Bai Lin (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fistsofchange) wrote2017-01-13 10:30 pm
fistsofchange) wrote2017-01-13 10:30 pm
Personality
It isn't impossible to make Bai Lin react to something with bitterness or anger, but it is damn tricky. She is a bottomless fount of optimisim and idealism that has stood against everything the world can throw against her so far. She looks at a world ravaged by nuclear war and picked over by bandits, raiders, and other bottom feeders, and she still honestly believes that if she just gives people a good talking to and reminds them that they can work together instead of fighting then everything will be alright. The fact that most of the time people ignore her or call her a fool has yet to deter her.
She knows that not everyone is going to listen to her, and that living like this might kill her, but believes that if she DOESN'T live like this she won't really be herself anymore. The Bai Lin she wants to be would be dead, with someone worse taking her place. Better, in a way, to die trying to fix this burned and broken world than to be broken by it and become part of the problem she wants to fix. Better to believe in people then to slide into a deep depression at the hopelessness of it all. The funny thing is, she actually DOES get people to listen to her. Not always, but more often than the average cynical bastard might expect. Sometimes they're only listening because ignoring her would feel like kicking a puppy. Sometimes, because they just watched her take on ten men twice her size and come out on top without breaking a sweat. Either way, it works.
Lin is rather inexperienced about the world beyond Yuxi Valley, but now that she's gotten a taste of it she has found herself growing more and more curious about it. Almost all of her life has been in the narrow confines of the Temple of the Soaring Fist. It was a life she enjoyed well enough, but it was also a life of strict asceticism. Cold showers, simple food, lots of hard work, and not a lot of fun. But stories filter in even to the most austere settings. Lin has heard tales of strange and luxurious things from beyond the temple, and has always been curious about them. Now that she is, technically, not a monk, she feels she might as well try them all out. Gourmet food, fancy parties, fast cars, movies, alcohol, romance...She wants to at least say she's experienced them. Then, even if she does decide go back to her old life, she can do so knowing that she's turning her back on something she isn't interested in rather than always wondering. She actually carries a list of things she's heard about and wants to try.
Since her temple was in charge of defending Yuxi Valley, the monks would do battle with invaders on a fairly regular basis, so she has come to terms with the fact that in the heat of the moment, sometimes there are fatalities. It's very sad, but an unavoidable truth that people die when they are killed. She'll still do everything she can to not just avoid actually killing people, but to stop others from killing people if she can. She's gone so far as to step between a defeated foe and a man with a gun and an itchy trigger finger. She falls short of perfection just like everyone else does, though. If it REALLY came down to it, and she REALLY felt that someone had to die, she'd go through with it. She'd hate it and be miserable, but sometimes you do what you must, not what you should.
Underneath the optimism, the inexperience, and the curiosity is a bone deep stubbornness that underlies everything she does. Once Lin has set herself on a course of action, it is very difficult to get her to stop. She lets her conscience guide her actions more than rationality, and will willingly go up against seemingly impossible odds rather than compromise herself and take the easy way out.
She knows that not everyone is going to listen to her, and that living like this might kill her, but believes that if she DOESN'T live like this she won't really be herself anymore. The Bai Lin she wants to be would be dead, with someone worse taking her place. Better, in a way, to die trying to fix this burned and broken world than to be broken by it and become part of the problem she wants to fix. Better to believe in people then to slide into a deep depression at the hopelessness of it all. The funny thing is, she actually DOES get people to listen to her. Not always, but more often than the average cynical bastard might expect. Sometimes they're only listening because ignoring her would feel like kicking a puppy. Sometimes, because they just watched her take on ten men twice her size and come out on top without breaking a sweat. Either way, it works.
Lin is rather inexperienced about the world beyond Yuxi Valley, but now that she's gotten a taste of it she has found herself growing more and more curious about it. Almost all of her life has been in the narrow confines of the Temple of the Soaring Fist. It was a life she enjoyed well enough, but it was also a life of strict asceticism. Cold showers, simple food, lots of hard work, and not a lot of fun. But stories filter in even to the most austere settings. Lin has heard tales of strange and luxurious things from beyond the temple, and has always been curious about them. Now that she is, technically, not a monk, she feels she might as well try them all out. Gourmet food, fancy parties, fast cars, movies, alcohol, romance...She wants to at least say she's experienced them. Then, even if she does decide go back to her old life, she can do so knowing that she's turning her back on something she isn't interested in rather than always wondering. She actually carries a list of things she's heard about and wants to try.
Since her temple was in charge of defending Yuxi Valley, the monks would do battle with invaders on a fairly regular basis, so she has come to terms with the fact that in the heat of the moment, sometimes there are fatalities. It's very sad, but an unavoidable truth that people die when they are killed. She'll still do everything she can to not just avoid actually killing people, but to stop others from killing people if she can. She's gone so far as to step between a defeated foe and a man with a gun and an itchy trigger finger. She falls short of perfection just like everyone else does, though. If it REALLY came down to it, and she REALLY felt that someone had to die, she'd go through with it. She'd hate it and be miserable, but sometimes you do what you must, not what you should.
Underneath the optimism, the inexperience, and the curiosity is a bone deep stubbornness that underlies everything she does. Once Lin has set herself on a course of action, it is very difficult to get her to stop. She lets her conscience guide her actions more than rationality, and will willingly go up against seemingly impossible odds rather than compromise herself and take the easy way out.