tw: violence mentions, death mentions, guns/shooting, paralysis
overview of history.
Barbara is the adopted daughter of James Gordon. Her mother passed away in a car accident when Barbara was a young child, and her biological father found himself unable to raise her due to his grief. James took her in with his wife (also Barbara, who was the baby’s namesake) and raised her as his own, finalizing the adoption uncontested within the first few months of her staying with them. Barbara is their second child, following James Gordon Jr., their biological son.
Barbara’s intellect showed at a young age, and she flew through elementary, middle and high school, graduating high school early at the age of fifteen. Gifted with an eidetic memory, Barbara was easily able to commit just about anything to memory and she used her gift wisely. She was accepted into Gotham State University after graduating from high school, choosing to major in library science. However, her interests were far from solely academic; Barbara had begged to be enrolled in martial arts as a child, after seeing what Batman was capable of. Jim saw that it helped control Barbara’s impulse-control issues and helped her with self-control, and it certainly helped keep her grounded (and he wasn’t exactly mad that his daughter knew self-defense). For Barbara, it helped cement the belief that she would be able to help someone who might need it some day.
Barbara’s academic achievements continued, graduating with her bachelor’s degree before her eighteenth birthday and accepting a research position at the Gotham Public Library. However, it was in her collegiate years when she reinvented herself and found a secondary identity in Batgirl. She’d been watching Batman closely since she was a child, and constructed a costume of her own. After attending a charity event and saving Bruce Wayne from a kidnapping attempt (prior to learning he was in fact the vigilante she admired so much), she caught the attention of both Batman and Robin. It wasn’t long before the two revealed their true identities to Barbara, and she was initiated into the Bat family.
Barbara spent her days working towards her doctorate and working at the library and spent most nights patrolling the streets as Batgirl. She continued to work as Batgirl from the ages of seventeen to nineteen, and then her vigilante dream was cut short when the Joker knocked on her door one night. He shot Barbara in the stomach, severing her spine and sentencing her to life in a wheelchair.
After recovering, Barbara reinvented herself once more. She focused her time instead on technology, and developed a highly complex computer system that would aid the heroes she called her friends and family. With her voice in the ear of Gotham, she became the Oracle: an overwatch aiding vigilantes in their mission. With her system, Barbara was able to hack into even the most top-rated securities and gather information from just about any source. Before long, Barbara founded the Birds of Prey. The Birds of Prey were an all-female team of agents that she sent out into the field while she manned the computer as Oracle. While Barbara missed being able to be on the streets herself, she knew deep down that she was more helpful as Oracle than she’d ever been as Batgirl. Oracle had become a necessary and invaluable resource to her friends out in the field, and she was happy to still be in the game.
dceased.
barbara has been in wonder city for the majority of the past three years.
after receiving the alert from bruce about the anti-living connection, barbara found herself going to the wayne manor to see who, and what, she could find.
she was kept from the batcave by jason, who refused to let her see what (rather who) was inside.
after the arks left, barbara....slipped away. she disabled her tracker to the batmobile, which would link her vitals to those who used it. her vitals would read as offline, and she would allow them to make their own decisions on what that meant.
barbara struggles with facing what happened. she has refused to let herself feel or grieve past the initial shock of what happened. if she lets herself succumb to it, she will never recover herself and she cannot allow that to happen.
barbara has thrown herself thoroughly into the effort to find a cure. she knows that it’s possible, knows that it will happen one day, and she will be one of those that helps to do it. if she can find a cure, she can fix the awful state of the world. if she can find a cure, she can fix bruce and have that piece of her family back. if she finds a cure, she can finally let herself grieve what she lost.
she has mixed feelings about those returning from earth-2. while she can’t exactly blame people for fleeing an actual apocalypse, she’s a little angry as well. she feels as though more should have stayed behind, and perhaps if they had, there would be a cure by now.
