[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. Claims to be a mastar martial artist.
[b]Bounty:[/b] 28,000,000 Belli, wanted dead or alive for the murder of a noble, participating in slave revolt on Yuushuu Island, stealing a devil fruit, and escaping his owners.
[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 all 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
[*]Alcohol
[*]Laziness[/list]
[b]Quirks:[/b] Dirk is not at all right in the head. A lifetime of abuse has left him incredibly unstable to the point of schizophrenia, 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, erratic 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 heavily warped, reflecting beliefs and behaviour patterns that are delusional, or at least inconsistent with what everyone else thinks, and generally absurd to experience, as well as auditory, visual, and tactile hallucinations; a proper psychological evaluation would indicate schizophrenia, though it is unclear if his cognitive abilities are deficient in a manner consistent with such a diagnosis.
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 fourteen 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.

And so he stowed away on a ship leaving the island, and was promptly discovered and dropped off at the very next island they landed at. Seeing a need to escape further, Dirk stowed away on a second ship that happened to be leaving at the same time. As it happened, this was the Rum Runner, of the Red Rum Pirates; as it further happened, this same ship was promptly attacked by a force of Marines, who had supposedly received a tipoff about an "escaped criminal" aboard. Shortly after that fight was ended in the pirates' favour, Dirk was discovered by the crew, and asked to explain why he was on the ship by the captain.

Naturally, having told his story, the others promptly decided to head to Yuushuu Island to end the cruelty going on there, despite Dirk's pleas for them to do otherwise. After figuring out exactly how the local nobility were using its inhabitants as what amounted to a giant, generations-long money-laundering operation, the Red Rum Pirates managed to convince its inhabitants to revolt, to stop giving their hard-earned wealth to the rich bastards at the top of the pile and instead to overthrow them, and stayed on the island just long enough to ensure that practically every single civilian was involved in this full-blown rebellion.

After that, Dirk took up roles on the ship as they were needed. The ship needed somebody to steer whilst the navigator managed the compasses and log poses, so Dirk took on the role of helmsman; the crew needed somebody to scout out threats to them a few times, and it happened that Dirk's innate stealth was perfect for this job, despite his suggestions to the contrary; and when it came to the occasional need to steal, Dirk had already had the idea of selling his unknown Devil Fruit to somebody, then taking it back discreetly before it could be eaten. The Red Rum Pirates performed this last procedure repeatedly with the nobles on various islands they traversed, suggesting that the Devil Fruit would fail to work unless they kept it refridgerated for at least twenty four hours before consumption in order to give Dirk time to snatch it away. As they enter the Grand Line, however, Dirk's insistence that he is a master martial artist could spell his doom if he does not truly master his martial art... or maybe it won't, who knows.
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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] Currently unavailable; potential for Conqueror's Haki present.
[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 Art[/i] - Surprisingly, Dirk is capable of actually utilising this aspect of Rokushiki very effectively: Paper Art 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 Pistol[/i] - Where Dirk’s Paper Art is well-trained to let him dodge by instinct, his Finger Pistol 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]
As regards a lot of the other crew members, Dirk's lack of worldly experience and bizarre mindset has led him to misleading conclusions about some of their stranger aspects. Most notably, he has largely assumed that sometimes humans sprout animal features, or grow metallic body parts, or occasionally even turn into skeletons. By contrast, his lack of understanding about alcohol and why imbibers seem to become different people entirely makes him incredibly uncomfortable at best, and he often pushes the alcoholic crew members to stop drinking entirely because it's awful and bad and why would you do this.
[b]Caesar Inu:[/b] He hasn't been around long enough for Dirk to get a good impression of him. However, Dirk gets the impression that he doesn't do enough at the moment, in particular from his attempts to get Bonesword to come over to him using Dirk as a medium; the fact that he's part dog kind of alleviates this, though, since he is very easily petted.
[b]Bonesword:[/b] Despite nominally being Dirk's superior, he and Bonesword both see eye-to-eye on a lot of matters. This is perhaps because, whilst Bonesword is far more emotionally mature than his age would suggest, Dirk is far less so. Thus, Dirk often relaxes around Bonesword in a way that he wouldn't around people closer to his own age, and chats as best he can about themselves and their interests - mostly Bonesword's, since Dirk himself has understandably lacked the time to develop many hobbies of his own. The exception is how heavily Bonesword drinks, which Dirk still finds awful despite knowing that Bonesword can't actually get drunk.
[b]Slick Drake:[/b] Much like Caesar, Dirk thinks Slick is a bit too lazy for the ship's well-being, a consequence of Slick's job not usually involving a lot of work in his downtime. Unlike Caesar, Dirk also finds Slick's obsession with weapons and fire to be weird and off-putting, and generally finds he has little in common with him, though Dirk will admit he doesn't seem antagonistic. He is, however, redeemed by the food he cooks, which is the best food Dirk has ever eaten, and is therefore the best food in the world in his mind.
[s][b]Mizashima Isuza:[/b] Isuza seems alright to Dirk, though she does not seem to stand out personality-wise from anyone else on the ship, and he does not interact with her too frequently. Part of the problem is that both are socially inept, and so fail to meaningfully communicate anything when conversing; as a result, Dirk finds it difficult to gauge what Isuza is really like. Her nervous habit of pulling her own teeth out is rather offputting to him as well, if not mildly worrying for him given that he lacks the ability to regrow his own teeth the way hers do.[/s]
[b]Cedric D. Boone:[/b] As the ship's captain, Dirk's immediate response to Cedric is usually intense politeness and near-absolute obedience. Even so, he feels a certain amount of affection for Cedric, despite retaining his view that the man shouldn't drink so heavily and getting just a tad avoidant when he is; if there's anybody he immediately rushes to in the rare event of needing help cooling off, or who he feels safe opening up to when coaxed, it's Captain Boone.
[b]Lilliana Merrycure:[/b] Dirk finds Lilliana more distressing than he perhaps should, not specifically recognising the metallic symbiote on her back as anything abnormal, but at the same time finding her insistence on helping him wherever she can rather intrusive, and her mercurial attitude and weird attention span uncomfortably irregular. That said, he does recognise her positive attitude as a good thing, and when pushed will admit he appreciates the attention when it comes.
[b]Feya Nelson:[/b] In stark contrast to his acceptance of more blatant physical oddities within the crew, Dirk finds Feya's overly pale figure to be extremely odd, since few other humans he's seen have had this feature. A distinct lack of self-awareness about his own skin and hair tones may have been what led him to point this out to her, though his own hair-trigger temper exacerbated the resulting argument. They've since come to an understanding not to bring up skin tone either way, and Dirk has decided he likes her on account of her not messing around with weird turns of phrase that he may or may not understand, regardless of her other features, though he wonders whether this attitude is shared by her toward him. In order to try and get on her good side, and because whilst he is obviously a Six Styles master it seems like the other crew members are inhumanly stronger than him, he has asked to train with her as frequently as possible in order to get up to their level, since she's clearly the most physically fit member of the crew.

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