RP History + CR + Changes

[studyinred]

Canon Character History:

In this world, superheroes are a rare breed. Years ago, they were forced into either retirement or service to the government — or jail, if neither of those options were desired. Batman chose to disappear, and he stayed gone for a full ten years. But still Gotham needed him, and the rising threat of a group calling themselves the Mutants beckoned him back into the cape and cowl. The Mutants are just kids, some barely in high school, but they're vicious. They pride themselves on how many they kill, and their leader releases an announcement to the press, one bragging about how they will soon bring Gotham to its knees and own it. A small group of them make to attack Bruce on the night of his retirement's anniversary, but back off when they see him "into it". Of course, what they'd really seen was the Batman in Bruce Wayne waking up again.

On Batman's night back on the job he saved two girls walking home from school from a couple of Mutants. One of those was a one Carrie Kelley, and it was in that moment that her admiration for the man in the batsuit began.

Carrie's own parents are neglectful and absentminded, shown as potheads (and worse) that do not much besides reminisce about their days as activists. Knowing that she won't be missed, Carrie takes it upon herself to make a Robin suit. Having had training at school as a gymnast, she promptly hits the streets — roofs, for the most part — to try her hand at being a Robin. In this world she has only two predecessors to look up to, and it's noted with some wariness that one of them met a decidedly unfortunate end on the wrong end of a crowbar. But this doesn't deter her, and after a shaky start she soon gets the hang of that rooftop highway so often used by the Batman and his associates. The next step, then, is finding the legend himself.

She catches wind of a Mutant meeting in the city dump, and guesses correctly that the Dark Knight himself will be there. Batman shows in a veritable tank, blasting his way (with rubber bullets, naturally) through the ranks of the Mutants until he reaches their leader. He takes on the hulk of a man in hand-to-hand combat, but his aging body isn't quite up to the task. Carrie introduces herself at the most opportune moment possible, deflecting a blow from the leader meant to end Batman. Half-delirious from exhaustion and the pain of his wounds, Batman brings Carrie with him back to the Bat Cave. Against Alfred's better judgment (and much to Carrie's utter delight), the girl is taken on as Robin.

She proves herself not only to be a competent and capable Robin, but to find nothing sort of absolute joy in the role. She was born to swing over the streetlight-lit streets of Gotham as the colorful, darting shadow to the Batman. She disobeys a few orders and saves Batman a couple times more before the book is over, and comes to regard Batman as a surrogate parent. Before the final page, her trust in him is absolute, and his trust in her is great enough to allow her to handle his own faked death at the hands of Superman.

Summary of previous RP history:

Back when she first showed up in Siren's Port, way long ago, Carrie was met with a pretty discouraging lineup. She found evidence on the Network of Joker, Poison Ivy, the Scarecrow, the Riddler, Killer Croc, and at least two others that I'm definitely forgetting. All them, and not a single Bat-anything in sight. It was kind of alarming! So, she did what any reasonable 14 year old girl would do. She went into paranoia lock-down. All of her posts and conversations with people were in text only, unless she made sure to heavily encrypt them first. She went only by Robin, but never mentioned Batman in public. She was careful.

It was too bad she didn't know to be wary of Black Mask. The guy didn't exist in her version of the world, what's a girl to do? She took him on after watching him shoot a homeless man to death, and the fight didn't go well. She was shot in the thigh, and would have been killed altogether if Naruto hadn't showed up at the perfect moment for a rescue. This lovely incident killed her self-esteem for a while, but what was there to do besides skulk around in the shadows some more and look for people to rescue?

It was around this time that she made friends with the people that would come to be pretty ridiculously important to her. Sherlock Holmes, whom she couldn't seem to leave alone for curiosity's sake. Griffin, whom she developed a highly embarrassing magic-mistletoe-induced crush on the first time she met. Jack Kelly, to whom she took a full year to finally give her real name. Edgeworth, the first really good lawyer she ever met. She-Hulk, who was a ridiculously impressive green lady that eventually left Robin in charge of the Avengers. Superman, who was terrifying in her own world, and the most comforting guy she could think of in this one. Sirius, who could manage to make her smile in any situation. Raven, who became her only crime-fighting friend against a world of rogues. And, of course, the Other Batman.

The first time she met this Bruce, he wasn't around long. Just long enough to train her, better arm her, and fill her in on all the universe-discrepancies she'd been missing, being from an alternate future. She was surprised to find him… well, nicer than the Bruce she'd come to know at home, but she didn't mind it. But this Bruce vanished pretty quickly, leaving only the Batsuit behind, and Carrie was back to being one Robin against an entire array of rogues.

It was in this gap between Batmans that she had her heart stolen. She'd been shot, she'd lost fights, she'd failed to save people from the Darkness. Nothing was quite as devastating as having her heart cut away—and subsequently, losing her emotions. She took to killing people. Not just anyone, of course. Ever logical Robin, unhampered by emotions, only killed the really bad criminals. Seven in total, and one in front of Sherlock Holmes, before her heart was restored to her. The knowledge of what she'd done left her a pretty miserable wreck for a few months, and she used what money she'd managed to save to pay support to what families of the men she could manage to locate. But she knew that telling anyone about it would mean reprehension, and so she kept it a guilty secret from all but the closest friends.

But, of course, upon the arrival of the next Bruce Wayne, he dug up her secret almost immediately. This Bruce came to the Port directly after his own death, and he was nowhere near the acceptance she'd found from the last guy. This one had to test her first. He was, in short, a dick. He berated her in front of Superman, he kept her from patrol, he denied her basically any form of communication or trust. And Carrie, eventually, stood up to that. She was here to save people, after all, not to be Batman's partner. And if striking out on her own and refusing to work with Batman anymore was what it took for her to save people, well, so be it.

It was the first time she got a smile out of him.

The two grew close over the months. In a hundred little events, Robin proved herself to Batman, and Batman endeared himself to Robin in ways she'd never have seen at home, from her own version of him. He encouraged her to take control of the Avengers when She-Hulk left, which Carrie did. He saved her from the Joker, when a few missteps brought her too close to him. And while he failed to save her from Sylar, no one could say he didn't do a damn good job taking him down afterward, at the cost of his own life. Even as other Bat-folk began to show up, including other Robins, current Robins, and Bruce's own son among them, he allowed Carrie to remain his Robin. And really, she couldn't ask for anything else.

And then the Core sent her away, and the Porter picked up where it had left off.

Carrie found herself in a strange city, by the name of only "the City". She'd kept the powers that she'd gained from the Core over in the Port, but the memories were a different matter. There was a strange sense of deja vu now and then, a dream about some close friend that she knew she'd never had at home. Odd, yes, but it hardly mattered. Carrie buckled down and got used to her new life, such as it was.

The first thing to deal with was the sheer abundance of Bat-related people. It was insane. There was a first Robin, a second Robin, a third Robin, a fifth Robin, a Batman from the past (to her, at least), a Batman from the future, three different Batgirls, and two Batwomen, all at various times in her stay in the City. It was a little overwhelming! The first one she really opened up to was Tim Drake, who was a nice enough alternative third Robin. He was also dating Superboy, who took her a while to get used to. Not only could she not stop equating him to the Superman she'd fought against at home, but their first meeting involved the influence of red Kryptonite. But differences were soon soothed, and it was Superboy that invited her to stay with the Teen Titans in their Tower. So… life wasn't so bad, really.

That was about when she ran into Jason Todd. She'd talked to him now and then on the Network, of course, but running into him in person… was a little unnerving. She put together almost immediately that he was the second Robin. The One Who Died. She'd only ever heard him discussed in hushed tones, to actually meet him in person was nothing short of amazing. They put together a plan to take down the Joker—a plan which was really more Jason using Carrie as bait, and Carrie not minding in the slightest. And so she promptly went to go stake out the Joker, to see what she was actually up against — and just as promptly got herself kidnapped. Joker wasted no time in breaking her legs with a crowbar and tucking her away in a creatively installed cistern full of lemon juice, alternatively freezing and boiling. She would have drowned, had Jason not busted in to perform a rescue. After this highly embarrassing event, there were two changes to be found in Carrie: she had a healthy respect for the Joker and other such dangers, and she had developed a starry-eyed case of hero worship for Jason Todd. Nevermind that it was technically his influence that had put her in that situation in the first place, he'd saved her. No one had ever felt so sturdy and strong as Jason did, as he carried her out of that warehouse and to go find a healer for her shattered legs.

But even as she was getting close to Jason Todd, who was far more a presence in her life than the busy and disconnected Bruce Wayne, and coming to think of him as her strongest ally against that intimidating array of Bat-folk, she was coming to know that future Batman better as well. It was easy to imagine a connection between them. He was from 2050, she was from 2030. He was a Batman without a Robin, she was a Robin without a Batman. Even their powers were similar—Carrie could lighten density, Terry could increase gravity. The better she got to know him, the more she liked him, and she was bound and determined to be his Sometimes Partner whether he liked it or not. And as determinedly Lone Wolf as Terry was, he eventually began to put up with it. It was a talk with Terry that had Carrie deciding that her next career choice, after she was done being Robin, was to be Batman. Not Batwoman, that would be changing a perfectly good name. No, she'd be Batman, and she happily announced the fact to the Network. It was on that post that she met the other Terry, Terry Ward, codename Trauma, who was a self proclaimed ward of Jonathan Crane.

Terry seemed like a pretty decent fellow, if emo and grumpy, and Carrie took it upon herself to free him from Crane's obviously terrible influence. Her main approach to this was simply to be his friend, and possibly invoke the Scarecrow's darker side with her presence. But eventually friendship with an ulterior motive became simply friendship, and Terry began to push Crane away for himself. Carrie couldn't have been more pleased.

And that was when Jason Todd Ported out.

Carrie had long since known that Jason was a killer. She'd simply never thought too hard on the fact. Because, well, if Jason was doing it, surely it couldn't be all that bad, right? Right. And it went to follow that if Jason was gone, then who was killing all those really awful people he usually took care of? Well, no one, that was who. Suddenly every crime report on the news felt like a personal failure on Carrie's part. If Jason had been around to take that guy down, he wouldn't have shot that convenience store clerk with the three kids. The only logical conclusion followed: Carrie would have to start killing them in his stead.

She knew just who to go to, too. Before he'd left, Jason had had a strange, silent girlfriend, who went only by Miho. Miho was the most effective fighter — and killer — that Carrie knew. So it was to her that Carrie went to learn how to kill a man, and Miho didn't disappoint. Carrie was a good replacement for Jason Todd. She might not have killed quite as often as him, but she took down at least two to three awful people a month. It wasn't without some highly conflicting sense of guilt, but when both Terrys Ported out to leave Carrie without any close friends — well, there wasn't exactly anyone to talk her out of it. When the Bat-folk-related girl named Misfit accused Carrie of not acting very Robinly, for not particularly caring what became of a criminal who had lost his hand and might bleed to death, Carrie knew she was right. She wasn't acting like a Robin. She was acting way more like Jason's Red Hood, in fact.

So she became Redbird, instead.

It was a change she tried to play off as natural progression. "No one stays Robin forever, so I'm changing to Redbird." Most people even seemed to accept it. But Tim knew better, when she told him she was moving out of the Tower, and in that quiet manner of his, informed her that if he needed to, he would take her down. Carrie decided it would be best to cut off contact with Tim. And even more terrifying than Tim, a Batman very briefly visited the City. He was there for just long enough to realize what Carrie was doing, and threaten her not so quietly. She escaped him, and he didn't peruse, but all of the sudden, Carrie knew precisely why criminals were so terrified of Batman. It was a relief when he Ported out again.

Dick knew better, too. She'd first been introduced to Dick by Jason, and he knew just how much she idolized him. He'd been making slow attempts to reach out to her, to change her course, and seeing her change from Robin to Redbird was, for him, a sign of failure on his part. He nonetheless made one more attempt to change her ways, and showed her the rebuilding family of a reformed criminal. A family that would have been shattered, had the man been killed, and not simply given jail time. Carrie rushed off in a flustered silence to think about it, and Dick took it as confirmation of his failure.

But it wasn't until Carrie got a partner of her own that she really came to a decision. She had recently enjoyed a depressingly quick succession of Jasons in her life, none of them remembering his previous time in the City, and Carrie was becoming an old hat at that disappointment. She even met a new Terry Ward, who remembered as little of their friendship as Jason did. But when Tavros Nitram showed up, and asked the Network how you were supposed to be a hero… well, how could Carrie not see her own earlier self in that? So she agreed to give him lessons, and was very careful to keep him away from the more lethal side of her work. Only she needed to see that, after all. It wasn't for still-innocent people like him. But as she got closer to Tavros, she began to realize that if she wouldn't teach someone else to kill, why was she doing it? Dick, ever trying to reach out to her, even in the knowledge that he'd failed, had managed to impress one important thing onto her: it could only be her decision.

So she decided to stop. It wasn't her place to decide to end the lives of these men. If given the choice between killing a criminal to save his hostage, and letting the hostage die— well, there was no real choice in that, of course she'd fire a lethal shot. But she wouldn't seek out people to judge anymore. That wasn't her place.

A new Jason had showed up by then, and even managed to stick around for a while. Carrie had offered him a room in her tiny shitty non-Tower apartment, and in doing so had accidentally taken him off of his pedestal. The guy was… just a guy, after all. He was a friend, and admirable, but not exactly the untouchable god she'd once considered him.

By the time Tavros had Ported out, Carrie was secure in her decision not to kill. And immediately after the disappearance of her friend and parter, the Terry Ward that she'd known before showed up. Just in time, Carrie had found herself a pretty damn balanced individual to welcome him back, which she did with way too many hugs. Jason and his girlfriend, along with a few mutual friends, had even begun to eye Carrie and Terry and wonder what was taking them so long to strike up a relationship. Of course, as the timing of RP and the god of cruel irony has it, it's literally the night after they decide to go on a date that Carrie, as Redbird, made her return to the Port.

Character Personality:

Carrie Kelley is a decisive girl. After being saved by a newly returned Batman, she decides to become Robin. She isn't sure how she'll find Batman and even less sure how she'll get him to take her on, but she has decided to become Robin and it's really just as simple as that. Her attempts at crimefighting are small things at first, breaking up gambling and drug rings armed with fire crackers and a slingshot, but she eventually does manage to find her way to Batman. All she can do at first is watch his fight, but when it becomes clear that he's in trouble, a burst of bravery sends her into the fray to lend an assist. Afterward, when the both of them have made it back to the Batmobile, she ignores Alfred's voice over the radio explaining that she really ought to just wait in the corner and leave the medical things to him, and splits Batman's arm herself.

It's from then on that Robin is on the job. She's glad to be taken on, but never says so quite in words. She leaves her feelings to actions (an enthusiastic hug for Bruce Wayne once he announces that she can stay on as Robin), and really speaks very little. When she does speak it's in short slang phrases, saying only as much as necessary and leaving her snark (of which there really is plenty) to be discovered and taken offense at or missed completely. Either way is fine with her, really. She's a fan of private jokes, and feels no need to explain them. Batman patronizes her once in regards to the helicopter, stating that it's voice-activated technology, and she wouldn't understand it. She accepts this with a shrug and a small smile, and later reprograms the entire thing to respond only to her slang commands. ("Ace the cloak, billy in close") She rebels against Batman's commands a few times, and isn't one to blindly follow orders. These times typically turn out to be for the best though, and her quick thinking and ingenuity keep Batman from being angry enough about it to fire her.

She does have a more serious side, though. While she's shown as continuously (if quietly) glad to be Robin, she has watched people die. She's watched children die -- her friends, even. The Joker's first task once out of Arkham was to kill an entire studio audience, but his second strike hit a little closer to home. Batman and Robin arrived at the fair too late to stop him, but not too late to see the bodies -- men, women, and most of all children -- that he'd left in his wake. Carrie knows the stakes of the game that she plays, and there's a solemnity behind the surface innocence.

But despite her capability, her willingness to put herself into dangerous situations, and her adaptability, Carrie is still only a young girl. She tries to be brave and in control, but there are moments she just can't. She fights one of the Joker's henchmen once, a large man with an obsession with girls and puppets, and begins to panic when he gets his hands around her neck. She's saved when a jolt of the roller coaster they're on flings him over the side and to his death, and she has to take a few minutes to suffer shock at it. It had been not only the first time she'd been in real close-to-death danger, but the first time she'd had a hand in a death. She snaps out of it when she sees that Batman is in danger though, and regains her senses just in time to save him. After this instance of helplessness she learns to handle fear better.

Toward the end of the story, Batman has attracted enough attention from the government that they feel the need to send out their biggest guns against him. That being, of course. Superman. Superman's challenge is issued in the form of a single word burned into the ground before Batman and Robin, and when Carrie asks what it means, Bruce turns to go and says only that it means she's fired. By then she knows him well enough not to take this at face value, and follows after him after a short few seconds. Batman has a plan, of course, and Carrie trusts him enough not to demand to know if it'll be okay, not to freak out when he says that yes, he figures he'll die. But above all, the snark, the perceived innocence, and the deeper worldliness, Carrie is a quick learner. She's not terribly skilled, and certainly inexperienced, but she's brave bordering on reckless, and willing to learn.

Personality development in previous games:

There have been some pretty significant changes that Carrie's been through since she was fresh from canon! In SP, she kept a little truer to how she started out. She developed more caution, and a stronger sense of responsibility. When Batman made her choose between being his partner, and being an effective crime fighter, she realized she was in the game for different reasons now. No longer was it just an exciting adventure to her, she was here to help people. Shocking, right? But it's still a pretty significant change in the girl who originally made the Robin costume just because it looked like fun.

Carrie also learned, between Sherlock and Bruce, to think for herself. While she was always willing to disobey orders if she had a better idea, she was always true to the spirit of what was asked of her. Now, even that can be up for debate, if she thinks there's an inherent flaw in it. Carrie became confident, calmer, more professional. All of that skulking around the rogues gave her a sense of self-preservation that she just didn't have in canon, and managing the Avengers for that brief while really aged her a lot. Responsibility, man! There's no surer way to speed up the aging of the inner child.

Being killed by Sylar, however—and especially seeing him kill Batman—made her colder. There's evil out there, there's loads of evil, and you're not going to beat it every time. Sometimes the odds really are insurmountable. And sometimes you're only alive because of a strange trick the Core plays, now and then. You could say that Carrie became more of a realist and less of a fantastical, brightly-colored crime fighter, after that.

As far as CnC went, she changed a lot there, too. She fell hard for the game of hero worship, especially in terms of Jason. Jason came to replace even Batman in her heart, while the Bruces of this other world were knocked down a few notches. But she learned a similar lesson from Dick that she did from the Bruce and Sherlock of the Port— that much-valued think-for-yourself lesson. If she kills people because Jason killed people, well, that's her decision. But it has to be hers. In a way, this lesson sank in even more deeply in the City than it did in the Port, if only because she had a chance to put it into use. It was one thing for Sherlock and Bruce to tell her to think on her own, but it was something else entirely to suddenly be responsible for the heroic education of a whole new person, and have to decide for herself which lessons to impart onto him.

Carrie struggled more, in the City. There was no easy "well, I was heartless, that's why I killed them" out for her. She had to take responsibility for every choice she made, positive or negative. And by the time she came out of the nearly year-long decision process, she came out surer of herself. To not kill anymore was solely her own choice, and she was allowed to step out of that dark place the uncertainty had held her in. She was allowed to resume her bright and cheery ways, even in the darker colors of her new costume. She may have picked up the new identity in a fit of what can safely be called self-loathing, but that didn't mean they had to stay that way. Just like Dick had originally forged the Robin identity, Redbird was up to her to make something good.

Her run in the City leaves Carrie a more fiercely confident, optimistic girl. She's secure in her decisions, has realized that she doesn't really need anyone around her to shape who she is, and, thanks to the many strong relationships she's formed, as well as to the Porter for stealing each one of them from her at some point, has learned both how to love, and how to get over loss.