Application (high_seas) - ooc

[hostclubshadowking]

[Name]: Lynn
[Age]: 25
[Contacts]:
♦ DW: sepiaepiphany
♦ AIM: celia0sword
♦ Plurk: harlequindream
[Timezone]: PST
[Other Characters]: n/a



[Name]:
Kyouya Otori
[Canon]:
Ouran High School Host Club (anime)
[Age]:
17
[Gender]:
male
[Canon Point]:
post-series
[History]:
List of Ouran episodes
[Personality]:
Every member of the Ouran Host Club, has a "type" they present to their customers. With the whole club present, they fulfill every major genre of popular love interests in media. Kyouya is billed as the "cool type." He is aloof, nearly unattainable, but who makes small shows of affection when most effective. For instance, he explains the stream he had built to his customers as being a way to best observe all the seasons, as a sign that he hopes to see them all with the girls. He then promptly pulls out a reservation book and gets back to business.

Kyouya makes it very clear very quickly that he is driven primarily by his own self-interest. The host club itself is made up of the children of very powerful families, and their clients are all the daughters of equally important families. The bonds Kyouya can make in high school could easily help him the rest of his life. He even uses his friends to test for problems in a water park his family is planning to open soon, and, when things go wrong, he makes note of it to pass on to his family and the park designers. Even in middle school, Kyouya focused on his peers as a way to make ties to their families and succeed, from agreeing to vacations in order to meet the heads of families to befriending Tamaki Suoh because his father told him to.

Kyouya is known as the "shadow king" of the host club. Most of Tamaki's ideas for the club (save the actual founding of the host club and its members) seem to originate from Kyouya. He leaves brochures for Tamaki to find or offers suggestions that Tamaki then extrapolates into grand schemes. He is always ready with the right thing to say or the right thing to do to get the result he wants.

Kyouya is wealthy and makes no apologies for it. He refers consistently to Haruhi as a "commoner" and casually mentions the companies his family owns, their private police force, and the extent of their power several times. When eating fast food, he explains to Haruhi that no decorum is required in eating the food because none is expected. He makes liberal use of his families many homes, their private beach, and their police force without considering any of it a big deal. He knows his birth has put him above many others, and he is quite comfortable with that.

Kyouya is the "responsible" one of the group, especially before Haruhi. He manages the money, both incoming and outgoing. He has found ways (like auctoning items belonging to the club) to make money even though the club itself offers their services free of charge. He also makes it clear that dipping into the school's budget for host club activities is not permissable and reminds the others when that isn't allowed. He dislikes buying the sweets Honey requires and chides Tamaki about the expense the club puts out for the fair, but he still goes along with both these things.

Kyouya understands people. He knows the basic motivations of most people as soon as he meets them, though he sometimes takes only the surface instead of looking deeper. He knows immediately that the president of the newspaper club is planning to stab the host club in the back when he proposes a story on them and guards against it by sending a first aid kit (the president having been injured by a ball in a game of the host club) with a recording device concealed in it. He misunderstands Tamaki, however, first taking him for an idiot who offers insult unknowingly rather than seeing that Tamaki is, in fact, trying to provoke a reaction to see the real Kyouya. He quickly grasps Renge's obsession with him and uses her enthusiasm to acquire higher quality merchandise to fund the host club.

Kyouya spares no one's feelings when he is not working as a host. He is never cruel for the sake of meanness, but he states things plainly. He tells an upset Renge that he isn't the person she thinks he is, and he chides his sister for going through his things. He tells Haruhi very plainly that he only cares about other people in ways that benefit him. If he gains nothing from a situation, he is not interested in it.

Kyouya is extremely passionate, but he is extremely guarded about his passions. For most of his life, he is fully focused on surpassing his father's expectations. He keeps the perfect social circle and gets perfect grades, trying to set himself apart from his two older brothers, who did the same thing. He focuses all his energy into exceeding them, even though he can see no outlet to do it. He refers to it as painting a masterpiece on a canvas that is already inside a frame -- no matter what he does, he can't escape that frame. The first time he is passionate about something other than his family's expectations comes at the age of 14 or 15, when he meets Tamaki Suoh. Tamaki pushes Kyouya to his emotional limit, making himself a burden on Kyouya's time and stress levels by wanting to do inane things every weekend then telling Kyouya they ought to be studying more. Finally, he dismisses the idea of wanting to run the Suoh companies, hitting the final button that sends Kyouya over the edge and nearly results in a physical altercation. At that moment (as Kyouya has Tamaki pinned down and is very near hitting him while yelling at him), Tamaki laughs and tells Kyouya "You're finally showing your true colors." At that moment, their real friendship stares, as someone has finally gotten under Kyouya's skin and wormed their way through the wall he built up between himself and the rest of the world. Tamaki's insane idea of a high school host club inspires Kyouya to step outside the frame his father expected of him and do something just for himself.

For all his selfish motivations, Kyouya is also driven by a sense of justice. People can be manipulated and used to his will, but he is bothered when they are taken advantage of by others, especially for simple gain. When Kyouya sees a woman being scammed into buying fake antiques, he intervenes, proving the seller's claims false. He finds out afterwards (and claims to have known all along) that she is the wife of a very important man. However, Haruhi realizes that he couldn't have known that going in and did, in fact, help her out of the goodness of his heart. When the Black Onion Squad (the Otori family's personal police force) tries to stop the host club from reaching the departing Tamaki, Kyouya stays behind with Honey and Mori (two martial arts experts) to give Haruhi, Kaoru, and Hikaru time to get to Tamaki, even though he can't really assist in the fighting.

Kyouya does not forgive insults. He makes it clear to the president of the newspaper club that he won't use his and his friends' influence to ruin the boy's family's company... but only because that is what the newspaper club president would do. After his father publicly humiliates him by slapping him across the face hard enough to knock off his glasses in front of everyone assembled at the Ouran High School Fair, Kyouya maintains a calm facade. Later, it is discovered that he purchased his father's faltering companies, financed them, then handed control back to his father. While Kyouya's name is not technically attached, his initials are (and, knowing Kyouya, not by accident), leading his father to figure out who was responsible and realizing that Kyouya not only got what he'd been taunted with most of his life but rejected it, as well.
[Abilities / Strengths & Weaknesses]:
Strengths:
Physical:
Kyouya is a healthy young man. He has at least normal endurance, as he leads an active (though not sports inclined) life. He can maintain an entire evening of dancing and being on his feet. His dancing also shows that he is coordinated.
Mental:
Kyouya is very intelligent. In middle school (and likely in high school, too) he was at the top of his class, earning the best grades. He pushes himself to always do better in every subject, and it can be assumed that nothing less than top marks will satisfy him. He also memorizes important people -- their names, faces, and family members. Anyone who might, in the future, help him advance is learned about quickly.
Emotional:
Kyouya cares deeply about his friends, few as they are and much as he hides it. When confronted by his family's private police force, Kyouya stays to help against them, despite having no authority (they answer to his father on this, not him) and no martial arts prowess. Kyouya is also extremely perceptive. He knows Haruhi is female the moment he sees her, and he reads people easily. He is one of the two minds behind the Host Club and the type appeal they specialize in. He is also a moral person at heart. When he sees a vendor trying to scam a woman, he intervenes to prove the fraud, even though, when he stepped in, there was no gain in it for him.
Weaknesses:
Physical:
Kyouya is completely human, leaving him suceptible to illness and injury, as well as a pampered aristocrat with no indication of martial arts training or sporting activities of any kind. Manual labor is completely out of his comfort zone and will tire him easily. He is said to have low blood pressure, though the only canonical drawback of this for Kyouya is what seems to be mild fatigue. He is extremely hard to wake. His mood is extremely foul when he first wakes up and if he is set against being awake, he can even fall back asleep despite circumstances. For instance, Tamaki and the others of the host club manage to dress him, drive him to a mall, and leave him on a bench, and he wakes up quite awhile after, briefly confused about where he is and how he got there.
Mental:
While Kyouya is intelligent, he is by no means a genius. He studies hard and gets good grades, but he is simply a good student, rather than being naturally gifted.
Emotional:
Kyouya tries very hard to keep everyone at an arm's length. He does not want to let people in, and he only does so when someone forces their way in. Kyouya generally uses his ability to read people to manipulate situations in his favor. When a boy in his middle school asks him to his family's vacation home to go stargazing, Kyouya agrees not for the boy's company but for the chance to meet the boy's important father. When the Ouran Host Club shows off for the parents of their school, Kyouya explains the costumes and themes of the host club as having political and social goals to appeal to someone who wants that answer. Kyouya views the world and the people in it as what can benefit him and what isn't worth his time, and he often does so to the detriment of his own happiness.
[Limited Powers]:
n/a
[Other Important Facts]:
n/a
[Samples]:
♦ Thread:
http://reallybadeggs.dreamwidth.org/715.html?thread=545995#cmt545995
♦ Post:
The most important part of any source of income, Kyouya Otori felt, was its divsion. Even looting an attacked ship. The manner of acquisition of the funds shocked him far less than he'd expected them to. The battle had driven home an important point, though -- he needed to learn how to fight.

That, though, could wait.

Right now, he had the task of dividing the plunder. One of the many jobs that found its way to the purser. Of course, the captain and officers would look over the work, make sure every man got his fair share -- and that they got fairer than others.

Kyouya sat in a tavern -- a fairly seedy establishment, but he wore the mark of his crew to protect him -- and worked on his figures. Rather than trying to actually count the treasure in public, he'd taken stock of it and tallied each items' worth. Then, he'd listed the crew in order of rank and seniority within those ranks. Now, all he had to do was assign pieces of the treasure to each member based on all factors. ...And give himself a bit of an extra cut for all his hard work, of course.