ooc // application

[hercakeisalie]

OOC
Name: Jacques
Contact: Prinnies @ plurk
Personal Journal: Sharnoth @ Dreamwidth
Other Characters: Kloe Rinz
Are you older than 14?: Yes

IC
Name: Haruka Saigusa
Age: 16
Game Handle: tamako05
Canon: Little Busters!


Appearance: Doesn't really look that much different from canon, which is this!

Personality:

Although Haruka is in a different class from most of the main characters of Little Busters, this noisy girl has no problems involving herself with the gang's antics. Indeed, being a natural troublemaker, Haruka often adds more chaos to the group's activities. Intentionally or otherwise, her high energy often makes her shenanigans go out of control, subjecting everyone including herself to the consequences of her actions. Riki, the main character, is generally one of the victims of her escapades, being dragged into joining them and even implicated as her partner-in-crime. Naturally, the public committee, their leader Kanata especially, views and treats her as their enemy, often clashing as they chase her around the school. Which Haruka likes to make even worse by tripping everyone who tries to come after her with her marbles and other objects.

Her quirks don't stop there, however, as despite the chaos she often causes, Haruka likes to do maintenance on various items around the school, fixing a broken chair or table while claiming that it's all a part of her maintenance club… one that only has her as a member. With her outlandish imaginations, Haruka enjoys coming up with wild scenarios for fun as excuses or jokes, once even jokingly claiming that the world would end if she helps the other members of the Little Busters clean. Cheerful and easygoing, Haruka doesn't seem to care much about her surrounding, being rather nonchalant when caught in the middle of a prank. Often called a noisy girl by other students, Haruka is indeed talkative, liking to repeat some words to jokingly emphasize them. Although she only uses it occasionally, Haruka likes to mix English and other foreign languages into her speech at times, which she usually does with her random phrases. But while she does like to cause troubles for her own amusement, Haruka actually has her limits. She's careful to not hurt her friends' feelings and even respects their boundaries if they are indeed truly awkward socially as well. All in all, while Haruka causes problems anywhere she goes due to her troublemaking tendencies, she is also a nice girl who genuinely enjoys being with her friends... or at least, that's what you might think at first.

In reality, like many characters in Little Busters, Haruka hides many issues behind her upbeat persona. One could even say that her trouble making behaviors are actually signs of a problem child, one who's being abused at home, which is indeed the case for Haruka. To begin with, her family situation is rather complicated to say the least. The Saigusa family is a traditional family, one that gives great importance to--or rather, is obsessed with their own bloodline. As such, the family's ancient tradition dictates that the women of the Saigusa family will marry two men, lying with both of them at the same time at their wedding night in order to produce an heir as soon as possible and the same goes for Haruka's parents as well. Although all members of this unorthodox marriage do love and care for one another, the fact that their own family was treating them as if they're breeding animals existing only to produce offspring made all three partners miserable. Thus, in an attempt to let the three of them break free from the family, one of the grooms, Saigusa Shou chose to kill one of the higher up of the family as an act of defiance. Subsequently, he went to prison and the other two were then cast out by their family, gaining freedom in the process. Unfortunately, Haruka's mother was carrying twins, both with different fathers. During that time, the Saigusa's reputation was tarnished due to Shou's action, allowing the branch family, the Futaki to take control. Once they learned that one of the twins is fathered by Shou, Haruka and her twin with different blood fathers, Kanata were taken from the two parents that were disinherited and got put through various rigorous tests at young age in order to determine which twin is the "inferior" twin, the one who's the child of the black sheep. Haruka didn't perform well compared to her sister and subsequently, was often abused both physically and mentally throughout her childhood. These abuses only start lessening when she entered high school and was finally taken under her parents' care again.

The effects of these abuses, however, left quite a mark on Haruka's psyche. As stated before, her troublemaking tendencies are actually in a way signs of her abusive history. By causing problems in school, Haruka is also acting out against her family, intending to shame the Saigusa with her actions. Even more, due to her strict upbringing, one that doesn't even allow for her to have normal interactions, Haruka, despite her bright and outgoing manner, is actually rather socially awkward as well. Her upbeat persona is one of the few ways she knows how to interact with others. Though her parents had finally got the chance to take her in, the past few years of her life made the interactions between Haruka and her parents very strained. Haruka can't bring herself to trust her parents' kindness, preferring not to interact with them instead. Under such condition, Haruka's self esteem plummeted and despite the fact that she tries her best to hide it, Haruka has many insecurities about her 'place' in her life, even subconsciously believing that she's worthless as her family has said to her. Thus, longing for acceptance at any cost, Haruka states explicitly during her break down in her route that she would have been fine with being with anyone as long as they love her. Furthermore, Haruka has great insecurities about herself to the point that when she saw how Kanata was pretending to be her, as if to take her place, Haruka flies into a rage, even trying to attack her sister with scissors. In a way, Haruka saw herself in the broken items around the school, choosing to fix them as a way to prove that some of them, and subsequently, Haruka herself, are not useless.

As mentioned before, Kanata Futaki, the head of the disciplinary committee, is, in reality, Haruka's half sister who was taken in by the Futaki’s as the heir. Due to her position, both in school and in their family, Katana often clashes with Haruka. Though Kanata does truly care for Haruka, their family's constant observations and threats of abuses forces Kanata to act antagonistically toward Haruka. Thus, Haruka, who ever only sees her sister's cold side, believes that her twin is like her entire family, that is, hateful and uncaring, and that the way Kanata is treating Haruka so badly is out of the ridiculous need to have someone to blame for the sin of their "father". Ironically, partly due to the harsh treatments she received, Haruka also has the same mindset about their situation as well, claiming that she's trying to find closure as she researches her paternity but also unconsciously hoping that Kanata will be the one who is Shou's child and subsequently, be subjected to their family's abuses instead of her. Fortunately, Haruka manages to grow with the help of Riki, realizing that there's no need to have someone to blame for their misfortunes. Reconciling with Kanata and her three parents, Haruka puts her past behind her, satisfied that she has place with her friends and family.

In this AU, Haruka is going to be taken before any of that happens, and as such, still hasn't deal with any of her issues. As such, she still harbors a grudge against both her sister and her family, acting out as a response to it.

AU History:

Haruka's AU background isn't that different from her canon counterpart. She's born to the Saigusa household, which still has the same messed up custom as its original counterpart; her mother must marry two men from their household in order to produce an heir as soon as possible. Likewise, the incident with Shou still happened here as well, causing her to be labeled as the "bad child" by their family's standard after Haruka failed to live up to their standards. Because of this, Haruka is still abused and though she is finally able to live with her parents and away from the main house, Haruka continues to be wary of her parents' kindness, prefering not to deal with them at all. Subsequently, her relationship with Kanata is also still strained, both acting out against one another due to their complicated situation. Her life at school isn't all that bad though, for Haruka also makes some friends there, her first real ones to be exact. Already an avid gamer, she joins in with her friends in that group to get a copy of SAO, intending to play with them all.

Samples
First Person: A musebox post and two in-game threads here and here!

Third Person: I've already been accepted in this round, so hopefully, this section isn't needed. Please tell me if I do need to prepare a sample though!