Tag Archives: AU

Character Study: Bobbi Morse

Partnering with Clint here, my rendition of Bobbi Morse.

What was fun about Bobbi was while I knew who the character was, I am, as has been established, not a comic book reader. When I went wiki-diving for background information, I had very little to go on. She was really under-represented in wikis (or under written in comics, both are options). However, I watched her in the few mediums she was present in, read her quote entries, and came up with my interpretation of her character that I can only hope is close.

Bubbly and high energy, at least on the surface, Bobbi uses her energy to hide her serious demeanor and her smarts, on top of being a smart ass. She started off as being bound and determined to prove herself as worthy of being of the Avengers, despite dealing with psychological and potentially physically issues from her past. She has slowly relaxed over the panic attacks that losing a loved one used to cause her due to Clint carefully addressing them once he was aware of her issues. Around Clint, she acts the flirt, but others who have worked for her know that under her snark, she is the most serious agent on missions and won’t tolerate goofing around.

I made all of this history up, so be aware that it is completely wrong. Her father was from an old Southern family who moved west to California to be an artist, her mother an orphan who rose to be a ballet star in New York before she retired to have a family. Her mother was diagnosed with a mutant-variant of MS, highly aggressive and eventually fatal. During that time, Bobbi basically raised herself. She was then sent to live with her grandmother while her father lost himself in his grief. Going to college early, she got her doctorate in biochemistry and was recruited into SHIELD. During those early days, her grandmother and father both died, leaving her with no family. As a result, all of Bobbi’s emotional ties are with SHIELD. It is her home, Fury is her paternal figure and boss combined, Phil was her favorite uncle (that was a hard loss for her), Natasha is that annoying older sister…and Clint is her whole world.

Her biggest character trait is her mind, and her way of thinking. She is constantly planning, constantly absorbing new information and using it to problem solve. The problem with this is that she can get too caught up in worrying about the future (especially since she inherits her mother’s strain of MS and has to come up with the treatment for it), and the past just adds fuel to the fire. She also really struggled with putting a name to the feelings between her and Clint, much less their relationship, out of fear of repeating her parents’ history.

Bobbi is social for work, since I went more of the spy-espionage route with her, and is good at acting the right way in situations. But really, she’s happiest spending quiet time with people she cares about, maybe going out for something casual. A beach bum, if she can have a person she loves with her while hanging around the beach all day, that’s the perfect vacation for her. There is a miscarriage for her and Clint that will lead her to being very protective of her other two children, particularly Ash, who is her baby. But as long as nothing is even remotely threatening them, she is a very loving mother who encourages her children to do what makes them happy.

Bobbi is so much fun to write…and also suffers from having the most AU timelines because she’s so easy to do so with. I think my favorite is the one I call the Romanoff Sisters AU, because Bobbi ends up at the Red Room Academy with Natasha as girls. She is rescued by Natasha and Clint just before her graduation procedure, and discovers that her father has remarried since her mother died, giving her a half-sister (who Natasha also adopts, because Bobbi’s sister is her sister) Rhonda who goes by Rhonni, and then more digging produces another sister, Titania. Her personality doesn’t really change, and she gets to annoy Clint while being jail bait with a crush for a while. The sister and family dynamics in that one is just a lot of fun.

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Character Study: Clint Barton

Trying something new here for the RPG section, and doing some studies on characters that I either play or play with as we interpret them in my various Forum RPs. There’s a few OCs in here, but a lot of them are actually canon characters that we combine different mediums for and sometimes ignore canon for the sake of sanity. Maybe I’ll even eventually do some of my d20 characters. So welcome to my personal chaos.

I’m starting with Clint, who I don’t really play myself, but I do write him in prompts, so I guess I half own him? Joys of one-on-one threads (sort of, a third guest writes as Natasha). This is an AU of the MCU RP, started just after the first Avengers movie, and since then it will keep with the main plot of MCU movies, but I reserve the right to throw monkey wrenches at things that don’t work for our story, rather than the other way around. Or entire shows, since Agents of SHIELD is totally not canon for us aside from occasional pulls.

Our Clint is a surly sort. He didn’t snark much, not after what Loki did to his head, but once he started to get his feet under him, he got better. Particularly renewing his friendship with Bobbi Morse…which has since developed into something more, despite some of his reservations and Bobbi being Bobbi. His seriousness probably comes out more because Bobbi is such a smart ass, while with Natasha he is allowed to be more of the class clown. Regardless, he always has a snarky comment at the ready.

His past history is a bit of a combination of comics and MCU-canon. Abusive father, ran away and joined the circus with his brother, who then left him for the army. Clint followed along eventually but never found Barney, and got recruited into SHIELD as a fixer. He met Natasha while she was being mind-controlled by a villain-of-the-week, and despite orders used the antidote on her to bring her over to his side. She was with him on the mission that has his hearing questionable out of one ear (which one depends on who is writing him). They are close, but while Natasha flirted with the idea of them being a couple, he didn’t consider it as anything serious (until this got him in trouble later).

Possibly that is his biggest character trait outside of the snark and the bow and arrows. Clint is very much in the present. He may see better from far away, but he tries not to let the past drag him down, and he sometimes struggles to see past current circumstances to the future. He also is big on making assumptions on his relationships with other people–whether it’s friendships and work partnerships to where he and Bobbi currently stand in their relationship. While this means he has incredible focus on missions and isn’t easily swayed from his objectives, it can lead to problems when he is wrong about where he currently stands with people.

More than Bobbi, Clint is a social creature in the sincere sense. When he cares about you, he means it, and he wants to spend time with you. He also prefers doing active things…as much as work lets him. He’ll also lie in bed and cuddle…as much as Bobbi lets him (curse morning people). With his kids (yes, plural, we’re odd), he is the doting father. There are moments where he worries over Bobbi babying the youngest, Ash, but that’s just him wanting his son to be able to follow in his and Bobbi’s footsteps if that’s what he desires. (Bobbi’s dog drives him nuts, though. His own fault for getting her a puppy for Christmas.)

I think what I love most of RPing with Clint, on both sides of the coin, is the aftermath of a conflict. He’s able to put aside what just happened–whether it’s a verbal or physical fight–and enjoy the moment of calm after, capable of sweetness and poorly timed jokes to ease the tension and give some levity. Or, if needed, give someone a talking-to about how they just screwed up, and tell them how to make it better.