APPLICATION
Player Name: Kitty
Personal LJ: quipquipquip
E-mail: iwillactuallycheckthis AT gmail dot com
AIM: flipstentables
Other characters currently in-game: everyone
Who referred you to the game?: I'm the goddamn modchan
Character Name: Stephanie Brown, aka Batwoman
Canon source: DCU
Personality: Steph is not a halfway kind of person. She is high energy, hard-hitting, fiercely loyal, and maybe just a little bit mouthy. She's the girl that had the cojones to throw a brick at Robin's face, purposefully ruined her own father's criminal career by becoming the costumed vigilante "the Spoiler", had a baby at age fifteen and cared enough to give her daughter a real chance at life outside of Gotham, told Batman that he would train her because she was going to be his Robin, attempted (and failed) to unite all of the gangs in Gotham under "Matches Malone"'s banner, died, came back, pimpslapped Bruce Wayne when he came back from the dead, and continued to fight crime even though it pissed off her mother, the Batman, Tim, Barbara Gordon, and quite possibly God Almighty Himself.
When you tell Steph that she can't do something, she throws herself into it just to prove you wrong. She's contradictory (which got her fired as Robin), stubborn, and optimistic. She's not on the street because she needs to be Vengeance and the Night, but because she sees the need to make the Bat a positive symbol for the people. Where Damian-Batman brings control and justice, Batwoman brings support and hope. She's an incredibly strong young woman, both physically and mentally. She came from tough roots (a B-listed villain's daughter, raised in a swirl of criminal activities, close calls, strangers with rough hands, and her mother's apathy and rainbow of pills) and has endured some of life's most difficult situations (teenage pregnancy, dropping out of high school, her father's death and mother's addictions, her death), but Steph has weathered all adversity with her signature no-guff attitude and sunny disposition. She never stops fighting, never stops moving, because what she has to be is so much bigger than a blonde in a black cape.
History: bam.
How does your AU differ from canon? Not long after Steph took up the snazzy black and purple Batgirl suit, Bruce Wayne was killed. Again. For real, this time. There was no mistaking it, no denying it: Damian was the only witness, but that wasn't the kind of thing that he would kid about, ever. Dick and Damian continued to be Batman and Robin in Bruce's absence, but something was different this time around. There'd been some kind of power shift, but it took some time for exactly what had happened to come to light. Damian had bartered his soul away for conditional invincibility, and as they found out one by one, the Batfam members disowned him. Tim left Gotham---something that broke Steph's heart in tiny but meaningful ways; it'd been a long time since she and Tim had separated, but that didn't mean that the abandonment was any kinder---Cass stayed in Hong Kong as Black Bat, Batwoman suffered a massive heart attack that sidelined her, and Dick...Dick disappeared altogether.
Pretty soon, it was just Damian---reappeared after months of absence, now in his late teens and wearing the bat-cowl himself---and Steph answering the Batsignal. Barbara Gordon continued to help Steph when and where she could, even though she'd given up Oracle and instead followed in her father's footsteps to become the next commissioner. Babs blamed Damian in no small way for the culling of the bats and the steady increase of violent crime in the city, but Steph couldn't find it in herself to hate him. She saw in him a kid who was hurt and alone and trying his damnedest to do what he thought his father would want him to do, and nobody understood the difficulty of trying to win the approval of a dead father more than Steph.
As the months passed, she watched as the duty to Gotham slowly consumed him. Even as a kid, he hadn't understood the need for a life outside of vigilantism or how important friends and family were. So, even though he was more man than child, she teased and bantered with him, assaulting him with whatever cheer she could muster. He threw most of it back in her face with a snarl and a scowl, but that was better than nothing.
Barbara, afraid that Steph was going to end up the next in the long list of deaths tangentially connected to the new Batman, tried to convince Steph that allowing him to self-destruct on his own was safer. She knew she was right, but she couldn't just abandon him---Damian didn't have anyone else keeping him grounded. The ensuing fight was one of their few, furious ones; they went weeks without talking.
In fact, the next time that they saw each other, it was the night that the tiny house that Stephanie shared with her mother became a crime scene. When she had been out patrolling, there had been a home invasion; her mother had been shot, had died, and she hadn't been there to save her. It was a peculiar, painful irony. It'd taken everything that she'd had in her not to sob hysterically in front of the GCPD. She'd been wearing the cowl, so questions would have been asked.
Babs didn't say I told you so, but the implication hung. Steph sold the house, unable to live there alone, and lived out of the Compact for a while. When Damian found out about what had happened, he offered her the use of the Batcave. They rarely get along smoothly, but both are loyal people who believe in returning favors.
They're Batwoman and Batman, saviors and pariahs of Gotham in equal parts. They keep each other relatively sane.
Relatively.
Strengths: Steph is a intuitive little sponge when it comes to adapting to new circumstances and learning new things. She'll beg anyone who is good to train her (and Tim, Cassandra, Dinah Lance, Barbara Gordon, Alfred, and Bruce Wayne himself have added to her cornucopia of lifted abilities) and proves to be not a natural, but someone who will try over and over until she gets it. She'll put in as long of hours as are necessary to accomplish her goals; if anyone tells her she can't run twenty miles, she'll run thirty and then throw up on their shoes to prove a point. She and Damian work well together, despite their unending arguments---he is a natural, but normal life and normal people puzzle him; she's street-wise and savvy, even though she's just a normal woman in her late twenties. Steph is friendly, outgoing, and infinitely resourceful. Punching solves most of her problems, so she has gotten good at that. She is the true embodiment of the spirit of a survivor---she never gives up, no matter what kind of drag-out beating she's given. She never needed her mother's death to get her to fight crime. Unlike the other members of the Batclan, she's never been fueled by vengeance. She does the right thing because it is right and because she recognizes that the bat symbol is one that can mean hope as much as it means punishment.
Weaknesses: This bubbly inner strength is paired with self-doubt and impulsiveness. She regularly bites off more than she can chew, and friend and foe alike has noticed that she isn't nearly as polished and sleek as the rest of the Batfam. She's not as good of a fighter or as smart a detective; her mistakes are clumsy and sometimes deadly. In her teens, Steph brought on a gang war that almost claimed her life and she hasn't been able to forget that---the mixture of guilt and longing to make Gotham less of a criminal melting pot has driven her, but also drags her down. She's terrified of failure, not meeting the rest of the bat clan's standards, and being seen as just another hood, like dear old Daddy Cluemaster.
Preferred drop-in point: TorC