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knifetricking) wrote2019-03-22 10:10 pm
knifetricking) wrote2019-03-22 10:10 pm
information
BISHOP YOUNG
Bishop Young and Golden Coyoung. Original character(s).
QUICK FACTS
APPEARANCE
PERSONALITY
HISTORY
GLOSSARY
GOLDEN
Bishop Young and Golden Coyoung. Original character(s).
QUICK FACTS
APPEARANCE
PERSONALITY
HISTORY
GLOSSARY
GOLDEN
QUICK FACTS.
NAME: Bishop Young
PRONOUNS: They/them
KINDRED: Golden Coyoung
AGE: Early 30s
HEIGHT: 6'5"
WEIGHT: 280lbs
HAIR: Dark brown
EYES: Dark brown
OCCUPATION: Courier
HOMETOWN: Cracedus
TRAITS: Long dreads frequently pulled back; broad, tall, and stocky; mixed features reminiscent of both Black and North Asian traits; suffers from severe asthma and may sometimes wear an oxygen mask
LIKES: Knives, large music libraries, repetitive and mechanical tasks (i.e., knife tricks, puzzle cubes, plucking at instruments at random), cars, motorcycles, thrill-seeking
DISLIKES: Unexpected social situations, everything else
PRONOUNS: They/them
KINDRED: Golden Coyoung
AGE: Early 30s
HEIGHT: 6'5"
WEIGHT: 280lbs
HAIR: Dark brown
EYES: Dark brown
OCCUPATION: Courier
HOMETOWN: Cracedus
TRAITS: Long dreads frequently pulled back; broad, tall, and stocky; mixed features reminiscent of both Black and North Asian traits; suffers from severe asthma and may sometimes wear an oxygen mask
LIKES: Knives, large music libraries, repetitive and mechanical tasks (i.e., knife tricks, puzzle cubes, plucking at instruments at random), cars, motorcycles, thrill-seeking
DISLIKES: Unexpected social situations, everything else
APPEARANCE.
With a stocky build and broad shoulders, Bishop looks a lot more intimidating than they actually are as a person. Their resting face is also fixed in a perpetual scowl, which only increases their default unapproachability, but this bit actually is on purpose, considering that they're aloof and standoffish by default. Bishop's build is heavy and thickset, equal parts muscle and fat. Despite their large stature, they tend to stand like someone who doesn't know what to do with themself, and doesn't want to be there (often because they don't): arms folded across their chest, shoulders slightly hunched, expression scrunched up in a grumpy scowl. Their hair and eyes are both brown; their dreads are long, and are usually worn pulled back. They have a single labret piercing, a fat silver-gray bead settled between their chin and lower lip. If this piercing has a significance, they never bring it up.
Their clothes are all loose-fitting and slightly baggy by necessity. They prefer pale and pastel shades, favoring soft pinks, blues, yellows, and purples. Their courier gear is considerably less coordinated, and is an obvious patch job of pieces acquired from various sources, all in varying states of wear and tear: a battered jacket with sewed-on armor pads and a busted zipper, a jury-rigged mask, an old pair of goggles as eye protection against high velocities and harsh weather, and so on.
When Golden is at the helm, their physical appearance is much less distinctively human, with large, curled horns akin to a ram's mounted on either side of their head and hands tipped in claw-like protrusions. Their eyes lose any distinctive iris, pupil, or sclera, and simply become a flat yellow-gold - or, in rare cases, star-speckled black. Their arms, belly, and back tend to be covered in Golden's soft bluish fur as well, but this tends to be less obvious thanks to Bishop's layered wardrobe. Golden likes to wear Bishop's hair down, but the piercing always remains.
With a stocky build and broad shoulders, Bishop looks a lot more intimidating than they actually are as a person. Their resting face is also fixed in a perpetual scowl, which only increases their default unapproachability, but this bit actually is on purpose, considering that they're aloof and standoffish by default. Bishop's build is heavy and thickset, equal parts muscle and fat. Despite their large stature, they tend to stand like someone who doesn't know what to do with themself, and doesn't want to be there (often because they don't): arms folded across their chest, shoulders slightly hunched, expression scrunched up in a grumpy scowl. Their hair and eyes are both brown; their dreads are long, and are usually worn pulled back. They have a single labret piercing, a fat silver-gray bead settled between their chin and lower lip. If this piercing has a significance, they never bring it up.Their clothes are all loose-fitting and slightly baggy by necessity. They prefer pale and pastel shades, favoring soft pinks, blues, yellows, and purples. Their courier gear is considerably less coordinated, and is an obvious patch job of pieces acquired from various sources, all in varying states of wear and tear: a battered jacket with sewed-on armor pads and a busted zipper, a jury-rigged mask, an old pair of goggles as eye protection against high velocities and harsh weather, and so on.
When Golden is at the helm, their physical appearance is much less distinctively human, with large, curled horns akin to a ram's mounted on either side of their head and hands tipped in claw-like protrusions. Their eyes lose any distinctive iris, pupil, or sclera, and simply become a flat yellow-gold - or, in rare cases, star-speckled black. Their arms, belly, and back tend to be covered in Golden's soft bluish fur as well, but this tends to be less obvious thanks to Bishop's layered wardrobe. Golden likes to wear Bishop's hair down, but the piercing always remains.
PERSONALITY.
Bishop has learned to repress most of their impulses and emotions to an oftentimes explosive result. They've been taught to bury and internalize their rage, their wanderlust, their self-destruction, their issues with abandonment, their fear that they are fundamentally unlovable, and lock them away so that they never have to acknowledge what they might mean. Bishop has become an expert at invalidating their own feelings by compartmentalizing them down into such a state that they aren't always recognizable. They tell themself repeatedly that shit doesn't bother them, that they should just get over it, and that it doesn't matter, even if it obviously does. As a result, they seldom actually confide in anyone, electing instead to repress the hell out of everything. A lack of support from their peers in their formative years, as well as their own neuroses, have also often fed into this mentality. It's not so much that they're unaware that a knife is buried six inches into their spine; they have trouble acknowledging that the knife is there at all, even as they set about twisting it deeper into themself.
A lack of personal attachments or positive affection throughout their life has left Bishop feeling extremely disconnected and unmoored. The more they self-isolate, the more susceptible they are to the depths of their depression, and the more they want to go off the deep end. After a certain point, they don't know what they are without it - this constant narrative of feeling alone and misunderstood and irreversibly angry, and while they want to separate themself from it, there comes a moment where they no longer know how. In social situations, they tend to come across as incredibly moody and antisocial. Their introversion is generally passive and their seeming misanthropy largely has to do with being forced to socialize against their will, but the bottom line is also that they're simply not very good at it. They'll also automatically skew toward distrust, but very quietly. They instinctively look for holes and weaknesses in others in case they ever need to exploit them to cut ties, but it's almost always rooted in a sense of fear and an inherent terror of being taken advantage of than it is out of any genuine malice.
While Bishop trends toward self-isolation, this is really not a good state of being for them. They ultimately need people who are able to tether them back from their own self-destruction. A big part of them wants nothing more than to pack up all their shit and just drive off and off and off and off until they reach the very end of the world. Instead of confronting their problems, they just let everything pile up until it gets to be unbearable, a complete emotional autoclave of every emotion they don't want to accept. Bishop is in deep denial about their own anger, a concentrated ember of rage that originates from a rocky childhood upbringing, seeing as they spent much of their youth feeling generally unwanted. They have a lot of fury about their past but fail to recognize its origins, so it's simply never been dealt with. Naturally, this means that even petty disagreements have the potential to boil over and mushroom into something bigger. Bluntly and barefacedly insisting that they’re not angry does nothing but cause the problem to fester. They end up internalizing the majority of this, and redirecting it into something intensely self-destructive. In the short term, this can actually make them relatively reliable and calm in a crisis, but it comes at the expense of their (already abysmal) long-term mental health.
Meaning that Bishop is on an active road to complete self-immolation without even recognizing it. Something is going to give eventually, and while they’d be plenty content to take it out on themself, their attachments inevitably get in the way. Bishop therefore tries to burn those bridges as a way of manufacturing circumstances in which they feel they can go off the deep end without anyone holding them back. The issue with this is that it's wholly transparent just about everyone...again, except for Bishop themself, since their sense of self-awareness is so skewed. They don't recognize that they're so angry all the time, which feeds into a sense of guilt and regret over what feels like a completely unjustified sense of anger, and so on. This only fuels Bishop's sense of self-loathing because, in their mind, plenty of other people have it worse. Is Golden not enough? Is Racto not enough? Why can't they stop feeling this way? They're just weighing everyone down. They're just holding everyone back. No matter how hard they try, this feeling never goes away. Why can't they just commit to doing the one thing that would benefit everyone else? Why do they always pick "fight" when they should pick "flight," and vice versa?
Ultimately, the hardest things in their life are also the things that save them - their attachments. Bishop has to learn to overcome their need to run from and deny all their problems, and realize that they do have people in their life that make everything worth it. They can and should come to terms with and acknowledge their own anger in healthier and constructive ways. They don't know how to piece their life together when they have literally no idea how it ever would have looked like unbroken, especially when they feel so much of themself is tied up in their neuroses and rocky past. Some part of them prefers the stability of isolation because at least it's a state of being they can understand...and it's become so much of a part of their identity that they're a little bit terrified to learn of what they are without it.
They do have their better days, however. Bishop is much better at observing people passively than they are engaging in them directly. This makes them fairly socially observant when they're not in the thick of a situation they don't want to be caught in. Taking things at their own pace, one can find Bishop to be remarkably astute, and wickedly funny. They're a diligent worker, which makes them a bit of a workaholic who constantly overextends and overworks themself to a periodic breaking point but, as always, denies that this is ever really getting to them. This also manifests in the form of a hard-coded loyalty, which is also a double-edged sword given how radically they fear intimacy due to its unfamiliarity.
They're a mechanical whiz, as well as a closet speed demon and thrill seeker. They feel best when they're driving through the violently dangerous Wastes, flirting with death and danger in a way that's acceptable because they can disguise it as an adrenaline high.
A lack of personal attachments or positive affection throughout their life has left Bishop feeling extremely disconnected and unmoored. The more they self-isolate, the more susceptible they are to the depths of their depression, and the more they want to go off the deep end. After a certain point, they don't know what they are without it - this constant narrative of feeling alone and misunderstood and irreversibly angry, and while they want to separate themself from it, there comes a moment where they no longer know how. In social situations, they tend to come across as incredibly moody and antisocial. Their introversion is generally passive and their seeming misanthropy largely has to do with being forced to socialize against their will, but the bottom line is also that they're simply not very good at it. They'll also automatically skew toward distrust, but very quietly. They instinctively look for holes and weaknesses in others in case they ever need to exploit them to cut ties, but it's almost always rooted in a sense of fear and an inherent terror of being taken advantage of than it is out of any genuine malice.
While Bishop trends toward self-isolation, this is really not a good state of being for them. They ultimately need people who are able to tether them back from their own self-destruction. A big part of them wants nothing more than to pack up all their shit and just drive off and off and off and off until they reach the very end of the world. Instead of confronting their problems, they just let everything pile up until it gets to be unbearable, a complete emotional autoclave of every emotion they don't want to accept. Bishop is in deep denial about their own anger, a concentrated ember of rage that originates from a rocky childhood upbringing, seeing as they spent much of their youth feeling generally unwanted. They have a lot of fury about their past but fail to recognize its origins, so it's simply never been dealt with. Naturally, this means that even petty disagreements have the potential to boil over and mushroom into something bigger. Bluntly and barefacedly insisting that they’re not angry does nothing but cause the problem to fester. They end up internalizing the majority of this, and redirecting it into something intensely self-destructive. In the short term, this can actually make them relatively reliable and calm in a crisis, but it comes at the expense of their (already abysmal) long-term mental health.
Meaning that Bishop is on an active road to complete self-immolation without even recognizing it. Something is going to give eventually, and while they’d be plenty content to take it out on themself, their attachments inevitably get in the way. Bishop therefore tries to burn those bridges as a way of manufacturing circumstances in which they feel they can go off the deep end without anyone holding them back. The issue with this is that it's wholly transparent just about everyone...again, except for Bishop themself, since their sense of self-awareness is so skewed. They don't recognize that they're so angry all the time, which feeds into a sense of guilt and regret over what feels like a completely unjustified sense of anger, and so on. This only fuels Bishop's sense of self-loathing because, in their mind, plenty of other people have it worse. Is Golden not enough? Is Racto not enough? Why can't they stop feeling this way? They're just weighing everyone down. They're just holding everyone back. No matter how hard they try, this feeling never goes away. Why can't they just commit to doing the one thing that would benefit everyone else? Why do they always pick "fight" when they should pick "flight," and vice versa?
Ultimately, the hardest things in their life are also the things that save them - their attachments. Bishop has to learn to overcome their need to run from and deny all their problems, and realize that they do have people in their life that make everything worth it. They can and should come to terms with and acknowledge their own anger in healthier and constructive ways. They don't know how to piece their life together when they have literally no idea how it ever would have looked like unbroken, especially when they feel so much of themself is tied up in their neuroses and rocky past. Some part of them prefers the stability of isolation because at least it's a state of being they can understand...and it's become so much of a part of their identity that they're a little bit terrified to learn of what they are without it.
They do have their better days, however. Bishop is much better at observing people passively than they are engaging in them directly. This makes them fairly socially observant when they're not in the thick of a situation they don't want to be caught in. Taking things at their own pace, one can find Bishop to be remarkably astute, and wickedly funny. They're a diligent worker, which makes them a bit of a workaholic who constantly overextends and overworks themself to a periodic breaking point but, as always, denies that this is ever really getting to them. This also manifests in the form of a hard-coded loyalty, which is also a double-edged sword given how radically they fear intimacy due to its unfamiliarity.
They're a mechanical whiz, as well as a closet speed demon and thrill seeker. They feel best when they're driving through the violently dangerous Wastes, flirting with death and danger in a way that's acceptable because they can disguise it as an adrenaline high.
HISTORY.
Bishop and Golden were born in a city called Cracedus, which is notable for having some of the largest class gaps on Vespelin. Neither Golden nor Bishop were the easiest children to get along with. Golden was reticent, socially graceless, and tended to hyperfixate on specific interests without understanding standard conversational give and take. Bishop, on the other hand, marinated in a mess of unresolved and unaddressed anger issues that trace back to feeling unwanted and abandoned by their birth parents, along with a cocktail of undiagnosed, unmedicated, and unchecked mental illnesses. Both Bishop and Golden consequently spent most of their youth being cycled through a chain of foster homes, never gelling into any one household before inevitably being passed along. This would be blamed on "disciplinary issues" for them both, and would also exacerbate Bishop's feelings of abandonment, all the way to adulthood. By the time they turned eighteen, they broke clean from the system by purchasing a battery-powered motorcycle with a mixture of a lifetime of carefully accrued savings and some willingness to buy from less than legitimate sources. They took off across the Wastes and didn’t look back until they hit Noctalion, which was big enough for Bishop to feel like they could safely lose themself in it.
They quickly found work as a courier, owning and operating a battery-powered motorcycle to make deliveries in and outside the city. Courier-work pays very well, particularly for those who are willing to risk the Wastes - which Bishop is, in spades. It also meant they were frequently living from hotel room to hotel room, without any actual place to live, which further increased their sense of isolation. Golden was their one consistent tether, and vice versa; it was largely through being forced to learn to communicate with one another that both would become slightly less socially inept as time wore on.v Eventually, Bishop and Golden ran into a hollow called Vale Racto while passing through Noctalion's outskirts. This was notable in that it was rare for anyone who wasn’t a courier to be spotted in those kinds of unprotected areas. This naturally got Bishop’s attention, as well as Golden’s. Bishop was suspicious; Golden was merely curious, and wanted to strike up a conversation. Eventually, Golden would let slip that they don’t actually live anywhere permanently, which was enough to set off Racto's protective instincts and offer them a place in their apartment.
While Bishop did not take them up on this offer immediately, they did a bad run in Noctalion (by which we mean: less than legal) that ended up with them needing a place to go to ground until the situation blew over. Racto’s place was the only one Golden could think of, so they both ended up hiding out there for a few weeks. This would gradually turn into Bishop turning to Racto more and more often, unconsciously projecting onto them the need for a stable parental figure in their life - a role to which Racto was equally unconsciously more than willing to adapt. Over time, they unofficially started living with Racto full time.
Racto would turn out to be instrumental in helping Bishop along their path toward some healthier instincts. They taught Bishop how to fight with a knife in case they ever got in a bad scrape again, and got them a very sturdy and high-quality blade for exactly that purpose. Bishop eventually started teaching themself knife tricks as a way to occupy their hands and their mind.
They quickly found work as a courier, owning and operating a battery-powered motorcycle to make deliveries in and outside the city. Courier-work pays very well, particularly for those who are willing to risk the Wastes - which Bishop is, in spades. It also meant they were frequently living from hotel room to hotel room, without any actual place to live, which further increased their sense of isolation. Golden was their one consistent tether, and vice versa; it was largely through being forced to learn to communicate with one another that both would become slightly less socially inept as time wore on.v Eventually, Bishop and Golden ran into a hollow called Vale Racto while passing through Noctalion's outskirts. This was notable in that it was rare for anyone who wasn’t a courier to be spotted in those kinds of unprotected areas. This naturally got Bishop’s attention, as well as Golden’s. Bishop was suspicious; Golden was merely curious, and wanted to strike up a conversation. Eventually, Golden would let slip that they don’t actually live anywhere permanently, which was enough to set off Racto's protective instincts and offer them a place in their apartment.
While Bishop did not take them up on this offer immediately, they did a bad run in Noctalion (by which we mean: less than legal) that ended up with them needing a place to go to ground until the situation blew over. Racto’s place was the only one Golden could think of, so they both ended up hiding out there for a few weeks. This would gradually turn into Bishop turning to Racto more and more often, unconsciously projecting onto them the need for a stable parental figure in their life - a role to which Racto was equally unconsciously more than willing to adapt. Over time, they unofficially started living with Racto full time.
Racto would turn out to be instrumental in helping Bishop along their path toward some healthier instincts. They taught Bishop how to fight with a knife in case they ever got in a bad scrape again, and got them a very sturdy and high-quality blade for exactly that purpose. Bishop eventually started teaching themself knife tricks as a way to occupy their hands and their mind.
GLOSSARY.
ARCANE: Term for a hollow-kindred pair that grow so old and long-lived that they essentially become one interchangeable being. This doesn't tend to happen unless one manages to last several millennia. Some regard this as a great honor and an almost godlike status. Some regard it as utterly terrifying. It's not known to have happened in recent enough times for it to be seen as even possible; some look to arcanes as gods, but they're really more akin to legends.
CIRCLE: Term to refer to different planes of existence. "The First Circle" is the physical world, where the bodies of hollows reside by default. "The Second Circle" is the metaphysical world, where kindreds and the souls of hollows reside by default. Hollows are unique because they serve as an overlap between those two.
COMPETENCE: Term for whatever skill or knack is present in the kindred. This usually translates over to their hollow, though often the kindred must be piloting in order for their competence to be enacted. This can also vary, but tends to be very singular. An example of this would be precognition, parasight, or the ability to manipulate one's personal gravity.
CRACEDUS: A city-state on Vespelin, and Bishop's hometown. Contains some of the largest wage and class gaps on the planet - the rich are at the very richest, crime rates are abundant, and the poverty threshold is difficult to cross without help from on high. Hollow-kindred pairs that herald from this region are recognizable from their "Co-" prefix (i.e., Bishop Young's kindred is known in hollow circles as "Golden Coyoung").
HOLLOW: Everyone in this universe is born a hollow, and engages in a symbiotic relationship with a secondary entity known as a "kindred." Hollows are unique because they have both the means to affect the physical realm and the capacity to carry a soul in the metaphysical realm, which is why their existence is so crucial. Each hollow is born with a kindred, and it is a lifelong bond. This allows for increased stamina, longer lifespans, and certain abilities that a hollow could never possess on their own. Both the hollow and their kindred have the capacity to affect the physical and metaphysical planes, but they must switch places to make this happen. If the kindred is at the wheel, some part of their appearance will make itself obvious on the hollow's physical form.
KINDRED: Metaphysical entities who are highly varied in appearance. Most cannot be perceived by the naked eye, but most everyone has one. Here is an example of a hollow (front) and her kindred (back). In order to affect the physical plane, kindreds must "switch places" with their hollow. An example of a pairing such as this one switching places would physically look something like this.
NOCTALION: One of the largest city-states on Vespelin, and the city in which Bishop currently lives.
SPLINTER: What happens when a hollow-kindred pair goes bad. This was common in the early days of the symbiotic relationships when it was a trial and error kind of thing. Initial resonance doesn't necessarily predicate a good and healthy long-term relationship, so in the cases when things go real south and the soulmates don't jive so well, the hollow starts to decay under the strain of it. A hollow becomes a splinter - a soul at war with itself, tearing itself apart and generally lashing out at everyone else around it. There are rehab programs now but back in the beginning splinters were generally just put down.
VESPELIN: The planet upon which the storyline takes place. A planet shrouded in perpetual night with very sparse city-states scattered very, very far apart, to the point where each one is essentially its own sovereign entity. Each city is separated by massive stretches of bare, windswept land that is particularly difficult to traverse, and known as the "Screaming Wastes".
CIRCLE: Term to refer to different planes of existence. "The First Circle" is the physical world, where the bodies of hollows reside by default. "The Second Circle" is the metaphysical world, where kindreds and the souls of hollows reside by default. Hollows are unique because they serve as an overlap between those two.
COMPETENCE: Term for whatever skill or knack is present in the kindred. This usually translates over to their hollow, though often the kindred must be piloting in order for their competence to be enacted. This can also vary, but tends to be very singular. An example of this would be precognition, parasight, or the ability to manipulate one's personal gravity.
CRACEDUS: A city-state on Vespelin, and Bishop's hometown. Contains some of the largest wage and class gaps on the planet - the rich are at the very richest, crime rates are abundant, and the poverty threshold is difficult to cross without help from on high. Hollow-kindred pairs that herald from this region are recognizable from their "Co-" prefix (i.e., Bishop Young's kindred is known in hollow circles as "Golden Coyoung").
HOLLOW: Everyone in this universe is born a hollow, and engages in a symbiotic relationship with a secondary entity known as a "kindred." Hollows are unique because they have both the means to affect the physical realm and the capacity to carry a soul in the metaphysical realm, which is why their existence is so crucial. Each hollow is born with a kindred, and it is a lifelong bond. This allows for increased stamina, longer lifespans, and certain abilities that a hollow could never possess on their own. Both the hollow and their kindred have the capacity to affect the physical and metaphysical planes, but they must switch places to make this happen. If the kindred is at the wheel, some part of their appearance will make itself obvious on the hollow's physical form.
KINDRED: Metaphysical entities who are highly varied in appearance. Most cannot be perceived by the naked eye, but most everyone has one. Here is an example of a hollow (front) and her kindred (back). In order to affect the physical plane, kindreds must "switch places" with their hollow. An example of a pairing such as this one switching places would physically look something like this.
NOCTALION: One of the largest city-states on Vespelin, and the city in which Bishop currently lives.
SPLINTER: What happens when a hollow-kindred pair goes bad. This was common in the early days of the symbiotic relationships when it was a trial and error kind of thing. Initial resonance doesn't necessarily predicate a good and healthy long-term relationship, so in the cases when things go real south and the soulmates don't jive so well, the hollow starts to decay under the strain of it. A hollow becomes a splinter - a soul at war with itself, tearing itself apart and generally lashing out at everyone else around it. There are rehab programs now but back in the beginning splinters were generally just put down.
VESPELIN: The planet upon which the storyline takes place. A planet shrouded in perpetual night with very sparse city-states scattered very, very far apart, to the point where each one is essentially its own sovereign entity. Each city is separated by massive stretches of bare, windswept land that is particularly difficult to traverse, and known as the "Screaming Wastes".
GOLDEN.
As Bishop's kindred, Golden is the balancing factor in Bishop's dizzying downward spiral of self-destruction. They're considerably calmer and less prone to making snap judgments, skewing toward caution instead of simmering distrust and misanthropy. They strive to be a bastion of certainty, calm, and stability. Given how much Bishop struggles to bury everything, Golden attempts to be clear and honest, even when they don't know something. This makes them a reassuringly cool head in a crisis most of the time, even if they're usually just as panicked as anyone else and simply better at handling it. They do, however, tend to take the burden of other people's responsibilities upon themself instead of focusing on their own issues, particularly where their own self-identity is concerned - which is actually rather in peril.
Due to feeling like they have to be Bishop's anchor, they don't always feel like they know who they are outside of that. When they're not reeling Bishop back from the precipice, they're braced for the next inevitable breakdown. Golden is an inherently compassionate and earnest creature, and as a result a great deal of their life has tunneled down into Bishop and keeping them alive. There's so much pressure on Golden to be Bishop's counterweight in so many respects just to keep them functioning that they base a little too much of their identity off that instead of daring to be their own person.
But their sense of responsibility extends beyond Bishop. Golden's competence as a kindred causes them to get periodic visions and dreams of precognition and postcognition - glimpses of the past and the future. Not only are they unable to control when these glimpses occur or how long they last, but they have no way of discerning if they come from the past or the future, or how far in advance or behind they extend. When these visions strike them in their sleep, they occur in the form of dreamlike flashes that have effects similar to those of sleep paralysis. When they strike them in waking, the effects are similar to those of a seizure. Either way, it's not a pleasant way to live, and Golden dislikes it very heartily...though they don't dislike being able to change things for the better by using what knowledge they have. They have to figure out what's past and what's future entirely through context clues, and after a certain point they've taken to writing down all that they can remember. Golden has out of necessity become something of a history nerd, largely so they can cross-reference their visions with occurrences of the past and pinpoint whether they come from the future or not. They would certainly not have gotten interested in this material otherwise, but have since learned that they do have a genuine passion for it.
It's due to their vision abilities that Golden feels an obligation to step in and help whenever possible. They're the one who feels responsible for charting the timeline that lays everything out. Their visions can at times influence how they view others - if, for example, they think they've seen someone in a premonition in a poor light, that might make them more inclined to mistrust by instinct. Even more notable is the question of how much Golden is responsible for trying to prevent, prepare for, or remember. This pressure besets them on virtually all sides - not only do they feel responsible for things on a cosmic scale thanks to their visions, but they also feel responsible for Bishop's well-being, often (rightly) assuming that they're the only thing keeping Bishop from going off the deep end. The strain here is massive and in part self-imposed; Golden is yet to properly learn that they can't be responsible for literally everything. They also struggle with the anxiety of not knowing when to intervene or how, and whether they are justified in trying to. Can one change the future? Does shining a light on the past really help anything? What tiny things that they do now affect what might happen down the line?
This constant effort to shoulder everyone else's pain, the weight of the world, and Bishop's constant crises, comes at a high cost. They're prone to dissociative spells and feeling like they don't quite belong. Part of this is due to their visions, but the fact of the matter is that Bishop's self-isolating tendencies really don't help here any either. Golden fears losing themself due to a lingering concern that, in being mentally spliced into so many different points in time and witnessing so many different things, everything they are might start to bleed away...and Golden does not know who they are when they’re not trying to anchor people back into reality. They sink too easily into that "therapist" personality, the protective weigher of futures and pasts, at the expense of their own interests. If they did not have the visions, who would they be? If they were not Bishop's kindred, what would they have become? Seeing so many futures and pasts spinning this way and that weighs them down with the burden of their own potential. Golden desperately needs someone to serve as their anchor sometimes, but is so used to neglecting their own interests that they'd never think to consider this, or ask. Golden constantly has to juggle the pressure of being a bulwark of support for everyone else, tethering Bishop back to reality, and nonetheless remaining motivated to pursue their own interests. There is a foundation in idealism in this nonetheless - Golden still believes in Bishop and has faith in the world despite all the horrors present in it. They're willing to acknowledge that they don’t know everything, don’t know what the world has in store, but they believe that they can live through it. Golden's raw capacity to forge firmly ahead despite everything weighing on their shoulders is one of their key traits, and one of the most admirable things about about them. They are, for all their faults in taking on too much at once out of obligation, extremely capable. Giving up is simply not in their soul; when they don’t understand something, they will brute-force a solution if they must.
Due to feeling like they have to be Bishop's anchor, they don't always feel like they know who they are outside of that. When they're not reeling Bishop back from the precipice, they're braced for the next inevitable breakdown. Golden is an inherently compassionate and earnest creature, and as a result a great deal of their life has tunneled down into Bishop and keeping them alive. There's so much pressure on Golden to be Bishop's counterweight in so many respects just to keep them functioning that they base a little too much of their identity off that instead of daring to be their own person.
But their sense of responsibility extends beyond Bishop. Golden's competence as a kindred causes them to get periodic visions and dreams of precognition and postcognition - glimpses of the past and the future. Not only are they unable to control when these glimpses occur or how long they last, but they have no way of discerning if they come from the past or the future, or how far in advance or behind they extend. When these visions strike them in their sleep, they occur in the form of dreamlike flashes that have effects similar to those of sleep paralysis. When they strike them in waking, the effects are similar to those of a seizure. Either way, it's not a pleasant way to live, and Golden dislikes it very heartily...though they don't dislike being able to change things for the better by using what knowledge they have. They have to figure out what's past and what's future entirely through context clues, and after a certain point they've taken to writing down all that they can remember. Golden has out of necessity become something of a history nerd, largely so they can cross-reference their visions with occurrences of the past and pinpoint whether they come from the future or not. They would certainly not have gotten interested in this material otherwise, but have since learned that they do have a genuine passion for it.
It's due to their vision abilities that Golden feels an obligation to step in and help whenever possible. They're the one who feels responsible for charting the timeline that lays everything out. Their visions can at times influence how they view others - if, for example, they think they've seen someone in a premonition in a poor light, that might make them more inclined to mistrust by instinct. Even more notable is the question of how much Golden is responsible for trying to prevent, prepare for, or remember. This pressure besets them on virtually all sides - not only do they feel responsible for things on a cosmic scale thanks to their visions, but they also feel responsible for Bishop's well-being, often (rightly) assuming that they're the only thing keeping Bishop from going off the deep end. The strain here is massive and in part self-imposed; Golden is yet to properly learn that they can't be responsible for literally everything. They also struggle with the anxiety of not knowing when to intervene or how, and whether they are justified in trying to. Can one change the future? Does shining a light on the past really help anything? What tiny things that they do now affect what might happen down the line?
This constant effort to shoulder everyone else's pain, the weight of the world, and Bishop's constant crises, comes at a high cost. They're prone to dissociative spells and feeling like they don't quite belong. Part of this is due to their visions, but the fact of the matter is that Bishop's self-isolating tendencies really don't help here any either. Golden fears losing themself due to a lingering concern that, in being mentally spliced into so many different points in time and witnessing so many different things, everything they are might start to bleed away...and Golden does not know who they are when they’re not trying to anchor people back into reality. They sink too easily into that "therapist" personality, the protective weigher of futures and pasts, at the expense of their own interests. If they did not have the visions, who would they be? If they were not Bishop's kindred, what would they have become? Seeing so many futures and pasts spinning this way and that weighs them down with the burden of their own potential. Golden desperately needs someone to serve as their anchor sometimes, but is so used to neglecting their own interests that they'd never think to consider this, or ask. Golden constantly has to juggle the pressure of being a bulwark of support for everyone else, tethering Bishop back to reality, and nonetheless remaining motivated to pursue their own interests. There is a foundation in idealism in this nonetheless - Golden still believes in Bishop and has faith in the world despite all the horrors present in it. They're willing to acknowledge that they don’t know everything, don’t know what the world has in store, but they believe that they can live through it. Golden's raw capacity to forge firmly ahead despite everything weighing on their shoulders is one of their key traits, and one of the most admirable things about about them. They are, for all their faults in taking on too much at once out of obligation, extremely capable. Giving up is simply not in their soul; when they don’t understand something, they will brute-force a solution if they must.