Jul. 30th, 2015

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Jul. 30th, 2015 02:29 pm
Player Information
Player name: Mel
Contact: spotters.guide@gmail.com | spottersg | [plurk.com profile] spotters_guide
Are you over 18: Y
Characters in The Box Already: Alex, Roderick, Clint

Character Information
Character Name: Damian Wayne
Canon: DCnU
Canon Point: Post the Nobody Arc, Batman and Robin nU #8
History: Being Robin is the best thing I've ever done, Mother.

Personality: Though he would rather quickly kill anyone for suggesting it, at the base level of his personality, Damian is just a little boy anxious for his parent's love and approval. And while his time with Dick Grayson had managed to soothe away some of his rougher edges, at the point in canon that Damian is being taken from his mother has gone so far as to put a bounty out on Damian's head and he and his father are... working things out, but in no way shape or form at the same level of understanding and trust as Damian had managed to reach with his oldest brother.

Damian is a very angry child because he sees so much of his life as being completely out of his control (his mother made a very bad tactical decision to try and manipulate Damian back to her side, which only served in his severing ties with her completely because she took actual physical control of his own body, and Damian was not happy with her about it) and due to his early life revolving around assassin training he tends to expel this anger in violent impulses.

He sees no real value in human life, probably not even his own, and has no sympathy for others pain. Though he made a promise not to kill anyone as Robin, that hasn't curbed his violent tendencies one bit as he basically maintains "I promised I wouldn't kill anyone, I said nothing about maiming them."

Though he can clean up for formal occasions and play a role, Damian is typically a crude, blunt child who cusses and doesn't bother to soften his words to spare anyone's feelings. Basically, his interpersonal abilities amount to a firm '0'. He's also extremely cynical and sarcastic.

Tim Drake refers to Damian as a "little prince" at one point, and it's a pretty fair assessment of his character. While he is slowly improving, Damian is still a rather selfish, spoiled child, and he's extremely dismissive of people that he sees as below him (which is most people, to be frank). He's also impulsive and headstrong and will often ignore orders from Batman and charge into a situation only to find himself in trouble as a result; he doesn't yet understand that other people might have his best interests in mind, trust doesn't come easily to him.

Neither does respect. Despite his young age and own inexperience (as well as his general rotten behavior), Damian demands that people earn his respect before he is willing to listen to them or give them any of his time. And even after they do, he's still mostly required to put up a front of petulance because he still doesn't trust himself not to get hurt if he's too honest with his emotions.

Damian's most stable relationship is with his adoptive older brother, Dick Grayson, the Batman that Damian originally trained and worked with before his father's return to the cowl. Dick gave Damian the chance to prove himself as Robin, when no one else thought it was a good idea to trust him like that, and he's exhibited a level of patience in training Damian and teaching him right from wrong that is almost saintly. Damian feels a level of comfort and stability with Dick that he's likely never felt before, though that's hardly going to stop him from trading barbs with the other man on a regular basis, because Damian has grown up to believe that revealing such weaknesses will only get you hurt.

Despite all of this, if someone Damian genuinely cares about is in danger, Damian will fight like a wild animal to protect them. The trick is just to get Damian to care, because his emotional shields are ridiculously high.

He also has a soft spot for animals, but shh, don't tell anyone.

Damian decided to stay in Gotham following his father's death for a variety of reasons. While one can easily argue that most of the decisions that Damian makes in his life depend on the likelihood of him making his parents proud, the fact that at the point in time of which he settles in Gotham without his mom takes place only after Bruce's death seems somewhat contradictory.

The fact is, the time Damian spent with his father before he "died" was never anything that Damian could qualify as satisfactory. Bruce was dismissive of him, overly harsh (yes, Damian was a brat, but he was ten years old and his mother had just dropped him off with a stranger, how else would you expect him to behave), and spoke bluntly about even doubting that Damian was his child at all.

In a way, Bruce being dead made Damian staying in Gotham easier. In the short time that Damian had stayed at the manor previous, Damian had come to somewhat respect Alfred, because Alfred had always been patient and understanding with him, without simply giving in to Damian's every whim. Alfred was dependable in Damian's mind, something he couldn't quite manage to assign to either his mother or his father. Even Dick was tentatively in this category for Damian, because when Ra's al Ghul had been hunting Damian, Dick had really been the only helpful individual trying to save him.

The fact that Dick hadn't let him get away with any bratty attitude at the time either helped as well, even if Damian wouldn't acknowledge it as such.

Because when it comes down to it, the best way to get Damian to behave, to interact in a somewhat friendly (friendly for Damian is still pretty antisocial for ordinary people, to be fair) manner, is to earn his respect. Stephanie Brown and Supergirl managed to earn his respect through some shared campaign with him in which they proved themselves more than capable in his eyes, and he stopped being quite so cruel or dismissive to them.

Not nice really, because Damian is never nice. But his sniping took a more casual and familiar tone, turning their exchanges into games rather than attacks.

Dick is undeniably the most important person in Damian's universe. Even above his father, whose opinion he even still depends so heavily on to validate his existence. But they didn't start out that way. When Dick first took Damian as his Robin, Damian worked extremely poorly with him. He didn't follow directions and didn't trust Dick's judgments on the field.

But when Damian was abducted by Pyg and Dick actually came to rescue him, that struck a very strong note in Damian's psyche. Dick had already tried to help him during the Ra's al Ghul debacle, and here Dick was, coming back for Damian again. Damian clearly meant something to Dick, Damian was important enough to come back for in Dick's eyes, and that meant the world to Damian. He wasn't used to people actually caring what happened to him. The fact that Dick continued to do so as time wore on meant that Damian slowly came to care what happened to Dick as well. Dick basically became the father that Damian would have liked Bruce to be.

Except not entirely. Because while one of Damian's reasons for taking up the mantle of Robin had been to maintain his father's lineage and to, perhaps, in some way, fulfill his father's duty after his father's death, Dick made a point of letting Damian know that he had nothing to prove to anybody. In Dick's eyes, Damian was a hero, which was something Damian would struggle fiercely to prove to his father upon his eventual return.

Dick and Damian were comfortable with each other, trusted each other, loved each other. Dick got Damian to lighten up and actually crack jokes in the field, they settled into an easy beat with each other during battles, and they could snipe at each other like brother are meant to and it was lighthearted and well meaning and fond.

Basically, what it comes down to is that Dick becomes Damian's most important person. He knows he can depend on Dick, anyway, and for Damian, that sort of thing means a lot.

Because he's never really managed to find that level of dependability with his own parents, though he's slowly starting to get there with Bruce now.

To put it extremely bluntly, Damian was a test tube baby. Talia had absolutely no desire to grow that boy in her own body and for the first ten years of his life, Talia actually spoke to Damian very rarely. Once a year, mostly, on his birthday, when she challenged him again to defeat her (as well as the entirety of the League of Assassins at her beck and call) in order to earn the right to be introduced to his father.

On one hand, his interpersonal experiences growing up were extremely detached, limited primarily to tutors and the like. He never really developed an actual relationship with his own mother. He respected her, certainly, for the power she held in the League and for her own skill sets as well. But love was really more of a distant concept, something for other families.

Certainly, when Talia turned against her own father Ra's al Ghul in order to protect Damian from his undead clutches, she revealed at least some measure of fondness for him, or at the very least, possessiveness, but her later actions (the bounty for his head, the clone) would prove that connection to be tentative at best.

It's actually quite telling that despite Bruce's less than warm welcome to Damian when he came to Gotham, Damian chose to stay there instead of going back home with Talia, even with Bruce seemingly out of the picture and no longer there for him to prove himself to.

The most telling moment between Talia and Damian, however, probably comes down to his confrontation of her following the incident of her planting the mind control chip in his spine and forcing him to attack his brother. Showing a basic understanding of familial relations that's almost surprising considering his own experiences up to that point, Damian asked her if her love had to be dependent on his following her orders, rather than simply given to him for just being her son.

Considering that shortly after he chose to stay in Gotham she put a bounty on his head, the answer to that seems clear enough, really.

Over time, and with Dick's patient and careful guiding hand, Damian's gotten ever so slightly better at being sociable. He formed respectful partnerships with super heroes outside of the direct purview of the Batcave, made a friend of his own volition, and slowly, oh so slowly, began to lighten up in regards to humor and just general atmosphere.

Though he's had a few missteps along the way inter-personally (he still hates Tim, and once maybe sort of kind of tried to kill him following the discovery that Damian was on his hit list; and proved to be mostly incapable of spending time with heroes his own age among the Teen Titans, aside from the nearly antagonistic friendship he managed to strike up with Rose Wilson) Damian's just overall gotten better at acting like a person instead of an angry little machine.

Or at least, he had been up until his father had taken up the cowl again and Dick went back to Bludhaven, leaving Damian with a dad he'd spent little time with who didn't trust him and certainly didn't understand him.

Damian had once told Dick and Tim that they couldn't even begin to understand some of the aspects of his upbringing that he had to fight against or suppress on a daily basis, and if those two had trouble comprehending, Bruce didn't even try at first. While Damian had worked with Dick, though the 'no killing' rule had been strictly enforced, Dick had given Damian free reign with his violence, with the understanding that Damian needed those outlets.

Bruce... didn't.

He was overly critical of Damian's every move on the field, chastising him for his violence and failing to actually work with Damian, before benching him entirely from the field. Which served as the perfect sort of rift between the two of them for one of Batman's old foes to sneak in and lure Damian away. Bruce eventually got Damian back again, but not before Damian broke Bruce's biggest rule and killed Nobody in order to protect his father.

And while the two of them finally had a conversation, managed to clear up a few communication problems, and even ended the night with a 'heart warming' game of catch, things are still uneasy and confused between the two of them, much the same as Damian's own heart.

At the end of the day, Damian is a child with violent impulses ingrained into him from birth who's still only just learning what it is to actually be a child, to make friends his own age, the joke and play and have fun.

Most days he's still rather bad at all of those things. He has a mother who wants him dead and a father that still doesn't really understand him, but at this point at least, he's starting to try (though the fact of the matter is that he seems to view his dad almost as a higher authority to please, rather than family, but Damian's impression of family is terrifically damaged either way) and a brother who understands and accepts and loves him, but doesn't seem him all that much anymore since he moved back to Bludhaven.

Overall he's at a better place than he was before he came to Gotham a year and a half ago, but he's in an incredibly delicate place emotionally and still desperate for approval. Which he will often show by pushing and testing people's boundaries, because just like a foster child he needs to see how much people will tolerate to accept him.

Items on your character at canon point: (1) all black civilian outfit [pants, boots, long sleeve shirt, jacket, etc.]
(1) Great Dane called Titus
(1) baseball
(1) broken arm sling
(2) bandaged broken fingers
(1) row of stitches on his brow

Abilities: Unlike the rest of his family on his mother's side, Damian thus far hasn't exhibited any real sort of magic skills, beyond perhaps a sort of sixth sense for things and a strong mental defense against psychic attacks and the like.

However, he far makes up for that in his physical abilities. From a very young age, Damian was trained to fight by the League of Assassins under his mother's direction. He's remarkably quick and strong for his age (for any age, really) and quite acrobatic as well. He is well trained in a variety of weapons, though he seems to prefer the sword, and knows and endless number of ways to kill someone. He can fight and shoot bow and arrows blindfolded, as well as pick locks and slip any sort of bonds someone might wish to restrain him in.

Damian is also highly intelligent, with easily a genius level IQ. He is extremely good with numbers, computers, and engineering/inventing things (he made the Batmobile FLY guys).

He also doesn't appear to need much sleep and has a very high tolerance for pain.

Damian also speaks fluent Arabic, Cantonese and English, and has a talent for mimicking people's voices.

Strengths and Weaknesses:
+ skilled fighter/tactician
- bad at being a team player if he hasn't worked with you before
- also he's bitty, so all the training in the world isn't going to change being 11
+ actually really sweet with animals?????
- still mostly terrible to humans tho (abrasive, anti social, spoiled, rude, rude, hella rude)
- self-esteem currently tenuous, as a result feels a need to prove himself
- ingrained violence from a young age
- mostly theoretical knowledge of love
+ still loves the hell out of his family tho, whether he knows himself or not
+ has a sense of humor that doesn't revolve around puns A++++
- slow to trust
+ quick and clever, strong deductive mind
+ good at organizing an attack plan
- not so good at making people want to follow it tho
+ strong presence, clearly knows what he's doing
+ will legit die for the people he cares about

Samples
Network/Action Sample: [action]

[damian isn't an overly large child, most eleven year olds aren't, but his dog titus is comparably bigger none the less (though most of that bigness comes from rangy legs and a massive head).

on a good day, titus is an affable enough creature, friendly and patient in the way any dog belonging to damian wayne would need to be, because one or the other separately would hardly manage to make any sort of an impression on damian overall. and yet titus is also a dog that belongs to damian wayne, which means he is equally capable of a vicious sort of protectiveness that he mostly seemed to direct for damian himself.

one of the only protective gestures that damian honestly didn't mind accepting. animal instinct was genuine, not condescending, after all.
]

Stop being so dramatic, he's not going to eat you. [damian rolls his eyes in an overly expansive manner that children typically only manage to reach when they're teenagers, but then damian has always been a precocious child.

a precocious child with his arm in a sling, currently, which would rather go a ways to explaining why titus is being so overprotective of the boy right now. he steps up next to the snarling, snapping dog and rests his free hand on top of the dog's head, and titus instantly settles.
] There, see, is that better now? You're not going to cry, are you?

If you are, could you at least wait for me to leave? I don't care and I'm not going to pretend I do, either.

Prose Log Sample: There's something weird about waking up suddenly on this little island in the middle of a lake, and it's not the waking up suddenly on a little island in the middle of a lake bit. As embarrassing at this sort of thing is to admit, it's hardly the first time that Damian has been taken somewhere against his will and without his knowledge, this isn't even the farthest he's been taken (that special distinction goes to his grandfather, of course).

It's the fact that this place manages to feel both old and new at the same time. Not in the juxtaposition of new buildings and technology next to overgrown ruins, but in regards to familiarity. He's got an odd feeling of deja vue, and yet he can say with absolute certainty that he's never been in this place before in his life.

There are faces here though... faces that Damian is almost certain he should know.

The last thing he clearly remembers is playing catch with his father and Titus and seeing the bat signal in the sky. He doesn't remember the no doubt inevitable argument with Bruce and Alfred over whether he was fit enough to go out and fight, with his arm the way it is, just seeing the light in the sky and then. This place.

He doesn't know what's going on, but he's going to find out. Nobody here seems to be from Gotham, no super heroes that he's familiar with, in or out of a mask, and he's still wearing civilian clothes, so it's possible this isn't connected to Batman and Robin at all.

Unlikely, but not entirely impossible, and things will certainly prove easier for him in the long run if this turns out to be the case. Either way, his father is sure to find him soon, so in the mean time all Damian has to do is focus on keeping his head down and his eyes open and doing his job as best he can until Batman can... until his father can track him down.

Unless this is all a test? He honestly hopes not. He didn't too all that well with the last one.

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Damian Wayne "Robin"

May 2020

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