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Post by Javert on Aug 4, 2009 20:16:48 GMT -5
My name's Llewelyn Alexander Bishop. Call me Lou. Don't even think about calling me Llewelyn—that's my brother, and it's gonna stay that way. Just because we look alike doesn't mean we're the same person. I turn 17 on October 31st, two minutes before him, thanks, and my best friends in the Elite and I will never let him forget it. I guess some Deacon James bloke looks like us, too. Hell, how many twins do I need?   APPEARANCE
If someone were to ask for a summary of the appearance of Llewelyn Bishop (either of them, actually, although, in this instance, we are referring to the elder by two glorious minutes), a response would be simple: he looks like an angel.
Lou hates it.
As a child, his hair was flaxen, a cloud of loose near-white curls highlighted with gold from the kisses of the sun. Innocently round cheeks could not hide evidence of a highly chiseled bone structure that would emerge as he matured; his nose was perfectly straight, his lips pink and full, his complexion fair and rosy and glowing. Cornflower blue eyes were framed by silver, feather-like eyelashes. His unblemished appearance possessed an androgyny that almost leaned to femininity. People would coo at the beautiful boy and call him a 'little angel', and he would present them with a perfectly white smile.
It was frightening, really.
Lou found it disgusting.
It took him years to begin shedding his angel exterior. Although it never fully diminished, at least he can no longer be mistaken for a pleasantly plump cherub that flitted around God's divine halo in paintings, or for a girl, although he will always be mistaken for his brother. His flaxen tresses of yore began to darken over the years and halted at an ambiguous shade that could be sandy-blonde or golden-brown, lying flat or curling over his forehead depending on the season and threatening to obscure those long-lashed, pale-blue eyes, although his low-set brows, several shades darker than the hair of his head, pose an even larger threat. Free from baby fat, his face is now lean, although still unable to be described as 'hard', and magnificent yet understated cheekbones lend his oval-shaped visage a unique structure. Incredibly (and to Lou's eternal vexation), his nose remains unbroken and straight. His lips never thinned, nor lost their opalescent pink shade; however, to further erase vestiges of a saintly visage, these lips are usually frowning or smirking slightly, and never form more than an infuriating half-smile. Coaxing some mystery to his still eerily innocent face, however, is a small scar upon his left cheek, a Badge of Rugged Manliness with a rather embarrassing story behind it that Lou refuses to speak of.
Below his swan-like neck (he loathes, by the way, that his neck can be described in such a manner), his 5-foot-11 frame is lean and somewhat more wiry than that of his brother's, thanks mostly to an interest in boxing and running, and chasing after criminals (and his twin, who tends to fit quite comfortably into the latter category). He often appears at least an inch or two shorter than his actual height due to a constant, apathetic slouch, a rebellious hunch of sloping shoulders that comes with trying to smoke cigarettes discretely. An angel, after all, would have immaculate posture, and although proper posture was drilled into his head around the time that the alphabet was, he refuses to conform even moreso to the stereotype that hovers above him like a halo.
PERSONALITY
Surely such an innocent exterior can harbor nothing but sunshine and joy internally; certainly Lou's head is crowned by some invisible halo.
Right?
Wrong.
On the surface, Lou is generally easily to decipher– the aloof rebel who smokes between each class, who cuts classes to run crosscountry through the woods, who thumbs his nose at the world and whistles sedately when it whirls around to find the culprit. He can usually charm his way out of most punishments; few adults can mistrust the golden-haired honor student (despite all of his faults, school work tends to come quite easily to him) who peers contritely at his shoes and murmurs polite apologies. His remorse is rarely genuine. When released from the Headmistress’s offices, there is a 98% chance that within two days he will be back to his old tricks. He cannot learn from his mistakes, but instead makes them again and again, daring to see how far he can push the limits without having them rebound and strike him in the face. His life is a constant, precarious waltz upon the borderline of rules– never quite breaking them (not because of cowardice, but because he has no patience to deal with the consequences), but merely issuing deep fissures in their surfaces. He lives for danger, for adventure, for knowing that he’s alive—and, of course, for proving that he is his own man and not his twin.
He also is contradictorily introverted, but can be most adequately described as a man of action, as opposed to a man of few words. His body language communicates volumes. His constant arrogance is illustrated by a constant smirk; a massage of the temples indicates weariness or frustration; the arc of a single brow (an infamous talent) signifies intrigue or interest (mostly towards females); hands deep in his pockets may mean pensiveness or concern, while thumbs protruding can mean apathy or cocky pride. He'd rather sneer than brag; he feels that the former gets the point across just as well as the latter. Around his friends, however, or simply when he feels like speaking, his light baritone often adds ample amounts of sarcasm and joking to conversations, punctuated by a grin.
Friends? What friends? Miraculously, despite being egotistical, lazy (as far as work is concerned), apathetic to anything that does not directly concern him, extremely OCD with everything that does directly concern him (rearrange something in his room and prepare to die), hot-tempered, stubborn, and a trouble-maker, he manages to possess some, and manages to be very protective of them. If someone gains his affection, they’re fortunate: Lou’s loyalty is incessant and nearly extreme.(This may be one factor that earned him the position of Best Friend in his clique.) This is very good for those this favors, but very, very bad for those it doesn’t: if someone dares to insult or hurt one of his friends, or Lou personally, his infamous temper is quick to explode to the surface (for such a quiet guy, he has quite a mighty roar), and even quicker is his right uppercut to an opponent’s jaw. Neither forgive nor forget is in his vocabulary when it comes to his enemies—he will hate, and remember. You have been warned.
LIKES running, boxing, testing limits, seafood, girls, sarcasm, his friends, succeeding, fighting, storms, smoking, being under pressure, tidiness (he's, very surprisingly, an intense neat freak), confusing the Headmistress, alcohol (in small doses; he's not that stupid), his friends, photographs, adrenaline rushes, the color blue (navy in particular)
DISLIKEShis brother, indecisive people, vegetables, birds singing loudly outside of his window at 4 AM, the invisible line, the Headmistress, his brother, people who never stop talking, uncomfortable chairs, his name, his brother, ridiculously loud noises, public speaking, his brother
DREAMS Lou tends to live one day at a time--the furthest he'll project his thoughts forward is a week or so. Admittedly, he would like for his brother to get critically injured in some kind of freak accident, and he will readily admit this, but it's not so much a dream as it is a strong wish.
FEARS open spaces, going blind, public speaking (a few people he can handle; not a crowd), disease, failure, doing something really stupid that will cost him dearly, being blamed by his brother for something really stupid that will cost him dearly even though he didn't do it
 BIOGRAPHY
Once upon a time, there was a mother, and a father, and two sons. What makes this differ from the usual fairy tale is that the mother barely deserved the title, and she abandoned both the father of her children and the children themselves almost immediately after their birth. The father soon died. The twins were shipped off to their senile aunt who thought they were the same kid and the one kid tortured the other one because they looked so much alike and it sucked and then they were both shipped to florence's and lou roars a lot and hates everyone but is in the elite because he hates the handsome eyes, oh, and magic might be pretty cool, too. Goodnight.
TAKE TWO:
Sometime sixteen years ago, a young woman by the named of Adelaide Bishop was rich enough and well enough off to have her children in a hospital instead of at home with a midwife. After exactly eight months and two weeks of carrying her children, it was time for them to enter into the world. Unwelcomed, though, for while Adelaide had reveled in the idea of having her first children with her husband, a Mr. Gerard Bishop was less than thrilled.
It seemed that while she had been nursing him in his sickness while simultaneously running the house and dealing with her own pains and complications of pregnancy, his weekly visits to the 'doctor' were instead to the nearby brothel where he found someone who hadn't gained fifty pounds with her children could satisfy his sexual drive. Almost as soon as she had announced her expectancy, Gerard's interest in her waned. Each time she came to his bedside with soup and news, he would lazily accept it, not preferring her to any other servant that might come to take care of him.
In the later months of the pregnancy, she discovered his escapades due to the distinct smell of cigarettes and perfume on his suit that she had washed and an actual drunken confession she received when he drank himself into the pits after a fight between them. The next day, when he was sobered, Adelaide confronted him again with the accusation of being cheated on where he quite frankly and irritably, told her she was useless if she wasn't lying on her back in bed. He didn't feel she could continue after doing something as completely sickening as having children and that he wanted her and the offspring not to bother coming back from the hospital.
Not willing to wait until her due date, she had her things packed up immediately and moved back in with her parents who were always willing to have their daughter back but made it clear indirectly that their finances couldn't support a mother and her newborn child. However, they were more than reluctant to let her leave in her condition and housed Adelaide until she went into labor.
Through the hours of contractions, her mind raced with the profound and becoming more real idea that she was homeless. Gerard was getting the papers for a divorce even if it meant a hit to his social standing. Her parents were far too poor to take her back in with another mouth to feed. There were no other relatives she could turn to. Each push, it seemed, was damning her and her children to a hellish life on the streets, and she couldn't accept that. If only she could die in birth, then her children would have to be taken by their father.
Ten hours after checking into the hospital, Adelaide delivered two healthy baby boys whose screams were loud and hearty. Each clung to her before being taken to be cleaned and housed in the nursery until she could recover. Things had gone spectacularly well; the nurses commended themselves and moved back to room 300 to take care of the new mother.
Her bed was empty.
The nurses looked around frantically for the missing patient but found no sight of her. Adelaide Bishop wasn't found. In her absence, there was no choice but to contact the father so that he could take in his children. They didn't have to look far, though. Two floors down, Gerard Bishop died after just entering the hospital. Left with no mother or father, the hospital was at a loss at what to do with the newborn twins. The mother's parents were unable to take them in. The father's parents were dead years ago. The only choice left was the orphanage where, indeed, the children were sent.
So for a total of two days, Llewelyn and his brother were orphans. If it weren't for an article ran in the newspaper about them, they would have remained so. As it was, Great Aunt Muriel Bingley on their father's side always enjoyed the newspaper with her breakfast. Since she had no husband to feign conversation with or children to reprimand for being too loud, priding herself on knowing what was going on in the city was all she had left. In the paper was a pair of black and white pictures of the babies. Of course, Great Aunt Muriel was more than interested about why a baby would be photographed twice and put in the paper. So reading the paper, she discovered that the offspring of her nephew Gerard were in an orphanage! Unheard of!
To summarise the next occurrence, it must be said that Great Aunt Muriel was climbing up in the years, so though she sent for the children, when they came, she assumed she had only one baby. In her defense, they looked identical and happened to cry at different times so that she never had to tend to both at once. No one bothered to explain things fully to her, taking advantage of the idea that she knew there were two kids in the house, and the babies were indeed too young to plead their cases.
So when Great Aunt Muriel gave only one name, "Llewelyn Alecander Bishop," it began an avalanche of curiously funny events in the childhoods of twin boys who happened to share the same face, and now, the same name.
On various occasions, sharing the same name has been a horror to Lou rather than to Llewelyn because Llewelyn was naturally the more wicked of the brothers. He loved causing trouble and lots of it and promised to take advantage of having a scape goat. So while Lou the poster child of goodness, Llewelyn caused havoc around the house varying from tearing the room up, leading an unsuspecting Lou to the room and then leaving so that he would be blamed to eating nothing at all at lunch and leaving the house so that Lou would get a lecture on starving children in Africa.
Sometimes he would do worse things, but those usually escalated as the years went on. By which time, I'm sure we all hoped that Lou would get sick of this treatment and fight back. Unfortunately, the breaking point wouldn't occur until a few years later. Before then, of course, Llewelyn would charm up the people in the neighborhood while sabotaging some of his brother's friendships and child-like crushes-- if he had any. If Llewelyn was threatened to be beaten up, he'd firmly pronounce that he went by Lou, and then, you know, they went for the wrong person.
There were frequent, but not constant activities. Eventually friends of Lou's would learn how to tell them apart, usually due to the birthmark on Llewelyn's elbow or whenever he would slip up and act very Llewelynish rather than Louish. They were also not constant activities because though Llewelyn found it good fun to wreck havoc on his brother's life, he didn't necessarily want him pounded to a pulp and treated like a pariah. It was just rather unfortunate that brotherly love only usually kicked in when some large boy was just a few inches close to knocking Lou into next Sunday.
Llewelyn doesn't know when the change first occurred, with his brother becoming more like him than rather different, but it was a rather welcomed change. It was always much more fun when the prankee was willing to get revenge. Otherwise, Lou as a limp noodle would have quickly become boring. And so, it became much harder for the younger brother to make life harder. That meant no more taking tests in Lou's name and purposefully failing them. That meant no more confessing his love to a very pretty girl at school in Lou's name. That meant it wasn't surprising when Lou threw a punch at the taunting Llewelyn, causing a fight that ended with them being kicked out of school and into Florence's Academy.
It wasn't surprising that Llewelyn was absorbed into the Handsome Eyes almost immediately, but Lou had absolutely no desire to be within a fifty-foot radius of his brother at any point during their schooling; in fact, he thinks that he would be quite content if this distance was continued for his entire life. Thus, he sought a rival clique, and instead found a good friend and kindred spirit in Kurtis Lowe (they both tend to fight without asking any questions) and many of the clique members below his command. Upon his entrance to the Elite, he learned what their true motive was, and decided that a little magic would be quite an effective weapon against the unceasing taunts of his brother. Now, Lou is living his life, waiting for the day when he receives the magic and is able to wipe the damn smirk off of the face of his mirror image.
FAMILY TREE
Mummy Dearest. ADELAIDE BISHOP is a thirty-three-year-old woman who had her children and then abandoned them soon after birth.
Father Dearest. GERARD BISHOP was a forty-year-old man who was too sick to take care of his kids and died shortly after they were born.
Brother Dearest. LLEWELYN BISHOP is a sixteen-year-old twin brother who happens to share the same name and face as Lllewelyn.
Dearest Great Aunt. MURIEL BINGLEY is a senile ninety-one-year-old woman who had been given the children sixteen years ago. Thinking she only had one because they looked so much alike, the pair ended up with the same name.
FOOTNOTES
Lou's actually kind of complex, and his personality could be a lot longer, but, well, you'll just have to see him in action. (:
 I'm Javs, proud mommy of Fran, Aishe, and Celeste. =D |
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