APP;; Bruce Banner [gammapulsed]

[gammapulsed]

Player Info;
Name: Sammo
Journal: fribbled
Email: liberalkitten@gmail.com
AIM: recumbence
Plurk: pistachioed

Under 18?: nein
Characters Played @ Singularity: nein again

Character Info;
Name: Bruce Banner, Dr.
Age: 34
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Canon/AU/Other Game CR: Canon! ...or canon AU if being technical. Marvel's complicated like that.
Reference: Movieverse as a whole ; The Incredible Hulk as a movie ; Bruce Banner as a character
Timeline: After relocating to Bela Coola, British Columbia following the battle with Abomination in NYC, but before that super-wtf ending/goatee.

Appearance:

Ta-da! As for actual stats, to Marvel Wikia! Standing at 5'8.5" and 128 lbs, Bruce at first glance looks like your average nerdy stick with really bad posture. He usually sticks to a wardrobe style I affectionately call "hobo chic" - secondhand clothes, with an emphasis on long sleeves, baseball caps, and really stretchy pants. However, under the ratty clothes, one can see that Bruce has spent the last five years doing a ridiculous amount of cardio and self-training. He's not overly buff, but he's got a bit of lean, whipcord muscle going on and a decent six-pack.

Things get slightly different when Hulk is involved. When transformed, he shoots up to 9' even and weighs in more than half a ton. It's a proportional growth spurt, so even though he's freaking huge it's still sticking to the general humanoid shape. Just... larger. As for build, Hulk is nothing but muscle from nose to toes and everywhere in between, with veins definitely noticeable under his skin if not truly bulging out. But probably the most obvious thing about Hulk is the green. Everything about Hulk is some shade of green, and I mean everything - skin, hair, eyes (including sclera), blood, even his teeth. And to top it off, reference pic!

Setting:

The greater Marvel universe is filled with pretty much all the weird shit you can ever possibly imagine - zombies, magic, gods, mutants, mermaids, aliens, extra dimensions, mad scientists, demons, government agencies, and superheroes out the wazoo. But in this particular nook, things haven't gone that fucknuts... Yet. For the most part. Let me start over.

The Earth Bruce is used to is still pretty much the Earth us regular folk are used to. I mean, there was some freaky stuff with aliens and wars back in Norway, like, a thousand years ago. And then there was the fact that the Nazis back in WW2 were on some super science kick with cosmic powers and sci-fi wet dream weapons. Aaand beyond Earth there's tons of planets with aliens at various levels of friendly. But that all happened a while back and/or was slapped with tons of security and classified stickers and/or not on Earth-Earth and thus it's not really relevant to Bruce's life just yet, so we'll stick with "YEP IT'S PRETTY MUCH EARTH".

Except where it's slowly... Getting to be not. Hotbeds of activity are cropping up with increasing frequency - science gone wrong that's left people with freaky powers instead of making new Hiroshimas, kids being born with gifts beyond normal human evolution, and super psycho wackos who've started putting death rays to practical use. Also, did I mention aliens? Because yeah, those are happening too. And it's getting to the point that a shadow government agency named the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division - or S.H.I.E.L.D. has stepped up plans to fight super-powered fire with fire. If things keep up the way they're going (and according to current S.H.I.E.L.D. projections, they are), this plain old Earth is fixing to get pretty interesting. ...Or get that way again. Seriously, the government was top notch at covering up the whole "yeah-we-fought-Nazis-with-laser-cannons" thing from the general public. And no one ever really believes Norwegians when it comes to alien sightings anyway.

Of course, Bruce has been kind of out of the loop on the various strange happenings going around (like a world-(in)famous multibillionaire deciding that flying around in a suit of armor and playing hero was a great idea). That sort of thing flies under your radar when you've been on the run for five years after the experiments you were running on yourself went horribly wrong and turned you into a giant green monster and made you a fugitive from the government. That, and who's won American Idol. As he's aware, things are pretty much normal (except for his own little green problem, duh) and he's most definitely not on any short lists for a super secret spandex boy band.

Personality/Psychology: (Note: I apologize here and now for the epic tl;dr you're about to endure.)

So as might be kind of obvious, the various physical and psychological traumas Bruce has suffered in his life have laid the groundwork for some pretty epic issues.

Bruce harbors a ridiculous load of guilt, and it gets applied to pretty much every single bad thing that's happened to him since. Anything bad that happens to him? Is somehow his fault, however tangentially, and as such any adverse reaction to bad things happening - anger, pain, whatever - simply gets internalized, suppressed, and repressed. He doesn't deserve to feel those things when it's his own damn fault. As an extension of this, any good thing that might end up happening to Bruce? Is met with quiet distrust and suspicion. He simply cannot believe that anything decent that comes his way can last, and so while he does take the time to enjoy whatever nice thing lands in his lap, he's just waiting for that other shoe to drop and kick his ass.

Another aspect of that guilt is self-loathing and as such? Bruce has absolutely no sense of self-worth at all. He figures there can't be anything of value in him at all, and this thinking especially applies to his intelligence. Make no mistake, Bruce Banner is one of, if not the best mind in the world (in mainstream comic canon, he rivals the smartest dudes out there - Tony Stark, Reed Richards, Charles Xavier, Peter Parker, Hank Pym, the list just goes on) but if confronted about it, he simply shrugs it off and claims it's not a big deal. All those degrees he earned for himself? Anyone can get those if they have the inclination to work hard enough. All the papers published to the most prestigious scientific journals? Could have been written by anyone who just took the time to look into things. All that yadda yadda about IQ points? Nothing more than anyone could accomplish if they sat down with the right books. Besides, it's not like those sheepskins did him any actual good when the going got tough and he had to run for his life. The same lack of self-esteem can be seen in Bruce's image of himself, which has never really evolved past how he was in high school - the pimply, outcast geek with no redeeming features whatsoever, because again, if there was something likable in him, someone along the way would have seen it and been friendly towards him. Because of all of this, Bruce doesn't expect anyone to want to be his friend, or even want to spend time around him. That's not to say he doesn't care about anyone - he's just used to not being regarded the same way by the people he calls "friends". So whenever someone shows the slightest sign of liking him beyond tolerating him existing in the same general area, he's genuinely surprised by it no matter how many times it happens because deep down, he's just waiting for them to snap out of it, realize he's not worth the effort, and toss him aside. He'll appreciate every moment up until then, but he knows it's just a matter of time. This same logic of his applies to romantic relationships as well, but even more so. He and Betty were together for years and he still had no damn idea what she ever saw in him. She's brilliant and funny and gorgeous and he was just Bruce - he always knew she could do better, and wondered why she didn't. This is why until she made the first move in the motel room, he didn't act on his still strong feelings for her. He doesn't see himself as being worth waiting for, can't imagine why anyone would even entertain the notion, and he can't stand being responsible for wasting Betty's life for such a pittance as himself.

Meeting Betty in college and getting those amazingly sweet years with her temporarily alleviated the guilt and worthlessness, but in the end it only ended up reinforcing it. He'd gone through all his scholastic career up to that point being completely ostracized, mocked by pretty much anyone who laid eyes on him, and had no real friends to speak of - even the A/V nerds made fun of Bruce Banner. But then he met Betty, and for some unfathomable reason (to him at least) she decided she wanted to be with him. She drew him out of the walls he'd built up around himself and showed him just how happy he could be. During this period in his life, Bruce almost came close to breaking free of this particular mindset: he had a good job working with someone who cared for him as much as he cared for her, he'd proven his intelligence to the scientific community through his own efforts and not some weird mutation, and life was pretty good. He thought that maybe, just maybe, he'd stopped paying for whatever transgression he'd committed that the universe had decided to punish him for. And then the Gamma Pulse Project happened. He still doesn't have the first clue as to what went wrong there - he's checked the math a million times since, gone over every possible mechanical failure, tried to think of any variable that might have caused it (and again, if he was so damn smart, he would have been able to catch whatever was wrong before it happened) - but it all doesn't make a lick of difference because if Bruce hadn't been so overconfident, he wouldn't have volunteered himself as a guinea pig and thus would have been able to avoid the hell of the last eight years. So yeah, that sets him right back to believing that everything is his fault and that if he'd just thought things through better, he wouldn't land himself in the crap that he always seems to end up landing in.

Ever since the accident and he saw the aftermath of his first episode in the lab, Bruce has been doggedly determined to fix his own mistakes, to cure himself and reverse whatever it was that he did wrong so he can go back to living his life. It's a combination of one part stubbornness and the knowledge that he really is the best in his field (or as he'd put it, the only one with the required experience in this particular field), one part feeling as if no one would even bother helping him (he is worthless, after all), and one part the rampant paranoia in regards to the people who would misuse this monster. Considering the last person he asked for help with this ended up synthesizing a veritable blood bank of "Mr. Green" samples in the interest of possibly wining the Nobel for his work while he was still being chased by a rabid general all too eager to get his hands on such a supply? Yeah. He's extremely reluctant to accept help on any front, but most especially regarding the science bits. He'd much rather simply be left alone until he solves problems on his own.

The last decade or so notwithstanding, Bruce has always been absurdly hard on himself. This boy has got a ridiculous work ethic - either working at high-tech laboratories at Culver University or his jury-rigged set-ups on the run, he has a bad habit of becoming so thoroughly engrossed in his research that he'll continue on for days on end. The only reason he ever came out of the various hiding holes he found were to either find more equipment and supplies or to get to work in order to pay for said equipment and supplies. ...And food when he remembered it. Even while things come so very easily to him, he makes sure to do things over several times because he simply does not trust himself to do it right the first time. This has only worsened in the years since the accident - if he'd been slightly more careful in his calculations, maybe he'd have caught the mistake he had to have made somewhere and thus avoided all the crap he's had to endure. Any minor mistake he catches himself in is examined and worried over endlessly, from a conversational fumble to a misplaced decimal.

Speaking of paranoia, Bruce has gotten a hell of a healthy dose of it when it comes to government and soldier types, and it's only gotten worse since being pressed into serving S.H.I.E.L.D., which he basically sees as a shadow agency for the government. He'd been running from smoke grenades and tranquilizer guns for six years before he was finally "recruited" for service, and since then he's had a security detail assigned to him at all times. It doesn't help that he absolutely abhors violence in any form (for several various and obvious reasons), learning only as much self-defense as to delay and barely incapacitate any possible pursuers in the course of running the hell away from whomever is chasing after him at the time. It also doesn't help that Thunderbolt Ross never approved of him dating his one and only daughter and tried to hook her up with various up and coming officers while they were dating. So this all adds up to a dislike and distrust of anyone even remotely connected to government, armies, agencies, bureaus, anything like that. He's also managed to develop a decent amount of paranoia for Joe Schmo too - when you're never sure if your new neighbor will sell you out to the people searching for you, or just notice something odd about you and start gossiping thus leading the soldiers right to your new front door. ...Of course, the term paranoia implies that one's fear is irrational and not based in reality as opposed to having actual factual proof of people after you, so maybe Bruce's slightly justified fears need a different name. Whatever. Point is, Bruce is a twitchy little man who's way too used to looking over his shoulder.

Of course, one can't hope to describe Bruce Banner without also describing his lesser, greener half. The first thing you have to realize is that Bruce doesn't recognize the Hulk as being any part of himself at all - as far as he's concerned, he's simply suffering from an emotionally-triggered tumor, a stress-induced kind of cancer, and he's just waiting to excise the damn thing and crush it under his heel - hence why he refers to his transformations as "episodes". It gives Bruce the psychological buffer of considering the Hulk as a disease that flares up now and again. It's not a "gift", it's not his "power". It's something that he'll get rid of someday, somehow, and then he'll be able to get back to his wonderfully normal life. He also completely refuses to admit that the Hulk has any practical, constructive application at all. The closest he ever gets to that is in Harlem, when he's forced to use the Hulk to beat down Abomination. The only time Bruce has ever directly seen the aftermath of one of his episodes was the first - he came back to the lab to find it in ruins, Betty in intensive care, Ross beat all to hell, and several of his interns dead. All of this is only made worse by the face that Bruce can't remember anything that happens during his episodes, save for those momentary flashes - which are usually of the worst parts. As a result, Bruce can only imagine what transpires while he's out, and he imagines the utter worst, and any attempts to tell him otherwise fall on deaf ears. He assumes people are lying to him in order to either make him feel better or to make him more agreeable to using the Hulk, and it'll take something major to change his mind. Hell, Bruce doesn't even call the Hulk "Hulk" - he calls it "It", with "monster" or "thing" coming in as a close second. Ironically, it's this total refusal to accept the Hulk as something he's stuck with, even on a temporary basis, that prevents Bruce from coming any closer to controlling it. He's so damn hung up on fighting it and keeping it as separate from himself as possible that he can't get anywhere with it - acknowledging the problem is the first step in dealing with it.

Psychologically speaking, the Hulk is basically Banner's id come to violent, uncontrollable life. It's the unadulterated outlet for all of the anger and guilt and pain that he tries to lock away from himself and forget about. Hulk is everything Bruce isn't - the raw strength to Banner's pure intellect, the baser instinct as opposed to higher thinking. It's an undeniable force of nature, something that can't be ignored or brushed aside as worthless, but the most important difference? Hulk can't be hurt. It's invulnerable. It can withstand anything, stand against anyone, and whatever you try to do to it? It can do back a hundred times harder. But it's ultimately fueled by rage and the fact Bruce apparently has that much anger and violence in him? Scares him to death. He's desperately afraid that he won't wake up from his next transformation, having been entirely consumed by the monster inside him. Incidentally, all this fear just feeds back into not wanting to own up to the Hulk being part of him and just perpetuates the denial he's got going on. It's a vicious bitch of a cycle.

Bruce also completely refuses to admit that the Hulk has any practical, constructive application at all. The closest he ever gets to that is in Harlem, when he's forced to use the Hulk to beat down Abomination. The only time Bruce has ever directly seen the aftermath of one of his episodes was the first - he came back to the lab to find it in ruins, Betty in intensive care, Ross beat all to hell, and several of his interns dead. All of this is only made worse by the face that Bruce can't remember anything that happens during his episodes, save for those momentary flashes - which are usually of the worst parts. As a result, Bruce can only imagine what transpires while he's out, and he imagines the utter worst, and any attempts to tell him otherwise fall on deaf ears. He assumes people are lying to him in order to either make him feel better or to make him more agreeable to using the Hulk. He won't even watch the videos of the Hulk's exploits. He's dead set in his assessment, and it'll take something major to change his mind.

As stated before, Bruce has no memories of whatever occurs during his Hulk episodes, but the combined psychological and physical trauma of the initial accident, each transformation following it, and the various (and invariably violent) shenanigans that occur during each episode is so great that it leaves a lasting effect on Bruce even after he changes back to his human form. (One can also argue that the Hulk trauma is piled on top of the childhood trauma that he never actually dealt with, and thus the Hulk stuff is just the frosting on top of the delicious issues cake. I would be one of the ones arguing for this statement because Bruce is simply an onion of fucked up.) Anyway. All of the trauma manifests as severe post-traumatic stress disorder, and he thus suffers from: flashbacks consisting of momentary fragments of his experiences in the Hulk state, often triggered by innocuous noises and actions (i.e. the sight of a running shower head will trigger a memory of machine gun fire); recurring nightmares consisting of more of those memory fragments; hypervigilance; exaggerated startle response; and finally, increased anxiety and irritability.

Overall, Bruce is a nice, sweet derp of a guy. He tries to be polite to everyone, if only because he knows people will find all these other obvious (to him anyway) faults in him, so the least he can do is not be rude and add onto the inevitable dislike people will feel towards him. But even as he's being polite, he isolates himself for all the reasons stated earlier, and he's been doing it even more so after the Hulk manifested and started trashing everything ever. Bruce no longer trusts himself or his emotions around people, and can't stand the thought of people being hurt because he wasn't smart enough or disciplined enough to stop himself from changing. He's constantly on his guard against the Hulk emerging, never allowing himself to relax for a moment or else the bogeyman will burst out of his cage and wreak certain havoc. His years on the run have put a definite shade of bitterness and cynicism on things for him, and the crap he's gone through makes him more than slightly prone to brooding, depressive moods where Bruce will just wallow a bit. All these things - the bitterness, cynicism, and depression - have gotten worse since joining the Avengers, thus solidifying into a shell of dry, barbed snark to cover up how jaded and completely exhausted he is with everything.

But still, underneath all of that? There's still the dogged belief that someday, somehow, he'll find some way to get back to that normal life. He keeps clinging to that hope with every ounce of strength and stubbornness he's got in him - which is more than anyone would imagine he had at first glance. It's that one singular thing that keeps him going through all hell he's had to face, the one thing keeping him sane. Of course, after almost ten years living like he's been living, Bruce has idealized that normalcy to a ridiculous impossible degree (and on some subconscious level he won't admit to himself, knows that he has), so who knows what would happen if he actually got his white picket fence. Bruce knows he doesn't know, but he stubbornly doesn't let himself think about that. He will find a cure, and that's the end of it.

Abilities:
◦ speed/strength/endurance of a man his age who engages in daily, strenuous exercise
◦ extensive training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, focusing on self-defense
◦ limited control over pulse and heart rate via meditation and breathing exercises
◦ genius intellect with a focus in biochem/nuclear physics
◦ MacGyver when it comes to jury-rigging lab equipment out of junk
◦ transforms into Hulk-form when forced into a physically agitated state (angry, afraid, aroused, etc.) which includes the following attributes:
→→ nine feet tall, 1200 lbs.
→→ unlimited strength/endurance directly proportional to anger levels
→→ nigh-invulnerable to physical, psychic, and magical attacks
→→ rapid healing factor - any damage accrued prior to or during an episode is gone by the time he reverts to his usual form
→→ length of Hulk episodes directly proportional to anger levels
◦ irradiated blood
→→ causes radiation poisoning if transfused/inhaled/ingested by 99.9% of people
→→ the 0.1% being direct family members (AKA Jennifer Walters but she doesn't even go here so whatever)

Limitations:
◦ Hulk's strength will have an upper limit, instead of being indefinitely proportional to anger levels
→→ ie: being able to punch a considerable dent in metal, but unable to punch through it
◦ Hulk episodes will last no longer than twelve hours
◦ after waking up in Bruce-form, cannot Hulk out again for one week
◦ any and all Hulk-outs and actions happening during said Hulk-out will be talked out with all players involved to avoid any possible god-modding

Weaknesses:
◦ normal human frailties
◦ severe post-traumatic stress disorder
◦ upon transforming back to Bruce-form, suffers from unconsciousness, exhaustion, nausea, and disorientation (effects are proportional to the length/intensity of the episode)
◦ partial to complete amnesia re: what occurs while in Hulk form save for momentary flashbacks which leave him with a splitting headache
◦ enough emotional baggage to fill an aircraft carrier

Inventory:
◦ one (1) dark blue, long-sleeved shirt
◦ one (1) pair beige, very stretch cargo pants
◦ one (1) pair dirty, beat-up, off-white sneakers
◦ one (1) pulse monitor bracelet on his wrist

First Person Sample:

[The look on Bruce's face is very focused when it flickers into holographic focus. The bracelet is a breathtaking piece of technology but it still takes a minute to get the hang of. There's a moment of satisfied accomplishment - but only a moment before it fades into a slightly panicked expression]

O-oh, that's-- I didn't mean to click that, darn it--

[Cue the swap over to open text. It doesn't matter what the present circumstances, he most definitely does not want to be showing his face. Even though this is most likely a dream (a ridiculously detailed and well-thought-out dream) where his usual paranoia doesn't matter at all, still nope.]

The AI is nice, but would prefer a more solid explanation if possible, please._

[Tacked on five seconds later:]

Didn't mean to pun. Sorry._

Third Person Sample:
Lainie looked it over for me and declared it kosher to link, so. Herp derp. :B