[hider=Dirk Messir]
[center][h2]Dirk Messir[/h2][/center]
[center][img]http://rs753.pbsrc.com/albums/xx178/zexionfangirl66/Decorated%20images/L.jpg~c200[/img][/center]
[center][h3][b]Basics[/b][/h3][/center]
[b]Name:[/b] Dirk Messir
[b]Epithet:[/b] “Black Hood” Dirk
[b]Race:[/b] Human
[b]Age:[/b] 22
[b]Gender:[/b] Male
[b]Appearance:[/b] Dirk is an incredibly pale individual, having spent most of his life never really experiencing the Sun. In fact, considering his apparently-uncut white hair and purple eyes, as well as his tendency to burn rather than tan, one would be excused if they mistook him for an albino… or a girl, since despite a height of around 190 cm, he possesses a very androgynous, even slightly feminine build, not helped by the fact that he only weighs 63 kg as a result of his “upbringing”.
For similar reasons, his preferred clothing is unnecessarily bulky, most obviously a very oversized black button-up coat large enough to hide all manner of items inside, complete with a hood of similar colour save the two thin white stripes running along either side. Other than this, he usually wears dark trousers and shoes, accompanied by white socks, a white undershirt, and a metal chain round his neck.
[b]Position:[/b] Scout, thief, helmsman, a minor degree of martial artist.
[b]Bounty:[/b] 0 Beli
[b]Jolly Roger:[/b] Very similar to a standard Jolly Roger. However, the background is white instead of black, and the skull is superimposed over a black hood that covers its eye sockets, complete with the same white lines as on Dirk’s own hood merging into the background.

[center][h3][b]Background[/b][/h3][/center]
[b]Ambition:[/b] Dirk has a burning need to fulfil his Divine Purpose. It would help him greatly if he knew what that actually was, but it stands to reason in his mind that literally all other actions he takes are a means to that ultimate end, to the extent that he believes he is guided by it at times.
[b]Likes:[/b][list][*]His Divine Purpose
[*]Food
[*]Not being seen
[*]Sneak attacking enemies who have not seen him[/list]
[b]Dislikes:[/b][list][*]Fighting
[*]Slavery
[*]Torture
[*]Parental separation[/list]
[b]Quirks:[/b] Dirk is not at all right in the head. A lifetime of abuse has left him unstable, even somewhat bipolar, with very few social limiters around those he does not consider his superior - amongst other things, he lacks the concepts of such complex things as “personal space” and “body language” and "how to laugh", and he is liable to launch barrages of verbal slander and insulting language at somebody for the slightest of provocations. Of course, he might also not, depending on the person and even his mood at the time.
[b]Personality:[/b] When not acting out at somebody, Dirk’s demeanour tends to include a lot of intense staring and quiet whispering, complete with head tilt. Around the general public and even those he knows more intimately, this remains the same; when in the presence of somebody he considers a superior, however, his attitude shifts instinctively to polite, reserved, and perhaps meek, complete with excessive apologising and slight panic if he thinks they are angry with him. Underneath external appearances, Dirk’s thought patterns are warped quite a bit, reflecting beliefs and behaviour patterns that are inconsistent with what everyone else thinks, and are generally absurd to experience.
That said, he does hold two truths of a more rational nature close to his heart: he misses his family, and he despises slavers, in particular the World Government officials who held him captive for the past several years. However, he avoids and almost fears direct conflict, having had the notion that resistance is useless beaten into him repeatedly, and so will not pursue either of these unless he can do so in a relatively safe manner, under which circumstances he will likely attempt to do so heedless of any pre-existing plans unless a very good reason why he shouldn't presents itself. Extrapolating from these, he also holds the bonds between family members to be sacred, and finds himself sickened at even the thought of their twisting for indecent purposes, such as parents abusing their children, or indeed of being broken entirely through separation of otherwise healthy relationships; it therefore stands that, in his mind, selling a child into slavery away from their parents is the most disgusting thing a person can do above all else, and he has decided in advance that if he ever finds somebody who does this, he will not rest until they lie dead at his feet, no matter how many people he has to sneak around to get to them.

[hider=History]
Dirk was born into slavery. It has been his whole life, and indeed his parent's lives too, and so in a way, it shaped his being before he was even born. Whilst his parents were kind enough, and their master not needlessly cruel, there was rarely time for Dirk to interact with his family growing up between the demands brought upon them and the dressing of wounds granted to them as the punishment for failure, and so he found himself cherishing every moment he had with them even as the lack thereof affected his development, especially once a baby sister was born to them five years after his own birth. By the age of seven, he was considered old enough to start working alongside the few other child slaves in his master's employ... and yet, for some reason, he was never put to work in this manner. Indeed, whenever he tried to join his fellows, the guards in his owner's employ deliberately stopped him from doing so, citing that he had another purpose than whatever the other slaves did; this, combined with later events, shaped a personal belief that he was in some way divinely blessed, and that he was intended to fulfill some great task that only he was capable of.

In fact, the "purpose" the guards spoke of was something else entirely. At the age of eight, he was abruptly wrenched from his family's arms, screaming and crying the whole time, and sold off to a new master, who he would later learn was the head of a noble family, and a moderately high-level official in the World Government - nothing like one of the fabled Celestial Dragons, but as horrifically callous as them nonetheless, and certainly far more awful than his previous master, particularly in combination with the spiteful actions of many of the man's other family members whenever they laid eyes upon him, though Dirk knew not the reason for their particular disgust of him. He was isolated from others for days at a time, subjected to brutal treatments intended to shape him in ways that would make him absolutely subservient to his "divine father", and for the slightest deviation from protocol- generally in the form of yet another attempt to hide from his captors and escape the horrors he was subjected to- he would be placed into an arena with an expert in the Six Styles, whom Dirk only ever knew as "The Battler". The Battler would promptly injure Dirk in a myriad of ways, generally leaving him unconscious or even near the point of death, before some other slave was dragged in and, through means Dirk remains unsure of to this day, forced to somehow grow out and use her own flesh to seamlessly knit together his, leaving it as unmarked as the day he was born. Naturally, this was a far more traumatic period in his life than his early childhood had been, and the brainwashing he was put through was instrumental in warping his mind to its current state.

The intended result, however, was not achieved. When he was twenty two, Dirk was called into his owner's bedchambers, and told that his true purpose was to act as a pleasure slave for the government official, having supposedly been moulded to possess a boyish, yet feminine charm about his person, both in physique and in mannerisms, or so the man claimed. Being uneducated in the ways of any sort of sexuality, Dirk wasn't actually sure what any of that meant; it became far more clear when the patriarch ordered Dirk to strip and get on the bed, and clearer still when he attempted to strip the boy himself after a confused refusal to comply. Dirk fought back with poor bastardisations of the very techniques he had been subjected by the Battler to over the years, and though they were ineffective by comparison, they did enough to knock his owner down upon one of his own fallen gold ornaments, cracking the official's skull open, and promptly causing him to expire.

At first, Dirk was ecstatic about this turn of events. Finally, he was free to do as he would! Or so he thought, until it occurred to him that maybe ownership would just pass on to the patriarch's next of kin, and that given how spiteful they were to him usually, they might well just have him murdered for this turn of events. And that wouldn't do. He had a Divine Purpose to fulfill, after all. With this in mind, Dirk fled the room, finding his way through the halls of the building, and for the first time managed to do so almost seamlessly, his escape aided by the capacity for stealth he had unwittingly honed over countless escape attempts, as well as a coincidental ruckus on the other side of the building caused by the Battler over a sudden loss of employment now that Dirk was "fully trained".

The ex-slave's pathfinding skills were not so well-honed, though, and after a series of bad turns, he found himself trapped, hiding in a room near his ex-master's son and a travelling merchant, selling a strange spiral-covered fruit, bright yellow-grey and shaped like a strangely-conical strawberry, that supposedly granted its consumer incredible power, but spoke to Dirk specifically of extreme wealth: previously the son's, now the merchant's, and, if Dirk could snatch the fruit and sell it on himself, soon to be his. The purchase was concluded, and the buyer foolishly declined to eat the fruit immediately, instead taking it to a nearby kitchen and leaving it covered up for later consumption. Dirk tailed him from the shadows, squirreled away the fruit and a sharp kitchen knife at his first opportunity to do so without being caught, and tried once again to find his way out.

This time, he succeeded. He soon found himself outside his owner's mansion for the first time in twelve years, and made his way to the island’s nearby capital with nothing more than rags on his back, a comparatively pitiful weapon in his hands, and a seemingly-priceless Devil Fruit hidden within his clothing; luck led him to a nearby clothing store, and the owner, after figuring out roughly what Dirk's story was, commiserated with him about his past and the heedless ruin that the World Government brought to those like Dirk, before giving him free pick of a few items in his store, plus the advice that perhaps the Devil Fruit in his possession shouldn't be shown off freely, and that maybe he should leave the island as soon as possible if he wanted to continue enjoying his stint as a free man.
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[center][h3][b]Combat Specialties[/b][/h3][/center]
[b]Skills and Abilities:[/b] 
[i]Tough Nut[/i] - Many years of torture and physical shaping over time have left Dirk a lot more difficult to harm than might be expected, and insensitive to pain regardless, meaning he is unlikely to care very much about blunt force blows unless they deal significant damage. That said, he does not possess the muscle to go along with his toughness, and is unlikely to cause a serious fighter much harm short of the few combat techniques he actually possesses, though he’s been working on fixing this issue as part of the crew.
[i]Stealth[/i] - In stark contrast to his lacking martial skill, Dirk is shockingly capable of disappearing when he wishes to, being more than capable of maneuvering around trained guards, dissolving into crowds, and sneaking up on people without their noticing. Most impressively, he seems to perform these feats almost by instinct, and yet he tends to disavow any claims that he is actually good at stealth, instead suggesting that his Divine Purpose is what has kept him alive and well in that sort of situation.
[b]Devil Fruit:[/b] N/A, though he does have a Devil Fruit in his possession at the moment.
[b]Haki:[/b] N/A
[b]Gear:[/b] Devil Fruit of an unknown type. Kitchen knife, used for backstabbing people.
[b]Fighting Style:[/b] Having been subjected to the Six Styles martial art across the span of his enslavement, Dirk claims to now be a master at it. In truth, he knows [i]of[/i] the techniques, and has a rough idea of how they're performed, but does not really have the physical power to perform most of them with much effectiveness; thus, most of his "techniques" for the time being are just normal things humans can do, like punching, kicking, dodging, climbing things, and cheap shots where he can get them in. Indeed, he desperately avoids having to resort to direct combat unless he can't help it, and even then prefers to try and use others as meatshields until he can slip behind a target and backstab them if at all possible.
[b]Techniques:[/b]
[i]Paper Drawing[/i] - Surprisingly, Dirk is capable of actually utilising this aspect of Rokushiki very effectively: Paper Drawing is intended to make the user's body go limp, and thus avoid attacks instinctively, like a piece of paper in the wind, and Dirk has unexpectedly succeeded in honing this technique to help him avoid the Battler's attacks, amongst other forms of torture over the years. Combined with his physical resilience, he becomes surprisingly difficult to put down in the rare situations where he is actually forced to engage in a fair fight.
[i]Finger Gun[/i] - Where Dirk’s Paper Drawing is well-trained to let him dodge by instinct, his Finger Gun is ironically more likely to be triggered on instinct: when attempting to attack a target with his bare hands, he is as likely as not to extend a single finger out to try and punch a hole in their body akin to a truncated bullet wound. Naturally, this is very likely to fail against more resistant foes, and past attempts to do this have led to many a sprained finger.

[center][h3][b]Nakama[/b][/h3][/center]
[b]Crewmate Name:[/b] A description of how you get along with and what you think of your fellow crewmates. Copy and paste once for each member apart from yourself. Remember to work these out together collaboratively. Leave this section out altogether until all the crew have been approved and the captain/first mate have been voted on.

[hider=YO HO, YO HO]
A pirate’s life for me! A PIRATE'S LIFE, PROPRO. [b]A PIRATES LIF[/b]
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