SLOAN ROURKE
Age: 17
Pronouns: She/Her
Sexuality: Straight
Face Claim: Anya TaylorâJoy
Hometown: Hawkins, Indiana
Occupation: Hawkins High Junior; AV Club assistant; library volunteer
Status: Alive; Echoâbrushed; not fully echo-sensitive
Echo Sensitivity: LowâtoâModerate, but highly reactive
BACKSTORY
Sloan Rourke grew up in a quiet, bookâheavy home with her mother, Erin Galante, a nurse raising three kids alone after the sudden death of her husband, Walter Rourke. Sloan was the middle child, old enough to remember him, young enough that the grief settled into her bones in ways she still doesnât have words for.
Her aunt, Dani Rourke, became the stabilizing force in their lives. Dani is the one who shows up, the one who listens, the one who sees the things Sloan doesnât say out loud.
Sloan has always been the girl who moves like sheâs listening to something no one else can hear, drifting at the edges of rooms, absorbing everything, speaking only when sheâs certain her words matter. She grew up in the library, the AV room, and the back aisles of Family Video, where she could disappear into stories and static.
Sheâs known the Party since middle school through AV Club and shared electives. Her crush on Dustin started in eighth grade when he helped her fix a jammed projector and treated her like she wasnât strange, just interesting. Sheâs been quietly, hopelessly gone ever since.
Sheâs been brushing up against Echo weirdness without realizing it, mostly through the people she gravitates toward, and through the strange static that follows her aunt.
PERSONALITY
Quiet, intense, selfâpossessed
Observant to the point of unnerving
Speaks softly but with precision
Dry, cutting humor delivered without blinking
Ethereal awkwardness; not clumsy, just slightly out of sync
Emotionally transparent eyes, guarded posture
Curious in a way that feels deliberate, not accidental
Carries a subtle hauntedness, like sheâs always halfâlistening to something distant
Stubborn in a calm, immovable way
Magnetic without trying; people watch her without knowing why
Sloan feels like a girl who knows more than she should and chooses silence anyway.
Echo Tie
Sloan isnât Echoâtouched, sheâs Echoâbrushed, in a way that mirrors her aunt but manifests differently. She doesnât sense Echoes. She doesnât feel emotional residue. But electronics react to her like sheâs a tuning fork.
camcorders glitch when sheâs anxious
walkieâtalkies pick up faint whispers when sheâs nearby
lights hum louder when sheâs overwhelmed
her cassette recorder sometimes plays back things she didnât record
She thinks sheâs just bad with tech. Sheâs not. Her presence amplifies Echoâtouched frequencies, especially around Dani and Aiden.
SIBLINGS
1. OWEN ROURKE â Age 20 (older brother) - PLAYABLE
Protective, sarcastic, fiercely loyal.
Works partâtime at the gas station.
Pretends he doesnât believe in Echo stuff but absolutely does.
Keeps an eye on Sloan without making it obvious.
2. AIDEN ROURKE â Age 19 (older brother) - PLAYABLE
Calm, steady, quietly intense â very âRourke.â
Plays guitar, hates attention, notices everything Sloan notices.
Feels responsible for the family after their fatherâs death.
Has a strange sensitivity to static he refuses to talk about.
3. ELLIE ROURKE â Age 9 (younger sister)
Softâspoken, dreamy, follows Sloan like a shadow.
Talks to her stuffed animals like they talk back.
Sometimes says she hears âthe fuzzy voicesâ in the walls.
Dani is quietly terrified she might be Echoâbrushed too.
RELATIONSHIPS
Danica âDaniâ Rourke (Aunt): Her anchor. Her safe adult. Dani sees too much of herself in Sloanâs quiet, haunted steadiness and is terrified sheâs brushing up against the same Echo static.
Walter Rourke Jr. (Father â deceased): A gentle, quiet man whose absence shaped her childhood. Dani still canât talk about him without her voice tightening.
Erin Galante (Mom): Overworked, exhausted, loving. She worries Sloan is too perceptive for her own good.
Owen & Aiden (older brothers): Her protectors. Her buffers. Her reality check. Theyâd burn the world down for her.
Ellie (younger sister): Her heart. Her responsibility. Her reason for being careful.
Dustin Henderson: Her painfully obvious crush. Sloan watches him with soft, fascinated intensity. He thinks sheâs mysterious; she thinks sheâs transparent. Their dynamic is gentle, earnest, and slightly chaotic.
PLOT HOOKS
Sloanâs cassette recorder captures an Echo event she didnât witness
Dani realizes Sloan is experiencing the same static she is and panics
Electronics glitch around Sloan during a surge, drawing HNL attention
Dustin asks her to help with a project, and her crush becomes impossible to hide
Owen sees something Echoârelated and refuses to talk about it
Aiden hears static at the same time Sloan does
Ellie hears âthe fuzzy voicesâ again and this time Sloan hears them too
A forgotten box of her fatherâs belongings reveals something Echoâtouched
THE ROURKE FAMILY
The Rourkes are a family built on quiet resilience, generational steadiness, and the kind of grief that lingers in the corners of a house long after the shouting stops. Walter Rourke, the late father of the children, was a gentle, observant man who carried his emotions like heavy stones in his pockets â never dropped, never shared, always weighing him down. His death left a hollow in the family that no one talks about directly, but everyone feels. His sister, Danica âDaniâ Rourke, stepped into that void with a fierce protectiveness, becoming the familyâs anchor and the one person who sees the strange static that clings to the Rourke bloodline.
Erin Galante, Walterâs widow, holds the home together with exhausted tenderness. A nurse who works too many shifts and sleeps too little, she loves her children with a quiet, relentless devotion. Erin is intuitive in ways she doesnât admit â she notices the shifts in her kids, the strange hum in the house, the way Sloanâs presence makes the lights buzz. She doesnât have the language for Echoes, but she feels the wrongness like a draft under a closed door.
Dani and Walterâs parents, Margaret and Thomas Rourke, are Hawkins fixtures â stoic, private, and shaped by a lifetime of keeping their heads down. Thomas is a man of few words, a retired steelworker who believes in hard work and harder silences. Margaret is sharper, perceptive, and quietly superstitious; sheâs the one who always said the Rourkes were âsensitive to things they shouldnât be.â They love their grandchildren fiercely, though they worry about the strange streak that seems to run strongest in Sloan and Aiden.
The Rourke siblings reflect the familyâs contrasts: Owen, all protective bark and hidden belief; Aiden, steady and quietly intense, carrying the same staticâsensitivity that once haunted Walter; Sloan, the middle child with the haunted calm and tuningâfork presence; and Ellie, the youngest, dreamy and perceptive in ways that make the adults uneasy. Together, they look like an ordinary Hawkins family â but anyone who steps close enough can feel the hum beneath the surface, the sense that something unseen has always been listening.
