Lost Crow AU - Part 2

Victor Fries has suffered serious damage in the last eight years, which has severely torn his typical clarity and, above all, his mind apart. In one of Joker's final plans, Nora's life capsule was cut off accidentally from the city's power supply for a few hours, which almost completely thawed the woman's frozen body. Mr Freeze tried desperately to keep the temperature as low as possible and not let any heat get too close to her. In the end, the virus reactivated for half an hour and fought its way through the already disintegrating body at insane speed. Victor finally succeeded in freezing Nora again, but the power failure had already left enormous damage to his wife's organism. Mr Freeze could only watch helplessly through the window as parts of her body gradually crumbled in the capsule to crushed ice, especially parts from her face. In a frenzied fit of anger, he froze a large number of his henchmen and killed many of them by crushing them into tiny pieces. This point marks a U-turn for Victor, who was previously known to be a very reliable and peaceful employer. New henchmen report that Mr. Freeze keeps talking to the remains of Nora and crying promises to put her back together again. He vacillates between the icy reality of her death and an incipient psychosis in which he hears the weak voice of his wife screaming for his help. Victor still does everything for Nora - even if there is nothing more than a frozen corpse left of her.

Pamela Isley has strayed even further away from the people of Gotham and led an almost lonely life in an abandoned botanical garden near the outskirts. Her wild times as an eco-terrorist is long forgotten. News about what the botanist does in her greenhouse or, better, grows, only rarely reaches the public. A closer look reveals, however, that Ivy has turned to the light side of Gotham: She works more and more frequently with Robin to support him in the background and to help him protect the city. Harleen in particular does not understand this sudden change and thinks Pamela is just purely insane. For the botanist, however, it is obvious why she had to get into this rare situation. Robin was only a small, insignificant flower when he followed in the footsteps of a dying tree called Batman and it was only through her unconditional care that he became a symbol of justice and, above all, hope. Pamela vehemently denies having anything to do with his rise, but some modifications to his inventory leave no doubt that she had her hand in his fast development. It is questionable what benefit Ivy is getting or hoping for from this strange collaboration.

Selina Kyle has found herself on a completely unpredictable track due to the rapid decline of the city and is constantly being drawn from the good side of Gotham to the dark one. Just when you think Catwoman has finally decided on one, she suddenly appears again on the other and thwarted the plans of all heroes and villains alike. Again, the absence of Batman shows its ugliest side with the stubborn cat. The superhero was the only one who could really stop her and successfully hold her on the middle part of the scale. Now nobody cares about her whereabouts any more and her egoism triumphs over her previously strong sense of justice. Selina has now completely turned away from the Gotham City Sirens and prefers to work alone, inevitably with Commissioner Gordon or Harvey Dent. She has no respect whatsoever for Robin as, in her opinion, he should never have taken Bruce's position and should have done better to get him out of his paralysis. A meeting of the two always ends in a violent argument in which Catwoman also likes to forget her principles of not wanting to kill.

Barbara Gordon watched with horror as her father's former pride slowly turned into a place of lawlessness and decay. She was so devastated by Batman's withdrawal that she took drastic measures to bring the Dark Knight back. Oracle voluntarily underwent an inhuman experiment under the harsh direction of Hugo Strange, who was attempting to restore the young woman's central nervous system using technology stolen from Wayne Enterprises reservation chambers. Through a cross between nanotechnology and organic growth of nerve cells, the doctor finally succeeded after countless surgeries in freeing Barbara from her wheelchair and teaching her to walk again. Her new ability cost Oracle part of her humanity, as cold and deadly metal has now found a place in her spine. The slow poisoning forces the woman to take breaks again and again, but her goal is clear in front of her eyes: Bruce must be reactivated in order to achieve his goal of a safe city. In addition, she does not shy away from other villains who are contacted by her under the guise of 'Sybl' and are only there to lure Batman out of his shell.

Tim Drake has by far the most difficult start in Gotham. As the direct successor of a superhero who has not yet completely disappeared, all eyes look up at him and await glorious deeds like those of his predecessor. Robin has little to none support from the Bat family and even if Oracle passes him useful information from time to time, Tim knows very well that she will never accept him as the leader of the family and that unfortunately he cannot count on her in the heat of the moment. Commissioner Gordon also finds it difficult to take him seriously. This rejection comes at exactly the wrong time, as the increasing movement in the underground is developing into a problem way faster than expected. Robin has to fall back on unusual help. Pamela Isley in particular proves to be a loyal companion who, through her breeding of plants, keeps supplying him with new gadgets and self-regenerating armour parts. In addition to Pamela, he can mainly rely on Lonnie Machin, who takes care of the entire supply of information and can infiltrate more successfully than Oracle in many respects. The team is completed by Otis Flannegan, who rather accidentally sided with Tim. The city's ongoing decay gradually became a curse as he suddenly could do more damage than ever before. Anarky had an extensive conversation with the man on a mission and convinced him to use his power for good at least once by helping him out with a task. Otis loved the positive response he got from the people of Gotham so much that he was only too happy to join Robin in the fight against the other villains.

30 days of DID system asks: Day One

Describe your system.

My system is medium-sized.  The core group is a group of six, three married couples.  Nora to Francis, Gilda to Harvey, and Grace to Richard.  Then there’s the whole internal family system, bearing in mind that all three couples have acted in a parenting (or sibling, in the case of Duella and Nora and Francis, because Duella is older) role to all the children in the internal family system, there are also littles of Nora and Francis, called Boom and Little Francis. Lord Ryan is their son, he’s ten. Gilda and Harvey have Duella,  I’m not sure how old she is. but I do know she’s like a sister to me.  Then Grace and Richard have Francis as an adopted son.  Francis is 25 this fall.  I’m not sure how old Grace and Gilda are, you know what they say about a lady and her age.  Richard is eighteen-- I know it’s weird that Francis is Richard’s son even though Francis is older than Richard.   To explain this, Richard imaginably fought in world war two, but for some reason he stayed eighteen.  Harvey is the second oldest, at 125, and Hanora is 319.  Harvey, as a changeling man, has some vampiric abilities, but using them costs him his life experience, and Hanora is part gnome.  Among other racial qualities, she has very sensitive pointy ears, and songs can get stuck in her head for days at a time.  When I keep hearing the tune (that is to me a schizophrenic hallucination,) we say that they’re hearing it “In the gnome caverns”.  Luckily for me, this means that Hanora has her own body in a place she personally believes in, so she never argues with me about haircuts/hormones or clothes.  She just dresses up her gnome doll however she wants to, and in return I’m not allowed to say that the gnome caverns are part of a “headspace.”  They are a fairy tale, and personally Hanora believes in them.

While I don’t have many great historical memories from three-hundred years ago, Hanora has friends who have come to help me for no reason other than my being Hanora’s son, like Thomas Blue, who taught me everything he knew about becoming a lawyer, which permitted me to put the Joker on trial when he came to my apartment asking for help.  Hanora has been married several times, first to Victor Fries, a long long time ago, when I was in high-school, then, when I was in college, she married an introject of my high school friend and crush Charlie O’Connel (I hope he sees this.) I turned 23.  Harvey had been out of his coma for a year and five months. We met a man at Alchoholics Anonymous who invited us out for non-alchoholic beers and pool and pinball at a local bar.  His name was Henry.  One night, walking home from the beach, I introduce myself to him as the name “Harv,” and tell him I’m a multiple personality.  He takes it all pretty well.  We talk about getting married.  I’ve used my vampiric abilitties since then so I don’t have the same timeline I had when I was dating Henry, but I wanted us to be gay lovers.  

Back to my mother Hanora’s love life:  She broke up with Henry when his schizophrenia got out of control.  I was put away in a nursing home, where there was an implied familial relationship between Harvey, Duella, Francis, Richard, and Nora. Nora got married to Richard when we thought he was on his deathbed and she didn’t want him to die alone, then to a factive of Michael Fassbender (a marriage which lasted only one night before we had to admit Michael to the asylum,) then to a factive of Nick D’Agnostico from Gotham, who has his own alternate personality of Harvey.  She was married to a factive of Aaron Ekhardt for one night, who similarly has a Harvey introject.  Lucky for me my introject of Charlie is still in my life, and he’s always very respectful.  Sometimes they roleplay a game-of-thrones era fantasy where Nora is a shy noble lady and Charlie is her knight.  Her last marriage was to a factive of Brandon Flowers, who is also part gnome, but he looks like Owen from Torchwood for some reason.  Sorry, the last man is a gnomish man, I know that for sure, and I don’t always understand gnome customs.  Suffice to say, she calls him Brandon, but he looks like Owen.  Finally, she’s been escorted home several times by John Barrowman (another factive obviously) who honors his role as army captain from the doctor who universe.  And my mother’s introject is dating Nathan Filion, making him a father-in-law type figure.  His factive helped set her up with Nick D’Agnostico.

Speaking of the Doctor Who universe, I once wrote a very immersive episode of doctor who fanfiction called “Adam and Fate,” and in it the eleventh Doctor gets admitted to the psyche ward I was in at the time, well he formed an introject, surprise surprise, and although he was dressed like the eleventh doctor he wanted me to call him Matt Smith.  To help pass the hours I would daydream silents behind every door, and this was the same hospital stay where my Robert Downey Jr. Factive went out for a game of cards, he’s in love with Aaron, who was very akward with me at the time, because I once said “Joker’s Daughter!” and punched him in the balls.  

This was around the time a very malevolent introject of my oldest brother appeared and tried to take Francis into his headspace permanently, I remember Francis throwing water over himself, one of his defence mechanisms, and I remember Aaron:  He asked for an apology for my  holding a hot zippo lighter to my face to feel the burning so we put some lotion on.  Aaron and Robert are in love, and he’s on again off again with Maggie Gyllinhall , who acts like a big sister to me.  At the time he was still convinced that I was brain-dead from my death at the end of the Dark Knight era in my life, which is actually from when I was eight years old and fell down a flight of stairs, but I recreated my trauma in a shared dream-space and it translated to getting thrown off a building.  I was actually put to work in a daydream factory, and my subconcious submitted certain scenes to the Dark Knight. I don’t want to believe that completely but here’s another perspective  I will ask for my father-in-law Victor to help me rather than Francis:  

According to Victor I have a trauma that could be categorized, a blow to the back of the head, and I didn’t make the dark knight but I came from it because there’s an applicable cause of death involved.  

Thank you Victor.  Let’s get on with describing the system.  In my job at the daydream factory that’s where I first met The Scars of the Architect, who takes on the appearance of the Joker from the Dark Knight.  They plugged me in to a modern machine:  A PC, and architectural drawings appeared on the screen.  This is part of how the Joker got his scars.  Then there’s another Joker, his full name is Jackson P. Fitzgerald and he looks like a Joker-colored version of Michael Jackson. The Joker isn’t the only black villain in my system, there’s also Dr. Ivy Green AKA Poison Ivy who looks like a young Whoopie Goldberg, but I never claim to be trans racial or anything like that the alters know that they are only an influence on me and I’m glad they help me include races other than white bread in my stories.  But there is a lot of white bread coming right up:

THE ASYLUM

In my headspace I live in a version of Arkham Asylum that has gone through a period of mental health reform.  My first alter from the asylum was Dr. Jonathan Crane Sr, and I saw him experimenting on his children out in the backwater countryside south of Gotham.  This all happens in Gotham City Indiana, by the way, which is on the map where Gary, Indianapolis, and Michigan City are so they’re north of some swamplands which turn into farmlands and south of the lake the city is very much a part of my system and my first introduction to it was Johnathan Crane’s old shack out in the country where(TW  BONDAGE) he strapped his kids down to a chair in the garage and injected them with fear toxin  and made them watch horrific videos, these are the Benson siblings, Elizabeth, Crowley, and Johnathan Jr.  They all have wide white eyes except for Jr, whose eyes are very soulful and dark, and they all have SI scars again except for Jr. who is the black sheep Crowley has cuts on his arms from a carpenter knife and he chews fear weed while Elizabeth smokes it in her cigarettes and she has burns on her hands.

I follow the action one night, old lady Benson is worried about Crowley always cutting his arms so she takes him to the asylum in their rusty pick-up truck, well he spooks in the parking lot he grabs a shotgun from the back of the truck and escapes into the woods.  Where the ambulance driver says “Don’t worry, Batman will catch him.”

BATMAN

Yes, I have an alter of Batman in my system.  He started as a foil for me to fist-fight in a bar he sliced up my face pretty good I wake up with blood on the pillow.  I go through plots trying to bring Batman the psychiatric help he needs, enacting a similar plot on my best friend Bruce Wayne, who is like Batman by day, similarly rageful, similar sizes and face shapes too but Batman is obviously funded by the military and Bruce isn’t smart enough to sneak out every night dressed in black leather without getting caught by his butler, but these are my two friends Batman and Bruce.  I’ll talk about Batman first, I get a gang together one of these days I put some plastic explosives in an elevator shaft and I threaten to take the building down if Batman doesn’t go in for treatment and Jim Gordon intercedes saying we both need help well that bastard Batman jumps off the roof and vanishes into the night, but I go down the driveway to Arkham Asylum in Jim Gordon’s car he drops me off at the gate he says it’s up to me so I throw my coin into the woods and I’m walking one way or the other when an ambulance stops me and the driver manhandles me I punch him until he stops moving the Joker climbs out of the back and says “So you pulled off your first plot. What do you want the newspapers to call you?”  And the scarred side of my face smiles and says “Two-Face.”  I’m thinking Acid-Face or Coin-Voice but this is what the scarred side of my face says to the Joker and the Joker says “Two-Face it is!”  and he climbs in the driver’s seat and he crashes the ambulance into the gates with the driver unconscious  behind the wheel and meanwhile in the back I find my friend Bruce and he says “CALL ME BATMAN” so great Bruce Wayne thinks he’s Batman that’ll be the day.  

RICHARD

I’m in the asylum when  I realize I have a brother, adopted by the same old lady, Gertrude Dent.  His name is Richard and he’s vegetative from the lobotomies.  This is when the story really starts to cook.  We get kidnapped from our cells one night by Harleen Qunzell posing as a nurse she takes us away to the parklands surrounding the asylum and says we’re in Poison Ivy’s Garden now.  I’m Harvey AKA Lillian Valley, my brother’s are Francis aka Hawthorne, Creeping Charlie AKA Morning Glory, Poison Oak, and Patrick Isley we’re all a tribe out there in the park I rarely get into trouble but I get into trouble rarely I’m given a motel room to sleep in after a certain therapeutic period among the plants.  Arkham Outpatient Treatment:  Lodgings Included.  

This next memory is from Francis, we do share some memories.  I overheard a lady bullying her teddy bear in the bed next to mine back when I was in the nursing home and someone woke up he said “I’ll steal that bear!” and Francis said “Calm Down, Harv.”  He’s easy to recognize with the scars from stress on his face and then a Harvey woke up and said “What did he say just now?”  And Francis says wow youre keeping him on a pretty tight leash well it wasn’t long after that he woke up in one of poison ivy’s green-houses and she said something like “What are you doing coming back to life?”   And he turned out to be called Richard.  Richard Richardson is the name he wrote on the ARkham Asylum intake forms.  

HARLEEN

So Harleen comes into my room and asks if I’d like to be part of an experiment like I said kidnapped so they put a mitten on my burned hand and moss in my head to regrow the brain matter that got damaged in my massive back of the head concussion and the subsequent ECT that happened only in Gotham City which is like we all know imaginary but so was the moss and I’m a better man for it and as I came round to reality I realized I had a roommate they had put me with this other man Dent-- Richard Dent, criminal turned whore, WWII veteran and semi-immortal like me, I don’t know the details of his age but he’s one of Jupiter's sons and for all the time he’s spent in prison he’s only eighteen years old to this day.  Sorry twenty-two he aged up a bit earlier this year when he took his wife Grace home their anniversary is July 25th I’d better remember that

So Poison Ivy really cleaned up the asylum with Harleen working under her and Johnathan Crane doing anything to get his license restored they made a pretty ship shape asylum the doors are unlocked the walls are white and the uniforms are grey. I remember Harleen’s first experiment with me she said there was a fifty-fifty chance I would revert back to my old personality and she gave me my coin back and I threw it in a lake. This is a recurring theme with me the coin represents my reliance on the god Janus to make decisions and with every major step toward rehabilitation I have to leave the coin behind so I started over in jail with Jonathan Crane observing me I told him I was a changeling and if I didn’t get twice as much food then my twin brother would starve so he gave me double portions and I’ve always been indebted to the man.