i am your savior, your last-serving daughter. } APPLICATION
IN CHARACTER
Name: Natasha Romanoff
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic
Canon point/AU: Post-The Winter Soldier
Journal:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
atoner
PB: Scarlett Johansson
History: natasha at the marvel movies wiki
Presentation:
❝ Truth is a matter of circumstances. It’s not all things to all people at all times. And neither am I. ❞
Who do you want me to be?
Natasha has spent her whole life switching up identities and aliases with practiced ease. So it's safe to say that her outward presentation and mannerisms are largely dependent on context. She becomes whatever the situation needs, because that's how she's been trained. As a consummate liar and a gifted actress, and she puts those skills to use in a myriad of subtle ways.
When tasked with gaining Tony Stark's trust, she became what she needed to be in order to grab his attention - namely, an attractive personal assistant with a modelling career in Tokyo. It likely wasn't an assignment that she particularly enjoyed, because she dropped the flirtatious banter as soon as her cover was blown, reverting back to brusque professionalism. With Loki, she faked helplessness, fear and vulnerability in order to lower his guard so he'd reveal his plans. The instances where she's not on playing a part, Natasha comes across as reserved and professional, though imbued with a wry and sarcastic sort of humour even in the face of immediate danger. ("I don't see how that's a party.")
The thing about Natasha is that she always seems to know more than everybody else around her. It's something that she carefully cultivates - the perception of being on top of everything at all times. Always being in control, tackling problems with calm rationality. She uses her wits and her training and her special skill-sets in order to tackle the problems in her way. Only, it's partially an act. She admits this in the midst of desperation, right after watching her mentor seemingly die in front of her. ("I only act like I know everything.") On the outside, she is endlessly confident and exceptionally competent. She holds her head up high. She gets the jobs done.
But despite this outward and seemingly unflappable projection, Natasha's only human. She feels fear and distress just like anyone else, even if she maintains better control of herself through it. In the Avengers, we see that she's terrified of the Hulk - he's an enemy that has no viable weaknesses for her to exploit, something that she absolutely cannot fight. She might be an exceptional human with extensive training, but she's in the midst of gods and monsters.
The more comfortable she is around a person, the more likely she is to lose a little bit of her reserves. Natasha isn't an ice queen trope - she texts using smiley faces and makes "Steve is old" jokes with the best of them. But like everything else about her, the way she interacts depends on the environment she's in, and who she happens to be interacting with. She's malleable and dynamic - it's how she's stayed alive for this long.
Motivations:
❝ When I first joined SHIELD, I thought it was going straight. But I guess I just traded in the KGB for HYDRA. I thought I knew whose lies I was telling, but...I guess I can't tell the difference anymore. ❞
I've got red in my ledger, I'd like to wipe it out.
Above all else, Natasha Romanoff is a woman who is haunted by the things that she has done. She's lived a life of incredible violence and death, most of which she dealt out with her own two hands. Although we are given very few insights into her past, there are a few things we know for sure: she started her espionage training at a very young age ("Do they all start that young?" "I did."), working for the KGB as an assassin and making a name for herself up until SHIELD sent Clint Barton to kill her. He chose not to. Given a way out, a chance to turn her life around, Natasha took it. But her defection didn't erase the atrocities that she's committed, acts that she's still attempting to atone for to this very day by joining SHIELD, an apparent force for good in the world. Or so everyone thought.
It's obvious that guilt plays a large part in Natasha's motivations, and that tends to manifest in subtle ways. After a brainwashed Clint attacked the SHIELD helicarrier and brought it down, she tells him that it wasn't his fault. It's similar to a conversation she has with Selvig at the end of the Avengers once Loki's mind-control spell has worn off. She feels compassion for people who were brainwashed or coerced into terrible actions, but doesn't give herself any of the same absolvement even when it's implied that she went through the same thing.
CLINT: Have you ever had someone take your brain and play? Take you out and stuff something else in? You know what it's like to be unmade.
NATASHA: You know that I do.
Natasha refers to her collective sins as red in her ledger, a carefully chosen analogy that displays the fact that she thinks about the world in debts. She owes Clint, because he gave her a way out of her old life. She owes SHIELD her loyalty because of him, and because they took her in after her defection from the KGB. After Steve saves her life in The Winter Soldier, Natasha states that she owes him too, even if it's an idea that he quickly rebuffs.
But more than debts, what ties Natasha's closest relationships together is trust. It isn't easily given, and it means a lot when it is. She asks Steve if he trusted her to save his life, and it meant a lot to her that his answer was yes, because she's used to being treated with wariness given that she's made a career out of lying. Tony Stark's behaviour around her after her cover was blown is a good example of this. But most importantly, Nick Fury's reluctance to trust her with the truth of his faked death hurts Natasha immensely.
Even in the service of SHIELD, a lot of the grey areas didn't disappear - in a business like hers, it's where she lives. The assassination orders never stopped, but they were supposed to be given with some sort of greater good in mind. Natasha trusted SHIELD and trusted Fury to set her on the right path of her atonement, and it shows. She helps save New York from an invading alien army. Even as she's running for her life while the Winter Soldier takes aim at her, Natasha's first instinct is to direct civilians away from the area. The grey area that she lived in and all of the morally dubious things she's done were supposed to protect people. To do the right thing.
Only, it turns out that SHIELD was part of HYDRA all along. Natasha realizes that she's been helping a Nazi organization achieve their aims, and understand that SHIELD has to go. The corruption is too in-depth. Nothing can be salvaged. She releases all of the agency's secrets out there to the world - including her own.
At the end of The Winter Soldier, she's come full circle. All of the secrets that she had guarded so carefully are out there for the whole world to see - for better or for worse. She's spent her whole life creating covers as protection and utility, each persona carefully crafted to achieve an end. And suddenly, none of them are viable.
Who are you, when all you've ever been is a tool for the agendas of others?
Natasha hopes to find out.
Setting: Natasha has lived an incredibly violent and generally morally dubious life up until a couple of years ago, so while the arena will be sickening, it also won't really be debilitating to her. That being said, she's trying to atone for all of the awful things she's done in the past, and will likely refrain from attacking or killing people unless they attack her first.
On the flip side, she'll also be attempting to gain any intel on the Capitol, as well as scoping out any potential weaknesses in both the arenas and the governmental system. Natasha is a spy, and it's what she does best.
SAMPLES
First Person Thread:
( natasha has always outrun death. people in their business always do, and there's no way to last as long as she has without becoming the best. decades of cheating and lying and murdering for different people and different objectives, and it's almost everything she's ever known.
which is why death is almost jarring. she's dealt it to so many people over the years, seen it up close and personal - every sharp and ugly edge. training and equipment can take you a long way, but maybe it's almost an inevitability. everyone dies. all it takes is one slip-up.
natasha is shaken, but she's trying her best not to show it. because this is entertainment to them, watching people kill each other for the enjoyment of it. she's tired of being a weapon and a tool for the agendas of others. when she speaks, her voice is very calm.
she has to give them something that resembles vulnerability, something almost personal, enough to sate their hunger for tragedy and suffering. but it doesn't have to be true. )
There's really not much you can say about dying. Are you looking for details? You want to know if it hurt or not? None of that matters.
The only thing that matters is that I'm planning on making sure it doesn't happen again.
Prose:
She analyzes threat levels and decides on a particularly tactical course of action. That would be the normal set of steps that Natasha takes before tackling a problem. The only problem is that in this case, she has nothing. No information, no context to guide her. Only a brief and unsatisfying explanation - a fight to the death, a panel of people to impress. People who have to be of some importance, judging by the way they're dressed and the subtle force field protecting them.
The weapons they give her are archaic. No guns, nothing particularly high-tech. It's all swords and bows and a variety of daggers, very sharp and shiny. Natasha's an expert marksman, but bows are Clint's thing and she's never really been a sword person.
So, daggers it is.
Because she's already figured that there's no point in trying to hide just how deadly she is. Not when her personal identity is now public domain. She's stuck here without any idea of what's going on. These people might be able to give her something, if she impresses her enough, so. It's worth it to play along in this situation.
Natasha throws the knives with a flick of her wrist. They throw fast and true, each hitting dead-center in the forehead of a different dummy. She flips her way over to the last remaining one before kicking its head with such force that the whole thing blows right off.
By the end of it, she isn't even breathing hard at all. But she's out of test dummies, so she takes the moment to make slow eye-contact with the gamemakers behind the force field before dismissing herself out of the room.
What is your character scored: 11.
Natasha has been trained as a spy since her childhood, and she has a great many skills - some of which are combat-related, and others that are more suited to espionage. While she has no supernatural abilities, she's probably at the peak height of human fitness and holds her own among the Avengers - a team that consists of a literal demigod, a super soldier, and a Hulk.
On her own, she's capable of taking down over a dozen security guards at once, as well as a large amount of invading alien soldiers. She's very, very proficient when it comes to guns, but likely other weapons as well - she figures out how to operate an alien weapon about two seconds after picking it up. She's an expert gymnast and martial artist, and she's also been fighting pretty consistently her entire life.
Emotionally, she's well-equipped to handle traumatic situations, including violence and murder and she's not likely to crack under pressure.
And lastly, she's very good at charming people and winning favor if she's inclined to do so. It's likely she could make an impression on a Capitol crowd.
Name: Natasha Romanoff
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic
Canon point/AU: Post-The Winter Soldier
Journal:
atonerPB: Scarlett Johansson
History: natasha at the marvel movies wiki
Presentation:
Who do you want me to be?
Natasha has spent her whole life switching up identities and aliases with practiced ease. So it's safe to say that her outward presentation and mannerisms are largely dependent on context. She becomes whatever the situation needs, because that's how she's been trained. As a consummate liar and a gifted actress, and she puts those skills to use in a myriad of subtle ways.
When tasked with gaining Tony Stark's trust, she became what she needed to be in order to grab his attention - namely, an attractive personal assistant with a modelling career in Tokyo. It likely wasn't an assignment that she particularly enjoyed, because she dropped the flirtatious banter as soon as her cover was blown, reverting back to brusque professionalism. With Loki, she faked helplessness, fear and vulnerability in order to lower his guard so he'd reveal his plans. The instances where she's not on playing a part, Natasha comes across as reserved and professional, though imbued with a wry and sarcastic sort of humour even in the face of immediate danger. ("I don't see how that's a party.")
The thing about Natasha is that she always seems to know more than everybody else around her. It's something that she carefully cultivates - the perception of being on top of everything at all times. Always being in control, tackling problems with calm rationality. She uses her wits and her training and her special skill-sets in order to tackle the problems in her way. Only, it's partially an act. She admits this in the midst of desperation, right after watching her mentor seemingly die in front of her. ("I only act like I know everything.") On the outside, she is endlessly confident and exceptionally competent. She holds her head up high. She gets the jobs done.
But despite this outward and seemingly unflappable projection, Natasha's only human. She feels fear and distress just like anyone else, even if she maintains better control of herself through it. In the Avengers, we see that she's terrified of the Hulk - he's an enemy that has no viable weaknesses for her to exploit, something that she absolutely cannot fight. She might be an exceptional human with extensive training, but she's in the midst of gods and monsters.
The more comfortable she is around a person, the more likely she is to lose a little bit of her reserves. Natasha isn't an ice queen trope - she texts using smiley faces and makes "Steve is old" jokes with the best of them. But like everything else about her, the way she interacts depends on the environment she's in, and who she happens to be interacting with. She's malleable and dynamic - it's how she's stayed alive for this long.
Motivations:
I've got red in my ledger, I'd like to wipe it out.
Above all else, Natasha Romanoff is a woman who is haunted by the things that she has done. She's lived a life of incredible violence and death, most of which she dealt out with her own two hands. Although we are given very few insights into her past, there are a few things we know for sure: she started her espionage training at a very young age ("Do they all start that young?" "I did."), working for the KGB as an assassin and making a name for herself up until SHIELD sent Clint Barton to kill her. He chose not to. Given a way out, a chance to turn her life around, Natasha took it. But her defection didn't erase the atrocities that she's committed, acts that she's still attempting to atone for to this very day by joining SHIELD, an apparent force for good in the world. Or so everyone thought.
It's obvious that guilt plays a large part in Natasha's motivations, and that tends to manifest in subtle ways. After a brainwashed Clint attacked the SHIELD helicarrier and brought it down, she tells him that it wasn't his fault. It's similar to a conversation she has with Selvig at the end of the Avengers once Loki's mind-control spell has worn off. She feels compassion for people who were brainwashed or coerced into terrible actions, but doesn't give herself any of the same absolvement even when it's implied that she went through the same thing.
NATASHA: You know that I do.
Natasha refers to her collective sins as red in her ledger, a carefully chosen analogy that displays the fact that she thinks about the world in debts. She owes Clint, because he gave her a way out of her old life. She owes SHIELD her loyalty because of him, and because they took her in after her defection from the KGB. After Steve saves her life in The Winter Soldier, Natasha states that she owes him too, even if it's an idea that he quickly rebuffs.
But more than debts, what ties Natasha's closest relationships together is trust. It isn't easily given, and it means a lot when it is. She asks Steve if he trusted her to save his life, and it meant a lot to her that his answer was yes, because she's used to being treated with wariness given that she's made a career out of lying. Tony Stark's behaviour around her after her cover was blown is a good example of this. But most importantly, Nick Fury's reluctance to trust her with the truth of his faked death hurts Natasha immensely.
Even in the service of SHIELD, a lot of the grey areas didn't disappear - in a business like hers, it's where she lives. The assassination orders never stopped, but they were supposed to be given with some sort of greater good in mind. Natasha trusted SHIELD and trusted Fury to set her on the right path of her atonement, and it shows. She helps save New York from an invading alien army. Even as she's running for her life while the Winter Soldier takes aim at her, Natasha's first instinct is to direct civilians away from the area. The grey area that she lived in and all of the morally dubious things she's done were supposed to protect people. To do the right thing.
Only, it turns out that SHIELD was part of HYDRA all along. Natasha realizes that she's been helping a Nazi organization achieve their aims, and understand that SHIELD has to go. The corruption is too in-depth. Nothing can be salvaged. She releases all of the agency's secrets out there to the world - including her own.
At the end of The Winter Soldier, she's come full circle. All of the secrets that she had guarded so carefully are out there for the whole world to see - for better or for worse. She's spent her whole life creating covers as protection and utility, each persona carefully crafted to achieve an end. And suddenly, none of them are viable.
Who are you, when all you've ever been is a tool for the agendas of others?
Natasha hopes to find out.
Setting: Natasha has lived an incredibly violent and generally morally dubious life up until a couple of years ago, so while the arena will be sickening, it also won't really be debilitating to her. That being said, she's trying to atone for all of the awful things she's done in the past, and will likely refrain from attacking or killing people unless they attack her first.
On the flip side, she'll also be attempting to gain any intel on the Capitol, as well as scoping out any potential weaknesses in both the arenas and the governmental system. Natasha is a spy, and it's what she does best.
SAMPLES
First Person Thread:
( natasha has always outrun death. people in their business always do, and there's no way to last as long as she has without becoming the best. decades of cheating and lying and murdering for different people and different objectives, and it's almost everything she's ever known.
which is why death is almost jarring. she's dealt it to so many people over the years, seen it up close and personal - every sharp and ugly edge. training and equipment can take you a long way, but maybe it's almost an inevitability. everyone dies. all it takes is one slip-up.
natasha is shaken, but she's trying her best not to show it. because this is entertainment to them, watching people kill each other for the enjoyment of it. she's tired of being a weapon and a tool for the agendas of others. when she speaks, her voice is very calm.
she has to give them something that resembles vulnerability, something almost personal, enough to sate their hunger for tragedy and suffering. but it doesn't have to be true. )
There's really not much you can say about dying. Are you looking for details? You want to know if it hurt or not? None of that matters.
The only thing that matters is that I'm planning on making sure it doesn't happen again.
Prose:
She analyzes threat levels and decides on a particularly tactical course of action. That would be the normal set of steps that Natasha takes before tackling a problem. The only problem is that in this case, she has nothing. No information, no context to guide her. Only a brief and unsatisfying explanation - a fight to the death, a panel of people to impress. People who have to be of some importance, judging by the way they're dressed and the subtle force field protecting them.
The weapons they give her are archaic. No guns, nothing particularly high-tech. It's all swords and bows and a variety of daggers, very sharp and shiny. Natasha's an expert marksman, but bows are Clint's thing and she's never really been a sword person.
So, daggers it is.
Because she's already figured that there's no point in trying to hide just how deadly she is. Not when her personal identity is now public domain. She's stuck here without any idea of what's going on. These people might be able to give her something, if she impresses her enough, so. It's worth it to play along in this situation.
Natasha throws the knives with a flick of her wrist. They throw fast and true, each hitting dead-center in the forehead of a different dummy. She flips her way over to the last remaining one before kicking its head with such force that the whole thing blows right off.
By the end of it, she isn't even breathing hard at all. But she's out of test dummies, so she takes the moment to make slow eye-contact with the gamemakers behind the force field before dismissing herself out of the room.
What is your character scored: 11.
Natasha has been trained as a spy since her childhood, and she has a great many skills - some of which are combat-related, and others that are more suited to espionage. While she has no supernatural abilities, she's probably at the peak height of human fitness and holds her own among the Avengers - a team that consists of a literal demigod, a super soldier, and a Hulk.
On her own, she's capable of taking down over a dozen security guards at once, as well as a large amount of invading alien soldiers. She's very, very proficient when it comes to guns, but likely other weapons as well - she figures out how to operate an alien weapon about two seconds after picking it up. She's an expert gymnast and martial artist, and she's also been fighting pretty consistently her entire life.
Emotionally, she's well-equipped to handle traumatic situations, including violence and murder and she's not likely to crack under pressure.
And lastly, she's very good at charming people and winning favor if she's inclined to do so. It's likely she could make an impression on a Capitol crowd.