Name: Taibbi
Age: 15 16 now!
Sex: female
Sexual Orientation: hetero-flexible
Craft: n/a
Rank: n/a
Location: High Reaches, previously Smithcrafthall
Physical Description: Medium brown skin with bad acne, medium brown eyes, dark brown hair that tends to be greasy because she doesn't wash often enough. A little to the short side of average height (5'5" or so), and a little on the thick side when it comes to her limbs. Her hands are strong, though, with permanent indentations from drafting implements on the fingers of her right hand. She's missing two toenails on her right foot from playing pretend with her mum's hammer when she was a child and dropping it on her foot. Those same two toes also don't bend very well. At the moment she's also in the last three weeks of recovery from a dislocated shoulder.
Personality: Taibbi is a real workrunner. Set her on a task, she'll keep at it until she either finishes, is told she can stop, or drops in her tracks. Even if it comes to dropping in her tracks, Taibbi won't complain. She'll just do her best to get back in the harness as soon as possible. She'll happily volunteer for extra duties if she sees something needs doing, or someone seems short of hands, even if she doesn't really possess the necessary skills. That's all right. She'll just learn as she goes.
Her willingness to volunteer for work gives her many opportunities not only to learn new skills, but also to meet new people, since Taibbi has no problem interjecting herself into a situation without prior invitation. In fact, she seems almost deaf to people telling her she's really not necessary, and is the sort of person who will insist on staying late after a party to help clean up (even if the host would really rather everyone just went home so they could sleep and clean up the next day), and also try to corral everyone around her into helping, too. She is not subtle when it comes to corralling folks, and can tend toward domineering, even though it comes from a sincere desire to be helpful and do good.
Despite her very strong inclination toward helping others, Taibbi can be pretty judgmental. If she sees someone doing less than their best effort, or acting in a way she disagrees with, they are on her s**t list, and it will take a great deal of concentrated effort on their part to redeem themselves in her esteem. Some of this is her age - fifteen is a good age for extremism, after all - but a lot of it is that Taibbi is not particularly detail-oriented, so she likes to be able to paint people with a broad brush in order to simplify things for herself. Some of the things she judges people harshly for include: laziness, whining, betraying trust, gossiping (especially in the form of talking about her mother), wasting time (especially on one's looks), and being too emotionally extreme.
She is too young and inexperienced, as yet, to realize that she's guilty of some of her own pet peeves, and would probably be disappointed in herself to realize her inadvertent hypocrisy, but see it as an opportunity to improve herself. Taibbi is very much a fan of self-improvement, and can be almost aggressive when it comes to helping others achieve their goals. So while she may be the girl who will wake up with you at five to exercise off some extra pounds, she is also the girl who will actually take a cookie out of your hand and remind you that you're trying to lose weight.
Her pushiness is largely an unfortunate side-effect of her desire to help, and rarely something that manifests on her own behalf, but not always. It also stems from her loyalty to those she cares about, making her an almost obnoxiously supportive friend who flat-out refuses to hear criticism of her loved ones, and will absolutely get fighty with people who badmouth or betray them. Nevertheless, if Taibbi's made the judgment that someone's a good sort, she will always feel that way about them and defend them with word and deed (and fists, if need be). She really is a very good friend, if you don't mind someone who's pushy and not always the best listener because she's pretty sure she already knows what's best.
As far as being unhygienic, she simply doesn't care a great deal about those sorts of things, even though her father died from complications surrounding an improperly cleaned-out wound. She hit puberty while her mother was deep in the grip of depression and everyone assumed her mother had been teaching her about the sorts of things she should know regarding her new hair and hormones, but she hadn't. Basically, she doesn't wash often enough, or thoroughly enough, and doesn't really understand why she always seems to smell more strongly than everyone else around her.
Positive Trait List helpful; loyal; stoic
Negative Trait List unhygienic; judgmental; pushy
History: Taibbi's parents met as smithcraft apprentices and chose complementary areas of specialization so that they could work together as partners when they became journeymen - Hall permitting, of course. Their plan worked out and they were both assigned as journeymen to the same hold, where they eventually got married and had Taibbi.
Both of Taibbi's parents tried to teach her about their craft, but it was Taibbi's father who had the most lucky. Her mum, the one who actually worked with hammer and anvil, melting and molding, was a dreadful teacher who only really succeeded in teaching Taibbi to work the bellows of her forge. Taibbi's father, on the other hand, was her mum's draftsman, and he had more success, though it became apparent early on that Taibbi would never have the skill to become an apprentice in the craft.
It wasn't a bad life, though, until Taibbi turned twelve and her father stepped on a sharp shaving of metal. It was easily removed, of course, but the tip broke off without anyone realizing it and soon became infected. It was the middle of the harvest season, and the whole family was either busy helping in the fields or - in the case of Taibbi's mum - making repairs to the implements they used. He didn't think it was a big deal. Nobody did.
He died a few weeks later when the infection turned gangrenous, and Taibbi's mum just stopped caring about anything. Taibbi hadn't the skill to make up for what her mother let slide, but she tried to fill in as her mother's drafter. In that, too, she wasn't very helpful there, either, but she did accomplish one important thing: a turn after her father's death she secretly sent a message back to the Hall saying that her mother needed help. Not long after, the Hall summoned Taibbi's mother back and sent another journeyman to take her place.
Taibbi's mum's depression did not lift in the Hall, but at least she had peers to support her. For Taibbi the Hall was a strange place, where most of the people her age were in training to become smiths, and found her an oddity because she wasn't. Nevertheless, Taibbi made some friends and some enemies and got crushes and her period like most girls her age. She simply didn't have her mother to turn to to explain anything for her, which some people tried to insinuate reflected poorly on her mother. Taibbi would have none of that, though, and that's when she started getting into fights.
Threadfall didn't change a great deal for Taibbi, who had been in six fights that turn alone as she defended her mother and her ever-deteriorating mental state. She wasn't alone in these fights, and they probably didn't have to happen at all, except that she was overly sensitive toward remarks about her mother. Her group of friends fought at her side, but that just gave Taibbi a reputation as a bad influence, since her friends were all apprentices.
It was a relief for everyone when, at fourteen, Taibbi was searched, even Taibbi. She didn't like being labeled a troublemaker, and she was convinced that by leaving she would no longer be a burden to her mother. Plus, she was never going to be a smith, so why not try to Impress a dragon?
Other: Anything else you want to add?
Candidate Specific Questions
Do you want them to have an official Search RP? No
Do you understand they will age every passing year regardless if you're there to RP the or not? Yes
Do you want them to have a possible Stands Impression? No
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