Post by Tino Väinämöinen on Dec 27, 2010 18:38:38 GMT -5
Name: Tino Väinämöinen
Country/ Code Name: Finland
Age: 21
Gender: male
Affiliation: Gunsmith (Civil)
Likes:
- Firearms: A great passion of his since childhood. His father owned an old rifle and showed Tino how to use and clean it. Tino found the mechanics and the power within such a small object utterly fascinating, but much to his disappointment his father wouldn’t let him touch the gun when he wasn’t keeping an eye on him. It was only after they moved to Londinium that Tino could dedicate his time to firearms.
- Nature: Nature was a big part of Tino’s childhood. He was born and raised in the countryside where people were highly dependent on whatever food and supplies they could get from the nature. Tino learned to respect nature at a very young age, but his explorations to the nearby forests also showed him its fun side. The sunny summer days spent swimming in warm lakes and hiding in self made tree huts are one of his dearest childhood memories.
- Folklore: Tino’s love for ancient mythology comes from his mother. When he was a child, she would often sing him songs about great heroes, gods and spirits of nature before bedtime. Despite years having passed since then, Tino still remembers a few of his favorite stories and often hums them silently to himself whenever he is feeling down or homesick.
- Hunting: Tino’s relationship with his father wasn’t exactly warm, but the time he really enjoyed with him was whenever they went hunting together, mostly because it was the only time he got to use a gun. He still remembers the strong, almost overpowering feeling of being alive after shooting his first moose. Nowadays he still tries to find time for his hobby whenever possible, which is usually only once or twice a year.
- Winter: Tino has sort of a love-hate relationship with the cold season. He finds snow and icy landscapes extremely beautiful and loves Christmas, but the harsh winters of his childhood remind him how deadly the cold can be. Still, the grey and wet winters in Londinium always make him long for his home country where everything was white and pretty.
- Coffee: Ever since he tasted the coffee in Londinium for the first time, Tino’s been in love with the drink. Every morning he starts his day with a cupful or two; it’s pretty much the only thing that gets him moving after a night’s sleep. If he doesn’t get his morning coffee, he gets extremely grumpy. Or rather, stays extremely grumpy; Tino is not a morning person at all.
- Alcohol: It usually comes as a big surprise to people who don’t know him, but Tino is quite a heavy drinker and despite his petite frame can hold his liquor very well. When tipsy, he becomes surer of himself, which has sometimes caused problems when his drinking has gotten out of hand. Once he gets completely wasted, he tends to forget the fact that he’s not exactly built for fist fights, which has caused him some nasty bruises and a broken rib during his years in Londinium.
Dislikes:
- Dishonesty: Honesty was another thing his parents taught him to appreciate. Tino doesn’t like to sugarcoat his words; if he disagrees on something, he will say so. However, he’s not a complete idiot and knows when it’s better for him to keep his mouth shut. He doesn’t like people who say something and then do the exact opposite. He strongly thinks relationships are built on trust, so he is honest with people and he expects them to do the same with him. If you stab him in the back, the odds are he will never trust you again. He might forgive, but never forget.
- Wastefulness: Tino’s family was never wealthy, so they were careful to make most of all the available resources. Throwing away food or clothing that could still be used was a big no. This lifestyle is still stuck to him and he can’t understand at all how some people seem to take everything they have for granted.
- Crowds: Or to be more precise, lack of personal space in general. Having lived half of his life with only a few people and little physical contact he feels very uncomfortable in crowded places or when people he’s talking to come too close. This sometimes gives people the impression he’s cold, which of course is not true.
- Unpunctuality: Tino is a very punctual person; he always prefers to be a little early if possible. It annoys him if people are late or if a meeting or an event is delayed.
- People judging him by his looks: Because he is fairly small and scrawny, Tino is often thought to be weak or fragile. Though he usually tries to just brush such treatment off with a laugh, it is one of the things that really annoy him. He hates it when complete strangers come asking him if he needs help with something he can perfectly well handle by himself. He is aware of his somewhat effeminate features , but it hurts his pride and brings back bad memories when people are being protective of him and treat him as if he was female.
Job Skills: Tino is very talented with both repairing and building firearms which is his main profession, but he can handle other machines as well to some point. He is especially good at things that need a good eye for details and dexterity. He also has some talent in drawing, but mainly uses his skills for designs.
Personality:
Tino is a very kind and gentle person at heart. Because of his own past he easily relates to people who are struggling with their lives and is quick to offer his help to those who seem like they might need it. He especially has a soft spot for children and often takes on a somewhat mother/big brother-like attitude towards them. He loves doting on the children of his neighborhood and usually carries a small bag of salmiakki, a treat from his home country, with him in case he runs into some of them. No one has had the heart to tell him yet that they think it tastes horrible.
As a Finn, Tino used to be pretty bad with people. The language barrier made it even worse during his first years in London. However, as time passed and he adapted into the new culture he eventually became pretty good at small talk and learned to enjoy conversation at some level. Still, whenever he gets nervous he tends to start babbling and lose the coherency of his speech, a reminder of the fact that talking still doesn’t come completely naturally to him.
Tino tries to always be as polite as possible, and so doesn’t want to pry into other people’s business. Neither he feels very comfortable talking about his personal life, especially to people he doesn’t know well. He is a little wary of strangers and takes his time to warm up to them, but once he becomes friends with someone it’s usually for life. And it’s unlikely they’ll find another friend as loyal and trustworthy as him.
Though Tino is happy and enthusiastic most of the time, that’s not all there’s to him. When the situation calls for it, he can be dead serious and handle things quickly and efficiently. On the contrary, when he gets drunk he usually makes a total ass of himself. Though it’s nothing compared to when he get’s truly pissed off. He has a long temper and it’s hard to irk him enough to get him angry, but when he loses it it’s better to be as far away as possible, especially if he has a gun. When he starts swearing like a sailor, usually in Finnish, it’s a good sign to start moving towards a safer location.
Past:
Tino is a firstborn of a tenant farmer and his wife, born in eastern Finland in the middle of winter. He was a fairly weak and scrawny child, something he never grew completely out of, but made up for this with his curiosity and sharp head. He took more interest in exploring the nearby forests and reading books than learning the secrets of farming, which his father found extremely disappointing. Tino’s father strongly believed that success in life could only be earned through hard work and sacrifices; there was now time to waste on such nonsense as education in a man’s life, since when there was a family to feed, what good did books and numbers do?
Tino’s mother was more understanding of her son, encouraging him to pursue his dreams and a better life in the city. Maybe for this reason Tino was always more close to his mother, something that aggravated his relationship with his father even more. Despite having to live with the constant taunting from his father, Tino considers his early childhood a fairly good time.
When Tino was eight years old, his life had a major change of direction when his mother died of illness during an especially harsh winter. He was left alone with his father, who took his wife’s death especially badly and tried to drown his sorrow in a bottle. Tino suddenly found himself with whole new responsibilities; he had to look after his father and the house, even the farm when his father was in no condition to work. This took up most of his time and Tino had to quit school. He was extremely bitter at his father for this but really had no choice. And it was not the only thing he had to sacrifice because of his father. During the next years, Tino learned some hard lessons about life, maturing a good deal in a fairly short time.
Three years after his mother’s death, Tino’s father decided to mess up his son’s life even more; he came home in the morning after another night of out drinking and hastily told Tino to pack his bags, dragging his confused son out of the house hardly an hour later without any kind of explanation. It was only after they reached one of the nearest cities hours later that his father told him he’d paid them on board of a merchant ship headed towards Londinium. ”To look for a better future”, his father said when Tino demanded an explanation. Tino didn’t believe him back then and still doesn’t; he is pretty sure his father had gotten into trouble with money and only left the country to escape his debts.
Despite his protests, Tino found himself in Londinium, a strange and huge city in a foreign country, a couple weeks later. And he hated it; it was nothing like his childhood home. The air smelled bad. No matter where he went all he could see was big and dark buildings packed in too narrow alleys and factors spitting smoke and coal into the sky. He didn’t understand a single word of the language spoken around him. So he shut himself in, spending his first months in the city mostly inside while his father worked in the docks where he had by some miracle gotten a job. However, as time passed boredom and curiosity took over and Tino gradually started exploring his new home, going for long walks during daytime.
During one of his daily rounds around the city, he met an old gunsmith who ran a shop on the other side of the river. The man took Tino inside his workshop and showed him around for a good a while. Despite lacking a language in common the two formed a sort of friendship and Tino started spending almost all his time at the shop, watching the gunsmith’s work in awe and asking various questions as his English slowly improved. It didn’t take long before the man offered to take Tino in as his apprentice, as he could clearly see the boy’s enthusiasm and willingness to learn. Tino was more than happy to accept and went home to pack his meager belongings once again. His father wasn’t home and Tino didn’t really see a reason to wait for him to come from work so he could tell him he was moving, so he just grabbed his bag and said goodbye to the sad excuse of a house they’d lived in. He hasn’t seen his father since.
Tino lived in the workshop until his twentieth birthday, when his master finally deemed it time he finished his training. However, Tino couldn’t really support himself yet, let alone open his own practice, do he stayed at the shop, intending to work there until he had enough savings to make it on his own. His chance to open his own workshop came sooner than expected though, when an English businessman offered to make a deal with him after visiting the shop. Tino found out later about his landlord’s not-so-legal dealings, but did not let it bother himself too much as he had nothing personal against pirates and felt grateful for the man anyway. Besides, he didn’t really care who his customers were as long as they were the paying kind.
Other:
- Tino has a very weird taste in food. So you might want to think twice when he offers you his cooking.
- He suffers from chronic cough, most likely caused by the pollution in Londinium’s air as it started not too long after he moved into the city. According to a doctor it’s nothing serious but Tino still finds the constant tickling in his throat rather irritating.
- He’s a bit clumsy sometimes. Luckily, this doesn’t seem to apply to times when he’s working or otherwise handling guns.
- He names all his guns with the most obscure names that make no sense to anyone but himself.
- Tino is a sucker for romance; he owns a collection of sappy novels and whenever possible, treats himself to the luxury of visiting a theater to see a romantic play. Despite this, he is a fairly innocent person. Displays of affection and sexual innuendos, let alone intimate physical contact make him splutter and blush like no other.
RP sample: The old one because I'm a lazy mofo OTL
”Ouch!” Tino hissed as he jabbed himself with a needle for the umpteenth time that afternoon. He didn’t know why, but he had been sloppier than usual the whole day. He’d even broken one of his dishes in the morning while making breakfast.
With a tired sigh, he moved his hand to his temple to adjust the magnifying device settled there. However, as soon as he made to adjust the lens, the whole thing came of and dropped onto the table with a quiet crack.
Great, he thought to himself as he watched a tiny cogwheel roll over the edge of the table. This definitely isn’t my day.
Tino laid down the garment he was working on and started to gather the pieces of the broken eyewear into his hands. He couldn’t find the gear that had dropped onto the floor anymore but it didn’t really matter; he could get a new one the next time he went shopping. Not that he’d had time to repair the thing any time soon anyway, he had his hands full of work for the next few days.
Something furry suddenly brushed against his legs. Tino looked down at the small dog which stared at him expectantly.
”Oh, Hana. Is it already time for your dinner?” He glanced at the clock on the wall as he started towards the kitchen, careful not to trip on the fur ball running around his legs. Maybe he’d take a short break as well. It was dinner time, after all.
OOC Information
Name:korento
Timezone: GMT +2
Aim/msn/skype/email:
email: lauha.liira@suomi24.fi
msn: dragonfly1991@luukku.com
