App for 18th Amendment

[vexed_snake]

OOC INFORMATION

Name: Airdra
Journal: hyper_air_dragon
Contact: Airdra (best way to contact me), AIM @ KamenFirestorm (but I'm hardly ever on)
Are you at least 16? I’ll be 28 in a couple of days~
Character(s) Already in Game: None

IC INFORMATION

Name: Takeshi Asakura
Canon: Kamen Rider Ryuki
Age: He’s in his late 20’s.
Appearance: There’s a pic at his Wiki link here.

Personality: The most important thing to keep in mind when dealing with Asakura is that he is a terrible person. Others around him have repeatedly theorized that he isn’t even human because he displays so little compassion and concern for those around him. Asakura lives only for himself and his own pleasures, and he enjoys nothing more than fighting. He frequently feels “vexed,” and the best way to burn off those vexations is to engage in various acts of destruction, whether or not it’s against others or, in some cases, even himself. When he is incarcerated, he will engage in various behaviors such as beating his head against the bars of the cell just so he can try to work out his vexation. At times, Asakura’s rage towards his vexations seems to be more of an existential thing than anything else, as though he exists through destruction.

He doesn’t maintain any close personal relationships, preferring to exist on his own. Asakura has no family—because he killed them. When he was thirteen years old, there was a terrible house fire that claimed the lives of both of his parents and, he thought, his younger brother, Akira. The fire was entirely Asakura’s fault, and it was started with the specific intent to kill his family because they annoyed him. Akira’s name was changed and he went to live elsewhere, leaving Asakura to think he was dead. Eventually, the brothers are reunited. Asakura has Venosnaker eat Akira, finishing the job of getting rid of his family. He laughs off anyone’s attempts to bring up any of the lies he fed everyone involved in setting up that meeting—there’s no guilt. He doesn’t seem to need other people outside of the entertainment they may be able to provide him, and he’s the sort who is rough on his toys. He can tolerate other people if he has to, but everyone involved usually prefers to keep this interaction at a minimum.

Asakura can at times be very sly, and he knows how to tell people what they want to hear. When he’s incarcerated and separated from all of his cards, thus rendering him powerless, he still manages to escape from jail using his wits. This takes some doing, considering at this point in his confinement, they’ve got him restrained in a straitjacket and Hannibal Lector mask. The lawyer that’s been assigned to him is remarkably naïve, and Asakura’s able to play the man’s earnest desire to serve his client well into a successful escape. He tricks the lawyer into bringing him his personal effects inside the cell, which allows him to overpower the lawyer, switch clothing with him, and simply walk out of the prison.

In another instance, the time he killed Akira, he’d been wounded after a battle and wasn’t in very good shape as he hid out and tried to care for himself. A reporter who had been working on his story found him, and he was able to talk her into arranging a meeting with Akira. She’d revealed that his brother was still alive, and he was clearly surprised by this. He claimed that perhaps seeing his brother might be the only thing that could change or otherwise help him. He also said that he had risked his own life to save Akira’s the night of the fire, and he expressed great relief that Akira really had survived. He tells the reporter exactly what she wants to hear in a very convincing manner, and this allows him to carry out his true plan of finishing off his family.

This is not to say Asakura is a master manipulator. He can’t maintain a façade for long if he keeps getting vexed. If it seems as though his manipulation is working, then he will force himself to be patient enough to see things through to the end. When it seems his plans are for naught, he’ll quickly spiral into out-of-control rage. Failure isn’t something he tolerates very well.

When his lawyer, Kitaoka, fails to prove him innocent, this makes Asakura carry a huge grudge that sticks with him throughout the series. Kitaoka quickly becomes Asakura’s primary target, even though his continued targeting of the other man makes him rather predictable and easier for the police to recapture. He also knows Kitaoka won’t fall for any of his attempts at verbal manipulation, which means he won’t even try that on the lawyer.

In a fight, he’s not very tactical. He prefers using raw power to win, and he is very much a brawler. He does have a Steal Vent card that allows him to steal the weapons of another, but the only time he ever uses this is to disarm an opponent—he won’t adapt to another’s weapon and is comfortable enough with his own. This limits his potential strategies, which usually just boil down to “hit the other guy harder than he’s hitting you.” There’s no real sense of style to Asakura’s fighting; he just goes with whatever option he thinks will cause the most damage and give him the most pleasure. He’s pretty unstable, and it’s not really hard to just get him to go completely wild.

Asakura is a fearsome opponent in part because it seems like he has nothing to lose. He is close to no one and is fighting for no reason other than to fight. He doesn’t seem to fear injury or death in the slightest. He’s also aware that people find him unstable and intimidating, and he’ll use that to toy with his opponents. Toying with them in such a manner seems to be a source of great enjoyment for him. He’s not above using others as pawns in his schemes, which usually just revolve around building better and better fights.

He does what he wants when he wants. Although he generally quite enjoys fighting, he’ll set that aside for the moment to take care of his needs. On one occasion, he’s being challenged to a fight, but he’s sleepy…so he calmly refuses, rolls over, and goes to sleep right where he is. He’s totally unaffected by the other party’s anger towards him and is clearly unworried enough to go to sleep.

AU History: Asakura’s family emigrated to America when he was a very small boy. They were lured in by the advertisements circulating throughout Japan at the time, hopeful that the promise of a land of plenty and a life of ease would turn out to be true. This was not really the case, and the family suffered and moved around a bit before coming to settle in California, where Asakura’s father took a job working on the railroads. The family unit was composed of young Takeshi, his mother, father, and younger brother, Akira.

One thing that marked Asakura’s childhood was that he never appeared to be happy unless he was doing something--and usually doing something meant engaging in behaviors that made the adults around him worry. He was the kid that pulled the wings off of flies. He was the kid that made the other kids miserable. He constantly tormented Akira. While some problem children act that way because of the way things are at home, Asakura’s home life was actually fairly happy and content, but his family, as he put it, “vexed” him.

He finally took action against his family when he was thirteen years old, starting a house fire that claimed the lives of his parents and, as it would seem, Akira. It was at this point that the fact that something was very wrong with the boy could not be ignored, and for years, the authorities attempted to rehabilitate him, sending him to a home for orphan boys with behavioral issues. It did not take long for Asakura to escape, and once he was a free young man at the age of fifteen, he set about trying to rid himself of the existential vexations that had plagued him his entire life. He only truly felt alive and as though he existed when he was engaged in some act of violence, and this set him up to make a habit of ending up in jail, getting set free for a bit of time, and then getting right back out again.

Eventually, Asakura was put on trial for a very long list of offenses, most of them involving battery and murder. His defense lawyer, a hotshot who had a reputation of being able to get anyone cleared for anything, was able to get Asakura’s sentence reduced, but that wasn’t saying much. Asakura found himself facing a very long span of time in prison. Asakura placed the blame for this solely on the shoulders of his lawyer, not on his own actions.

It was at this time that a man named Shirou Kanzaki needed a bit of rather messy work done. He got himself into the prison and approached Asakura with an offer: do a bit of work for him, and Kanzaki would see that he was released. The “work” involved was mostly of the violent, messy sort—the kind of discreet work necessary to support Kanzaki’s smuggling operations. Asakura liked the offer; Kanzaki’s proposition was an intriguing one, and anything would have been better than rotting in prison. He agreed, and Kanzaki gave him what he’d need to successfully break himself out of prison.

Asakura broke himself out with great aplomb, and, after that, set about doing the sorts of jobs Kanzaki had in mind. To facilitate this (and at Kanzaki’s suggestion because the man had a weird sense of the theatrical), he faked his own death and took on the alias of Ouja, the King Snake, wearing a purple mask to hide his identity.

However, Asakura could only handle taking directions for so long. He’s now kicking around as a free agent, though he might still be convinced to do a bit of work here and there for Kanzaki if the job is interesting enough. He’s made his way to Ameswell on a very vague tip that his younger brother might actually still be alive and in the area somewhere, and he’d really like to kill see Akira if that’s the case. As an added bonus, Ameswell was far enough away from where he’d previously been kicking around in California that he thinks he’ll be able to avoid being recognized. Not that he's trying to attract all that much attention to himself, of course.

((I’m totally willing to rework or change things should anyone else from Ryuki app in!))

3rd Person Sample:

The alley itself was quiet, though the surrounding area most certainly was not. The night was filled with sounds of yelling, the wild light of flashlights cutting through the darkness. There in the alley, Asakura was slumped against a wall, somewhat hidden behind a pair of trash cans. The man looked exhausted; his prison jumpsuit was torn and bloodied, and he was breathing heavily. Despite this, he seemed to be in remarkably good spirits. He was smiling…not that it was a particularly nice smile. It would only be a matter of time before he was able to lose the cops and have his freedom once more.

The sound of barking cut through the air, wiping the grin off of Asakura’s face. Dogs. They’ve sent out dogs. How vexing. Wearily, he stood up. Having dogs on his trail put a bit of a kink in his plans, but he wasn’t ready to give up just yet. If they wanted to put him back in jail, he would fight.

Got to be a way out of here…ah, there we go. There was a door on one of the alley walls. Undoubtedly, it led somewhere. Asakura tried opening it. The sounds of the dogs and the yelling policemen were getting closer. Unfortunately, whoever owned the building that door belonged to wasn’t an idiot. It was locked. Frustrated, Asakura kicked at it, as though that would help matters.

Light suddenly cut into the alley, making him growl and step back a bit, shielding his eyes.

“There he is!” yelled one of the police officers, his flashlight all but shaking with nerves. He’d seen what Asakura had been put in jail for in the first place. “I found him!”

Asakura looked over at the policeman, his body language shifting to something far more suited for a fight as he glared viciously. The policeman had very little warning before Asakura was on him like some sort of animal. There was a brief scuffle, but Asakura’s ferocity and sheer experience at this sort of thing won out. The officer found himself staring down into the barrel of his own gun. Before he could react properly, Asakura had grabbed him, whipping him around to serve as a human shield. He could feel the gun pressed into his neck, reminding him who was in charge now.

“Well, then,” Asakura said, grinning as the mouth of the alley filled with more officers. None of them looked particularly happy to see that they’d found their man, not in a situation like this. “Things just got interesting, didn’t they?”