Dahl, Raziah

[Guest]

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CASE FILE: Alchemist/Amestrian Militant

Dude, like seriously?
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FULL NAME:
→ Raziah Dahl

AGE:
→ Nineteen years

SEX:
→ Female

BIRTH PLACE:
→ Small town south of Youswell

RACE:
→ Amestrian

DATE OF BIRTH:
→ Fifth of May

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HEIGHT:
→ One hundred and sixty-two centimeters

WEIGHT:
→ Fourty-six kilograms

PICTURE:
→

Spoiler:

DESCRIPTION:
→ There is not much special about the looks on this particular human. She is a little bit on the small side of the height department, but that is pretty much all. A regular, trained body of slim stature with slender arms and legs covered in girly smooth and slightly pale skin, not exactly what one would expect for a Metalworker.

In strong contrast to that, stands Raziah's hair; toned in a bright mixture of red, brown and orange; which is usually kept a bit further down than shoulder length, although Uncle Berg is usually not pleased to see that. Whenever his niece is not wearing a bandanna, like he always recommends her to (because its safer for long hair to be tied up and covered during work) – unless she's going for a short haircut sometime soon, strands of hair are being held ponytail-esque in position and out of her face by a pair of simple barrettes.
Going down from the scalp, one will come across the eye-section of any human face. For this case, there is a little something not exactly everyone has, maybe a few percent of the country's population do. Where, usually, the left eyeball is to be found, a black patch resides in this girls face. Beneath that, not like that many people ever get around to actually see it, lie the remains of optical nerves, a scarred and slightly burned eye socket including a sewed shut eyelid. However, some time ago, there has been shining blue eyecolour in that same place, identical to the one on the right side of the nose's bridge. Said nose is not of much note, small and girly cute, just like many other young women's. The lips slightly further down follow the same pattern. Additionally, they very rarely see lipstick; not that it's needed when all you do is work. Behind these, well-tended and thus splendid white teeth are being kept. On the topic of "well-tended", exactly the same applies to all of her Nails, Raziah takes a great deal of care to not damage them during work. On the contrary, they are not painted or particularly long or decorated in other ways.

As was mentioned before, the rest of her stature is slender and fragile looking, but also includes a slight sign of muscular tissue beneath the skin. The feminine curves and shapes are all there, still, although not as distinctive as on other girls.
A second disruption of young beauty hides under the, in most cases red or magenta coloured, tanktops or shirts Raziah usually wears over the mandatory bra. Again on the left side (the side matches the wounded eye, because it has the same origin), a palm-sized, mostly healed burn mark with various scars that extend as far as to her belly's center can be seen. If she wears a top short enough, which almost never happens exactly because of this flaw, it is also at fault for her disapproval of bikinis, ever only uses one-piece suits if she goes for a swim every once in a while.
For pants, she only has one choice. And that is meant literally. She only owns one kind of pants, a few dozen of them, but they are all the same model. Baggy, full-length workpants in grey, their most notable feature being spacious pockets at about knee height. Occasionally, there's also a plain sweatshirt or jacket tied around her waist.
Last point on the dresscode are the shoes. Raziah, as she does with most other clothes, mainly wears her steel toe capped workboots. Simple as that, not much to say about it.

From the looks and outside impression on to more important things. As with most girls, her mannerisms are top-notch, could turn up at a prom and act according to every trick in the book of good behavior. Technically. Actually, she might as well be an uneducated boy. While it is possible to job in the Metalworks and still retain a cultivated appearance, even if not actually every day, dirt can be washed off after a hard days work, that does not apply to the way one has to act and behave. Capability to take and receive orders, endure stress and hectic situations as well as crosstalk with co-workers is needed. So the way of speaking changes to reflect that and can be bitchy, bossy or blunt as well as a lot of other things and a combination of any of these types. Reflecting that, beating around the bush is not quite Raz's thing, as is embellishing a given situation or fact. She rather gets straight to the point and usually talks back to people, if she does not like their tone or has a -even if only slightly- different opinion about something.
Also, a lot of gestures and body language are being used, whenever the redhead enters a given conversation. Mostly hand movements, signs and facial expressions to emphasize on important things or anything she has a strong opinion on. Also there is no formal speak, unless she actually wants to, usually it is more of a slang-based phrasing, often employing words and phrases like and including "pal", "sis", "awesome", "seriously", ending words on "-tastic" (if needed, fitting -taststic's are made up on the spot) and abusing ”like” as a copular or filler, as well as shortening words by removing characters and replacing them with apostrophes. Mostly because that is how most people she knows are like.
That aside, if she really wants to, she can -as was mentioned earlier- express and also behave herself in a proper, well-mannered way. Which is casually not the case.

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PERSONALITY:
→ In overall, she's not a bad person. But it sure ain't easy being around this girl for longer periods of time. Mostly because she usually responds with snappy remarks whenever something turns out to be somewhat bothersome or unimportant to her and has a general problem with not being right as well as not having the last say. Picking a fight with her is no big challenge, because she is fast to start dealing, but very bad at receiving. Often, the aforementioned qualities lead to that kind of reaction.
That rather hotheaded behavior origins from, put bluntly, working in a men's place and having to establish oneself despite being a -rather young, to boot- female. With thick-skulled workers all around you, you do not have much of a choice other then going into the offensive.
But other then being rather spirited in that direction, there are almost zero extraordinary personality features to her. She's usually dedicated to doing a proper job and not someone who is particularly brutal or aggressive on her own. So with people as close as Mom, Dad or even Uncle Berg, she can actually live peacefully trough the day, unless something, let's call it, 'provoking' happens. For example criticism and the likes.
Unless the person in question is incredibly bad at phrasing a request for it, annoying or on her “to be hated until death”-list, Raz's always willing to help out with many different tasks, given they are in her range of capabilities and fit her nonexistent timetable. In tune with that goes her credo to always try the best one can do to keep a promise. The other side of the coin here is, the redhead is also fast with shoving the responsibility onto other people (or at least find an excuse), if at all possible. Call it mastery in the fine art of labeling people as the scapegoat if you will (because she herself does that as well). Mostly because it might sully the assertive image people close to her have of Raziah if blame for something that went bad or failed were to be put on her shoulders only.
In terms of making contacts, one could consider the girl as rather outgoing and cheerful, with no problem in talking to strangers when there is need to, like asking directions or other situations. But that does not mean, she is friendly to everyone by default. If people are unappealing or dislikable, there is little problem for this girl to voice her opinion, person in question present or not. At least from her side, that is not a personal offense and she can very well work in team with people she doesn't particularly like, if they can get their act together as well.
In short, her behavior can be summarized as leave her be and you will be left in peace as well, behave yourself and she will too (even though she might not like you all that much after all).
The only time Raz changes drastically is, when someone with respectable authority is around. Higher-ranked military personnel, gouverment officals and others of that direction. Because everyone wants to steer clear of trouble in that business, right? In any case, if that happens, a proper posture, correct way of phrasing sentences and formal attitude are being deployed.
At a last thing of note, there is some kind of shyness and embarassment on the topic of why and how the burnmarks, scars and loss of a left eye came to happen. Those marks are being hidden for a reason, and that is, so there is no permanent asking about them, although wearing an obvious eyepatch kind of gives away that something is being covered here. In extension, Raziah usually is uncomfortable talking about the related incident, because it goes along with admitting she failed to pay attention and screwed up bad at some point.


LOVE:
→ Seas (or other large bodies of water, by extension) and related activities like swimming and various watersports
→ All kinds of gadgets and technic stuff to fumble with
→ Popsicles
→ Stories based on experience of life
→ Cooking as well as eating

HATE:
→ Afraid of heights
→ Snow and nonfood-ice
→ Damage to her hair or hairdo, including but not limited to hairdressers and split ends
→ To not have the final say and be right in a given argument
→ Religious beliefs

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HISTORY:
→ A Florist and Gardener from the countryside, a tiny town near the southeastern border, more to Youswell then Ishval, Irvine Dahl. Housewife since her early marriage, and before that only child of her parents, from Youswell, Ellah Frei. Those two are the starting point of this story. While they are in it, it's actually about them though. We'll just stick with, they came to know each other, loved each other, moved in with each another (while technically Ellah pretty much moved in to Irvine's market garden), married shortly thereafter and were also planning on a decent family. So Raziah came to be happening at some point, as the first positive result out of many tries.
After a troublesome trip to the nearest hosiptal that one special morning – since there are only so many hospitals or even doctors out in the field where no one else lives but a gardener for obvious reasons – it was smooth sailing for the small family. Way off from any problems or dangers and out in the nature was propably the best place for a child to be raised. So nothing special happened, really. They lived a common life while Raz grew older, with only one thing they were not too fond of. The older Raziah got, the more apparent it was, that she was surely not the one to inherit her fathers business at some point. She did help out with things Irvine asked his daughter, but not exactly because she liked it, but because it was the respectful thing to do with your own parents, as education had told her. She rather spend her days after learning out in the field or at the nearby lake. Playing and swimming during the summers, iceskating during the winters. The latter being one of the reasons, why she is, as of now, not very fond of ice anymore. Getting yelled at by her parents for doing such dangerous things -because technically the ice might break and many more dangerous events could unfold- as well as spending a full spring recovering from a broken arm that was result of too reckless of an ice skating day could surely put one off the ice for some time. She was about twelve at that time and besides the mentioned parts, it was pretty much a nomal life, getting raised and educated in a proper way, learning manners, unwillingly work hard for school and all that.

Also around that time, she started venturing further, but usually not much further then the other side of the lake. Because there, Irvines brother Berg, usually adressed as Uncle Berg, resides. With his Metalworks, which are indeed an interesting and exciting place from a child's point of view with all their strange, loud machines and red-hot metal. For the parents? Not so much, but what you gonna do about girls nearing puberty? So they told her not to and Berg was requested to personally take care of her (and was to hold responsibility if something happenend to her), if she showed up. And she did. At first only sometimes, but as time progressed, the trips became more frequent. In fact, they became so frequent, that she spend whole days there, every day, after one point. And just as it goes, slow, but steady she really interested (compared to before, where it was just a cool place to be with all the "toys" around to observe) herself in the things and works that were being made there. Berg sure was not really happy about his thirteen year old niece being around dangerous places as his workshop – especially if his dear brother was likely to behead him if poop would hit the ventilation system regarding his child. Nevertheless he was also trying to impress the girl because he liked how enthusiastic about his work and lerning about it she was, just as any other person who's being adored by someone would do.

Eventually, Raziah started to even help out here and there, of course without that her parents knew. While Ellah was rather laid back about it and found it a good thing that Raziah was able to entertain and keep herself busy, Irvine wasn't much of that. He would have her chained down in one of his greenhouses instantly for permanent observation, most likely. And from helping out, the step to do more then just that is not far, right? So, slowly over the weeks, she started picking up progressively difficult tasks. Moving from bringing a bin of iron bars that Berg ordered from the stockpile over to the lanky guy at the smelter, to inflame the forge and raking the fires from time to time or assisting by holding the to-be-hammered steel plates in place with a gripper. In the end it was pretty much like she was employed there, just like all the other guys under Berg's direction, excluding payment. Of course, Raziah was still short of any actual apprenticeship in smithing arts or even work experience, but as things were standing, mastersmith Berg had made a decision to change that fact once the time had come. Meaning, as soon as Raz turned sixteen.
The days did come, the years did go, someone's sixteenth birthday came up. It was nothing short of any other teens birthday. As the celebration had ended, however, Berg had Ellah, Irvine and -of course- Raziah gather together in the dining room of the Dahl-marketgarden-house-mixture to talk privately and in a calmly atmosphere. He may be a big, strong Metalworker, but he sure was not as stupid to not expect his brother to literally explode, once he would break the little secret about what Raziah always did over at his place to him.

No one but Berg himself knew what was going to be talked about, although Raziah had a rough idea what might be a topic. If she had known for sure, she would't have let him do it. Mostly to prevent whatever reaction her father would give to that. But she did not know for sure, so the inconcievable happened. Although both Ellah and Irvine already had a bit of a hunch about what was going down over at the other side of the lake every day, they did not expect it to really be true, especially not in a way that Berg had kind of covered up for Raz over all the time regarding information when her parents asked about her well-being and such. The somewhat big, dark-tanned man had not even enoug time to end the last word of his sentence, when his muddy-blonde brother jumped up to bend across the table -not caring about glasses being knocked over- and grab him by the choker of his workshirt. Not that it would have been of much effect, the difference in size and strenght was apparent and to Berg's convenience. He and his brother's wife Ellah had to bring some serious calming skills to the table to at least have Irvine let go of the smith's clothing and sit back down, while Raziah was doomed to watch and wait her turn to be yelled at, running off would not have made it any better so she decided to stick around and clear it out once and for all. While she was doing that, read: nothing, second and third thoughts about her relation to Berg and all the events over this time came up. Especially on the topic why he had pushed her off the cliff like that. This was part of the reason why she couldn't make any sense of the glance he threw her, it was meant to say "No worries, that was necessary, but it will work out." but she did not get it at all. It was propably for the best, that the always collected and open-minded Ellah was present. Because she knew her brother-in-law well enough, she was able to calm her husband down and make him hear the rest of what Berg had to say, before he would give any kind of verdict on the topic.
Next thing to happen was, they managed to get the enraged Florist to accept the fact, especially under the circumstance, that Raziah had never sustained any kind of damage from anything she did there, was a prime example of applying safety instructions and was actually interested in some form of work and carrying responsibility out of her own interest, unlike many other kids her age. Basing on that last fact especially, her Uncle came to a topic that Raziah had never expected, nor did she know what to think of it. She was indeed doing a good job with what she did until now, had talent -as far as Berg's experience judged it- and was more dedicated to it then some of his actual employees. That was, why he had offered her, if Mom ad Dad would somehow allow it, to actually train as a smith under him. Full time, with actual payment and everything, of course.

At first both her parents were not much for it, much unlike Raz, for who it was pretty much the best thing that could have ever happened up to this point. Unfortunately, as mentioned, her parents weren't much for it and put it on hold, to consult each other and the person in question, Raz, about it. It took almost a week of hours and hours on end of discussion amongst the three Dahls, before a conclusion was reached. Namely, they -Irvine more unwillingly then anything, Ellah happy to see her child get ahead in life and Raziah happy to get to do what she liked- decided, she could do it. Mostly because her parents knew her too good to not see her doig it anyway, once she had the required age to do what ever the hell she wanted. So other than maybe provoking long-term quarreling, there really was little point to forbid it, as it would only mean a minor delay, but not avertion of things to come anyway.
So pretty much in the same instant that conclusion was drawn, Raz headed over to the Metalworks, informing Berg of the outcome immediately. And just the next day, early in the morning, she was officially distributed a set of anything a good smith usually needs for his daily tasks. Starting with an fitting apron, workgloves, dark glasses, face and head protecting helmet as well as hammers, grippers, riving knives and such. The last piece of equipment, which Raziah had not used in ever since she started at the place, was grease crayon (used to draft and draw on hard, glossy surfaces). Asked about that particular item, Uncle and Master Berg revealed, that there was a special technique that he could not disclose to any non-employees, mostly for business competition reasons. But now that she was going to learn right off of him, also partially because she was his niece (Berg never was all that good at not playing favorites), she was in line to at least try to learn it. If she did not have any talent for it, then so be it and no harm done trying. The skill in question is, of course, of alchemic nature and used to manipulate iron materials into various shapes. Mostly complicated ones that take way too long to make by hand.
While Raziah did not actually enjoy all the theoretical work and knowledge needed for the iron molding technique, she sure looked forward to next days handiwork whenever she headed to bed after a long day of working and learning. If she had known about a specially fateful day beforehand, there would have been at least one evening where this was not the case. The day in question was, guess what, the day on which the accident happened that was reason for the scars, burn marks and loss of depth perception.

It was a normal day at the Metalworks so far. There was a special order by an East City Theatre for piece of a backdrop made of iron sheets, shaped like an arrow doing a U-turn. Basically an U with a pointy and a blunt end. It was easy enough to make, so finished rather quick, only thing left to do was to drop the hammerd-into-shape still slightly red hot metal plate into the oil bath for hardening and cooling. While the crane under the forges ceiling slowly dragged it into place above said oil bath, the worst possible thing happened. One of the chains holding the piece to the hook gave in to old age and snapped, creating a fiery pendulum with a deadly aim for the person at the controls. That being a certain teenage redhead smith apprentice, ordered to take care of the hardening process under the master's watchful gaze. In the first split second, she was under the impression that the crane was moving different to what she had input, realizing way too late, it was not the crane that encouraged this wrong motion. Berg did notice it exactly that split second earlier, because of a different point of view, but to no avail. He tried to make a dash for it, but at the time he had covered about half the way over, a muffled thud, followed by a scream of unheard agony tore the thick, hot air at the Metalworks.
The scenery of the following moments was nothing pleasant to observe. But still, the tall man had to do that and even interact with it. He knew too well, that removing objects from wounds was never a good idea, blood loss and all, but he could not leave a hot piece of metal stuck in a persons head, could he? At least she had passed out from impact and shock, so he was able to somehow pull it off and out without too much regrets. Luckily, the burning cauterized some of the wound, same applied to the hip area, where the blunt side of the hot material burned it's way right through the clothing that was exposed by a once in a lifetime slack in tieing the working apron properly.
Nevertheless, medical assistance was in order immediately and as a moment of luck in a bad situation like this, one of the employees had the mind to order it on the spot. So Raz at least made it to the general hospital in time not to die at the accident site. But still it took a few days before she had recovered enough to be awake and even have visitors. First and daily visitors were, of course, her parents and Berg. While Irvine claimed he'd always known something like his daughter being all bandaged up and hopitalized would happen if he didn't watch over her, he at least did not yell at anyone, but nevertheless lectured both his brother and his child about the accident. His wife was as collected as ever and mainly expressed gratitude to various deities and Berg for that the events turned out without anyone getting killed, after theinitial shock of hearing that her girl was hospitalized because of being impaled and burnt. Both Raziah and Berg however, mostly recieved a lession about safety and paying attention out of all that. While Berg saw to it, that every nook and cranny was safe and up to standarts around his shop -additionally he swore to be more stict about safety measures-, Raziah only swore to never again slack off about proper personal security, no matter how small the task was. Not that she usually did, but every now and then, when things were apparently harmless, a taken off helmet or gloves or other things along these lines had happened.

After over a month of hospitalization and treatment, Raz was finally realeasd back into the world. Not much but a black eyepatch indicated, that something was not all that right here. Both her parents used the incident as a reason to talk her off the job that had done it in the first place. Also, arguments about how hard, nigh to impossible, it would be to do it without depth perception and all. Although she was still only seventeen, very slowly approaching eighteen years of age, that was about the time, when she decided to part ways with them adults. With the earnings from her apprenticeship, a place to live was founded. While rehabilitation was still in progress, the doctors prohibited her to work physically hard, so everything could heal up properly. At least now she had time at her hands to read up and study for that alchemistic ability, Berg had teached her. She knew the basics of how it worked, it was mostly a thing of training it at that point. And as the master told her, it's never a bad thing to know the ins and outs of what the alchemy in question was about. The hardest part about it, to her, was constructing the necessary circle every time the technique would be applied, because the impaired vision also impaired her drawing. After countless tries to do it, an idea struck her. Embroidering the circle into the palm of the left workglove with tungsten filament -the left one, beause she's left-handed and the supportive tool, like a gripper for example, has to go into the right one- should do nicely. Not that she was any good at stuff like knitting and embroidering, but eventually it was sufficient.
After almost two thirds of a year out of active commission, she was finally able to return physically to Berg's workshop and wrap up her apprenticeship without further ado or incidents. That was partially thanks to her disability, since co-werkers and parents expected her to quit it and look for something else, because it might be too hard with an injury like that. But in actuality all that did was made her try even harder to prove everyone wrong who thought that heavy of a hindrance would pose a problem. So Raziah headed straight for journeyman's examination after the peroid of training had passed. It was not the perfectest score in the world, nor something worthy of a master's title, but enough to pass and henceforth officially be a "journeyman in smithing", one of the few female ones. Celebration ensued, even though Raziah snuck away from it rather early, alongside her former master and employer Uncle Berg. The had talked about future plans prior to the test already, but now that it was actually done with, everything became serious. She definately did not see this as the end of the line. But to become even better, more practice, different things than just everydays routine, were necessary. Both of them agreed on that point and while Berg did not feel like kicking one of his best apprentices ever out of his shop, he enjoyed seeing his favorite pupil move on, with her sights set on surpassing that what he told her. Lastly, even after everything was said, including that he had hooked Raz up with a trainride to Central -where else would you be for carreer if not at the capital- and a somewhat run-down two-room apartment to stay in for starters, she in turn had given him an envelope. It was quite packed, at least four or five sheets of paper had to be in there, and it was adressed to her parents. She chose it to be like this and skip a personal leave-taking, because she knew, it would never work out, she surely was not tough enough to leave them and the village behind if she had to see them again before she left. Even if it was only a temporary leave, she definately planned to visit as soon and often as possible. And with that, she thankfully picked up the ticket, Berg still held out to her and headed home, happy to be able to finally turn her back to the last person she was with – because form behind no one can see what someone elses expression is, to pack up the most important stuff into a suitcase and catch the train towards unknown events.

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TRIVIA:
→ Pointing out the incredibly obvious i guess, but for completions sake. Yes, she's indeed incapable of spacial perception, due to only possessing one eye. But a well-trained eye can partially make up for it, so it's not like she permanently fails to catch things by hand, walks into furniture and corners or hits her head at any given opportunity. Maybe sometimes in hectic situations or equally focus-breaking moments.
→ Only knows Amestrian, sort of.

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ALIAS:
→ Raziah Dahl

OTHER CHARACTERS:
→ First character, no one's new one.

CREATOR'S COMMENTS:
→ I had a bunch of writer's block-related breaks during the creation of this, so i figure one can kind of tell, which parts i wrote in what session over the past weeks or so. I sure hope the seams between those sessions are not too obvious and my own assessment of this whole thing is pretty flawed. I hope this isn't as bad of a bio as i think it is.
→ If it's rather unlikely to make this character work as it is (like, changing half of the stuff), excluding minor corrections of course, i'm likely to scrap it alltogether and start anew instead of piecing this one together until it works. So don't make the effort to list flaws if that is the case, just put that it won't do or something.
→ Hope i got all the stuff right and everything.

FACE CLAIM:

Code:

[b]Neon Genesis Evangelion[/b]/[i]Sohryu Asuka Langley/Shinikami Asuka Langley[/i]

CUSTOM RANK:
→ Awesome Incarnate (Niko said so. If that won't do, i'll think up something.)

OFFICIAL TITLE:
→ Go right ahead, figure something out, my creativity is all gone now.

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[Guest]

APPROVED

<3

[Aurelius Schwartz]

APPROVED

I'm posting this anyway. Dai thought I was asking him to approve it--miscommunication, whatever.

I didn't see anything wrong at all. ^_^ Though if you want any suggestions, I would say to work on incorporating some sort of emotion in your writing. If you did that, it would be super epic instead of epic. The head injury seemed like it would kill a normal person, but by the way you described it, I can see someone living...barely. Your alchemy is very interesting. Glad to have you on the site!

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