Post by sepia on Aug 31, 2010 6:26:15 GMT -6
Full Name: Ethan Kim
Nick Names: Korean name, Hyun-Shik. Usually only used by his brother.
Student or Staff: Student
House: Yellow Ribbon House
Age: 15
Ethnicity: Korean
Gender: Male
Physical Description: Ethan has never really cared about what he looks like, and so provides a striking contrast to his brother. His hair, though the same black, is short and tousled, kept so by the way he runs his hands through it when he’s nervous. His eyes are of a slightly lighter shade if grey than Daniel's, giving him a more open, less forbidding, look. Smaller than his brother, he is rather petite for a male, and despite his best efforts, doesn’t seem to be growing at all - apparently the short genes run in him very strongly. Despite looking slight, most of what is on his frame is muscle.
Personality:
Likes:
+ Daniel. First and foremost on Ethan’s list of things he likes is his beloved elder brother.
+ Solitude. Ethan appreciates time to himself, time to think and reflect rather than having to talk.
+History. He loves looking at what has made the world the way it is today, and can think of few things nicer than spending several days locked up in a room with plenty of books.
Dislikes and fears:
-Being put on the spot. He hates having to make decisions under pressure, and can be liable to panic if put in such a situation.
-A little agoraphobic, Ethan’s never been entirely keen on wide-open spaces with no hint of enclosure.
-He fears being alone quite intensely; while he likes his solitude, he would detest not being able to talk to people at all.
-Overbearing people: or, at least, overbearing people who aren’t his brother. They scare him, rather, and he prefers to avoid them.
Ethan is a follower, and has never been anything but. If you put him in a position of leadership, he’d probably explode from the pressure (or what he perceived as the pressure). Frequently called Daniel’s Shadow, he’s spent most of his life following his older brother, and being perfectly happy doing so. He’s never seen himself as anything but back-up and, really, isn’t sure he’d actually want to be anything else. Intensely loyal to his brother, he would never dream of ever surpassing him, and is perfectly content to spend the rest of his life as Daniel’s Shadow.
Actually, most of his life revolves around his brother and the two share a very deep bond. So though Ethan may frequently get exasperated with his elder sibling, he’ll always be there to back Daniel up – whether or not he asks for it – and can’t think of anything he’d rather do, really.
Ethan is quiet, preferring to hide behind his brother rather than engage people directly, and that habit has led to him being the butt of many jokes. He’s been teased almost all his life – just being one of those people that invites teasing - and by this stage has become quite accustomed to it. It had led to him being nervous of meeting new people, and being even quieter. Of course, if Daniel ever finds out that his younger brother is being teased – well, it’s probably best to get well out the way.
Though not wanting to draw attention to himself, he does want to be the best that he possibly can be, and so works himself hard. He’ll spend hours studying to make sure he really knows something, and isn’t against slaving away at the most menial tasks if someone asks. In fact, if asked, he’ll do pretty much anything, working away at a set task until the end of the world, if need be.
Nervous about many things, Ethan isn’t one to leap into new situations, and hates making decisions. When surprised, or when unexpectedly approached, he can take ages to make decisions, weighing up all the options and consequences – especially the negative ones – for so long that often the time for action has passed by the time he’s decided. Rather a pessimist, he’s always expecting the worst to happen and making contingency plans in case it does.
Easily embarrassed, he sometimes finds himself feeling it necessary to apologise for Daniel, especially if Daniel's being cavalier with people's emotions. His skills at apologising are highly hampered by the fact that he hates to speak ill of his elder brother - though even Ethan admits that his sibling has faults - and because he always gets incredibly tongue-tied while doing so. This often leads to him merely feeling guilty about it, and not actually doing anything to act upon his emotions.
Essentially, Ethan is the ultimate follower – loyal to a fault, and not one to generally come up with innovative ideas.
Background:
Father; Kim Young Jae, manager of a small shop chain, 62.
Mother; Kim Chun Hei, deceased.
Though of full-blooded Korean heritage, neither Daniel nor his brother, Ethan, have ever actually been to Korea, and were born and raised in Canada. Their parents were second-generation immigrants, their parents having come over in 1952 as refugees from the Korean War. Though Young Jae and Chun Hei never set foot in Korea, they still retained a strong sense of national pride, drilled into them by their own traditional parents, and trying to keep to some of their traditional customs even as they adapted to life in a new country – they never, for example, adopted English names.
Their two children, on the other hand, being third generation immigrants, have very little identity with Korea, though they are both interested in the country, and would love to visit some day. Both christened with traditional Korean and English names, they tend to go more by the latter, and are very much children of Canada, Canadian passports and all.
Young Jae and Chun Hei married young, when both of then were nineteen, as an arranged marriage between their two families. They were soon madly in love, however, despite having barely known each other before the match was made, and soon set themselves up in business, running a small corner shop catering to the Asian immigrant population of Vancouver, where their parents had made their home after leaving what is now South Korea. Hitting a stroke of luck, and both being very savvy business people, their little corner shop expanded quite quickly into a chain of six, then eight, scattered around Vancouver.
Children came late to the couple, Daniel – or Kang Dae, as he was first named – being born in 1993, and his brother, Ethan – Hyun-Shik – coming along two years later. A close knit family, Daniel and Ethan being especially close, it was a great blow when Chun Hei was killed in a bus crash when Daniel was seven, and Ethan five. The family dynamics changed utterly, Young Jae throwing himself into his business rather than his children, so that Daniel and Ethan came to rely on each other greatly growing up.
Daniel easily slipped into the role of protector, of leader, while Ethan found that the task of being the quiet follower, the ever-loyal backup, suited him perfectly, and from the time their mother died they have been almost inseparable. Daniel defends Ethan from anything and everything, while Ethan acts as a stabiliser to Daniel’s more extreme moods.
It was only a few months after their mother’s death that they were introduced to riding by a friend of their father’s, and from there they have never looked back, both taking to the sport like ducks to water, though even in their riding their differences in personality are apparent. Their father being highly successful by this point, he could well afford this hobby, and being closed off and distant as he was, was quite glad that his children found something to occupy themselves with out of the house, and out of the way. They got their first ponies when they were eleven and nine, respectively, and have since moved on to bigger and more complicated animals.
The move to Blue Ridge was postulated – of course – by Daniel, the elder sibling having decided that given they hardly saw their father anyway, they might as well move to a very good school, where they could really put their riding skills to good use. Ethan, unsurprisingly, supported this idea whole-heartedly, and their father was perfectly content with the idea once he’d learnt of Blue Ridge’s good academic record.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
Misc.: Shares three horses with his brother.
Also owns - mostly solely - a year old male mongrel named Kumiho. A playful, into-everything-and-getting-himself-into-trouble kind of dog, Kumiho was found by Ethan when he was out on a trail-ride one day. The dog proceeded to follow him home, and it didn't take much persuasion - mostly of his brother, given that his father didn't really care - for Ethan to be allowed to keep the animal. That was only about two months before they moved to Blue Ridge, but Kumiho - named after the Korean mythical nine-tailed fox - has proved to be devoted to Ethan, in his enthusiastic, puppyish way.
Face Claim/Playby: Yoo Seung-Ho
Threads:
Why not have two for the price of one?
