Derek Dalian

Physical Appearance

• Medium-length chocolate brown hair
• Mild scruff on his chin
• Brown eyes
• Fair skinned with a mild tan
• Physically fit with lean muscles and a lanky build
• 6'5" in height
• Pierced ears
• Dexterous and somewhat rough hands from always working on his art

Clothing Style

Derek tends to wear whatever he can get cheap, although he's willing to invest in quality shoes or jackets so he can get more use out of them. Otherwise he tends to wear relatively simple jeans and t-shirts. He tends to pick out durable black shoes or sometimes workboots, and he tends to wear hoodies most often, usually slip on with drawstrings rather than zipup. His winter jackets though are always zipup and usually black or gray. Most of his hoodies and jackets have custom designs on them that he puts on them himself in one way or the other. A lot of his clothing is stained with various art mediums, usually paint of some kind. A lot of his accessories, like his belts and armbands, have black and yellow color schemes like caution signs/tape. He tends to be very minimalistic with his accessories though since they'd get in the way while working on his art.

Personality

Derek is a somewhat-deadpan artist with a cool and collected demeanor that clashes with his odd sense of creativity. He tends to be calm in most situations and has a habit of speaking in a low-energy yet snarky way. He somehow manages to be both sarcastic and incredibly blunt, and he can come off as a little intimidating and cold toward those who don’t know him well. He’s actually pretty mellow and relatively easy to get along with, if you can accept his deadpan-eccentric personality. Derek tends to throw himself into his art and can tune out most things that go on around him, and sometimes he gets so into his art he somehow manages to ignore exactly what he’s drawing/sculpting/painting, etc. He might get really into drawing a tree and finally step back and realize he's been drawing a stegosaurus on a jet-powered unicycle flying through space. He never really seems to care when his art takes a direction of its own though.

The only time Derek seems to lose his cool is when his younger brother is involved, whom he is very protective of. Alec tends to be rather reckless, and Derek tends to be rather hard on him about it. He hates the thought of losing his brother or him getting hurt, so he tends to lash out at anyone around when he's worried about him or trying to take care of him. He also tends to be rather blunt or rough on Alec when he makes stupid mistakes or is just gets hung up on pointless problems. However he is always there for his brother when he has his moments of emotional vulnerability. He's hard on Alec because he cares, but he knows when he needs to lighten up. They tend to do a lot of things together like running over squirrels and smashing cars with sledgehammers, uh, I mean gardening and knitting sweaters. Since Alec has spent quite a bit of time in juvie, the two tend to make the most of their time together. Sometimes their relationship comes off as a bit childish when they're catching up on stuff they didn't have much opportunity to do before. This is mostly the case since Derek has had to act more like a father-figure to Alec than just an older brother in the absence of their late father, along with the fact that their mother keeps herself incredibly busy just to provide for them.

Abilities

• Eterniti rifting - rank 0/5, for he cannot actively call upon it but it sometimes reacts on its own to other similar sources
• Skilled in various artistic mediums, including numerous drawing materials, sculpting, crafting, etc; this excludes forms of digital art
• Knows the basic chords on guitar and can play a little, but he's not well practiced

Strengths

• Creative, inventive, and good with hands-on work
• Focused, meticulous, and very steady with his hands/movements
• Resourceful, adaptable, and level headed
• Hard working, humble, and doesn't take much personally

Weaknesses

• When focused on his work, he tends to be absentminded or oblivious of everything else
• His demeanor makes him hard to approach if you don't already know him
• Never beats around the bush and can be rather harsh/blunt
• Is extremely protective of his family, specifically his younger brother, and he gets very aggressive when they're at risk

Backstory

Derek grew up the oldest of three with his parents and siblings, Kally and Alec. Despite the family's struggle of living paycheck to paycheck, they lived a simple and happy life together. However, on Alec's 6th birthday their father, Riley, was killed in a drive-by shooting. Their mother, Kristine, took on a second job to try and make up for the lost income, and Derek often had to provide Alec with regular emotional support as they all dealt with the grief, Alec in particular suffering from survivor‘s guilt. Alec became rather clingy with Derek after that, and Derek was all too willing to provide him with anything his little brother needed. Alec's stability suffered even more after the mysterious death of Kally, which authorities never found a solid cause behind. Following this event, Alec became more distant with his family members and started becoming a problem child at school. To their dismay, Alec later on ended up being sentenced to juvenile prison after an incident involving beer, a stolen car, mass property damage, and squirrels.

Derek had always been interested in many artistic mediums, particularly drawing, painting, and sculpting. He enjoyed his art classes the most during school, and he dreamed about going to an art school, although he doubted it would ever happen considering their financial situation. He took up selling his art for extra cash to help take care of the house, and as he grew older and more experienced and skilled, he was able to sell art for more. He still wouldn't say he can make a proper living off it yet, but he's definitely been making enough to allow his mother to ease up her almost all-day work schedule. He tried his best to talk Alec into getting his head on straight, especially since he's been stuck in juvenile detention for longer than his initial sentence due to picking fights and failing his rehab course multiple times. Although somewhat unsuccessful, he has managed to convince Alec to at least stop sneaking beers during his occasional home visits by in turn quitting smoking, something Derek took up to deal with his stress after Kally's death and has been nagged by his brother to stop for years. 

After Alec finally was released, the two have been playing catch up with each other for all the lost time while doing their best to keep the house together to make the workload easier on their mother. The two realized that Alec had some kind of supernatural abilities following a car crash and an attempted murder shortly after. Although Derek still acts as Alec's primary confidant and emotional support, Derek worries about the supernatural changes appearing in his brother's life and how it's been affecting the rest of the family. Derek is perfectly fine with his normal, ordinary mortal life, and the problems that Alec's powers has created is causing him a lot of stress. Of course, he'll never say so to Alec, knowing how much it would hurt him.

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