47. “Do they want to project an image of a younger, older, more important person? Do they want to be visible or invisible?”

Hmmmm. This depends entirely on who Hood is around. For the most part, he doesn’t even know what age he’s supposed to be acting (and generally settles for Adult-but-only-kinda-Responsible). He wants One person (Batman) to see him and think that he’s important. (This grows into the whole Batfam but it starts out with just Bruce.) Hood has a weird mix of “don’t look at me but don’t ever take your eyes off me because if you do I’ll cease to exist”. There is a reason he’s very flashy but his helmet/mask has no facial features whatsoever.

48. “How are your character’s gestures? Vigorous? Weak? Controlled? Compulsive? Energetic? Sluggish?”

Hood gestures a lot. Some of it is compulsive, a nervous tick, and almost always energetic. When he’s really having a tough time it’s more controlled to look compulsive. He’s forcing it to look “normal” and so it’s less wild as a result.

49. “What about voice? Pitch? Strength? Tempo and rhythm of speech? Pronunciation? Accent?”

Oh boy, his voice. Very good question. For the most part, he’s got a higher voice, not super strong, and he speaks pretty rapidly unless he’s making a point of slowing down. He’ll stress parts of words on occasion, like he isn’t quite sure that’s the word he wants, or is making fun of how a word sounds. When he’s in a darker mood, his voice will drop to a lower pitch, and he’ll lose a lot of his joyful speech patterns. His accent is Gothamite, which focuses on vowels and cuts off the end of suffixes a lot.

50. “What are the prevailing facial expressions? Sour? Cheerful? Dominating?”

I’ve thought a lot about this, because it is a serious change to the entire universe. And it’s something I should figure out, but haven’t quite yet... It’s going to effect a lot of things, for example, Gotham is completely unprepared for JJ, rather, the first Joker to take the stage during Crimson Spade Beyond era. His rampage across the Freehold of Gotham goes down in history and none ever come close to rivaling it.

The Gotham Rogues don’t have such a clear hierarchy without Joker sitting at the top and getting the lower villains to fear him. (Though Hood does have his Joker personality come out now and then, it’s not nearly enough to do anything other than start a few rumors.) However, the Underground do fear Red Hood when Batman is missing. Mostly just the various heads of gangs and a few of the bigger name villains who have seen what Hood does when he’s in a panic/stressed without Batman. Lesser ranks or those who haven’t seen it first hand think being afraid of Hood is idiotic.

For villains outside of Gotham, with no one setting the bar like Joker does, I’d say that they view Lex as being the top for going against Superman...though my Hoodverse!Lex does eventually reform (to an extent). Perhaps this means Vandal Savage is who everyone fears? I’ve yet to flesh him out, and with the recent findings in Young Justice: Outsiders it’s piqued my interest.

For villains inside Gotham, the rank goes like this: The Court of Owls (who run things from the shadows), Black Mask (who took control of most organized crime after Hood and Bats took down the old families), Hugo Strange, Bane Two-Face and Ivy are all pretty much the same level, Killer Croc, Scarecrow, Riddler Penguin and Freeze are next, (the rumors about a violent clown wearing nothing but purple go here), Hatter and the rest of the lesser villains, regular crooks.

Hmm. Well beyond Joker, Freeze is my favorite, and I haven’t actually mentioned him much by himself. My primary source of Freeze was the classic Batman cartoon, and the movie Sub-Zero so I’ve grown very fond of him. So Hoodverse Freeze is mostly the same, with a bit more leaning to Lil’Gotham characterization because I’m a sap. And probably around year 12 or so, Wayne Enterprises finds a cure for Nora Fries’ condition, and help her recover. Victor had made a deal with them in that he’d serve his time without any resistance if they would cure his wife.

Of course he gets unintentionally broken out in year 15, and ends up forming the Freeze District in the Freehold of Gotham. He lives a long life with his wife, though she does eventually die of old age while Victor is a bit stuck in his frozen state until Beyond Hoodverse starts up.

Sitting atop the roof of a house in the warm night of Central City, is a small boy with short brown hair and ice blue eyes that shine with suppressed tears. He has his knees drawn up to his chest as he blankly looks out at the starry sky. The night is quiet, with only the soft sound of birds or the occasional car breaking it. Then the boy hears the sound of small feet landing behind him.

“I told Mom I was walking Krypto, so I’ve got like an hour before I gotta be back home.”

“Hey Lara. Sorry to ask you to fly here...I just...can you sit next to me for a while?” the boy asks, burying his face further into his knees. A girl about the same size as the boy, Lara, with black hair cut in a bob and eyes so deep and blue they’re inhuman, settles down next to him, copying his form and looking at him from where she now rests her head against her knees.

She waits. Her mom says she’s a good listener. Her friend doesn’t make her wait long, as he throws one of his hands out in a gesture of frustration. “I’m normal and I hate it.” He declares.

Lara rolls her eyes, but has a smile on her face as she replies to him.

"Oh c'mon Mikey, you're not normal. I mean, look at the people in your life-"

"Exactly!” Mikey interrupts with a cry, “My Dad is the Flash, Pops is Captain Cold, Uncle is Vibe, my best friend is half amazing alien, my cousins are Kid Flash and Artemis, who are friends with the best team in the world- and I have trouble with my history homework! I can't run super fast, and I'm not super smart, I can't do anything extraordinary.” Here the boy pauses and lowers his voice to an anguished mutter, “I don't even have the right to call myself an Allen."

“Mikey...” Lara’s voice is filled with concern and she looks pained but also about to protest. Mikey stops her by continuing.

"My little siblings, who are five, Lara, can run so fast even Dad has trouble catching them sometimes. And Nora is already able to do multiplication. Don talks in complete sentences. I'm a normal nobody. And I always will be."

The boy recrosses his arms over his knees, moving from anguish to bitter and sullen. His friend scoots over to wrap an arm around his hunched shoulders after a moment.

“You dumb-dumb,” Lara starts fondly, “you forgot your Mom didn't know she wanted to be a journalist until your Dad was in his coma. And your Pops doesn't have special abilities, he worked for it. Some people have a boost, but that doesn't mean you can't work and be great too. Did I tell you how I flew into a sign post last week?" Lara teases, a rueful smile on her face.  

“...No...” Mikey looks at her from the corner of his eyes, curious.

“Well I did, and I broke it in half so it landed on my head. Hurt a lot, so much that Dad heard me crying and left work to come find me. Just because I have these gifts doesn’t mean I know how to use them. Dad and Kon always tell me that they don’t make me better than anybody. Which means you’re not worse than anybody for not having them.” She nods her head as if this is the greatest of wisdom and no argument can hold against the words of her father and big brother. To Lara, this is fact.

Mikey thinks this over, looking torn but hopeful. He leans into his friend’s arm.

“I just...I want to be great like my parents are. And I can’t see how to do it.”

“Well I know my Dad wasn’t saving anybody at nine, Mikey. So you don’t gotta be. Maybe just work on what you think a hero should be able to do, and try to see how you can do those things. And I don’t mean flying.”

“...Okay. Thanks Lara. You’re the best friend a guy could have.” Mikey turns and wraps one of his own arms around his best friend, and the two sit there, on a roof in Central City, enjoying the night sky. After about two minutes, Lara breaks the peaceful quiet.