batsfrightenme

One hand giveth and one hand taketh away, or...something. I haven't seen Rachel lately. There's somewhere I can confirm someone having left?

So how about that sleepless couple of nights, huh? Worst nightmares of my life. Crazy stuff. I'm still catching up on sleep. On the other hand, it's almost kind of a comfort. Everyone knows how it feels like to be scared out of their pants by their own minds once in a while, I guess.

So this place is run by 'deities.' Anyone ever talked to them? Hear they grant wishes or something; how crazy is that, huh?

So what can everyone tell me about the police force and stuff around here? Just out of curiosity.




Found some office work at a temping agency. Not so bad, if I say so myself, although I never imagined me working a job like that. Bruce Wayne: Secretary has a certain ring to it, though.

This means we can have that coffee sometime, Rachel. Maybe you should come have one with me too, Kara.

Is this thing on? The light's on. Is it on?

[ a hollow tap-tap-tap, followed by microphone feedback. ]

Cool. Sorry. This is my first time. Performance anxiety, you know? Anyway.

Hi. My name's Bruce. Bruce Wayne. Maybe you've heard of me, right? But that's not the point. The point is, this, all of this, it's new to me. I've never really...been away from my support people, if you know what I mean. Butler. Driver. Groundskeeper. You know the drill. You could say I'm a little spoiled actually, and definitely not ashamed.

Apparently things change. I've sort of found myself, well-- here, first of all. And I've sort of found myself completely broke off my formerly incredibly wealthy ass.

[ a soft chuckle, curiously smarmy yet honest, is followed by a pause. ]

What I'm trying to say is...I think I need lessons.

Normal person lessons.

Any takers?


[ooc: so Bruce arrived in the city a few weeks ago, and has figured all out on his own by now. he spent most of those two weeks in his Batman costume, which he arrived in. Feel free to assume your character has seen Batman around, but probably not Bruce until v. recently.]

Her hands were soft on his, her face warm, caring, bright against a pastoral background, the land surrounding Wayne Manor so different from the reaching decay of Gotham City; his father's land so different, so untouched even through the smell of char and hot stone. She stood there, giving him an opening, a way out at the end of it all. All of the fighting and the struggling. She had been there for Bruce, guiding him. As a childhood friend. As an adult, with values, so like his and yet so different. Each, in their own way, looking toward tomorrow by focusing on today. Each, in their own way, a part of Thomas Wayne's legacy.

His voice, earnest, left his lips, pliant.

"I was a coward with a gun. Justice is about more than revenge, so. Thank you."

Her hands were soft, but his hands were calloused. Calloused by work that Bruce had never done, could never accomplish on his own. Work for Batman.

Isn't that what Ra's had suggested? That Bruce was simply a man, an ordinary man in a cape. The son of a great man, the friend of a great woman, but so far as the public was aware, simply a man who could not do much to fight injustice on his own. A man that had made sacrifices-- his home, his honesty, a woman he loved and always had. Bruce recalled the earlier part of the day, sitting in the back seat of a car in Gotham, reading a newspaper. He recalled Alfred's amusement, his words, though suddenly the words had deeper meaning, perhaps intended. Suddenly they had leaden weight and real tangibility.

Batman may have made the front page, but Bruce Wayne got pushed to page eight.

Was it true? It was. So long as Batman existed in Bruce's life, so long as part of Bruce's life was spent being the Batman, devoted to the Batman, he would always sacrifice that time, that energy, that part of his heart and mind. So long as Batman existed in Bruce, part of Bruce couldn't. Time. Money. Devotion. So long as Batman was seen, Bruce Wayne wasn't. For every time that the Batman made the front page, Bruce was pushed to page eight.

Rachel's eyes lifted toward his own, and before the words could leave her mouth, he knew that she was going to confirm the things which Bruce, deep in his mind, had already grasped a hold of-- just barely. She was going to confirm the things which Bruce perhaps feared but which a part of him wholly recognized. The rest of him protested-- denied in the way that characterized his personality. His entire life had been a denial, that much he knew. Ra's had proven that much to Bruce, what seemed like ages ago and was on some level. Ra's had proven to Bruce that Bruce would struggle always to not fall into the trap of seeing only what Bruce wanted to see, hearing only what he wanted to hear.

He loved her. Her voice was soft. It was telling him these things which he didn't want to hear, but which that small part of him recognized. She made condemnation and offered salvation with the same lips, in the same sentence. She told him without telling him, it's up to you to read into this what you want, to get out of life what you want, to make the decisions that you want.

She wanted Bruce Wayne to come back to her.

The man I loved, the man who vanished, he never came back at all.

Was it true? It was. She wanted the man she loved to come back to her. But for now, Gotham didn't need Bruce Wayne. Gotham needed Batman; Bruce Wayne needed Batman.

"But maybe he is still out there somewhere. Maybe some day, when Gotham no longer needs Batman, we'll see him again."

He wondered if a false hope was still a hope at all. Did it matter?

[nick / name]: Lys
[personal LJ name]: bringmepie
[other characters currently played]:

mohinder suresh || heroes || orderonto
alex woolsly || heroes || feltlikeafreak
dean winchester || supernatural || shutupsammy
julio richter || x-factor || alittlecredit
robin goodfellow || the cal leandros series || winewomenand
morgan grimes || chuck || ifyourenasty
daniel "oz" osbourne || buffy tvs || ananticlimax

[e-mail]: lysandra.sylier@gmail.com
[AIM / messenger]: shinjiteeth @ y!m

[series]: Batman Nolanverse (Batman Begins + The Dark Knight)
[character]: Bruce Wayne | The Batman
[character history / background]: And why do we fall, Bruce? So we can learn to pick ourselves up.

[character abilities]:

Without his supplies and his money, Bruce is a normal man in very good health who is an excellent athlete, trained personally by Ra's Al Ghul and ninjas of the League of Shadows. He has little fear of heights or personal injury and is furthermore slightly above average in intelligence and educated at Princeton.


[character personality]:



the batman

Bruce Wayne is not the Batman, and the Batman is not Bruce Wayne. By learned necessity, the character of Batman is a part to be played by Bruce, one which is at once anonymous and immediately distinctive and memorable-- legendary. He is not a man in a suit, but a part of the suit, the mask. He becomes a beast, a different creature entirely. The story of Batman is supported on a foundation of Nietzsche-like warnings about those who hunt monsters and pillars of what can only be described as a primal fear which still lingers from times when fire was our best kept secret. Although Bruce Wayne is undoubtedly a hero, Batman is not one of the good people. He is the result of a man with fear who has risen above it, the weapon of a man who would confront his innermost nightmare and seek to become it as a totem of personal power.

In his search for an idealized other 'self,' Bruce frequently sacrifices the existence of Bruce Wayne at times in order to protect Batman, his terrible thought, his wraith. Others find much cause to remind Bruce that a man can't live just as a ghost and that Bruce can never fully sacrifice his other life, can never fully lose himself to the monster inside, for if Bruce disappears, Batman can no longer function. Childhood friend Rachel has also suggested that Bruce can no longer function without the driving force of Batman in his life.

The relationship of the two identities is deeply symbiotic.

the facade

Just as Batman is not Bruce Wayne, Bruce Wayne is not always Bruce Wayne. As a way of explaining away the suspicious activities his second life as the Batman forces him to act out, Bruce quickly comes to the decision to create an idiosyncratic, eccentric facade. Bruce Wayne is also the shallow playboy with too much money and youth and not enough sense, a man who is just as unpredictable and unreliable as the inner Bruce is obsessed. The question now becomes, what does Bruce Wayne do, the answer being, drive sports cars, date supermodels, and buy things that are not for sale. This presents a problem even as a solution; after all, if you present a picture of a foppish, aloof, unreliable sociality, eventually people-- people you may grow to care for --are bound to treat you as a foppish, aloof, unreliable socialite.

In the life of Bruce Wayne, it would seem, every sword has a double edge.

the vengeful youth

At one time in his life, Bruce's guilt was paralyzing, drowning, poisoning; the idea that his parent's death was his own fault, that if he hadn't been frightened at the opera that night they would have been alive. Slowly he began to wish that his parents were never there to be taken from him, began to hate their property, their name, their memory. Guilt was transformed into anger, an anger that was directionless. Bruce harnessed that anger, directing it into fuel.

Far from a confident, self-realized adult, Bruce is at heart a young man who is in a deep pain which he can find no balm for, attempting to find some kind of a personal answer and some kind of personal agency; control over a short life which seems to do nothing but shuffle him along. Shuffled is the truest word for it. Bruce's tireless search for what he sees as justice (something which others have accused of being a need for revenge) requires him to learn from what could only be described as the father figure that wasn't present for the majority of his life. Thomas Wayne (a kind-hearted philanthropist who eschewed violent behavior) and 'Ducard' (an unsympathetic man, didactic, violent and challenging) being the two counterpoints to Bruce himself, his real father figure is Alfred, a man who Bruce depends on utterly and who provides a near-constant source of unconditional love.

Perhaps there will always be a kind of confused child trapped in Bruce, an inability to truly move on from the singular moment of the death of his parents. It requires a manic intensity to maintain the passion and anger of a child's emotions. It requires immense effort. And after a time, to keep that intensity burning, one must refocus his energy and exorcise some of monsters from his closet.

After all, without that constant refocus and redirection of energy, anger quickly turns justice into vengeance.


the man of purpose

The one thing that Bruce is incapable of doing-- for the Batman's sake, for his sake, is to examine his own flaws. Constantly striving to do the right thing, the absolute right thing, not the moral right thing, incessant examination and re-examination of himself would be his death. He doesn't do it. This causes Bruce to require, in addition to Alfred's paternal and maternal love, the counsel and advice of outside forces. Rachel informs Bruce about Bruce Wayne's problems. Gordon informs Batman about Batman's problems. Lucius Fox serves as a guiding force, a moral compass which always points true north when the situation calls for an intervention.

He needs them all. He is older. He is angrier. He is discovering a purpose in life to grasp at with white-knuckled need, and Batman allows Bruce to strip away Gotham to view his canvas, a city to the tune of five murders a day. Cops for sale. And, as he grows, spends more time as the Batman, refines himself to learn how to fight not just statistics but the nightmare threats of today. Evil which threatens to kill us all at once, rather than one by one with a bullet.

However, just as the reality of the city he lives in and the situation he faces can provide Bruce with more of the anger that he feeds on, it also forces him to focus outward. To look beyond his own pain. Knowing and truly understanding the miserable, frightened, powerless situation of the people who surround him, Bruce and Batman alike can find compassion within themselves, a compassion which, in his own words, separates what Bruce does as Batman from what the criminals and monsters he fights do.

Because if there is one thing that Bruce has learned, it's that if it's personal, it's not justice. It's just revenge.





[point in timeline you're picking your character from]: The end of Batman Begins as Wayne Manor is being rebuilt, with plans to update to sequel The Dark Knight eventually.

[journal post]:



Is this thing on? The light's on. Is it on?

[ a hollow tap-tap-tap, followed by microphone feedback. ]

Cool. Sorry. This is my first time. Performance anxiety, you know? Anyway.

Hi. My name's Bruce. Bruce Wayne. Maybe you've heard of me, right? But that's not the point. The point is, this, all of this, it's new to me. I've never really...been away from my support people, if you know what I mean. Butler. Driver. Groundskeeper. You know the drill. You could say I'm a little spoiled actually, and definitely not ashamed.

Apparently things change. I've sort of found myself, well-- here, first of all. And I've sort of found myself completely broke off my formerly incredibly wealthy ass.

[ a soft chuckle, curiously smarmy yet honest, is followed by a pause. ]

What I'm trying to say is...I think I need lessons.

Normal person lessons.

Any takers?


[third person / log sample]:

He'd almost given up. He'd almost let himself die there, surrounded by the wreckage, the skeleton of the Wayne name amongst the smoke and fire; alone, pathetic. He'd thought, what if Ducard-- Ra's --was right. What if it was too late, if a single man could never make a difference in the lives of others. Then his life had no point or purpose, all of Bruce's hard work was meaningless. If you have all of the proof that you need that you're a man drowning, why struggle? Why not sink?

Why do we fall, Master Bruce?

Bruce was proven wrong. Proven wrong, and glad for it. Loved for it. Cool, steady hands; warm, caring voice. Alfred called him out of unconsciousness, instantly proved him wrong. Proved that you were never too late so long as you had a single breath left in you, that a single man would always make a difference in a life, even if it was just one single life, because you could always remind them that they weren't going it alone and that someone, somewhere, cared. That was worth it. Alfred encouraged him, supported his weight, saved Bruce. Effectually saved Batman. There was every reason now to do his damndest to return the favor.

So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.

Ra's had tried to convince Bruce at one time that what made criminals possible, truly possible, was that society was lenient. Willing to compromise with them, willing to try to help, rather than cut the bud off before it had a chance to flower. He had tried to convince Bruce that the only sure thing was a swift end. That justice was death. But that wasn't Bruce then, and it would never be Bruce. Society had judges and juries. Neither Bruce nor Batman would become an executioner. Ra's methods were useless to Bruce. Bruce who was all that was left now of the Wayne name, who was loved unconditionally. Who had someone in the world willing to save himself. And perhaps, in the end, Bruce had more in common with Thomas Wayne than he'd ever considered in all of his life, the resentment and the guilt burning away, evaporating in the toppling wreckage of Wayne Manor.

There was the difference between the two of them, Bruce and Ra's. Ra's lacked compassion.

Bruce lacked dogma.