RETRO EWAY APP APPARENTLY I don't know what I'm doing.

[teenwonder]

DISCLAIMER: This is an app from August 2009. I'm sorry for anachronisms regarding current RP conventions and styles.

Name: Jessie
LJ: hinagiku
E-Mail: jessie[AT]kawaii.nu
IM: AIM: vioia

Character Name: Dick Grayson Robin
Series: Teen Titans
Timeline: post-Aftershock I
Canon Resource Link: Have a little WikiA
Character Background: In the land of That Which Must Never Be Uttered, there was once a circus. The trapeze artists, The Flying Graysons, were a popular attraction, a loving couple and young son who flew through the air with the greatest of ease. This was, of course, before the son was forced to watch his mother and father's murder. A stunt was attempted, a rope was cut.

To this day, Dick isn't sure how to reconcile his subjective memory with the objective fact of events. He doesn't remember screaming, though he heard the sound. He doesn't remember the bodies, though he is perpetually haunted by the image of their fall.

Though the circus family would have gladly taken him in and raised him communally, Dick was instead swept into the questionable care of Bruce Wayne, and ushered into the intense regiment that comes with living with the Batman. Where before Dick was simply a flexible, nimble performer, the 18-hour workouts quickly became apparent on the boy's lithe frame. Eventually, he earned a spot as the Batman's sidekick and brightly-costumed decoy Robin. The exploits of Batman and Robin are a story of their own, of hard work, hard lessons, and sometimes blind hero worship. In truth, even though it was difficult to keep up with schoolwork, homework, and the long, sleepless nights spent having strangers punch him in the face, the Robin work was exhilarating in a way nothing else could match. Being Robin was life without a net, using his time to assure that other children would be spared from losing their parents in the way Dick lost his own. Yet there is only so much intensity a boy can take before it bleeds into his sense of normalcy. While Dick never really had a point of reference for a "normal" childhood, it was clear within the Wayne household that Batman and Robin were the residents there, who used Bruce and Dick as masks to facilitate their crimefighting goals. Robin wasn't aware of the exact moment when he lost touch with the little acrobat who just wanted to help people, but the effect was profound nonetheless.

Yet life with the Batman can only be sustained for a limited time. As he entered his teens, Robin found himself arguing with Batman more than he agreed. In a fit of adolescent growing pains, the boy engaged his adoptive father in a fight neither could finish. Frustrated and ready to leave, Robin left the relative safety of Batman's care to protect a city of his own, the sunny, coastal Jump City. Though he intended to fight crime and restore order to the city alone, an encounter with several superpowered beings quickly taught him that, contrary to the solitary ways practiced by his mentor, a team could be stronger than a one-man crimefighting machine. At first, Robin gave them a means of communication. From there, it was only natural to band together and create the Teen Titans.

Though the Titans provided Robin with a stable, family-like environment in a way he hadn't experienced since his days in the circus, Robin still found it difficult to trust his teammates. He continued to be squirrelish, obsessive, overly analytical, and secretive long into their relationship, with his mistrust serving to hinder them on more than one occasion. Particularly when it comes to the villain Slade, the ghosts of Robin's past tend to set his blinders into place and lead him to indulge his instinct, attacking his problems headfirst and without help. At first, he created an alternate persona, the Red X, to act as a petty thief used to infiltrate Slade's organization. Later, he allowed himself to be pressured into accepting a position as Slade's apprentice in order to spare the Titans' lives from a certain deathtrap. In both cases, his plan to run solo proved spectacular failures, dwarfed under his bravado and refusal to take the easy path of accepting his imperfections. It has been a slow, steady road for Robin to gradually accept the Titans into his personal space. Where before they were coworkers, time has steadily ebbed at Robin's defenses, leaving him just vulnerable enough to accept them as friends. He smiles now, sometimes.

And yet, where one allows oneself to trust, one also leaves an open window for betrayal. The Titans once embraced a young superpowered teen, Terra. The trust proved mistaken, as Terra used her connection with the team to allow Slade's forces to infiltrate the Titans' home tower. Barely after Terra's initial deception had time to scab over and begin healing, she returned to them, this time as Slade's new apprentice, marrying two of Robin's deepest fears: the dark, bullying father figure and the loved one who would unhesitatingly prove false. Battles divided the team, and its members were picked off one after another. Robin found himself the last Titan standing, engaged the Terra he once called "friend"...

And lost.

And so he shall wake in Wonderland, freshly forced to reconcile the genuine joy in friendship brought to him by those who came before while still remembering how people are never, under any circumstances, to be trusted.


Abilites/Special Powers: Robin has no special powers, in the traditional sense. He was never bitten by a radioactive wombat, nor is he secretly the last son of an exploding planet. Robin's only real "power", per se, is a simple line that seems self-explanatory. Robin was trained by Batman.

Because of this, he has worked himself into an example of peak human condition. His body is the lithe frame of a gymnast, conditioned to be quick to react, able to endure most mundane tortures, and trained to utilize the human body's many pressure points to maximize the effectiveness of his fighting. Robin is also a skilled close-range combatant. He has trained in a variety of martial arts, and is proficient with a retractable bo staff he keeps on his person at all times. When battle calls for a longer distance, Robin also possesses a large retinue of "birdarangs," stylized projectile weapons. As a trained detective, he also has a superhuman cynicism about him.

Third-Person Sample:

It wasn't that Robin thought people were lying about this place, about its permanence. It was perfectly plausible for them to think themselves limited by the fantasy land stretching as far as the eye could see. The problem, for Robin, was that most of the people he was encountering were too complacent, too willing to continue on with whatever games this mansion decided to play. Robin was not a fan of playing other people's games.

There had to be something logical about the setting here. As Robin considered magic the least plausible of all available options, that meant technology was coming into play somehow. There were no visible cameras or wiring, but that just meant someone was concealing things well. And all that talk of mirror universes and wicked queens and bipedal anthromorpized animals, while not completely unexpected, could also be explained with the mundane. Simple holograms could explain most of it, though that did nothing to discredit the accounts of people claiming they'd been on the other side and had their mischief-causing doppelgangers venture amongst their friends. No, that fable was most likely true, at least partly.

And then there was the matter of that girl who had no eyes.

The only way to get answers to his questions would be to discover things on his own. It would have to be done at the dead of night, when there would be less traffic and fewer eyes to witness his investigation. He would go without the other Titans, and simply fill them in on what he discovered upon his return. If it was something they needed to know, anyway. As far as Robin was concerned, Starfire, Terra, and Beast Boy were captives here as much as the other strangers, and required saving more than they needed to participate in the rescue.

For now, he simply crept along a long hall, occasionally running gloved fingers along the closest wall in search of hidden seams or a sudden hollowness. There just had to be something concrete to explain all this.

First-Person Sample:
I think I've gleaned enough about this place and its residents from reading your posts. I suppose I ought to introduce myself.

I'm Robin. I come from the same world as Starfire, Terra, and Beast Boy. Pleased to meet you, as much as I can be pleased after finding myself kidnapped by a... sentient mansion?

In any case, it looks like we'll be spending some time with each other for a while. Here's hoping it's not a long while.

[[OOC: From the FAQ, I get the impression that the journals work like portable LJs -- that does mean that older public posts would still be viewable to interested parties? Robin can be kind of a creeper and enjoys his research and I figure he'd stalk everyone's journal before saying hi. Is that kosher? If not, I can totally redo the first-person sample. <3]]

[[ NEW MATERIALS FOR DECEMBER 2017 ]]

Name: Jessie
DW username: n/a
E-Mail: jessie[AT]kawaii[DOT]nu
IM: AIM is officially dead right?
Plurk: eljkofantastico

Other Characters:
Leo Fitz | hypoxic
Jason Scott | stereotypicaljock

Third-Person Sample:

He arrives to fireworks. People are celebrating. It's an obvious insult, an attack on his sensibilities and his tragedies alike. This is what happens when he lets people get close. This is why he shouldn't have let any of them in. If they're hurt, if they're bleeding out and die before he can reach them, then it's on his head. He'll have to hold on to that for the rest of his life.

If there's even a rest of his life coming. Maybe he's already dead and this is all the afterlife has planned for him.

He investigates in silence for hours, absorbing everything he can. He'll hide in high places and low shadows, learning people's faces and watching their interactions. This one is friends with that one. That one drinks too much, and that other one takes care of them. When names are uttered, he commits them to memory. The powered ones will be a problem if this is Slade's territory. It means he spends time examining them for flashes of weakness, for anything that might prove useful. There are kids here. They'll need to be protected, if it comes down to that. Whatever's happened to them probably isn't their fault. It probably isn't their fault even though they're celebrating. Partying, as if people haven't just died.

He'll spy on them for hours, until someone comes too close to a vantage point. It's only then that he'll leap from the shadows in a tackle, speaking in a low growl.

"I've got questions. You're going to be cooperative and answer them."

He assumes raw intimidation will work well enough. Most people tend to back down when faced with confrontation. He fully intends to assume the worst of everyone until something gives him a reason to believe otherwise. He doesn't have much hope that any of them will turn out trustworthy. His faith in humanity is circling the drain at the moment.


First-Person Sample:

[Handwritten entry]

Given certain events, it's starting to look like I'll be making my notes on lower-tech than I'm used to working with. Writing on physical media feels incredibly insecure, but I'll have to make do with the resources available to me. The only real tech that works here is cycled back through an internal network. Probably reviewed by the powers that be. It can't be trusted. None of it can.

ᴙ. Terra has gone rogue. I doubt I'll need a note to remind me about this in the future, but in the event this is some sort of prison dimension intended to drain me of recent memory, it needs to be in writing. Slade has taken Terra as his new apprentice. She picked off the team one by one, until we fought and I lost let her think she had the upper hand. She needed to think she won to give me time to find the others and regroup.

ᴙ. The other Titans might be dead. I'd like to give them more credit than that, but the possibility is very present and very real.

ᴙ. This place calls itself Wonderland, and seems for all intents and purposes to be filled with captors from a myriad of other dimensions. While not implausible, the inmates [villagers?] here have kept extensive notes and theories about local histories generally accessible. It's unlikely that they think they're lying, even if they're totally wrong.

ᴙ. People have mentioned Batman on the network, but I haven't been able to find a network trail leading directly do him. That is so like him. Possibly too like him. It would be just like Slade to construct a dummy Justice League to throw me off. It wouldn't be impossible.

ᴙ. But following the theory that Slade has manufactured the Justice League's image here: Why? Why them and not the Titans? Is it because he assumes I'll be less able to find flaws in his creations when I'm less intimately familiar with the subjects? It could explain why Batman is mentioned but never seems to directly speak himself.

ᴙ. Motive??? This could be a training simulator. Maybe it's an elaborate puzzle I'm supposed to work my way out of. He could be holding the others captive as some kind of cheese at the end of a rat race. I could play along for the time being, but would that be giving him too much time to work? I'm only going to get one shot at this.

For all the information available here, there's nothing concrete. I think I'm running out of time. If anything happens to Starfire, I'll

[The last line is written halfway, then scratched out entirely.]

[ AN ADDITIONAL SAMPLE FOR JANUARY 2018 ]

[He's been avoiding posting to the network for ages now. It leaves a footprint that he doesn't like considering. If he acknowledges he's here, then it'll eliminate ambiguities he doesn't appreciate. He's not thrilled with the way it chooses to identify users. But times are hard, and the population isn't getting any safer. He'll adjust his mask and start a video feed, looking squarely into the camera.]

Hey. I know there've been some differences between groups lately. Some of you want to organize something official. Others want to work alone. Nobody trusts anyone else to get it done the right way. And I get it. I do. You have no reason to trust me, aside from my word.

But before you start fighting, I want you to think about what's coming up. Think about the people who can't take care of themselves. We all know one person who's going to need help getting around, or needs a delivery of food and water if we have to live off the land. If there's something big, those of us who can fight the big things will fight the big things. But for the rest of you? Think about the one person who needs the extra help. Help that one person. If everyone takes care of one other person, then there's a good chance we'll make it out of this one all right.

We don't have time to keep arguing. The event's in a few hours. Worry less about doing what's right and more about keeping one person alive. Helping each other is the right thing.