worthallthis (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
worthallthis) wrote2017-04-08 11:37 pm
worthallthis) wrote2017-04-08 11:37 pm
Entry tags:
Ill Met by Moonlight: Application
Player Information
Name: Gail
Contact: cacopheny @ plurk, PM journal name worthallthis
Over 18?: Yep
Character Information
Name: James "Bucky" Buchanan Barnes, the Winter Soldier
Canon: MCU
Canon Point: End of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, after fishing Steve out of the river, before seeing the Captain America exhibit
Age: Early 30s in appearance and general maturity, 98 counting all the time he spent with HYDRA (like 75% in cryofreeze), 101 or so counting time spent in the Hedge
History:
MCU Wiki, only applicable through the second paragraph given his canon point. Content warnings for medical torture, brainwashing, and general abuse, though the wiki is brief enough to just skim over it.
Personality:
* Protective: The biggest and best trait of one James Buchanan Barnes is his protectiveness. He is the biggest, grumpiest mama bear of them all. He used to check every alleyway in Brooklyn to make sure nobody was beating Steve up in it, and come to his rescue if so. He would tuck Steve or his sisters into bed when they got sick, make chicken soup, and scold them for being out in the cold too long. He was a nag about the Howling Commandos staying safe and well-supplied. He will bawl a loved one out at top volume for doing something stupid, but then make sure to wrap their wounds up and train them in how to handle whatever it is better, so they can live to do something stupid again tomorrow. The protectiveness has been upgraded, after being an assassin for more than 50 years, to being ready and willing to violently murder anything that tries to hurt anyone who he considers his.
* Stubborn: When he’s got a goal in mind, he sticks to it. Sometimes even if it’s stupid, even if the odds are bad, even if it’s detrimental to his health. He could have had an honorable medical discharge from the army after his first round of tortures at the hands of HYDRA, but nope, had to stick by Steve. He could have told Steve about the weird stuff he was feeling from HYDRA’s experiments, instead of keeping to himself, and maybe gotten the punk to look for him after he fell, but nope, had to be proud and secretive. He could have shut up about the "man on the bridge" despite knowing he’d get punished for remembering, but he just kept harping on it and got electrocuted again for his troubles. He’s not great at letting things go, is what I’m saying.
* Charismatic: Back in the day, Bucky was a well-loved sort around Brooklyn and in the army. He got along well with the ladies, had a number of casual friends, knew how to cadge favors out of people, and had a very charming smile. He has always genuinely liked being around people. A lot of that has been beaten down through his time as the Winter Soldier, and his near-constant background level of fear makes it kind of awkward to like being around people, but his more winsome personality still tends to shine through at odd moments these days, and the fact that he cares about people and is ready to offer help tends to win him friends surprisingly easily even now.
* Smart: The Winter Soldier is a clever bastard. The whole point of constantly wiping his memories was to keep his tactical mind and skills intact without his pesky moral code or tendency to kill Nazis getting in the way. He’s great at using his surroundings to his advantage, making plans to deal with problems, and thinking several steps ahead to predict problems. Throw in the sniper training and general situation of abuse for years making him incredibly observant and sensitive to tiny changes in demeanor, tone, and environment, and it makes him a great servant, honestly, being able to predict needs before they’re expressed half the time. It also means he’s spent a lot of time as furniture, ornamentation, or even an inanimate weapon (ouch) for trying something sneaky.
* Paranoid: It’s not paranoia if everyone really is out to get you, is it? He still expects danger out of most people, though he’s very, very good at not showing it. He’s basically a bundle of phobias, irrational conditioned responses, and hypervigilance wrapped up in an extremely good poker face. Trust is not a thing won easily from him. He may like you, he may help you (in fact, he probably will: see "protective" and "charismatic" up above there), but he will probably stay out of arm’s reach unless he has no choice, will do his level best to avoid eye contact, and any loud noises out of you will get a subtle flinch. He’s done some working through the trauma of his decades as a brainwashed assassin during his time in the Hedge, enough that he at least mostly considers himself a person these days... but not as much as he should have, given, well, it’s the Hedge and he’s at the mercy of fickle fae masters on top of it all.
* Amnesiac: Though maybe not exactly a personality trait, this still affects Bucky enough to need a mention. More than most servants in the Hedge, this guy has memory issues. For decades, a whole lifetime, he got his memory fried every few days, whenever he wasn’t frozen solid waiting for a mission or training. When captured, he had very, very few memories to his name (and, actually, no name that he accepted as his), which might have made him interesting to the fae, but made life as a normal person pretty hard. Memories have come back in patchy pieces over the past years in the Hedge-- nowhere near all of it, though, and some of that traded away to the fae whether by accident or for something he needed. That means he considers memories and a sense of self to be even more precious than most, and once he got it back more firmly than just "the stupid target shouted it at me", guards his name very, very closely. Most people don’t even get to know it, and he just goes by Soldier.
Where and how did your character enter the Hedge?
All he’d wanted was to get away from HYDRA, and away fromSteve the target Captain America. He stumbled into the trees along the Potomac River, and stumbled a little too far and too hard and into some awful nightmare wood. He spent hours fighting thorns, shooting at shadows, and getting himself even more lost before the Hunt stumbled on him. By then he was detoxing hard from the drugs HYDRA kept him on and could hardly tell the difference between hallucinations and reality-- not that a fae Hunt really counts as "reality", anyway. He put up a cursory fight, more desperate than effective, before being taken down. When asked what his name was, he just dazedly said "the Winter Soldier", having not exactly internalized the whole thing where the name shouted at him by Steve Rogers was actually his. This may have gotten a variety of interesting responses, depending on which of the Gentry had taken him in at that point.
Additional Memories Lost:
Someone arriving at the Hedge with almost no memories at all was a novelty for the Gentry, and when he started getting them back-- reminded by things he saw, through dreams (usually nightmares), or just plain hitting him at odd moments-- he kept... losing them again. It took him two years to work out why he was only "remembering" terrible things: those were the only things he didn’t share with anyone, because talking about them was uncomfortable. So the bulk of his memories recovered from his first two years are gone: memories like "Ma baking bread", "bedtime story from Pa", several versions of "Steve got in a fight, I patched him up", a lot of his training and early days from World War Two, and (to his intense regret whenever he recognizes there’s a hole in his memories of "family") all pieces of his oldest little sister Rebecca. He managed to hold onto "meeting Steve", "funeral for a baby brother", "Pa was shell shocked and sad", one more of those "Steve got in a fight, I patched him up" ones, the fight on the helicarrier and fishing big!Steve out of the river, and a handful of torture and mission memories, but that’s just about it.
More intentional losses include all memories of one of the Howling Commandos (Dum Dum Dugan), a few medical experiments with HYDRA (he was pretty happy to get rid of those, honestly, even though now he no longer remembers why the sight of raw liver makes him queasy), and how to use his old Johnson rifle from the war.
These days, when memories come back, he is willing to share only those of punishment, experiment, and Soldier mission memories, and protects his memories of family, the Howling Commandos, and especially Steve closely.
Skillsets:
* Combat-related training: Bucky Barnes’s trained skillset includes basic army training and advanced sniper training, as well as an understanding of guerrilla tactics and some mechanical expertise to do maintenance on his finicky rifle. The Winter Soldier’s skillset is much broader, including advanced hand-to-hand techniques, proficiency with firearms and close-combat weapons of an incredibly wide variety (knives are his favorite), fluency in multiple languages, enhanced bodily control and flexibility, subterfuge, stealth, and standard mission skills such as obtaining supplies and seeking out intel. He has crazy-high pain tolerance, too.
* Arm Maintenance: Between watching techs work on him and dealing with longer-term missions, he knows how to deal with basic issues with his metal arm. He can do cleaning, adjustment for optimum performance, and a little circuit repair. Any damage too deep or too extensive will require outside help to fix. (Entrapta seems a good/bad idea for that...)
* Medical Skills: Between the war and having to do basic maintenance on his fleshly parts too, he has some skill with basic field medicine. He can pack and bind wounds, do stitches, reset a dislocated joint, and set major breaks. This is largely so he can do them for himself, so as to avoid having anyone do them to him, as he has something of a phobia of doctors and the various implements thereof, and magical healing costs memories.
* Home repair skills: Due to growing up during the Great Depression, he’s pretty good at repairing and reusing things from around the house like furniture and simple appliances, even mending clothes. He’s actually really good at neatly patching up clothes, to the point of some simple alteration, a skill that may have been built upon during his time with the fae.
* Dancing: Bucky Barnes knows all the popular American dances from the thirties and forties. All of them. He got that knowledge back surprisingly quickly, surrounded by faerie music. He’s also done his best to pick up more dances since then, whether from other servants or from the fae themselves. It may be one of the few personal joys he has left, and one of the only ways he’s comfortable touching people. (He has a pretty nice singing voice too, if a little rough, but he never uses it so even he doesn’t know.)
* Patience: This is absolutely a skill. Honed by surveillance from sniper nests, waiting for transport to and from mission sites with HYDRA, not knowing what was going on half the time in the war or as the Soldier, and having four younger sisters, he is very good at waiting without complaining.
Inventory:
* Tactical Vest: An armored vest in black leather and kevlar over body armor, with lots of straps, buckles, and places to keep weapons and other useful items. Also it looks pretty cool.
* Clothes: Combat pants with lots of pockets and straps and sheaths for weapons, heavy-weight shirt under the tac vest, and steel-toed combat boots.
* Weapons: Two handguns with no extra bullets, one empty and one with seven bullets left. One remaining grenade. A handful of knives.
* One metal arm: It’s not made of steel or iron, though what it’s actually made out of he doesn’t know (titanium or some kind of vibranium alloy are good guesses, quite possibly a mix of both). The electronics may occasionally get glitchy in the Hedge, but for the most part it’s steady enough. It’s just very, very heavy, and anchored all along his spine and shoulder blade with yet more metal.
Sample:
A meme thread using development closer to what will be in the game, and because that thread shows everything BUT his protective streak, here’s an other-game thread that covers that one.
Name: Gail
Contact: cacopheny @ plurk, PM journal name worthallthis
Over 18?: Yep
Character Information
Name: James "Bucky" Buchanan Barnes, the Winter Soldier
Canon: MCU
Canon Point: End of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, after fishing Steve out of the river, before seeing the Captain America exhibit
Age: Early 30s in appearance and general maturity, 98 counting all the time he spent with HYDRA (like 75% in cryofreeze), 101 or so counting time spent in the Hedge
History:
MCU Wiki, only applicable through the second paragraph given his canon point. Content warnings for medical torture, brainwashing, and general abuse, though the wiki is brief enough to just skim over it.
Personality:
* Protective: The biggest and best trait of one James Buchanan Barnes is his protectiveness. He is the biggest, grumpiest mama bear of them all. He used to check every alleyway in Brooklyn to make sure nobody was beating Steve up in it, and come to his rescue if so. He would tuck Steve or his sisters into bed when they got sick, make chicken soup, and scold them for being out in the cold too long. He was a nag about the Howling Commandos staying safe and well-supplied. He will bawl a loved one out at top volume for doing something stupid, but then make sure to wrap their wounds up and train them in how to handle whatever it is better, so they can live to do something stupid again tomorrow. The protectiveness has been upgraded, after being an assassin for more than 50 years, to being ready and willing to violently murder anything that tries to hurt anyone who he considers his.
* Stubborn: When he’s got a goal in mind, he sticks to it. Sometimes even if it’s stupid, even if the odds are bad, even if it’s detrimental to his health. He could have had an honorable medical discharge from the army after his first round of tortures at the hands of HYDRA, but nope, had to stick by Steve. He could have told Steve about the weird stuff he was feeling from HYDRA’s experiments, instead of keeping to himself, and maybe gotten the punk to look for him after he fell, but nope, had to be proud and secretive. He could have shut up about the "man on the bridge" despite knowing he’d get punished for remembering, but he just kept harping on it and got electrocuted again for his troubles. He’s not great at letting things go, is what I’m saying.
* Charismatic: Back in the day, Bucky was a well-loved sort around Brooklyn and in the army. He got along well with the ladies, had a number of casual friends, knew how to cadge favors out of people, and had a very charming smile. He has always genuinely liked being around people. A lot of that has been beaten down through his time as the Winter Soldier, and his near-constant background level of fear makes it kind of awkward to like being around people, but his more winsome personality still tends to shine through at odd moments these days, and the fact that he cares about people and is ready to offer help tends to win him friends surprisingly easily even now.
* Smart: The Winter Soldier is a clever bastard. The whole point of constantly wiping his memories was to keep his tactical mind and skills intact without his pesky moral code or tendency to kill Nazis getting in the way. He’s great at using his surroundings to his advantage, making plans to deal with problems, and thinking several steps ahead to predict problems. Throw in the sniper training and general situation of abuse for years making him incredibly observant and sensitive to tiny changes in demeanor, tone, and environment, and it makes him a great servant, honestly, being able to predict needs before they’re expressed half the time. It also means he’s spent a lot of time as furniture, ornamentation, or even an inanimate weapon (ouch) for trying something sneaky.
* Paranoid: It’s not paranoia if everyone really is out to get you, is it? He still expects danger out of most people, though he’s very, very good at not showing it. He’s basically a bundle of phobias, irrational conditioned responses, and hypervigilance wrapped up in an extremely good poker face. Trust is not a thing won easily from him. He may like you, he may help you (in fact, he probably will: see "protective" and "charismatic" up above there), but he will probably stay out of arm’s reach unless he has no choice, will do his level best to avoid eye contact, and any loud noises out of you will get a subtle flinch. He’s done some working through the trauma of his decades as a brainwashed assassin during his time in the Hedge, enough that he at least mostly considers himself a person these days... but not as much as he should have, given, well, it’s the Hedge and he’s at the mercy of fickle fae masters on top of it all.
* Amnesiac: Though maybe not exactly a personality trait, this still affects Bucky enough to need a mention. More than most servants in the Hedge, this guy has memory issues. For decades, a whole lifetime, he got his memory fried every few days, whenever he wasn’t frozen solid waiting for a mission or training. When captured, he had very, very few memories to his name (and, actually, no name that he accepted as his), which might have made him interesting to the fae, but made life as a normal person pretty hard. Memories have come back in patchy pieces over the past years in the Hedge-- nowhere near all of it, though, and some of that traded away to the fae whether by accident or for something he needed. That means he considers memories and a sense of self to be even more precious than most, and once he got it back more firmly than just "the stupid target shouted it at me", guards his name very, very closely. Most people don’t even get to know it, and he just goes by Soldier.
Where and how did your character enter the Hedge?
All he’d wanted was to get away from HYDRA, and away from
Additional Memories Lost:
Someone arriving at the Hedge with almost no memories at all was a novelty for the Gentry, and when he started getting them back-- reminded by things he saw, through dreams (usually nightmares), or just plain hitting him at odd moments-- he kept... losing them again. It took him two years to work out why he was only "remembering" terrible things: those were the only things he didn’t share with anyone, because talking about them was uncomfortable. So the bulk of his memories recovered from his first two years are gone: memories like "Ma baking bread", "bedtime story from Pa", several versions of "Steve got in a fight, I patched him up", a lot of his training and early days from World War Two, and (to his intense regret whenever he recognizes there’s a hole in his memories of "family") all pieces of his oldest little sister Rebecca. He managed to hold onto "meeting Steve", "funeral for a baby brother", "Pa was shell shocked and sad", one more of those "Steve got in a fight, I patched him up" ones, the fight on the helicarrier and fishing big!Steve out of the river, and a handful of torture and mission memories, but that’s just about it.
More intentional losses include all memories of one of the Howling Commandos (Dum Dum Dugan), a few medical experiments with HYDRA (he was pretty happy to get rid of those, honestly, even though now he no longer remembers why the sight of raw liver makes him queasy), and how to use his old Johnson rifle from the war.
These days, when memories come back, he is willing to share only those of punishment, experiment, and Soldier mission memories, and protects his memories of family, the Howling Commandos, and especially Steve closely.
Skillsets:
* Combat-related training: Bucky Barnes’s trained skillset includes basic army training and advanced sniper training, as well as an understanding of guerrilla tactics and some mechanical expertise to do maintenance on his finicky rifle. The Winter Soldier’s skillset is much broader, including advanced hand-to-hand techniques, proficiency with firearms and close-combat weapons of an incredibly wide variety (knives are his favorite), fluency in multiple languages, enhanced bodily control and flexibility, subterfuge, stealth, and standard mission skills such as obtaining supplies and seeking out intel. He has crazy-high pain tolerance, too.
* Arm Maintenance: Between watching techs work on him and dealing with longer-term missions, he knows how to deal with basic issues with his metal arm. He can do cleaning, adjustment for optimum performance, and a little circuit repair. Any damage too deep or too extensive will require outside help to fix. (Entrapta seems a good/bad idea for that...)
* Medical Skills: Between the war and having to do basic maintenance on his fleshly parts too, he has some skill with basic field medicine. He can pack and bind wounds, do stitches, reset a dislocated joint, and set major breaks. This is largely so he can do them for himself, so as to avoid having anyone do them to him, as he has something of a phobia of doctors and the various implements thereof, and magical healing costs memories.
* Home repair skills: Due to growing up during the Great Depression, he’s pretty good at repairing and reusing things from around the house like furniture and simple appliances, even mending clothes. He’s actually really good at neatly patching up clothes, to the point of some simple alteration, a skill that may have been built upon during his time with the fae.
* Dancing: Bucky Barnes knows all the popular American dances from the thirties and forties. All of them. He got that knowledge back surprisingly quickly, surrounded by faerie music. He’s also done his best to pick up more dances since then, whether from other servants or from the fae themselves. It may be one of the few personal joys he has left, and one of the only ways he’s comfortable touching people. (He has a pretty nice singing voice too, if a little rough, but he never uses it so even he doesn’t know.)
* Patience: This is absolutely a skill. Honed by surveillance from sniper nests, waiting for transport to and from mission sites with HYDRA, not knowing what was going on half the time in the war or as the Soldier, and having four younger sisters, he is very good at waiting without complaining.
Inventory:
* Tactical Vest: An armored vest in black leather and kevlar over body armor, with lots of straps, buckles, and places to keep weapons and other useful items. Also it looks pretty cool.
* Clothes: Combat pants with lots of pockets and straps and sheaths for weapons, heavy-weight shirt under the tac vest, and steel-toed combat boots.
* Weapons: Two handguns with no extra bullets, one empty and one with seven bullets left. One remaining grenade. A handful of knives.
* One metal arm: It’s not made of steel or iron, though what it’s actually made out of he doesn’t know (titanium or some kind of vibranium alloy are good guesses, quite possibly a mix of both). The electronics may occasionally get glitchy in the Hedge, but for the most part it’s steady enough. It’s just very, very heavy, and anchored all along his spine and shoulder blade with yet more metal.
Sample:
A meme thread using development closer to what will be in the game, and because that thread shows everything BUT his protective streak, here’s an other-game thread that covers that one.