GoreFish
Posts : 2909
Join date : 2010-05-01
Age : 30
 | Subject: Johan Frideswide  Wed Jul 14, 2010 2:36 pm | |
| Name: Johan Frideswide Age: 38 Bounty: 45.000.000 (Overthrowing regimes, killings of mainly nobles, lately participation in wars and serving under yonkou Anubis....) Species: Human Occupation: Revolutionary is a full time job to him. But before he was a revolutionary, he was a historian, and still holds great interest in history. Allegiance: Revolutionary Home Village/Ocean: West Blue Appearance: Johan isn't very tall, standing about 5'8'', and, even though he doesn’t really notice, actually pretty handsome. Hours of working in the sun as a revolutionary, a historian (he often used to be at archeological sites), and, even before that, a street kid have gotten him a tan, though not a particularly even one. All the hard work also made him muscular, but not overly, he's still very thin, almost scrawny because he often forgets to eat when he's at really into his work, whether it’s digging for ruins or planning uprisings. There are many mostly smaller scars on his body, most of them not from fights, as one might assume, but from the many accidents he gets himself in thanks to his extraordinarily bad luck. Of course, even with wounds, he hardly ever rests or even sits still, and so even the smallest injuries often don’t get a chance to heal properly, resulting in even more scars. His dirty brown hair is long, reaching a little below his shoulders, and he keeps it tied in the back for mostly practical reasons, but can't really do anything about the short streaks falling into his face. Living on a ship with a crew made up of multicultural, male, mostly extremely disorganized misfits means it’s rarely ever cut properly, so it’s always a bit messy. It’s mostly covered by a light brown hat, also for practical reasons, since he had, and still has to work in the sun a lot. His eyes are a very light green, they don't match with the rest of his face very well but aren’t unusual enough to stand out. He's very shortsighted and would actually need glasses, but he doesn't wear them often. They'd just get dirty or break, anyway. Aside from that, Johan also doesn’t find the time to shave as much as he should, so he always has a little stubble on his face. As for clothes, mostly, he wears washed out, white or beige-ish tank tops or t-shirts, as long as it has short sleeves and fits him, he’ll put it on, who needs style anyway (short sleeves are important because he gets hot easily, and often works in warm temperatures). He tugs them into the loose pants he often wears, they used to fit him better, but nowadays, he has to wear them with a belt. They come in a wide color variation of beiges and browns. Over those pants, Johan wears tough, black boots. Mostly, to protect him from cold, sun and unwanted looks, he also wears a light beige cloak over his usual clothing, with a barely used hood attached to it. For all the stuff he has to carry around with him (notes, his glasses, the occasional book…) a slim, muddy green, obviously old bag has to suffice. And then, of course, there's the band he wears around his arm, every revolutionary following him gets one, a simple piece of cloth in dark green, with dark red stripes. They didn't really have the money for anything more fancy than that. On occasions where looking like a complete slob wouldn’t be an advantage, he also has some rather nicely tailored suits, mostly in light colors. If he tries, he can actually manage to look and act a real gentleman when he wears them, though the occasion rarely ever arrives. Still, no one can say all those lessons in proper etiquette were for nothing. History: The long version is below, here's the short one: -grew up in the slums -happened to save the princess who had to flee during a revolution when they were both just children -brought her back to the palace when her father took control again - lived there, learned a lot, got married to the princess -ended up finding out the king was not exactly as just as he had wished him to be, after years of trying to change him, he saw no other way but to stop his injustice with force, his wife chose to stay by her father’s side -started a revolution -his wife accidently got killed during the fights, he brought his children to another country -the revolution quickly overtook the other nations on the island -after the government started paying a little too much attention to him, he went into hiding -is recently looking to get back into business, and has found quite a few new allies already - Spoiler:
Johan Frideswide was born and grew up in the slums of Fontou, capital of Etiarre, a small nation on a small island, famous for its rich variety of wines, high sum of money spend on the many wars against the other nations it shared the aforementioned small island, Malay, with, and the result of such a loss of money: high taxes and a very, very poor population. Johan’s parents were part of that population, as their family had been for generations, and no one held high hopes for Johan to be anything except that: poor, and possibly to die an early death, as two of his five siblings, Louise and Hugo had. The rest of them; Johan, the eldest after Louise died, Charlotte, Sophie and Felix had no such excuses as death to keep them from working hard so their family could make it. Johan himself worked many jobs, most not exactly legal.
For the poor though, it didn't really matter what they had to do to survive, and much less who they were unable to pay their taxes to. There was no patriotism in them, why should they care about the country if the country didn't care about them? Why care about god if god obviously didn’t care for them?
And so, barely anyone noticed when the country was taken over by one of its neighbors and the royal family had to flee- Johan was eleven at that time, and his initial wishes that this new ruler would change anything didn’t take long to be crushed, as their next king simply absorbed their army and doubled their taxes. War expenses, they said. They’ll need more soldiers soon, they said. Johan didn’t care what they said; he only wondered what conflict could be so important that it made the king take the money they needed to pay for what little food they could get their hands on. What kind of war was this, that had the people all the way up there in their shiny new castle could look out of their windows out onto their land, and then sign the next tax increase anyway. His father would always say that it was because they couldn’t see as far as the slums from their golden thrones. Johan didn’t really understand that though.
Despite all their poverty and despite all he had to do to survive, though, Johan had a heart as big as any castle, and when he found a girl collapsed on the street, he did something that he wasn’t really ever supposed to do. He brought her to his home, and he laid her down in the sleeping place he shared with Felix, the rug close to the fireplace, and he took care of her as good as he could with his lacking medical skills and no real materials. Until today, he doesn’t really know why he felt compelled to do so, after all, he had found people collapsed on the street before, and he’d always had to walk away and leave them to their fate. Maybe it was because she was somewhat better dressed, and not as malnourished as everyone else, most likely one of the children the merchants sometimes dropped off, unwanted for one reason or another. Maybe it was that, with how obvious it was from her light skin, her weak physique, her softness that she’d never really done any work, It was likely that, even if she’d wake up again, she’d likely die without anyone showing her how to survive. Maybe he was just sick and tired of having to walk by and not changing anything for the better, not his life, not his parent’s or sibling’s lives, not this country, nothing. Maybe he just wanted to have control over something, anything, wanted to believe that he didn’t have to stand by helplessly while everything always changed for the worse.
Whatever it was, his parents weren’t okay with it at first. They could barely feed the children they had now, they couldn’t take in another one, no matter how cruel that seemed. Upon closer inspection though, they suddenly seemed a lot happier with keeping her. Johan didn’t really understand why they had changed their minds. They told him she was the princess, their old princess, the only heir to their old kings’ throne, and it was always good to have a princess owe them. Johan still couldn’t say he really understood. But he would, someday.
So, the girl lived with them, and Johan and she grew quite close. In the beginning, it was hard. She was mistrusting, and she didn’t know how to behave towards lower class people, since she’d never met them, and a lot of the things they had to do to survive scared or disgusted her. But she was ready to learn, at least, and so she was taught, by Johan, and she helped out as well as she could. After two years, she had turned into quite a little pickpocket, and Johan had to admit she was more skilled at haggling than he was. And sometimes, he swore they even had fun.
After three years, she was 11, he was 13, the old king returned from his exile, and he wanted his throne back. He claimed it with the help of his cousin in law, twice removed, the king of another one of the many nations, who wanted him out of his castle, and back in his own. None of those details mattered to the folks in the slums, though. Of course, they got to feel there was another war, and there was a new guy on the throne or something, but all of that war monging and the throne changing had, at some point, lead to a carelessness towards whom they were fighting against, and who they were fighting for, allegedly. They were always fighting for themselves, their families, they weren’t fighting for a king or queen or president, whatever, they were fighting to survive. And so it wasn’t really all that surprising that Johan and his friend, Anika, realized that her father was back in charge, and that it was time for her to return to him.
Though the sadness as her departure was great, as everyone had grown to like her a lot, it was still agreed upon that she belonged with her father, and that she’d make a great queen someday. So, Johan brought her back, something that was harder than it seemed, since the guards weren’t exactly willing to let them into the castle, dirty little kids they were. Luckily, they found another way: the catacombs were delightfully unguarded, and extremely scary, to Anika more so than to Johan, who didn’t even have any idea something like this existed. After they had gotten into the castle, it was just a matter of getting past the guards, something that wasn’t hard until they had to get into the throne room. After it had become obvious the two guardsmen would not move from their posts any time soon, Johan acted as a decoy, running like hell from the two while Anika was reunited with her father. What exactly happened between them, he can’t say, since he was busy fleeing from increasingly angry guards, but when he was finally caught and dragged before the king (normally, he’d just have been thrown out, but getting to the throne room had been impressive enough to at least wonder if he’d been an assassin of sorts), the monarch was more than happy to see him, and could not thank him enough for saving his dear, precious daughter.
After all he had done, having him and his family live in the castle with them, working in higher, more lucrative jobs, was only natural for the king, and Johan was not so stupid that he’d turn an offer like that down. Both he and Anika were more than happy to be able to stay together, since they’d been inseparable the last three years.
It also gave him the oppurtunity to study. And study he did. He was insatiable, reading through the whole library as soon as he had learned how to read. Anika would often sit with him and watch him. He wondered why she never got bored. He wasn't thinking about, or analysing the texts, he simply absorbed all the knowledge that was offered to him, not limiting himself to one subject, everything was new and exciting after all. Soon, he focused on history as his main interest, and became more and more adapt in it, soon calling himself a historian, though he’d only really become one much later.
He was also taught other things, fencing, shooting, horse riding, dancing, and, more than anything, etiquette. Since Anika herself had gotten a bit rusty in how to behave like a princess during her time in the slums, they suffered through the last one partly together, partly in separate lessons, where the girls; Charlotte, Sophie and Anika learned how to curtsey and pick out dresses, or whatever they were doing (Johan only has the things Anika told him later on, often with a lot of complaints about how she’d never need to know those things anyway), while Johan and Felix learned how to be true gentlemen. After a while, all of the children had transformed into proper upper class youths, though of course, neither Anika nor Johan ever left their wild side behind them. Mostly, it was Anika who got them into trouble, dragging Johan along with her on the wildest adventures, but they faced their punishments together.
Over time, they grew ever closer, and when he was 21 and she was barely 19, it wasn’t a big surprise to anyone when he asked his father for her hand (of course, the two of them had already decided they’d get married no matter what he’d said, even if they’d have to move to a different country for it). The king hesitated; after all, Johan was not a noble, and not even close to a good match for a princess. In the end though, his daughter convinced him with a mix of threats and pleas, and the two were married that same year. And no one had to wait long for the next heir to the throne, either, about eleven months later, their first daughter, Abigail, was born, which surprised them both somewhat, since they hadn’t actually planned on having a child so soon, despite royal customs, they didn’t really feel ready to be parents. Of course, when they laid eyes on the little girl, all those worries were blown away, and both of them instantly fell in love with her.
Of course, though, the slums never left Johan. He hoped, of course, that life had gotten better down there, hoped for it very much, but as it was, he didn’t know, and that doubt was plaguing him. He wanted to believe that the king, his father in law, who he knew to be a somewhat proud, but honorable man, had seen and changed all those things that had tormented his family in the slums, but from his golden throne, could he really see that far? It took him until a year later until he finally rode out to the slums to see for himself. Why it had taken him that long, he couldn’t say- maybe it was that he had always given the king the benefit of doubt, had not wanted to think that this man might be the very one responsible for the ongoing wars, which caused the ongoing poverty. But he couldn’t let his daughter live in a world where only luck had separated her from being born under the circumstances he had been born in: in the slums, the very same place he visited to silence his fears. It didn’t have the intended effect, as what he saw wasn’t better in any way- if anything, it was worse.
When he rode back to the castle, the first thing he did was confront the king. The discussion that ensued took hours, hours during which Johan learned the following: 1. The nobility thought itself a higher race of humans, which gave them the right to treat their subjects whichever way they wanted, 2. No one in the upper class could actually imagine just how bad it was, 3. The war was much more important right now, what with the kingdom being in debt, 4. They were in debt because the war had gone on for so long, 5. No one knew why it started, or when, and 6. How dare he call the war not justified at all, it had been fought for generations, does he imply that the kings ancestors had poor judgment??
After Johan saw how little this sort of fighting would accomplish, he, for a few seconds, considered just strangling the old man and getting on with it, but that old man was also his daughters grandfather, and his father in law, and so, he simply left. For a while, he simply brooded on his own, but it didn’t take Anika long to make him share his worries with her, and together, they decided to work towards ending this war, even though both knew, somewhere inside of them, that it wouldn’t really help the poor anymore, it was too late for that, the system had adapted to this imbalanced class system, and ending the war wouldn’t change it, not really. Still, in the following four years, they both did work as hard as they could, they made deals and forged contracts, bribed and talked and actually managed to be acceptable parents despite all that.
Still, no matter where they turned, they met more stubborn men and women unable to let go of whatever old grudges they held, and with every door they heaved open, two other doors closed. It was a losing battle, and both of them soon had to admit it was. During all this time, Johan grew more and more bitter, and was more and more disgusted with the country, the nobles, the system, but also the people, who just sat idly by and endured whatever was done to them. After seven years of working for peace, never achieving anything, he started to go down a different path, secretly. He had weapons, gunpowder, building materials, but also books, flyers, articles, many of them written by himself, shipped to different parts of the nation, where his contacts hoarded the goods, and distributed the revolutionary material, the flyers, books and articles to the people. Dissatisfaction grew in the poorer parts of the country, and quickly turned into agitation, and two years later, the nation was on the verge of an uprising- but not quite enough to start a revolution, the people needed leaders to show them how to use their rage in a way that’d accomplish something. And that was where Johan hesitated. He might’ve learned a lot about military maneuvers, leading skills, all he’d need, but right now, he was also still working for peace, no matter how bitter he was and how much he had grown to hate the nobles. And let’s not forget: he was still married to one. His family was still working in the castle, though he had no doubt they’d make it through, as they always did. His decision was taken from him, though, when Anika found out about his secondary activities. She’d never been a girl afraid of confrontations, and she wasn’t afraid now, either. She felt betrayed, rightfully. They had both worked together to create peace, and she had to find out he had been plotting against them? In a fit of rage, she yelled at him, called him a traitor, and worse, she even punched him in the face hard enough to break his nose, something he figured he’d deserved, and which managed to throw her off guard for long enough to calm down a little. While she was still furious, she was calm enough to bring him to the castles’ doctor, at least. Of course, she didn’t stop being angry at him, and continued snapping at him the next days, understandably, and only about a month later did she talk to him again. The whole talk was pure tension, and they didn’t really reach any conclusion, just like they didn’t the next day, or the day following it, or the whole next week, or the week after that. Meanwhile, the situation in the nation got more and more out of control, and both of them could tell that there would be uprisings, either in form of violent outbursts and mindless destruction, or as an actual revolution, but that only, and only, with the man whose ideas the people were ready to fight for as their leader: Johan Frideswide.
After a while, it all boiled down to Anika telling him to leave and end what he had started, but to not expect her to come with him, she couldn’t leave their mission for peace, or her family, and if he was planning to bring war and destruction, then they’d have to be enemies, for the time being. He tried to tell her that what he was bringing wasn’t like war at all, that it was the only way this nation could survive, they didn’t need more contracts, they needed a new system, this old one had outlived its usefulness long ago. But he couldn’t convince her of the rightfulness of his ideals, until the end, she was sure that what he was doing was the wrong way, and who was he to blame her, really?
In the end, he had gotten so bitter and angry at her not seeing things his way, no matter how much he tried to make her, that, in his anger, he left her and his little daughter in favor of the battle he had chosen. He didn’t even know Anika was pregnant with their second child at that time, and while he was stirring up the populations’ anger and distributing the weapons his contacts had hoarded, she tried to hint to her father that danger may be on the way. She could not say, however, what form this danger took exactly, since the king, who had never been quite satisfied with Johan as his daughter’s husband, had even gone so far as to have him excluded from inheriting the crown himself, would no doubt not hesitate to have him hunted down and executed, should his plans become known. No matter how much she despised what he did; Anika still loved the man, and having him executed? Maybe she should have proven herself a strong regent, had she revealed his plans, there had been a good chance of their failure, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it, no matter the cost. After all, she was displeased with what the monarchs did as well, to say the least, and she knew how frustrated he was that her way of doing things; peace through diplomacy, contracts between the upper classes, didn’t ever seem to work out for them. That he still held the needs of the lower classes especially close, and could not stand to see them suffer. She still didn’t believe that trying to bring peace through war was the right thing. The next system, the one that would replace it: was there really any way to say that it would be any different? That it’s leaders wouldn’t be corrupted, and even if they weren’t, that they’d stop the wars, and try to help the poor? It wasn’t that easy, she knew. The only way she saw was to find conditions that had the countries help each other, instead of fighting, so that their economy would work again, and the standard of living would slowly be raised. In other words: She saw hope for the nation as it was where Johan saw none. And because of that, they went their separate ways, still in love with each other, still lamenting that it had to come this way, but neither about to back down: This was more important than their marriage, this was about so many more lives than only theirs, and both knew it.
Starting the actual revolution took little time, the mindset that Johan had created with his writings, the suffering the population was being put through, and his status as a poor upstart, as well as a friend of the lower classes, were all that was needed for people to follow him into battle readily- a little too readily perhaps, as he more often had less control over them than he’d like to admit.
The battles took around one year until the castle fell, and the royal family with it. It took even Johan by surprise, as the decisive battle had been neither planned nor ordered by him, in fact he had been about to take up negotiations with the royal family, as the silence between him and his wife had been broken by a messenger informing him of the birth of his son, Adrian. Fearing for the safety of his entire family, and now his newborn son too, Johan found himself unable to attack the castle, even if only to arrest the royals. Not to mention he had grown a bit weary of the lasting battle against those he loved, and increasingly wanted to be reunited with them, even though he never planned on changing his mind on his goals and believes. He might have waited a little too long for the more impatient amongst his followers, and so they took matters into their own hands. The battle had been short and violent, since it came as a surprise to everyone at the castle, hadn’t there been negotiations offered? Later, of course, this was laid out by the government as a particularly low down strategy. Betraying his families trust in him to be able to get a surprise attack on them? Not to mention both the king and his daughter, the young princess Anika, had been killed as soon as the furious masses had found their way inside! What a monster that man must be… his own family…
The truth is, when Johan heard of the battle taking place, it was already too late to stop it, even though he did try. He arrived just a bit too late to save his stepfather, and his wife, who had been killed on sight, despite all the times he told everyone to take them prisoner, should they ever see them. The rage he had planted in their hearts had been stronger than their rationality. Not to mention there had been rumors…. That their beloved leader was held back by his bonds to the royals. That they poisoned his heart with lies and false promises, and tried to keep him from going on because they knew they’d lose. No one wanted that. No one could ever use their leader, their idol like that! Still, when Johan arrived, they listened. Nothing could be done to save the king or Anika anymore, and so his first thought, his first fear were the children: Adelaide and his son, who he’d never met. The time for grieving would come, but they needed him. Of course, in his daughter’s case, she didn’t even want to have him close. She had been the next to be executed, and no matter how much Johan wished to delete the images in her head, he knew she had seen her mother’s death, and that she wouldn’t forgive him. Whenever he looked at her, she jerked back, when he tried to talk to her, she’d cry, and when he’d try to touch her, she’d scream, and shake, and try to free herself. He wanted nothing as much as to tell her everything would be fine, even when it wouldn’t be, to embrace her and stroke her hair like he used to when she fell down and injured herself, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t her father to her anymore; he was a monster in her eyes, nothing more and nothing less. That realization hurt him more than it hurt her. But who was he kidding, anyway. He couldn’t raise those children. Not after what he had done. And even if he could ever forgive himself, the government wouldn’t. Their island might be small, he knew, but he wasn’t so naïve to think that pirates who robbed one merchant ship a week got a bounty, and he’d just get away after overthrowing a government-friendly monarchy and killing its’ ruler. No, no, he was sure that he had made some enemies. But it was too soon to stop.
Johan had studied history, and he was no fool in those things. He never planned on appointing himself ruler of a country. Those who did always ended half mad, corrupt, betraying their own ideals. He didn’t plan on ending up that way. He was half mad already, not with power, but with grief and guilt. The other parts, he didn’t plan to add to his list of flaws. No, the people had made this country the way it was now, it should be them to decide what happened to it next. Johan turned his back to them, for a little while, while he brought his children where he knew they’d be save. Friends of him, well, former friends, since they’d been Anikas friends, fair people, good people, but still royalists, and not exactly enthusiastic about his ideas of what a state should be like. They needed a bit of convincing, that was sure, but after a long talk with them about what Anika would have wanted and how those were her children as well, actually, when he was being brutally honest, more her children than his, they agreed to take them in and hide them as well as their money and connections enabled them to.
When Johan returned to Malay, he found it in chaos still. He wasn’t surprised; a government wouldn’t found itself after all. The revolutionaries had split up into groups, and all of them were looking to him to prove them to be the rightful rulers. He could do so by just pointing his finger at one of them, at any time, but instead, he told each and every one of them the same thing: That he was only there to overthrow governments, give the population a little push into the direction that’d have them start over, but they’d have to find the way they wanted to start over in themselves. That was none of his business. If anything, he was a connection to the old regime, and they should, by all means, exclude him from the process of forming another. None of them were really happy about that, and none of them were really satisfied with his answer, but Johan remained steadfast, he didn’t intervene in any of the political discussions or even the fights. It was all in their hands now.
Things didn’t work out quite as he had expected them to, though. Instead of one group winning out against the others, maybe to be overthrown again, maybe not, they all formed a whole when word got out that Johan was looking at the other nations of Malay in disdain, that he thought them to be no better than Etiarre had been. And truly, he did despise them. Lead by warmongers, they recreated variations of the same scene he had already witnessed in Etiarre: The poor got poorer, the taxes higher, sons were dragged from their mothers to serve in the army, for a cause no one remembered anymore. Those wars had become a contest of one upping one another, and the people who had the least to do with them were the ones to suffer for them most.
Most groups in Etiarre had grown tired of fighting over their new regiment, and were more than happy to return to fight a common, and known, enemy, under the leadership of the man who had brought them victory once more. Johan didn't even need to do anything; the revolution basically started itself with a bat of his eye. And for a while, he even played along. But after a while, he’d had enough. Enough bloodshed and grief for a lifetime, that’s what those revolutions had brought him, the people didn’t even need him for their fight anymore, they didn’t even want him to lead them, they wanted Johan Frideswide, the hero, the great leader, the idol.
Johan didn’t know how the revolution finally ended, how Malay became a unified country, always a little unsteady when it came to who was in power, but always a base for revolutionaries, at least when they were plotting against any country outside of its own borders. He read articles about it much, much later, but he left before he could witness any of that happen. In the end, he often wonders whether what he had done there might have been a mistake, whether he should have been stricter, or should have left sooner, or not at all, but when all is said and done, the people had spoken, and they still did, even though it looked like in the end, he had never truly reached the peace he wanted. People were still fighting for power. Different people, same scenario. Sometimes he wonders whether Anika was right. But there’s no turning back anymore, he knows.
After Johan left Malays, he went into hiding. As he had expected, the government had put a bounty on his head, and not a low one either, 30.000.000 it had been back then. That attracted some nastier types. Types who usually wanted his head. During the next three years, he moved around a lot, lived many lives, none of them for long, he posed as an archaeologist, an investigator, even a coach once, teaching little kids how to fight. During all this time, only Emil followed him, and after a while of protesting that, Johan let him. Emil had been there all the time, after all, as a stable boy at the castle, then at his side during the revolution, always quietly watching over him. For a while, Johan had even suspected him to be a spy of sorts, but that proved ridiculous, the royal family was dead, and Emil was not a friend of the government. Would he ever have bothered to ask, maybe Emil would have told him that he was watching over him because Anika made him promise he would. Besides, there had been an ongoing increase in clumsiness and bad luck in the revolutionaries behavior, starting after Anika’s death. But he kept that to himself.
Their hiding only came to an end when Johan was found. Not by bounty hunters, that had happened before, not by the government, he marine, pirates, or whoever else might come looking for him, but by a single man, going by the name of Jackson. He was the one to convince Johan that he was needed again, and that he had a much bigger enemy this time: the world government. How he did so? Why, revealing that would be a massive spoiler. Fact is, he did. And after a while, Johan was ready to seek new followers. Of course, this being a battle against the world government, he had to find many allies, powerful allies, and allies in every corner of the world. And so, he made his primary objective to travel around the world, spreading his message, trying to get as many people on his side as possible. And some of them, some particularly desperate or idealistic souls chose to travel with him, follow him as his crew, and help him on his quest. That is, to give people the right motivation to help themselves. After that, he can move on. That’s one of the reasons Jackson chose him.
Personality:Johan isn't exactly what you'd expect a revolutionary leader to be. At least not on the outside: he's clumsy, humble, polite, he stutters sometimes and he's a bit on the shy side. One of the things not as obvious about him is that actually, he’s a real workaholic. He's so passionate about his ideals and goals; it's hard to even get him to eat something when he's working on a new plan, or anything else for that matter. It truly fulfills him, and whenever he sees or hears something that might be interesting, he can't let it be, no matter how unimportant it seems. He's not reluctant to take on hard work either, even though he's very clumsy, and almost always has some kind of bandage or wound somewhere from tripping and hitting his head/ arm/ waist/ leg... He just suffers from a severe case of bad luck, and that combined with his clumsiness adds up to a very dangerous life. Even if he doesn't do anything. How did he survive that long? Especially since he doesn’t ever just let others do the work, he always wants to be right in the middle of everything, be it fights, searches or discussions. Not because he’s after the attention, but because he feels extremely responsible for anything he comes up with, and anyone who has to carry out his orders, and he cannot stand to wait for news to be brought to him by someone else, when he could be experiencing them himself. So, he often finds himself doing all kinds of dirty work he actually shouldn’t, something that has attributed to people thinking he’s really close to those under his command, and would never make them do something he wouldn’t do himself. That is true, but has nothing to do with why he does hard, dirty work that normally, servants would do instead. He’s just a very softhearted, kind, caring man who really loves his family, but had to let go of them for his ideals, something his children, especially his daughter might never forgive him. He misses them every day, and he always carries a picture of them around with him. That might be why he always has a sad look in his eyes, even when he's smiling. But his kindness expands to everyone around him, and he has adopted his crew as his new family. To many of them, he is a legitimate father figure, something he’s rather good at naturally, since he's the kind of guy who you can't help but trust, and feel safe and secure with, even though nothing is farther from the truth, the man attracts danger in a way that is not even normal anymore. Still, most people feel compelled to tell him their deepest secrets and worries right away, and even if they don’t, just wait until he lays his arms around their shoulders and says, in a very sincere tone, something along the lines of “If there’s something wrong, anything at all, you know you can always talk to me, I am never too busy to listen to your worries.”... Don’t worry, he really won't tell anyone. He's just so very sincere, from the bottom of his heart. He truly is sorry if he has to steal or kill for his work, though in the end, that doesn't stop him from doing so. He tries to avoid it. If there’s one thing he’s learned from his personal mistakes, it’s to never be rash when it comes to violence. Always try the peaceful way first. He’d be a real pacifist by now, if he didn’t see the need for force when talking is no use. Because no matter how much he tries to talk people out of doing whatever he thinks wrong, underneath, he’s always considering, and always ready to use force if necessary. He’s generally very open, very friendly, but if one pays attention to the things he says, they might notice he never actually talks about his own problems, or his own worries, and much less of his own past. He might just find them not as important as the worries and problems of others, no matter how trivial they might seem. But there’s definitely also a large part of him that is just not ready to talk about those things with anyone, not even those closest to him. After all those years, he has yet to stop grieving and truly move on. It’s likely he never really will. Ship: "Anika", a rather small ship with six cannons, three on each side. It's got plain white sails. It was a present from Anubis, the yonkou, when Johan became one of his commanders. Ship Flag: He uses Anubis’ flag; he doesn't want one for himself. Devil Fruit: None Special Abilities:He's a good shooter, swordfighter, and martial artist, even though he has no real style. A jack of all trades, he can most likely find a way to survive any fight - if his luck will let him. He still tries to keep out of fights as much as possible, though. He's just too clumsy. Not talented at all. He's also a passionate and skilled orator, something you wouldn't expect from him. It earned him a large amount of followers all over the world, but especially in east blue. He tries to hide from them, too, since he knows how fast revolutions are brought up wherever he is. Learned Techniques (Keep it 1-25): None. He's happy if he doesn't have to fight. Weapons/Items: A rifle and a cutlass. Even though he shouldn't be allowed to carry weapons at all, as he often ends up hurting himself with them during fights. Goals: Create a world where everyone has the same rights, a just world. Of course, that means he'll have to bring the world government down, too. Oh, and he wants his family back, too. Though he knows it’s impossible, he still catches himself dreaming of a life where him and Anika got to raise their children together, be it with the revolution or without it.
Last edited by GoreFish on Wed Feb 06, 2013 2:18 pm; edited 6 times in total (Reason for editing : new and improved version!) | |
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