[Application for aliunde_rpg]
Player Information
Name: KaOS
Personal LJ: nevermore_1313 (not that I use it often)
E-mail: promotedtocondiments@gmail.com
AIM/MSN: AIM - orderfromka0s
Time zone: EST
Other Characters: none
Character Information
Name: Damian Wayne AKA Robin
Fandom: Batman / DC Comics
Timeline Summary: Up to the conclusion of "The Sum of Her Parts" (Batman & Robin issue 17), including "Core Requirements" (Batgirl vol 3 issues 5-7), Batman & Son, Streets of Gotham numbers 10 and 11, and...other things I can't quite think of at the moment since DC has a horrible habit of throwing everyone in everyone else's series and I'm still trying to figure out the right timeline for things. So we'll just pick those few for continuity and if I feel the need to throw other things in I'll canon-update later. Basically he's faced off against the Joker, had to deal with Bruce's status as not actually dead, been forced to play nice with the current Batgirl and doesn't hate her as much as he likes to pretend, continually butts heads with Tim Drake over a perceived rivalry for Bruce's attention, has been paired off with Dick Grayson for vigilante-ing, made a friend (sort of) who's actually his own age, and is starting to come to terms with the fact that he's actually expected to play well with others in general. Not that he does. Or is remotely willing to.
Personality:
Damian most often gives the impression of a surly child, and he generally doesn't bother proving otherwise. He rebels as much as he can get away with, and is all defiance and distilled rudeness that tends to have a habit of emerging at exactly the wrong times. Damian approaches the world with the belief that he is better than everyone and everything, that he is entitled because he is the Son of the Bat; he's had it drilled into his head often enough, after all, and years of hearing little else tends to have staying power regardless of circumstance. Months spent running across rooftops to save people and fight crime under the instruction of Grayson has dulled this some, of course, but it still emerges often enough to more than occasionally be a problem. It's seldom, then, that he doesn't come into conflict with someone, at some point, butting heads over valid opinions or simply because he feels compelled to push that button you'd really rather he didn't. He seems to have a talent for saying exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time, and as a result it takes a certain type of person to tolerate him for long since he has a horrible habit of alienating people for no real reason.
Although, in his defense, it really isn't his fault. Growing up amongst assassins, molded and trained to be little more than a weapon for his grandfather's war against his father, things like kindness and affection weren't particularly prized. A tool is better sharpened when hammered and tempered, tested and pushed to the breaking point rather than coddled and nurtured, and so it is little surprise that the resulting individual forged from their idea of "raising" is riddled with violent impulses and social difficulties. Attempts to be kind are habitually mistaken for ploys to find his weaknesses or manipulate him in some way, and it's only with focused effort that he will accept it otherwise. The world is in a war against him as far as he's concerned, and he's determined to win.
But for as much as he wants to have nothing to do with people, as much as he claims to dislike them if not outright hate them, it's really not that simple. He likes to help, he wants to be a force for good and prove that he's not the tool his mother forged him into, that he's his own person, and so he struggles through life trying to balance it all, trying to find his place in things. Above all he's desperate for a Father Figure, someone he can truly respect and who will in turn be proud of his accomplishments. While fiercely independent, he is almost constantly seeking approval; he rarely sees Bruce, after all, more commonly stuck at Grayson's side, and while he's gained a reluctant sort of respect for him he sees him as more of an equal than an adult. He's cast him in the Father role for now because he deals with him the most, but it's not quite the right fit.
Unfortunately, his greatest strengths are also his greatest weaknesses. Damian has an almost dogged determination to see things through to the end, and a boundless enthusiasm for winning, at any cost. But this usually puts him somewhere in the realms of a Cavalier; his tendency is to continue to fight even when the odds aren't in his favor, even when continuing to fight is only likely to get him seriously injured if not worse. He's headstrong and arrogant to a fault, meaning he truly believes he will inevitably come out on top, and outright refuses to accept otherwise. Even when not in a physical altercation, this tends to cripple his ability to relate to others or have deep, meaningful relationships simply because he usually finds himself in an argument just by virtue of his own personality. He's grounded in logic, choosing to define the world in terms of it, and anything that defies it is cast off as unimportant. Moronic. Not worth his time or energy. He is continually baffled by the people around him simply because he doesn't understand why they act as they do. Why follow people around with blind adoration when it's clear they care nothing for you? Why bother with pleasantries when you can barely tolerate the person you're speaking with? Why subject yourself to near constant humiliation when you don't gain anything from it?
Above all, he is still a child, even though he often resents people referring to him as such. As much as he likes to pretend he's mature, and knowledgeable, and capable, he's still only eleven, and as such is limited by his own maturity. He's started to see the grays in the world, but he still insists on clinging to a child's view, on black and white, good and evil, since he hasn't quite had enough experience to understand that sometimes things aren't so clear cut. He's been forced to grow up faster than he should have, and consequently is severely lacking in most qualities typically associated with children; he doesn't know how to play, for one thing, or if he does it tends to run more towards more training rather than hide and seek or games of pretend. His grasp on popular culture, on things like Sesame Street or the newer bands or so many other things we take as a given, is much stunted due to the seclusion of his life so far, and so it is rare that a cultural reference doesn't stump him, a failure which usually irritates him to no end, not that he has much interest in rectifying it. He loves video games, however, since his discovery of them thanks to Dick, particularly ones centering around violence and gore, and in moments when he isn't training or playing Robin he can only be pulled away from them reluctantly, with much protest and sulking.
As far as abilities go, years of training first as an assassin and then a few months as Robin has equipped Damian with the kind of competence and familiarity with weaponry and martial arts that is usually found in someone much older. He often reacts on instinct, and it's only with lots of practice that he's learned to check his attacks so as not to kill. He's also proven more than proficient with technology of most kinds, from computers to iPods to the most sophisticated mainframe you could think of (although he often overestimates his own abilities); he's got an affinity for gadgets, how they work and how the pieces fit together, and tends to focus in on any new gizmo he isn't familiar with until he is. He's an expert hacker despite his youth, and a self-proclaimed prodigy; he rarely requires more than a few hours to master whatever task he undertakes to learn.
While trained by the World's Greatest Detective, and given his own tendencies towards logic and order, observation is not his strong suit. He can put facts together and find the connections and meaning, but usually he needs a prod to get started; it's not that he doesn't see it, he just doesn't always think it's important right away - while he likes to think he's as knowledgeable as he needs to be, he's surprisingly naive about many things since he's only eleven, after all, and really hasn't seen all that much of the world. His own skill set runs more towards tactics and planning, on sneaking around and launching an attack when the recipient sees it coming least, on approaching a situation and using his strengths and the enemy's weaknesses to win regardless of cost. In that vein, he's quite adept at deception and misdirection, at hiding in the shadows (even if he rarely has the patience to stay there) and at surviving. He's an excellent mimic, and while he's in no way superhuman, thanks to training he has a heightened resistance to deprivation (air, food, water) and torture and is a few notches faster and stronger than your average boy his size and build.
Background: A general overview can be found in the DC Comics Database, there's also his entry on Wikipedia which is a little more in-depth in places, although there's a lot of information overlap.
Samples
First Person:
[video]
[A figure moves in front of the screen, a mess of red, green, and yellow. The light adjusts, and after a moment the figure is revealed to be a boy, no more than eleven years old, crouched in front of the device and peering at the screen through a green domino mask, an irritated scowl plastered on his face.]
You. Idiot. Person observing at large - because I know you're watching. Someone is, anyway. Whose wrist do I have to break to speak with whoever is in charge of this circus act?
Third Person:
He had underestimated. Grayson had warned, had cautioned against entering the room on his own, but he hadn't listened. He had thought he knew better. He had known better; he had gone up against entire hordes of ninjas, gangs of costumed goons, one single man with an absurdly painted face and delusions of genius and madness barely registered as something he needed to be concerned about. The man was in chains, in a police station, and he had been armed. It was supposed to be easy. Simple. Extract the information, get to the heart of things, then leave him to rot.
But it had all gone wrong, and he couldn't quite figure out how. It didn't help that he was beginning to panic out of helplessness.
His face burned, muscles stretched too tight for too long, the rictus that only had a passing similarity to the grin it had once been growing painful from being forced for so long, giving him an appearance closer to a snarling animal beneath the duct tape that choked his shouts of protest than a grinning child. He felt as if his face would tear in half if he had to endure it any longer. The box was tight, perfectly sized for a small boy but with frustratingly little extra room. He kicked and twisted, shouts muffled by the wood and tape as he struggled to get free, loosen anything, free himself of the moronic clown nose, at least, but it was to no avail. The Joker planned compulsively, he had tied the knots precisely as tight as they should be. He might have admired his attention to detail if he wasn't struggling not to give in to the rising panic it had induced.
Damian had never been afraid of enclosed spaces. Or much of anything, really. He hadn't had need to, and his training with the League had stamped out anything residual.
He found that was quickly beginning to change.
He'd never be able to look at circus clowns quite the same way again either.