Pixie Led Application

[staringproblem]

🦋 OOC Information

Name: Nueva
Contact: nuevayuimaxwell, Discord: nuevayuimaxwell, or PM this account
Age: 21+
Other Characters: N/A
Invitation: Here
Permissions: Here

🦋 IC Information

Character Name: James Buchanan 'Bucky' Barnes
Age: 106 years old, but looks about mid-30s
Canon: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Canon Point: End of 'The Falcon and the Winter Soldier' series
Character History: Wiki link
Canon Abilities: Directly from his wiki page: Powers and Abilities

Inventory:
1) His latest uniform and a change of clothes
2) His army dogtags
3) Three combat knives (if allowed by the mods)
4) A toy-size Captain America shield replica (if allowed by the mods)

🦋 Personality

Option 1:
(TW: discussion of torture, brainwashing and violence throughout the 'personality' section)

1. If your character could ask for one wish, and it's going to be magically granted without any consequence, what will it be and why?

Bucky would ask to see how events would have gone differently in his life if he hadn't been drafted into the Army during WWII. While he's a pragmatic man and doesn't exactly adhere to the idea of destiny, part of Bucky would like to know if things would have unfolded differently if he hadn't gone to war. Would he have stayed in Brooklyn and married a pretty nurse and helped with the war effort from home? Would he have been able to stop Steve from enrolling, would that have stopped the creation of Captain America, would HYDRA have won the war if they hadn't had to face their nemesis, etc? But truly, the real question that Bucky would like to see answered with this wish, would be to know if all of his suffering, and the suffering he caused as the Winter Soldier, spared a more far terrible threat that was the rise of HYDRA if he had somehow stopped Steve from becoming Captain America. What if his becoming the Winter Soldier was the lesser evil? And even if answering this question doesn't change anything about what he's lived through, there would be some comfort in knowing that his suffering might have been for a better world, somehow.




2. If there's one person your character would follow to another realm, who would it be and why? If there's no one, state that and explain why.

Without a doubt, Steve Rogers is the one person Bucky would follow anywhere. Steve is already someone Bucky has followed into battle, three times now: during WWII as his second-in-command of the Howling Commandos, and two times after during the Avengers' fight against Thanos.

They have been inseparable from a young age, and from the get-go, Bucky cared for Steve as if he were a brother to him. He defended him against bullies (even as Steve seemed to like picking fights with them) and tried to set him up with girls as he was back then the most popular of the two. Bucky cared enough about Steve to try to dissuade him from joining the army, citing his bad health, as well as reminding him not to do anything stupid while he was overseas. Steve also saves Bucky after he is captured during the war, and when Steve asks him if he would follow Captain America into battle, Bucky makes it clear that he would follow his friend more than the icon he became, showing that Bucky would follow Steve back into battle even after just being freed from HYDRA's work camps.

Steve was also the only person who could get through Bucky's brainwashing when he was the Winter Soldier, making him hesitate when they first met after his capture by HYDRA, and later saved Steve from drowning even if he can't remember him properly, showing how deep their friendship is for Bucky. When they reconnect two years later while Bucky is on the run, Bucky chooses to stay behind and help Steve fight Stark instead of saving his own skin, showing that his friendship with Steve is more important than his life.

At the end of Endgame, I strongly believe that Bucky didn't follow Steve back to the past simply because either Steve didn't ask him to, or made it clear that his life should be lived in the present, where he has a better chance of making something of himself. And the TFATWS show makes it clear that this decision weighs heavy on Bucky, as he seems to struggle to find his place as a man out of his time without his best friend.




3. If you'd like pixies to change one event in your character's life, what would it be and why?

That would be his capture by HYDRA after falling off the train in the Alps, because it led to the most traumatizing era of his life. His capture led to his torture and brainwashing into becoming the Winter Soldier, a deadly assassin that was used by HYDRA to reshape history for their own bidding. To keep him compliant, HYDRA physically and psychologically tortured him, erasing his memories using electroconvulsive shock therapy and extensively training him to make him the perfect killing machine. While Bucky’s memories can be spotty because of the brainwashing, he remembers all of his victims, making him feel guilty for pulling the trigger even if he didn’t have a choice. This traumatic experience profoundly changed Bucky: he went from a charming happy man to being grumpy and guarded, as well as skewing his self-value negatively, as shown when he tells Steve he doesn’t think he’s worth all the effort and danger Steve's allies have put into defending him. He's developed trust issues from being used against his will, as well as fearing being a threat to those he cares for, even after being deprogrammed in Wakanda. That makes him keep people at bay, preferring to live a solitary life over hurting people again.

Even following extensive therapy (that was court-mandated in order for Bucky to receive a presidential pardon for his actions as the Winter Soldier), Bucky struggles with shedding his Winter Soldier identity. Even as he makes amends for his past killings, it takes a 'tough love' conversation with Sam Wilson to realize that he's avenging more than amending: he chooses to find the bad people he's enabled into power instead of helping the family of innocent people he killed finding closure by letting know what really happened to their dead relative.

It's clear that this event has changed Bucky deeply, and that because of this moment in his life, he never truly worked on his potential as James Barnes instead of the Winter Soldier.




4. Your character gets to return home, but when they do they learn that they've been gone for hundreds of years. How do they react?

At first, Bucky would be mostly sad that he didn't get to grow old with the friends he's made after being freed from HYDRA. He would be disappointed not to have been there to see Sam Wilson become the Captain America Bucky always believed he could be. But once his grief lessens enough, Bucky would try to learn as much as possible about the state of his world now: trying to see what happened in the past, see who's the good guys and who's the bad guys. He would try to learn where he can help with his abilities, because keeping himself busy instead of facing the fact that he's a man out of his time again seems like a good idea. While he would try to help whoever keeps the bad guys on the line, Bucky would do so covertly, because he wouldn't trust people to dredge out his bloody past, even if he'd been pardoned a long time ago from that time point. He wouldn't want his reputation as the Winter Soldier to taint the reputation of those helping and guarding the innocent.

In his spare time, he would try to catch up on his history, especially focusing on what the Avengers accomplished with Sam leading them. He would track down the descendants of the Avengers he knew (Sam's nephew, Clint's kids, Tony's daughter) and make sure they are okay, because Bucky would feel it's the least he can do in this future. Again, he would try not to have to reveal himself to them, as he can even admit that this behaviour might be a little creepy (not that he cares much that it is, if it's meant to protect and help them out).

All in all, he would adapt to his new circumstances, albeit a bit slowly, because this would not be the first time Bucky finds himself thrust into a world that has moved on without him.

🦋 Fae Court

List your top three choices for your character's adoptive court. The mods will choose the one out of those three options that seem the most fitting based on your app.

• Autumn


• Dusk


• Winter

Ability: Do you want your character to gain the ability of their court? (Delete the other two options.)
3) Yes, but Bucky would refuse to trade his abilities away; he will buy his court's ability on credit.

🦋 RP Samples

TDM top level