batmanschmatman | application for abaxrpg

player information.

name: Gwen
are you over 18?: Yep!
personal lj:

1jobonthisship
email/msn/aim/plurk/etc: girlwonder004 @ AIM, isthereair@gmail.com
characters in abax: Percy Jackson.

in character information.

series: DC Comics (not the reboot :|)
name: Richard Grayson
sex: M
age: 23ish. Comic book math is hard. :C
race: Human.
height: 5 feet, 10 inches.
weight: 175 lbs.
canon point: After passing out in the wreckage of Blüdhaven in Nightwing #116
previous cr: Nope!

history:

Richard Grayson on the DC Wikia.

The tl;dr/canonpoint specific history is his parents were circus acrobats who were murdered in front of him when he was eight, he was taken in by Batman and became the first Robin, Bruce was a douche and fired him so he became Nightwing, and up until recently, he was the solo protector of Blüdhaven (working as a cop as a civilian), until a mob boss found out about his secret identity, blew up his apartment building, burned down the circus where he grew up, and basically got his girlfriend to break up with him. Said mob boss was killed by another vigilante - Tarantula - when Dick could have prevented it, he had an emotional breakdown, during which Tarantula raped him, and after being called back to help stop a huge gang war in Gotham, he turned her in to the Blüdhaven PD and took an extended leave of absence from vigilante-ing, during which he ran away from home and joined the mafia.

After that sort of turned out to be a disaster, he pretended to be a supervillain while trying to gain his old enemy Deathstroke's trust so he could infiltrate Lex Luthor's new society of supervillains so he could guarantee Blüdhaven's protection. This... massively backfired when Deathstroke called his bluff and dropped a living nuclear warhead on the city.

personality:

Dick is just a nice guy. There's really no way to get around this and it's probably one his most defining (or at least, one of his most easily recognizable) traits. Even after all the crap he's been through, he's always managed to keep that general good nature and optimism that makes him the literal Yang to Batman's Yin. He's friendly, chatty, and really is just a people person. He's always found it easy to make friends, strike up conversation with complete strangers, and 'shy' isn't really a word commonly associated with the former Boy Wonder. Both in and out of costume, he's always willing to reach out to those in need, and while admittedly, he has a hard time trusting someone who's wronged him in the past, he can usually suck it up and make just about any partnership work if he really has to. It is, however, relatively difficult to actually get to know him, as he is used to keeping a huge part of his life secret from the general public and is therefore more inclined to keep his cards close to the vest, while still being friendly with people. It takes a lot of time and effort to bring down some of those walls under normal circumstances, but they can be eroded a lot faster in times of stress and uncertainty. Him telling you details about himself that go beyond his name and where he's from and other surface level stuff shows he trusts you, and you've probably earned it in some way.

That being said, he is quite comfortable being a team player whether in a leadership or more supportive role. Working for years alongside Batman has made it easy for him to adjust to working with people with difficult personalities (although how long he'll want to keep it up entirely depends on who it is), and he's had experience leading groups like the Teen Titans since he was a kid. Because of his generally likable personality and the fact that he's literally grown up in the hero community, most people are more than happy to work with him. It's been openly admitted that most older members of the community either see him as a son or a kid brother, while the younger kids view him and the original Titans as inspiration and/or older sibling figures. He likes working on a team, and generally prefers it to solo work, although when it comes to Blüdhaven, he can be just as bad as his mentor when it comes to the 'I work alone except when I don't' mentality.

He's not Batman. He's always very much been his own person, and while he's certainly matured from the young kid who ran around in scaly green underoos fighting crime aside the world's greatest detective, there are certain things that have stayed the same. For example, although his tendency to lean towards puns might have abated slightly, Dick is still extremely chatty and witty, especially while fighting criminals, although he'll be more then happy to engage in witty banter with just about anyone. He's got a good sense of humor, and sometimes when he's dealing with his opponents, it's almost more like he's having a nice chat with them rather then beating them into a pulp. It keeps his mind loose and keeps them distracted. He's also far more trusting then his mentor, and generally less suspicious of others and their motives then Bruce. This isn't to say he blindly assumes the best from everyone, but he isn't going to refuse to work with someone just because he doesn't know them. In general, he follows his gut feeling and intuition rather than obsessively planning for every single situation, but that doesn't mean he just barrels in without thinking. Dick generally knows what he's doing, and if he doesn't, he's pretty good at making things up as he goes along. He's smart and has prepared for just about anything, so he usually turns out okay.

Besides just being a good hearted person, Dick is extremely loyal. He isn't someone to make friends superficially. Once you're close to him, you're stuck with him for the long haul, and he's a good person to have on your side. He's devoted and protective, and will be there for you no matter what. That being said, it's probably not surprising that Dick is extremely family oriented. Although he does have a wide collection of friends and allies, and would take a bullet for just about anybody, there are certain key people in his life that he would sell his soul for without question or regret. Despite all the crap he's put him through over the years, Dick loves Bruce and Alfred unconditionally and he values relationship with his adoptive family above pretty much everything else. Although initially resentful of Jason, seeing him as his replacement, this unconditional love has extended to other members of the 'Batfamily', and he's fallen into the role of older sibling to Tim Drake pretty happily. As such - like most of the heroic type - one of the easiest ways to push his buttons is to endanger the life of someone he loves, and while he sticks to the 'no kill' policy he's been trained to follow since he was a kid, the times he's come closest to crossing that line always center around direct threats to the well being of people he loves. He's loyal almost to the point of being stupid, because no matter how many times he's overlooked/jerked around/pushed aside by Bruce or Babs or whoever else, Dick will always be back for more. Giving up on the people he loves is simply unheard of, and it's pretty safe to say he doesn't even consider it to be an option.

Growing up working with Batman and putting up with Bruce didn't exactly leave him with the greatest self esteem in the world. While he comes off to most people as very self confident, he lives in constant fear of screwing up and disappointing those he cares about, specifically Bruce. He routinely pushes himself to breaking point and when he fails to live up to his incredibly high standards, he's extremely hard on himself. In a lot of ways, Dick has never got over the feeling that Bruce replaced him with Jason and could always decide he's irrelevant, effectively taking away the only family he has left, and this fuels his desire to make sure he doesn't let him down. The adoption has helped smooth over this fear, but it's still there. When feeling particularly anxious about this, Dick can be moody, depressed and is usually even more reckless with his personal safety then usual. Some people drink themselves into a stupor or outright self harm; Dick Grayson pushes himself until breaking point and usually comes out of it with some injuries and a bunch of concerned friends and family members telling him to get his act together. Despite all of this, Dick tries his best to stay optimistic. Even in his darkest hour, he can find something worth fighting for and isn't one to just keel over and let things get the best of him. He bounces back from trauma and manages to keep moving forward, and in general comes off as being a pretty put together young man, even if he doesn't always feel that way.

There is not much of a distinction between Dick Grayson and Nightwing, and there wasn't much between Robin and Dick either. As he's a much more lowkey public figure then someone like Bruce or Clark, he's never really seen the need for having an extreme distinction between his heroic identity and his secret one. Dick just sort of does his own thing, and again, it's worked out pretty well for him so far.

From this canonpoint, Dick has really been through quite a lot in a very short period of time. and is going to be a little bit of a mess upon initial arrival in Abax. He will, however, do his usual thing of trying to pull it together and acting like everything is fine, especially given as he's in a new environment with a bunch of strange people, he isn't going to want to appear particularly vulnerable in front of them. So while he might be a little less sunny than usual at first, he will make an effort to rally and not be a complete emotional husk of a human being, and thanks to denial and other ~~totally healthy~~ coping mechanisms, will probably come off as more or less normal to anyone who would know him from somewhere else.

abilities/powers:

Although Dick is not a metahuman, he is in peak physical condition and is easily one of the world's greatest martial artists and back home is widely considered to be the world's greatest acrobat. He's been trained in acrobatics basically since birth, and began studying under Bruce Wayne since his parents were murdered, so there isn't much athletically that he can't do. He's also the only person in his universe who can land the incredibly challenging quadruple flip, and although his fighting style favors karate, capoeira and escrima, he's extensively studied just about every martial art in existence and is incredibly knowledgeable about weaponry as well. If it can hold an edge, break bones or shoot a bullet, Dick has probably trained with it and more or less mastered it by this point.

He briefly trained with the first Shrike and after years of practical knowledge and continued study, he's always a force to be reckoned with, powers or no. He's also had extensive training in criminology, escapology, disguise, stealth, intimidation and a plethora of other skills needed to survive as a vigilante in Gotham. While admittedly not on the same genius level as Tim, Dick is incredibly smart, a world class detective, strategist and is a natural leader, having lead the Teen Titans, Outsiders and Justice League, and in general likes to approach tough situations by inspiring people or talking them down, rather then scaring the pants off of them like his mentor. But at the end of the day, he's still human, and so if he gets killed, he stays dead. In theory.

first person sample: A Dickish post and a more Nightwingish one, both from lastvoyages.

third person sample:

No matter how long he had been away from Gotham City, Dick always found there was something nice about coming back to the place. It wasn't quite homey - since god only knew that would never, ever be a word directly associated with Gotham - and sometimes it was sort of hard to feel nostalgic - generally meaning when he'd had an argument with Bruce or Babs or whoever, because damn was it kind of hard to just think back fondly to the days in the short pants and yellow cape when he was pissed off - but there was just something about the place that felt like home. Which again, considering it was Gotham City, might seem kind of weird to the outside observer. Dick was pretty sure the place didn't exactly score particularly high on anyone's list of vacation destinations, unless you were a crazed psychopath who wanted to take advantage of Arkham's revolving door policy.

Still, for whatever reason, as he made his rounds over the familiar rooftops, he found himself wondering once again what exactly it was that made him always just feel so much more at home here then anywhere else he'd ever stayed. Even the 'haven hadn't really compared, and he'd made some real progress there before everything blew up in his face just like it always seemed to.

Maybe it's just because Blüdhaven was so much worse back before Blockbuster's death. Before he'd really just decided he'd had enough. Before Deathstroke had nuked it out of existence. Before all of that. Back when he'd first started, it had seemed like an impossible task to undertake, but for a while, things had been sort of good. And at times like these, when the night was slow and there wasn't much else to do but think about this sort of thing, he couldn't help but wonder if he could have done something to change what had happened.

This part of the job had always been one of the harder ones for Dick. Being out on patrol by himself on a quiet night meant he had a lot of time to sit and think about these things, which was rarely a good thing. Focusing too much on Blockbuster or Tarantula or any of it made him crazy, and when he touched down on the next rooftop he shook himself, trying to get his mind off the past and back on the future.

Which would be a lot easier if something actually was going on tonight, he thought briefly, crouching comfortably on the edge of the building, his eyes focused on

And just like that, Gotham decided to reward him, because any further thought was thankfully interrupted by movement down below, and the vigilante carefully watched as two groups of (relatively) tough looking guys converged on each other in the alley. After pausing a beat, waiting to make sure these people were actually physically thrashing each other (or at least that something actually criminal was going on, it never hurt to double check), he quickly got himself back down to ground level, finishing his descent with an impressive (and maybe just a little dramatic) touchdown in the center of the action, his familiar Ecrisma sticks in hand and ready to go. The small group of thugs just stared, obviously caught off guard. Dick grinned. Showtime.

“Ooh, a party.” The smile widened. “Am I invited?”

Hopefully this would be enough to get his mind off of things he had no control over.

case no: No preference!

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HOW'S MY DRIVING?

And because I like my sense of keeping my journal tidy, here be Dick's HMD for Abax. If you have any questions about the point I'm playing him from, the app is right above you, otherwise, questions, comments, complaints? Let me know!