IDENTIFIED . BISHOP, LANCE

Lance Kenneth Bishop

Charismatic. Cheery. Confident.

Mostly goes by Lance, occasionally 'Sir Knight' or 'Milord'.

Twenty-Two

August 9th, 1989

Male

Predominantly heterosexual, with the occasional moment of curiosity. He'll flirt with anyone, being quite confident in his masculinity, but if anyone male tries to take him up on it, he backs out.

Civilian

Knight / History Major

Personality

Lance is, first and foremost, a people person. He's an extrovert, preferring to be with other people if at all possible. He dislikes being alone, and none of his hobbies require any amount of solitude. He's not a big reader, or a big gamer. Give him a party or a night out with friends and he'll be set. He's not particularly interested in pop culture, despite all the movies he ends up seeing. He doesn't recognize actors, doesn't keep up with the latest gossip, and knows relatively little about what's going on in the news. The only news he keeps up with is stuff that he thinks will one day be in the news--things like major uprisings, wars, and assassinations. Most would assume this would make him a grim person, reading about major conflicts all the time, but Lance keeps a detached viewpoint, the way someone would if they were reading about it from a history textbook.

Lance in general is a pretty cheery person. He likes to keep the tone easygoing and has a good sense of humor. He's not very good at telling jokes, but he does enjoy a bit of comedy, and several of his friends like to think of themselves as comedians (even if none of them are professional). He tries to keep things lighthearted, and has trouble in particularly serious situations. If you've been dumped and need some cheering up, he's your go-to guy. If your grandfather just died and you need time to mourn, he's probably best avoided. He's never lost anyone near and dear to him, so death is a particularly large blank spot for him. He doesn't know how to deal with it, and he's hoping he won't have to learn for a long while.

When meeting new people, Lance tends to do pretty well. It takes a lot to make him feel socially awkward, so he tends to just get into the thick of things. He's good with icebreakers, but isn't the most understanding of people when it comes to meeting people who might not be the most social of people. He's that guy at a party who insists you take a drink, that it'll make you feel less worried about the whole thing. He can come off as forceful, even when he doesn't mean anything by it.

In fact, he rarely means much of anything. Lance isn't the sort of person that thinks deeply and plans things out. If he insults you, it's not because he's had some deep seated grudge he's been stewing over for years--almost always, it means you just did something right then that he thinks is worthy of an insult. Ignoring the obvious causes (directly insulting a friend, trying to start a fight), a common thing that draws his annoyance is using 'slut' or 'whore' as insults. While few people would suspect he has any interest in being politically correct, those two insults (and anything similar) tends to really get under his skin. It's almost certainly because his father brought him up with a healthy respect for women, combined with the fact that if he was female, those words would be thrown at him a lot. He's gotten in more then one fight over them, and the results are even worse when thrown at a friend of his.

In school, Lance is nothing special. He's of average intelligence, and he can be a really hard worker... when he's interested. Like so many others, when the work is something he finds boring, he struggles to get it done and tends to end up doing it immediately before it's due. His main interest is history. Literature can as well, but he tends to enjoy the story, not the reading or the writing. He enjoys movies for this reason, as he's a particularly slow reader.

His job means that he's pretty fit, but it's an acquired taste for him. While he is a fairly good team player, he doesn't have any real interest in athletics themselves. He'll kick around a ball if other people are playing, but he's not going to go out and sign up for any teams.

His job has also refined his acting ability. While he's never going to be doing Shakespeare on a stage, he's extremely good at acting itself. He's also good at improvisational theater, staying in character, putting on an accent, and giving off the impression he's one emotion when really he's feeling something else entirely. This also makes him an extremely effective liar... if he's given enough time to prepare. If he goes into a situation knowing he's going to have to lie, he's flawless. If he goes into a situation unprepared, he can't lie his way out of a paper bag. It's one of the reasons he ended up moving out--his mother caught on to the fact that if she confronted him unexpectedly with things, he couldn't manage a lie to save his life.

With most things, Lance is pretty confident. He's not the sort of person to balk in the face of adversity, which is a mandatory skill when your job involves having weapons launched at you. While it's all for show and well choreographed, not everyone could deal with a lance coming at them, even if they knew it wasn't going to hurt.

When it comes to his future, Lance prefers not to talk about it. If he can, he'll even avoid thinking about it. He doesn't want to discuss it, doesn't want to plan it out, and it all stems down to the fact that he doesn't feel like he's an adult yet. He feels like there are a whole lot of adult things that keep sneaking up on him. Getting his own place was a huge step for him, but the idea of going back to school seriously (rather then just taking online classes and the rare morning class that fits his schedule) isn't something he wants to deal with. He realizes that eventually he's going to have to deal with it, but he's simply eager to put off that day as much as possible.

With that one exception, Lance is a pretty open person. He doesn't judge, doesn't (generally) keep secrets, and has absolutely no problems with chatting his life story to someone he's just met at a party. He tends to go with a 'live or let live' mentality, even when it's something that most people would intervene in, such as walking in on your engaged friend making out with someone who is not the person they're engaged to. He does his best not to gossip, although if he's dragged into a gossipy conversation, he can end up blabbing things he shouldn't without even realizing it.

While Lance is open minded, he can be a bit sexist, generally without even realizing it. His family was a fairly traditional one, with a working father and stay at home mother, and his younger sister is particularly interested in boys, makeup, and shopping. The fact that he is routinely expected to call women 'wenches' probably didn't help matters. He's not bad enough he's going to demand that a women go to the kitchen, but if a woman has a position of significant power, or a man is in charge of taking care of the kids, he'll end up pretty surprised--and being as it's a surprise, he's not very good at hiding it.

He treats women with a healthy respect, but it's the sort of respect you'd have gotten fifty years ago--men are men, women are women, and it's a man's duty protect the women around him. Lance was raised pretty firmly with the idea that you never hit a woman. Realistically, this could have left him with a complex, but his dad was also fairly clear that sex wasn't a bad thing, and anyone who thought that it was had issues.

When it comes to technology, Lance has a phone and little else. He has no real interest in the latest and greatest. He doesn't play video games, his computer is rarely used and several years out of date, and he doesn't understand the draw of any of it. The sort of person who wants to stay inside and hang out in the internet is completely foreign to him, and will likely earn some teasing from him in a social situation. Like most people, he doesn't intend to hurt anyone's feelings, but he doesn't have a good idea of how far is too far in most cases.

Lineage

Lance's family is fourth generation Americans, so as far as he's concerned, he's just American. Depending on which side of the family you look at, he's either English or Finnish.

Despite his heritage, he doesn't speak a single word of Finnish. The only thing he really speaks is English, although he knows the odd word in Spanish--mostly slang or greetings, having picked them up from Mexican friends.

History

Lance was born and raised in Downey, California, and he lived in the same house for the entirety of his childhood. His mother stayed at home throughout Lance's childhood, taking care of him and his little sister, three years his junior. His father worked for a health insurance company, and tried his hardest to be that one 'cool dad' that all the kids love. Lance's name is a product of that desire. His father's favorite film series was the Alien movies, and considering that one of the characters was actually named Bishop, his last name, it was little surprise that the android was his favorite character. So when Lance came around, his parents got into a hot debate over if he was going to be named after 'some silly movie character' (his mother's words) or after his mother's father, who'd recently passed away. His father ended up winning the argument, buttering up his wife with a brand new necklace and a lot of sweetalking, and in the end he was named after both. Lance for the actor of Bishop, and Kenneth for his maternal grandfather.

The Bishops were a rather small family, all things considered. While Lance did have cousins, none of them lived close enough for a visit, and he saw them only rarely. He did have his little sister, but the pair were as different as night and day growing up. Ripley was decidedly not like her namesake, being particularly appearance-focused and withdrawn. She had a small group of friends, unlike Lance who wanted to be friends with everyone, even at a young age. The two bickered seemingly endlessly, driving their parents up a wall.

Both Lance and Ripley were enrolled in public school, but neither went to daycare--instead, every day after class their mother would pick them up, taking the pair home, along with any friends who were coming over for a visit. The Bishop house became like a mini-daycare in itself, with several of Lance's friends coming over every day after school.

School itself was not Lance's favorite place to be. If asked, he'd have joked that lunch was his favorite period, but of the academic classes, history was the only that really held his attention. Everything else just seemed boring by comparison, but everything about history drew his attention. He loved the stories of the knights, of the great wars and old battles. His father actually ended up recording discovery channel specials and providing them to Lance as rewards for good grades.

When Lance was fourteen, he discovered girls for the first time. It was a downright revolutionary moment. At the end of the school year he'd been completely ignoring girls, having decided they weren't worth his time, and when the next school year started, he suddenly cared. They were attractive, and Lance soon found himself at a loss for what to do.

That confusion didn't last long. Just before his fifteenth birthday, Lance got his first ever date--a trip to the movies with a girl a year ahead of him. His parents were less then enthusiastic. His mother half-joked he wasn't allowed to date until he was at least thirty, and his father worried that an older girl was going to take advantage. Needless to say, it was a single trip to the movies, and not exactly the most groundbreaking of all dates. His parents worry was without cause, although that didn't last for too long.

By his seventeenth birthday, Lance had gone through several girlfriends and even more dates, although the number of people that he said were 'real girlfriends' seemed to change every time you ask. Did someone count as a girlfriend if you took them on one date and really liked them, but then they dumped you? Did they count if you went on a bunch but she turned out to actually like your best friend? Those were the sorts of questions that a young Lance took his time to ponder, much to his parent's chagrin.

A few months after his seventeenth birthday, his parents got their first real sniff of trouble. Lance, close to graduating, had been invited to a college party. His mother, being particularly wise to the ways of the world (and the ways of college students) was fairly sure that there was going to be drinking--along with other things she thought of as less then desirable for her underage son. Not wanting to embarrass him, she opted to send her husband in to talk with Lance, hoping to secure a promise that he wouldn't get too involved with women a good deal older then him who'd been drinking.

Needless to say, the talk did not go as planned. Lance's father, always trying to be the cool parent, opted to take a different stance. Rather then forbidding any sort of hanky panky that might have gone on at the party, a warning that would more then likely gone ignored, he opted to take a more realistic view. So he handed Lance a pack of condoms and laid down the rules.

The four rules were simple enough, and they shaped Lance's view of relationships and women. The first rule was simple enough: Be safe. It extended to every aspect of the party. If you felt lightheaded, stop drinking. Be safe when you got intimate. Don't let anyone go off alone. It was good advice all things considered.

The second rule was a bit more out there, as far as Lance was concerned, but would become more important later: If she's crazy about you, make sure she's not just crazy in general. Lance eventually ran afoul of the rule when he was nineteen, and one of his girlfriends decided that their breakup wasn't 'for real', and started stalking the house. Even so, he did try and live by it.

The third rule was more general: Treat a lady like a lady. The example Lance's father used, which went over Lance's head entirely, was not to sneak out in the morning. Sneaking out was never a good thing, and sneaking out meant you were embarrassed--which was never a good impression to give. Lance tried to live by it, but of all the rules, it's the one he's the loosest about.

The fourth rule was a strange one, and it took Lance several years to understand it. At the time, he simply smiled and nodded as his father made it entirely clear that you weren't supposed to say that you loved a woman unless you actually loved her. Years later, Lance realized the wisdom of the rule, and it ended up saving him a lot of trouble.

The four rules laid down and condoms in hand, Lance went off to the party--and he did get lucky, trying to keep to his father's rules as much as possible. It became a little secret between his father and him, with his mother none the wiser to the fact that her husband had deviated from the original plan.


Graduating did mean something else for Lance though--it meant having to decide his future. It was something he'd been dreading, and his options seemed intimidating. His family was middle class at best, but there was no massive fund set up for him to go to a good college. When grades came in, he'd been turned down from his top two choices, and the third one looked unappealing. His grades weren't good enough to help with the cost, so after a long hard discussion with his parents, Lance opted to get a job instead.

Of course, getting a job was another matter entirely. It was actually a joke that lead to his current profession--a joking comment about him missing the 'lot' on his name. A friend directed him to the Medieval Times in Buena Park, and the head knight, in charge of the hiring, thought Lance's name was an amusing coincidence as well. It was enough to get his foot in the door, and Lance ended up getting a position as a squire.

Being a squire meant a whole lot of training. There was learning the routines, how to to make sure the equipment was okay. He learned to manage the horses, and to ride them, and he managed to pick it all up fairly well. The drive wasn't too terrible from his parents house to work, and he found he rather enjoyed working. Even if it could be exhausting having to run on sand for hours at a time, it gave him even more confidence to be doing well. Of all the squires working, he seemed to be picking it up the fastest.

Four months into his new job, he got lucky--one of the knights quit, leaving an opening for a new one, and he was the most suitable. He had his first show just before the five month mark, and then he loved the job even more. The whole experience was exhilarating, and he found he had a natural talent for acting and getting the crowd going--two pretty important skills for the job.

Settling into his job, Lance ended up signing up at a local community college, Cypress College. His aim was to take his generals there, and to get some nice foundations going at a much cheaper price. Turning twenty, he made another big change in his life: moving out. Living at home was getting a bit too degrading, and considering the high number of dates he was getting, taking a girl home to his parents house just wasn't cutting it. After a lot of searching he found a relatively cheap apartment about halfway between his work and college and settled in.

At twenty-two, Lance is enjoying life. He loves his job, and loves all the perks that come with it. Ladies love a knight in shining armor, and he can find a date pretty easily when he has the time. His time off is spent with friends whenever possible, and he has in-person classes only a single day a week. The rest of his classes are handled online, which is the only use his outdated computer gets. He doesn't have a steady girlfriend at the moment, just a whole lot of dates, and he's happy where he is.

Miscellaneous

Roleplayer Information

REITGERTE;; Also plays Darrin "Moose" Moore

PREFERENCE;; Yes please.

FACE CLAIM;; Fate/Zero – Lancer