( songerein ) emil vasterstrom ▶ stand still. stay silent ▶ reserved

[enflame]

Player: Pia
Age: 27
Contact: haseul
Current Characters: Jiang Yanli (The Untamed)

Character: Emil Västerström
Canon: Stand Still. Stay Silent | Right after Adventure 2, Page 16 | CRAU for Asgard Genesis
Age: 20

Background Information: personal write up & much more up to date canon info pages | canon wiki | character wiki

⇢ asgard info
Emil's Asgard Genesis canon point is about 6 1/2 -- 7 months into the game, at around the 190 day mark after being there from Day 1 of the game. Each character was ascribed to one of the nine gods present, with Emil being placed in Tyr: God of Courage and Diplomacy (symbolic of Emil's canon journey to becoming a more empathetic and non-judgmental person).

A foundational mechanic of Asgard was characters receiving three spells as a gift from the game's gods. Emil had unlocked two before dropping, and his initial discovery that he was capable of magic at all was...jarring, to say the least. While his canon point meant that he'd seen quite a bit of magic and held respect for at least one person who could wield it, magic was still a point of ignorance in his life. He's certainly not the best when it comes to using his spells, but he's willing to learn how to hone and grow the skills he has now.

In canon, Emil has effectively made one friend in his entire life, which allowed him to grow his empathy and understanding of others an immense amount. However, that was limited without variety, something that Asgard gave him. It's impossible to unlearn 19 years of selfishness and spoiled behavior in such a short amount of time, but he's certainly on the road to being a more well-rounded person. He's attained a very close friend in Klaus Hargreeves, someone who he certainly feels a fondness for, but there are also complexities to their relationship that Emil hasn't experienced with other relationships before, mostly having to do with Klaus' free-spirit and substance addiction issues.

With the smaller changes out of the way, the two biggest life-altering incidents in Asgard for Emil are his death and his relationship with Lalli Hotakainen:

1) During a game event in with White Walkers and the Night King from Game of Thrones made themselves present in Asgard, Emil was killed and turned into a White Walker himself. Basically undead and blood-thirsty, Lalli had no choice but to kill Emil in his turned state. Despite being without control of his body as a White Walker, Emil has complete memory of both of his deaths. This was a major point of contention between the two for a while, and still has a residual effect on their relation, as well as on Emil's psyche in general. He also has semi-consistent migraines and physical head pain from the incident.

2) Lalli was Emil's first and only friend at the beginning of Asgard, and even though his list of acquaintances grew Lalli still continued to be the person he appreciated the most. A lack of language barrier meant their relationship could grow positively, as well as create more opportunities for conflict. Despite a couple fights and disagreements, it only solidified to Emil that Lalli was someone he could never hold anything against, let alone not see as a friend in his life. He eventually accepts that the feelings he holds for Lalli are romantic in nature, finally confessing them and to his total surprise, they were reciprocated. Their romantic relationship is somewhat atypical, and it's only about ~3 months old, but it'll certainly be one of things that Emil is most sure about in his newfound situation.

Personality:

(+) MALLEABLE
When Emil was rich, his world was very insular. It is never spoken of that he had friends outside of family members, so there was never anyone to give him a reality check and give context to any world outside of his own. When first introduced, Emil comes off as something of a pompous buffoon. He's prissy and high maintenance, which might be something you could stomach if he was a nice person otherwise — but unfortunately that's not always how he can come off.

After joining the rest of his crew and experiencing trials and tribulations, Emil has grown closer to people who aren’t like him. He hasn't stubbornly stuck in his ways like some would. When confronted with change or new information, others might double down in fear or pride. Emil may not be perfect, but he does have the capacity for growth. As a more definitive personality example, Emil is someone who is sheltered, but can and will change when exposed to new things that question his previously closed off world view. A first interaction with Emil might be one that's prickly, but there's the potential there for mutual growing on one another.

(+) IMPASSIONED
Emil operates on whims, but they're certainly passionate ones. He essentially doesn't do anything without having a strong feeling about it, one way or the other. When Emil was young, academics were his life. Once his true intellectual caliber was called into question, that passion was thrown out the window — however, it was quickly replaced with throwing his everything into being part of the military, so much so that he went through a very intensive physical transformation. No matter what his emotions are, they're typically extremely intense.

Feeling strongly about something, whether the consequence is negative or positive, is part of why Emil is where he is during his current canon point. Without feeling passionate about himself, other people, certain situations, etc., he wouldn't have grown as much as he has.

(+) COMPASSIONATE
Despite Emil being a judgmental person, very used to his own views and ideals of things being The One True Way, he can definitely swing back around to being an incredibly compassionate person. If Emil respects or likes you, he'll do whatever he can for you. This even extends to animal monsters he's just killed. This goes back into how intensely he feels things, but also juxtaposes itself against his own ego (mentioned in flaws). Emil can be very focused on himself, but when he views someone as worthy of positive emotions, that's felt just as intensely as any other emotion he might go through.

(-) EGOTISTICAL
Emil is, for lack of a better word, flamboyant. He prides himself on his appearance and perfectly groomed and shining hair. He likes to look presentable and can be kind of a know-it-all. Emil is the kind of person that will say something with absolute certainty because he’s COMPLETELY SURE he’s the expert on a subject, despite being 100% wrong. What he wants to learn, he learns. What he wants to think, he thinks. Emil isn't so uneducated that he can't read or write, but his assessment of what is actually a fact or not is very skewed.

Despite showing off a more vulnerable side to others on the mission, Emil's pride in himself and his appearance — both physical and with regards to impressions — is something he frets about with varying significance throughout the series. It's shown he can be more revealing around people in times of stress, or if he feels they're close enough, but it doesn't change this baseline anxiety he has about being viewed in a negative light by others. Even if Emil doesn't have a favorable opinion of someone, it's still important they see him positively — because why wouldn't they? Why shouldn't they?

(-) INEXPERIENCED
When it comes to Emil's ego with his work, part of it is warranted — he is military trained and has a decent understanding of his job as a cleanser. However, his ability to perform his duty is like comparing book smarts to street smarts: you can read a book on how to shoot a gun, but actually firing one off in the field is very different, which is actually quite a literal example when it comes to Emil. Emil remarks that he's seen trolls before, but dead ones and that they're rare to even seen in his part of Sweden. When you live a sheltered life of safety and mollycoddling, the concept of real danger is lost on you, after all.

This isn't just related to the mission, either. Because he's lived an insular life, social interaction isn't at the forefront of Emil's wheelhouse. He adapts quickly to friendship, mostly out of a knowledge of how he would like to be treated, but he has his awkward moments. For as cool as Emil would like you to think he is, he's actually kind of a loser — a well-meaning loser, but still a loser.

(-) IGNORANT
This applies to a variety of areas in Emil's life. Unlike a lot of children, Emil received a private education where he was effectively in charge of things, down to picking his own areas of study. Since it was The Emil Show™, his education is shoddy at best. He might understand the basic principle of things, but details and actual facts he spouts of can be questionable.

Emil can be insensitive at times, once even being extremely foot-in-mouth about a fellow comrade's dead companions. When he's corrected he's readily embarrassed, but it doesn't stop him from sometimes saying the absolute wrong thing. It's also initially hard for Emil to say he's sorry or to own up to his faults, like a lot of self-important people tend to not do — and being 19 doesn't help that either. This gets better, and he's more receptive to reaching out and being emotionally honest, but it's still something he struggles with.

Abilities & Inventory:

Emil has no magic at all, but his job in the military is to be a Cleanser. He knows his way around both large and small explosives, and has a passion for using them. In fact, he's rather eager. Being a cleanser means utilizing a lot of different tools for setting fire to things, and he can utilize all of them. This can include flamethrower like devices, smaller explosives and other flammable materials. His job is to literally set shit on fire, and he'll find a way how given tools and equipment. Emil also has basic military training, but don't hope for anything like expert marksmanship or field medic skills.

Emil knows how to use and operate a rifle, albeit he's not the greatest marksman. He's more likely to spray and pray in dangerous scenarios than act with precision. Still, he's more competent with his firearm than a laymen would be with a gun. Fine tuning fireball magic has given him a bit more battle confidence and aiming abilities, but he's still inexperienced.

▶ a hunting knife
▶ a rifle
▶ four pull-pin explosives.
▶ a bracelet
▶ his tyr god bracelet

Suitability & Plans:

Emil is a character best played outside of his comfort zone. He's grown, but very situationally -- he's become accustomed to giving specific people and situations leeway, but his thinking is still black and white when it comes to people that he holds in regard. The more varied scenarios he's thrown into, the more it forces him to accept others and become a more fully formed being.

It's also going to be quite a whirlwind of emotions for him, being taken out of Asgard. He'd come to appreciate it as not even a second home, but his primary residence. At one point, he had a very heartfelt conversation with Lalli that going back home would be a disappointment, and take away a lot of important things from him. He's built a house, become more comfortable with wielding magic, and had very crucial life milestones occur while he was in another universe...it will be devastating to lose all of that after such a short span of time. But! That means half the fun (for me, anyway) is getting him to understand that you can make a home wherever you go, and all isn't lost because plans have been dashed.

Songerein is also less constrained than Asgard, especially when it comes to its magic system. Emil eventually got used to his very narrow skillset of spells, but now he has something of an unlimited potential to work with, here. This will throw him off balance, majorly, as this is a totally new context to have to observe magic from. There's also no one he has to answer to (even if God connections became laughable in his case after a certain point), so it gives him more freedom to spread his wings in whatever direction he'd like to. Once he finds that thing he's passionate about here, he'll throw himself into it wholeheartedly.

Test Drive Sample: TDM top level (threads are journal + an action sample)
Prose response

Questions: n/a!