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[silentscout]

PLAYER

☆ Player Name: Maple
☆ Pronouns: she/her
☆ Contact: husbando
☆ Other Characters: N/A

CHARACTER

☆ Name: Lalli Hotakainen
☆ Canon: Stand Still Stay Silent
☆ Age: 20
☆ Canon Point: Adventure 2, end of chapter 11 (page 350)
☆ Desire: "Home". And not just in the sense of 'a place to live' either. Lalli's entire family (minus himself and his two cousins) died when he was eight, and their hometown was burned to the ground. Then one cousin died six months ago, and the other cousin is in a life-or-death situation at his canon point. Beyond those cousins, the only people he's remotely close to are his co-workers he just met nine months ago, and barring one exception he's still not particularly close to them. While it will be difficult to get him to admit to it, what Lalli really wants is a 'home'. But not a 'home' in the sense of a house to live in, what he actually wants is people who love and understand him and who he can stay by and feel comfortable around. That's what 'home' is to him.

☆ Personality:

Standoffish - At a first glance, Lalli is a tough nut to crack. He doesn't really smile much, and he has a case of 'resting bitch face'. That makes it difficult to approach him and start a conversation, and when you do manage to talk with him he tends to give one-word answers. Most of the time it seems like he would rather be anywhere else than in a conversation with someone, especially if that someone is new.

Opinionated - Lalli may keep quiet most of the time, but there is no escaping his judgemental look. He has Thoughts on everyone around him and what they are doing, and he's not afraid to show it. Usually this is shown with a glare or a disgruntled noise, but sometimes he does speak up and say what someone is doing wrong and how they should fix it. He's not gentle about this either; he states his opinions as if they are obvious facts and everyone should get them right away.

Detail-Oriented (sometimes) - When it comes to scouting or using his magic, Lalli is very detail-oriented. He has a keen eye and looks carefully for escape routes and places to sleep safely for the night. And while he does make mistakes sometimes, he's very effective at his job for only being 20. Lalli can be very observant when the mood strikes him, which is what helps him be good at his job. But that's the key thing: it's 'when the mood strikes him'. That often comes at the expense of awareness elsewhere, such as with social graces or even noticing what others are up to around him. If it's not something he cares about, then he overlooks it. This is simultaneously one of his biggest strengths and worse weaknesses.

Bad at People - Lalli doesn't understand people in general. An individual person, sure, he can get to know them and come to care about them. But that's because he takes the time to learn what they are like and how to communicate with them. But his general speaking capabilities are...bad. He's blunt, he's rude, and he's straight to the point. He doesn't mince words and that gets him on people's bad side quickly. Oftentimes someone has to be a buffer between him and other people, if only to translate Lalli-speak into something that makes sense and is a bit more polite.

Devoted - While Lalli doesn't care about most people, he does have a few specific persons he counts as 'friends'. He's capable of making more friends too, if enough time and effort is given. And once someone is his friend, he will literally do anything for them. You know that meme of "[character] will now DIE FOR YOU"? That's him. His friends are the people he makes a genuine effort for, and he is a little bit nicer to them and actually tries to emotionally connect with them. It's difficult, but it's worth the effort.

Follower - Lalli is bad at making long-term decisions for himself. He can do a day's work just fine and feed himself and take care of his work, but when it comes to planning out long-term employment or where to settle down for a bit he's absolutely lost. He gets decision fatigue easily and shuts down if there's too much to consider, so he usually just follows after other people and does what they're doing. (See: how he got involved with the plot because he followed his cousin Tuuri to start a new job.) He'll let his trusted people handle the big decisions while he focuses on the things he does best: scouting and magic.

Literal-Minded - Sometimes jokes and sayings go over Lalli's head. He can usually get that someone is at least making a joke, but he doesn't understand what the joke is. He tends to take things literally, which is why he misses what the jokes and sayings mean. It can also lead to confusion when he misunderstands what someone tells him. Sometimes he will act on what he thinks someone said, when in reality they meant something else.

Irritable - It's very easy for Lalli to become irritated. He has very little patience in general, and that patience is quickly used up when he has to talk to other people. He also gets irritated when people don't understand him, or when people do things he doesn't understand. Usually his irritation is expressed by him making irritated noises at people or by walking away or climbing up on top of something tall to avoid people.

Magic - Having magic is a very involved thing in Lalli's world. A mage's power gives them extra protection against the trolls, but it also can leave them vulnerable if they don't take precautions. The strain of his magic is part of what makes Lalli so irritable, as it takes a lot of his already-short patience to deal with magic things. Not hearing the whispers of the damned every single moment of his life will improve Lalli's mood by at least 50% if not more.

Depressed - Lalli's cousin Tuuri died a few months ago in canon, and it was a rather traumatizing moment for Lalli as he was there for the whole leadup and her death itself. He never had the chance to properly grieve, and he's been trying to avoid thinking about it as much as he can. But he's definitely experiencing grief, loss, and survivor's guilt from that incident, along with some possible PTSD. Lalli's no stranger to loss, but with how recent it is it's hitting him pretty hard.

Different - Lalli is neurodivergent. This is confirmed by the author. She didn't give a diagnosis beyond that, and instead leans on "there's no therapists in a zombie apocalypse, Lalli won't ever get an official diagnosis." Since this is confirmed in author notes but not specifically named in canon, I'm going to handle it the same way the author handles it: he has behaviors that seem odd to most people, but he's never going to specifically call himself neurodivergent because he doesn't know that word. Instead, he'll say he is 'different' if ever asked about it, and he probably won't ever point it out unless someone else brings it up first because it's something he doesn't talk about that much. He knows he's different, but he'd rather not make a big deal out of it.

☆ World/History: A quick warning: this is a webcomic about a world after a zombie apocalypse, with said apocalypse being caused by a zombie plague. Most of the images in the linked pages are clean, but there might still be a gory image here or there.

In addition, I need to give a content warning for suicide, as that is an important event in the comic and will be discussed at several points (both when it happens and for how that person's death affects Lalli).

There's not a comprehensive timeline of the history of SSSS, so I'll give a quick summary here and link the important wiki pages about it.

90 years before the 'start' of canon (as outlined in a lengthy prologue chapter), which aligns with roughly the year 2013, a fast-spreading disease known as 'The Rash' spreads through the world. It's highly contagious to most (with an extremely small percentage of people being immune), and once it's caught it causes rapid decline and death within 3 weeks of the onset of symptoms. Within 10 days, most countries in the world have gone into lockdown to try and prevent the spread of the disease. Within 3 months, the true nature of this illness (that those not fortunate enough to die first become Something Else) has become public knowledge and everyone has gone into apocalypse-prep mode. We're shown how five families (specifically, the ancestors of the seven main characters) survived the initial outbreak and went on to have families and continue to live in the post-apocalyptic world.

By year 90, most of the world is gone. What's left of humanity in the Known World is about 250,000 people spread around the Nordic countries (2/3rds in Iceland, with Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland combined holding the remaining 1/3rd). While some technology from the Old World remains (solar power as a primary power source, for example, as well as short-wave radios and most advancements of modern medicine), the Known World exists in a state where more than half of the population has to live as farmers to keep everyone from starving, and most of those who aren't farmers spend their days fighting off the monsters of The Silent World. Though there are safe areas, most of the land is filled with Trolls, Beasts, and Giants, which are all just different versions of zombies (trolls being zombies made from humans, beasts being zombies made from other mammals, and giants being zombies made from several trolls or beasts who voltron-fused into something bigger). While it's a bleak life, there is some hope: humanity has started to reach the point where it can push back and reclaim land that was once lost, and there is a belief that eventually humanity will push the Silent World back far enough to have enough land to comfortably support an ample population. There still are a lot of changes to life though, with things like "can a troll break past the defenses and get into the non-immune populations in the city" being at the forefront of every decision made.

The plot of Stand Still Stay Silent is one of discovery. A research team has gotten grant money to pay for an expedition into the Silent World to recover books and research on the rash, in hopes of finding a cure. Or at least, that's what they wrote in the grant. What they're really looking for are antique books to sell for money. But everyone who asks gets told the story about a possible cure. Lalli is a part of the team that goes on this expedition, and he serves as their scout (to find the safest paths through the Silent World without disturbing any large groups of trolls) and as their mage (magical protection against said trolls).

Lalli's personal history has it's own written section though! So you just get a link for that one.

☆ Powers: Lalli is a mage! Specifically, a Finnish mage. This page details the magic as it relates to the world, but only the parts about Finnish magic apply to Lalli. Also, this page on how the Finnish soul works is an important read. In the context of that last page, Lalli's Luonto is a lynx. He is reasonably skilled as a mage, having started his training at age 6 and started working full time as a mage at age 13 at the very oldest (and possibly even younger than that, 13 is just the 'okay you're old enough to legally work now' age in SSSS).

Beyond that, Lalli is also trained as a scout. He can move quickly and can climb objects and surfaces easily. He can also do parkour reasonably well, and is trained in how to jump and tumble without hurting himself. In addition to the physical skills, Lalli is also adept at map-reading and at trailblazing. He can quickly scout an area, find potential risks, and report them back to his commanding officers.

Lalli also knows how to fight with blades and guns, favoring both a pocketknife and a rifle respectively (though he can use other types of weapons, just with less familiarity).

☆ Inventory: A hunting rifle, ammunition for said rifle, a large buck knife, a rubik's cube, a knapsack to carry all of that (minus the gun) in, and an adorable fluffy cat named Kissa.

☆ Samples: link one - this is during the first week of the game in question, so everyone under this top-level was a relative stranger at that point.

link two - first sub-tl in that thread, the top-level is linked for context. Also at the time of that thread thoughts would sporadically come across mentally so bolded text in the brackets is thoughts everyone can hear. Six weeks in to the same game as above, these were people he knew decently well.

link three - this is him confessing feelings to someone else, so it's a good example of how he acts around people he's comfortable with/very attached to.