Carrie Kelley // Redbird // for capeandcowl
Who the crap, you ask, is this jazzy hooligan, and where has that beloved Carrie Kelley the girl Robin gone? WELL, MY CHILDREN. Sit. Sit with me, and I will tell you a tale. A tale of character development, hero worship, and the discovery that bright colors don't work well while one is stalking the night.
So, you know how no Robin stays Robin forever? Whether they go all the way to Batman or just add a color on as a prefix, everyone outgrows Robin sooner or later. (YOUR TIME WILL COME, DAMIAN.) Even Carrie eventually outgrows Robin, if you look at that sequel that no one likes to admit exists.
Well, after a year of Robin'ing at home, and just over a year of Robin'ing at capeandcowl, Carrie is finally changing it up. And she's not going to turn into Catgirl for no discernable reason this time. NOW SIT DOWN AND BUCKLE UP, BECAUSE HERE'S MY LIST OF JUSTIFICATIONS.
In her time at CnC, Carrie has gotten really close to Jason Todd, specifically to deadredbird. She'd come to see him as her replacement Batman, because she never got to know the resident not-Millerbats-Batman very well. At first, Jason reminded her a lot of Millerbats, but pretty soon it was admiration for Jason himself all up in here. That said, when he got Ported out, it was in tribute to him that she started to consider using his methods on the really awful criminals. She'd come to accept over time that Jason killed people, that was easy enough, but it took a little (lot) more work for her to apply that to herself. But she found herself a teacher-- Jason's sort of girlfriend, Miho-- and asked to learn how to kill. Miho obliged. Carrie was sort of a disappointing student in that she never learned how to kill with no hesitation, but hey, at least she was finally pulling the (metaphorical) trigger.
But it's not quite as easy a decision as Carrie might have anticipated at first. She knew that it was against Bat-protocol, and knew it was probably a good idea to keep this from the rest of them. Unfortunately, Dick catches onto things. While she came to idolize Jason more than Dick, she's not completely immune to the attempted lessons and heavy disappointment of the first Robin! As it stands now he's made her think again about her decision to start killing, but hasn't convinced her to stop. But since it is his name that she's using, that she's disgracing, well -- she'd probably better pick a new one. One that won't let anyone down.
Those are the biggest factors in her wanting to change. No longer fitting into the Robin ideals, and figuring that she may as well be just a little more like the Red Hood. But also factoring into it is her age. You don't quite have your life picked out yet when you're 13, and people between then at 16 (hell, between then and 20) are wont to change directions now and then. She'd even considered that Robin wouldn't be forever, having been told by quite a few people at CnC that she'd grow out of it eventually. She used to maintain that she'd switch over to Batman when she stopped being Robin, but, hey. Plans change. Sometimes you start killing people.
And as far as justification for the actual design-- well, there's the name, for one thing. Redbird, from Red Hood. Oh yes, someone is clever and imaginative. The giant green glasses have never been a very effective cover, so she's swapping that out for a real mask. The bright colors were not the best for sneaking around at night, so there's the dark red and black. The striped gloves might be the tiniest of tributes to Nightwing, and the empty emblem on her chest-- okay so she never met Powergirl, but it's not too big a leap to go from wearing an R to wearing a blank spot when the R doesn't fit anymore. (At least it's not a boob window.)
If you have any questions or want anything else explained, feel free to ask! I could ramble all day, I really could.
