Kenny O'Hara and Skadi
Nov 25, 2018 10:11:17 GMT
Post by Kenny O'Hara and Skadi on Nov 25, 2018 10:11:17 GMT
Name: Kenneth Andrew O’Hara
Alias: Kenny
Age: 20
Gender: Male
Nationality: Irish-Australian
Height: 170cm
Weight: Around 70kg
Alignment: Lawful Good
Birth Date: 10th July
Western Horoscope: Cancer
Birth Place: Parramatta, NSW Australia
Skills/Talents:
- Intelligent Bookworm: While he’s not the most socially intelligent, when it comes to other areas, he’s quite the genius. He tends to think out things before acting, and tends to plan out for a lot of things beforehand.
- Coding in Java: His passion. Starting from just a young age of 18, he started out by working on Java. Now that he’s mastered it, he’s now seeking to do some other codes to work on to help make his mark in technology and follow in his dad’s footsteps.
- Great knowledge of Japanese culture and a good grasp of Japanese language: His huge interest in Japan has given him quite a bit of knowledge about the country and what do they do there, not just in culture, but also how everyday day-to-day life operates. He’s studied quite a bit of that before coming to Japan. He also has a decent grasp on the Japanese language too, as he can read all the hiragana, all the katakana, some of the kanji, and knows quite a few sentences. Entire conversations, however, are what he’s still working on.
- Very focused: It is very hard to break Kenny’s concentration while studying. Or when he’s doing a lot of things.
- Visual Memorisation: He’s not always the best at memorising human faces, but when it comes to… unique looks and appearances, he’s great at remembering what they look like. Great for traversing familiar areas or memorising.
- Visual and Kinesthetic Learner: Kenny learns more from actually doing and seeing rather than merely listening. Once he understands how to do something, he tends to adapt to it very quickly.
- Vibrant Curiosity: While not possessing Skadi-levels of this, he’s still naturally curious himself, willing to learn about the world around him. With the emergence of Digimon, he’s willing to try and understand them more, especially thanks to his love of monsters.
- Good Person: While Kenny might not be the most social person in the world, let no one say that underneath his anti-social problems, he’s a god-awful person. In fact, he’s extremely polite to higher ranking authority figures and a good person. While he may not be the most socially capable person, you can’t easily say he’s a… well, for a lack of a better PG-13 term, butthead.
Backpack Contents:
- None… yet.
Personality:
A young man attempting to make a name for himself, Kenny is quite soft-spoken, awkward and… actually pretty friendly when you get to know him. Normally, he’s quite good at self control… just as long as the situation he feels is controllable in it of itself. While he’s not much for speaking any other time, once he starts gushing on about things he loves, it’s hard for him to stop gushing at all. While he may not look like he’s always capable of taking it on, Kenny does love a good challenge from time to time.
Kenny’s best trait is his own intelligence. When it comes to his studies, he’s very attentive, keeping focus at all times during his work and whenever he’s studying or working, it’s hard for anyone to distract him. He has a heavy passion for coding, and dreams of being a professional programmer someday. Outside of his studies, he’s a kinesthetic and visual learner, often learning more from what he does, and from what he sees around him. Which actually quite meshes well with his curiosity. He’s very interested in the world around him, and wants to learn more about it. While his curiosity isn’t on par with Skadi’s, so to say, he’s still willing to see the world and everything around it, but he’s a better judge of character of both people and situations. He’s also very honest about his feelings, and barely capable of telling a lie. And while he does try to be a nice person, if push comes to a little too much shove, he won’t be afraid to censor his feelings.
While Kenny is quite the intelligent bookworm, he doesn’t exactly have the social skills to match up with it. Due to being born with autism and diagnosed at the age of 6, he often has issues with social situations, and can easily come off as quite awkward to others, let no-one say he means ill to those around him. He’s more of a ‘live-and-let-live’ sort of guy, willing to let people do their things as long as they’re not disrupting the peace around him. However, he's also a bit of an introvert too; he's not exactly the most comfortable talking to people he doesn't fully trust, but from those who have gotten to know him well (like Mr. Anthony Leon, one of his TAFE teachers, or Isabella Lambert, Danny's fiance), he's actually a nice, respectable young man who does need some help to socialise better with others. Similarly, he often tends to put the happiness of himself for those around him, preferring to appease everyone. However, in turn, he can be quite gullible, which lead to people taking advantage of him if he’s not careful.
Being intelligent does have its downsides for him. For one thing, when it comes to his work, Kenny has traits of a perfectionist lurking inside of him. He fears complete and utter failure more than one would fear the black plague; if he makes some minor mistakes he can fix, that’s fine. No skin off his nose. However, should he screw up immensely, he’s not exactly going to be letting it go for… let’s just say ‘a while’. He takes failure very personally, and he has had his own demons haunt him for years for big, serious mistakes he’s made. And frankly, he knows he can’t change history, but this has only made him wish he had the ability to do so, because, if he could, oh dear Arceus, he would. And when pressure gets to his head, it often leads to a heavy domino effect of him breaking down and crying. And if he has to hold it in, well… he’s not exactly the best at holding it in himself, as indicated by him audibly breathing in and out, for one, or if you can see some tears he’s trying so desperately hard to hide.
However, while he loathes making huge mistakes, he’s actually quite good at learning from them. After a while, he can reflect what he’s done wrong, and can take all the steps not to do so again. Even though those mistakes still tend to follow him, it’s also clear that he remembers what he did wrong last time, and in turn, has actually used them to improve himself. But, as said before, he tends to remember that he can’t change the past, and it still can hold him down.
He has a huge love of both weird things and monsters. You could thank the Pokemon series for spurring his interest in the latter immensely, thanks to all the weird and interesting creatures in the series. This helped open interest to other monster-themed series, including the Godzilla and Monster Hunter series, which he also loves to this day. So the fact that he’s discovered that these weird creatures that he’s seen popping up around his new home, Digimon, has been of a mixed bag for him. For one thing… monsters are real and walk among us. And some seem to actually be pretty friendly (see: Skadi). On the other hand, these are potentially dangerous creatures.
He loves video games as well, and often brings his Switch along with him so he can play while waiting. He enjoys a lot of Japanese video games, which has helped him learn quite a bit of Japanese, but he’s fine with trying anything. He hates waiting, but as long he has something to do, like using his phone or playing his Switch/3DS, he can be content with waiting.
Although he enjoys gaming quite a bit, he still enjoys the odd book every now and then, often preferring comic books and graphic novels, although it's not uncommon of him to jump online and read on his phone as well.
On the topic of Skadi, Kenny certainly appreciates her presence. While his focus still lies in his work and study, he does make time for Skadi when he can.
Sometimes, to him, Skadi can be quite embarrassing with her affection, but he can’t help but admit that it’s actually quite nice that someone like her is showing genuine affection and care towards him that isn’t his dad or pet cat. While Skadi always prioritises in keeping Kenny safe in battle, Kenny, in turn, does want to make sure she stays safe too. And while he can’t exactly fight, he tends to think more on his feet, often warning of approaching threats or calling out potential advice in battle.
Appearance:
Kenny is an young adult man with a soft, round looking face. He has brown scruffy hair (perfect for ruffling, if you want
) and light blue eyes. His eyebrows are quite light, but share the same colour as his hair. He has ocean-blue eyes, which is (not quite) hidden by his glasses. Both of fingernails and toenails are well trimmed, and his skin is a light tan colour.
His normal casual (winter) attire is his jacket, with a plain white t-shirt, primarily when going to university or work. Although he’s not above the odd fun t-shirt, he does intend to dress nicely and comfortably when out.
His pants are usually black coloured, to contrast with his (normally) white tee, and he wears white sneakers a lot of the time he’s out.
FaceClaim: OC • Kenny O'Hara
Personal History:
While being born in Australia, Kenny’s Irish blood comes from his dad’s side, Michael O’Hara, who moved to Australia when he was of age for opportunities. A few months later, Michael found his love, and eventually Kenny’s mother, Eleanor Wilkinson, while studying IT at Sydney University. Eleanor was a sweet, caring young woman studying medicine, and after meeting and dating for a while, they eventually married, with only a year later, Eleanor got pregnant and would later give birth to Kenny.
Kenny was the only child in the family. Life was pretty uneventful at first. Kenny was growing up normally until teachers were showing some weird signs he seemed to be displaying in kindergarten: he was sensitive to 2 songs playing at once, he was often scared of sudden loud noises, he often found it more interesting to play with toys than talk to the others.
It’s clear that Kenny has had grown up in an environment where autism had been looked down upon. Doctors at the time, at least what Kenny heard from his dad later on, had told Michael and Eleanor that their son would become dependant on them for the rest of their life, and basically to abandon all expectations of him. You do have to keep in mind though that this was a time where autism wasn’t exactly well understood yet. And it would have been easy to just flat out give up on him and write him off as a lost cause. Yet Michael and Eleanor weren’t willing to give up on him so easily. They knew raising a kid who would have a lot of issues in life, but they wanted to show Kenny was capable of a lot of things all the same.
Unfortunately, just after Kenny turned 8, Eleanor died in a car crash during the night driving home on her own, courtesy of a speeding drunk driver. She had no time to react. And there were no survivors. Left without a mother to kiss him goodnight and tell him how she was always going to be by her side, Kenny was devastated; this was the first time he ever experienced death in the family, that his mother would never come back, and mainly withdrawing into books and video games as a form of escapism. His dad was just as, if not more heartbroken than Kenny, having lost the love of his life. He never remarried.
Much of Kenny’s school life was being placed into a ‘special class’, often going to the regular classes to do normal grade work as needed. At first, it did seem to work for him. He enjoyed the company of the other students, he could do the work quite well, and he did seem quite sociable at first. Although he never seemed to find the same interests as everyone else did.
However, this would come to a myriad of issues on his end. Whenever he went to class, a teacher would often follow him there and watch over him, often hand holding him, even through his constant insistence he didn’t need it. He also felt disadvantaged when it came to exams, as much of the time, what time he could have used to study or learn could potentially be overtaken by lesions he really did not need to learn and things that would detract from his studies (see: the 2008 Beijing Olympics and a subsequent play they had to do, which just lifted material from other shows popular at the time). Even worse was some of the students he had to deal with while at the normal class, like with a girl he befriended around this time, only for her to betray Kenny’s trust and humiliate him in front of everyone, or this boy, named Sam, constantly calling him names, constantly slugging him when no-one was looking and encouraging everyone to stay away from him.
Things came to a head when on a warm Spring day, after a small rain drizzle, Kenny was just walking around when Sam pushed Kenny into a mud puddle, then got his friends to laugh at him. Each time Kenny tried to get back up, he just kept getting pushed back in. This started to get Kenny to snap. Before Sam could push him back into the puddle again, Kenny defended himself against the bully, just to save himself again. Unfortunately, Sam decided to pull a wounded Gazelle gambit, intentionally throwing himself into the mud, and blaming Kenny for it.
To make matters worse, when Sam’s friends told the principal what happened, they made it look like Kenny threw Sam into the mud first, and Sam was the one trying to fight back. Despite Kenny’s protest that he was telling the truth, he got a whole month’s suspension for a crime he didn’t commit. The only person who would back him up at the time was his dad, who fought the suspension for his son, but ultimately failed, which game Sam full reign to bully him, without Kenny being able to do anything about it.
Kenny’s favourite hobby during lunchtime was going to the library and reading. He was never allowed to bring his Game Boy Advance to school, as per the school rules. Growing up, he really loved the Horrible Histories book series, and was the book he would most commonly borrow. He also loved reading the Goosebumps series as well, but really, he was willing to read anything he could. He became quite a great companion to the school librarian. Besides, if he just chilled out in the library, Sam and co. couldn’t harass Kenny, at risk of getting to trouble themselves, thanks to the librarian’s intervention.
When not at school, Kenny’s home life was a little better. Due to being the only earner in the family, Michael could only treat Kenny sparingly, but did encourage him to save up his own pocket money to get what he wanted. Growing up, Kenny got a Game Boy Advance SP on his 5th birthday, and later a Gamecube for Christmas that same year, which he would frequently play everyday after school (well, after his dad made sure his homework was done, for obvious reasons). And while going to see the NRL Roosters games were few and far between, it was an absolute treat for Kenny when he and his dad did get to go. Kenny could never bring his GBA to school, lest he lose it or have the teachers confiscated from him.
Around the age of 10, Kenny got on a television program called Super Smartypants, a Double Dare-like gameshow, with trivia questions and physical challenges, with the winner getting amazing prizes and also getting slimed. Kenny barely won by a hair’s length in the final challenge, and in turn, won himself a Nintendo DS prize pack (he still has it to this day, and it has seem quite a few refurbishments thanks to his dad), along with the ‘real prize’, a sliming. And yes, Kenny did enjoy the gameshow, and the sliming as a kid, but he’s slightly embarrassed by it now, and will blush if Michael mentions it or even shows that clip.
It was a small blessing that at the time, when the episode finally aired Kenny was able to make a proper friend named Isaac Thomason, another boy about his age, who latched onto Kenny for how well he did on that show. The duo became quick friends, with Isaac's interest in computers fascinating Kenny, and they're still friends to this day. In fact, he was Kenny's only friend throughout school.
Around year 7, Kenny went to a new school and his special needs classes were marginally better. This time around, the ‘special class’ was nothing more than a glorified homeroom, and he was sent to normal classes. However, sometimes, a teacher would often come in to watch over him and tell him what to do, eventually hand holding him throughout the entire classes. Although Kenny was showing he could do a lot of things by himself, they would often insist they stay because of that ‘incident’, and thanks to the teachers’ mentality of ‘the teacher is always right’, here they stayed, much to his dismay. Any attempt to poliety, but firmly, tell them ‘no’, was written off as ‘rudeness’.
Eventually, around Year 9, Kenny requested he be removed from the special classes. And lord only knows how much it was a struggle for his dad to help him get out. According to Michael, the teachers kept insisting Kenny ‘wasn’t ready’ to go out on his own, despite all the iron-grip hand holding he had to deal with. Eventually, Michael won, and Kenny was placed in a normal class the next year. And he actually managed to do well for himself. He got better marks in his class, and he was showing that he could be generally be a very good student, always working hard and studying hard. However, he wasn’t able to really make any proper friends outside of Isaac, as because of his work, he had to focus on that and his exams. Besides, why make new friends if they were most likely going to betray you?
After graduation, Kenny was enrolled into TAFE, taking up a few IT courses. And for his part, he actually had done pretty well for himself. And unlike school, his TAFE studies have passed without much incident, eventually gaining an IT Diploma. Not bad for someone who would be told ‘would never amount to anything’, huh?
Although he couldn’t really get a proper job, as he opted to just focus on study before taking down a job, surviving on a fortnightly pension from the government.
However, in one of his courses, while undertaking programming, he found his passion for programming in the form of Java. His immense enjoyment of programming has made him want to establish a dream path of programmer.
In his later years, Michael has been helping to work on software at the ADTR (Australian Disability Technology Research) Institute, after a long career in other companies like Microsoft. Inspired by all the struggles his son had to go through during his early life thanks to his son’s disability, he’s taken it upon himself to dedicate his life to developing software to help those who have both physical and mental disabilities, to help others out and to ensure that they know what to do. Mainly after all of Kenny’s struggles, Michael has come to a firm belief that with the right support and potential, anyone can be successful in what they do, and he credits Kenny and his many successes in life, much to the latter’s happy embarrassment.
Just recently, Michael has been promoted to Manager in ADTR’s Japan branch, setting up shop in Shibuya, which facilitated them renting out their old Parramatta home to Isaac and moving to Japan. His connections have also gotten Kenny a part-time job as junior admin assistant to help out with what the company needs on a day-to-day basis. Kenny has now been settling into his new home, helping out, while working to get into Tokyo University in the foreseeable future. He’s basically been encouraging himself to think of the potential fresh start he’s going to undertake while in his new home.
Other Facts:
- When he was 4, he got a pet kitten the family named Skadi, a Ragdoll. Since he was quite lonely growing up, he saw this Skadi as his only true friend he had (until Isaac came along). Skadi would often be the first to greet him as he got home from school, often waiting by the door until he got back, and clawing at his legs when he did. She would also nuzzle up to Kenny up for warmth, and loved eating the leftover fish the family would have. Sadly, a bit after Kenny turned 17, Skadi came down with a terminal illness and had to be put down. Her final resting place is the O'Hara family backyard. Likewise, Valaismon!Skadi got her name because her In-Training form (Mallimon) reminded him of Cat!Skadi.
- Kenny doesn't drink alcohol. In fact, he hates it. He's tasted a few times, and everytime, he's had to clear his tongue of the taste. He doesn't mind mocktails though.
- As a kid, Kenny was a huge Pokemon fan, his first game being Pokemon Emerald. He’s still quite a fan today, occasionally picking up the newest main series game and playing semi-competitively. His favourite Pokemon is Ampharos, and was the first Pokemon he trained to Lv. 100 (if you’re wondering what’s his favourite starter, it’s Torchic, because of its 3rd stage evolution, Blaziken). Fittingly enough, his partner Digimon also happens to be a sheep-like creature.
- His favourite NRL team is the Sydney Roosters, and his dad taking him out to see their games was always a big treat for him as a kid. But please don’t bring up the Parramatta Eels near him. Just… just don’t.
Alias: Kenny
Age: 20
Gender: Male
Nationality: Irish-Australian
Height: 170cm
Weight: Around 70kg
Alignment: Lawful Good
Birth Date: 10th July
Western Horoscope: Cancer
Birth Place: Parramatta, NSW Australia
Skills/Talents:
- Intelligent Bookworm: While he’s not the most socially intelligent, when it comes to other areas, he’s quite the genius. He tends to think out things before acting, and tends to plan out for a lot of things beforehand.
- Coding in Java: His passion. Starting from just a young age of 18, he started out by working on Java. Now that he’s mastered it, he’s now seeking to do some other codes to work on to help make his mark in technology and follow in his dad’s footsteps.
- Great knowledge of Japanese culture and a good grasp of Japanese language: His huge interest in Japan has given him quite a bit of knowledge about the country and what do they do there, not just in culture, but also how everyday day-to-day life operates. He’s studied quite a bit of that before coming to Japan. He also has a decent grasp on the Japanese language too, as he can read all the hiragana, all the katakana, some of the kanji, and knows quite a few sentences. Entire conversations, however, are what he’s still working on.
- Very focused: It is very hard to break Kenny’s concentration while studying. Or when he’s doing a lot of things.
- Visual Memorisation: He’s not always the best at memorising human faces, but when it comes to… unique looks and appearances, he’s great at remembering what they look like. Great for traversing familiar areas or memorising.
- Visual and Kinesthetic Learner: Kenny learns more from actually doing and seeing rather than merely listening. Once he understands how to do something, he tends to adapt to it very quickly.
- Vibrant Curiosity: While not possessing Skadi-levels of this, he’s still naturally curious himself, willing to learn about the world around him. With the emergence of Digimon, he’s willing to try and understand them more, especially thanks to his love of monsters.
- Good Person: While Kenny might not be the most social person in the world, let no one say that underneath his anti-social problems, he’s a god-awful person. In fact, he’s extremely polite to higher ranking authority figures and a good person. While he may not be the most socially capable person, you can’t easily say he’s a… well, for a lack of a better PG-13 term, butthead.
Backpack Contents:
- His Nintendo Switch
- A Blaziken plushie - to represent himself in pictures he posts to social media
- A Japanese-to-English handbook.
- His phone, along with a portable charger.
- His wallet
Artifacts:
- Pendant of Deceit
A pendant imbued with the energy of Sloth's lethargy. This pendant allows you to experience the dreams of another person in close proximity.
Digivice: Standard D-3. White with off-grey rubber grips and a Flying Spaghetti Monster keychain attached to it.
Installed Digivice Abilities:- None… yet.
Personality:
A young man attempting to make a name for himself, Kenny is quite soft-spoken, awkward and… actually pretty friendly when you get to know him. Normally, he’s quite good at self control… just as long as the situation he feels is controllable in it of itself. While he’s not much for speaking any other time, once he starts gushing on about things he loves, it’s hard for him to stop gushing at all. While he may not look like he’s always capable of taking it on, Kenny does love a good challenge from time to time.
Kenny’s best trait is his own intelligence. When it comes to his studies, he’s very attentive, keeping focus at all times during his work and whenever he’s studying or working, it’s hard for anyone to distract him. He has a heavy passion for coding, and dreams of being a professional programmer someday. Outside of his studies, he’s a kinesthetic and visual learner, often learning more from what he does, and from what he sees around him. Which actually quite meshes well with his curiosity. He’s very interested in the world around him, and wants to learn more about it. While his curiosity isn’t on par with Skadi’s, so to say, he’s still willing to see the world and everything around it, but he’s a better judge of character of both people and situations. He’s also very honest about his feelings, and barely capable of telling a lie. And while he does try to be a nice person, if push comes to a little too much shove, he won’t be afraid to censor his feelings.
While Kenny is quite the intelligent bookworm, he doesn’t exactly have the social skills to match up with it. Due to being born with autism and diagnosed at the age of 6, he often has issues with social situations, and can easily come off as quite awkward to others, let no-one say he means ill to those around him. He’s more of a ‘live-and-let-live’ sort of guy, willing to let people do their things as long as they’re not disrupting the peace around him. However, he's also a bit of an introvert too; he's not exactly the most comfortable talking to people he doesn't fully trust, but from those who have gotten to know him well (like Mr. Anthony Leon, one of his TAFE teachers, or Isabella Lambert, Danny's fiance), he's actually a nice, respectable young man who does need some help to socialise better with others. Similarly, he often tends to put the happiness of himself for those around him, preferring to appease everyone. However, in turn, he can be quite gullible, which lead to people taking advantage of him if he’s not careful.
Being intelligent does have its downsides for him. For one thing, when it comes to his work, Kenny has traits of a perfectionist lurking inside of him. He fears complete and utter failure more than one would fear the black plague; if he makes some minor mistakes he can fix, that’s fine. No skin off his nose. However, should he screw up immensely, he’s not exactly going to be letting it go for… let’s just say ‘a while’. He takes failure very personally, and he has had his own demons haunt him for years for big, serious mistakes he’s made. And frankly, he knows he can’t change history, but this has only made him wish he had the ability to do so, because, if he could, oh dear Arceus, he would. And when pressure gets to his head, it often leads to a heavy domino effect of him breaking down and crying. And if he has to hold it in, well… he’s not exactly the best at holding it in himself, as indicated by him audibly breathing in and out, for one, or if you can see some tears he’s trying so desperately hard to hide.
However, while he loathes making huge mistakes, he’s actually quite good at learning from them. After a while, he can reflect what he’s done wrong, and can take all the steps not to do so again. Even though those mistakes still tend to follow him, it’s also clear that he remembers what he did wrong last time, and in turn, has actually used them to improve himself. But, as said before, he tends to remember that he can’t change the past, and it still can hold him down.
He has a huge love of both weird things and monsters. You could thank the Pokemon series for spurring his interest in the latter immensely, thanks to all the weird and interesting creatures in the series. This helped open interest to other monster-themed series, including the Godzilla and Monster Hunter series, which he also loves to this day. So the fact that he’s discovered that these weird creatures that he’s seen popping up around his new home, Digimon, has been of a mixed bag for him. For one thing… monsters are real and walk among us. And some seem to actually be pretty friendly (see: Skadi). On the other hand, these are potentially dangerous creatures.
He loves video games as well, and often brings his Switch along with him so he can play while waiting. He enjoys a lot of Japanese video games, which has helped him learn quite a bit of Japanese, but he’s fine with trying anything. He hates waiting, but as long he has something to do, like using his phone or playing his Switch/3DS, he can be content with waiting.
Although he enjoys gaming quite a bit, he still enjoys the odd book every now and then, often preferring comic books and graphic novels, although it's not uncommon of him to jump online and read on his phone as well.
On the topic of Skadi, Kenny certainly appreciates her presence. While his focus still lies in his work and study, he does make time for Skadi when he can.
Sometimes, to him, Skadi can be quite embarrassing with her affection, but he can’t help but admit that it’s actually quite nice that someone like her is showing genuine affection and care towards him that isn’t his dad or pet cat. While Skadi always prioritises in keeping Kenny safe in battle, Kenny, in turn, does want to make sure she stays safe too. And while he can’t exactly fight, he tends to think more on his feet, often warning of approaching threats or calling out potential advice in battle.
Appearance:
Kenny is an young adult man with a soft, round looking face. He has brown scruffy hair (perfect for ruffling, if you want
) and light blue eyes. His eyebrows are quite light, but share the same colour as his hair. He has ocean-blue eyes, which is (not quite) hidden by his glasses. Both of fingernails and toenails are well trimmed, and his skin is a light tan colour.His normal casual (winter) attire is his jacket, with a plain white t-shirt, primarily when going to university or work. Although he’s not above the odd fun t-shirt, he does intend to dress nicely and comfortably when out.
His pants are usually black coloured, to contrast with his (normally) white tee, and he wears white sneakers a lot of the time he’s out.
FaceClaim: OC • Kenny O'Hara
Personal History:
While being born in Australia, Kenny’s Irish blood comes from his dad’s side, Michael O’Hara, who moved to Australia when he was of age for opportunities. A few months later, Michael found his love, and eventually Kenny’s mother, Eleanor Wilkinson, while studying IT at Sydney University. Eleanor was a sweet, caring young woman studying medicine, and after meeting and dating for a while, they eventually married, with only a year later, Eleanor got pregnant and would later give birth to Kenny.
Kenny was the only child in the family. Life was pretty uneventful at first. Kenny was growing up normally until teachers were showing some weird signs he seemed to be displaying in kindergarten: he was sensitive to 2 songs playing at once, he was often scared of sudden loud noises, he often found it more interesting to play with toys than talk to the others.
It’s clear that Kenny has had grown up in an environment where autism had been looked down upon. Doctors at the time, at least what Kenny heard from his dad later on, had told Michael and Eleanor that their son would become dependant on them for the rest of their life, and basically to abandon all expectations of him. You do have to keep in mind though that this was a time where autism wasn’t exactly well understood yet. And it would have been easy to just flat out give up on him and write him off as a lost cause. Yet Michael and Eleanor weren’t willing to give up on him so easily. They knew raising a kid who would have a lot of issues in life, but they wanted to show Kenny was capable of a lot of things all the same.
Unfortunately, just after Kenny turned 8, Eleanor died in a car crash during the night driving home on her own, courtesy of a speeding drunk driver. She had no time to react. And there were no survivors. Left without a mother to kiss him goodnight and tell him how she was always going to be by her side, Kenny was devastated; this was the first time he ever experienced death in the family, that his mother would never come back, and mainly withdrawing into books and video games as a form of escapism. His dad was just as, if not more heartbroken than Kenny, having lost the love of his life. He never remarried.
Much of Kenny’s school life was being placed into a ‘special class’, often going to the regular classes to do normal grade work as needed. At first, it did seem to work for him. He enjoyed the company of the other students, he could do the work quite well, and he did seem quite sociable at first. Although he never seemed to find the same interests as everyone else did.
However, this would come to a myriad of issues on his end. Whenever he went to class, a teacher would often follow him there and watch over him, often hand holding him, even through his constant insistence he didn’t need it. He also felt disadvantaged when it came to exams, as much of the time, what time he could have used to study or learn could potentially be overtaken by lesions he really did not need to learn and things that would detract from his studies (see: the 2008 Beijing Olympics and a subsequent play they had to do, which just lifted material from other shows popular at the time). Even worse was some of the students he had to deal with while at the normal class, like with a girl he befriended around this time, only for her to betray Kenny’s trust and humiliate him in front of everyone, or this boy, named Sam, constantly calling him names, constantly slugging him when no-one was looking and encouraging everyone to stay away from him.
Things came to a head when on a warm Spring day, after a small rain drizzle, Kenny was just walking around when Sam pushed Kenny into a mud puddle, then got his friends to laugh at him. Each time Kenny tried to get back up, he just kept getting pushed back in. This started to get Kenny to snap. Before Sam could push him back into the puddle again, Kenny defended himself against the bully, just to save himself again. Unfortunately, Sam decided to pull a wounded Gazelle gambit, intentionally throwing himself into the mud, and blaming Kenny for it.
To make matters worse, when Sam’s friends told the principal what happened, they made it look like Kenny threw Sam into the mud first, and Sam was the one trying to fight back. Despite Kenny’s protest that he was telling the truth, he got a whole month’s suspension for a crime he didn’t commit. The only person who would back him up at the time was his dad, who fought the suspension for his son, but ultimately failed, which game Sam full reign to bully him, without Kenny being able to do anything about it.
Kenny’s favourite hobby during lunchtime was going to the library and reading. He was never allowed to bring his Game Boy Advance to school, as per the school rules. Growing up, he really loved the Horrible Histories book series, and was the book he would most commonly borrow. He also loved reading the Goosebumps series as well, but really, he was willing to read anything he could. He became quite a great companion to the school librarian. Besides, if he just chilled out in the library, Sam and co. couldn’t harass Kenny, at risk of getting to trouble themselves, thanks to the librarian’s intervention.
When not at school, Kenny’s home life was a little better. Due to being the only earner in the family, Michael could only treat Kenny sparingly, but did encourage him to save up his own pocket money to get what he wanted. Growing up, Kenny got a Game Boy Advance SP on his 5th birthday, and later a Gamecube for Christmas that same year, which he would frequently play everyday after school (well, after his dad made sure his homework was done, for obvious reasons). And while going to see the NRL Roosters games were few and far between, it was an absolute treat for Kenny when he and his dad did get to go. Kenny could never bring his GBA to school, lest he lose it or have the teachers confiscated from him.
Around the age of 10, Kenny got on a television program called Super Smartypants, a Double Dare-like gameshow, with trivia questions and physical challenges, with the winner getting amazing prizes and also getting slimed. Kenny barely won by a hair’s length in the final challenge, and in turn, won himself a Nintendo DS prize pack (he still has it to this day, and it has seem quite a few refurbishments thanks to his dad), along with the ‘real prize’, a sliming. And yes, Kenny did enjoy the gameshow, and the sliming as a kid, but he’s slightly embarrassed by it now, and will blush if Michael mentions it or even shows that clip.
It was a small blessing that at the time, when the episode finally aired Kenny was able to make a proper friend named Isaac Thomason, another boy about his age, who latched onto Kenny for how well he did on that show. The duo became quick friends, with Isaac's interest in computers fascinating Kenny, and they're still friends to this day. In fact, he was Kenny's only friend throughout school.
Around year 7, Kenny went to a new school and his special needs classes were marginally better. This time around, the ‘special class’ was nothing more than a glorified homeroom, and he was sent to normal classes. However, sometimes, a teacher would often come in to watch over him and tell him what to do, eventually hand holding him throughout the entire classes. Although Kenny was showing he could do a lot of things by himself, they would often insist they stay because of that ‘incident’, and thanks to the teachers’ mentality of ‘the teacher is always right’, here they stayed, much to his dismay. Any attempt to poliety, but firmly, tell them ‘no’, was written off as ‘rudeness’.
Eventually, around Year 9, Kenny requested he be removed from the special classes. And lord only knows how much it was a struggle for his dad to help him get out. According to Michael, the teachers kept insisting Kenny ‘wasn’t ready’ to go out on his own, despite all the iron-grip hand holding he had to deal with. Eventually, Michael won, and Kenny was placed in a normal class the next year. And he actually managed to do well for himself. He got better marks in his class, and he was showing that he could be generally be a very good student, always working hard and studying hard. However, he wasn’t able to really make any proper friends outside of Isaac, as because of his work, he had to focus on that and his exams. Besides, why make new friends if they were most likely going to betray you?
After graduation, Kenny was enrolled into TAFE, taking up a few IT courses. And for his part, he actually had done pretty well for himself. And unlike school, his TAFE studies have passed without much incident, eventually gaining an IT Diploma. Not bad for someone who would be told ‘would never amount to anything’, huh?
Although he couldn’t really get a proper job, as he opted to just focus on study before taking down a job, surviving on a fortnightly pension from the government.
However, in one of his courses, while undertaking programming, he found his passion for programming in the form of Java. His immense enjoyment of programming has made him want to establish a dream path of programmer.
In his later years, Michael has been helping to work on software at the ADTR (Australian Disability Technology Research) Institute, after a long career in other companies like Microsoft. Inspired by all the struggles his son had to go through during his early life thanks to his son’s disability, he’s taken it upon himself to dedicate his life to developing software to help those who have both physical and mental disabilities, to help others out and to ensure that they know what to do. Mainly after all of Kenny’s struggles, Michael has come to a firm belief that with the right support and potential, anyone can be successful in what they do, and he credits Kenny and his many successes in life, much to the latter’s happy embarrassment.
Just recently, Michael has been promoted to Manager in ADTR’s Japan branch, setting up shop in Shibuya, which facilitated them renting out their old Parramatta home to Isaac and moving to Japan. His connections have also gotten Kenny a part-time job as junior admin assistant to help out with what the company needs on a day-to-day basis. Kenny has now been settling into his new home, helping out, while working to get into Tokyo University in the foreseeable future. He’s basically been encouraging himself to think of the potential fresh start he’s going to undertake while in his new home.
Other Facts:
- When he was 4, he got a pet kitten the family named Skadi, a Ragdoll. Since he was quite lonely growing up, he saw this Skadi as his only true friend he had (until Isaac came along). Skadi would often be the first to greet him as he got home from school, often waiting by the door until he got back, and clawing at his legs when he did. She would also nuzzle up to Kenny up for warmth, and loved eating the leftover fish the family would have. Sadly, a bit after Kenny turned 17, Skadi came down with a terminal illness and had to be put down. Her final resting place is the O'Hara family backyard. Likewise, Valaismon!Skadi got her name because her In-Training form (Mallimon) reminded him of Cat!Skadi.
- Kenny doesn't drink alcohol. In fact, he hates it. He's tasted a few times, and everytime, he's had to clear his tongue of the taste. He doesn't mind mocktails though.
- As a kid, Kenny was a huge Pokemon fan, his first game being Pokemon Emerald. He’s still quite a fan today, occasionally picking up the newest main series game and playing semi-competitively. His favourite Pokemon is Ampharos, and was the first Pokemon he trained to Lv. 100 (if you’re wondering what’s his favourite starter, it’s Torchic, because of its 3rd stage evolution, Blaziken). Fittingly enough, his partner Digimon also happens to be a sheep-like creature.
- His favourite NRL team is the Sydney Roosters, and his dad taking him out to see their games was always a big treat for him as a kid. But please don’t bring up the Parramatta Eels near him. Just… just don’t.
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