Player: Nat
Age: 40
Invited by: Mish, originally
Contact: Ammeschan, Discord: Ammeschan
Current Characters: Toge Inumaki

Character: Keigo "Hawks" Takami
Canon: My Hero Academia, Somewhere around chapters 255-258, while he's infiltrating the League of Villains
Age: 23

Background Information: Wiki Link

TL;DR

* Born Keigo Takami to an unnamed father and his mother Tomie as an unpleasant surprise, he grew up in a shack that didn't have a full roof, in filth on the edge of Fukuoka. His father, Takami was a thief and a murderer who was on the run, using Tomie's quirk for convenience before Keigo came along.

* Both of his parents were incredibly abusive and neglectful, keeping him isolated from the world.

* When Takami got caught and arrested when Keigo was around six, Tomie went on the run with him, the two of them being homeless for a time. She was unable to help herself and at his age he was unable to do much to help her. The Hero Public Safety Commission noticed Keigo when he saved some people from a car accident.

* The HPSC offered Tomie a life of comfort if she would sell her son to the Commission, which she did, without hesitation.

* Keigo was taken in for strict training, stripped of his identity and named Hawks in its place. Everything about his persona was sculpted and decided upon by the Commission. He was targeted with the idea that he was young enough to brainwash into being loyal to them.

* When he was twelve, his predecessor would kill the HPSC president and end up in Tartarus, leaving Hawks as the only known operative. It's likely at this time the new president would decide not to just make Hawks a hero, but a total spectacle.

* He debuts at 18, and within six months hits the top ten hero rankings. He climbed to third place after that, and is presently number 2. He's the youngest hero to open his own agency, and hit the top ten ranking.

* The HPSC continues to control his schedule and assignments, leading to his current assignment to infiltrate the League of Villains on top of his usual duties. His agency, his apartment and himself are owned by the HPSC to this day. Assignments include investigations, infiltration and assassinations under the cover of his day-to-day persona of the usual patrols, helping citizens and fighting villains of any degree. As someone who was trafficked for his quirk, and remains with them, he has no real autonomy to act on his own.

Personality:

1) Tell us about who your character is and what someone’s first impression would be upon meeting them.

Hawks is, at the root of it, an optimist. He tries to see the best in any situation, and beyond that, he tends to see the best in people as a baseline. Despite this, he is not exactly trusting, but he's more hoping for the best. Hawks is also incredibly self-sacrificial. He does not actually believe his situation is good, or moral, he thinks the HPSC is in some shady dealings, but he is willing to be the pawn to save anyone else from having to do it. He has all the empathy in the world for his predecessor, understanding her like no one else would because he's walking a mile in her shoes, albeit with a little less blood on his hands. Hawks is incredibly clever and intelligent, with the number of things he has to learn and apply in short periods of time, but he rarely lets that show, he always leans into his crafted personality.

He can be quite a polarizing figure. He comes across as gregarious, cheerful and bubbly, as well as a bit of an airhead. Hawks can say things that are provocative to make people think with a smile that makes it seem like he's just being dumb, when in fact he's trying to push people to do the thinking. He behaves as a showman, emphasizing the drama in things like bowing to people by letting some of his feathers flutter to the ground. People either think he's incredibly charming, or vapid and fake. Both views are actually right, he has a good amount of charm, but his entire persona is not his true self. In general, Hawks is a little more reserved, but he has a lot of energy. He doesn't naturally want to sit still. He despises dropping the mask to be serious, but will do it when he has to.

2) What is a driving force your character has? What goals do they have, what motivates them, etc?

For all the smoke that blows in people's direction to hide who he is, he genuinely is a heroic person who wants the best for those around him. He genuinely loves people and helping them - it's partly why he has a reputation for helping with even the most minor of tasks. He feels good reaching out to people and making their day better.

Because of the cage in which he finds himself, he's allowed himself two goals, the first of which is to be a hero. This goal is something he achieved, but he feels as though he can only keep doing it as long as he plays ball with the Commission and does what they say, so he is an ever loyal soldier. That is not to say he doesn't have doubts, or he doesn't push back a little bit - he does. His understanding of the villains being more than just one dimensional, even liking them as people and knowing their ideas are not wrong, just their methods, are things that would make the Commission very angry with him.

The second is his desire to make the world a place where the heroes have free time. Sometimes interpreted as him wanting to be lazy, something he leans into because that's part of his image, what he actually means by it is a world where everyone takes responsibility for those around him, so the crisis points where heroes have to intervene diminish. He wants everyone to do something when they see those struggling, not just turn their backs to cause chaos later down the line.

3) What are their flaws as a character? What is something they've messed up, or have done that they regret?

While he plays fast and loose with some of the limitations from the Commission, there are some lines he won't cross. Things like deciding how to use his platform, and how to represent himself. He believes he owes the HPSC, but also that they own him and he feels like his hands are tied. He rationalizes everything that's happened to him as a way to cope with it. All of his empathy for those around him also doesn't actually stop him from doing his job, no matter how distasteful it is. He may push and offer an alternate path, which would come at personal cost, but if there's no way forward in the end, he will follow orders. This loyalty and conditioning are a flaw in his thinking that he hasn't really overcome.

Beyond this, he has not forgiven Tomie for selling him to the HPSC. He genuinely thinks this is a serious flaw and that he should have not just forgiven her, but tried to save her from herself. The fact he was a child at the time means nothing to the guilt he carries, nor the gnawing feeling that remains each day he does nothing about it. She was, or might still be, a serious alcoholic and her not being his problem is a relief, something he feels guilty about. He regrets some of his missions and actions, on a personal level, but rationalizes them to himself as a self-soothing mechanism, believing the HPSC has to be acting in the greater good, that the trust in heroes has to be maintained.

4) Optional: What is something unique and interesting about them, or what is a fun little tidbit that sets them apart from the crowd?

While his quirk itself is in fact his wings and the control over his feathers, there's several indications that he has other heteromorphic traits that aren't quirk related, including his bird-like predator eyes, the way he cocks his head side to side, his preference for eating smaller birds making him strictly a raptor, the way he perches like a bird when he's out of sight of the public. It's entirely likely he has a few more hidden bird-like traits that have been trained out of him, or at least to be downplayed due to the nature of how the world sees heteromorphs, in an effort to make him more palatable and marketable to Japan at large.

Abilities & Inventory:

Quirk: Fierce Wings - A pair of huge wings on Hawks' back. He can control each feather telekinetically, all at the same time. He can detach them, send them places far out of his line of sight. Each feather can carry a weight of about 200lbs. Each feather also can pick up vibrations in the air allowing Hawks to 'see' at a distance through echolocation, as well as pick up conversations, depending on what he wants to do with those feathers. He can also sharpen his feathers to a desired hardness, allowing him to use them like blades. When the feathers are destroyed, they grow back within a week.

Superhuman Speed: In flight, Hawks is incredibly fast making him difficult to catch. Not just in spurts like All Might who might've beaten him in speed, he can maintain his speed much longer because it's natural to his quirk. His top known speed is roughly 900km/h, but he says he can go much faster.

Enhanced Sight: Aside from his additional senses that come from his feathers, he has excellent vision, enough to spot trouble happening on the ground when he's high above in the sky, or even when people are a couple of miles away.

Hawks comes complete with his hero uniform, which frankly is what he wears 90% of the time, including his flight suit, baggy pants and belt, thick warm jacket, gloves and boots. He also has yellow goggles to both keep his eyes from freaking people out and to protect them in flight as well as noise cancelling headphones, because he can hear everything through his feathers anyway.

Like many a good hero, Hawks would make a great Paladin. He's very interested in maintaining law and order, naturally, and ensuring that everyone is safe. He can be sympathetic to those breaking the rules, but that doesn't mean they can just break them without consequence. Corsairs also value freedom which is something that Hawks genuinely has no real concept of in relation to himself, and at this point in time has little desire to seek it because he is continuing to sacrifice himself for the greater good.

Test Drive Sample: Right here.

Questions: None, unless you count which came first - the chicken or the egg?