Betty Ross | Sixth Iteration

[chondrion]

Name: Betty Ross
Canon: MCU
Scrubs Color: Navy Blue
Visible Age: 42
Gender: Female
Height: 5'10"
Physique: Slender
Complexion: Pale, even skin tone
Hygiene: Neat and clean
Hair: Dark brown, wavy and past her shoulders in length
Eyes: Blue
Defining Marks: Small tattoo of the tree of life above her ankle
Accent/Speech: Standard American, leaning Northeast
Bearing/Demeanor: Confident, straight-backed, the kind of bearing of someone who was told to sit up straight.
Gait: Fairly standard; Betty blends in in a crowd.
Habits: Tapping her toe against the ground when she's nervous, tucking her hair behind her ears, staring off into the middle distance when she's thinking about something
Skills: Biological identification and experimentation, teaching, knitting, canning, cooking, listening

BASICS

Your name or nickname: Amanda
Your year of birth: 1980
A reliable DW account the mods can PM to reach you: muzivitch
Who you currently play at 6I: James Rhodes (MCU)
Link to your hold comment: Here
Referral: N/A

Character name: Elizabeth (Betty) Ross
Character type: Fandom Character
Fandom/Canon: MCU/Incredible Hulk
Character DW journal: chondrion
Does this character have previous CR?: Canonically with Bruce Banner; CRAU with Natasha Romanoff

HISTORY

Betty at the MCU Wiki

What is your canon exit point?: Post Avengers: Age of Ultron, but before the events of Captain America: Civil War

PERSONALITY OVERVIEW

N/A

PERSONALITY QUESTIONS

What skills does your character bring to the situation?

Betty has a PhD in cellular biology and experience teaching as a professor as well in developing and administering experiments. She brings both those scientific experimentation and teaching skills to the situation. She’s also shown herself to be resourceful and determined in the face of adverse situations in canon and can keep her head in a crisis - if she couldn’t, the gamma radiation research would have been lost when her father seized their files. Betty also has some strong problem-solving skills and is the type to take action when it’s necessary; her pretty assertive personality is valuable in a changeable environment.

Why did you choose this specific character for 6I, and how do you picture them fitting into the game?
Insomuch as there are any normal characters in a universe populated by superheroes and people with special abilities, Betty is a normal person. She has no special powers, she’s not a spy or a soldier, and she hasn’t constantly been dealing with the bombardment of crises that a lot of the other characters in her world do. She’s as close to being an ordinary citizen as it comes in the Marvel universe, and I think seeing how someone who hasn’t had to learn how to cope with all those consistent stressors will deal with suddenly being in another dimension will be interesting.

As to how Betty will fit in: at first, she’s going to tell herself she needs to lay low, get the lay of the land and try to figure out what’s going on and what this place is. Trying to figure all this out is a lot of how she’ll interact with the game - the scientist in her is going to have her getting out and exploring the environment even if she’s cautious about it, and the other scientists in the game are who she’ll connect with first.


How do you imagine your character will survive in 6I, and in what ways will they contribute to the settlement, if any?

Betty doesn’t explicitly have a lot of survivalist skills - she’s an academic, after all, and her field of biology isn’t one that lends itself to a lot in the way of field work. Initially, until she discovers people she knows, she’s probably going to stay at the inn and keep her head down while she tries to figure out what’s going on. Likewise, her contribution to the settlement isn’t going to be something that develops organically. She’s likely to lean on science initially as her way to contribute - using both her biological knowledge and research skills to explore and help catalog the flora and fauna. Later, she’s likely to start teaching - she enjoyed teaching and presenting - but it’s going to take her some time to get to that point and figure out for herself what she can contribute.

How will your character react to...

Being separated, possibly permanently, from loved ones and their previous life, including loss of powers, if applicable?

Betty is somewhat used to separation and loss. She lost her mother at a very young age, and her father’s military career would have necessitated a lot of absence - as would the ambition that led him to rise to the rank of General and eventually Secretary of State (as is seen in Captain America: Civil War). Beyond that, there’s her relationship with Bruce Banner; Bruce disappeared into hiding to avoid her father and those in the US government who would want access to him in the Hulk, then he disappeared to Cambodia, and ultimately - though this was long after their relationship had ended - into space. This doesn’t mean that the separation isn’t going to hurt her, or that she’ll take all of it in stride, or that she doesn’t want to get back home. But she’s developed a lot of coping mechanisms already around losing people, and she’s going to use these coping mechanisms here, too. It means a lot of internalization and pushing through the hurt to just deal with what she’s got now.

Losing her life and routine is going to be harder on her. In the Incredible Hulk, we can see that Betty has eked out a “normal” life for herself after the gamma radiation experiment went wrong and her father and his team confiscated all the research and Bruce had to go on the run. She’s someone who would have worked hard to make a life she could be happy in, and with the kind of losses she’s experienced in her life and the estrangement from her father, that’s going to be essential to her. Losing it is going to be extremely difficult to deal with, and she’s likely to react by trying to build a new normal in 6i.

Their environment being manipulated, possibly in strange or extraordinary ways, and possibly in ways which restrain them?

Betty is going to react in stages to this kind of thing. Initially, she’ll be thrown by it because she’s a person governed largely by logical thought, but then her curiosity is going to be piqued, and that’s when the scientist will come out: what does this change mean? How does it work? What happens if I do this? Once she gets the science out of the way, she’ll think about the practicalities: what do we need to do to adjust our life to dealing with this (this is, of course, for any manipulations that last longer than a few days).

Restraint she’ll be less accepting of, especially restraints that reduce her ability to explore. Betty is a person who likes to take action rather than sitting back and waiting to see what happens - we can see that in her actions in canon, from her rescue of the research she and Bruce worked on to the way she rushes in when the Hulk is under attack at Culver University.

Being physically and/or mentally manipulated, such as having hallucinations or suddenly possessing special abilities they did not have before?

Betty’s never had powers, but she remembers the experiments that ultimately produced Bruce’s alter ego and it’s left her with a wariness when it comes to special abilities. If and when she discovers she now has her own special abilities, she’s not going to be exactly gung ho about it. There’s really only one superpowered person she knows, after all, and watching him acclimate to his abilities has left her with the distinct impression that they’re more trouble than they’re worth.

Mental manipulations like hallucinations will almost be easier to deal with - she participated in some experiments at Harvard involved hallucinogens - but she’s not going to like it much better. Thaddeus Ross has repeatedly shown himself very willing to be manipulative to get his way, and this certainly extended to his daughter. Being manipulated again isn’t going to go over well.

POWERS & SPECIAL ABILITIES

N/A

WRITING SAMPLES

SAMPLE 1
Why did you choose this sample? This sample both shows that she and Bruce can be friends again, and shows some of the aspects of her personality glossed over in the Hulk movies - she’s resourceful and quick-thinking, and she’s also playful and competitive.
Linked or pasted sample: Betty and Bruce on the TDM

SAMPLE 2
Why did you choose this sample? I wanted to show a sample where you see some of Betty’s nerves and awkwardness keying up
Linked or pasted sample: Betty and Natasha - Dinner Date