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RITA FARR IS EMPTY, UGLY, AND SMALL ( without her, i don't know who i am )
ABOUT
Rita Farr
STAGE NAME
Gertrude Cramp
REAL NAME
Nearly 100
AGE
1920s
BORN
April Bowlby
PLAYED BY
RITA FARR IN A NUTSHELL
Rita Farr is a former hollywood actress from the 1950s who was exposed to a toxic gas, which then altered her cellular structure, allowing her body to stretch and deform. Though often seen as conceited and uptight, Rita is the maternal figure and leader of a superhero group known as the "doom patrol", formed of reluctant and depressed superpowered beings who prefer to act more in their own self-interest than become actual heroes.
IC WARNINGS
body horror, body dysmorphia, excess drinking.
IC LIMITS
(topics that Rita may be sensitive to for discussion) physical disabilities, babies, baby imagery, her mother.
OOC LIMITS
excessive gore, animal torture/death.
PERSONALITY
PRACTICAL
While Rita often struggles with a sense of hopelessness, she still manages to make all attempts to make the most of her situation, even when she's feeling that she lacks the confidence to actually get through it. She may hide herself often to disguise her powers (or disability, as she would see it) from the public but at the same time, she makes moves to get out into the world again, whether it's in obtaining a job as a high school drama teacher or auditioning for the local community play. Through it, she tries to remain sensible and realistic about her circumstances, but tries to motivate the others of her group to do the same, pushing them to work with what they have.
NURTURING
Though Rita would consider herself to be selfish, she often steps into a nurturing role when it comes to caring for others. When any of the others in the group are distressed, she comes to their side with the hopes of trying to lift their spirits and offer them motivation to strive forward, and she shows herself to be very protective of children, such as how she attempted to be a caretaker for Elliott when his parents turned out to be cult members, trying to give him hope when he'd lost it completely. Much of this is a reflection of how she lacked a role model with her own mother, making up the harsh influence of a toxic maternal figure by being a better one for everyone else.
LOYAL
Against all odds, Rita holds a great sense of loyalty, something possibly birthed from the guilt of having betrayed someone who desperately needed her in the past. Though the group often argues about their circumstances forcibly bringing them together, Rita has shown that she'll go to great lengths to keep her friends safe, especially Larry, having risked herself with exposure to radiation to save his life. This loyalty is later extended to the Sisterhood of Dada, risking herself to make a stand against the oppression that metahumans faced in 1917 and staying by their side to fight for their cause when they're eventually betrayed by Laura. Even despite her own selfish tendencies, Rita will be by the side of a friend who simply needs the company, whether it's aiding Larry to confront his guilt over his son or trying to get through to Jane when her problem-causing alter, Karen, takes over her body.
HAUGHTY
Being molded into the behavioral patterns of a Hollywood actress since a young age, Rita grew to have tendencies of superiority. She often craved the spotlight and attention to the point that she would do anything to maintain that towering status of fame, even choosing to abandon those in need for a time in which she prioritized obtaining lead roles on her resume. One time, on set, she even protested the presence of an amputee crew member because it made her feel uncomfortable to be in the presence of such an obvious disability. Though she's since recognized the fault in her behavior, obtaining a rather unique disability herself, Rita still at times feels a sense of great self-importance, making sure everyone in the room knows it.
GUILT-RIDDEN
With the weight of her mistakes over the years, Rita clutches hard onto her guilt, often struggling to figure out how to overcome it. Feeling responsibility for Marybeth Wooten's death, she carries the guilt of the memory for over 60 years before she finally tells someone what had happened, after all that time of refusing to ever come to terms with her selfishness that caused the incident. Too often, Rita will feel direct responsibility when someone gets hurt or killed, even when she isn't at fault, such as losing Elliott to his cursed destiny or watching the Bureau kill Malcolm, and this in turns weighs on her in ways that cause her to lose hope easily, feeling that she has "spent a lifetime searching for absolution but it will never come".
SELF-CONSCIOUS
For all that she prided herself on appearances for many of her early years, Rita's accident that resulted in her elasticity, in turn, caused an escalation in feeling self-conscious about her appearance. She's greatly disgusted by the blob-like substance that her skin can become, ashamed when others see it, especially since she'd made a career that greatly highlighted her own beauty. Feeling that the ugliness of it is almost a reflection of what's on the inside, Rita suffers humiliation whenever her body begins to "melt" (often caused by great feelings of discomfort and stress), leading her to often secluding herself in her own room, sometimes for days or weeks at a time, where she watches old films of herself to reflect on the more confident side of herself.
ABILITIES
ELASTICITY
After being exposed to an unknown gas, Rita's biology was mutated, allowing her the ability to stretch her limbs and reform the shape of her body at will, including changing her size to be as large as a building. However, Rita does not always have full control of her powers, which sometimes causes her skin to droop when faced with distressing situations, to the extent that her entire body can turn into a giant blob.
BACKSTORY