The Batman (Reagan)’s Comments (group member since Jul 08, 2024)

The Batman (Reagan)’s comments from the 𝓐𝖗𝖐𝖍𝖆𝖒 𝓐𝖘𝖞𝖑𝖚𝖒 group.

Villains
Scarecrow
Jonathan Crane is a seemingly mild mannered psychologist in the employ of Arkham Asylum. He considers himself a spiritual guru and a self-help expert and his interests lie in targeting patients' deepest fears and eradicating them through exposure therapy. However, he holds a theory that emotions are a physical response to spiritual stimuli on the part of a person’s soul which is tethered to the Spirit World. As such, he constantly experiments with ways of breaching the membrane between the physical and spiritual realm by forcibly subjecting his patients to radical solutions, including hallucinogenic drugs, sensory deprivation, and spiritual bonding, where he traps a person and a spirit he believes best fists their fears together in a situation where they must bond to survive. He has travelled all across the four nations and parts of the Spirit World to find ingredients and new methods of inducing fear based responses He devised a costume largely inspired by the sandbenders of the Si Wong Desert and scarecrows. On his excursions, he would learn of the mind-warping properties of cactus juice, the Fog of Lost Souls, the hallucinogenic Swamp Gasses of the Foggy Swamp, and various hypnosis techniques once employed by the Dai Li and favored by other villains, like the Mad Hatter.

Poison Ivy
Poison Ivy is a plant/blood bender. She is firmly against those who are harvesting spirit energy due to its detrimental impact on nature and the spirits. Her green skin is a result of her bond with a nature spirit.

Mr. Freeze
Freeze, having heard legends of Avatar Aang being trapped in the iceburg for years, built a machine that allowed him to keep his wife frozen to preserve her against a terminal blood disease. He made a pact with a spirit to help save his her and was granted healing powers, but it was not enough to cure her. Frustrated, he modified the machine to harness the spirit's energy directly. The spirit lashed out and Freeze became permanently changed by the attack, enhancing his bending, but cursing him to be unable to survive in temperatures higher than sub-zero. The spirit was also weakened and Freeze was able to desperately renegotiate his contract with it. While the spirit keeps Nora preserved in a tank mimicking a spirit pool, Freeze uses a pressurized suit he designed to regulate his condition to collect spirit energy other people have already collected (he no longer does it himself) in an endless cycle to power his suit and charge the spirit until it is able to gain enough power to help further.

Firefly
The obvious choice would be to make him a firebender, but I thought it'd be more interesting to make him an airbender from the Fire Nation. He was a firefighter, until his reckless nature caused an explosion to kill his team and leave him scarred. Having gained a nihilistic attitude and a sick fascination with flame, he started a spree of arson across Gotham. He employs flammable gases ignited by lightning-gauntlet-like incendiary devices and jetpack, largely developed by Killer Moth. He secretly hopes to accidentally recreate the event he survived and fix what he believes to be Fate's mistake.

Joker
Non-bender [Tech Specialist]. His clothing follows no style guide or color conventions of any nation. Instead it is a brightly colored hodge-podge of fabrics, similar to the nomadic performers and wandering gypsies wandering the lands between civilization. His make up has been likened to that of clowns.There are theories that he may have once been part of a Daofei group known as the Red Hoods before he betrayed and murdered them. His twisted sense of humor and unpredictable nature makes humans suspect he may be a vengeful spirit, but even the spirits are unnerved by his lack of reason or logical motivation, citing it as the darkest reflection of human traits.

Harley Quinn
A non-bender from the Northern Water Tribe, Harley dropped out of Aqna Qel'a University and moved to Ember Island in the Fire Nation due to a strained relationship with her father. She attended the Fire Nation Royal Academy for Girls before serving a brief stint with the Kyoshi Warriors where she would pick up Chi bending to compliment her dual combative abilities. She would then go on, unpredictably, to attend Ba Sing Se University to study psychology. This led to her getting a job at Gotham City's Arkham Asylum where she met the Joker.

Clayface
Basil Karlo was once an actor from the Earth Kingdom. As an Earthbender, he specializes in mud-bending. He has a history performing on the stage and in the Movers for many troupes and theater groups, including the Ember Island Players. However, failing health began to take a toll on his body. Sickness and disease caused his body to atrophy in odd ways. He had to rely on heavy makeup to retain his once dashing looks and his vocal cords suffered enormous strain as he tried to hide his fading voice. He became extremely skilled at altering his appearance by manipulating mud to give his body a different shape and hardening it to hold, which eventually led to him being cast for monstrous roles more and more, a novelty which fascinated the public for a while. As time went on, however, critics would state that he had become more of a glorified prop than a character actor and his popularity plummeted. Once a household name, he soon fell into obscurity and was unable to recover. Frustrated at being out of work, he began to stalk the various producers and directors to plead with them to give him back his job. This led to him overhearing a plot by the employees of the illustrious Monarch Theater to commit crimes against a competitor. He left to warn the other group, but was discovered by a lookout. The group brutally beat Basil within an inch of his life before he snapped and attacked them. Afterward, he felt ashamed and fled without checking if they were still alive.He somehow found himself lost in the spirit world, where he came across Koh the Face Stealer. His face, battered, bruised, and deformed by his malady, was unable to emote which saved his life. Koh was fascinated by Basil and Basil by Koh. The Facestealer promised Basil a second chance to make a name for himself by allowing him to take new faces and change his appearance at will, a ploy for power which Basil saw through, but desperately took. Later in Basil's story he would hear about the Mother of Faces and seek redemption and restoration.

Ra's Al Ghul
Ra's was an Earthbender and an Earth Nation physician turned soldier during Kyoshi's Era. He showed great skill in leadership and battlefield which allowed him to quickly rise through the ranks. During his service, he witnessed many atrocities and survived a near death experience which caused him a great deal of trauma and he deserted. However, ambition to command burned within him and he joined Kyoshi's Dai Li. He happened to learn about Kyoshi's immortality through hypervigilance and observation. Obsession with the concept of never dying, he sought out Tieguai the Immortal and became his disciple. He adopted the idea that politics and government were responsible for the many wars and atrocities committed by mankind and sowed the belief among the other members of the Dai Li leading to their corruption. These ideas and the meditation exercises have kept him alive hundreds of years later into Avatar Kal-El's era. Over this time, he has learned nearly every known sub-Bending technique of Earthbending: Glass, Crystal, Sand, Dust and Metal.

The Otter–Penguin
The deformed son of a disgraced Southern Water Tribe chieftain who abandoned him, Oswald turned to piracy and smuggling. Eventually he ended up in Gotham City and established himself a crime lord as part of Falconi’s branch of the Triple Threat Triad mafia. He is extremely cruel, but considers himself a gentleman merely trying to regain his family’s honor.

Killer Moth

Two-Face

Riddler
Edward Nygma is a tech specialist from the Earth Nation who is obsessed with the mythology of the spirit Wan Shi Tong, He Who Knows Ten Thousand Things and his Great Library. Edward is convinced that if he can prove his intelligence, Wan Shi Tong will open a gateway for him into endless knowledge. He builds traps and puzzles to impress the spirit, often putting Gotham's citizens at peril thow hold his superior intellect over them. However, Batman has always been able to stop him, so Edward has it in his mind that he must take down The Batman.

Eraser
Growing up, Leonard Fiasco would attend an Airbender run school despite being a nonbender. [WIP]

Mad Hatter

Supporting Characters
Lucius Fox

Commissioner Gordon

Barbara Gordon [Batgirl/ Oracle]

Dick Grayson [Nightwing]

Jason Todd [Red Hood]

Teen Titans
Tim Drake [Robin]

Starfire

Beastboy

Cyborg

Raven

Terra

Bumblebee

Kid Flash

Synopsis for World:
My idea is that this is a distant future to current canon, where spirits are angry with the humans again because of their energy being harvested. Certain characters have been altered due to their interactions with the energy and/or the spirits.

The Justice League (Team Avatar):
Batman
Batman would be a non-bender [Tech Specialist] nonbender, but would have trained with masters of all the elemental disciplines. His suit incorporates an airbending glider (built of blue fabric) built into a metalbending cable pack, which he uses with the grapple hooks on his belt.
[I think his look would be very similar to the suit in Gotham by Gaslight with some Earth and Fire Nation armor, all painted in gray and blue]

Superman
Avatar Kal El is the last of the once glorious Sun Warriors. He would be adopted and raised in secret by Martha and Jonathan Kent, a pair of retired Air nomads who had settled in the Earth Nation as farmers. Clark, as he was called to protect his identity until his training was complete, would supplement his studies by taking a journalism job in Republic City so as to stay abreast of news and to stay closer to the crimes he sought to take down. Here he would eventually meet Lois Lane and fall in love with her, confiding his secret to her. They would marry and she would dedicate herself to keeping tabs on the goings on in the city so he could train.
Throughout his life, Kal El would be contacted by many spirits and the leaders of the Four Nations, heaping their demands and problems on his shoulders, and his responsibilities would increase exponentially. He would eventually schedule regular trips to the Northern Water Tribe’s Spirit Oasis, where he could find a period of solace from his duties before astral projecting into the Spirit World to receive additional training from the spirits of the Sun Warriors and the past Avatars. In the angstier years of his teens, experimentation of his powers, his connection to the spirit world, and a sense that he didn't belong would lead to his ability to fly. While this disconnect with the earth would never interfere with his love for all four nations and he would unquestioningly do all he can to protect them, his earthbending would be severely hindered and put a considerable strain on his body. Because of this, he would be encouraged to study techniques to harden his skin and strengthen his constitution in order to overcome his weaknesses. While largely unsuccessful for their intended purpose, the exercises would drastically increase his immunity to poisons and disease, as well as making him seemingly invulnerable to bullets, rocks, and other such projectiles. There are many who believe him to be immortal, such as Lex Luthor, his once childhood friend turned rival. As an extension of his love for all four nations, Kal El would adapt a costume that incorporated the styles and colors of each element he mastered; the red cape, emblazoned with the Sun Warriors Crest, made of the blanket he was wearing when found, refitted in the style of the Air Monks’ cloaks, and a blue body suit, similar those worn by Water tribe divers. As Clark, he would wear the greens of the Earth Nation.

Wonder Woman
Wonder Woman is an airbender trained by descendants of Kyoshi Warriors who gained airbending during the Convergence and formed a splinter group that incorporated Yangchen's trainings as well. Sometimes she uses a sword and shield, but mostly her weapon of choice is a length of rope which she can manipulate via airbending. It also amplifies vibrations, allowing her to detect a bound opponent's heartbeat as a form of lie detection.

Green Lantern
Hal is a crystal bender with a ring made of meteorite imbued with spirit energy. It was given to him by an injured spirit he tried to save but was unable to. He “flies” via magnetism or duststepping.

Green Arrow

The Flash
Barry was born a non-bender in the Fire Nation. Barry's mother, a distant relative of the air nomads, was murdered when he was young and his father was falsely committed to a life sentence at Boiling Rock. Barry became a crime scene investigator in the hopes of proving his father's innocence. He quickly found he had a knack to sense spiritual energy residue, which often showed up at the scenes he worked. Realizing he had sensed something similar many years ago around his mother's body, Barry began to perform experiments on the residue. These experiments unknowingly caused harm to the spirits who had left the energy behind and one suddenly attacked Barry with lightning. Barry was not able to redirect the electricity, but prolonged exposure to the spirit granted him protection by sending his soul into the spirit world. When Barry was eventually able to return to his unconscious body, his wounds healed quickly and he found he could Lightning bend and jump between the Spirit World and the Physical world at will.

Aquaman
A waterbender from a small coastal fishing town in the Earth Kingdom. Heavily tattooed and wielding a trident in one hand and a large fish-hook in lieu of the other, his seemingly feral appearance is betrayed by a jovial, if a bit unrefined and deadpan, sense of humor. He is often surrounded by a school of spirit fish, with whom he has a psychic connection. As an added benefit of the bond, when diving underwater, he can form a bubble of air around himself and has a higher tolerance to pressure than even the best trained pearl divers.

J'onn J'onnz
J'onn J'onnz is a spirit possessing a curiosity about humans, the ability to change his form to appear human, and psychic powers. He agreed to team up with the other members of the League, using his spiritual expertise to support and complement the roster.

While Ethan and the others pored through the employee records, Bruce took notice of Eve stepping away. He walked over to stand next to her and silently watched the city. After a few moments, he asked, "You all right?"

((Sorry, on break and wanted to post something for you. Also wanted to prompt some dialogue.))

((Sorry, Fell asleep while replying. Didn't realize I had until I woke up. Will respond in earnest sometime today.))

((Figured Leonard Fiasco would be a good villain to pair with Riddler because they could genuinely help eachother, but their specific compulsions and modus operandi are foils to one another, which is extremely on brand for Riddler especially. They're both supergenius morons and I'm excited about it. Fiasco's whole gimmick and backstory (or my version of it anyway, which is more grounded) really fits well with Eve. Since Eve has ties to Falcone, it's possible she would at least know of Fiasco, if only by his alias, The Eraser.))

((Sorry, be back in a bit to finish.))

((I will try to reply tomorrow.))

((Struggling to say anything reasonable. Bruce absolutely would not have hired Ethan if he was this under-qualified, friend or no. Not to mention these morons he supposedly hand-picked. And he should know who the presenter is. Please bear with this rough post.))

"Regardless of whether Phil vouched for the substitute, that's still a decision that should have been run past Mr. Wayne. Or me, at the very least." Ethan informed the guards. "Also, Devlin, Tik Tok has an 13+ age limit, which means your daughter lied about her age. I'd look into that, if she hasn't been shut down already."

Devlin licked his lips. "Fair enough on both accounts. Send me a copy of the write up and I'll sign it for my record." He turned to his computer to open a file of Wayne Enterprises employees, After a quick filtered search, he pulled up a record for the presenter, a man named Leonard Fiasco.
Bruce narrowed his eyes. That name... it's familiar. Where have I come across it before? And since when does he work here? Three years? That can't be right? It's a doctored file. So why use his real name?

Ethan noticed the look of confusion. "Send that file to my inbox along with anything else you can find on him." He'd send it to Bruce later.

"Right," said another of the guards, the man whose job Ethan had just threatened. "Uh, in regards to the drones, the last one went completely dead about a week ago. Completely bricked and no amount of rice was going to fix it. We scrapped it."

After yet another elevator ride, Ethan stood in the center of the security office. "I need to know who gave that so-called "white hat hacker" group permission to our software and I need to know who they are."

When none of the officers spoke up, Ethan snapped. "You think I'm joking? What if I start firing your sorry butts?" He pointed at random. "You. Start cleaning your desk."

Bruce stepped up and placed a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Wait, Ethan. Be rational."

Someone cleared his throat. "Didn't think about it at the time, but there was this janitor the other day. Didn't recognize him, but he said he was filling in for Phil since he was sick. Called Phil. Got 'im to verify. Sounded super conjested. I was like, 'Yeah, man. Stay home. Do not come near me with that mess.' Crazy theory, but what if they kidnapped Phil and made him give the go-ahead under duress?"

Another guy spoke up. "What if it was the tech demo presenter? He could be an inside man. I mean, how'd he know about the hacker and we didn't?"

"We trustin' the new kid?" A third pointed his chin at Silver. He got glared at by everyone. "What? Like no one else was thinkin' it. You think she couldn't? Tellin' you guys, all the kids are hackers these days. You seen how they're always glued to their screens? My niece, she's eight. Still got a few baby teeth to trade with the Tooth Fairy but she's got a Youtube channel and a... what's the dancing app? TikTok? 100 followers first week."

((Sorry. I guess my reply didn't go through last night. I was fighting sleep and struggling to keep my eyes open so it wasn't any good anyway. Will try again later.))

"Well yes. I mean... not in an actual threat crisis. But we've run simulations and tests with a team of 'White-hat hackers', if you'll pardon the term."

Bruce furrowed his brow and looked at Silver, then at Ethan, who stood nearby, looking equally as concerned. He whispered, "Did your team outsource our system to a third party?"

Ethan looked indignant... no, that wasn't it. It was a hurt look. He was worried about being accused of betrayal. "I had no knowledge of this." He turned to leave. "I'm gonna go get some answers."

"We'll come with." Bruce realized that might sound like he wanted to monitor Ethan. "That is," he amended, "If you wouldn't mind."

Ethan's shoulders relaxed. "Yeah. Come on."

The presenter shifted his weight and pulled a few niece from his jacket pocket. He flipped through two or three, lifting a hand to his ear to recieve a message in his earpiece. "Hypothetically, our IT department tells me they can instate a full lock down of the system and concatenation any invasions in real-time. Uh... i say hypothetically because we're discussing a hypothetical situation, of course. Not because we're unclear whether we can do this."

Two hands. Most people would catch it that way, especially if distracted. I'd have been more surprised if she'd caught it with just one. He didn't immediately see anything amiss, and so he put the train of thought aside temporarily.
Bruce intentionally fumbled the coin and awkwardly picked it up. He laughed. "Sorry. Didn't expect you to throw it back. You make a good point though. You ought to bring it up. Now I'm curious."

Bruce noticed that Eve seemed to be masking her emotions again. "Penny for your thoughts?" He asked with a smirk and flipped her the penny he'd used for his earlier elevator demonstration. If she catches it...
...
In a darkened room, a thin bespectacled man in shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows stood watching the tech demonstration on a giant monitor. He twirled a screwdriver between his spider-like fingers and grinned as he turned toward a drone identical to the ones at WayneTech. "Fifteen minutes until showtime!" He chuckled and began to rescrew a panel he opened in the drone. The screen switched to show millions of lines of code running upward and a status bar filling quickly like tap water in a glass.

Someone in the crowd spoke up. "What's to keep them from using excessive force?"
The demonstrator answered that the level of force was designed to increase incrementally as the threat continued to resist, so the bots would always start with the minimum.
Another person spoke up. "What if they get hacked?"
The demonstrator explained that they could only take orders from specific IP addresses and a code was required each time.

Ethan nodded and hit the button for the elevator.

The demonstration hall was a large, darkened auditorium with dark gray carpets and a stage. There were multiple tracks for stage lights overhead and speakers on either side. Serious looking men in suits sat on benches at long tables making notes and muttering to themselves as a man in security uniforms pretended to break onto the stage as someone would if entering the building for illicit purposes.
A controller activated a robot that was set center-stage and it walked over to the "intruder". A monitor overhead showed a graphic of the algorithms the robot was running to inform its responses. First it implored the man to leave, but when that failed, it grabbed his arms with a vice that had been padded to prevent unnecessary harm and held him in place. A slight pressure was applied when the guard resisted, and when that failed, it activated a taser on it's other hand. The guard pleaded to be spared, promising to leave. The robot considered, then let go. The guard ran out and the robot's body posture switched from offensive to neutral.
Then there was a demonstration of the same scenario with a different ending. Instead of fleeing, the guard tried to attack the robot, with tased him, then employed a pneumatic piston in its arm to apply a light punch to the man's ribs. He went down pretending to moan and groan and the robot moved in to use its vice grips to secure the man. "Dialing security..." It said before it shut off. Its grippers released with a pneumatic hiss.
The controller explained that since this was a demonstration, they would not put out a false alarm. He then asked for questions.

((Maybe it's a subconscious dissociation? As if Ethan has pushed the part of himself that was Clayface to the back of his mind, or Clayface is actually a separate entity like the Venom symbiote?))

Ethan smiled. "I thought you might." He issued a few orders to some of the other guards, including telling Bobby to take his mandated lunchbreak, then gestured for Eve and Bruce to follow him to the elevator. "The demonstration hall is actually just one story below us. We can take the stairs if you like, but this is faster."

((I'll try to post a few more times today. And I'm free tomorrow as well,))

((Yeah. You make a good point, actually, this really doesn't make sense. Might need to rewrite.))

"Batman..." Ethan chuckled. "I appreciate the comparison, but this is not an urban legend or an old wives' tale to scare thugs into behaving for Santa Claus. Between us, the androids are just a bit of a public spectacle. Don't get me wrong, We employ the most advanced AI on the market. Facial and voice recognition, an extensive library of behavioral cues and patterns to cross reference, and enough strength to subdue any would be intruder. But they're really not much more than a redundancy in our current network. They don't get a lot of use outside of Investor Demos and Tech Exhibitions for clients. We're actually running such an event now, if you're interested." Ethan pointed to the empty beds.

((I'm thinking Edward Nygma gets hold of one of the droids (or already has. Hence the one that's offline) ))