[App] asgardeventide

[earnedthename]

OOC Information;
Name; Aubrey
Personal Journal; mortalcity
Contact; mortalcity @ plurk, meant to care @ aim, taibhsearachd@gmail.com
Other Characters; N/A


IC Information;
Character Name; Kate Bishop
Canon; Marvel 616
Canon Point; After Hawkeye #14
Age; 20

House; Thor
Power; Strength

Personality;

Kate Bishop chose her codename well, though she may not have realized it at the time: she is a Hawkeye to the core, cocky and stubborn and courageous, an adrenaline junkie who hides all weakness behind sarcasm and overconfidence. She is the subtler of the Hawkeyes, the one who uses her brain and takes time to evaluate the situation before diving in with metaphorical guns blazing, but when it comes down to it... she's always right there in the thick of it with her namesake, doing the stupid, crazy, potentially deadly thing for good reasons because that's what Hawkeyes do.

Kate's confidence is no act (as it often is with her male counterpart) - she is honestly self-assured, her cockiness backed up by hard-earned skill. It does often come off as youthful arrogance (and let's be honest, there's a good dose of that in the equation too), but she has the talent and ability to back it up, and her self-assurance has been proven to be justified often enough that she sees no reason to rein it in.

She's incredibly, inhumanly driven to achieve her goals, which is how she's managed to hold her own among a team of aliens and demigods, mutants and supersoldiers and superhumans. She decided to learn how to fight, and within a year, two at the most, she became adept in several different fighting styles with several different weapons, and an expert second only to Hawkeye with her bow. She decided to become a superhero, and no one and nothing - not Captain America, not the man she took her name from, not the death of her closest friend in the line of duty - could shake her from that purpose.

The flip-side of this drive is, of course, that she is crazy stubborn. Once she decides something, she digs her heels in and flat-out refuses to move. She kind of thinks she knows everything (and if she doesn't, she'd never admit it), and will railroad the people around her into going along with what she wants, cheerfully ignoring any arguments along the way. She also does not like to ask for help or show weakness: when she's flat broke in California, stuck in the house of a woman she's well aware wants to kill her, and has every opportunity to call her father or her team or Clint, she makes the conscious decision to stick it out and make it on her own, just to prove that she can. Kate Bishop can handle things herself, thank you.

As Clint points out at every opportunity, she is spoiled as hell. It's an assertion she's never really argued with, because it's true - she's done everything on daddy's money, never had a job her father didn't get her, got a pony for her eighth birthday and everything - but she takes serious offense to any implication that it's the only reason she got where she is, or that she can't get by without it. Her family and her money makes her life easier, and lets her devote a lot more time and energy to superheroing, but as she's been proving on her little summer of self-discovery, she's Hawkeye no matter where she is, whether she has eight dollars or eight thousand to her name. She is very assertive: she knows what she deserves and where her boundaries are, and she doesn't let people deny her that or cross the line without being challenged. She's also got a very firm idea of her place in things, and it's always in a leading role: "you're not the hero of this story, I am."

On a personal level, Kate's outgoing and friendly until someone gives her a reason not to be, very forthright and often painfully blunt - she certainly possesses tact, adept at maneuvering in the subtle world of the wealthy she grew up in, but these days she doesn't see much use for it unless she's playing someone. With friends, she's alternately sarcastic and teasing, or honest and affectionate, and for friends, when necessary, she will soften her usual blunt attitude to be gentle with them. (Only if they really need gentleness, though - if not, she's as likely to encourage them with a soft smack and a friendly insult, or by exasperatedly pointing out what they're doing wrong with their life.)

Kate is deeply loyal to the people she cares about. There is literally nothing she wouldn't do for them, and she has risked her life to help friends even when explicitly told to leave them alone - if Kate cares about you, she's going to make sure you're okay whether you want her to or not. She's lost too many people she loves to not be protective of the ones she has left. Though she makes friends easily, really opening up to people is much harder for her. She doesn't like to show vulnerability or insecurity, she's better with a joke than serious discussion about feelings, and she's much more comfortable with physical intimacy than emotional.

When she first started learning how to fight, she was driven by the desire to never be a victim again, to make sure that whatever happened to her from that point on, it would be on her terms. As she developed skill and confidence in her abilities, her motivation changed from survival to fun - early on with the Young Avengers, it's clear that for her, being a hero is as much a fun outlet for everything she's learned as it is about helping people. She's a baseline human with no relationship to the Avengers like her teammates, but she's one of the more gung-ho about being a hero, fighting her way onto the team simply because the opportunity presented itself and using her money to get them a hideout and costumes, ensuring that they could keep doing it despite the adult heroes' objections... and it's because she truly enjoys it, because she finds joy and fulfillment in being a hero.

Later, after losing two friends, after the team fragments, when she starts working with Clint, she's a lot more serious about the job. Now that she's lost people close to her in the line of duty, it's become real to her - she's still the same snarky, cocky Kate, but her reasons behind doing all of this have changed. Before, it was a choice, something to do for fun; now, she has to do this, because someone has to, and she couldn't walk away if she wanted to. She's far darker too, willing to go further and not flinching from it - it wasn't long ago she questioned another hero killing HYDRA agents who'd been shooting at them, but now, she shoots to cripple or kill and accepts this as necessary.

These days, she takes a lot of her inspiration in heroing from Clint, because the best parts of him are everything she ever wanted to be as a hero. Hawkeyes stand up, knowing they're outnumbered and underpowered and small and fragile, humans standing among giants and gods; they have to be the best at what they do, and they can't ever miss or falter, because that means they're just another guy (or girl) with a bow; they're bound to screw up, because they are human, and when they do, they get back up and dust themselves off and try harder. Hawkeyes fight for the underdog, and they pick the hopeless battles to defend the people no one else will, and for a Hawkeye, nothing and no one is too small to care about. Kate's spent a lot of time thinking about this, and she has a much more coherent view of what they do than Clint probably does - it doesn't come out often, but in the moments when she gets serious and sincere, it's very clear that she knows exactly what they are and why they do what they do, and she's the one to remind him when he forgets.