app for deerington

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IN CHARACTER

Character Name: Bucky Barnes
Canon: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Canon Point: post-Black Panther

In-Game Tattoo Placement: Chest, left side of antlers running into the scar tissue where his metal arm connects to flesh
Current Health/Status: Physically fine, but currently without his metal left arm (only a few inches of metal at his shoulder remain)
Apparent Age: 30s
Actual Age: 100
Species: human (enhanced)

History: wiki
Hometown/World: Earth
CRAU History and Impact: Bucky was in The Quiet Place where he lived in a world where noise would attract deadly monsters and people had to learn to live as silently as possible. While there, he began to make some personal connections that he hadn't had the opportunity to make before and he started to get a little more comfortable with exploring who Bucky Barnes had been before he'd been the Winter Soldier. He also started to get involved in the community's protection, partially out of a sense of guilt for the wrong things he'd carried out for HYDRA. This won't have a particularly big impact on who he is, but will allow him a small measure of personal progress towards connecting with others. (Note: He will have gone home for a brief canon update before appearing in Deerington.)

Personality:
In his youth, Bucky was a loyal friend and a man of ideals and optimism. He stood by his best friend, Steve Rogers, through thick and thin from the day they met. Steve was a small boy and easy to pick on, but he always stood up for what he felt was right and in turn, Bucky would stand up for him. This carried on even into early adulthood. As they grew up, the boys experienced family loss and grieved together, eventually moving in together before Bucky joined the army. Even on his last night before shipping out, Bucky worked to get a date for Steve so that they could all go out together before he left.

Being a bit of a flirt, Bucky valued dating quite a bit more than Steve seemed to and enjoyed the attention that his uniform gets him from young women. By the end of the night, Bucky wound up going out dancing with both of their dates when Steve put his attention elsewhere.

It was during World War II that both Bucky and Steve attempted to join the US Army, but only Bucky was accepted. Bucky believed strongly in the fight and agreed with Steve that serving was a duty to be valued, though he also discouraged Steve from his constant attempts to join the Army himself after his first rejection, encouraging him to support the effort in other ways, as Steve was a somewhat sickly young man. It was clear that Bucky didn't disagree that a warzone might not have been the best place for his friend and he was concerned for his safety. His concern for the war effort and his concern for his best friend's well-being were both strong, but his concern for Steve seemed to win out when it came to this particular issue. He didn't want to see Steve sacrifice himself needlessly for an ideal or a sense of duty.

In a test of his will, Bucky was captured while overseas by HYDRA, along with many other Allied soldiers. He was experimented on and tortured, though he did his duty through it all and repeated his Identification numbers rather than allow what they did to him to break him. His stubbornness and loyalty to the fight against the Nazis kept him strong, even as he was being treated like a lab rat. He never really knew if anyone would come for him, but he kept fighting, anyway. He wasn't the sort of man who gives up.

It became even more clear that he wasn't the sort of man to judge someone on their appearance when he was rescued by the now-muscular Steve who'd been transformed by the supersoldier serum. He barely batted an eye beyond cracking a few jokes, knowing that Steve was his best friend and the easy banter between them was a familiar way for him to relate in a now disorienting place. Steve was still his best friend and still the exact same man Bucky had known him to be.

During their escape, Steve was trapped and even having just been released from torture, Bucky refused to leave without him, his loyalty coming out to a self-destructive degree. Even after they both got out, Bucky was ready to follow Steve back into harm's way again and again with renewed vigor. He stated clearly that it was his skinny friend from Brooklyn that he was following and not the man's new-found physique or fancy name. Bucky was still loyal to the same man he'd always been loyal to. Even after being experimented on and tortured, Bucky remained brave and ready to follow his best friend into any fight until the one that saw him fall from a train where he was presumed killed in action.

The Winter Soldier
Having been recovered by Soviets, Bucky is brainwashed and turned into a human weapon known as the Winter Soldier. Now sporting a cybernetic left arm and no memories of his former life or even humanity, Bucky is turned into a shell. When we next see him, he has very little humanity to him at all. He's a killing machine, clean and efficient and brutal in ways that no fully human person can be in their right mind. The one thing that gives him pause in the chaos is that he thinks he recognizes Steve's face while on a mission, though he has no recollection of why or who "Bucky" is when his name is thrown at him. As he tries to question it after the mission is over, his HYDRA handlers further condition him and attempt to wipe the memories from his brain. During this time, the Bucky we see is cold and calculating, but he isn't vindictive or cruel. He fights to win and to reach his goals and complete his mission, not to cause pain or get revenge, even when he himself is damaged. He is not an emotionally-driven creature, but there are cracks in the facade when he questions knowing Steve. This is the only time we see him motivated about anything in a self-created way. It's a crack to the human underneath the machine and the crack was put there by Steve.

With the same single-minded goal-oriented approach, he keeps fighting for HYDRA and serving his purpose as a HYDRA asset and fights Steve, frustrated and confused that the man won't fight back and that he keeps insisting that they know each other when the Winter Soldier knows only that Steve is his mission. Unable to accept or process the information, he keeps hitting Steve until the helicarrier they're fighting on breaks apart and Steve plummets into the river below as Bucky watches. In his first act of true free will in what is likely 70 years, he pulls Steve from the the river to save him from drowning, but leaves Steve on the shore and walks away by himself, still confused about who he is and what he's supposed to do with himself now that he's seen HYDRA, the only cause he remembers fight for, seemingly topple. Staying with Steve isn't an option, both because he can't be sure that he should trust the man and because staying will lead to him being detained in another fashion by another organization. For the first time, Bucky is given the choice of freedom and he takes it as soon as he's seen to making sure Steve won't drown.

There's a part of him that desperately wants to follow the one kernel of information about his past that Steve had given him, "Bucky". It's clear that he's never been left to his own devices long enough to get very far with any train of thought that would lead to him questioning his past before he served HYDRA. Having his brain wiped and being frozen in cryo when not on missions has left his mind hazy and while he spoke very little, the way he was spoken to by HYDRA people, especially Alexander Pierce, shows that his prior loyalty is still at the surface of how he operates. He hadn't been a mercenary fighting for money, but rather for a cause he'd been brainwashed to believe in. It's knowing Steve and being potentially lied to about it that breaks through his convictions enough to have him questioning these things. Now, without handlers or orders, he seeks out information about who he'd been. This takes him to the Smithsonian exhibit on Captain America and the Howling Commandos where he comes face-to-face with who Bucky Barnes had been according to history. With this information, he goes on the run.

There's no HYDRA now and no one he can turn to for help, either, but he knows there will be people who come after him, either for his crimes or to try to use him as he's been used in the past. Bucky doesn't want to be used again by anyone. He has to reconcile the two lives he's starting to remember, all while avoiding being recognized after all of the public violence he'd been involved in with the fall of SHIELD. With no support system, he's left alone, living modestly and off the grid as much as possible with the help of supplies raided from HYDRA safehouses. He remembers being Bucky, but he also remembers killing countless people for HYDRA, including Howard Stark, a man he and Steve had known. He'd been used as a tool for decades by something he'd formerly hated and fought against and that fact isn't lost on him, even if they are the reason he's still alive. There is a lot of guilt for him to reconcile with and he has nothing but time to himself to do it in. The memories might not all come back at once, but he's getting them back and slowly learning just how much of himself he'd betrayed. His loyalty and idealism had been replaced with something cold and deadly and the more he remembers the man he'd been, the more he has to reconcile these two incongruous lives he's lived. Even when Steve tries to tell him that it's not his fault, he insists that it was still him. He remembers doing those things and wanting to do them in the moment. Many of them are things he can't forgive himself for, not just the killing but the fact that his actions helped HYDRA grow and thrive. He'd credited for shaping much of the latter half of the 20th century through his brutal work and he knows that firsthand just as well as any file can express it. The pain and suffering he knows that he's caused is immeasurable.

The whole time he's hiding and remembering, people are looking for him and he doesn't want to be found, not even by Steve who he now remembers. Everyone he'd cared about is now dead except for Steve and letting Steve find him could put them both in more danger or worse, Steve could learn about all of the things he's been made to do. Bucky had always admired Steve and valued his opinion so much. He knows that Steve will likely go to bat for him, but he also know that that will hurt Steve's life far more than it's likely to help Bucky, so he keeps running to try to keep them both safe. Even later when Steve finds him, he tries to lie and pretend he doesn't remember Steve at first in an attempt to get Steve to leave him alone and stop chasing him. It's not that he doesn't want Steve there, but that he's worried about all the building anxieties he's had as he's remembered who he'd been and who Steve had been to him. He worries how he will derail Steve's life or drag him down into the gutter, but selfishly he also wants to keep Steve from seeing what he's become. It's bad enough that he'd fought Steve, but for Steve to know about all the pain he's caused and the terrible things he's done for HYDRA would honestly hurt him more than anything. His loyalty to Steve and his need to protect Steve is alive and well in him, even through all the things he's struggled with.

It's after a good two years on the run, he is tricked out of hiding when someone frames him for a bombing. Once captured, his Winter Soldier programming is temporarily reactivated by the man who framed him. After this, he sees himself even more as a risk and a liability to the safety of other. He still persists in his mission to help Steve stop others who've been trained and conditioned as he was from being awoken and used as weapons, because he knows they must be stopped for the good of everyone, but once the mission is over, he agrees to go back into cryosleep in Wakanda until they can figure out how to truly deprogram him so that he can't be used as a weapon again. This is a very conscious decision he makes, as even Steve is apprehensive about it. For a man who spent years being robbed of his agency, he still chooses this over his freedom when it risks so many lives and so many threats to the things that he and his friend have always believed in and stood for and that is one of the greatest signs that he's once again the Bucky Barnes of his youth in many ways, even if he carries more with him now. Where he'd first chosen his freedom and walked away from Steve at the side of the river, he now feels a greater sense of personal responsibility. Being on the run had left him vulnerable to being used as a weapon again, even if he's free of it in the moment. He can't live like that at the risk of other people.

It's not too long after this that he's awakened, as the scientists in Wakanda have found a way to neutralize the programming in his head. He is without his metal arm and trying to live a peaceful life in Wakanda. He doesn't want to fight anymore and he hasn't for a long time now. Even after he'd been trained and tricked out of hiding, Steve had found him and he'd seemed resigned over the fact that he'd had to fight his way out. To him, fighting has felt like an inevitability of his skill set and his past, but it's not one he's happy about. Bucky wants to find peace in life now more than ever and living in Wakanda has afforded him at least a little peace, even if his demons are still there, because his programming has been neutralized to his knowledge and no one outside of Wakanda really knows he's there, save for Steve. He's finally got a moment of peace.

Personal Moral Codes:
-Bucky doesn't like to fight or kill. When he has to fight, he aims to incapacitate other humans, though he is less concerned with creatures whose intelligence is more animal than human-level and he will kill to protect himself or others in need of protection. He has a strong belief in doing the right thing, even when it's difficult or goes against his personal preferences or comfort. Even though he doesn't want to fight, he will always do it when it's for a cause he believes in. Due to the fact that he spent many decades being brainwashed by his enemies, he takes concepts of personal freedoms very seriously. He is unlikely to put others in a position even remotely close to what he went through.
-Loyalty is something he values highly, even if he struggles with whether or not he deserves it in return
Insecurities/Personal Demons:
-He feels immense guilt for what he did as the Winter Soldier. Even though Steve tells him it wasn't his fault, he remembers doing all of the things he did and he blames himself for those things. As a result, he feels an obligation to make up for those things when given the opportunity and a huge aversion to using his violent skills unless it seems necessary for continued survival or the protection of others.
-He spent 70 years as a brainwashed and conditioned tool for a group he'd viewed as an enemy and it has left him with a good deal of trust issues. Because of his trust issues, he has a hard time asking for or accepting help, though his time in Wakanda has dulled his aversion a little, it is still difficult for him to feel vulnerable like that.
-Sometimes he questions his own mind, because it has taken him a long time to recover from the brainwashing as much as he has, but his brain doesn't feel like it's 100% better and he can question it at times.
-He does suffer from PTSD, as well, both from his experiences in WW2 as a POW and his time under HYDRA's control. HYDRA's conditioning has also left him with occasional episodes of dissociation, as they had conditioned in him a view of himself that had been more weapon than human.

Abilities/Powers/Weaknesses:
-Physically capable of better than peak human strength/speed/agility/endurance due to being experimented on with supersoldier serum.
-Extremely skilled with many fight styles and weapons, including bare-handed, knives and guns, especially sniper rifles.
-Immune to most diseases, slightly accelerated healing
-Currently missing his left arm (normally a metal prosthetic)

Ability/Power/Magic Warping:
Though Bucky maintains the abilities granted to him by the supersolier serum he was given, if he relies on the abilities too much, they will start to fail at random until his body has had time to rest and recover.

Inventory:
-This beautiful number
-And this one
-Folding karambit knife
-Kimoyo beads (which won't work other than to display personally relevant information that was already loaded onto it/as a recording device with no network)
-a leather-bound journal
-a pack of hair ties
Writing Samples:
One
Two: (These are 2 toplevels I wrote in a locked comm. I can try to recover a full thread through my email if you want more)
1. (TW: mentions of torture)

Training keeps him quiet by nature. It doesn't take a whole lot of additional effort for his steps to stay silent on the sand path, but the faint smell of dust wafts through the air and then he looks up and freezes. The creature is right there where anyone could get hurt in a moment of carelessness.

He looks around, making sure there's no one who's at risk and then he considers his next move carefully. Sure, he'd promised not to approach the monsters, but he hadn't seen any in their town before now. This isn't an opportunity he should pass up. He's the only one he's putting at risk.

With renewed caution, he steps forward slowly, approaching the creature. He's silent and he knows it. As long as no one else is here, he can get into its space and back out without much fuss. It's when he gets closer that the rest dust comes, blinding and choking him, but he doesn't panic. He's been blinded and choked, immobilized and broken down until he wasn't fully human anymore. This will pass, he tells himself, and that's the only thing that keeps his choking silent. His mission is to stay silent and stay alive. If he dies now, he won't even see what it does. There's nothing to gain. It's not the mission, he tells himself.

The dust pushes him and he's walking backwards with it blindly, using what care he can with every step to make sure that his boot touches sand until it clears and he can see again.

His heart is pounding in his chest as he looks around frantically. It seems he's no longer alone with the creature. Great.

2. (TW: talk of PTSD/torture/disassociation)
It's not until the creature is gone from the fountain that Bucky dares to return. He sits against the fountain, not too close to where the creature had been, but close enough that he can stare at the spot he'd been standing when he'd choked. He stares at it, unblinking and face emotionless. His back is ramrod straight, posture strained and muscles tense. Where he often has his gloves on and his sleeves rolled down, he hasn't bothered with that precaution now. His sleeves are rolled up, metal arm bare from the elbow down. His mind is somewhere else for a long moment, caught in dust and choking blind.

In that moment, his training had kicked in, calm like a machine. He hadn't been Bucky Barnes anymore because he couldn't be if he wanted to get out of it alive. That wasn't the training of Bucky Barnes. This isn't the life of Bucky Barnes anymore. He has Bucky's memories and lately he has more good days than bad, but today he feels very little like that life was his at all.

He's an asset. A tool. Little more. There's so much blood on his hands and he remembers enough of it that he knows those aren't the actions of Bucky Barnes, a man he knows well enough to know the difference. He feels nothing about this. Tomorrow or the next day when he feels like Bucky Barnes again, these thoughts will scare him, but now he feels nothing because that's what his training says to do. He's not the Winter Soldier anymore, but he's not Bucky Barnes, either.

OUT OF CHARACTER

Player Name: Lauren
Player Age: 32
Player Contact: blauren

Other Characters In Game: n/a
In-Game Tag If Accepted: Bucky Barnes: Lauren
Permissions for Character: here
Are you comfortable with prominent elements of fourth-walling?: As long as it's played for existential horror and not laughs

What themes of horror/psychological thrillers do you enjoy the most?: body horror, loss of control of body, loss of control of emotions, doubting reality
Is there anything in particular you absolutely need specific content warnings for?: beyond what the game rules specify already, a warning for eyeball-related horror would be greatly appreciated
Additional Information: n/a