Susan is a rancher's daughter to the bone, and it shows: she's down-to-earth, hardworking, and sometimes hard-headed as well. By natural inclination, she's something of a tomboy, preferring men's clothes and practical, hands-on activities. That's not to say she's out of touch with her femininity - she isn't, and she really likes to feel feminine in her appearance and behaviour once in a while - but she's not hugely 'girly' day-to-day.

This is in contrast, sometimes, to her experiences as a pretty girl in a small town. She's used to being underestimated, and she's used to being treated as a girl first and a person second, if at all. Her first assumption with men is that they're interested in her sexually, and she tends to be suspicious of them on that basis. In fact, she's just quite cynical of people in general, assuming on the whole that they're out for themselves.

That said, she's not unkind. In fact, while she's often ruthless and unforgiving of slights against her, she's also a genuinely generous and kind person, especially towards people who aren't in a position of power. She treats people with distrust, but not with disrespect, and if you do right by her, she'll do right by you.

Despite her intelligence and experience, Susan's still a teenager - a small-town teenager without much world experience, at that. She can be naive, she can be petty, and she can be romantic. She's got a strong, if occasionally wonky, moral compass, and she's a largely honest and trustworthy person who believes in duty and doing right by people. In her life, pragmatism often trumps idealism, but that doesn't mean the idealism isn't there.

She doesn't revel in violence, but she doesn't shy away from it, either. She's proud, sometimes reckless, and often sharp-tongued. She loves deeply, and would give her life for the people close to her (and has), but she can also hold a grudge like nobody's business. And she's really, really done with people pushing her around.