or understand him, and he couldn’t figure out why. He kept to himself at school, and only gave terse, uninterested replies when other kids tried to talk to him. When working in groups, Harry would just do all of the work himself without bothering to explain his work to the other children. His parents were proud of his quick development and they shrugged off his social issues, not considering them urgent enough to worry about.

Harry was not friendless, however. He lived in the center of a bustling city; his parents had a number of relatives and family friends who lived within a short distance. Harry’s friend group entirely consisted of his cousins, his neighbors, and the children of his parents’ friends, most of whom were a few years older than him. His rapport with these older kids, who’d he’d known since birth, was much warmer than with his classmates. Harry and his friends would spend their time watching television and movies, and listening to music.

One of Harry’s cousins had a western-style acoustic guitar, and young Harry would spend hours listening to his cousin’s amateurish attempts to play popular rock songs. When he was eight, Harry begged his parents to buy him a guitar and sign him up for lessons. It was the first time in his life that Harry seemed strongly interested in pursuing a hobby, and his parents were supportive of his interest. Harry threw himself into practice; soon enough, he became a better guitar player than his older cousin.

When Harry was nine, he tagged along to an older friend’s birthday party. After the sun set, the group of boys sat in the dark to watch a pirated copy of a Japanese horror film called Ring. Some of the other boys were disappointed at the movie’s slow pace. Harry, on the other hand, found himself drawn into the film’s creepy atmosphere and the dread that lurked below the surface before exploding in the final scene. It was unlike anything he had ever experienced. The film made him interested in both horror and Japanese culture.

At age eleven, he was given the chance to explore those interests. His father bought a home laptop only to realize that he didn’t really need it. Harry ended up being the one who used the laptop most of all. Given unsupervised access to the internet for the first time, Harry plunged into the vast well of Japanese horror. He pursued his love of J-horror movies further with films like Noroi and Cure. He began reading manga, particularly the horror works of Junji Ito. He also downloaded an emulator and played Resident Evil and Silent Hill.

In his online explorations, Harry incidentally came across a product of Japanese culture that he grew to love even more than horror. He’d always liked rock music, but when he found Japanese rock music, he fell in love. He loved the unique sound of J-rock, he and loved the over-the-top theatricality of the bands’ performances and costumes. His overall favorite bands were X Japan, Luna Sea, and Balzac. Listening to J-rock made Harry want to improve his own guitar skills. He saved up and bought an electric guitar, and began trying to imitate the skills of his favorite guitarists, like Miyavi and Guitar Wolf’s Seiji.

Harry spread his musical tastes to his friends, some of whom had instruments of their own and were eager to join in. At thirteen, Harry formed his first band with them. It was tentatively titled Crow. Harry began to write and practice original music, but despite Harry’s dreams of performing in public, they never went that far, spending their time practicing and hanging out at Harry’s cousin’s house. Harry hoped that the band would become more serious as they grew older, but it wasn’t meant to be.

When Harry was aged fifteen, his father received a big promotion that would require the family to relocate to Minnesota, where the company was opening a new branch. Harry didn’t want to move. He hardly knew any English, and more importantly, he didn’t want to leave behind all of his friends and his band. He had no choice in the matter. Feeling bitter, Harry said goodbye to his home and moved around the world, to Saint Paul, Minnesota. As part of their move, Harry’s family adopted English first names for themselves. He chose his name “Harry” flippantly, just picking something that sounded nice, but he quickly became used to it.

As a sophomore at Aurora Bay high School, Harry’s English skills were poor. He received language education both within school and from private tutors, but he struggled. Harry had always excelled at academics, but learning a new language was difficult to wrap his head around. His frustrations made him even more bitter. He couldn’t even communicate with most of his classmates, leaving him isolated. Harry didn’t bond even with his classmates who knew Chinese- he’d never gotten over his childhood inability to form relationships with strangers. By junior year, he became good enough at English to communicate on a basic level, but he didn’t speak more often than he had to. In America, Harry felt more alone than ever. He hated it. He hated his classmates, he hated the food, and he hated the music. He dreamed of the day he was old enough to leave America. He hoped he would be able to move to Tokyo, immersing himself in the local music scenes. At that moment, all he could do was sit and stew over his misfortune.

There was one aspect he enjoyed about his life in America; he liked Aurora Bay’s loose dress code. Harry liked the visual kei style fashions that were worn by his favorite bands, but his previous circumstances had stopped him from experimenting with fashion. His school in Xi’an forbade him from dyeing or growing out his hair, or from modifying his uniform. Aurora Bay, on the other hand, gave him freedom to express himself. He grew out his hair and dyed it various colors. He dressed in dark and androgynous clothes. He began wearing jewelry and make-up. This attracted attention towards him from the other students, both positive and negative. He ignored most of it, but he found that some of his classmates who complimented his style also had interesting musical tastes of their own. While Harry didn’t exactly make friends, he opened up enough to make casual acquiantance with some classmates who had similar interests.

Through an acquaintance, Harry joined his second band. A punk band called Bright Walter, composed of boys from local schools, needed a new guitarist, and Harry beat out the other applicants. Bright Walter played a few local shows in Saint Paul, and Harry refined his guitar skills performing in front of crowds. However, the band’s musical style- 80s American punk- didn’t gel with harry’s musical tastes. He butted heads with the other band members, trying and failing to get them to play his own J-rock style songs. He felt his input wasn’t valued, and he found some of the other members personally annoying, so he left Bright Walter after six months.

Harry began to upload music to YouTube under the name Kagutaba. He wrote and recorded guitar songs based off of Japanese horror and folklore. While his channel, ot his chagrin, never achieved great success, he built a subscriber based of five hundred, with his most popular songs getting over two thousand views. He also set up Bandcamp and Soundcloud pages, receiving similarly disappointing results. Harry reached out to local indie labels, but never received any responses. This frustrated him, and he blamed his lack of success on American music producers having poor taste.

In his senior year, Harry became a founding member of a punk rock band called Lovesick Dead, consisting exclusively of Aurora Bay seniors. They’ve started playing local shows and uploading videos to social media. In this new band, Harry has more significant influence over the band’s musical style and public persona. He also generally gets along with his bandmates, though his attempts to control the band’s direction have gotten him into more than a few arguments. Harry enjoys Lovesick Dead, but he views it as temporary, a way to experiment. He has no intention of sticking around in Saint Paul after graduation, so he assumes the band will break up then.

Recently, Harry has also began attending J-rock concerts in person, though they are very rare in Minnesota and he often has to drive long distances to attend. The concerts have given Harry an opportunity to experiment more with visual kei, and he will spend weeks beforehand assembling extravagant outfits to wear. He mixes extravagance with gothic horror elements, taking inspiration from Versailles and Dir En Gray.

Harry has a tense relationship with his parents. Their early support of their son’s musical aspirations turned into abject confusion as he started dressing and acting differently. His continued bitterness over the move, paired with a normal teenage rebellion, have made Harry act curt with his parents. Even when they disapprove, however, they rarely discipline him, preferring a more hands-off approach. The one thing they’re strict about, however, is that they want Harry to attend a good college and get a degree in something practical. His mother frequently asks him him about his personal life and grades, which Harry finds annoying. Their conversations ar usually one-sided, with Fangying talking in detail and Harry responding sparingly. His father is cooler; when Harry and Jiujian are alone, they usually sit in silence. Whenever Jiujian does decide to talk to his son, he often brings the conversation back around to Harry’s future plans. Harry finds that just as annoying as his mother’s direct questioning.

Despite his early difficulties, Harry has consistently put effort into learning English. Harry’s English proficiency is described as intermediate. He can follow along with most classes, and he can have basic conversations about most subjects. He gets tripped up by uncommon words and idiomatic expressions. When it comes to topics he’s passionate about - music and horror, mostly - Harry can have lengthy in-depth conversations. When talking on these familiar subjects, Harry’s language is casual and mixed with jokes and profanity. In other situations, he speaks in short, formal sentences. This has contributed to his isolation - he still only barely speaks to his classmates unless they have a common interest.

In school, Harry does well in math and science and adequate in most other subjects. Harry has agreed to go to college and major in computer science, though his ultimate goal is still to become a musician. His first choice was to go to school in Japan, but he quickly realized that his non-existent Japanese language skills would make that impossible. He chose the next best thing, and applied to Xi’an Jiaotong University. Harry is looking forward to moving back home, reconnecting with his friends, and convincing them to form a new band.

Advantages:Harry is intelligent and picks up most skills quickly. He is driven; when he has a goal in mind, he will work tirelessly to achieve it.
Disadvantages:Harry has trouble communicating and bonding with others, especially when they don’t have a common interest. In addition, his English is still rudimentary; he can communicate on a basic level, but has trouble with the nuances of the language. He has a high opinion of himself and tends to underestimate others’ intelligence.

Original Profile: Harry Tsai
Permission: Here

[MurderWeasel]

Hey, Poly! Harry's looking pretty solid, just a bit to go before he's ready!

Could I get a specific eye color for Harry besides just "dark" please?

Does Harry's jewelry include any piercings?

What form did Harry's early introversion/self-absorption take? Specifically, what sorts of interactions with his peers formed the social issues his parents were ignoring?

About how old was Harry when he formed his first band? It sounds like between eleven and fifteen, but I'd love to get it nailed down just a touch more.

Does Harry show off his music anywhere besides YouTube? (For instance, does he maybe have a Bandcamp page?)

Can I get one specific detail of Harry's relationship with each of his parents, so they stand out as individuals rather than just operating as a unit?

Can I hear just a touch more about Harry's current English skills in his bio? How does the situation affect his life? How much effort does he put into the language?

Post when you've got that handled, and we'll give Harry another look. Thanks!

[Polybius]

Edits made

I didn't include anything about piercings because my answer is "no, he doesn't have any piercings" and I wasn't sure how to naturally communicate a negative like that in his appearance so I'm just saying here that no, he doesn't have any piercings.

Edit: Uh, they're all there NOW

[MurderWeasel]

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