Half Pint
Festive
Qia
Melissa
webboysurf
Supermaxx
Nemaisare
Aeolian
Yankee<Snipped quote by Roman>
About how old is Mr. Grayson? Asking for a potentially interested orange alien friend.
Operating-as-Nightwing-in-Bludhaven-years old.
Make of that what you will.
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Watch out.
The gap in the door... it's a separate reality.
The only me is me.
Are you sure the only you is you?
The gap in the door... it's a separate reality.
The only me is me.
Are you sure the only you is you?
DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL NOW, WE'RE JUST GETTING STARTED
Most Recent Posts
Operating-as-Nightwing-in-Bludhaven-years old.
Make of that what you will.
On the topic of using legacy characters, and with the understanding that I'm actually playing a big-ticket character with an extensive portfolio, rather than a c-lister I can pretty much do what I want with, I have plans to involve Barbara Gordon as Batgirl and Dick Grayson as Nightwing in upcoming posts.
They will be effectively cameos, one-and-done guest spots of each character that won't have a lasting impact on the status of either, but if anyone was thinking about a sheet for them, or had other ideas or plans for where they were in their respective careers, do let me know so we can hash something out.
I don't have anything in the works for any other member of the bat-family, so they're free-reign (but please do consult).
They will be effectively cameos, one-and-done guest spots of each character that won't have a lasting impact on the status of either, but if anyone was thinking about a sheet for them, or had other ideas or plans for where they were in their respective careers, do let me know so we can hash something out.
I don't have anything in the works for any other member of the bat-family, so they're free-reign (but please do consult).
If anyone is finding it hard to read do let me know and I will adjust for readability as best I can.
T H E B A T M A N
T H E B A T M A N
T H E B A T M A N
Only the wan green of the console screens illuminated the dingy room, throwing a sickly glow across Edward Nashton's face as he pushed back his slick and unkempt hair and replaced his glasses before diving back into the mainframe, his typing rapid and feverish as he approached his goal. He was close, oh-so-close, but something eluded him, some final key to the puzzle, an infinitesimal but paramount element that was the otherwise-missing glue to hold all the framework together. He'd worked for months, years even, at first in theory, but now putting it all together in practice, making it real, making it tangible; he felt giddy, frantic, but also frustrated. He'd never stumbled like this before, never hit this kind of roadblock. He wasn't used to his mind being bested.
"What has a bed, but never sleeps?" Came a voice from the far side of the room, as Eddie was suddenly blinded by bulbs sparking into life overhead; Deidre Vance, his research associate, strode across and raised the blinds that covered the university lab's windows, further flash-banging him with the early-morning sun cresting over Gotham's skyline. Eddie looked out over the university campus and saw students slowly beginning to trickle in, ready to start a new day of academia, and realised he'd worked overnight once again. He turned to Deidre, who looked at him with a mix of amusement and exasperation, and chuckled as he removed his glasses to rub his eyes that were undoubtedly bloodshot.
"A river, Dee." He answered, and she smiled and shook her head, shoving a paper cup of faculty-lounge coffee into his chest as she walked past him to look at the consoles he had plugged himself into for the last nine hours.
"EENH." She said, imitating the harsh noise of a gameshow buzzer, "I'm sorry, the answer we were looking for was 'Professor Edward Nashton'. Better luck next time!"
Eddie threw a hand to his forehead in mock tragedy as she chuckled watching him in the reflection of the screen, and then he took a greedy slurp of the coffee, letting the scalding and bitter drink splash into his empty stomach.
"God, I'm starving." He said, mostly to himself, but Deidre nodded her head and gestured to the counter top by the door. She'd brought breakfast - a few pastries from the cafeteria - and next to those, a fresh shirt and change of tie. Eddie dutifully ate and changed while Deidre typed away, finishing a few lines of code she'd interrupted Eddie working on and then saving before shutting the console down.
"You can't keep doing this Eddie, you're running yourself ragged." She said, that well-practiced tone of voice, not unlike a mother scolding her child, creeping back in to her words. "Besides, it's too cold this time of year to sleep alone..." the mother-tone was completely gone with this addition, and Eddie smirked, raising his eyebrows at Deidre. He moved to peck her cheek, which she made a big show of graciously permitting.
"It'll be worth it, Dee." He said, moving back towards the pastries. "We're so close! You've seen the code. I just need to figure out the final piece."
"Well, Eddie, maybe it would be easier to work things out with 8 hours of rest powering that massive melon, instead of..." Deidre picked up assorted discarded junk food from the floor under the desk. "Funyuns and Mr. Pibb? Really Eddie? I pity your students."
Eddie patted his stomach, which groaned seemingly on cue as soda, onion rings, pastry and coffee coagulated in his gut. "I pity my intestinal tract more." He joked, and Dee just groaned, binning the trash and moving to sip her own coffee.
The two sat in silence, with only the soft whirring of the computer servers backdropping their quiet contemplation of caffeine.
"Anyway," Deidre said with a start, jolting Eddie who'd nearly began napping over the rim of his cup, "it's not your students that'll be suffering today." She put on a wry smile, watching the over-worked cogs in Edward's head kick back into gear as he turned over dates, agendas, appointments in his head.
"No, no! Not today! Surely not today! Next week!"
"Today, Eddie." Deidre said with inarguable finality, weary but amused. "He's coming today."
-
The air still smelled of petrichor as Bruce Wayne stepped out from the car, door held open dutifully by Alfred, who picked lint from Bruce's collar with one hand as he closed the door with the other. Bruce smoothed himself down, shaking away enduring memories of the night before. Foundation had done wonders to hide the bags under his eyes, but what lingered behind his eyes was harder to conceal.
"Remind me once more, Alfred?" Bruce asked, and if there was even a hint of exasperation at what would be the fifth repetition this morning, you couldn't tell from Alfred's stone-faced demeanour.
"The Wayne Foundation has been funding Professor Nashton's research efforts for some time, sir, through the 'City of Progress' grant program that you set up a few years ago. Unfortunately, while I don't doubt the good professor has been working tirelessly, Wayne Enterprises' board members are becoming somewhat antsy at his dearth of practical output."
Bruce looked up at the university buildings. "And I'm here to check on what he's been doing with money the board believes belongs in their pockets?"
Again, if Alfred found amusement in Bruce's wit, he didn't show it. "Quite, sir. Better Bruce Wayne, philanthropist and CEO of Wayne Enterprises, than some board stooge already paid off to shut him down."
Bruce double-took at Alfred's candour; he was rarely this vocally critical of the Enterprises boardroom. "You believe Professor Nashton does good work?"
"I do, sir. He is the finest mind in the city, perhaps the country; and he has afforded himself his position through keen intellect and a work ethic that rivals those in present company. He is the kind of man Gotham needs to help lead the city into a bright future. I am loathe to think that those work-shy lackadaisicals would shut down his projects for what amounts to pocket change to them."
Alfred cleared his throat, and this time, he allowed a flash of ignominy to cross his face. Bruce waved away the incoming apology.
"I trust your judgement, Alfred. And you're right, when it comes to the board. But there are deeper things wrong with this city."
Alfred nodded solemnly. "I saw your report. Ghastly business. Let us hope that the good lieutenant can keep the more concerning details from the press."
"Gordon is doing all he can; only he and Leslie know the true details around the body. Still, though - someone in the GCPD is connected."
"One thing at a time, Master Bruce." Alfred advised, opening the driver-side door and taking a seat, a copy of the morning's Gotham Gazette and a filled thermos ready and waiting on the passenger seat. Chauffer was one of the many roles Alfred was a seasoned professional at.
Bruce looked towards the main campus gates, and the central research building beyond. He rolled his shoulders, and slipped on the mask.
-
"-and so you see, Mr Wayne, the idea is not for us to develop an artificial intelligence - instead, to allow an artificial intelligence the space to develop itself!" Nashton concluded, having talked excitedly about his work from the university reception all the way up past his office and into his main research laboratory. Bruce stood in the doorway as Edward hurriedly set to booting up the mainframe, eager to show his investor his life's work. Bruce was impressed; from what Nashton had explained, and what he could see of the server capacity, this was a massive project, in a near-experimental field, that the professor seemed to have been making un-impeded strides in for months. There was some real weight to what Nashton sought to accomplish; however, there were equally heavy concerns.
"What about the risk of losing control? True AI has only ever been discussed in theoretic - once it's online, there's no way to control what it might be capable of." Bruce asked, and Eddie nodded carefully.
"Of course, there is always inherent risk in all forms of progress; but we do what we can to mitigate - without compromising. Is an artificial intelligence any more dangerous than an organic one? Under the right conditions, either can be as destructive as the other. Living in Gotham, Mr. Wayne, has taught me that lesson well enough."
Bruce cocked an eyebrow, but chose not to comment. There was some validity in Edward's argument. "Please, Professor, Bruce is fine - how have you worked to mitigate the risks?"
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Bruce. As impressive as the network is, it remains - since its conception - a closed circuit. There is no, nor has there ever been, an existing connection to the wider university network - nor Gotham's, nor the world. We drip-feed information in through manual upload, directly to the server. Together with basic guidance code, we simply create an environment in which a developing mind takes the right...direction. Like raising a child."
Bruce extended a hand, which Eddie eagerly shook. "Well, I must say I'm impressed, professor. And you can rest easy that Wayne Enterprises is confident that the grant money is going towards true breakthroughs. It'll certainly ease the minds of the board to know you're on the cusp of release."
Eddie's grip loosened slightly and he cleared his throat. "Yes, yes, on the cusp indeed..." he trailed off, and Bruce gave him a quizzical look.
"Hit a roadblock, professor?"
"Not so much a block as a minor stumble, Mr. Way- Bruce. It's close to completion, close enough to see it, but there's one missing piece of the puzzle, something eluding me. It's smart - so smart - but it still 'thinks' like a computer."
"How do you mean, Edward?" Bruce pressed, keen to help if he could offer advice.
"How to explain...computers think vertically. Logically. If x, then y, resulting in z. You can tell it to solve an infinite amount of calculations, but it can only do it with the right amount of starting data, and then extrapolating it out to logical conclusions and solutions. But a computer doesn't have any imagination, and if you ask it to make 2 and 2 into 5, it can't do it, because the logic doesn't work."
Bruce took a moment of thought.
"When I was a boy, Alfred used to distract me with riddles. I got good at solving them, so they weren't much of a distraction at all, and so the riddles had to get harder. And then, one day, Alfred told me a riddle I couldn't solve. It pestered me for days, buzzing around my head. I lost sleep over that riddle."
Edward's face lit up, his own adoration of puzzles and brain-benders plain as day. "Do share, Bruce."
"Two men walk into a restaurant. They are seated at the same table, order the same dish, and are served at the same time. After they both take their first bite, one man leaves the restaurant and kills himself. Why?"
Edward's previously elated face crumpled under the weight of disappointment that he could not offer an answer to Bruce's riddle. "Why?"
Bruce smiled his own wry smile. "Years previous, both men had been marooned on a deserted island. Starving, the second man had managed to provide food, and told the other it was swordfish he'd speared from the sea. Having ordered swordfish at the restaurant, the first man realised he'd never tasted swordfish before, and that what he'd eaten on the island had instead been the flesh of his son who had died in the accident that had marooned them. Consumed by grief and guilt, he killed himself."
Eddie raised his own eyebrow. "That's rather dark, Mr. Wayne."
"I was a rather dark child for a time, Professor Nashton. The riddle distracted me well. The lesson I learnt - if an answer doesn't present itself from the given information, you may have to invent your own. Lateral thinking is a skill as important as any other - thinking around the problem. Perhaps there's a way to teach it to your digital mind."
Edward turned to look at the mainframe console, sleep-deprived gears working on overtime as he turned the ideas over in his mind.
"Food for thought, regardless." Bruce said, dismissing the conversation. "Riddles are fun, but I'll leave the truly difficult problems to great minds like yours." He clapped a hand to Eddie's shoulder, taking his arm in a handshake again. "But tell me - when you unveil your great accomplishment - what will be its name?"
Edward smiled the biggest smile he'd give that day, and answered proudly: "The Encrypted Network Intelligence Grid and Mainframe Archive."
Bruce chuckled. "Clever, Eddie." He looked at the console screen, glowing softly green, awaiting input. "Very clever."
You misunderstand. They're not DOOM's patrol. They're on patrol for DOOM.
<Snipped quote by Roman>
Seems like a risky way to play Russian Roulette.
Take a shot for every time I used a semi-colon(DO not do this).
Take a shot for every time I used a semi-colon (DO not do this).
T H E B A T M A N
T H E B A T M A N
T H E B A T M A N
Aftermaths are rarely loud.
Crises themselves, the catalysing events, the worst-thing-that's-ever-happened-to-me's; these are cacophonic, discordant, deafening. They often involved the wrenching of metal, the crashing of concrete, blasts of gunpowder and gut-churning organic tearing and crunching and grinding. But the aftermaths - the minutes, hours, sometimes days afterwards - they were quiet. Dust settled, fires burnt out, rubble came to rest. And then, slowly but surely, the catastrophe that had first announced itself in a sudden roar rippled back out across the city in peels of tragedy.
The Batman crouched low on the building roof above an open window, out of which emanated the loudest aftermath he had ever heard, even through the torrential rain that soaked the city tonight. A little boy had been killed tonight, found dead after 3 weeks missing. The mother wailed below, hoarse and exhausted. The father was a shell, struck motionless by shock. One of Jim's boys was in the room with them, trying desperately to offer comfort that was neither wanted nor would be effective. Neither parent would ever be the same again; statistically, they'd be divorced within the year, neither able to cope with their grief. They'd have lowered life expectancy, higher rates of depression, and their standards of living would decline. Nothing Bruce could do would ease these inevitable outcome. But Batman could stop it from happening again.
Can you?
I must.
The radio in his cowl's ear chirruped as Jim Gordon made contact. Gordon had been first on scene after the body had been discovered, and Batman had watched from the rooftops as the lieutenant organised cordons, oversaw evidence collection, and arranged the body to be collected by the coroner. As the gurney was lifted into the coroner's van, Gordon tilted his head up ever-so-subtly, casting a careful eye across the roof-edge. He'd seen the fluttering of a cape, and that was enough."Batman. Body's arrived at the morgue. I've sent the team back out. Leslie can hold off processing for half an hour."
"Understood."
Batman launched a grapnel and swung into the night. The sobs got left behind; but the grief stayed.
-
Over the course of his half-decade career, Bruce never found that dealing with the dead ever got easier. Gotham's mismatched cabal of gangsters and psychopaths had left scores of bodies in their wake over the last five years, and undoubtedly for decades before that; Batman shouldered every life that was lost in his city, counting every single person that he failed to save. But the children...the children were always the hardest.
He and Jim stood silently beside the giant slab GCPD mortuary table, the body bag - the oh-too-small body bag - lying zipped up atop the metal. Dr. Leslie Thompkins lingered at the door, her eyes darting between the bag and the two men standing over it. Her mouth crinkled warmly at the edges where she pulled her lips into a smile that wasn't really a smile at all.
"I'm stepping out. Half an hour. Locking the morgue behind me." She said; Jim nodded solemnly as Leslie waved a key unenthusiastically. "Everyone knows I find children difficult. Loeb won't ask questions."
Batman didn't look up, didn't move; it was only when he heard the click-clack of the key in the lock that he unearthed a hand from beneath his cloak to unzip the body bag, in one long, steady movement.
The bag peeled open and suddenly it was unavoidable. Jim turned away, but Bruce's stony gaze somehow hardened further.
The throat was a mess; stained with blood yet to be cleaned off, scraps and tufts of feathers burst forth from puncture wounds that encircled the boy's neck. Batman took a sample of some of the cleaner feather debris to be identified once he returned to the cave; he was sure that later, Leslie would find splinters of the calamus within the wounds. Cause of death was uncertain. Exsanguination, or asphyxiation? Did he bleed out, struggling for breath through a hundred punctured holes? Or did he suffocate, while his heart relentlessly pumped blood up and out his throat?
"Jesus Christ..." Jim muttered from across the room. He was a seasoned cop, and like Bruce had seen far more morbid than the worst Gotham City had to offer. But children were always hard. "Stabbed with feathers...just when you think you've seen it all. You think this was Cobblepot?"
Batman shook his head in a micro-movement.
"Kids aren't Penguin's MO. Bad for business." Bruce produced a small torch from his gauntlet and carefully inspected the rest of the body. "He's been well-kept. Looked after."
Jim re-approached the body as Batman went over it with care.
"He's clean. New clothes. No signs of malnutrition. Hair cut recently - loose strands behind ears. Even makeup..." Batman trailed off. There was something bothering him about the body, something obvious that nevertheless eluded him.
The mouth was slightly ajar, and Bruce could see that something had been stuffed inside.
"Something in the oral cavity. I need a gag."
Jim turned to Leslie's laid out tools on the cabinet-top behind them and passed Bruce the reverse plier; carefully, Bruce eased open the jaw of the boy, muscles already stiffening. Inside was...
"Is that newspaper?" Jim asked, nearly a whisper. Batman didn't respond, just removed the scrunched-up scrap, cautious not to tear it. He moved away from the body, spreading out and flattening the paper on the worktop that lined the side of the room. As the scrap unfurled, Bruce's fist clenched and he set his jaw. Jim approached from behind, and looked over Batman's shoulder to the newspaper article that had been revealed; there was a sharp intake of breath, and then a few looks from the article to the body and back to the article, and then Jim said:
"My god. He's practically a double."
The article was old, even if the crinkled paper it had been printed on wasn't. Batman seethed internally. From the page, 8-year-old Bruce Wayne sobbed at the end of a paparazzi camera, the night of his parent's death. From the slab, a perfectly painted doppelganger rested dead and mutilated. The clothes were a match; the haircut was copied to the strand. The makeup emulated young Bruce's facial structure with contour and highlight. Bruce didn't want to know how he'd missed this; so many details of that night he'd obsessed over, for years and years to this very day. How could he be his own blind spot?
Wrapped in the article was a small item: a singular bullet casing. At a glance, it matched the calibre from the Wayne murders.
"That needs to go to forensic immediately, check for prints, DNA."
Batman picked up the casing and turned it over in his hand.
"Check cold cases. Archived evidence."
"You think the killer got these from the GCPD? It's all locked away. The department's dirty, but to dig this up..."
"Not ruling anything out. Not yet."
Batman turned away from the counter and moved toward the window, lingering only briefly at the body; now that he'd seen the article, the resemblance had turned the cadaver from tragic to ghoulish, and he felt unseated, askew.
He needed to leave.
There was something he needed to check.
-
Crime Alley was quiet tonight, save for the steady drip-drop of rainwater running through the gutters and the ever-present background of Gotham at night. The ground was slick with water, and there was a wet sheen that reflected the mixed moon-and-lamp-light; but there was something else that the light illuminated, something far more concerning.
Someone had redrawn the chalk outlines of Thomas and Martha Wayne.
Batman un-melted from the shadows, spreading his own inky dark across the alleyway. He stood over the chalk etchings, unavoidably reliving the moment in his mind, each shot, each scream. He'd briefly surveyed the surrounding area when he'd arrived, but despite the freshness of the chalk - it had to be less than an hour old, drawn after the rain ended, it wouldn't have survived the downpour if done before - there was no evidence of anyone having been in the alley the entire night. Except for the chalk.
The fluttering of wings seized Batman's attention, zeroing in on the sound as he looked up sharply. Above him, from the rooftops; the beating of flight. Grapnel was already out and fired before it could end, and within seconds Bruce was above the alley atop the buildings, scanning furiously the skyline. Gotham stretched out before him, smoke and light spilling into the air, but the top of the city was as empty as the bottom. And then, a single caw, and more fluttering, and a magpie landed before him, spotlighted perfectly by the moon's light, reflecting ethereally on its monochrome coat. It tweaked its head, spying Batman in one beady eye; in its beak was a bead, brilliant white, that clattered on the stone as it was dropped by the bird and rolled its way to a stop at his boot, Batman stooping to pick it up. A pearl.
The magpie stared at Batman, eerily quiet. He started toward it, movement already futile; it was up and gone in a beating of wings before he could catch it, regardless of speed. In its place was a scrap of paper, scratched from being clutched in its talons but legible nonetheless:
ONE FOR SORROW
Batman looked up at the bird, already a barely-visible speck in the night sky. Something inside him coiled in old, dredged-up turmoil. Whatever this was, in the pit of his stomach, he knew: it was going to get worse, before it got better.
T H E B A T M A N
B R U C E W A Y N E ♦ V I G I L A N T E ♦ G O T H A M C I T Y ♦ T H E J U S T I C E L E A G U E
C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T:
“Criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot.”
The Batman has been operating in Gotham for five years, and while it feels like many battles have been won, the war itself is slowly being lost.
Working covertly with the GCPD through Lieutenant James Gordon, the city has struck a mighty blow against the organised crime families that once plagued it; but while men like Maroni and Falcone have been removed from their seats of power and their empires disassembled, friends were lost in the process, and replacements are eagerly stepping in - and while Gordon is a trusted ally, the GCPD at large remains sceptical of the vigilante's presence at the behest of their corrupt commissioner.
Worse than a mafia resurgence however is the looming storm of a new kind of threat to Gotham's citizens - the so-called 'super-criminal', an apparent response to Batman's existence in the ever-escalating arms race between those who wish to protect the city's innocents, and those who wish to ruin them. While Batman has dealt with a few of these individuals already in his half-decade career, more and more emerge every day, and all seek to test themselves against the Bat.
Working covertly with the GCPD through Lieutenant James Gordon, the city has struck a mighty blow against the organised crime families that once plagued it; but while men like Maroni and Falcone have been removed from their seats of power and their empires disassembled, friends were lost in the process, and replacements are eagerly stepping in - and while Gordon is a trusted ally, the GCPD at large remains sceptical of the vigilante's presence at the behest of their corrupt commissioner.
Worse than a mafia resurgence however is the looming storm of a new kind of threat to Gotham's citizens - the so-called 'super-criminal', an apparent response to Batman's existence in the ever-escalating arms race between those who wish to protect the city's innocents, and those who wish to ruin them. While Batman has dealt with a few of these individuals already in his half-decade career, more and more emerge every day, and all seek to test themselves against the Bat.
C H A R A C T E R M O T I V A T I O N S & G O A L S:
With an established Batman, I'm not looking to do anything revelatory with Bruce himself, running a fairly standard adaptation of the character with the tried-and-true backstory and enough wiggle-room in his career history for sidekick and/or legacy characters to be available for others.
What I do want to have fun with is re-inventing some of Bruce's rogues gallery, with concepts in place for Riddler, Magpie, Brother EYE, and Firefly, as well as exploring the underworld civil war as new criminal elements (namely Cobblepot and Sionis) look to move in on the power vacuum left by Maroni and Falcone's incarcerations.
I also want to remain open to interaction and collaboration, having all of the above occur pretty much concurrently to be advanced and explored at-will, either solo or cooperatively.
What I do want to have fun with is re-inventing some of Bruce's rogues gallery, with concepts in place for Riddler, Magpie, Brother EYE, and Firefly, as well as exploring the underworld civil war as new criminal elements (namely Cobblepot and Sionis) look to move in on the power vacuum left by Maroni and Falcone's incarcerations.
I also want to remain open to interaction and collaboration, having all of the above occur pretty much concurrently to be advanced and explored at-will, either solo or cooperatively.
C H A R A C T E R N O T E S:
S A M P L E P O S T:
P O S T C A T A L O G:
Oh, so Hound gets to play a talking tiger AND a talking monkey, but a talking hedgehog is right out just because he's blue and enjoys light jogging?
The favouritism in this place is disgusting.
The favouritism in this place is disgusting.
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