scares

PLAYER INFORMATION
PLAYER: Kira
ARE YOU AT LEAST 14 YEARS OLD?: yes
IF UNDER 18 YEARS OLD, PLEASE STATE YOUR AGE: N/A
CONTACT: plurk: narwa
PERSONAL JOURNAL: narva
CHARACTERS PLAYED: N/A


CHARACTER INFORMATION
NAME: Björn Oxenstierna | Sweden | nicknamed "Nalle"
CANON: Axis Powers Hetalia
CANON REFERENCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hetalia ; http://sites.google.com/site/hetaliaindexes/simple-character-introduction ; http://hetalia.kitawiki.net/index.php?title=Sweden [note: As Berwald is a German last name, I'm using Björn as his first name instead]
AGE: 18
GENDER: Male/Male
YEAR IN SCHOOL/FACULTY POSITION: HS4

APPEARANCE:

Björn is very tall. He has light blond hair that is cropped short, wears glasses and has light greenish blue eyes. His almost never changing facial expression is probably the most striking thing about him - and not in a good way. This is the face that makes his best friends still scream every so often after years that they've known each other, that in his canon makes the very militarily strong nation of Prussia faint every time he sees it - in short, he is fricken scary. The scariness is only supported by his clipped way of speaking and the fact that he stares very intensely at whoever is in front of him when thinking. He usually wears clean and tidy, but simple clothes, in plain colours (often dark blue), that don't stand out much.

PERSONALITY:

There are more or less two Björns: The one that one would see, and the one that he is inside. Sometimes, they seem like polar opposites. I'll describe those two sides first before making the connection.

The outside: Is plain intimidating or even scary, and the more you talk to him, the scarier he gets. He tends to loom over people, partly because of his height, partly because of his face and the eerie aura that he emits. He doesn't speak much and when he does, it's usually only in very short, clipped sentences that are hard to understand. In Japanese, he speaks with a Tohoku accent, which is usually translated as grunt speak (dropping a few vowels). On the other hand, he is only intimidating, he never attacks anyone or utters open threats in a conversation (though what he says can often be interpreted as such, since he doesn't really manage to pick an appropriate tone, facial expression and body language very well) outside of situations where it is appropriate like fights.

The inside: Is described as playful. From what we have seen so far he is very caring, reliable and gentle and tries to keep those that he cares for as happy and safe as possible. He tends to second-guess what he wants to say too much and thus never says much at all, and can even be really shy sometimes. He tries to understand what others are thinking and to make them feel at ease, just usually doesn't succeed.

He is a calm person who likes to do things on his own, with his own hands, instead of leaving it to others. On the one hand, that means that he is a practical guy who can solve issues and fix a lot of broken things just with his wits and maybe a few tools. On the other hand it, coupled with his inability to make proper conversations, means that he will often do something that he assumes to be good in the situation or good for someone without first consulting with anyone else, even when he is helping someone; often he guesses right what was wrong in the beginning, but even when that is the case his actions most often seem very sudden and arbitrary, and often enough weird.

When he seems scary, he is usually either worried or concentrated or both or just thinking/trying to figure something out. Pretty much every expression that isn't neutral looks scary (okay, even his neutral expression does). Smiling or long speeches are just something that he doesn't do (the longest speech that he has ever given in canon consisted of three little speech bubbles and the way that Finland reacted to it implies that it was a huge exception; in all of his canon depictions, he has smiled once).

It is also noted that he is "argument/dispute loving" (I'm not sure if there's something lost in translation, since you would assume that that involves words. I play it as him not shying away from a fight or disagreement for the sake of peace and harmony if he can afford it at all, but instead diving in head-first). He's not someone who needs confrontations to prosper, but to defend his pride, friends, family or himself he will readily fight someone. He's calmed down some, especially when it comes to his half-brother Vilmar whom he used to fight with a lot, physically or not. Despite all the fighting, he would defend his brother or come to his aid without a second thought if it was ever needed.


POWERS/ABILITIES:

Björn can make wood grow, no matter if it is living or dead (though living wood is easier). Upon entering the school, he can mostly control when and to what it happens, but he's unable to control the shape or amount of what it turns into. Eventually, he should be able to make a tree grow (but not make it blossom or have leaves) in a few minutes, or to turn a wooden spoon into a table. There are of course time limits, and using his power tires him out in the long run so he will never be able to build say, a ship in one sitting. If he reaches his full potential, he would take two days for a cog and would be absolutely shot after that.

Something that he cannot do at all yet but should be able to do eventually is making the shape of wood change in other ways than adding to it: For example the wood of a door withdrawing from one side so one can squeeze through, or a plank bending into tent-shaped object, or a table losing mass and becoming a spoon. His powers will at no point extend past wood, though.


AU HISTORY:

[Note: The history was planned together with Denmark (Vilmar)-, Norway (Sigurd)- and Finland (Timo)-mun]

Björn was born into a complicated situation. His parents were not married to each other; which should not have been a problem, had his father not been married to someone else. The father, a Norwegian furniture trader currently living in Scania, Sweden, had been unable to just not have sex while his wife wasn't in the mood because of being pregnant, and presented himself as single and looking to Björn's mother. The relationship didn't last long, as, a malfunctioning condom later, both women were pregnant and by chance were in the same room in the maternity ward, having given birth to their sons only one day apart from each other.

A very stressful time with many bad feelings and nasty words followed, but by the time that the boys turned old enough to understand the adults had worked out an agreement: They would try to not let the bad feelings spill over to the children (which they of course did, kids are very good at noticing tense feelings) and the boys should meet each other regularely from an early age, and while the father remained married to his wife, he also had to spend time with Björn.

This all got a bit harder when Björn's mother decided to move back home to Finland when the boy started school. She was from the Swedish speaking part of Finland originally and had studied in Turku, Finland, but come to Lund, Scania, Sweden for her doctorate. Having grown into a rather forbidding looking child, Björn had trouble finding friends at first but eventually made friends with a boy who talked anough to make up for his rather quiet demanour. They grew into very good friends and when they hit puberty, Björn slowly started to realize that his feelings for the other boy had turned romantic.

It was around the same time that he finally realized that the odd occurences that sometimes happened around him when they were out in the woods were actually related to him. He kept it to himself though, wood being a material that he heavily associated with his father's business - a father that he did not hate but didn't want to be anything alike to. After all he had cheated on his wife and lied to Björn's mother, breaking something that is one of the highest values to the boy: Loyalty and trust.

Meanwhile, the relationship with his half-brother had taken a turn for the worse. Influenced by the underlying hard feelings of their parents, and fueled by the fact that Vilmar couldn't not defend their father where Björn held strong antipathy against some of his life choices and actions, they started to fight more and more during the summer holidays, that Björn always spent with his father, his wife and his brother, his mother always being busy with work - excursions, projects, research... - during that time: She was working on her postdoctoral qualification. From the time that he was 11, his best friend Timo came with him during the summers, the boy's family being too poor to afford going on vacation plus their mothers agreeing that the two boys were good for each other. It was through those summer vacations that he met Sigurd and Ari, too. Another thing that started during this time was Björn playing computer multiplayer games; but he still loved hiking, fishing and general outdoor activities as well as crafts just as much.

The summer that they turned 14, the fighting turned physical and finally, one of their stints landed them in hospital. Shortly after that, Björn declared that he never wanted to see Vilmar again and, together with Timo, went back to Finland (on bicycle, to use the rest of the holidays in a meaningful way. So they had a nice tour of Sweden and parts of Finland). They didn't know it, but there was a background to this, and the next year the boys didn't meet because of the same reason: Their father had, unbeknownst to the children who only noticed the tension, filed a divorce and then switched to a branch of his business that had opened up in Turku. Him and Björn's mother tried to get back together, and of course all of that disrupted the precarious arrangement between the two mothers.

But the father proved to be fickle again and again, and the relationship with Björn's mother didn't work out well. And when she got an offer for a professorship in Aarhus, Denmark, where Vilmar and his mother were living now, she got back in touch with the other part of the family. Things worked out surprisingly well between the two women after they had clearified that they wanted to make a clear cut with the father of their sons, and the official break-up of Björn's parents brought a move to Aarhus.

Things between the boys were still tense, but slowly started to get patched up; their mothers were a lot happier and Christmases and summer vacation were done together again. A pleasant surprise waited for him in Aarhus: Through Vilmar's complaints, him and Sigurd discovered that they had been gaming partners for many years without ever realizing that they knew each other in real life. That of course led to long computer sessions that just got them more complaints from Vilmar (though it provided bonding time for Timo and Vilmar during summers, since neither of them was interested in the games so they typically were kicked out for too much chatting). The only downside for Björn was that he had had to leave Timo back in Finland; and while they still visited each other over the summer, it just wasn't enough, so long, long letters were written and small gifts were sent. Until the day when Timo wrote to Björn that he would now attend the institute, and Björn, set on seeing his crush best friend again, finally forced himself to admit that he had powers. Arguing that Timo went to that place as well, he finally convinced his mother that even though it was far away, the school would be the right place for him.




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