Philip

CHARACTER: Philip
CANON: Kamen Rider W
VESSEL NAME: Uchiki (家)
VESSEL FORM: Book
POWER: Detailed analysis
GOD: Fortuna
EXP POINTS: [pending]
CAUSE OF DEATH: For clarification, this is sort of his third death. Philip, as a human, died 12 years prior and was reborn as a mass of code that somehow formed an apparently human body. He brushed death again when his code was broken down to give his power and information access to Wakana. After being pulled back from that, his body reformed but was very unstable. Transforming one last time into Kamen Rider Double caused him to destabilize to the point that he wouldn't be able to come out of the transformation. He shared a last conversation with Shotaro (keeping up a smile and picking on Shotaro for crying, though in the last moment he cried, himself) until Shotaro finally cancelled the transformation and he dissolved.

Player Information

Name: Wei
Contact: plurk: zeroq1 aim: weijiangling
Age: 29
Other Characters: None

Character Information

Name: Philip (Raito Sonozaki)
Canon: Kamen Rider W
Canon Point: End of episode 48
Age: 17
History: http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Philip
Personality: At the beginning of the series, Philip is a mystery to everyone, including himself. All anyone knows is that he was involved in some experiments conducted by the Sonozaki family and that because of that, he has the ability to access all the knowledge that exists in the world. There's one caveat to that, though. He knows nothing about himself. He can't look up anything about his past, or his family, or even his name. The name Philip was given to him by the detective who rescued him, after the fictional detective, Philip Marlowe. With his unusual abilities, he quickly integrates himself into the detective agency, looking up vital information whenever necessary. He also is the one who gives Shotaro the driver belt that allows the two of them to become Kamen Rider Double, thus beginning what becomes a very deep partnership and friendship over time.

As Double, he and Shotaro defend the city of Fuuto from Dopants, which are people who have been turned into monstrous creatures through the use of Gaia Memories (designed and distributed by the Sonozaki family). The Gaia Memories are devices similar to USB sticks that contain data related to a particular natural (or occasionally man-made) phenomenon, whether that's an animal or a weather pattern or whatever else. People insert the stick into a port on their body and it transforms them and gives them the powers from that Gaia Memory. It also drives them crazy. Philip and Shotaro use Gaia Memories as well, but the way they use them is a bit different. The driver belt allows the two of them to combine into a single Kamen Rider using two different Gaia Memories. That way, they don't get the negative effects that happen with the people who use the Gaia Memories directly, and they can use their powers to free people from the hold the Memories have on them. They have a collective catchphrase as Kamen Rider Double, telling their enemies in a synchronized voice to "count up your sins."

Usually when they become Kamen Rider Double, Shotaro's body is the one in the Kamen Rider suit, while Philip is there as an extra consciousness. That means that when Philip transforms into Double, his consciousness leaves his body and moves into Shotaro's, and his body is left to faint wherever he might have been standing. Most of the time, that's back at the detective agency's office, but sometimes he has to do things like transform while riding on a crowded bus, leaving the agency's third member, Akiko, to drag him around until he's able to be conscious again. He doesn't seem to care much about what might happen to him during these moments, barely thinking twice if he has to leave his body in some kind of precarious situation. Hilariously, he usually makes it harder on himself, standing up before he transforms, just so he can fall dramatically to the floor. There's at least one instance of him transforming lying down, so this appears to be a conscious choice.

Because he needs to stay hidden from the Sonozaki family, he spends the vast majority of his time alone in the detective agency's secret basement. He seems perfectly content this way, more interested in his vast collection of information than he is in other people. Even though he has access to all the knowledge in the world, that doesn't mean that he actively knows it all already. When he comes across something that strikes his interest, he can become so engrossed in learning everything there is to know about it that he ignores everything else until he's finished, to the point that it takes effort to get him to put down the book of infinite information in order to transform into Double to keep his partner from dying. Needless to say, this drive to learn has an adverse effect on his logical processing when it's in full swing.

When Philip is in research mode, it often spills over into him developing new hobbies and behaviors so that he can learn through personal experience. At one point, Philip is studying saint bernards and winds up wearing a dog costume because of it. In another episode, he's suddenly proficient at street dancing. Nothing drives him crazier than finding a reference to information he can't follow up on. He usually stays out of sight in the basement for his own safety unless something requires him elsewhere, but give him a lead he can't follow up on, and he'll be running around town tracking down the creator of an unfinished work so that he can know what it contains.

Outside of this particular quirk, though, Philip is actually extremely reasonable. In contrast to Shotaro, who is a reckless optimist, Philip is typically a staunch realist. Both are dedicated to protecting the city they live in, but Philip is much less likely to go running off trying to do the impossible, or to be unreasonably swayed by someone acting upset. He's a balancing influence for Shotaro that way. This is also true vice versa, because Philip admits that he's sometimes too harsh and that he needs Shotaro's kindness to cut through that. This quality also makes him come off as rude or insensitive at times. He calls things as he sees them, which is usually an accurate and well-reasoned perspective, but can easily skip over noticing someone's feelings.

None of this means that he doesn't care, though. He does, and that's only more true as time passes. At the beginning of the series, he's used to being isolated and admits that he doesn't have much interest in human relationships. By the end of the series, however, his experiences with Shotaro, Akiko, and all the other people they've met have had an effect on him, and he truly loves the city he lives in and the people who surround him. The people he's closest to are Shotaro, the other half of Double and his irreplacable partner, Akiko, who became the new chief of the detective agency and along with Shotaro became his substitute family, and Wakana, the sister he had forgotten but easily found himself getting close to regardless. He would do anything for the three of them, and over the series he does everything he can to make sure they're safe, despite occasional rough spots.

Family is a concept of particular note for Philip. Of all his missing memories, it's the thing he tries hardest to remember. When he meets Wakana, neither of them realise they're related; Philip can't remember her, and she's sure that her younger brother is dead. Despite that, they feel inexplicably comfortable around each other and quickly grow close. When it's revealed that Wakana is one of the Sonozakis, who are behind all the monsters that Shotaro and Philip constantly have to fight, Philip doesn't blame Wakana for it and only wants to help her escape the responsibility of taking over the family business (though he does at least temporarily question whether or not he can really trust her, considering). She asks him to run away with her so her father won't be able to find her. He isn't sure about it, because that would mean leaving Shotaro and Akiko, who are like family to him, but he seriously considers the idea despite that. What ultimately makes his decision is having his some of his past revealed. When he discovers his real name—Raito Sonozaki—and the truth of who his family is, he becomes set in his choice to go with Wakana and help her escape. Unfortunately by then their father has already gotten to her and Wakana becomes, by necessity, an enemy, though he still spends the rest of the series trying to save her.

Wakana is his closest relative, but the rest of his family is important to him, too. At one point after he finally remembers his past, the entire family gathers for dinner at the request of the father. By this point, practically everyone in the family is everyone else's enemy, and there's no way to stop the infighting, but Philip tries the best he can to convince them all to stop fighting regardless. The concept of family is incredibly important to him, even though the family he spent his first few years with has gotten increasingly twisted and fragmented since he was a kid. Eventually, a battle to stop their plans to trigger the Gaia Impact destroys the Sonozaki mansion and most of the family along with it. Most notably, his father dies in the burning mansion after being defeated by Shotaro and Philip. Philip feels that he's done the right thing to have freed his father from his obsession with his twisted goals, but he's highly distressed over having to leave him there to die.

Philip's past, once it's revealed, turns out to be a very strange thing indeed. Twelve years prior to the series's timeframe, he was with his family exploring some mines and he accidentally fell into a hole and died. However, what he fell into was something akin to the Earth's consciousness, and as such, his body was reconsituted as code containing all the information stored in the Earth. This is how he regained access to the Gaia Library. After that, he became a subject of experiments, with his father and mother disagreeing on whether he should still be considered alive (his mother is the one person in his family who remains on his side the entire time, frequently appearing in his life as a mysterious benefactor). His memory of his family was wiped from his mind and any knowledge related to them became inaccessible to him.

Being as fundamentally practical as he is, Philip is able to acknowledge and use any information given to him, even when that information is hard for him to accept. When Philip learns the truth of his past, he's understandably shocked. He doesn't seem too surprised at the revelation that he's a Sonozaki; there were enough clues, though he probably would have preferred to believe that his missing family wasn't the same one he'd been fighting against that whole time. But after having lived as a relatively normal human being, he has a much harder time accepting that he's actually dead and his body is a mass of code. It seems impossible and horrifying and he yells in protest when his father confirms it. Even so, it doesn't take him long to integrate that knowledge into his strategies. His family plans to use him as a sacrifice to give Wakana further abilities, and he's broken down into code once again, but he manages to save himself by giving Shotaro clues on how to separate his code back out so that he can be his own person again.

Unfortunately, it destabilizes him enough that he won't be able to maintain it, and he knows that the next time he transforms into Double, he'll break down and disappear. He seems to accept that, and keeps up a strong facade about it for Shotaro's sake. He lets everyone who doesn't know the full truth believe that he's moving away to study abroad and that's why he won't be around anymore. He doesn't think that anyone should worry unnecessarily, and he specifically asks Shotaro to not tell Wakana the truth of the situation. When they do transform that last time, he makes sure it counts, killing the one person who still wants the Gaia Impact to happen and saving his sister. While they're still together in Double, he has a last conversation with Shotaro, reassuring him that it's fine, and making sure that Shotaro will continue to protect Fuuto even if he has to do it alone. It's only once Shotaro cancels the transformation and loses his awareness of Philip that Philip lets himself cry, just in the moment before he disappears.

Abilities:
-Philip has access to the Gaia Library, which is a massive collection of all the information that exists in the world. It exists in a nonphysical realm that he has to concentrate to access. When he's in the library, he'll be standing still with his eyes closed, focusing on where he can find the books. He's still aware of sounds around him, and frequently talks with people while he's in the library in order for them to give him clues to narrow his search and for him to relay information that he finds. The information he's currently accessing manifests in a physical book he carries around that looks to anyone else like it's full of blank pages. There seems to be a limitation that information in the library has to be publicly known in some form. For example, if someone has planned to make a movie or write a book but they haven't shared what it will be about, all Philip will be able to find is the working title. When he tries to access information that exists but only one or two people know (like the above), the book he finds in the library will appear locked. When he tries to access things he's not allowed to see (like the information about his family), it will appear destroyed. By the end of the series, all the blocks on it have been removed, though new ones will be put in place with him losing memories of his past again.

-As a subset to the above, he can learn anything extremely quickly, including things that should take physical training. That doesn't mean he can automatically do everything perfectly the first time, but he would likely progress faster than most people and be able to do so entirely by teaching himself. Assuming he has an interest in learning, he can quickly pick up anything as long as it's within his physical capabilities. (This doesn't make him a master of everything athletic, though; for every week that he spends teaching himself a martial art, he's going to spend another week doing nothing but cooking and eating about a million of this fascinating food he found out about.)

-Philip's brain also works like a supercomputer, and he can process calculations at lightning speed. There's an episode that thoroughly proves he's dangerous in a casino.

-As Double, the abilities come from the two Gaia Memories used to transform. Philip's defines the element, while Shotaro's defines the form of the weapon. The Memories Philip uses are Cyclone, Heat, and Luna. Cyclone is wind, and Heat is about what it says on the tin. Luna allows the weapon to bend and stretch however it needs to, meaning that when it's active, bullets can track the enemy and move around obstacles, a staff can twist around things as needed, or Shotaro can make his arms and legs 20 feet long to punch or kick something way over there. There's also Fang, which is a little dinosaur thing that contains a Gaia Memory. This belongs to Philip and is the one way that Philip can initiate a transformation so that his body is the one in the suit. There's an additional memory called Xtreme, which interfaces with the two already present and makes Double extra powerful. All that said, since Philip is coming in alone, I don't think he'll have access to Double at all.

Strengths: intelligent, rational, loyal, benevolent, loveable
Weaknesses: obsessive, distractable, blunt, insensitive, lack of concern for his physical safety

God/Shinki: Shinki
Why?: He is generally accustomed to being in a supporting role, as the half of Double who fights when he needs to but mostly keeps himself hidden, so being in a position to help and protect whatever god he ends up with wouldn't be especially strange. Given the circumstances of his canon and how intensely attached he is to certain other characters, memory loss also makes him a lot easier to play in this kind of setting.
Cause Of Death: For clarification, this is sort of his third death. Philip, as a human, died 12 years prior and was reborn as a mass of code that somehow formed an apparently human body. He brushed death again when his code was broken down to give his power and information access to Wakana. After being pulled back from that, his body reformed but was very unstable. Transforming one last time into Kamen Rider Double caused him to destabilize to the point that he wouldn't be able to come out of the transformation. He shared a last conversation with Shotaro (keeping up a smile and picking on Shotaro for crying, though in the last moment he cried, himself) until Shotaro finally cancelled the transformation and he dissolved.
Vessel: A book.
Name Location: Right palm
Power: Detailed analysis. In the series, the Xtreme version of Kamen Rider Double has the ability to instantaneously analyse an enemy in detail. Strong points, weak points, attack patterns, etc. I think this is very in line with him, and also a step beyond how his general access to the Gaia Library works. He won't have access to Double here so it doesn't count as a normal ability of his, but I think it's a fitting thing for him to keep as his shinki ability.

Writing Sample

Sample: TFLN, Musebox log

Other

Anything Else?: I'd like to request Ankh being his god.