Roy Harper Jr.

✖ PLAYER:
Name & DW Journal: El this_is_el
Birthdate & Age: 12/25/1979 Age: 33
Characters played in Zodion: N/A

✖ CHARACTER:
Name: Roy William Harper, Jr.
Canon: DC Comics (New Earth)
PB/Image: Here and Here
Info links: Here
Canon Point: Post Outsiders #46
Gender & Sex: Male & Male
Age: 25
Birthdate/Sign: December 21 Sagittarius with Capricorn influences
Tattoo: Sagittarius symbol about five inches across on his right shoulder. Roy is your typical Sagittarius in that he loves his freedom, is hard to pin down into a serious relationship and is a generally laid-back and personable type of person. He's also got a temper that is prone to flaring up and cooling down swiftly and often leaps into situations without giving any for thought to his actions. I put him on the cusp between Sagittarius and Capricorn however because he has a lot of Capricorn influences such as their dogged determination, and hard-working ethics.
Suitability: Roy is well over the age of 18
Power: Fire Manipulation
Personality:
Roy is a complicated man to say the least. On one hand, he’s a courageous superhero who constantly puts his life on the line for total strangers yet he can barely handle his personal life. At the end of the day, Roy Harper is his own worst enemy. He’s battled heroin addiction, abandonment issues and hooked up with a super villain and hero alike. His personal life has imploded multiple times yet he never seems to learn from his mistakes.

He’s an adrenaline junkie and for the longest time didn’t really care about anyone but himself. Like many junkies, Roy didn’t think about how his life choices would affect those around him such as his friends and team members. And it cost him both his fortune and very nearly every relationship he had. But Arsenal is not stubborn as hell and when he decided he was going to sober he did it cold turkey and nearly without help. Black Canary was the only person around as he went trough withdrawals and cleansed the poison from his system. Because of that harrowing experience, it brought them closer than nearly anyone else in Roy’s life.

If Ollie is his ‘father’ than Dinah is as close to a mother and big sister as he’s ever known. For the longest time, Arsenal thought he had to prove himself his own man and after Ollie cut him off, he did just that. He forged his own superhero identity and became a man in his own right.

When he’d been a fresh and wet behind the ears CBI agent however, he made the nearly career ending mistake of falling for a psychopathic villain known as Cheshire. He’d been sent on mission to gain her trust but ended up accidentally falling for her. In the course of their short-lived, but intensive affair, Jade became pregnant without Roy's knowledge. Unfortunately, Roy realized he could not turn her in so he left in the middle of the night. Not exactly the classiest of things to do but Roy has never been very good at relationships.

Being a bit of a flirt and even a ‘manwhore’ he tends to go through women like some people go through underwear. Perhaps it was because he spent a good chunk of his formative years watching Ollie do the same thing but either way, he tends to get around.

Roy isn’t willfully cruel about it and most of the women he becomes involved with realize that there is no chance of any lasting relationship beyond friendship and the occasional roll in the sack.

How ironic then that his brief affair with Cheshire culminating in her dropping Lian off on his figurative doorstep. Finding himself a single father was the most polarizing moment in Roy Harper’s life. He realized he couldn’t continue to fuck around anymore and from there on out, made the effort to actually act like a grown adult.

The sudden maturity in Arsenal was not lost on his friends and family members. Sure, things weren’t easy for them and the adjustment period was staggering. Roy had never cared for a child before but he is an adaptable person at heart.

After Lian came into his life, he left the CBI and ended up joining up with the Titans once more. His circle of friends is one of the few constants in his life. The ‘original’ members of the Teen Titans, Robin, Aqualad, Kid Flash, Wondergirl and of course ‘Speedy’ grew up over the years and went their respective ways but there was a bond that kept drawing them back together. They are some of his closest friends and have seen him at lowest and highest. Dick Grayson is his best friend along with the Atlantean known as Tempest these days.

While Roy’s relationship with Wally West has been often fraught with fighting and bickering, at the end of the day he would not hesitate to label the speedster one of his closest friends. And then there is Donna Troy.

They were childhood sweethearts and she was his first—and some would argue—only brush with love. While their relationship eventually petered out, she has continued to haunt his relationships. Every other woman he has gone out with is found lacking in comparison to the Amazon.

Perhaps because of this, Roy has carefully guarded his heart and kept his attachments light and easy. That is generally his speed and plays pretty true to nearly every aspect in his life. While he's been the leader of the team and even excelled at it, he's generally more comfortable letting someone else call the shots. Not because he's a particularly subordinate person but mainly because he doesn't like the responsibility and the baggage that comes with it.

As a leader, he makes the sometimes deadly mistake of trying to be a friend to his men. This means he gets too close at times and can also lose the respect of them by acting like a light-hearted fool. It is what makes him and Nightwing such an effective team however. Dick is the hardass and Roy is the more 'reasonable' co-leader who bitches about him behind his back and relieving some of the tension of having a 'Bat' in control. But that is not saying Roy is incapable of being a hard-nosed leader himself. He just prefers letting someone else do it.

But for all of his good qualities, he is definitely not without his faults. That same stubbornness that gave him the force of will to quit heroin cold turkey can also cause him to dig his feet in too deep. Even to the point of stupidity and when he should have conceded the point long ago. His temper is quick to flare and to blow over and he’s not above punching people in the face when they push him too far.

He is impetuous at times and brash to say the least. That very short-sightedness has almost been the death of him and his teammates on a few occasions. Most recently, Arsenal ran off in the middle of battle because Cheshire had been injured. His relationship with the assassin has always been a complicated one and despite the fact that she is a mass murderer, she is still the mother of his child and Arsenal has always had a bit of a soft spot for her.

But no responsible leader would abandon his team in the middle of a mission, not if they were thinking clearly. The problem is, Roy sometimes gets so wrapped up in the heat of the moment that he does stupid things he’d never do in other circumstances.

Of course he regrets it afterwards but the fact that he's done it a few times doesn't exactly speak well for his leadership capabilities. He also does not hesitate to go for the throat when he's in an argument and has hurt those around him unthinkingly by letting his mouth run unchecked. He's sickened by the bile and hurtful things he says afterwards but in the heat of the moment but it doesn't stop him from putting his foot in his mouth in the first place.

Roy doesn't mince around words just to spare someone's sensibilities. The outspokenness is a habit he learned from Oliver, a man who is infamous for being very vocal and outspoken at times. This bluntness can be off putting to some people but as far as Arsenal is concerned, the less time you spend pussyfooting around a situation and cut through the bullshit, the quicker one can go about solving a problem.

✖ SAMPLES:
"Zodion" First-Person Network Entry:

[The communication device would flicker to life, revealing a rather skeptical looking Arsenal.] So, apparently this is where I'm supposed to address my questions and concerns regarding the fact that we've all been kidnapped to do what exactly? Fight some war? But with sex?

[A cynical little smile curve up the corners of the redhead's lips.] Because you can understand my doubt. As fun as being stranded in some kooky 'sex island' would be, I've got my daughter to think of. So why don't you tell me why we're all really here and just cut to the chase? Don't get me wrong, I like sex as much as the next guy but what you people are talking about is just nuts. And not even in the fun way either. So what do you people really want with me, huh?

"Zodionlogs" Third-Person Prose Entry: It wasn’t the first time Roy Harper had woken up in a strange place with no memory of how he’d gotten there. It was however the first time he’d ever woken up and found himself thrust into a situation like this. These people were obviously nuts and obsessed with things like the Zodiac.

Did he believe the things he’d read about being chosen for some battle by some deity he’d never even heard of before? Not a chance in hell.

But he’d dealt with enough cults and religious freaks to know just how dangerous they could be. So when he left the temple he was on his guard and watchful. The communication device he’d found on the alter was deliberately left behind because Roy knew all too well how easy those things were traced. He fully intended on disappearing into the crowd and going to ground till he found out just what the hell was going on here.

The architecture of the city was strange to his American born and raised sensibilities. Of course, considering he’d spent the first thirteen years of his life living on a Navajo reservation, Star City had been equally strange and foreign to him when Roy had moved there.

Being watchful of his surroundings, Roy wandered through the city and generally avoided making eye-contact with the people he passed on the street. He knew the key to blending into a crowd was to be as unobtrusive and unremarkable as possible. The redhead didn't think back on his time in Checkmate fondly very often but their training had saved his skin more times than he cared to think about.

Finally however, he had to approach someone for some real answers. Roy chose his target carefully however and settled on a pretty woman setting up wares at a stand. Smiling charmingly, he approached her and did his best to look puzzled and a little lost

"Hi, miss? I'm afraid I'm a little lost here, I don't suppose I could bend your ear real quick with a couple of questions, can I?"