(no subject)
IC:
Character name: Stephanie Brown (Batgirl)
Fandom: DC Comics
Timeline: Before Batgirl issue #23
Age: 18ish SHE'S IN COLLEGE
~*Magical*~ abilities and strengths:
No magic, but Stephanie is skilled in many things since lol Batgirl. Things that fall under SHIT SHE CAN DO ARE: various martial arts, gymnastics, weaponry usage, stealth/escape missions, hacking (nowhere near Oracle levels), and things like that. She can also play the piano!
How would they use their abilities?:
If there is crime to be fought, tada! She'll probably be doing more laying low than anything though, but if something comes up she will kick some ass.
Appearance:
The DC wikia says she's 5'5'' so I will say anything from there to maybe 5'6'' because I don't trust the DC wikia. She has blonde hair that goes just past her shoulders, light skin, annnd she's very much in shape! She probably has a few pretty nice looking muscles too.
Background:
Again, let's start this out with a note: Until Steph gets her own series as Batgirl, all her appearances are as a guest in someone else's comic. So because of this, there's a lot of guesswork in the chronology of the issues, or how much time has passed between each of her appearances, and what she was doing when she wasn't guest starring. So this might be a little messy!
So there is a man named Bruce Wayne who likes to dress up in costume and fight crime as the Batman. He and his trusty, somehow-not-dead-yet sidekick named Robin (Tim Drake) protect the streets of Gotham City from all sorts of dastardly foes! And that is enough of this background info because. Batman.
Stephanie Brown is the daughter of a third tier villain known as the Cluemaster. He's planning a heist, and one that's going pretty smoothly too! Except Steph, dressed in costume, is spying on all of this and sending clues to the police. Why she didn't just outright tell them what was going on, who the hell knows? One night during one of these stalking sessions, she runs into the Batman and Robin. Robin, thinking that she was one of the bad guys, chases her and rips off her mask. She then proceeds in beating the shit out of him and running away. But after seeing her face, it's pretty easy for the guys to track her down and figure out her involvement in all this mess. She agrees to help them bust her dad, and reveals that her "superhero" name is the Spoiler! Get it? Cause she was spoiling her dad's plans. Ha ha ha ha. ANYWAY Batman tells her to sit down and let the big boys handle it, she ignores him, and in the end they arrest her dad!
Eventually, daddy dearest breaks out of jail with two accomplices. They hide in a motel just outside of the city, and due to one of the baddies being stupid, they blow their cover. Steph learns about this from the news, as well as her mom (who is addicted to prescription pills). Deciding that this shit won't fly, she suits up again and goes to investigate. At the investigation scene, she runs into Robin and he agrees to let her help. They split up, and, due to circumstances that can only occur in a comic book, Robin and her dad end up trapped in a truck filled with money that is covered by cement. Cluemaster's partners have no idea about any of this, so they return to their new motel room, and Steph follows them. When the cops suddenly bust in on the scene, she realizes that if they get arrested then she'll never find her dad. So she lets them escape, follows them, and they go straight to dig the truck out. Once they do, they're defeated, and Steph is shocked to find out that Robin had been in there the whole time. He thanks her with a big kiss.
Sometime later, the Cluemaster contacts Batman and Robin from prison! He tells them that he is being forced to help a group steal stuff because they kidnapped Steph! Batman discovers where they're hiding, and Robin frees Steph! Except she reveals that her dad was the one who suggested that she should be held hostage. She also returns thanks in the same way he did, bow chicka bow wow. They beat up the people responsible, and she later visits her dad in prison. And proceeds to beat the ever loving crap out of him. And although she initially only became Spoiler just to stop her dad, she decides to become a part-time crime fighter! Much to the annoyance of Batman and Robin who want her to stop. At one point she and Robin go against a gang, but shit is not cash, and Batman has to bail them out of trouble. Batman is very not impressed with Steph.
One day, during a period where the sun mysteriously goes out, Steph and Robin are doing their thing and kicking butt. However, an avalanche of snow traps them inside a building, and Robin insists on saving their attacker. Steph is shocked at the idea; she has no idea why he would want to save the life of a guy who tried to kill them. However, while searching they find a woman and her child. The guy eventually tries attacking them again, he gets defeated, and Steph admits that Robin had a point with the whole saving even bad guys thing because they would have never found the civilians otherwise. She still doesn't like it though. They go on a lot of little adventures together, like battling against gang members after Steph pissed them off and being trapped in a building that's set to be demolished. At one point when Robin is out of the country, Steph runs into Batman and asks him where Robin is. He tells her to mind her own business and to quit being Spoiler. Her life is hard.
And then the earthquake hit Gotham. A powerful, seven point earthquake basically completely destroys the city. Steph is with her "boyfriend" Dean, who runs away instead of staying around to help her take care of the injured. She suits up, and runs into the Huntress (Helena Bertinelli, another masked vigilante in Gotham) and they decide to team up for the moment. So it turns out that because of the earthquake, the Cluemaster and some other prisoners escaped and ran off to a nearby mall. Steph and the Huntress go there to track them down, and Steph is pretty much in love with Huntress' way of dealing things: Unlike Batman and the others, she doesn't hold back. The two sort of bond over the fact that they have bad guys for fathers (in Helena's case, it's her entire family). However, when Steph finally catches her father, he pleads for her to let him go because the Huntress would not hesitate to kill him. Steph, realizing this is true, lets him escape.
Because of the earthquake, Steph and her mom are forced to stay in a shelter. Robin shows up, but he wants to check in on his girlfriend and is surprised to see Steph there. He still talks to her though, and she asks him if he can bring over her Spoiler costume from her house; she's worried about looters finding it. Robin (sarcastically) agrees to do it, and once he's there he runs into the Cluemaster. They fight, and Robin runs off with the Spoiler costume. However, he doesn't give it back to Steph, and she's pretty annoyed by it all.
So sometime later, Robin and Spoiler finally hook up! There is a great big BUT though-- he can't reveal his secret identity even though he knows hers. Steph is, at first, okay with this! Their first date consists of going to a sci-fi movie marathon so they don't stand out and eating pizza, and it's all just a jolly good time. And then about a week after this, Steph lets out the bomb that she's sorta kinda pregnant. It turns out that the father is that Dean guy from before hurrah. They both agree that adoption is best. However, when Steph goes around with her mother while they try to figure everything out, she slowly decides that she wants to keep the baby. When she tells Robin this, he says that he thinks it's a bad idea since her kind of lifestyle isn't really ideal for raising a kid. She later asks him to take her to birthing classes, and he does! While wearing a disguise. And everything is peachy.
Until Robin has to move to Keystone City; Gotham is still terrible after the earthquake, and his dad wants to move somewhere better. A lot of time passes, they keep in contact, and Steph is still determined to keep that baby. After calling the house one night, Robin finds out that Steph is going into labor and that there's a problem with the pregnancy. He asks the Flash (Wally West) to take him back to Gotham to be there for the delivery. Steph spends the entire time asking for Robin until he shows up, although he's thrown out of the delivery room because he'd be in the way. Anyway the delivery was a success aww yeah. But Steph has a nightmare about her keeping the baby and it getting stuck in the middle of her life as Spoiler, and she wakes up to Robin. She tells him that she decided not to keep the baby, and that she doesn't even want to see it because it would make things harder for her.
More time passes, Robin is back in Gotham, and everything seems to be going alright for Steph! She hasn't been out Spoiling for a while since she's still concentrating on just recovering from having a baby. Her mom (who has dropped the pill habit yay) asks her about trust, and Steph is UH YEAH OF COURSE I TRUST YOU MOM WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?? Annnd then her mom reveals that she found the Spoiler costume in the closet. Her mom asks her if she followed her father into a life of crime, and Steph responds by laughing. She then explains that the reason she started wearing the costume was to stop her dad, and they all have a good ol' time laughing about it all until her mom says she can't do it anymore. Her mom takes away her costume, but Steph is smart and has a stash of them.
Despite her mother's protests, she continues to be Spoiler. She runs into Robin one day, and he's worried if their relationship is going to work since she only knows him as Robin. He's being sent to a private school that is still close enough so that he can visit, but far enough so that it's inconvenient. Steph assures him that they're still good. However, both of them are unsure of how well a relationship like this can last, and Steph isn't exactly fond of the idea that he knows who she is and she doesn't even know his real name. SO they're out adventuring, and they run into a group of robbers breaking into an apartment. Steph doesn't listen to Robin's warnings and goes straight in after them, and they find that one of the robbers has a gun pointed to a woman's head. Before they can do anything, the woman then proceeds to beat the hell out of the guy. It turns out she's Black Canary (Dinah Lance) who is a member of a group called the Birds of Prey. She scolds them for not being more careful, and Steph completely fangirls over her. She later on sneaks back into the apartment and begs for Black Canary to become her mentor, and she reluctantly agrees to show her a thing or two.
Anyway more shenanigans happens like Steph thinking that Robin is two-timing her with some skater chick. As it turns out, he isn't, but it really shows how much the stress of not knowing his secret identity is getting to her. Also a member of Young Justice, a group that Robin's in, Secret (Greta Hayes) attacks Stephanie. Because she is jealous and stuff, as well as the fact that she's angry with Steph for trying to find out Robin's identity. Robin intervenes, and forces them to get along. It doesn't work.
BUT THEN SHIT GETS REAL. Robin goes on a mission and is gone for days. Batman, worried about his whereabouts, enlists Stephanie to help him. He even takes her to the Batcave! After Robin returns to his school, he gets visited by the two of them, and Steph calls him Tim. As it turns out, Batman told her his secret identity! And Robin flips out, and storms off-- yeah he is not happy. Since there is nothing either of them can do about it, Batman starts training Steph. During training, he has Batgirl (Cassandra Cain) do a demonstration. Steph is in awe, and asks him if she'd ever be that good, and Batman replies that she wouldn't. But Batgirl is a special case, and that Steph could possibly be as good as, or even better than, Tim. This just reminds her of how angry he was, so she goes to visit him and runs into Alfred (the Bat family's valet). She comments that Alfred doesn't like her, and that she can't believe she's getting lip from the butler, and Alfred tells her off and makes her feel bad. BECAUSE NO ONE TALKS TO MOTHERFUCKING ALFRED LIKE THAT.
At the Batcave, Tim yells at Batman for revealing his secret. He says that he had no right to do it, and the only reason he didn't tell Steph was to protect Batman. He storms out, and then Batman takes Steph to train. She asks him why does he bother keeping kids around, and Batman admits to her it's because he knows that he won't live forever; he needs people to continue his crusade for him once he passes. Steph muses that it feels like this was the first time he had ever admitted that to someone, and then he takes her home. However, her father's there. As it turns out, he was released from jail and is legally allowed to stay in the house. Even more, it seems that he's working with the Riddler, one of Batman's many enemies. While it's obvious that they're up to no good, there's still no legal way for them to do anything about it until they're caught red-handed. So Steph and her mom are forced to live with the Cluemaster, the Riddler, and their cohorts.
But even that crisis has to take a backseat. The Joker, another one of Batman's enemies who has a tendency for maiming Robins, believes that he's going to die. So, he decides to go in style, and basically makes shit difficult for everyone. Batman recruits Steph to help him on a mission, and they actually have a very cute bonding moment, which we will never see again for a long time because Batman is a dick. Anyway, he forces her and Batgirl to stay with Oracle (Barbara Gordon, also used to be Batgirl but was crippled by the Joker) because the Joker is way too much for them. This changes, however, when they believe that Tim was murdered. Nightwing (Dick Grayson, also the original Robin) runs off to avenge him, while Batman, Huntress, and Steph follow. It turns out that Tim is alright though, and he goes after them too. They run in after Nightwing basically beats the Joker to death, but they manage to revive him. Nightwing leaves in shame, saying that he failed them all by essentially giving the Joker what he wanted-- making them kill him even though he came back.
Some time after this mess, another mess appears! Bruce Wayne has been convicted for murder! Steph, not knowing that Bruce is Batman, is seriously confused as to why the Bat gang is so obsessed with this case. She also doesn't understand why Batman has suddenly disappeared, and believes that he just abandoned them. Oracle asks Black Canary to help out with Steph's situation at home. Steph asks her why is everyone so bent out of shape with trying to prove Bruce's innocence and if she knows Batman's identity, which she replies that she doesn't. Black Canary then rushes into the house and... pretty much just beats them up, and threatens to get the Justice League (basically the BAMF organization of the hero world) to get on their asses if they ever come back. Lo and behold, they leave.
With the mystery surrounding Bruce still going, Steph begins having more and more doubts about her position in the group. While she is considered a member of the team, she doesn't really feel a part of it; they all know one another's secret identity, and most importantly, Batman's. She starts to wonder if they even trust her at all, and if it's because of her connection to the Cluemaster that they keep her at arm's length. She and Tim have more shenanigans involving a woman who can make you feel ~*~EMOTIONS~*~ via her scent. It makes sense. During this, though, Steph is reminded of a man named Jim Murray who used to hang out with her father, and was the worst of all his friends despite not being a costume villain. Remember this, because it comes back later! A little bit later, Black Canary fires Steph from working with the Birds of Prey, saying that she should go back to hanging out with the Bats. And around this time, Batgirl starts training her.
But things can't get worse, right? Wrong! Steph's dad is dead. Mysterious men come to her house one day to tell her, and say that he died as a hero. His death makes her mom forgive all his misdeeds instantly, but Steph is still torn about it. She eventually tells Tim the story of Jim Murray-- the guy who became her sort of babysitter. When her parents went away for a weekend to check her mother into a rehab center, it was the first time Murray was watching her for more than just a few hours. And he tries to molest her, she bites him, and runs off. She was about eleven. When she told her father about this, he said he didn't believe her. So, when she started the whole Spoiler gig, one of the first things she did was track down Murray... and she found out that he had died eight days after the incident. Steph wanted to ask her father if he was the one who had killed him, and if he knew that he was a pedophile, and right when she decided to do it, he died. She also admits that she's angry at her mom for being so forgiving, so she has been living in motels. Tim tells her to go back home to work it out with her mother, and she does not listen.
Since the last person that her father was in contact with before he died was the Riddler, Steph tracks him down. She asks him questions and he, being the Riddler, just answers with. Well. Riddles. She attacks him then leaves. After that she goes on other adventures like beating bad guy butt and uncovering a plot to destroy Gotham financially. Also, I would like to point out that by this point in time Bruce was proven innocent, but how that went down had very little to do with Steph, so!
But even with Batman back in the picture, he still has been avoiding Steph. One night she decides to follow him, and that ends horribly because following the Batman is hard. She asks him why he won't train her anymore since he told her that she had what it takes, and he said that he was wrong. He does give her a chance though-- if she can find the location of a potential bomber in a couple of hours, he'll go back to training her. And Steph works as hard as she can to track him down, and she thinks that she finally found it! But he wasn't there, she was wrong, and it turns out Batman knew the real location the entire time. And with that, he tells her to quit, and leaves. He later tells Batgirl to quit training her as well, which she very sadly does.
Then some more stuff happened that includes Secret attacking Steph again, but the latter has no memory of that event so it doesn't really matter. What does matter is when Tim's father finds out that he's Robin and, even more, the identities of everyone else in the club. Tim manages to get his dad to agree to not reveal the secret, but he also resigns from being Robin. With Tim off the job, Steph thinks that this is a great way to get back in the team. She makes her own makeshift Robin costume, somehow sneaks back into the Batcave, and asks Batman to give her the job. And, for some reason, he does. And so for over a month, Steph is the new Robin, working alongside Batman! There are a few conditions though, one being that if she disobeys him even once then she's fired. They're mostly trying to track down a killer who is targeting young boys from around 14-17 and who, GASP, look like Tim. They realize that someone wants to kill the previous Robin. They finally find the killer and go against her, but Steph disobeys an order and the woman gets away. And true to their agreement, Batman fires her.
And then the War Games arc happened and I like to pretend that it didn't. Uh. Stephanie is still determined to prove herself worthy to Batman! On his computer, he has a list of emergency plans-- basically ways for him to save Gotham if he has no other choice aka LAST LAST LAST LAST LAST CASE SCENARIOS. And Steph stole one of these plans, thinking that if she can pull it off that Batman would rehire her. The plan was to reunite the different gangs of Gotham under one man: Matches Malone. So she sets it in motion, and there is a tiny flaw; Malone never shows up because he is Batman in disguise. Without him, the mob bosses all start shooting at each other, which starts the bloodiest gang war that Gotham has ever seen. Steph confesses all of this to Catwoman (Selina Kyle, acquaintance of Batman) who is shocked to find out how little Bruce trusted Steph considering that he didn't even tell her that.
Selina drops Steph off at her friends' place, and then goes to tell Leslie Thompkins (a doctor who knows Batman's secret) what happened since she promised she wouldn't tell Batman directly. Important: Leslie does not approve of Bruce being the Batman and his methods. Meanwhile, the gang war is going crazy, and Tim even comes back as Robin to help. Around this point, Batman realizes that everything is going according to one of his plans so he devises a way to stop it.
So, Steph sneaks out and she has a plan. She realizes that the only way to save the day is to find Orpheus (Gavin King, someone working undercover for Batman). He's the center of the entire plan, and with his help they can stop the war. But right when she reaches him, she's greeted by Black Mask (another villain) slitting his throat. He has been using the confusion to take control of Gotham's underground. He and Steph fight and she ultimately loses, and he takes her to his hideout where he then tortures her with various tools like a power drill. When he leaves, she manages to get out of her bonds and starts heading toward the exit. He returns before she can escape though, but she attacks him. Black Mask remarks that if she had fought with this kind of determination in the beginning, she wouldn't be in this mess. Steph replies that it's because she finally understood what Batman had been trying to teach her all this time: This wasn't a game. She gets a hold of his gun, threatens to kill him, but in the end she can't. Black Mask, disgusted with the fact that she couldn't do it, shoots her then lets her go.
Black Mask leaves, and he and Batman fight in a battle that ends the war. Both escape, although Black Mask leaves with the upper hand; Batman has lost the trust of the people. Meanwhile, Steph made it to Leslie's clinic, and Batman goes to see her. Dying, she asks Batman if she was ever truly Robin, and he says yes. She says that she's happy because it means that she was really a part of the legacy, and then she dies. But, as you may have noticed, I am apping her as Batgirl! So the story ain't over yet, folks! We find out that Leslie could have saved Stephanie's life, but instead she withheld treatment to prove a point to Batman, and make him quit. Obviously, he does not see it her way at all and ends up exiling her from the United States, threatening that if she ever steps foot in it again that he'd persecute her to the fullest extent of the law.
And then follows a period of time where basically no one but Batgirl misses her. She doesn't even get a memorial in the Batcave, which is a custom for Batman's sidekicks! Whenever Batgirl nearly dies, she keeps seeing visions of Steph, but other than that... yeah, it's like an unspoken rule not to bring her up. To be fair, it was also an unspoken rule not to bring Jason Todd, the second Robin, up after he died. But he at least got a memorial so. BUT all of this doesn't matter because it gets retconned that she didn't actually die at all because the only thing that DC likes more than killing off its characters is retconning their histories.
So, as it turns out, apparently Leslie faked Stephanie's death and then took her to Africa with her. Which is stupid since not even her mom knew. But Stephanie felt that it was like running away so she returned to Gotham where she stalked Robin and stuff. Finally he and Batman confronts her, and Batman admits that he had a feeling she wasn't dead all this time and that's why she didn't have a memorial. Retcon retcon retcon. She asks him if she can be back on the team, and he tells her if she wants to. Meanwhile Tim is as confused as the rest of us are. They return to their life of kicking ass together, but Steph notices that Tim is... different. But considering that she's been gone for over a year, that's expected!
During the R.I.P. arc, Batman has gone missing and Tim suspects that he has gone insane. When he tells this to Steph, she responds by... laughing hysterically at the idea. Tim, however, insists that he's right and goes to extreme lengths to find the Bat, while Steph follows him around very disapprovingly. Meanwhile, the Teen Titans are recruiting for new members after they've lost a few. The Titans is a group that Tim is a member of after Young Justice disbanded. Anyway, Tim invites Steph to go with him for moral support because he's planning on quitting the team to deal with the Batman fiasco. And the time there was super awkward for Stephanie considering that she and Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandsmark) both dated Tim.
Pictured above: Awkward.
Before Batman disappeared, he asked Stephanie to make Tim a better Robin. So to do this, she set up a test-- sort of like the one Batman did for her, only this one had a better success rate. The problem was that a lot of other stuff happened during that time too, like a gang war, which overcomplicated things. At the end of it all, Tim learns a new way how to handle things, while things between him and Steph pretty much splinter almost completely. He tells her to quit being Spoiler for good.
With Batman gone, things in Gotham have changed (he was "killed" by a god called Darkseid). Dick has gone from Nightwing to the new Batman, with Damian Wayne (Bruce's son) as the new Robin. Meanwhile Tim, convinced that Bruce is still alive and is somewhat hurt about being replaced by Damian, goes off to search for Batdad. He takes up the mantle of Red Robin. Before he leaves though, he and Steph have a confrontation where they argue about what he's doing. She remains as Spoiler despite his disapproval. One day, Cassandra suddenly takes off her Batgirl costume and hands it to Stephanie, saying that she quits. Steph decides, what the hell, and becomes the new Batgirl. It takes other people about five seconds to realize this, considering that Cass was trained as an assassin and defeated the world's greatest martial artist in battle. Barbara is against it, and repeatedly tells Stephanie to step down, but she eventually earns her approval as well as a brand new costume!
Barbara as Oracle and Steph make up Team Batgirl! And they're ready to kick some ass except Dick Batman (I am just going to call him Dickman for the remainder of this app because it's funny) and Damian don't exactly approve. Dickman basically grounds Steph and Damian, and the two of them team up to save the day. Not willingly, but still. Stephanie also meets Supergirl (Kara Zor-El) and it's the beginning of a very, very beautiful friendship that consists of both of them teasing Damian. Eventually Steph runs into Tim again when he finally returns to Gotham after many months in Europe. After an adventure involving battling against Damian's grandfather, Ra's al Ghul, Tim tells the gang that Bruce is indeed alive. He's just. Lost in time. Yeah.
And then Bruce comes back. After a series of events that have nothing to do with Stephanie so I don't have to explain it here thank god it's so confusing, he returns to Gotham! However, he doesn't reveal himself right away-- he visits each of his Batfamily people, and sort of tests them to see what they're like. When he "tests" Stephanie however, she figures out that it's him and then slaps him. To ruin the badass moment of slapping THE GODDAMN BATMAN, she runs away. She tells Bruce that no matter how much he might hate her being Batgirl, it's something that she will never give up, and he should just accept it. Bruce agrees, and says that he thinks she's doing a great job. Cue happy Steph. We also find out that the reason that Cass gave up being Batgirl was because Bruce told her to for Steph's sake.
Anyway Bruce eventually becomes Batman again, but Dick is also Batman so there's TWO Batmans. And Bruce starts something called Batman Incorporated, where he reveals a stunning revelation to the world: I am Iron Man Bruce Wayne has been funding Batman. Batman Inc. is a way for him to have his network extend all over the globe, yadda yadda. On the Steph front, Babs "retires" as Oracle (notice those quotations!) and basically, Steph is back to working on her own. Her time as Batgirl is spent arguing with Damian, getting framed for murders, juggling college work, and always having a witty reply handy.
Personality:
Steph is a breath of fresh air in the Bat family. While a large percent of the others major in brooding and taking things way too seriously, Stephanie prefers to look at things differently. She has fun at what she does! She cracks jokes, is energetic, and she loves her witty banter. She's the one who will be making fun of a bad guy even when he's overpowering her, and she won't hesitate to point out the ridiculousness of a situation. She highly enjoys teasing people, whether it's Damian, Tim, or Bruce himself. She's a flirt! Although she doesn't go chasing around after guys like she did in her early days coughtimcough anymore. While she can be goofy, she is still very determined. When she gets knocked down, she gets right back up. When people tell her no, she'll go against them to prove why she deserves a yes. Hell, she probably would have made a great candidate for a Green Lantern, but that is besides the point here. She's fiercely loyal, and will do anything to protect the people she loves. She's resourceful, intelligent, and a very good learner! As long as she's focused, at least.
But it took her a while to get there. While Steph has no problem with having fun with her work, she is still that same girl who desperately wants approval. The difference between her days as Spoiler and Robin compared to her days as Batgirl, though, is the fact that she already has it. So at this point it's more like she's proving it to herself that she's right for the job. She fears failure because she doesn't want everything that she has worked so hard for to be taken away again. Even though Bruce approves of her now, she knows that if she makes a mistake like with what happened in War Games again, that it'd be all over for her. So each day is a struggle for her to try to show the world that there is no reason to doubt her abilities.
She does have a bit of an anger issue though, but she has gotten much better control of it after her time in Africa. She also has figured out her own morality; before she didn't understand what was the point in saving the life of a bad guy, but by now she fully follows Batman's code of No Killing. She can be kind of paranoid, especially in matters of the heart (she was convinced that Tim was cheating on her like fifty times). She also lets things cloud her judgment, but again, she's gotten a lot better at controlling this. Another one of her problems is the fact that she tends to do things without really thinking them through-- again, she's gotten better, but she still has a while to go. Example: Slapping Batman.
While she still has a boatload of issues to work out with herself, Stephanie has really grown from a girl who wants to save the world with no idea what she's doing, to a girl who actually can. It might take her a while to get everything completely together, but she's finally completely content with her life since she finally got what she always wanted: Her companions' trust and support. So now all she has to do is kick ass and take names then kick ass some more.
Why should that character be in this game: HOLY
Why do you want to continue their history here: APP
For applicants considering an alternate version of a character already in game, please use this as your chance to explain the key differences between your character and the one already in play: BATMAN
Have you read up on how the game works?:
FlamingFerret, missions, mooching, stealing, and wow I have answered this question way too many times by now.
1st person sample:
Where's the manual to this thing?
[ a moment later, the video kicks in, and the view is of a blonde girl with her face pressed very closely to the camera. She is wearing a cape and cowl for some reason. Once she realizes it's on, she backs away. ]
So, uh, space? Is this where Superman flies in and kicks butt and stuff? I've always joked that you can't call yourself a superhero until you've been to space, but that wasn't really an invitation for all of this to happen. I mean, what's next, Martians come and attack us? No offense to all the nice and green ones, by the way! Nice going, Batgirl. The last thing I need right now is to have someone with superpowers angry at me for a joke...
[ there's awkward laughter, and then a moment or two of her fiddling with the Guide. ]
If there's any Bats around, I'm here. And if there's not-- well, won't be the first time I've been left alone.
Though I gotta admit, the view's pretty nice from here.
3rd person sample:
Holy spaceship Batman! What kind of mess was she in now? Steph was relatively used to the world ending. It happened, what? Every few months? Weeks? She's positive that somewhere in the world, last week, there was most likely a doomsday plot happening in some corner of the globe. And, in some way or other, the day was always saved. Maybe not perfectly-- hell, definitely not perfectly-- but the Earth would always still be there in the morning.
And that's why she can't wrap her head around this. Earth couldn't have been destroyed. There was no red skies (there is always red skies) or screams or superheroes trying to save the day. There was nothing. One minute, she was rushing to her English class, and the next she was signing forms for some very rude aliens. Was that how it ended? Years of protecting people, all destroyed in not even a second?
She knows that she's not in the big leagues. She can hold down the fort in Gotham, but against the villains that give even Wonder Woman a run for her money? Steph knows that there was no way that she, as Batgirl, could have prevented this from happening. But she still felt crummy about the whole thing anyway. It's better to have tried and failed, or something like that, the saying goes. So having the news delivered from an uncaring and, as un-PC as it sounds, ugly creature, it was like a punch in the face.
So when she enters her new room, she doesn't greet her roommates in her normal tone. She simply nods, and goes straight to her bed. Not to sleep or cry, but to figure out how this Guide thing worked; she wanted answers, and she wanted them now.
It just might take her a while to turn it on.
Questions?: /NEVER APPS AGAIN
Did you put your characters name and fandom in the subject: Y
Character name: Stephanie Brown (Batgirl)
Fandom: DC Comics
Timeline: Before Batgirl issue #23
Age: 18ish SHE'S IN COLLEGE
~*Magical*~ abilities and strengths:
No magic, but Stephanie is skilled in many things since lol Batgirl. Things that fall under SHIT SHE CAN DO ARE: various martial arts, gymnastics, weaponry usage, stealth/escape missions, hacking (nowhere near Oracle levels), and things like that. She can also play the piano!
How would they use their abilities?:
If there is crime to be fought, tada! She'll probably be doing more laying low than anything though, but if something comes up she will kick some ass.
Appearance:
The DC wikia says she's 5'5'' so I will say anything from there to maybe 5'6'' because I don't trust the DC wikia. She has blonde hair that goes just past her shoulders, light skin, annnd she's very much in shape! She probably has a few pretty nice looking muscles too.
Background:
Again, let's start this out with a note: Until Steph gets her own series as Batgirl, all her appearances are as a guest in someone else's comic. So because of this, there's a lot of guesswork in the chronology of the issues, or how much time has passed between each of her appearances, and what she was doing when she wasn't guest starring. So this might be a little messy!
So there is a man named Bruce Wayne who likes to dress up in costume and fight crime as the Batman. He and his trusty, somehow-not-dead-yet sidekick named Robin (Tim Drake) protect the streets of Gotham City from all sorts of dastardly foes! And that is enough of this background info because. Batman.
Stephanie Brown is the daughter of a third tier villain known as the Cluemaster. He's planning a heist, and one that's going pretty smoothly too! Except Steph, dressed in costume, is spying on all of this and sending clues to the police. Why she didn't just outright tell them what was going on, who the hell knows? One night during one of these stalking sessions, she runs into the Batman and Robin. Robin, thinking that she was one of the bad guys, chases her and rips off her mask. She then proceeds in beating the shit out of him and running away. But after seeing her face, it's pretty easy for the guys to track her down and figure out her involvement in all this mess. She agrees to help them bust her dad, and reveals that her "superhero" name is the Spoiler! Get it? Cause she was spoiling her dad's plans. Ha ha ha ha. ANYWAY Batman tells her to sit down and let the big boys handle it, she ignores him, and in the end they arrest her dad!
Eventually, daddy dearest breaks out of jail with two accomplices. They hide in a motel just outside of the city, and due to one of the baddies being stupid, they blow their cover. Steph learns about this from the news, as well as her mom (who is addicted to prescription pills). Deciding that this shit won't fly, she suits up again and goes to investigate. At the investigation scene, she runs into Robin and he agrees to let her help. They split up, and, due to circumstances that can only occur in a comic book, Robin and her dad end up trapped in a truck filled with money that is covered by cement. Cluemaster's partners have no idea about any of this, so they return to their new motel room, and Steph follows them. When the cops suddenly bust in on the scene, she realizes that if they get arrested then she'll never find her dad. So she lets them escape, follows them, and they go straight to dig the truck out. Once they do, they're defeated, and Steph is shocked to find out that Robin had been in there the whole time. He thanks her with a big kiss.
Sometime later, the Cluemaster contacts Batman and Robin from prison! He tells them that he is being forced to help a group steal stuff because they kidnapped Steph! Batman discovers where they're hiding, and Robin frees Steph! Except she reveals that her dad was the one who suggested that she should be held hostage. She also returns thanks in the same way he did, bow chicka bow wow. They beat up the people responsible, and she later visits her dad in prison. And proceeds to beat the ever loving crap out of him. And although she initially only became Spoiler just to stop her dad, she decides to become a part-time crime fighter! Much to the annoyance of Batman and Robin who want her to stop. At one point she and Robin go against a gang, but shit is not cash, and Batman has to bail them out of trouble. Batman is very not impressed with Steph.
One day, during a period where the sun mysteriously goes out, Steph and Robin are doing their thing and kicking butt. However, an avalanche of snow traps them inside a building, and Robin insists on saving their attacker. Steph is shocked at the idea; she has no idea why he would want to save the life of a guy who tried to kill them. However, while searching they find a woman and her child. The guy eventually tries attacking them again, he gets defeated, and Steph admits that Robin had a point with the whole saving even bad guys thing because they would have never found the civilians otherwise. She still doesn't like it though. They go on a lot of little adventures together, like battling against gang members after Steph pissed them off and being trapped in a building that's set to be demolished. At one point when Robin is out of the country, Steph runs into Batman and asks him where Robin is. He tells her to mind her own business and to quit being Spoiler. Her life is hard.
And then the earthquake hit Gotham. A powerful, seven point earthquake basically completely destroys the city. Steph is with her "boyfriend" Dean, who runs away instead of staying around to help her take care of the injured. She suits up, and runs into the Huntress (Helena Bertinelli, another masked vigilante in Gotham) and they decide to team up for the moment. So it turns out that because of the earthquake, the Cluemaster and some other prisoners escaped and ran off to a nearby mall. Steph and the Huntress go there to track them down, and Steph is pretty much in love with Huntress' way of dealing things: Unlike Batman and the others, she doesn't hold back. The two sort of bond over the fact that they have bad guys for fathers (in Helena's case, it's her entire family). However, when Steph finally catches her father, he pleads for her to let him go because the Huntress would not hesitate to kill him. Steph, realizing this is true, lets him escape.
Because of the earthquake, Steph and her mom are forced to stay in a shelter. Robin shows up, but he wants to check in on his girlfriend and is surprised to see Steph there. He still talks to her though, and she asks him if he can bring over her Spoiler costume from her house; she's worried about looters finding it. Robin (sarcastically) agrees to do it, and once he's there he runs into the Cluemaster. They fight, and Robin runs off with the Spoiler costume. However, he doesn't give it back to Steph, and she's pretty annoyed by it all.
So sometime later, Robin and Spoiler finally hook up! There is a great big BUT though-- he can't reveal his secret identity even though he knows hers. Steph is, at first, okay with this! Their first date consists of going to a sci-fi movie marathon so they don't stand out and eating pizza, and it's all just a jolly good time. And then about a week after this, Steph lets out the bomb that she's sorta kinda pregnant. It turns out that the father is that Dean guy from before hurrah. They both agree that adoption is best. However, when Steph goes around with her mother while they try to figure everything out, she slowly decides that she wants to keep the baby. When she tells Robin this, he says that he thinks it's a bad idea since her kind of lifestyle isn't really ideal for raising a kid. She later asks him to take her to birthing classes, and he does! While wearing a disguise. And everything is peachy.
Until Robin has to move to Keystone City; Gotham is still terrible after the earthquake, and his dad wants to move somewhere better. A lot of time passes, they keep in contact, and Steph is still determined to keep that baby. After calling the house one night, Robin finds out that Steph is going into labor and that there's a problem with the pregnancy. He asks the Flash (Wally West) to take him back to Gotham to be there for the delivery. Steph spends the entire time asking for Robin until he shows up, although he's thrown out of the delivery room because he'd be in the way. Anyway the delivery was a success aww yeah. But Steph has a nightmare about her keeping the baby and it getting stuck in the middle of her life as Spoiler, and she wakes up to Robin. She tells him that she decided not to keep the baby, and that she doesn't even want to see it because it would make things harder for her.
More time passes, Robin is back in Gotham, and everything seems to be going alright for Steph! She hasn't been out Spoiling for a while since she's still concentrating on just recovering from having a baby. Her mom (who has dropped the pill habit yay) asks her about trust, and Steph is UH YEAH OF COURSE I TRUST YOU MOM WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?? Annnd then her mom reveals that she found the Spoiler costume in the closet. Her mom asks her if she followed her father into a life of crime, and Steph responds by laughing. She then explains that the reason she started wearing the costume was to stop her dad, and they all have a good ol' time laughing about it all until her mom says she can't do it anymore. Her mom takes away her costume, but Steph is smart and has a stash of them.
Despite her mother's protests, she continues to be Spoiler. She runs into Robin one day, and he's worried if their relationship is going to work since she only knows him as Robin. He's being sent to a private school that is still close enough so that he can visit, but far enough so that it's inconvenient. Steph assures him that they're still good. However, both of them are unsure of how well a relationship like this can last, and Steph isn't exactly fond of the idea that he knows who she is and she doesn't even know his real name. SO they're out adventuring, and they run into a group of robbers breaking into an apartment. Steph doesn't listen to Robin's warnings and goes straight in after them, and they find that one of the robbers has a gun pointed to a woman's head. Before they can do anything, the woman then proceeds to beat the hell out of the guy. It turns out she's Black Canary (Dinah Lance) who is a member of a group called the Birds of Prey. She scolds them for not being more careful, and Steph completely fangirls over her. She later on sneaks back into the apartment and begs for Black Canary to become her mentor, and she reluctantly agrees to show her a thing or two.
Anyway more shenanigans happens like Steph thinking that Robin is two-timing her with some skater chick. As it turns out, he isn't, but it really shows how much the stress of not knowing his secret identity is getting to her. Also a member of Young Justice, a group that Robin's in, Secret (Greta Hayes) attacks Stephanie. Because she is jealous and stuff, as well as the fact that she's angry with Steph for trying to find out Robin's identity. Robin intervenes, and forces them to get along. It doesn't work.
BUT THEN SHIT GETS REAL. Robin goes on a mission and is gone for days. Batman, worried about his whereabouts, enlists Stephanie to help him. He even takes her to the Batcave! After Robin returns to his school, he gets visited by the two of them, and Steph calls him Tim. As it turns out, Batman told her his secret identity! And Robin flips out, and storms off-- yeah he is not happy. Since there is nothing either of them can do about it, Batman starts training Steph. During training, he has Batgirl (Cassandra Cain) do a demonstration. Steph is in awe, and asks him if she'd ever be that good, and Batman replies that she wouldn't. But Batgirl is a special case, and that Steph could possibly be as good as, or even better than, Tim. This just reminds her of how angry he was, so she goes to visit him and runs into Alfred (the Bat family's valet). She comments that Alfred doesn't like her, and that she can't believe she's getting lip from the butler, and Alfred tells her off and makes her feel bad. BECAUSE NO ONE TALKS TO MOTHERFUCKING ALFRED LIKE THAT.
At the Batcave, Tim yells at Batman for revealing his secret. He says that he had no right to do it, and the only reason he didn't tell Steph was to protect Batman. He storms out, and then Batman takes Steph to train. She asks him why does he bother keeping kids around, and Batman admits to her it's because he knows that he won't live forever; he needs people to continue his crusade for him once he passes. Steph muses that it feels like this was the first time he had ever admitted that to someone, and then he takes her home. However, her father's there. As it turns out, he was released from jail and is legally allowed to stay in the house. Even more, it seems that he's working with the Riddler, one of Batman's many enemies. While it's obvious that they're up to no good, there's still no legal way for them to do anything about it until they're caught red-handed. So Steph and her mom are forced to live with the Cluemaster, the Riddler, and their cohorts.
But even that crisis has to take a backseat. The Joker, another one of Batman's enemies who has a tendency for maiming Robins, believes that he's going to die. So, he decides to go in style, and basically makes shit difficult for everyone. Batman recruits Steph to help him on a mission, and they actually have a very cute bonding moment, which we will never see again for a long time because Batman is a dick. Anyway, he forces her and Batgirl to stay with Oracle (Barbara Gordon, also used to be Batgirl but was crippled by the Joker) because the Joker is way too much for them. This changes, however, when they believe that Tim was murdered. Nightwing (Dick Grayson, also the original Robin) runs off to avenge him, while Batman, Huntress, and Steph follow. It turns out that Tim is alright though, and he goes after them too. They run in after Nightwing basically beats the Joker to death, but they manage to revive him. Nightwing leaves in shame, saying that he failed them all by essentially giving the Joker what he wanted-- making them kill him even though he came back.
Some time after this mess, another mess appears! Bruce Wayne has been convicted for murder! Steph, not knowing that Bruce is Batman, is seriously confused as to why the Bat gang is so obsessed with this case. She also doesn't understand why Batman has suddenly disappeared, and believes that he just abandoned them. Oracle asks Black Canary to help out with Steph's situation at home. Steph asks her why is everyone so bent out of shape with trying to prove Bruce's innocence and if she knows Batman's identity, which she replies that she doesn't. Black Canary then rushes into the house and... pretty much just beats them up, and threatens to get the Justice League (basically the BAMF organization of the hero world) to get on their asses if they ever come back. Lo and behold, they leave.
With the mystery surrounding Bruce still going, Steph begins having more and more doubts about her position in the group. While she is considered a member of the team, she doesn't really feel a part of it; they all know one another's secret identity, and most importantly, Batman's. She starts to wonder if they even trust her at all, and if it's because of her connection to the Cluemaster that they keep her at arm's length. She and Tim have more shenanigans involving a woman who can make you feel ~*~EMOTIONS~*~ via her scent. It makes sense. During this, though, Steph is reminded of a man named Jim Murray who used to hang out with her father, and was the worst of all his friends despite not being a costume villain. Remember this, because it comes back later! A little bit later, Black Canary fires Steph from working with the Birds of Prey, saying that she should go back to hanging out with the Bats. And around this time, Batgirl starts training her.
But things can't get worse, right? Wrong! Steph's dad is dead. Mysterious men come to her house one day to tell her, and say that he died as a hero. His death makes her mom forgive all his misdeeds instantly, but Steph is still torn about it. She eventually tells Tim the story of Jim Murray-- the guy who became her sort of babysitter. When her parents went away for a weekend to check her mother into a rehab center, it was the first time Murray was watching her for more than just a few hours. And he tries to molest her, she bites him, and runs off. She was about eleven. When she told her father about this, he said he didn't believe her. So, when she started the whole Spoiler gig, one of the first things she did was track down Murray... and she found out that he had died eight days after the incident. Steph wanted to ask her father if he was the one who had killed him, and if he knew that he was a pedophile, and right when she decided to do it, he died. She also admits that she's angry at her mom for being so forgiving, so she has been living in motels. Tim tells her to go back home to work it out with her mother, and she does not listen.
Since the last person that her father was in contact with before he died was the Riddler, Steph tracks him down. She asks him questions and he, being the Riddler, just answers with. Well. Riddles. She attacks him then leaves. After that she goes on other adventures like beating bad guy butt and uncovering a plot to destroy Gotham financially. Also, I would like to point out that by this point in time Bruce was proven innocent, but how that went down had very little to do with Steph, so!
But even with Batman back in the picture, he still has been avoiding Steph. One night she decides to follow him, and that ends horribly because following the Batman is hard. She asks him why he won't train her anymore since he told her that she had what it takes, and he said that he was wrong. He does give her a chance though-- if she can find the location of a potential bomber in a couple of hours, he'll go back to training her. And Steph works as hard as she can to track him down, and she thinks that she finally found it! But he wasn't there, she was wrong, and it turns out Batman knew the real location the entire time. And with that, he tells her to quit, and leaves. He later tells Batgirl to quit training her as well, which she very sadly does.
Then some more stuff happened that includes Secret attacking Steph again, but the latter has no memory of that event so it doesn't really matter. What does matter is when Tim's father finds out that he's Robin and, even more, the identities of everyone else in the club. Tim manages to get his dad to agree to not reveal the secret, but he also resigns from being Robin. With Tim off the job, Steph thinks that this is a great way to get back in the team. She makes her own makeshift Robin costume, somehow sneaks back into the Batcave, and asks Batman to give her the job. And, for some reason, he does. And so for over a month, Steph is the new Robin, working alongside Batman! There are a few conditions though, one being that if she disobeys him even once then she's fired. They're mostly trying to track down a killer who is targeting young boys from around 14-17 and who, GASP, look like Tim. They realize that someone wants to kill the previous Robin. They finally find the killer and go against her, but Steph disobeys an order and the woman gets away. And true to their agreement, Batman fires her.
And then the War Games arc happened and I like to pretend that it didn't. Uh. Stephanie is still determined to prove herself worthy to Batman! On his computer, he has a list of emergency plans-- basically ways for him to save Gotham if he has no other choice aka LAST LAST LAST LAST LAST CASE SCENARIOS. And Steph stole one of these plans, thinking that if she can pull it off that Batman would rehire her. The plan was to reunite the different gangs of Gotham under one man: Matches Malone. So she sets it in motion, and there is a tiny flaw; Malone never shows up because he is Batman in disguise. Without him, the mob bosses all start shooting at each other, which starts the bloodiest gang war that Gotham has ever seen. Steph confesses all of this to Catwoman (Selina Kyle, acquaintance of Batman) who is shocked to find out how little Bruce trusted Steph considering that he didn't even tell her that.
Selina drops Steph off at her friends' place, and then goes to tell Leslie Thompkins (a doctor who knows Batman's secret) what happened since she promised she wouldn't tell Batman directly. Important: Leslie does not approve of Bruce being the Batman and his methods. Meanwhile, the gang war is going crazy, and Tim even comes back as Robin to help. Around this point, Batman realizes that everything is going according to one of his plans so he devises a way to stop it.
So, Steph sneaks out and she has a plan. She realizes that the only way to save the day is to find Orpheus (Gavin King, someone working undercover for Batman). He's the center of the entire plan, and with his help they can stop the war. But right when she reaches him, she's greeted by Black Mask (another villain) slitting his throat. He has been using the confusion to take control of Gotham's underground. He and Steph fight and she ultimately loses, and he takes her to his hideout where he then tortures her with various tools like a power drill. When he leaves, she manages to get out of her bonds and starts heading toward the exit. He returns before she can escape though, but she attacks him. Black Mask remarks that if she had fought with this kind of determination in the beginning, she wouldn't be in this mess. Steph replies that it's because she finally understood what Batman had been trying to teach her all this time: This wasn't a game. She gets a hold of his gun, threatens to kill him, but in the end she can't. Black Mask, disgusted with the fact that she couldn't do it, shoots her then lets her go.
Black Mask leaves, and he and Batman fight in a battle that ends the war. Both escape, although Black Mask leaves with the upper hand; Batman has lost the trust of the people. Meanwhile, Steph made it to Leslie's clinic, and Batman goes to see her. Dying, she asks Batman if she was ever truly Robin, and he says yes. She says that she's happy because it means that she was really a part of the legacy, and then she dies. But, as you may have noticed, I am apping her as Batgirl! So the story ain't over yet, folks! We find out that Leslie could have saved Stephanie's life, but instead she withheld treatment to prove a point to Batman, and make him quit. Obviously, he does not see it her way at all and ends up exiling her from the United States, threatening that if she ever steps foot in it again that he'd persecute her to the fullest extent of the law.
And then follows a period of time where basically no one but Batgirl misses her. She doesn't even get a memorial in the Batcave, which is a custom for Batman's sidekicks! Whenever Batgirl nearly dies, she keeps seeing visions of Steph, but other than that... yeah, it's like an unspoken rule not to bring her up. To be fair, it was also an unspoken rule not to bring Jason Todd, the second Robin, up after he died. But he at least got a memorial so. BUT all of this doesn't matter because it gets retconned that she didn't actually die at all because the only thing that DC likes more than killing off its characters is retconning their histories.
So, as it turns out, apparently Leslie faked Stephanie's death and then took her to Africa with her. Which is stupid since not even her mom knew. But Stephanie felt that it was like running away so she returned to Gotham where she stalked Robin and stuff. Finally he and Batman confronts her, and Batman admits that he had a feeling she wasn't dead all this time and that's why she didn't have a memorial. Retcon retcon retcon. She asks him if she can be back on the team, and he tells her if she wants to. Meanwhile Tim is as confused as the rest of us are. They return to their life of kicking ass together, but Steph notices that Tim is... different. But considering that she's been gone for over a year, that's expected!
During the R.I.P. arc, Batman has gone missing and Tim suspects that he has gone insane. When he tells this to Steph, she responds by... laughing hysterically at the idea. Tim, however, insists that he's right and goes to extreme lengths to find the Bat, while Steph follows him around very disapprovingly. Meanwhile, the Teen Titans are recruiting for new members after they've lost a few. The Titans is a group that Tim is a member of after Young Justice disbanded. Anyway, Tim invites Steph to go with him for moral support because he's planning on quitting the team to deal with the Batman fiasco. And the time there was super awkward for Stephanie considering that she and Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandsmark) both dated Tim.
Pictured above: Awkward.
Before Batman disappeared, he asked Stephanie to make Tim a better Robin. So to do this, she set up a test-- sort of like the one Batman did for her, only this one had a better success rate. The problem was that a lot of other stuff happened during that time too, like a gang war, which overcomplicated things. At the end of it all, Tim learns a new way how to handle things, while things between him and Steph pretty much splinter almost completely. He tells her to quit being Spoiler for good.
With Batman gone, things in Gotham have changed (he was "killed" by a god called Darkseid). Dick has gone from Nightwing to the new Batman, with Damian Wayne (Bruce's son) as the new Robin. Meanwhile Tim, convinced that Bruce is still alive and is somewhat hurt about being replaced by Damian, goes off to search for Batdad. He takes up the mantle of Red Robin. Before he leaves though, he and Steph have a confrontation where they argue about what he's doing. She remains as Spoiler despite his disapproval. One day, Cassandra suddenly takes off her Batgirl costume and hands it to Stephanie, saying that she quits. Steph decides, what the hell, and becomes the new Batgirl. It takes other people about five seconds to realize this, considering that Cass was trained as an assassin and defeated the world's greatest martial artist in battle. Barbara is against it, and repeatedly tells Stephanie to step down, but she eventually earns her approval as well as a brand new costume!
Barbara as Oracle and Steph make up Team Batgirl! And they're ready to kick some ass except Dick Batman (I am just going to call him Dickman for the remainder of this app because it's funny) and Damian don't exactly approve. Dickman basically grounds Steph and Damian, and the two of them team up to save the day. Not willingly, but still. Stephanie also meets Supergirl (Kara Zor-El) and it's the beginning of a very, very beautiful friendship that consists of both of them teasing Damian. Eventually Steph runs into Tim again when he finally returns to Gotham after many months in Europe. After an adventure involving battling against Damian's grandfather, Ra's al Ghul, Tim tells the gang that Bruce is indeed alive. He's just. Lost in time. Yeah.
And then Bruce comes back. After a series of events that have nothing to do with Stephanie so I don't have to explain it here thank god it's so confusing, he returns to Gotham! However, he doesn't reveal himself right away-- he visits each of his Batfamily people, and sort of tests them to see what they're like. When he "tests" Stephanie however, she figures out that it's him and then slaps him. To ruin the badass moment of slapping THE GODDAMN BATMAN, she runs away. She tells Bruce that no matter how much he might hate her being Batgirl, it's something that she will never give up, and he should just accept it. Bruce agrees, and says that he thinks she's doing a great job. Cue happy Steph. We also find out that the reason that Cass gave up being Batgirl was because Bruce told her to for Steph's sake.
Anyway Bruce eventually becomes Batman again, but Dick is also Batman so there's TWO Batmans. And Bruce starts something called Batman Incorporated, where he reveals a stunning revelation to the world: I am Iron Man Bruce Wayne has been funding Batman. Batman Inc. is a way for him to have his network extend all over the globe, yadda yadda. On the Steph front, Babs "retires" as Oracle (notice those quotations!) and basically, Steph is back to working on her own. Her time as Batgirl is spent arguing with Damian, getting framed for murders, juggling college work, and always having a witty reply handy.
Personality:
Steph is a breath of fresh air in the Bat family. While a large percent of the others major in brooding and taking things way too seriously, Stephanie prefers to look at things differently. She has fun at what she does! She cracks jokes, is energetic, and she loves her witty banter. She's the one who will be making fun of a bad guy even when he's overpowering her, and she won't hesitate to point out the ridiculousness of a situation. She highly enjoys teasing people, whether it's Damian, Tim, or Bruce himself. She's a flirt! Although she doesn't go chasing around after guys like she did in her early days coughtimcough anymore. While she can be goofy, she is still very determined. When she gets knocked down, she gets right back up. When people tell her no, she'll go against them to prove why she deserves a yes. Hell, she probably would have made a great candidate for a Green Lantern, but that is besides the point here. She's fiercely loyal, and will do anything to protect the people she loves. She's resourceful, intelligent, and a very good learner! As long as she's focused, at least.
But it took her a while to get there. While Steph has no problem with having fun with her work, she is still that same girl who desperately wants approval. The difference between her days as Spoiler and Robin compared to her days as Batgirl, though, is the fact that she already has it. So at this point it's more like she's proving it to herself that she's right for the job. She fears failure because she doesn't want everything that she has worked so hard for to be taken away again. Even though Bruce approves of her now, she knows that if she makes a mistake like with what happened in War Games again, that it'd be all over for her. So each day is a struggle for her to try to show the world that there is no reason to doubt her abilities.
She does have a bit of an anger issue though, but she has gotten much better control of it after her time in Africa. She also has figured out her own morality; before she didn't understand what was the point in saving the life of a bad guy, but by now she fully follows Batman's code of No Killing. She can be kind of paranoid, especially in matters of the heart (she was convinced that Tim was cheating on her like fifty times). She also lets things cloud her judgment, but again, she's gotten a lot better at controlling this. Another one of her problems is the fact that she tends to do things without really thinking them through-- again, she's gotten better, but she still has a while to go. Example: Slapping Batman.
While she still has a boatload of issues to work out with herself, Stephanie has really grown from a girl who wants to save the world with no idea what she's doing, to a girl who actually can. It might take her a while to get everything completely together, but she's finally completely content with her life since she finally got what she always wanted: Her companions' trust and support. So now all she has to do is kick ass and take names then kick ass some more.
Why should that character be in this game: HOLY
Why do you want to continue their history here: APP
For applicants considering an alternate version of a character already in game, please use this as your chance to explain the key differences between your character and the one already in play: BATMAN
Have you read up on how the game works?:
FlamingFerret, missions, mooching, stealing, and wow I have answered this question way too many times by now.
1st person sample:
Where's the manual to this thing?
[ a moment later, the video kicks in, and the view is of a blonde girl with her face pressed very closely to the camera. She is wearing a cape and cowl for some reason. Once she realizes it's on, she backs away. ]
So, uh, space? Is this where Superman flies in and kicks butt and stuff? I've always joked that you can't call yourself a superhero until you've been to space, but that wasn't really an invitation for all of this to happen. I mean, what's next, Martians come and attack us? No offense to all the nice and green ones, by the way! Nice going, Batgirl. The last thing I need right now is to have someone with superpowers angry at me for a joke...
[ there's awkward laughter, and then a moment or two of her fiddling with the Guide. ]
If there's any Bats around, I'm here. And if there's not-- well, won't be the first time I've been left alone.
Though I gotta admit, the view's pretty nice from here.
3rd person sample:
Holy spaceship Batman! What kind of mess was she in now? Steph was relatively used to the world ending. It happened, what? Every few months? Weeks? She's positive that somewhere in the world, last week, there was most likely a doomsday plot happening in some corner of the globe. And, in some way or other, the day was always saved. Maybe not perfectly-- hell, definitely not perfectly-- but the Earth would always still be there in the morning.
And that's why she can't wrap her head around this. Earth couldn't have been destroyed. There was no red skies (there is always red skies) or screams or superheroes trying to save the day. There was nothing. One minute, she was rushing to her English class, and the next she was signing forms for some very rude aliens. Was that how it ended? Years of protecting people, all destroyed in not even a second?
She knows that she's not in the big leagues. She can hold down the fort in Gotham, but against the villains that give even Wonder Woman a run for her money? Steph knows that there was no way that she, as Batgirl, could have prevented this from happening. But she still felt crummy about the whole thing anyway. It's better to have tried and failed, or something like that, the saying goes. So having the news delivered from an uncaring and, as un-PC as it sounds, ugly creature, it was like a punch in the face.
So when she enters her new room, she doesn't greet her roommates in her normal tone. She simply nods, and goes straight to her bed. Not to sleep or cry, but to figure out how this Guide thing worked; she wanted answers, and she wanted them now.
It just might take her a while to turn it on.
Questions?: /NEVER APPS AGAIN
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