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OOC


Player Handle: Justine
Player Journal: faileneume
Contact: faileneume @ plurk and AIM
Age if under 18: over 18!
Invited by: The mod!
Current Characters at Matched: None

IC

Character Name: Stephanie Brown
Canon: DCU
Canon Point: End of the Batgirl series, issue #24
Age: 19
Birth Date: August 19, 1992 (headcanon)
Gender Role: Male
Match: Spencer Reid, please!

Abilities:
Steph was an accomplished gymnast on her school team before beginning her vigilante career, and her skills have improved greatly with training. She's undergone a significant amount of training in terms of martial arts, receiving tutelage from two of the top martial arts in the DCU (Dinah Lance and Cassandra Cain), as well as training from Tim Drake, Batman and Barbara Gordon. Although this training focused on hand to hand combat, she's also more than capable in the use of bo staff, escrima sticks and the traditional batarangs. She is trained to use guns, as well as a variety of other lethal weaponry, though she doesn't use lethal methods as Batgirl. Both as Spoiler and Robin, Steph underwent the typical Bat-training, including but not limited to, chemistry, forensic psychology, undercover work, and escapology. As Batgirl, she's had Oracle teaching her how to use computer systems and other technological devices to her advantage.

Between the requisite medical knowledge that Batman expects his Robins to know, the fact Steph's mom is a nurse and the year Steph spent in Africa with Doctors Without Borders, she's gained a fairly comprehensive knowledge of medical procedure. She can clean and sew up a wound, set bones, administer injections, pop dislocated joints back into place and knows how to treat assorted infections, diseases and responses to trauma.

As someone who's had to take care of herself for most her life, Steph has the general set of basic life skills: cooking, cleaning, sewing, household repairs, sorting out banking, bills and taxes. She knows her way around engines, particularly motorbikes and likes tinkering when she gets the chance (which isn't often, unfortunately). In terms of general education, Steph took her GED on her own time, after dropping out of high school, and she's probably of average or a little higher than average intelligence. She is, however, extremely resourceful. Not always having access to the high tech gadgets many other Gotham vigilantes are used to, she's learned to make use of her surrounding and turn every day items into tools. And she's an expert at thinking on her feet, partly as a result of her tendency to rush in head first. Currently she's studying at Gotham University, taking classes in Philosophy and Computer Science (canon) as well as Social Policy, Sociology of Education, and Introduction to Psychology (headcanon).

(She also nearly snuck up on Batman once.)

Setting:
The DC universe is much like our own, except for how it's not. Steph comes from Earth, America, 2011. There are iPhones and Facebook and Coca Cola, but there are also aliens, clones, and teleportation devices. The differences between our world and the DC universe mainly arise from the existence of superheroes and villains, of assorted categories (aliens, metahumans, freak accidents, mythical/religious figures, vigilantes, etc), and how these superheroes affect the world around them. The main of these superheroes are probably the Justice League, who operate from a satellite orbiting the Earth. Barring occasional outliers, the general public is supportive of these heroes. They have museums, statues and parades for their heroes, and there tends to be special favouritism to home town heroes, even a sort of bragging rights that comes from having one of the "big guns". This may have something to do with the fact that most superheroes operate on a no kill policy, even with the worst of the supervillains, leaving their fate to the established justice system. Some superheroes work more directly with the government and law enforcement, though most co-exist without too much overlap. In Gotham, where Steph comes from, the vigilantes tend to ally themselves with the police when it can be beneficial to each other, and may even have contacts in the Gotham City Police Department, but they aren't officially endorsed by the police force. There have been clashes (like War... Games.... ugh), but overall the Bats and other Gotham vigilantes have a decent working relationship with the GCPD. The public perception of the Gotham vigilantes varies a lot more, with some people blaming them for the high rate of supervillains, while others appreciate the efforts they make to keep Gotham a safe place. It probably hasn't helped that for a long time Batman and associates were considered urban legends, but in recent years there have been too many confirmed sightings to keep that rumour going. That doesn't mean the Bats are jumping right into the public eye, but people know they exist and discuss the goings-on of their vigilantes.

Due to contact with aliens and people from the future, as well as the high frequency of super geniuses (such as Lex Luthor), the technology level of the DCU is more advanced than our universe, though it seems limited to those who invented it, or who can afford it. Human cloning is viable, as is teleportation, invisibility devices and time travel (though that's a tricky one). For the superheroes and vigilantes, this means they have access to advanced, flexible body armour, to high tech gadgets, to capes that can be manipulated into gliding apparatuses, to advanced cryogenics. Some of this is accessible to the public, but in general the average citizen's level of technology would match ours, even the lower level superheroes have restricted access to the higher level technology, depending on if they're affiliated with better connected heroes. Batman, being Bruce Wayne the billionaire, is one of these better connected heroes and this has a filter down effect to the vigilantes who work with him.

Although partially an editorial factor, it's worth noting that death is not permanent within the universe. There are two main ways this can be achieved, through resurrection or retcon. Resurrection is the simplest, it can be done with magic, science or divine intervention (usually by non-Christian gods, such as Zeus, who incidentally exists in the DCU). One common example is Superboy, who was resurrected using a combination of solar radiation therapy and a little bit of magic. The other option is a retcon, which are decisions made by writers/editors to bring back a character by changing the circumstances of their death. Steph is a perfect example of this, having died in the War Games event and having stayed dead for four years our world time (in universe time is harder to figure out, and I have to reconcile the fact that about two in universe years have passed with the fact that Steph seems to have not aged at all. I usually go with about a year, give or take a couple months). However, after those four years, DC responsed to fan criticism of Steph's death and implemented a retcon to bring her back, by stating that Steph never, actually, died; her death was faked by Leslie Thompkins, in order to protect Steph and to teach Batman a lesson about using children as soldiers. Steph had been taken to Africa, where she presumably recovered from her injuries and worked alongside Leslie supplying medical aid to people that needed it (think Doctors Without Borders), until a confrontation with criminals during which Leslie was injured led Steph to decide to return to Gotham. There's also the case of Jason Todd, who fits into a little of each category, having been resurrected when Superboy-Prime punched the walls of reality (comics, seriously).

Geographically, there are some significant changes. The United States have gained a few more cities: Gotham, Metropolis, Coast City, Hub City; some of which are real world places with a different labels, others are entire new locations grafted on top of real ones. There are non-US countries that don't exist in the real world, and which tend to be the location of supervillain or superhero activity; like Qurac, which is used as the stand in "terrorist country". Gotham city is the most important one to Steph's setting. There's been disagreement about it's real world location, but the general consensus is that it's an island sitting somewhere in the Delaware Bay in New Jersey. Originally, Gotham was conceived as the darker parts of New York (with Metropolis representing the lighter parts) and although the city has grown and evolved over decades of comics, it stays fairly true to the original concept. Essentially, Gotham is not a nice city. Before Batman and friends started cleaning things up, the city was awash with crime, corruption, poverty and decay. Commissioner Gordon was one of the first honest cops, and in recent years he's done a lot to eradicate the corruption in the police force, though it's always going to be a work in progress. The same holds true for the judiciary system; there's been strings of corrupt attorneys and judges, who would take bribes in exchange for giving criminals light sentences. The high crime rates mean that aside from the upper class areas, most of Gotham isn't a safe place to be, either during the day or the night. The other problem that plagues Gotham City is poverty. This may have an influence on the crime rates, as desperation leads people down unfortunate paths. The famous Thomas Wayne, and his wife Martha, tried to do something about this through charity work and community projects, with varied success. Their son, Bruce Wayne aka Batman, went a different route.

It has to be said that Batman has made a difference in the city. The police force is now something that can be trusted (mostly, there are still dodgy cops), the judicial system seems to be working somewhat successfully, and the rates of crime, especially organized crime, have dropped dramatically. Batman's presence in the city has also inspired other heroes; Robin and Batgirl are the most famous, with there having been five of the first, and three of the latter. There have been other vigilantes operating in the city, such as Huntress, who has delivered major blows to the organized crime sector. Things still aren't perfect, and with problems like earthquakes and plagues cropping up, there have been backslides into the darker days of Gotham, and with the vigilantes mainly focusing on the inner city areas, there's still problems in the suburbs where a lot of kids get dragged into gangs and drugs, but overall, the criminal element has been reduced to a more manageable level.

That's the general citizenry of Gotham, the supervillains are another story.

While most heroes face off against aliens bent on world invasion, or geniuses who want to take over the world, Gotham's vigilantes deal with - alongside regular level crime - insane supervillains who are typically baseline human but still run around in colourful costumes while robbing banks or killing people. There are cases like Killer Croc, Clayface and Ivy, but most of the villains tend to be regular people with a "shtick": the Joker's creepy appearance and obsession with Batman, Scarecrow's fear gas, Riddler's... riddles, Mr. Freeze's cryogenic suit, Zsasz psychopathy. They're often monstorous without actually being monsters in the traditional sense. Black Mask, for example, has the appearance of having a black skull instead of a regular face, but it's simply a mask fused to his head, and underneath it all he's a normal person (aside from being horrible and evil). There are lots of interesting, complicated reasons for this that people have written lots of essay about, but basically the system works because these supervillains fit in with the dark themes of Gotham City, and because their power levels generally match that of the superheroes trying to take them down.

Almost all of Gotham's superheroes lack superpowers or anything else to mark them as different from every day people. They're able to do what they do through a combination of training, resources and dedication to their cause. Resources have already been touched on; Batman is so effective in Gotham because he can afford numerous Batmobiles, weaponry and armour. But it's the training and dedication that is important to the Batfamily mythos. It's common knowledge that most of Gotham's vigilantes don't kill, they rarely carry guns or other projectile weaponry aside from batarangs (Huntress and her crossbow is an exception both in weaponry and in willingness to kill) which means they have to rely on physical prowess in close combat so that they don't get stabbed on their first night on the streets. Almost all of Gotham's vigilantes have had significant amounts of combat training with high ranked martial artists; Tim Drake with Lady Shiva, Helena Bertinelli with Richard Dragon, Steph Brown with Dinah Lance, Cass Cain with David Cain, Damian Wayne with the League of Assassins. As a result, they're highly respected by the rest of the superhero community. It takes a lot to keep up with the likes of Superman, but the Bat-family consistently manage to. They've also all got bucket loads of issues, mainly because a lot of them are orphans, or have parents who are assholes. It's a strong underlying theme of Gotham's vigilantes that they're doing this job because they've been personally inspired to by trauma or disadvantage in their own life. (For Steph, it was a little of both, she became a vigilante to stop her criminal father from robbing banks, but she also wanted to stop her abusive father from hurting her mother.)

There's also this little thing called the multiverse. It existed as a way for editorial to tell stories that didn't alter the fabric of the "main" universe. It stopped existing for a while, until Infinite Crisis, which lead to the creation of 52 separate universes. Travel between these worlds is not entirely unheard of (Jason Todd did it) and while few people in the main universe (known as New Earth) knows the specificities of each universe, they are aware of their existence.

History: Wikipedia biography.

Personality:
Stephanie Brown doesn't give up. Everything she does and everything she believes in is based around her refusal to quit, no matter how tough things get. She's been told numerous times that she'll never amount to anything and keeps trying anyway, keeps trying to be better, to get more training and do things right this time. At first, Steph kept being Spoiler, because she wanted to prove people wrong about her, because she enjoyed the thrill of the control it gave her when everything else in her life was a mess, and because she wanted vengeance against her dad. But after her dad was in prison, she began to realize other reasons to keep fighting, and the Spoiler became about protecting the people of Gotham and about doing the right thing. Steph recognized a need and she filled it by setting out to stop other kids from having to grow up the way she did, surrounded by violence and neglect. This is one of her strongest convictions and it's why she won't quit regardless of anything that stands in her way.

Her stubbornness can be her downfall on occasion, since she doesn't know when to back down or make a strategic retreat, instead she'll keep trying until she can't anymore, regardless of the costs to herself. It can also lead to her making rash decisions and rushing into things just for the sake of doing something, rather than spending the time to work out a good game plan while people are potentially getting hurt. She's trying to learn a little restraint in that regard, to weigh up all her options before jumping in, and to know when it's better to back down and come back for a second round, but it's not as easy as she thought it would be, and sometimes her eagerness, stubbornness and temper get the best of her, and she still makes mistakes on occasion.

On the surface, Steph might come across as a little shallow. Her sense of humour alternates between dry sarcasm, and dorky puns, with an occasional edge of bitter or self-deprecating humour. She uses humour to cover up her emotions, especially fear and insecurity. She tries to always keep a cheerful countenance, and when people don't know her very well, this can be seen as her being dismissive of serious issues or not taking things seriously enough. This isn't quite right, Steph is cheerful because she wants to be, because she refuses to stay down in the face of all the shit she's been through, because she wants to be a source of comfort for other people (she was a Robin, once, she knows how to be the light to someone's dark) and because in the end even if something does get her down, she doesn't want to let other know how . Just like she refuses to give up in a fight, she refuses to give up on her spirit and her optimism. Steph is going to enjoy her life, the rest of the world be damned.

She can also be kind of cheeky, with a special fondness for teasing her friends. It works as another aspect of her sense of humour and as a way to test boundaries - she teases to see how much her friends will put up with. Her friendships with both Tim and Cass often featured gentle taunting and mocking, coming from all parties. Steph also felt the humour and teasing was necessary for keeping Tim down to earth, she always worried that he was going to turn into Batman and didn't want that for him. It's one of the things she regrets about letting everyone believe she was dead; she feels like it contributed to pushing Tim towards that end. Sometimes she doesn't even recognize him anymore.

Steph has a hard time making friends, partly because she has a low tolerance for people who are cruel or false, and a lot of Gotham's seem to fall into that category. She's also had her trust broken enough times that she is wary of people - particularly those in authority positions - and doesn't like giving them power over her through friendship, or relationships in general. It's hard for her to befriend civilians, particularly those that come from a more privileged background, simply because they don't understand the violence that surrounds her life, both from her upbringing and her life as a vigilante. She does have a small group of friends among the superhero/vigilante community, Tim Drake, Cass Cain, Kara Zor-El and Wendy Harris, the first two who have been in her life for years, and the latter two are people she's learning to trust. She's been shown to get along with Connor Hawke, Miss Martian, Traci 13 and assorted other Teen Titans, but has never kept in contact with them. As a result, while she's fairly independent and likes doing things her own way, when the situation arises she's willing to call for back up and can work well with others. She's never had a chance to be on a superhero team, but she'd like to give it a shot one day.

When she does manage to make close friends, she has a tendency to idolize them and will often ignore their faults. This is heightened by the fact that at the beginning of her career as a superhero, Steph had a harder time ignoring people's put downs, and felt that she wasn't deserving of friends. It becomes a problem in situations like what happened in regards to Cassandra and Tim, both of whom have frequently treated Stephanie like she's not good enough, and told her so. Sometimes Steph believes them, but even when she managed to stop believing them, she still never called them out for treating her badly because a part of her couldn't completely ignore them and because she doesn't want to risk losing them just for the fact they doubt her. She will call people out on shit if it doesn't relate to her, or if it's hurting them, as is evident in the way she tells Tim how worried she is about him after Bruce dies. Her friendship with Cass is an intense one, as a result of both their upbringings, their personalities, and the similarities they share. Although it took them a while to trust each other and work together well, Steph and Cass both care deeply for each other and the friendship has helped both of them grow and change. Cass's respect for Steph - earned when Steph refused to quit even after getting beaten down by Cass - helps Steph to respect herself. And although, as mentioned, Cass can be doubtful of Steph, as when she knocked Stephanie out to keep her from a fight, Cass tries to teach Steph how to improve, rather than trying to make her quit. It was a huge moment for Steph when Cass gave her the Batgirl name and costume and one of the main reasons she tries so hard to make Batgirl into something to be proud of. Cass is her best friend and Steph doesn't want to let her down.

Steph is fiercely protective, both of her friends and of people that she thinks need protecting, often those that are ignored or put down by the current system. If someone hurts her friends, she's very unlikely to ever forgive them for it, and while she isn't necessarily inclined towards self-sacrifice, she'd take a bullet for her friends. That also means she'll occasionally stick her nose into other people's business if she's worried about what her friends are up to, and she's the sort of person who'll go behind someone's back to threaten their new friend/significant other not to hurt them. Sometimes she feels a bit guilty about not trusting her friends to look after themselves, but she can't help worrying about people. When it comes to people who have been hurt or abandoned by the system, she feels more need to look out for them and to protect them from the world.

She can be quick to anger, especially when someone is threatening children and sometimes she relishes the violence she gets to deal out as a vigilante. It's cathartic, beating up the sort of assholes that remind her of the people she grew up around, and she always feels good in knowing that she stopped the bad guy. Her anger can be both personal, and righteous. She's attacked the Riddler because she blamed him for her father's death, she punched her ex-boyfriend for leaving her alone when she was pregnant and she slapped Batman for making her play his games. On the other hand, she's turned her anger towards the cause that she believes in which has led to her rage at the Penguin for exploiting children and at the Calculator for hurting her friends.

There's a ruthlessness in the way she fights, often hitting harder than someone like Batman would deem "necessary". Sometimes she just likes violence as the first option to solve the problem; it's quick, simple and it's what's kept her alive growing up in a house full of criminals. She's working on trying to find other ways to deal with problems. Steph doesn't kill, but that's mostly out of respect for Batman's rules and the legacy of the costume -- it was Cass's identity and Steph knows how she feels about killing. But she's never understood why they have to go out of their way to not kill the bad guys. She figures they should be able to beat them up as much as is required to stop them and if that means potentially killing them, so be it. Canonically, she's wanted to leave the unconscious criminal in a building about to explode, and she still doesn't get why she had to go back and save him when it was his choice to be there in the first place. Some of Batman's issues with Stephanie stem from this, as he doesn't trust her not to use lethal force. When confronted with Zsasz, Steph was ready to kill him to save Batman and any future victims of Zsasz, an act which Batman scolded her for. She believes she did the right thing, despite Batman's insistence otherwise.

That said, she understands that not all criminals commit crime because they want to. Her background gives her enough insight to know that sometimes it's the only option and she tends to be lenient with kids from backgrounds like hers, who get caught up in gangs or drugs, encouraging them to get their life back on track, if that's possible. Similarly, she is critical of Batman's approach to crime fighting, which often focuses on the big crimes and tends to overlook the little people. It's why Stephanie kept being Spoiler, she wanted to stick to the suburbs and the parts of Gotham that Batman doesn't go to, and try to make a difference there.

She's used to dealing with her problems by herself, a symptom of her trust issues and the victim blaming she faced after her dad's friend attempted to sexually assault her. As a result she tries to keep her personal life personal, except from her closest friends, and even then there are topics she doesn't like to talk about. Her child is on that list because she doesn't really like thinking about it; she knows she made the right choice but it doesn't stop her from wondering what could have been. She also doesn't like talking about her mom's addiction, and can get kind of paranoid with regards to her own behaviour, not planning to touch drugs and being careful with her alcohol consumption for fear she'll get addicted too. She doesn't like to talk, or think, about what happened during the gang war even though she's trying to make peace with herself about what went down. Sometimes she still blames herself for what happened, but if anyone else tries to blame her, she'll break their nose.

The relationship between Steph and Crystal is a difficult one, despite being the most important in her life, complicated by Arthur, Crystal's addiction and Stephanie's crime fighting activities. She became the Spoiler to stop her dad from ever hurting her mom again and Steph loves Crystal, but she can't forget all the times that she's been hurt both by Crystal, and while she stood idly by as Arthur hurt Steph. Sometimes she blames her mom for letting Arthur stay in the house even though she knows Crystal had no choice. Even more often, she blames her for turning to drugs when things got to hard to bear and for leaving Steph, a little girl, alone to deal with Arthur. But Crystal has recognized her mistakes, apologized for them, and done her best to atone for them. With Arthur "dead", they'd tried to make themselves into a family again without him, and were mostly succeeding until the gang war and Steph's "death", an event that hit Crystal hard. When Steph came back, it was her turn to do the apologizing and she's grateful that her mom forgave her for not returning sooner.

Cystal's opinions on Stephanie's vigilantism has varied through Steph's career; Crystal has encouraged her actions, overlooked them, and told Steph to stop. After Steph's "return from the dead", her mom made her promise to stop being a superhero and Steph said she would. It's been a constant source of guilt for Steph because she hates lying to her mom. In the final issue of Steph's Batgirl run, her mom finds out that she's been operating as Batgirl for a few months, and after a slightly awkward discussion, Crystal tells Steph that she's proud of her. This is an important moment for Steph, and it's taken a lot of weight off her shoulders; she no longer needs to worry about keeping the secret, Crystal is one more person who has started giving Steph the approval that she deserves and it's another step towards making their relationship the mother-daughter relationship it should be.

She's resourceful, mostly because she had to be. She's had to learn to survive with what's available, had to learn to fight with what's available and as a result doesn't rely on the tech and gadgets that other vigilantes tend to. Although she does enjoy having access to all the fancy gadgets that Oracle gets for her, Steph hasn't lost her resourcefulness and she enjoys finding the most interesting uses for the tech she's got.

The most important thing about Steph is that she refuses to be a victim, and that she'll never give up.

Inventory: One set of civilian clothes: black jeans, combat boots, a red shirt, a leather jacket, underwear, socks, and a sports bra. A smartphone, a boot knife, and a wallet (contents incl. $30 in cash and assorted cards). A backpack including: pens, a notebook, a computer science textbook, some energy bars, a water bottle, a handful of batarangs, a box of tampons, lipbalm, sunglasses, leather gloves, and a lockpicking kit.

CR AU: n/a

Port Network: link!

Logs: link!