the one the devil fears (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kingofrooks) wrote2014-12-13 11:26 pm
kingofrooks) wrote2014-12-13 11:26 pm
Entry tags:
[STAUG] Application
... All entries below this one are entirely for record-keeping purposes.
Otherwise known as 'Dream likes this account, leave her alone.'
CHARACTER NAME: BruceThe Fucking Batman Wayne
ROLE: Teacher/Lecturer
AGE: Above 25. Below 30. Look, I'm used to comics. What are set ages.
CURRENT YEAR: NIL
BACKSTORY: /cracks neck. I hope you don't mind that I write it in a narrative. I'm not good at listing.
Once upon a time, there was a man and a woman. They were good people. They were massively wealthy, but the man worked as a doctor in Gotham General Hospital. Not a private hospital, no, even though his skills as a surgeon would easily earn him one. But at the public hospital, the one that admits everyone: from the homeless man on the streets to the richest man in the world.
The man and his wife had a son. His name is Bruce. Listen, Bruce, the man will tell the boy. You're born into a position where you have a lot of power. And you must always remember that it is the duty of the powerful to help those without. Bruce nods, and takes those words to heart.
One night, the night that will change everything, the man and his wife - Thomas and Martha Wayne - were walking back home with their son. A mugger threatened them with a gun. Bruce notices, vaguely, that his hand is shaking. Thomas steps forward. The gun goes off. Martha screams. The gun goes off again. And Bruce is left with his parents, soon turned into corpses, with blood on his hands and face, the smell of cheap aftershave on his nose, and the terrified breaths of the man who killed his parents in his ear.
You're wrong, Father, Bruce will think, years later. I don't have any power at all.
Afterwards - after the trial, after the publicity, because rich men can't die without getting a headline - Bruce throws himself into his studies. He wants power. Knowledge is power. He graduates early from high school. But knowledge is cold. Knowledge needs to be acknowledged. Knowledge, Bruce learns, is merely a series of tiny pebbles, glancing off the face of the man who still haunts his nightmares. Knowledge does not turn the bullies away.
He needs another source of power.
And so Bruce turns from learning to fill his mind to learning to train his body. He takes on every single martial arts, from aikido and iaido to karate and wing-chun to fencing. He does not use guns.
On Bruce's eighteenth birthday, the trophy room of his manor is covered with one medical degree and several medals and proofs of worth he earned by fighting. (All collected by his faithful butler/foster father.) He has control over his company now that he has reached his majority. But he does not care about the money, or the muscles on his body.
Because he still does not have power. What greater power, he thinks, than to save a life?
So he follows his father's footsteps. But there is one lesson his father has never taught him; one lesson he does not have the time to: there is no doctor, no matter how great his skill, who can fight a battle with death and win every single time.
Bruce knows he is accomplished. He has seen the jealousy and resentment in the eyes of others. He knows he holds power over many in myriad ways. And yet... yet it is not enough. Yet every time he loses a patient on the table, he returns back to the day in the alley, with his hands covered in blood and cheap aftershave in his nose and the warmth of his parents' bodies fleeing him.
When he receives the invitation to teach at St. Augustine's, he knows he is expected to refuse. And yet... yet he sits alone in the rest area of the hospital, staring at white paper and blank text.
What power, he thinks, holding desperately to the word, is greater than to influence the minds of those who might hold the future?
There needs to be something. Anything. That can let him have power over himself.
Obligatory gif:
Posted here.
Otherwise known as 'Dream likes this account, leave her alone.'
CHARACTER NAME: Bruce
ROLE: Teacher/Lecturer
AGE: Above 25. Below 30. Look, I'm used to comics. What are set ages.
CURRENT YEAR: NIL
BACKSTORY: /cracks neck. I hope you don't mind that I write it in a narrative. I'm not good at listing.
Once upon a time, there was a man and a woman. They were good people. They were massively wealthy, but the man worked as a doctor in Gotham General Hospital. Not a private hospital, no, even though his skills as a surgeon would easily earn him one. But at the public hospital, the one that admits everyone: from the homeless man on the streets to the richest man in the world.
The man and his wife had a son. His name is Bruce. Listen, Bruce, the man will tell the boy. You're born into a position where you have a lot of power. And you must always remember that it is the duty of the powerful to help those without. Bruce nods, and takes those words to heart.
One night, the night that will change everything, the man and his wife - Thomas and Martha Wayne - were walking back home with their son. A mugger threatened them with a gun. Bruce notices, vaguely, that his hand is shaking. Thomas steps forward. The gun goes off. Martha screams. The gun goes off again. And Bruce is left with his parents, soon turned into corpses, with blood on his hands and face, the smell of cheap aftershave on his nose, and the terrified breaths of the man who killed his parents in his ear.
You're wrong, Father, Bruce will think, years later. I don't have any power at all.
Afterwards - after the trial, after the publicity, because rich men can't die without getting a headline - Bruce throws himself into his studies. He wants power. Knowledge is power. He graduates early from high school. But knowledge is cold. Knowledge needs to be acknowledged. Knowledge, Bruce learns, is merely a series of tiny pebbles, glancing off the face of the man who still haunts his nightmares. Knowledge does not turn the bullies away.
He needs another source of power.
And so Bruce turns from learning to fill his mind to learning to train his body. He takes on every single martial arts, from aikido and iaido to karate and wing-chun to fencing. He does not use guns.
On Bruce's eighteenth birthday, the trophy room of his manor is covered with one medical degree and several medals and proofs of worth he earned by fighting. (All collected by his faithful butler/foster father.) He has control over his company now that he has reached his majority. But he does not care about the money, or the muscles on his body.
Because he still does not have power. What greater power, he thinks, than to save a life?
So he follows his father's footsteps. But there is one lesson his father has never taught him; one lesson he does not have the time to: there is no doctor, no matter how great his skill, who can fight a battle with death and win every single time.
Bruce knows he is accomplished. He has seen the jealousy and resentment in the eyes of others. He knows he holds power over many in myriad ways. And yet... yet it is not enough. Yet every time he loses a patient on the table, he returns back to the day in the alley, with his hands covered in blood and cheap aftershave in his nose and the warmth of his parents' bodies fleeing him.
When he receives the invitation to teach at St. Augustine's, he knows he is expected to refuse. And yet... yet he sits alone in the rest area of the hospital, staring at white paper and blank text.
What power, he thinks, holding desperately to the word, is greater than to influence the minds of those who might hold the future?
There needs to be something. Anything. That can let him have power over himself.
Obligatory gif:
Posted here.