'Black Tie' Lawrence

[Burgundy]

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Name: Lawrence
Other Names: –
Epithet: “Black Tie”
Height: 6’0”
Build: Deceptive - Fit, yet concealed.
Age: 32
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Occupation: Criminal Accountant; Launderer
Bounty: 0

Total X-Poinz: 1352
Used X-Poinz: 1000

SPOILER: Click to show

{Full XPz Breakdown}
Earned X-Poinz Record:
+1352 (New System Conversion)

-300 (Nebu Nebu no Mi)
—Nebula Gas Production
—Astronomical Object Production
—Astronomical Object Manipulation

-200 (Work Ethic to Tier ★★)
‐200 (Unrealistic Deadlines to ★★)
-100 (Comet Genesis)
-100 (Star Birthing)

-100 (Starch King)
—Deadly Mundanity

Aspect Voucher Record:
+3 (Starting Aspect Vouchers)
+1 (1000 XPz)

-1 (Work Ethic)
-1 (Firm Handshake)
-1 (Unrealistic Deadlines)
-1 (Flawless Handwriting)

Remaining Aspect Vouchers: 0

Technique Voucher Record:
+3 (Nebu Nebu no Mi)
+2 (Work Ethic)
+2 (Unrealistic Deadlines)
+1 (Comet Genesis)
+1 (Star Birthing)
+1 (Starch King)

-1 (Cubicle)
-1 (Pay Cut)
-1 (Abrupt Discharge)
-1 (Crushing Workload)
-1 (Making The Rounds)
-1 (Sol Crusher)

Remaining Technique Vouchers: 4

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Personnel File

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Personality

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Level-Headed

Lawrence always takes a calm and unbiased angle on every situation, and considers every option available to him with equal weight before coming to decisions. His ability to separate his emotions from the situation is what has kept him alive for so long, but he does, ultimately, have limits to how much he can tolerate before a breaking point is reached.

Thankless

A man whose work is a mere stepping stone for others, not many care for or about him, and when they do, there's always some ulterior motive. He lives under this context, and treats everybody the same – with respect and due suspicion. Which isn't to say that he doesn't know what gratitude looks like, it's merely that it doesn't get shown to him, unconditionally.

Professional

Lawrence, despite his current position in regards to the law, is a very forthright and systematically-minded adult. All things have a right and wrong way to do them, and he doesn't like to bend rules which should be followed. To that end, he has standards that must be met before he takes any action against the better interests of authority or the client, though self-defense is, of course, at the very top of that list.

Courteous

Like any good salaryman he knows how to treat all people like a client. He uses polite, diplomatic language whenever possible in order to placate potentially aggressive people, and tries to be inoffensive to their way of life. Of course, as a pirate, it becomes a little difficult to work with your peers if you're too uptight, which leads to occasional 'breaks of character' strictly to fraternize with his clientele. However, at no point will he ever be rude to another human being, even when he's soundly kicking their ass.

Supportive

While he may not show it outwardly, he is in tune with the feelings of those around him – particularly those who are similar to himself. Lawrence can tell when people are trapped under the thumb of society and hierarchy. These are the people who are most likely to spark a proper reaction in him, the victims of authority and power who have to endure rather than thrive. These are the people he broke his shackles to help, after all, so it stands to reason they are his primary motivation to change the status-quo.

~~~

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Personal Skills

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Punctuality

Being late is unforgivable, but being early is a waste of time. Lawrence has calibrated his internal clock to an extreme degree, to stopwatch-like levels of precision. His ability to calculate the time is second to none, and his timing even in combat is uncannily precise. When paying attention, anyways.

Quick Change (Professional)

A skill he developed working under the admittedly unrealistic expectations of his boss, Mustard. The need to come into work on days off on very short notice meant he needed to get dressed nigh-immediately to make it on-time. Rather than buckle under the pressure, he rose to the occasion, and now he can put on a suit and tie a tie with only a moment's obscurement. Not that he really needs to anymore, since he wears it all the time anyways.

Spatial-Reasoning

This trait might actually be seen as innate talent. Lawrence understands the world as a three-dimensional space and is capable of reasoning out correct conclusions based on constants and clues within the physical world. This lets him do things like measure things precisely – to the millimeter – from far away as long as he knows roughly how far away, which he can gauge based on information he already knows or gleans from the environment. He can also easily adjust his mental perspective on an object to determine what it might look like from another angle, and is therefore less susceptible to perspective-based optical illusions. If given multiple angles of reference and enough suitable materials (and the tools to work them, if necessary) he can recreate objects on a smaller or larger scale, though he loathes physical labor.

~~~

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Appearance

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An adult male human who stands fairly tall, albeit not abnormally so, with light skin and short, brown hair, parted and slicked up out of his face. He is clean-shaven, albeit with slightly longer sideburns than might get the title. His face rarely betrays any emotion besides mild disinterest or general cosmic discontent.

Lawrence always wears a three-piece suit and tie everywhere he goes, dressed for business unless he is on his ship, in his quarters. Sometimes he throws a little more overtop for warmth.

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SPOILER: Click to show

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Combat Data

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Fighting Styles

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Tie Fighting
Focus: Tie as a Blade
Description:

When it comes down to it, there is nothing more innate to a salaryman than the tie around his neck. The corporate noose has hung many a head, but for Lawrence, it's his headsman's axe. If one needed to compare it to something, this style most resembles swordfighting. In fact, were he holding a plain old sword there would be nothing out of the ordinary. But a salaryman doesn't carry a sword… So this will just have to do, won't it?

SPOILER: Click to show

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Aspects

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Work Ethic
Tier ★★
Inhuman Stamina

Work. Work. Work. Breaks are a luxury, one he couldn't afford for a long time. Doing menial, stressful, mind-numbing work or even physical labor for days with inadequate bedrest, running on caffeine and spite for years of his life. This has carried into his newfound freedom: He's too used to working for longer-than-reasonable periods to tire out for real. While he'll complain after a short while, his actual energy reserves could carry him far far longer than anybody else would quit.

Firm Handshake
Tier ★
Inhuman Strength

In his earlier years he was performing manual labor tasks suited for adults rather casually and complaining about getting tired rather than not being able to do them. Somehow, after leaving the physical labor force for the subsequent twenty years his strength has only grown in proportion to his age. He is absurdly strong for a salaryman, which is felt by many employers as they attempt and fail to assert dominance during the handshake, where many first meet his astonishing grip.

Unrealistic Deadlines
Tier ★★
Inhuman Swiftness

A man's job is never done. An accountant's even less so, especially when the employer seems to have a vague understanding of what an accountant is. Pulling all-nighters is sometimes just not enough. One needs to be faster than anybody reasonably should, if they want to last. While moving at high speeds, his stamina drains much quicker, though he does have a lot anyways (see above: Work Ethic).

Flawless Handwriting
Tier ★
Inhuman Precision

Lawrence's precision with his handwriting is akin to a machine printing in font. In fact, much that he does is nigh-mechanically precise. From handwriting, to trajectory plotting, to poking a specific part of a contract without looking, Lawrence's steady hands and coolheaded demeanor put him on par with some computers, in terms of precise movements and aiming.

Comet Genesis
Tier ★
Ice-Elemental Slashes

A strange method which utilizes the Nebula Gas's properties to form celestial bodies, coating his tie with the gas so that it draws moisture from the air in order to create icy astronomical objects as he slashes, such as comets or planet rings.

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SPOILER: Click to show

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Nebu Nebu no Mi

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The Nebu Nebu no Mi takes on the basic shape of a starfruit, albeit with a somewhat spiraling form, with each segment being a bit longer and curving, causing the fruit to take on a cylindrical shape like a cucumber, albeit with hollow pockets one can see when cutting into it. The signature spiraling patterns of the fruit are all along the outside of the fruit. Its stem starts upright before jutting aside and spiraling outward. Its coloration is a dark midnight blue towards the apex, which graduates into a magenta coloration towards the ends of each segment.

Nebula Gas Production
Tier ★
DF Material Production

The base ability of this Devil Fruit is the production of a special gaseous cloud which emulates the properties of a Nebula, composed of tiny colorful dust-like particles. Without any further interaction, the cloud is at worst an irritant likely to cause people with dust allergies to sneeze. It is also highly flammable, though it dissipates harmlessly when separated from the user.

Astronomical Object Formation
Tier ★
DF Material Shaping

The primary functionality of the Nebula Gas is tied to its hyperreactivity to itself, which causes clumps of stone to form within the cloud even when left alone. By intentionally sparking this reaction, it is possible to create downsized copies of various celestial objects. This aspect only covers the formation of simple stone-and-water objects like asteroids and planets.

Astronomical Object Manipulation
Tier ★
DF Material Manipulation

The Nebu Nebu no Mi also grants the ability to manipulate the Nebula Gas though concentrating willpower and/or hand gestures, which extends to any byproducts of Nebula Gas reactions, including Astronomical Objects. However, this is only possible while said objects are within the Nebula Gas Cloud. While not being actively manipulated, Astronomical Objects will passively hover within the Nebula Gas Cloud as though not affected by gravity.

Star Birthing
Tier ★
Sun Creation

By continually concentrating Nebula Gas into a single point, he will eventually create enough heat to create a replica star, which has a sort of 'acceptable' fire property that doesn't spread to the remaining gas.

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SPOILER: Click to show

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Equipment

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Starch King

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The height of business fashion on metropolitan islands, the Starch King is an absolutely stain-proof piece of neckwear – every fiber is protected by twice its width in protective starches; More starch than tie, many say. This impossibly starchy tie is able to become incredibly rigid, but is also a piece of cloth, able to be bent. Doing so is like bending thin lengths of metal, however. It's perfectly serviceable as a necktie, of course, but it wouldn't take more than a few seconds to turn it into a sword even for a fairly normal salaryman.

Deadly Mundanity
Tier ★
Object Stealth

It's a tie, but with a little bit of manipulation by hand, it's able to be held and utilized like a sword. It takes a discerning eye to realize that his weapon has been hanging from his neck the whole time.

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SPOILER: Click to show

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Techniques

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Name: Cubicle
Fighting Style: Nebu Nebu no Mi
Aspect(s): Nebula Gas Production ★
Description:

By fitting his index fingers and thumbs into a roughly square orientation he forms a condensed cloud of Nebula Gas that he then expands into a large cube-shaped cloud around 50 feet on a side with himself at the center, inside which he can create miniature copies of Astronomical Objects.

Name: Pay Cut
Fighting Style: Tie Fighting
Aspect(s): Firm Handshake ★, Unreasonable Deadlines ★★, Deadly Mundanity ★
Description:

An attack performed with the Starch King, sort of like his equivalent to a quick-draw technique, at which he appears to loosen his tie only to be holding it like a sword a moment later, having delivered a slash. It's not actually blindingly fast, but it is meant to catch his foes off-guard.

Name: Abrupt Discharge
Fighting Style: Nebu Nebu no Mi
Aspect(s): Astronomical Object Formation ★, Astronomical Object Manipulation ★
Description:

Clenching a fist, he forms a fairly small asteroid inside the cloud, which he launches by punching, sending it at dangerous speeds akin to a slingshot. Easy to perform, even consecutively.

Name: Crushing Workload
Fighting Style: Nebu Nebu no Mi
Aspect(s): Astronomical Object Formation ★, Astronomical Object Manipulation ★
Description:

With an upward-pointing gesture with two fingers and his thumb, followed by a twist, Lawrence forms a basic planetoid rock not dissimilar to a globe of Mars directly over an opponent's head (within or under the cloud) and drops it down to crush them.

Name: Making the Rounds
Fighting Style: Tie Fighting
Aspect(s): Comet Genesis ★, Astronomical Object Manipulation ★
Description:

Wreathing his tie in Nebula Gas, he performs a circular slash, which collects moisture from the air to create a replica planetary ring made of ice around himself. He then launches it like a man-sized chakram, or causes it to rotate around him, freely slashing adjacent enemies like a buzzsaw.

Name: Sol Crusher
Fighting Style: Nebu Nebu no Mi
Aspect(s): Astronomical Object Formation ★, Astronomical Object Manipulation ★, Star Birthing ★
Description:

Holding a hand palm-up towards the sky in a claw which slowly closes, he concentrates Nebula Gas into a single point. Clenching a fist and opening his hand once more, a miniature replica of a sun is generated through the sheer heat, essentially a fireball, which he hurls at an enemy.

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SPOILER: Click to show

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Background

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>Perhaps at one time he was a happy-go-lucky kid, perhaps with anger issues and a perchant for making trouble at school. This side of him was lost forever the day that his father died, and left all his debts to the family.

>With debts this huge, his mother couldn't handle the financial stress. Lawrence got a job with a remodeling crew when he was twelve in order to support his mother. He found that he absolutely hated physical labor, but persevered for two years before he got fired to cover-up a scandal. His attempts to decry this injustice were stalled out by a combination of ageism, victim-blaming, and accusations of slander.

>He was unable to find a job for a while due to intentional stonewalling from his previous work crew, essentially slander to cement him a poor reputation. In the intervening years, his mother constantly put in extra hours and vied for promotions, supporting her family at the cost of her health. As she gradually worsened, Lawrence became riddled with guilt and grew ever more desparate to find a place to work.

>As soon as he turned 18, he got an employment offer from the shadiest billionaire in town, one Mr. Mustard, a man with more money than sense, and a taste for the finer things in life. He worked for the World Government, and by extension, so did Lawrence, as he became Mustard's personal accountant.

>Driven to become the very best accountant so that he could support his mother in her worsening health, he changed everything about himself to match the office atmosphere. He learned incredibly difficult economic maths, mastered every possible tie knot, figured out suit sizes and how to workshop suits that were too big, and discarded his former tendency towards vulgar vocabulary in favor of a more vanilla vernacular.

>Even despite seeking his ideal of a perfect accountant, the workload Mustard pushed onto Lawrence was unreasonable. On-call at all times, days off regularly being cut short or outright nixxed, long hours, denied vacation time: He was handling jobs that no accountant would ever need to anywhere else. He found himself being everything from a butler-type intern to a chauffeur, despite being a financial expert. But this was the only job he could possibly have.

>During a business meeting at an upscale restaurant, he was called to attend in order to meet with the his associates. What followed was a jarringly jubilant dinner party, where jokes were made, laughs were had, and the food was quite nice. It was only during the dessert course that things went strange. Everybody got to order except for him, not terribly unusual asides that they'd 'arranged something special for him'.

>On that night, Lawrence was tricked into eating a Devil Fruit. It was disgusting, and he wanted nothing more than to spit it out, but the pressure of his employer and his associates weighed down on him, they mocked him and asked questions about it. He had to eat every last bite, because, as they assured him, it was very expensive, and despite showing blatant discomfort and almost crying, the rich folk simply laughed and laughed. This was the night when he really grew to understand his position, he was a joke, a clown being paid to dance for the amusement of a rich scumbag.

>From then on, he was mostly catatonic, a deadpan expression rested on his face as he went about his duties with very few words. Nothing Mustard did to him could even make him react anymore. This, of course, vexxed the rich fellow, and caused him to put more pressure on him. Out of spite, he rose to the occasion. Not a single reason to fire him was given in twelve years of employment, as he became the very model of a professional. He may have been a joke, but his suffering had meaning.

>The straw that finally broke the camel's back was when his mother wound up in the hospital yet again. Lawrence had been denied the right to go see her and help take care of her, as he was needed for a 'big project'. Of course, this consumed his days off too. He didn't learn until a week too-late that his mother had died from heart failure. All those years spent working had taken his perception of reality from him, and now he'd suffered a cruel reminder that loved ones can be taken away without a chance to say goodbye.

>The true problem wasn't that she died, or that he couldn't plan the funeral because he had to work. The true problem was that Mr. Mustard laughed. Not at him for his misfortune, but at his mother for dying from overwork, when her son was such a model employee.

>Lawrence turned in his two weeks notice the following day by nailing it to the door of his office building and lighting it on fire, setting the entire building ablaze. Thereafter he disappeared with neither a trace nor connection, some believe he burned to death in the office building. In truth, he went on to use some connections to get off that island. There were plenty of scumbags who needed their money handled, and now that his mother was gone, he didn't need help from a man who would mock the dead for trying.

>Nowadays, he acts as an itinerant money-launderer, enabling the scumbags of the world to access their ill-gotten gains without a trace of where they came from. He handles many clients around the Grand Line, ensuring the economy's funds don't amass and stagnate in the hands of the wealthy and powerful. He is known for his formality and professionalism despite being classified as a Pirate.

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SPOILER: Click to show

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Adventure Log

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• Thread Title
  
  Nothing yet!

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[Fox]

Hey Burgundy!

This looks pretty good so far. I have one nitpick and that Starch King's Deadly Mundanity doesn't really seem like a proper aspect to me. While stealth can be an aspect, it's one of those where merely appearing harmless doesn't count. I'd recommend switching a sharpness Aspect in its place.

Reply when you're all done and I'll take another look.