Vash Zwingli // Switzerland Application[Accepted]

[Vash Zwingli]

♦VASH ZWINGLI♦

The Basics
Character Name
Vash Zwingli

Age
28

Gender
Male

Country
The Swiss Confederation (Switzerland considering the era)

Hometown
Bern, Switzerland

Occupation
Vash is a gunsmith and gun merchant—he’s been exploring work with larger guns, such as cannons, but for the moment prefers to stick with rifles and handguns. (He will also sharpen swords and knives for you if asked right and paid well.)


In Depth
Physical Description
Vash is not a large man. In fact, he is more on the slight side of average, if even that. He has a slender build, and he’s barely at average height. What weight he has, though, is muscle. It’s lean muscle, but it’s there—his arms being his greatest point of strength. His fingers are long, and dexterous, ideal for the sort of careful work he does.

His blond hair hangs in his green eyes half the time, and he’s constantly shaking his head or brushing it aside to clear his vision. He wears a white beret when he’s out of his shop. Indoors he foregoes the hat, he doesn’t feel it necessary.

He dresses with precision, careful to make sure no one can critique the condition of his clothing. He’s frugal, this trait finding its roots in his childhood, and so hasn’t had a new suit in quite some time (considering it to be an unnecessary expense), but any repairs made to his current clothes are subtle enough so as to go unnoticed. He will often ignore the need for a suit coat, especially considering the heat—he makes sure to wear one when about the town, but in his own shop and in his own home he can be found in his shirtsleeves. He has a green vest that he likes to wear, accompanied by dark pants and shoes and a pristine white shirt that always looks freshly pressed (well, until about mid-day). He wears a cross pendent under his shirt, hidden away out of sight. The only reminder he has of the religion he practiced growing up.


Personality
Vash prefers time spent with cold metal to time around other people, but he is careful to be courteous and civil to customers. He tries to avoid being too nice, better to go without friends than to lose track of them, or find they’ve changed. He likes things to be predictable and though he has a temper would rather not get caught in the middle of somebody else’s fight. This is not a man who regularly shows emotion besides anger or irritation, but be assured that if he does it’s genuine.

Vash prefers to keep himself to himself and has no time for busybodies. To avoid too much inquiry into his life he makes sure to put up walls and appear cold to those who initially approach him (for that matter even to those who have known him for a long time). It takes a lot of time, but if you can gain his trust and his friendship he is loyal. Woe betide you should you break that trust though. Any vulnerability he’s allowed himself he will promptly see as a weakness and you’d have a better chance of finding a snowflake in the Sahara than finding that trust again.

If he lets someone get close and past that cold exterior he’s built, he really does turn out to be gentle—when he wants, but he very rarely wants to. He can be very blunt when it comes to his opinions, when he’s willing to supply them.

He’s sarcastic and sharp-tongued when it comes to his critique of others and is aware of this, but really has no desire to change that fact. If you can’t handle it he doesn’t see a point to continuing to interact with you. He’s a man of few words, but what he says he (almost) always means.


History
Vash was born in a small village near the border his country shared with Austria. When he was quite young his family moved nearer to Vienna, Austria for a time so that his father might find work. There wasn’t much call for his trade in Switzerland at the time. The family found that there was little enough work to be had in Austria as well. Though his father always claimed it was due to the differences between Austrians and Swiss, Vash ignored him, seeing no reason that they were different than he was. His best friend, in his opinion, when he was small, was a boy (two years younger than him) named Roderich Edelstein ((I checked this with Roderich and was assured that Vash was one of the friends mentioned in that app)). They spent a lot of time playing and adventuring, the two of them and another child from nearby. Vash almost invariably found himself helping his young Austrian friend home from some damaging climb or swim or other mis-adventure. It got a bit tiresome, but as much as he teased the other (in his own complaining way) he couldn’t imagine it any different, always spending time with his friends and helping that one out. It felt right, even to a child.

Vash’s parents were concerned by the amount of time he spent with the other children, it wasn’t that they didn’t want him to make friends it was that they wanted him to realize it was temporary—only a couple of years. But to a child a year is a lifetime. And then when Roderich was sent to boarding school and Vash’s parents decided to move back to Switzerland and try again, the blond closed off. He tried writing to Roderich, but never felt he could craft his letter well enough. He wrote a couple of letters and asked his parents to send them when he was still a child (before he went into his apprenticeship) but, unbeknownst to him, they never were sent. By the time he entered his apprenticeship he had decided that he worked with his hands, not his words and none of his letters after that time were ever sent.

Vash was apprenticed to a gunsmith when he was quite young (twelve), and took to the work well. He completed his apprenticeship at the age of 19 and decided to travel rather than set up his own shop or find himself a job under another master. He’d had a good master, but he didn’t wish to continue working for him and so left Switzerland. He had difficulty for several years finding any decent work in Europe and so crossed the Mediterranean. He made it as far as the Ostnesse section of Aldmoor. There he set up shop and has been doing his best to keep it working over the last three years. He likes it here, though frankly it’s too damn hot. Besides the heat though, it’s a good enough place and the Swiss is quite content to remain.


Important Information
Vash carries a pistol with him at all times. He feels reassured by the weight of it in its holster on his hip and frankly he’s a bit paranoid all told.

Although he’ll deny it til the day he dies, once he’s given his loyalty to someone, he’ll defend them to the end—in a “only I can treat them like that” sort of way usually.

The letters he wrote but never sent (just a handful really) are still among his belongings. He’d never admit that to anyone, but he still will sit down and sketch up a letter to the friend he had in childhood, just to get his thoughts about life down on paper.

During the hottest part of the day, Vash is often found sleeping—both to conserve energy and because most of his nights are spent at the forge, it’s too hot during the day for him to bring himself to work there. He sleeps in the wee hours of the morning and at the high point of the day instead.


Likes

• Chocolate—The problem with this being the complete inability to locate it in solid form in the desert. Melted chocolate is not the same, and nothing compares to the chocolate he grew up with anyhow.
  
  
• Snow—not all the time, but enough to cool him down, and there is nothing quite so beautiful as the Alps in the winter—nor so dangerous, in his opinion.
  
  
• Good business—what shopkeeper doesn’t like this?
  
  
• Firearms—there’s something about the destructive power of them that he respects. The fact that something so small can cause so much damage is an intriguing idea to him.
  
  
• Music—he can’t play it, and doesn’t have the patience to learn, but he does like to listen to it.
  
  
• A well crafted argument—though he can’t write as well as he would like, Vash can argue, and nothing is more frustrating to him than entering a battle of wits with an unarmed man.
  

Dislikes

• Busybodies—his business is his own, so stay out of it.
  
  
• People trying to drag him into their fights—he doesn’t have time, and frankly doesn’t care. If it’s a friend he’ll be there for them, but he won’t get in the middle of it.
  
  
• Idiots in his shop—know how to use a gun, or don’t bother. He’s careful about who he sells to, more for his sake than anything.
  
  
• People thinking they’re better than he is—it’s one thing he likes about Aldmoor, it’s a bit easier to communicate between classes, but the people who bring their European classes with them irk him. He knows where he belongs in that class system, and has managed to place himself slightly higher in Aldmoor thanks to his ability to work as a merchant and not just as a smith.
  
  
• Reading—this isn’t to say that he won’t, he just has other things he prefers. He likes to draw from time to time, but doesn’t often find the time.
  

Vash bent over his work, carefully cleaning his revolver. There hadn’t been a customer in yet today, but he was alright with that. He glanced toward the list of weapons he had in that needed repaired, and decided to see if he could figure a couple of them out in another couple of minutes. He finished cleaning his gun and reloaded it, holstering it again before rising and moving over to check the guns in the display. Business was slow, but it was a decent job, and frankly if he could figure out cannons he wouldn’t have nearly as much trouble. He just liked the minute detail required on the smaller guns. There was something that was lost, in his opinion, when working with the larger weapons.

The Swiss shook his head, clearing his blond hair away from his eyes, before returning to the counter and picking up the list, heading in to the back room to see if he could find any of the weapons he was supposed to be working on. He finally settled on a rifle whose owner claimed its trigger was sticking. Checking to make sure it was unloaded, Vash moved to his worktable, starting to carefully examine the gun. He looked up as the bell over the front door rang. Sighing, and clearing his expression from the scowl it had settled into, the blond man emerged from the back of the shop. “Can I help you?”

Out of Character
Name
Meadowlark, Meadow, Lark, ML, and I should respond to my character name as well.

Age
20

Time Zone
GMT -8

Contact
I would prefer to leave other things at my discretion via PM, but I can be reached at meadowlark4491@gmail.com

Anything Else?
Not that I can think of. Instead have a lolcat:

[Gilbert Weilschmidt]

I hate to be anal retentive, but I must point out that spendthrift is not a synonym for penny-pincher/frugal. It is actually an antonym, meaning big spender/wasteful. I make the same mistake all the time when I roleplay Austria. It is a confusing word. ^^; It is an easy mistake to make, no big deal, but you may want to watch out for that sort of thing.

[Vash Zwingli]

Danke, I'll fix that.

[Co-Admin One]

You sound like an awesome Switzerland, so I'm saying accepted. Please begin posting.

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