ᴛʜᴇ ᴡɪɴᴛᴇʀ sᴏʟᴅɪᴇʀ (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
freightcars) wrote2020-03-26 12:45 am
freightcars) wrote2020-03-26 12:45 am
Entry tags:
meadowlark app
> PLAYER INFORMATION
NAME: Emmy
PRONOUNS: She/Her
AGE: 27
CONTACT: rifting @ plurk
> CHARACTER INFORMATION
NAME: James Buchanan Barnes
CANON: MCU
AGE: ~101
CANON POINT: Post Civil War, pre Black Panther
HISTORY: linked.
PERSONALITY:
To understand Bucky’s personality requires being able to segment him into three parts, then find a way to take all of those uniquely separate entities and bring them together again. This is something he finds himself challenged to do every day, and figuring out who in the hell he even is anymore is a constant point of development for him.
To begin chronologically, we have the man he was originally. From the streets of Brooklyn in the 1930s, growing up with three sisters and being the only male child it was all but inevitable he’d develop both a sense of duty and innate tendency toward being a caretaker. Stumbling across a grade school Steve Rogers only fostered that impulse, though it brought something new to the table: the tendency to jump headfirst into danger in a display of loyalty to his best friend.
In addition to all of these things, Bucky also comes across as a remarkably upstanding man. He's charming with women, he's documented as being a straight A student and an athlete, and it's very likely he did his best to live up to the expectations placed on a man of his age in that time period. Interestingly, his friendship with Steve Troublemaker Rogers and his predisposition toward dark, deadpan humor indicate a contradictory undertone, so it's likely he was only charming and well-adjusted on the surface. Given the strain of the great depression and how it must have impacted a family with four children, that's hardly a surprise.
More importantly, loyalty and bravery will become a consistent theme throughout most of this period of his life, demonstrated in his loyalty to his country in the form of serving in the war, loyalty to Steve in the form of refusing to abandon him in times of duress and potentially lethal situations, and loyalty to who he truly believes his best friend to be once he’s given the choice about whether or not to follow Captain America into battle.
It’s his bravery that allows him to recover from the traumatic experience of being taken prisoner and being subjected to experimentation. None of this is to say he doesn’t experience the fear or the emotional devastation that comes with war, but one of the most consistent traits about Bucky is his ability to be self-contained and regulate his emotions. Aside from short bursts of feeling that escape him, Bucky demonstrates a remarkable tendency to school his facial expressions and only allow them out in the form of micro-expressions when nobody’s looking. It suggests a rigid control over himself, and a fear or aversion to vulnerability.
Rigid self-discipline and methodical duty allow him to do his job as a sniper, but they’re taken to an utter extreme once Hydra gets their hands on him. After his fall and subsequent retrieval from the Nazi deep science division, Bucky is systematically broken and disassembled. Through a combination of torture, drugs, and intensive shock therapy, everything that is human is stripped from him. He’s given a new personality, a new strict set of traits that he can’t deviate from.
Duty to the mission he’s assigned at all costs, including life and limb. Ruthless efficiency without mercy. Lightning-quick responsiveness with the ability to creatively problem solve in the heat of combat. Most importantly, the unshakable need to follow orders. The asset he became has no empathy, and it can see every weak point or strategic advantage in a given situation.
Although Bucky does his best not to let himself reflect that machine anymore, there’s no real denying the fact that a lot of it was him. A different version, a version outside of his control, but the thoughts and actions and decisions all came from him and are still very much a part of his skillset.
His time as the Winter Soldier has granted him a permanent form of guilt, knowing what he’s capable of and knowing on instinct without a second thought how he could best incapacitate the people around him. Unfortunately, that’s hardly the only guilt he experiences. Having a fully-formed serum-enhanced vivid memory of the atrocities he was tasked to commit as the Winter Soldier means he can replay all of the horrors he considers himself at least loosely responsible for. The weight of all of it isn’t something he’ll ever be able to shake, and it’s that consistent sense of duty and responsibility that keeps him from trying to place the blame on anyone but himself.
When he has the opportunity to let go of the memory of who he once was and the sins he’s committed, he’s had a slow but steady opportunity to build himself back up from the ground. He’s had time to ingratiate himself into society, into new cultures, into new populations with the kind of patience and goodness that only comes with the deepest of perspectives to ground him. He’s not easily shaken and he isn’t quick to anger, and so the lack of emotional outbursts after his time as the Soldier are not solely due to his perfected mask of emotional control. They’re also from wisdom, and from a capacity to care so deeply thanks to the trench dug into him by suffering.
It has, however, left him with a very dry and fatalistic sense of humor. Gallows humor was always popular among soldiers in the trenches, and that black irony has only gotten more ingrained in him after everything he’s been through. He has a tendency to let out flat, toneless statements meant in utter irony, typically directed at the absurdity of the situation he finds himself in.
He’s also become incredibly blunt and to the point about things. He doesn’t beat around the bush when it comes to how he’s feeling, about the emotions he perceives in others, or about the reality of a situation. There is no sparing his own feelings nor the feelings of others when an observation needs to be laid upon the table. That might be some of his leftover ruthless efficiency wrapped around his deep caring, or it might just be the product of a man who is so incredibly tired he doesn’t have the emotional energy to be false.
It’s also worth mentioning that Bucky is highly perceptive. Before and after the war he had a tendency to slip into the background of a situation and just observe the goings-on of it, clocking people and expressions to evaluate privately on his own time. It’s a skill that’s beneficial as a sniper, as a fighter, and as a man constantly on the run. He can often take in the nature of a situation and draw quick, accurate conclusions about their outcomes - take Endgame for example, wherein he didn’t have to exchange a single word with Steve to anticipate what he was going to do.
Despite all of his skill, his training, and the good he brings to battles, he does not consider himself a leader. He doesn’t relish the thought of a fight, and if left to his own devices he likely wouldn’t be a leading proponent of change. It’s very possible this isn’t just because of how burnt-out he is, but also because he no longer feels confidence in his own ability to make decisions. Having done what he’s done, there’s a sense of uncertainty or perhaps a sense that he doesn’t deserve to be the one calling the shots - especially if it involves the potential to get more people killed. He tends to take up second in command roles better, falling into a point-man position and offering his wisdom or his observations to someone more naturally inclined to make the call.
If the time does come wherein it falls on him to make difficult decisions, Bucky’s probably going to make the right one. Although he’s very aware of strategic plays and the most unempathetic, efficient way to solve them, Steve’s influence throughout his entire life overshadows it. In times of doubt or uncertainty, he uses Steve as a sort of moral compass and gives it the ole WWSD.
It’s still a lot of work for him to reconcile a history that pulls him three different ways, so his reservations and stoicism can probably be attributed to needing to take a second to evaluate what he would have done, what he could have done, and who he actually wants to be now.
SPECIES: Human
APPEARANCE: link
SKILLS: non-enhanced skills:
-multilingual (estimated 27 languages)
-superior hand to hand combat, like don't let me understate this bc that shit be mind blowing
-advanced weapons handling including knives, small arms, large arms, and literally his arm arms
-somewhat related, he's a crackshot marksman
-acrobatic flippy-dos
NEW POWER: memory manipulation
At its lowest level, Bucky will only be able to alter or restore existing memories for duration under 10 minutes. He will also have a natural resistance to having his own memories manipulated, as a passive side-effect.
POWER REASONING: Bucky spent 70 years with his mind being routinely erased, wiped utterly clean. Even after he began to claw his way back to person-hood, he spent months and months writing down every scrap of memory he could get his hands on. His biggest pain point and therefor one of his greatest needs is control over his own mind.
> SAMPLES
SAMPLE ONE: one
SAMPLE TWO: two
NAME: Emmy
PRONOUNS: She/Her
AGE: 27
CONTACT: rifting @ plurk
> CHARACTER INFORMATION
NAME: James Buchanan Barnes
CANON: MCU
AGE: ~101
CANON POINT: Post Civil War, pre Black Panther
HISTORY: linked.
PERSONALITY:
To understand Bucky’s personality requires being able to segment him into three parts, then find a way to take all of those uniquely separate entities and bring them together again. This is something he finds himself challenged to do every day, and figuring out who in the hell he even is anymore is a constant point of development for him.
To begin chronologically, we have the man he was originally. From the streets of Brooklyn in the 1930s, growing up with three sisters and being the only male child it was all but inevitable he’d develop both a sense of duty and innate tendency toward being a caretaker. Stumbling across a grade school Steve Rogers only fostered that impulse, though it brought something new to the table: the tendency to jump headfirst into danger in a display of loyalty to his best friend.
In addition to all of these things, Bucky also comes across as a remarkably upstanding man. He's charming with women, he's documented as being a straight A student and an athlete, and it's very likely he did his best to live up to the expectations placed on a man of his age in that time period. Interestingly, his friendship with Steve Troublemaker Rogers and his predisposition toward dark, deadpan humor indicate a contradictory undertone, so it's likely he was only charming and well-adjusted on the surface. Given the strain of the great depression and how it must have impacted a family with four children, that's hardly a surprise.
More importantly, loyalty and bravery will become a consistent theme throughout most of this period of his life, demonstrated in his loyalty to his country in the form of serving in the war, loyalty to Steve in the form of refusing to abandon him in times of duress and potentially lethal situations, and loyalty to who he truly believes his best friend to be once he’s given the choice about whether or not to follow Captain America into battle.
It’s his bravery that allows him to recover from the traumatic experience of being taken prisoner and being subjected to experimentation. None of this is to say he doesn’t experience the fear or the emotional devastation that comes with war, but one of the most consistent traits about Bucky is his ability to be self-contained and regulate his emotions. Aside from short bursts of feeling that escape him, Bucky demonstrates a remarkable tendency to school his facial expressions and only allow them out in the form of micro-expressions when nobody’s looking. It suggests a rigid control over himself, and a fear or aversion to vulnerability.
Rigid self-discipline and methodical duty allow him to do his job as a sniper, but they’re taken to an utter extreme once Hydra gets their hands on him. After his fall and subsequent retrieval from the Nazi deep science division, Bucky is systematically broken and disassembled. Through a combination of torture, drugs, and intensive shock therapy, everything that is human is stripped from him. He’s given a new personality, a new strict set of traits that he can’t deviate from.
Duty to the mission he’s assigned at all costs, including life and limb. Ruthless efficiency without mercy. Lightning-quick responsiveness with the ability to creatively problem solve in the heat of combat. Most importantly, the unshakable need to follow orders. The asset he became has no empathy, and it can see every weak point or strategic advantage in a given situation.
Although Bucky does his best not to let himself reflect that machine anymore, there’s no real denying the fact that a lot of it was him. A different version, a version outside of his control, but the thoughts and actions and decisions all came from him and are still very much a part of his skillset.
His time as the Winter Soldier has granted him a permanent form of guilt, knowing what he’s capable of and knowing on instinct without a second thought how he could best incapacitate the people around him. Unfortunately, that’s hardly the only guilt he experiences. Having a fully-formed serum-enhanced vivid memory of the atrocities he was tasked to commit as the Winter Soldier means he can replay all of the horrors he considers himself at least loosely responsible for. The weight of all of it isn’t something he’ll ever be able to shake, and it’s that consistent sense of duty and responsibility that keeps him from trying to place the blame on anyone but himself.
When he has the opportunity to let go of the memory of who he once was and the sins he’s committed, he’s had a slow but steady opportunity to build himself back up from the ground. He’s had time to ingratiate himself into society, into new cultures, into new populations with the kind of patience and goodness that only comes with the deepest of perspectives to ground him. He’s not easily shaken and he isn’t quick to anger, and so the lack of emotional outbursts after his time as the Soldier are not solely due to his perfected mask of emotional control. They’re also from wisdom, and from a capacity to care so deeply thanks to the trench dug into him by suffering.
It has, however, left him with a very dry and fatalistic sense of humor. Gallows humor was always popular among soldiers in the trenches, and that black irony has only gotten more ingrained in him after everything he’s been through. He has a tendency to let out flat, toneless statements meant in utter irony, typically directed at the absurdity of the situation he finds himself in.
He’s also become incredibly blunt and to the point about things. He doesn’t beat around the bush when it comes to how he’s feeling, about the emotions he perceives in others, or about the reality of a situation. There is no sparing his own feelings nor the feelings of others when an observation needs to be laid upon the table. That might be some of his leftover ruthless efficiency wrapped around his deep caring, or it might just be the product of a man who is so incredibly tired he doesn’t have the emotional energy to be false.
It’s also worth mentioning that Bucky is highly perceptive. Before and after the war he had a tendency to slip into the background of a situation and just observe the goings-on of it, clocking people and expressions to evaluate privately on his own time. It’s a skill that’s beneficial as a sniper, as a fighter, and as a man constantly on the run. He can often take in the nature of a situation and draw quick, accurate conclusions about their outcomes - take Endgame for example, wherein he didn’t have to exchange a single word with Steve to anticipate what he was going to do.
Despite all of his skill, his training, and the good he brings to battles, he does not consider himself a leader. He doesn’t relish the thought of a fight, and if left to his own devices he likely wouldn’t be a leading proponent of change. It’s very possible this isn’t just because of how burnt-out he is, but also because he no longer feels confidence in his own ability to make decisions. Having done what he’s done, there’s a sense of uncertainty or perhaps a sense that he doesn’t deserve to be the one calling the shots - especially if it involves the potential to get more people killed. He tends to take up second in command roles better, falling into a point-man position and offering his wisdom or his observations to someone more naturally inclined to make the call.
If the time does come wherein it falls on him to make difficult decisions, Bucky’s probably going to make the right one. Although he’s very aware of strategic plays and the most unempathetic, efficient way to solve them, Steve’s influence throughout his entire life overshadows it. In times of doubt or uncertainty, he uses Steve as a sort of moral compass and gives it the ole WWSD.
It’s still a lot of work for him to reconcile a history that pulls him three different ways, so his reservations and stoicism can probably be attributed to needing to take a second to evaluate what he would have done, what he could have done, and who he actually wants to be now.
SPECIES: Human
APPEARANCE: link
SKILLS: non-enhanced skills:
-multilingual (estimated 27 languages)
-superior hand to hand combat, like don't let me understate this bc that shit be mind blowing
-advanced weapons handling including knives, small arms, large arms, and literally his arm arms
-somewhat related, he's a crackshot marksman
-acrobatic flippy-dos
NEW POWER: memory manipulation
At its lowest level, Bucky will only be able to alter or restore existing memories for duration under 10 minutes. He will also have a natural resistance to having his own memories manipulated, as a passive side-effect.
POWER REASONING: Bucky spent 70 years with his mind being routinely erased, wiped utterly clean. Even after he began to claw his way back to person-hood, he spent months and months writing down every scrap of memory he could get his hands on. His biggest pain point and therefor one of his greatest needs is control over his own mind.
> SAMPLES
SAMPLE ONE: one
SAMPLE TWO: two