。holly heights

[leadingspirit]

OOC INFORMATION;
Player: Ghost
Age: 27
Personal Journal: apocryphal
Contact Info: ghosthotel

IC INFORMATION;
Characters Name: Kazuya Taki
Age: No canon age is given but given his canon point is from recent SPIRITS let's say 28.
Canon: Kamen Rider (1971)|Kamen Rider SPIRITS (1971 is the original Kamen Rider series, SPIRITS is a years-later manga, but both are relevant).
Canon Point: Chapter 64 of the SPIRITS manga.
Species: Human!
Gender: Male and male.
Orientation:

This is such a complicated answer for this idiot oh my God... Heteronormative, due to hailing partially from a canon that aired in the 1970s and both expressing interest in and having been "married" to a female ("married" because it was vague and not often mentioned in 1971, and written off as fake for an FBI case in Spirits), but I would assume him pansexual because his overall character doesn't lend him to be the sort to discriminate based on sex or gender.

History: Wikia!
Appearance:

1971, on the left in the blue, Spirits again on the left, an exhibit of him being an impulsive loser, the dumb suit he wears when he's being a badass.

I'll be using icons from Spirits since there's a good deal more of that than there is of 1971, and also live action doesn't mix as well with anime and manga as a lot of players in the game are from. He's drawn in Spirits to look considerably larger than he is shown to be in comparison to the other characters in 1971, but that could also just be the artist's preference, or lack of spacial comparison. Regardless, due mostly to using icons from Spirits that tends to be what I base his appearance on so he's basically a giant with bara shoulders and hair that is periodically trying to be a mullet. Yaoi chin optional. I guesstimate him at about 6'2", on the tanner end of the spectrum, dark hair and brownish hazel eyes if any of that is in any way relevant.

Personality:

At first glance, Taki appears to be nothing more than an amicable numbskull. He's friendly, he smiles often, and he is prone to dropping everything to help someone out. One might say he even behaves a little bit dumbly, or is somewhat slow on the uptake, and they couldn't be more wrong. Often times Taki will play the part of someone unknowing, when in reality he's paid painstaking attention to several details others may not have noticed. Being that he's in the FBI, this is likely due to his training so he doesn't come off as suspicious.

Taki is simultaneously someone who gives people the benefit of the doubt while monitoring their actions until he can deem them truly safe. He makes friends easily and can and will find something to talk about with anyone willing to give him the time of day (at one point in Spirits, he strikes up excitable conversation with a grouchy old fisherman who boasts having been a matador). Whether this is because he's just friendly or because he's trained to keep people talking is hard to determine-- as many things are with him.

One thing you will never find Taki discussing, however, is himself. We have next to no concept of back story for who he was or what he did before he joined Kamen Riders 1 and 2 in their fights against Shocker, apart from a singular brief conversation with Ichimonji wherein he claims to have no siblings (it's translated as "no living relatives", but the term used references siblings specifically), thus resulting in his fondness of Ishikura Goro, the younger brother of one of the Racing Club's girls. This, again, could very easily be due to FBI training to be tight-lipped about himself, or could just be the fact that he's emotionally-stunted and doesn't know how to talk about himself. Comically, despite not knowing how to or being willing to discuss personal topics, Taki is definitely a talker. So much, in fact, that at one of the numerous points of him donning the visage of a Shocker grunt to infiltrate a villain's base, he asks a question of a villain when the disguise he's wearing is not of a rank to speak to superiors, despite this having been alluded to a number of times earlier in the episode. Clever though he often may be, Taki is not always the brightest crayon in the box.

Regardless of discussion of himself, Taki is a very capable person. While he is never given any specific forms of martial arts that he has studied, he is shown numerous times to be on-par with the fighting ability of both Hongo Takeshi (Kamen Rider 1) and Ichimonji Hayato when they are not suited up and making use of their cyborg enhancements. At one point, when Hayato is out of sorts over having lost a fight that led to Goro being injured, Taki actually turns up to kick him around a little until he gets his head back in the game. Within Spirits, he actually adopts the persona of "Taki Rider", making use of a protective leather suit and bike helmet to become his own equivalent to Kamen Rider, as he lives in New York at the time and there is no Kamen Rider in America. He often tells a cluster of orphaned children in Harlem stories of Kamen Rider, fondly regarding the battles he fought years prior.

At a later point in Spirits, Taki is put in charge of a military support group for the Kamen Riders by a member of Interpol. This group later becomes the namesake of the series, as he deems that since none of them are cyborgs like the Kamen Riders, what they cannot do in power they can make up for in spirit, to follow and support those who fight for humanity without reward. This speaks volumes not only of his loyalty to his friends, but his personal desires to keep the world safe for those who cannot fight to protect it. It is made clear in a similar segment of the story that Taki has on numerous occasions wished for the strength and power that comes with being a Kamen Rider (and thus, turned into a cyborg), because he often falls just short of being able to truly defeat more powerful enemies when fighting with them, but has never voiced these wishes because none of the Riders asked for the fate themselves. This, too, shows his respect and fondness for his friends, and further expresses his unwillingness to talk about himself or his own thoughts or feelings on a topic.

For all his amicable nature and his friendly attitude, Taki also has a definite temper on him. He is very quick to anger, and regularly forgets to stop and think before acting, especially when he's angry. This in conjunction with his fierce sense of wrong and right definitely tends to get him in trouble. He is on numerous occasions set up and trapped, kidnapped, and attempted to be killed, because Shocker is aware of how much of a threat he poses as an ally to the Kamen Riders. Half the time Taki is openly aware of being lured into a trap, but goes anyway due to some misplaced sense of invincibility and an unwillingness to admit defeat. He tends to forget, often times, that he is not a Kamen Rider, and that he is in fact a lot easier to hurt and potentially kill than they are seeing as he's not made of metal and cybernetic enhancements. This lends him to something of an inferiority complex toward the Riders, as previously mentioned, though he never voices it save for a brief mention in Spirits, after several years of fighting alongside them.

As a sort of offhanded mention, Taki does also smoke. It's less common in 1971, but even if he's not smoking, about 80% of the time in Spirits he has a cigarette in his teeth. It's hard to say if he actually smokes very often or if it's just a nervous habit to chew on the filters, but especially later in life he picks up the habit pretty badly. This could easily be explained as a stress coping mechanism, as somewhere between the end of 1971 and Spirits he was cut loose from the FBI and probably had a lot of free time that drove him nuts, or it could just be residual addiction from having smoked when he was younger. It's hard to say.

Taki also has a huge enormous bruised peach soft spot for children. There isn't a concrete explanation for why, other than his mention of having no siblings, but he is always shown to be friendly toward, protective of, and happy around children. He considers Goro to be a little brother, he wastes no time in asking after the thoughts and feelings of any child he comes across, he regularly ruffles hair and picks up and carries and babysits. During an episode where he and a fellow FBI agent have gone diving seeking evidence, they come across a young girl crying amongst a bunch of rocks after having watched her older brother get swept underwater by a monster, and Taki wastes absolutely no time in going up to her, asking her what happened, and picking her up to cradle her while she cried. He is a very compassionate soul, who truly believes in and fights for what's right, and solidly loves everyone good.

Abilities:

As mentioned in his personality section, Taki is skilled in close range combat, though the forms of martial arts he uses are never stated specifically. He's startlingly quick for a big guy, and given that he is of decent stature (he's shown to be full heads taller than several other characters in Spirits, though appears less gargantuan in 1971), he's also something of a powerhouse. He is most commonly shown to use his legs as his primary weapon in 1971, often kicking and springing away from enemies. He seems somewhat less polished with punches, which may explain the modified brass knuckle he sports when donning the persona of Taki Rider.

He is also quite proficient with weaponry of varying types. While in 1971 he fights predominantly without a weapon or via knocking down his opponent and stealing theirs (ranging from staves to firearms), in Spirits he is always seen with at least one handgun, though he wears two shoulder holsters at all times. The handgun he uses most is later modified by another Rider to so he can attach a large knife commonly sheathed at the small of his back to it, allowing him the ability to, with quick thinking, have a stronger advantage in close range (this knife has been used to sever an arm from an enemy, among other things). He also wields a shotgun in the Taki Rider persona, modeled after a Franchi SPAS-12. The handgun he uses appears to be a standard-issue 9mm, potentially a Glock or Beretta.

The suit he wears when donning the persona of Taki Rider also counts as an ability, seeing as it is further outfitted with bizarre little tricks and power-ups to give him the advantage despite being only human in a fight against cyborgs and other monsters. Given that this suit was of his own design, it holds elements of both Riders 1 and 2, as he fought with them for many years before leaving for New York. Among these are the Ballistic fist, a modified brass knuckle outfitted with shotgun shells to give it an explosive power, combat boots with the same, and several knives strapped to the suit. As previous mentioned, a particular knife that is sheathed against the small of his back is often attached to the butt of his gun and used as a dual weapon to give him an advantage in both close and long range combat.

Beyond material weaponry and abilities, Taki is also very intelligent. He was drafted by Interpol to investigate the primary villainous organization in 1971 for his investigative prowess, and is shown regularly infiltrating Shocker bases without their knowledge to be of aid in a plan (half the time even the Riders don't expect him to be there). In Spirits, he is mentioned to have been "scorned" by the FBI, and "had his fangs removed", but is later reinvolved and asked to lead a group of over 25,000 specialized soldiers as support to the Kamen Riders.

Other:

SAMPLES;
First Person: Boop.

Third Person:

The concept of being assigned to a house wherein he was "married" and had "children" was strange and a little comedic to Taki. He'd never been legitimately married, even at his age, because the marriage to Yuko had been as temporary as it had been staged, for the purpose of research into a bizarre Shocker case with another FBI agent. So the notion of being married without there having been a ceremony or paperwork (he didn't mind the lack of paperwork, really), and having never met the person was all a little funny. But he rolled with it, because whatever was going on here in Holly Heights requested it and he could play by the rules as long as it was conducive. Even if it was immensely strange to be "married" to a guy, and one he'd never even met, whom he was apparently meant to parent two children alongside.

With the fact that he'd never had much family of his own, he went from a state of perplexed confusion upon arrival to a borderline comical level of seriousness. He wasn't so sure about being married, nor was he sure about having kids he was responsible for, but he sure as hell was going to make a damn good effort to do his best. He had no real concept of how to behave like a married man so he didn't honestly anticipate anything in that regard changing, but he had all but adopted one of the Racing Clubs' kid members to be like a younger brother. Jun Kanzaki (who went by "J", it seemed), and Kotori Minami. They sounded like nice kids. He wasn't quite sure what to make of the fact that his "husband" apparently answered to "The Beast" (was the guy really into wrestling or something?), but he'd make of it what he could.

Which, of course, was going to include a preposterous amount of confetti and streamers on any and all birthdays.

OTHER;
Housing Request?: 1448 pls!
Did you read the rules and FAQ?: Yaaas.