Name: Janista
Age: 15
Sex: Female
Sexual Orientation: Bisexual, leaning toward women. Her father would be so disappointed. sad
Craft: Smithcraft
Rank: Apprentice
Physical Description: Slender but tall at 5'8", Janista hides the feminine portions of her physique underneath baggy clothes, which are usually dirty from a day's worth of work and play. Her coal-black hair is cut short, with a slight curl around her ears that she'll find herself playing with on occasion. Her fingers are calloused, her arm muscles strong. Her skin is slightly tanned and usually covered with soot, cuts and minor burns. Brown eyes peer out from this soot, occasionally squinting as if in deep thought, but mostly staring out at the world with a mix of amusement and cynicism.
Personality:Constantly trying to prove herself equal to the boys around her has given her a cynical attitude about the opposite sex, though she would much rather act like them than most of her female counterparts. The only exception to this rule is her mother; she loves hearing stories about her mother and the things she did, and often invents stories involving her mother being asked as the only hope for all of Pern to take charge of a wing of dragons! She knows none of this is true, but it helps her hide her secret wish that her mother was around to tell her she's okay just being herself.
Ever the tomboy, one of the few things that terrifies Janista is being forced into a dress or to act more like a nice young lady. When she is forced to dress up for the occasional social gathering, she prefers wearing her mother's simple, no frills hand-me-down dresses rather than spending precious marks on a new dress she might outgrow anyway. But really, the whole delicate female thing never worked for her; she's much happier being behind an anvil or lifting heavy things. In fact, she doesn't mind getting mistaken for a young boy, as she thinks young boys get away with more.
This, of course, conflicts with her father's wishes for her. Janista is suspicious that he's worried about losing her, but she's a tad resentful that her father has kept her from pursuing her interests. Janista is an intelligent girl, and she puts that brainpower towards figuring out how best to get her way.
A bored Janista is a frightening Janista, for a bored Janista loves nothing better than running around and causing mischief. She doesn't do anything that she believes will seriously harm anyone, but she will do silly things like make a fake tunnelsnake and put it in someone's pocket.
Overall, Janista is a friendly girl and quite cheerful around those who treat her with respect. She's a no-nonsense person, though, and won't waste her time on what she considers pointless drama (i.e. most social situations involving chatter unrelated to getting the work done). If she doesn't like a person, she'll go out of her way to avoid talking to them. If she REALLY doesn't like a person, they'll fall victim to pranks.
History: Her mother suffered from bad health from the time Janista was two until she died when Janista was five. Consequently, Janista does not remember anything about her mother, and indeed she had no female role model at all as she was growing up. Her father and brother did the best they could to look after her, though at first they tried to discourage her from apprenticing to the Smithcraft as the rest of her family had before. They stressed her femininity would simply cause her grief, that she would not be respected by her peers if she tried to enter the craft at their more traditional-leaning hold. However, since she was a handful for anyone keeping an eye on her, she ended up spending a lot of time in her father's workshop as a young girl.
This ended when she came of apprenticeship age and her father promptly left her to her own devices. Well-meaning friends of the family tried to get her to pursue a Harper or Weaver apprenticeship, but Janista can't carry a tune and doesn't like needlecraft. At all.
One fateful day a Sr. Journeyman caught her messing around with the tools and decided she needed to learn how to properly use them.
Janista didn't want to upset her family, but she really wanted to learn the family trade, and so agreed to meet with the Sr. Journeyman in secret. Wearing her brother's old clothes, she disguised herself for her lessons well enough to fool her family until it was too late for her to back out; she was a full-fledged apprentice Smith. Sometimes she knew she wasn't taken as seriously as the boys, but she let her frustrations go into her work and her dreams of finding a place where she will be taken seriously.
Pets: N/A
Other/Talents:
-Janista has discovered that she is a fast runner over short distances, and she is decent at maneuvering through tight spaces. How she discovered this will not be mentioned, as Pernese cannot plead the 5th.
-She has above average intelligence, but doesn't use it for the forces of good.
Will this character be a candidate? Yes
Picture: None yet
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