I started to diarise the coming of flies When gloom is descending So when it's back 'round again I know it's a false start and not an ending Some days I struggle to move In elephant shoes unwilling commuter Anxiety in my chest heart under duress Taps out of sharpshooter Preoccupied now for days by nostalgia waves I hated the first time A gambler's fallacy: the more I repeat I won't be the punchline

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A schoolboy hero replaced, domestic disgrace, A sad sack, a martyr



DISCLAIMER & WARNINGS


you've either read the application or you haven't, so you either know what to expect or you don't. either way, i'm laying it out for you again: i'm not responsible for your mental health if you choose to engage with a character that you know will trigger you or otherwise cause you discomfort. if any of the topics discussed on this page, or in rps that you might lurk that are appropriately marked with content warnings, distress you in any way, you can close this tab and avoid reading it. if you continue reading anyway, i cannot help you.

please be aware that you don't need to be okay with everything listed here; i will avoid any topics with people who need them avoided. just let me know. if you want to interact with jean but need almost all of these topics avoided, then you simply do not want to interact with jean.

jean will be involved with topics such as:
→ toxic relationships
jean was partnered with harry du bois in the RCM for years. they were both very codependent on each other and while they were very fond of each other and worked very well as both partners and people, they were both very mentally unwell with terrible coping mechanisms and were prone to bouts of cruelty towards each other. as harry got worse, jean became more like his handler (and biggest enabler) and spent a lot of his time making sure he didn't harm himself and others while trying to maintain a handle on his own problems. they weren't in love romantically, but they were far more than platonic, and harry's amnesia has made jean even more bitterly obsessive about him in a way that will be brought up frequently and affect potential relationships.
→ addiction issues
jean has been wrapped up in addiction for most of his life, in some way or another. he typically finds it extremely difficult to get through a day without something in his system.
→ mental illness, suicide, and self-harm
Jean has treatment-resistant clinical depression. This can result in thoughts or attempts at self harm or suicide. He keeps the gritty details to himself, but it plays a large role in how he approaches life. Casual references to suicide, along with extreme negative thoughts about himself, may be present in internal monologues. outside of depression, ptsd is probably the most prevalent, but he also expresses obsessive-compulsive tendencies and experiences violent intrusive thoughts about himself or others.
→ queerphobia
jean grew up in a queerphobic environment where homophobia was open and frequent. he worked with police who were rarely sympathetic towards lgbt people and treated being gay as a joke or something to sneer at. he's very, very repressed and while he's not homohpobic himself, he's also not a vocal ally for the most part. he's been poisoned by his environment and has never had a safe way of navigating sexuality, so he's very prickly about it. he can sometimes get mean about it as a knee-jerk reaction. jean himself is transgender in my portrayal.
→ ACAB
Jean was a high ranking police officer by way of sharing a rank with harry. Here, he's not tethered to any particular institute, but he was with the police. He's a lot more progressive than his fellow cops, but he still stood by them as they did wrong, and, in Harry's case, actively defended and covered up instances of police brutality and wrongdoing to save the skin of his friend. He spent years pulling strings and sweeping things under rugs for an objectively bad cop, and his higher rank allowed him to do it much easier. Jean isn't what you'd call a good cop at all, except that he did his job well when he needed to. this will be mentioned from time to time.


if you're still with me then... hi! we can continue now.

We here are common as dirt, Three lions on our shirt with high expectations

general info // this is either based on things devs have said or stuff that just makes sense to me. please be mindful of suicide, self-harm, addiction, and toxic relationships going forward.
health // jean is a fucking mess in the head. basically. but let's go into specifics here:

major depressive disorder: do i really need to explain this one on an rp forum of all places.

he's unmedicated outside of his self-medication, and his self-destructive thoughts and tendencies are untethered. he's open about this, typically in a self-deprecating sort of way. he's always far worse in the winter months than anything else.

cluster headaches: these happen every few months and usually happen every day for at least a month, and usually at night. intense, painful headaches that can last for hours and bow to no mere paracetamol.

substance abuse: speed, cigarettes, alcohol, and benzos are his favourites. he convinces himself he's not addicted because he can wean himself off things or quit them cold turkey, but he usually ends up returning to them within a few weeks or replacing them with something else entirely.

speed and cigarettes are the worst offenders; he chainsmokes without seeming to realise he's doing it, and bumps at least once a day to get work done and not hate how he acts around other people -- cocaine also works in a pinch.

he has frequent stints with benzos to help with insomnia that usually only ends because he runs out and can't get a prescription renewal and getting them from a dealer would mean admitting he has a problem.

he's not as fond of alcohol as he once was, but he won't say no to getting to sleep with it when there's no alternative at hand.

post-traumatic stress disorder: he was a cop in jamrock. he was harry's partner. go figure.

he manages, but the smallest things can set him off, like smells and sounds or even just how someone looks or dresses. at best, he panics and is able to settle down somewhat. at worst, he lashes out and becomes aggressive. he finds it hard to avoid triggers because he doesn't know what his triggers are because he refuses to think about it. it leads to insomnia due to the nightmares that only seem to get worse the more he continues refusing to acknowledge it, and he's deeply paranoid to a degree that might seem comical to people that don't know better.

obsessive-compulsive tendencies: comes mostly in the form of skin picking that makes his already scuffed up skin look even worse. he picks at his arms and shoulders mostly, sometimes his chest, and sometimes at his knuckles which he's also fond of biting at. these are things he covers up and, ironically, add to his already awful self-esteem. otherwise, he focuses on controlling things wherever he can, be it controlling situations or his environment or other people. even his seemingly chaotic work environment is something he's carefully arranged; folders and files and notes arranged specifically in a way he's comfortable with and gets deeply upset with people messing up even slightly.

his addictions also come into play here; the better he can come off of any substance, the more in control of the situation he is.

he's obsessive with note-taking at times, generally at work, but it can slip out into his everyday life. if he's not scrawling down notes only he'll be able to decipher at the moment, he's meticulously cataloguing every single thing in the moment to write down later. he likes to know that he has information written down so he can reference it or read over things he might have brushed off before. this is all due to his shitty memory. which leads us to ... !

brain injury: jean had a pox infection in his youth that led to scarred skin, and complications with infection led to long-term problems with his health. a lot of his emotional dysregulation stems from this, and he either expresses emotions on mute or full volume, making him seem volatile and unpredictable at times. it doesn't help that his impulse control is affected too, making him more likely to snap first, ask questions second. he has poor memory both long- and short-term as a result of this, and a lot of his obsessive tendencies come from this.

his case was, by all accounts, pretty mild, and he has managed to get a handle on a lot of his worst issues - which is hard to believe to most people who interact with him frequently, but it's the truth - though it's still something he has trouble with. he jokes about it frequently, though a lot of the time people brush it off as a different way of calling himself stupid. outside of jokes, he keeps it to himself, in case people think less of him for it.
SEX & GENDER // gender is as simple as it can be: transgender male, very much cis passing, comfortable in his masculinity, but doesn't advertise the fact he's trans by any stretch of the imagination. He's a little paranoid about it, given how Revachol acted about LGBT people, and to be openly LGBT in the RCM would be suicide, and that paranoia carried over to Denouement. The longer he spends here without encountering that same sort of hostility, the less he worries about it, but the paranoia still looms over him and prevents him from getting too comfortable.

He's pre-surgery in every way, with his chest being small enough to be unnoticeable in his current physique, though he still tries to avoid being shirtless due to that same paranoia. He had enough connections back home to get his hands on testosterone, but the paranoia makes him nervous to seek out anything in Denouement, legal or otherwise.
HEADCANONS: //

Absolve this land of a Queen Who feasts while we wean a small, hopeless nation

TRIGGER WARNING
for self harm and suicide attempts in this section. they have been marked.


HEIGHT: 6'3 / 190CM
WEIGHT: ~200lbs. big.
EYE COLOUR: light grey
HAIR COLOUR: black with some greying. RIP.

Jean maintains perfect posture whenever possible, which is mostly always in a professional setting, making him seem just slightly more imposing than he otherwise might. He tries to keep it up around other people in general, but he’s more likely to slouch as if the idea of taking up more space than necessary is a weight in itself. He knows when to straighten up as a threat, and that’s all that matters to him.

His hair is jet black, often swept aside and out of his face and cut short at the back and sides, with the length of the latter two being seen as an indicator of how likely he is to respond well to anything. Same goes for his facial hair, which is also black, growing into a goatee long before it begins to fill out elsewhere; a fuller beard means a more irritable Jean. There's a few grey hairs beginning to show themselves in his beard and near his temples, making him look older than he actually is. He tries to keep on top of his head hair of all kinds, but it doesn't always work.

His eyes are a very light grey colour, under heavy lids, lined with thick black lashes with deep dark circles underneath. His eyebrows are thick and almost constantly knitted together in some kind of frown. "He's like one of those sled dogs, you know? With the weird white eyes?" a fellow RCM officer once commented, "It feels like him looking at you means you're about to get bitten or something. Wouldn't put it past him. Or tempt him."

His roman nose is slightly off-set from being broken during an argument with Harry. Naturally. His teeth are fine; they're straight, a little less stained by smoking than they should be, which he's thankful for. He's missing a molar from another fight with guess the fuck who. His smiles always seem uncertain, or tense and closer to a wry sneer than an actual smile, and he has a habit of covering anything bigger than that with his hand... not to make him moe or anything.

His face has obvious scarring, remnants of a pox infection in his youth that he didn't escape entirely unscathed. His cheeks and nose are the worst affected, with many deep pock marks littering across. Front and centre, the first thing people notice, and a huge blow to his self esteem whether he likes it or not. Underneath that scarring, he's at least told he's classically handsome, but refuses to believe that's the case. The same scarring is visible across his back and shoulders also, but most people don't see that if he can help it. Other scars and evidence of injury are spread across his body, ranging from one obvious bullet hole near his hip, to minor cuts that healed wrong. His hands are covered in the smaller ones, with some burn scars from cigarette accidents. There's a large cut on his left forearm from, you guessed it, an argument with Harry while the man had a bottle in hand, and there's further pock marks across both arms from that same pox infection.

[TW] There's some evidence of self-harm on his arms and thighs; cuts too precise to be anything but intentional, with a handful of very obvious cigarette burns during times he was really going through it. The most harrowing is a thick line down the centre of his left arm from, thankfully, he thinks, over ten years ago. He tries to avoid giving himself physical evidence of his mental health struggles. [/TW]

Physique-wise, he's ripped, quite simply. He's less Hollywood underwear model and more rugby player, adding to his more imposing form. He only started working out to control Harry a little better, but he realised it was slightly calming to just work out every morning before work, and now it's a habit he can't bring himself to break. Also, he thinks it looks good and makes people less likely to question his Masculinity.

He mostly dresses in smarter clothes, preferring to look professional. It certainly works, with all of his gruffness and sleep-deprived appearance somehow doing wonders for his authority. People like a smartly dressed man who lives for the grind. While his work clothes are smart and well-fitting, he's fond of wearing larger winter coats in, well, winter, and something lighter that drapes in the warmer months; it all really just adds to his old-school detective look.

Outside of work, it's usually sweatpants and a t-shirt that's a little too large for him. back home they were usually all visibly worn with some being in his possession since he was a teenager. He's not trying to impress anyone, he's going to bed.

And finally, just for the full immersion, his voice: See this post. I use the voice known as "Jean 1.0", the one that was just a british guy doing a french accent for fun. For those that can't listen, he's almost offensively French, and long-term chain smoking has made his voice into a near constant growl. He sounds pissed off even when he isn't.

i got your initials inside a heart tattoo; we two in vermillion, we two a lovers coup

PERMISSIONS // obviously this is for ooc knowledge and your muse won't know this, but it's probably good for weighing out risk/reward.
nicknames: he's very used to being called by his title or surname so switching from that to just calling him 'jean' is the high friendship stat speedrun strat. like calling him jean at the right moment will snuff out whatever bad mood might be brewing, it's a sort of magic trick. he doesn't mind nicknames as a whole. he barely even makes a fuss about them, but might make a face if you use embarrassing ones while he's trying to be professional or serious. the safest bet with nicknames is simply 'vic' or 'JV', but cuter ones will soften him up easily ( ´_ゝ｀)

touching jean: he doesn't mind. he worked with harrier who was very touchy-feely, so he's a bit desensitised. he might be a bit less open to it if you're a client and he's working on a case for you. this also highly depends on his mood so pissing him off directly then trying to go for the shoulder touch will probably risk getting like chokeslammed or something.

hugging jean: he needs it, but he's much less accepting of it even from friends. his job often requires delivering a lot of bad news, and as with above he got a lot of it from harry, so he's at least used to it. he just won't be kind about it if he doesn't care for it somehow.

flirting with jean: ... please LMAO. he's really not a flirtatious person, but like with touching, he's only really willing to put a hard boundary down about it if it's a client that's doing it. he's not used to being hit on at all and it'll probably kill him. but like... do it anyway. he won't stop you. the only real problem is he's very hide discomfort/nervousness behind jokes type of person, so if he does attempt to flirt back it will be difficult to tell if he's genuinely bad at it or if he's just being silly. for the record, he can't tell either, but sometimes it might work out for him.

kissing jean: pretty much exclusive to people he's dating or at least interested in romantically. any attempts will be met with a polite turn of the head so it goes to his cheek instead. or if he's not quick enough, a suggestion to keep that shit to yourself. even one night stands don't get this luxury.

sexual anything with jean: this one is tricky. he's open to one night stands, but they'll probably involve substances so he can give less of a shit about it, which is a problem in itself. he really tries to avoid anything more than giving mouth and hand stuff then leaving before his partner can reciprocate. he's extremely touchy about people trying to. well. touch him. and if he's in a relationship then he'll need to really trust his partner before anything sexual happens. trans moment!

fighting with jean: he's not the type to throw hands, but he definitely won't cow if you try to start something. do no harm, take no shit and the like. it's inevitable given his attitude toward people at times. it's just suggested you know how to fight or hold your own beforehand, because his muscles aren't just for show lol.

injuring jean: feel free <3 i love an injured boywife. nothing too long-term or lethal of course, but breaking bones and the like? yeah. rough him up.

killing jean: try not to! he's not immortal!

reading jean's mind: fine! just be aware there'll be some self-loathing and deeply depressive thoughts in there. please don't do this unless you're comfortable with the more extreme kinds of those depressive thoughts.