Timo Väinämöinen

⌈ PLAYER SECTION ⌉
Player: Gil
Contact: PM to Fin’s account
Age: 25
Current Characters: N/A


⌈ CHARACTER SECTION ⌉
Character: Finland
Age: About 1000 years, appears to be in his early twenties
Canon: Axis Powers Hetalia
Canon Point: 19th Febuary 1940, just after hearing that Sweden’s King rejected the request for military help during the Winter War against Russia.
Background: Canon wiki
Wikipedia entry
More detail about his canon point (And the canon reference we have for the time period)

An account I wrote for a previous application combining the two. This is a complete history and goes past the canon point for him.

Personality:
Outwardly, Finland is always smiling, happy, bubbly and very, very talkative. He likes to keep the atmosphere light by making jokes or keeping up the conversation, but around people that unnerve him like Sweden he talks even more. There isn’t much of a filter between his brain and his mouth, though, so sometimes he comes out with things that might make him seem a little silly, and if he does he’ll light up like a candle, blushing darkly. This makes him pretty easily flustered, especially when he’s anxious or nervous, and he’s fidgety too. He’s generous and sweet, and keeps a large group of friends close to his heart, happiest when the people close to him are happy and well. He’s very aware of his feminine features, and finds it uncomfortable when people bring them up or when Sweden uses ‘wife’ to refer to him. While he’s generally comfortable with himself, he’s aware of the curve of his hips and his fair features and doesn’t like to have attention paid to them or to pay attention to them.

However, like all Nations, Finland has endured all kind of hardships in his long history. Of all of the Nordics, he’s said to have had the hardest life. For five hundred years, more or less, he was Sweden’s underling, and for another hundred after that he was Russia’s. It’s also rather telling that Finnish only became a national language equal to Swedish in 1863. Having only just gained his national independence, he’s fiercely protective of it, and although he has low self esteem for himself as an individual he’s incredibly proud of his people and culture. While he is very cheerful, he’s not child-like, and he can be serious if the situation calls for it. He’s mature beyond his apparent age (which isn’t surprising, given that there’s a thousand years between his apparent age and physical one, but he’s noted as mature where other, older, Nations aren’t and that is). All of these hardships have led him to be a hard worker, and he will work without complaint. He’s an excellent housekeeper, having been Sweden’s ‘wife’ for so long. Unfortunately he has a tendency to take tasks a little bit too seriously, such as the costume that he makes for Halloween 2011, where he goes very overboard in making a ghost pirate outfit, skull mask included. He also worries a lot for his friends, putting their well being before his own. The other side affect of being an underling for so long is that his sense of self worth isn’t what it should be, and he will put himself beneath others. He’s much better at this than he was when he was owned by other Nations, but between this and his need to look after others he’ll still put other people’s interests before his own. This applies only to his personal well being and not his well being as a Nation: for example, he’d give the last of his food to one of his citizens but he wouldn’t back down in a fight at a world meeting when it concerned the welfare of his people.

His experiences with war, famine and hardship have left him with a rock solid core. Although he is very affable and can endure a lot, he does have a breaking point. Push him past that and he will bite, and hard. No one expected him to last as long as he has in the Winter War – Russian troops were told to be careful not to accidentally invade Sweden as they swept across the country, but he stood firm. One of the easiest ways to get him to snap is to threaten his friends and somewhat family in the Nordics and Estonia. He’s very loyal, and he values loyalty in other people as well. This leads to him worrying a lot about the people that he cares about.

Of all of his features, though, his most noticeable is his quirkiness. He’s a huge sucker for cute things, like moomins and baby America, but his naming sense is appalling. He was designated designer when the Nordics were given roles (with Sweden as the maker, Denmark as the seller and Norway as the critic) but you’d better hope that one of the others comes up with the names. This is a Nation who tried to name his dog ‘Bloody Floweregg’ after all. He’s also in love with weird festivals, the stranger the better, although he also adores Christmas and works hard to make sure that it’s a good time for all of his friends and family. And never, ever let him cook. While he has all the technical abilities to make something wonderful, he has a habit of straying from the recipe, and adding something downright bizarre. If he offers you Salmiakki, don’t take it. He’s also a little too into his sports, especially if it comes with a chance to kick Sweden’s arse at ice hockey. Don’t sit close to him at a game.

In addition to all of this, and specific to the canon point that has been chosen, it must be remembered that he is coming from a war, and from a difficult period of time. Within living memory he’s been through famine, Russification, independence, a brutal civil war, and now the Winter War. Although he’s still as cheerful and bubbly on the outside, he’s mentally and physically exhausted, these events still affecting his lands and his people. This is something that he will recover from with time, especially with the physical link to his country being severed by the act of being in game (and by being taken away from the battlefield and allowed time to recover). He’s also more weary and jumpy than he would be at other points, expecting fights and for people to try and take him over again, which in turn makes him a little more aggressive than he would be normally. These aren’t so much parts of his permanent personality, but more of a reflection of the time that he’s coming from: something that will be noticeable when he first arrives but will fade (to different degrees; the aggressiveness will fade first as it’s less of a natural state for him and he instinctively trusts people, but the trauma of everything that’s happened will take longer to heal) so needs to be noted to explain the differences between how he’s played at first and how he normally is. The reason I chose that canon point knowing that it makes such a big difference to his personality is that it’s a moment of high emotion in his past as it’s the point where he realises that he will not be able to win the war and that it gives him the chance to evolve within game. From a modern canon point he’s a very balanced personality, already fully developed, and from an earlier canon point he’s still the property of other Nations, which stunts his personality a lot. (He’s also less chubby to start off with, but give him proper access to food and he’ll quickly sort that out!)

Abilities:
Like all nations, Finland is long-lived and hard to kill. He recovers quickly from physical harm and ages based on his country’s development rather than his physical age. Likewise, his health is dependent on his economic status rather than his physical well being. Nations catch a cold when there's a recession on but can physically exert themselves without negative side affects.

Physically, he’s stronger than he looks, and stronger than a human his size would be. He’s also a very good shot, specialising with a sniper rifle, and complimenting this he has better than normal vision. Although all Nations must be good with languages, Finland has had to deal with more than some. He has two national languages, Finnish and Swedish, and over the years Russian, French and Latin have also been important languages in his Nation.



It's also important to note that he acts as Father Christmas more than once in canon. While there are Nations that have magical powers, Finland isn't normally grouped with them and there's been nothing to suggest he can see Norway or England's fairy friends, so for the sake of applications I normally say that the magic is in the sleigh rather than in Finland himself. This means that without the sleigh he’s unable to fly or do whatever it is that allows him to deliver all the gifts in one night (not that won’t stop him from trying to spread cheer at Christmas!)

Other: I applied what was mentioned about using applicable historical fact into his history section.  I also intend for him to arrive with his sniper riffle and a pistol, as at the time that he's coming from he would have been keeping them close.  Both are slightly advanced for the setting, but still a way off modern arms.


⌈ SAMPLE SECTION ⌉
First Person Sample:

Test drive thread 1

Test drive thread 2

Both were started before I decided on a canon point, so consider them canon for about a month or so into game (but I was aiming for a more settled presence rather than an immediate reaction to the place anyway). If you'd prefer for me to write something up closer to his entrance let me know, but I wrote the third person to reflect that too.

Third Person Sample:

Standing in the queue to have his amulet checked, Finland turns the delicate item round his fingers. Thinner than they should be, but better than they had been at the beginning of the month when he first found himself in this strange place. It had been an odd month, but then what else could be expected? After three months of war through the dark depths of winter with Russia to be drawn into the summer of another world, well, he had suffered emotional whiplash almost as extreme as the sunburn he’d endured in the first week. It’s not even summer as he knows it, full of insects and a never setting sun, things that he now feels he doesn’t appreciate enough back home (although perhaps not the insects).

In short, now that the initial strangeness of it all is starting to wear off, he’s starting to become aware of the dull ache in his chest of homesickness. He’s suffered it before; he lived under other people’s roofs so often that there were tens of years where he barely set foot on his own soil. But then he was a part of those who owned them so in a way being with them was where he belonged. Even during that brief time of Swedish expansion, when they spent time in America and other places, attempting to build an empire to challenge the other Nations around them, he had still at least been on the same world as his people, not in the complete unknown. It gnaws at the back of his mind with every step, a bitter emptiness where there should be that constant buzz, that connection to his people.

Of course, often he now has the buzz of messages sent through the amulet instead, a harsher, more disruptive connection to the people around him.

It’s a good thing, he decides, as he watches the light play off the white gem that he continues to twist through his fingers. That reminder that he isn’t alone, that there are other people in the same situation as he is, taken from their homes and their families. They’ve been brought together and now they are stuck together, and he hopes that they can work together. And if they work together, he’s sure that they can not only improve their own situation, but the whole island. Especially with the way that emotion affects the island! Put like that, it’s really their duty to stay positive and work their hardest to repay the hospitality of the natives. If he has to be here, he’d rather leave knowing that he’s left it in a better state than when he arrived.

As the queue moves closer to where their amulets will be checked, mind cleared, he finally tucks the crystal back under his shirt, where it clinks against the silver cross that he always wears. Finland’s heart clenches, and paint peels on the wall beside him as it’s presence reminds him of the Nation that gave it to him and Sweden’s betrayal. He forces himself to swallow the emotion before it can do more damage to the building, bottling it down. To keep himself from dwelling on the confusion caused by Sweden’s official and unofficial reactions, he turns instead to the person behind him, greeting them with a friendly, cheerful smile as he initiates conversation.

“Do the queues always get this long?” He asks, genuine in his curiosity. Conversation is an instant way to leave his troubles back in his home world where they belong and to draw him back to the here and now, and it won’t be long until his happiness at finding a conversation partner creates a warm glow around him, the peeled paint slowly repairing itself.

Questions: None!