[Outer Divide] App!

[pepperspray]

[- OOC Information -]

Name: Wyn
Do you play any other characters in Outer Divide? One Kaidan Alenko over at standsentinel

[- Character Information -]

Character Name: Virginia “Pepper” Potts
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe
AU or OU: OU
Canon Point: Post-Avengers
Journal: pepperspray
Icon:

Appearance: Tall, willowy woman in her mid-30s with hair somewhere between red and strawberry blonde.

History: A wiki! It’s not the best writing style, but it covers the basics. I have some headcanon like a B.A. Accounting followed by an MBA, but this is admittedly not hugely relevant to the setting so I’ll refrain from blathering unless you want me to.

Previous Game History: None!

Personality:

Driven, dedicated, and just a little bit detached, Pepper Potts is a meticulous and oversocialized organizer who’s somehow ended up orbiting the vibrant chaos that is one Mr. Anthony Stark.

While she can appear quite self-effacing and is generally charmingly polite, with a gently teasing sense of humour, she remains the woman who’ll spot an accounting error, jump the queue when her manager ignores it, and fend off security with threats of non-existent pepper spray until she can lay the case at the feet of her company’s CEO directly. She’s the sort of woman who will, upon being made a PA, do everything and anything her boss requires, wear traditionally feminine garb and ridiculous high heels because she wants to and she likes them, and will step up to take said CEO’s place when called on, and know that no-one will challenge her ability to run a boardroom... at least not more than once.

Pepper’s no superhero and she doesn’t want to be, but Pepper is deeply attached to the small pool of people she cares about. Tony’s absolute trust that she will be there, that things will be taken care of? It’s justified. Pepper’s need to micromanage every possible risk, to make everything run as smoothly as possible at the expense of her own time and energy... well, it would make her a horrible mother, and in the abstract it’s the opposite of healthy, but she’s found a niche in which she can thrive. Keeping Stark Industries ticking over smoothly so that Tony can focus on being a genius, and keeping Tony ticking over so that the rest of the world can breathe easy at nights is just about the level of busy needed to properly absorb her energies.

Part of why she works so well in both her business and her personal life, despite the challenges in both (and the sheer metric ton of shit you have to wade through as a highly-positioned woman in a very conservative and male-dominated industry) is that Pepper runs just a bit cool. She’s no emotionless robot, but she has a large capacity to respond to life’s little disappointments with her head’s logic and socialization overruling her heart’s howling, and with an eye kept on the larger picture. If she’s displeased, she’ll make it known, but she’ll move on rather than waiting around in likely futile hope for someone to realize the error of their ways. She does not have time to waste on moping, pointed sulking or lengthy lectures -- you’ll get it, or you won’t. You’ll listen, or you won’t. At the end of the day, she has things to do and places to be, and if she cares for you then she hopes you’ll be there with her, but you can’t change the fundamental qualities of another person for them.

One of her more evident flaws is the fact that she’s a workaholic. This isn’t the ‘oh, I’m a workaholic! I came in on Saturday!’ of mild overachievers. This is the full on, she does not actually know what to do if she has nothing to do condition where a psychiatrist could have a field day looking at just why her self-actualization is so tied into constantly being in motion, constantly working on other people’s problems and ambitions and tying her own to the advancement of others. She takes time for herself solely because she knows that to run herself into the ground would decrease her overall capacity for getting things done.

This also extends to the fact that she’s a little too forgiving, or at least dismissive, of hurts done to her at times. It’s not that she doesn’t think she has a right to be upset or hurt, but she’s so focused on everything not herself that things that should impact her really... don’t. Or they impact in strange ways.

Powers/Abilities: , Preternatural organizational skills, advanced Stark-wrangling, and the ability to run across metal grating in stiletto heels as well as CEOing a Fortune 500 company (and keeping the usual CEO on track when he takes the reins back.). Beyond those, she’s a garden variety human being, who goes to the gym to work out stress and balance out her office job’s overabundance of donuts, has probably fired a gun all of once or twice in her life, took womens’ self defense courses, and is in general not at all a trained fighter, survivalist or mad inventor.

Possessions: Pepper is showing up with her ridiculous heels, a stylish skirt suit, the sort of smartphone that you get when your boyfriend is Tony Stark, and an attache case containing a laptop, an emergency overnight kit, a small sewing kit, a tiny first-aid kit, the bare basics for makeup, a book of sudoku puzzles, a granola bar, and a pair of ballet flats because ffs she keeps having to run from things.

Arrival: Ship, please!

Reason for Playing: Well, where there’s a Tony there really must be a Pepper, for the good of all involved. Beyond that, though, she’s a born organizer, relentlessly stubborn when she needs to be, and possessed of actual people skills and social graces.

I think taking her from her comfortable native urban habitat and putting her in the middle of a post-apocalyptic ruin will let her show in a new and interesting light.

And, well, someone needs to try and keep Tony from mooning the Outer Authorities from an altitude of 35,000 feet.

[- Writing Samples -]

First person:

One missed call. It’s funny how it’s the smallest messages that can carry the largest weight.

I didn’t notice it until later, when I was finally unwinding after the longest day of my life. (And how do I keep having ever-longer candidates for ‘longest day’ show up? I don’t even want to know how we top alien invasions and a demigod-shaped crater in the lounge.) One missed call, from Tony. And the timestamp...

I was watching the news, while he was trying to call me from the heart of making it.

And I missed it.

He made it back, while I was helpless to either help him or hold him back. But I could’ve missed-- He could have died--

I am setting a personal ringtone for him right now.

Third person: Pepper and Bruce on a meme, post-Avengers and making frands.