[Diadem] App

Wed, 08 Oct 2025 01:55:39 GMT

Player Information

Player: Scy
Contact: restlessheart
Invitation OR characters played: Em
Are you over 18?: Yes

Character Information

Character: James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes
Canon: MCU/Thunderbolts*
Age: 110, looks to be late 30s/early 40s
History: Link
Possessions: Nothing noteworthy - dog tags, phone that breaks in the TDM, keys.
Weapon: Not eligible

Powers/Abilities: There is a powers section in the wiki linked above, but basically supersoldier serum (stronger, faster, more durable kind of thing) and a cybernetic arm.

Application Questions

Who is the most important person in their life and why? What might be different if this person hadn't been around?
For the longest time it was Steve Rogers/Captain America. They have known each other since they were young. To cut a long story short, both of them survived some rather traumatic WWII incidents and timeskipped the slow way around to many decades later, so Steve was the last piece of the past that Bucky still had. Steve gave him the impetus to walk away from their canon’s version of the Nazis (HYDRA), Steve protected him when everyone else was persecuting him/wanted him dead, and Steve really pushed for Bucky and got others to rally around him to heal and move forward from the past. Nobody else would have fought as hard as Steve to save him. He might still be a HYDRA asset if he wouldn’t be dead by now.

Is there an event in your character's life that they'd do differently? How so and why?
I think he has a really complicated relationship with HYDRA. On the one hand he recognises that it was a terrible, violent, extremist organisation, and they made him hurt a lot of people. On the other hand, he knows Uncle Sam - really knows Uncle Sam now after his time in Congress. HYDRA fixed him up, gave him purpose, made him feel like he was doing something worthwhile with his life. What would his life have been like if he made it home from the war? He is under no illusion that he would have been a used up and discarded veteran amputee, a burden on the state, pawning off his medals to scrape together an existence that would have been one dice roll away from homelessness.

He’s stuffed down that really messy mangled tangle of survivor’s guilt, PTSD, Stockholm syndrome, and everything HYDRA did to mess with his head, to toe this really reductive ‘America Good, HYDRA Bad’ line. But a part of him feels like he always harboured this violence within. The serum that HYDRA gave him just brought out the grotesque monster inside him and gave it an outlet. The very same way the serum brought out what was always inside Walker. And Steve. So… if he knows what he knows today? I don’t think he would have wanted to survive the Winter Soldier program. He might have tried (harder) to escape before they finished experimenting on him? But Siberia is a difficult place to escape from. He has good days and bad days, and on those bad days, I don’t think he would mind if he didn’t survive the escape attempt. Especially if he thinks he would have taken the violence along with him.

What's the greatest challenge you foresee your character facing in the setting? How might this impact their ability to adapt and in what ways will they confront this challenge?
I think the helplessness of their situation will be the toughest thing he will have to deal with. He can’t fix this world or anyone that gets hurt like in the TDM. Ironically, given how a lot of things in his own life have been circumstances out of his control, he will struggle to just accept this. A few decisions that he might have to make in the future might feel opportunistic or wrong. I think he will have to rely on other perspectives and some positive outcomes to see that choosing between a bad or a really bad option is sometimes the best thing he can and should do.

What's the easiest thing you foresee your character adapting to in the setting?
The storms, diffusion zones and the ‘weirdness’ that comes with will probably be another Tuesday for him and he will take it all in his stride, try to make the best of the messy situations that crop up. Incidentally, he also loves the relative anonymity that the setting affords him. He’s really sick of all the cameras and the public scrutiny and will appreciate being left alone to do his own thing for a while.

Samples

Sample: I have no samples outside of the TDM from this canon point unfortunately. I have a couple of more tonally ‘serious’ or ‘emotional’ threads with Steve and Yelena and then I have a TDM top level that’s a bit more of a tonal and stylistic mixed bag.

comments

[Silent Spring] Application

Sat, 16 Dec 2023 23:11:57 GMT

IC PERSONALITY HISTORY + SUITABILITY OOC CODING

James Buchanan Barnes

Character Full Name, Western Order

Bucky

Diminutive, if applicable

106

Character Chronological Age

late 30s/early 40s

Character Visible Age, if different

Character gender

Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)/
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (FatWS)

Canon

End of FatWS

Canonpoint

ONE paragraph synopsis of character and canon premise

James Buchanan Barnes (also known as Bucky) from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Disney+ series the Falcon and the Winter Soldier. The canon is much like real life, except with a lot of fantastical things happening (alien invasions, gods and celestial beings, killer robots, timey wimey alternate timelines and universes, magical stuff, superheroes and villains etc.) Bucky was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1918 and enlisted for WWII as a young man. In the mid-1940s he was captured by the Nazi-resembling organisation Hydra, successfully experimented upon with a supersoldier serum as a prisoner of war, and survived a fatal fall where he lost his left arm. Presumed dead and left behind, he was fitted with a replacement bionic arm, brainwashed and reprogrammed as a blank slate murdery tool for Hydra, lifespan artificially prolonged using cryogenetic technology until his childhood friend rescued him. He's been trying to do the right thing but also having bouts of recovering/drifting/relapsing/struggling ever since then.

PERSONALITY

Strong, silent, lone wolf type

Bucky is an introvert of few words and fewer friends. Getting him to talk sometimes can feel like pulling teeth, and he's not exactly the life of the party. He lives alone, has only a couple of contacts on his phone, Sam and his therapist Dr. Raynor. His best friend Steve is gone, and he is acquaintances with but was never really that close to the other people Steve was close to. He also has a few people he's close to in Wakanda, but he's been living in Brooklyn these days; it's not like he communicates with them frequently.

Snarky

When he does talk, he can be a little snarky! It's a combination of dry wit and sarcasm, cynicism and just sometimes when he passes a quiet remark, he comes across as a little brusque, a little caustic. He does take things seriously to the point of sometimes being a little too uptight, so just because he passes a stupid comment doesn't mean he doesn't care or hasn't taken anything on board.

Loyal

While Bucky is slow to build trust - it's not paranoia or having trust issues if they're really trying to kill you! - once you're in his good books (the page with very very few names on it at least), once he trusts you, he is fiercely loyal. He would have done anything Steve asked of him and he would do anything Wakanda asks of him too. While he's not always the best confidant, more willing to listen although not always full of good advice to give, he will fight and die for you.

Adaptable

The grumpy old man is 106 years old. Although for most of his life he's been unconscious, hes spent much of his conscious time not staying in one place doing the same thing. He's used to being tasked with a mission and dropped in somewhere he doesn't know, that might or might not speak a language he knows, with no real understanding of the local lay of the land. He might have a little bit of a stubborn streak when he thinks he's right and digs his heels in, but he adapts fairly quickly to the situation at hand and goes with the flow. Especially if someone else who seems competent and trustworthy is in charge or seems to have some kind of plan.

The bear does not enjoy being poked

For the most part he's patient and slow to reach his limit, but if he's being deliberately and persistently provoked, he will snap and lash out, have an angry outburst and settle back into his quiet, seemingly perpetually irritated demeanour. While not always visibly on edge, it's a little difficult for him to fully relax or joke around unless he's around certain people or in certain familiar places.

Analytical

He's more on the cautious side, likes to observe for a while and understand a little bit about what he's dealing with, pick details up and make the connections between things that seem trifle, benign or meaningless. He tries not to be too impulsive although sometimes, sure, he goes into things without thinking through as much as he should and still makes mistakes.

HISTORY +

HISTORY

As mentioned in the one paragraph brief, Bucky is a war hero from WWII. He went on a fatal mission in 1945 and fell off a moving train into a snowy ravine behind enemy lines. He survived the fall as he had been experimented upon a few years earlier by a shady international underground organisation called HYDRA with a supersoldier serum, that gave him quickened healing, enhanced durability, stamina, speed, strength etc. He went through intensive training, conditioning, torture that permanently damaged his brain and was kept in a cryo chamber for the next 70ish years, to be thawed out and used sparingly over the decades on special assignments and difficult missions.

In the 2010s, on one of those missions, he encountered his childhood friend Steve Rogers. (Steve also received the supersoldier serum and survived those 70 years under different circumstances; he basically got the good ending and Bucky got the bad ending.) Seeing Steve triggered something buried in his old fragmented memeories and he voluntarily left HYDRA and went into hiding. Steve eventually rescued him and got him help in Wakanda, a fictional technologically advanced nation in Africa. With the Wakandans' help, he spent some years recovering in Wakanda before some crazy wars and alien invasion stuff happened and he alongside half of the world's population was snapped out of existence for five years.

In recent history, he's back in Brooklyn, and he's been pardoned by the American government for his war crimes throughout the 20th century. He's still dealing with the guilt of everything he's done and trying to make amends against the geopolitical backdrop of billions of people worldwide presumed gone forever coming back into existence overnight.

Physical Details

I don't have armless icons but yes he is missing his left arm. He's 6 feet tall, muscular/lean, sounds American but doesn't have a distinct New Yorker accent.

Does this character use any disability aids? What are they and what is their purpose?

He had a fully functional metal arm where his original left arm used to be, but it seems to have grown legs and ran away.

Is the character bringing a pet? Describe them.

No.

Inventory upon arrival

Dog tags
Period-appropriate combat knife
Little red notebook

SUITABILITY

What elements of the game are you most interested in engaging with? I love the horror and helplessness and mystery elements of this setting, but mostly just this setting also. Maybe at the start the character will try a lot harder to try and figure out what is happening but I'm really more interested in the angst that comes with this particular setting. There's a huge element of 'what if' for him - what if he never had the supersoldier serum? What if he survived the war? What if he came back to America and, you know, he got to live this life that he fought for other people to have? Is this the white picket fence Dream assembly line work or whatever he ends up doing that Uncle Sam said he could have when he came home? I think I want for Bucky to both fight against this strange helicopter family bizzarro setting but also contend with the pulls/temptations and bumps in the road involved in this idyllic suburban life.

He also has never really contended with this "veteran amputee" identity (even though it's not inaccurate, he's always had a metal arm and enhanced strength, speed, stamina etc. so he's never thought of himself that way) so now that he's a mere mortal with one arm he might actually have a chance to explore this. These are things he's never really had to grapple with when he thinks about what he's lost, so it would be great to take this opportunity to dig in deep and find out.

I don't really know enough about the planned plot of the game so I can't comment on what I might latch onto more for Bucky, but outside of game plots I would love to just do all the quiet emotional rollercoaster dragging hands (or just the one hand) down face stuff that this game will bring out.

How will your character integrate into the setting? How do you see them dealing with life in Sweetwater? What are your plans for them in this game? You know, oddly enough I think he'll fit right in. He's probably a bit old-fashioned by modern standards, has some grumpy old man views of the world that wouldn't be so out of place in 1960. I think at least at the beginning there will be more than a few 'thanks I hate it' kind of days but as time goes on he will hate that he doesn't actually hate it, if that makes sense. Like he knows deep down none of this is 'real', whatever that means, and he should be fighting all the time to get back to what's 'real', if not for himself then for everyone else who's trapped here. But it's not like he has something so much better to return to, for himself. And there will be elements of domesticity that he might actually like. I really want to play out this struggle between 'we need to get out' and 'is this really so bad?' and I would shamelessly love these kinds of conversations or even arguments with the wife/child/neighbour/anyone on top of the unreliable narrator mindfuckery which happens to be one of my favourite tropes. He won't actively sabotage anyone else's attempts to leave or figure out what is happening or why they're here or any of that, but he might just half-heartedly help (or help while mashing X to doubt). The long term plan is coming to accept that he has to let this all go but hopefully he won't get to that mental stage or teeter back and forth until late in the game.

Why did you choose this character specifically for this game? It was a combination of liking this 1960s setting + the horror element + knowing Bucky would fit in this setting and have some struggles about the life he could have lived. Also, not having his metal arm and his abilities and grappling with that perception other people might have of him as a disabled veteran would make for an interesting time.
What are your favorite elements of horror? Psychological horror, liminal spaces, any of that unreliable narrator stuff. Not sure about tropes but movies I've enjoyed are like 1408, The Cell, Event Horizon, Shutter Island, Cabin in the Woods. Some zombie stuff is also interesting but not necessarily the violence or gore, it's more the complete helplessness of the situation, like you can't really stop it spreading and it's not treatable, society breaks down into this dystopian mess, there's no one out there etc.
Do you understand that Silent Spring's purpose is horror, not domesticity/found family, and that the following themes (nuclear panic, the Red Scare, conformism, sexism and restrictive gender roles, heteronormativity/gender binarism, surveillance, gaslighting, brainwashing/propaganda, disinformation, pollution/contamination, poisoning, loss of control, smoking, alcohol culture, and uncanny valley) cannot be opted out of? Yes, bring on the horror, I'm very interested!
Do you agree to accept the potential IC consequences (social shunning/ostracism, potential exclusion from neighborhood social events, up to brainwashing, sleep deprivation torture, and nonconsensual haloperidol injection) in full for your character's actions in game? Yes, and happy to play these things out.

OOC

Scy

Player name

they

Pronouns

Player Age

Eastern/GMT-4 or GMT-5

Player Timezone

Anything you MUST have warnings for?

N/A

Other characters in game

restlessheart

Plurk

Other Contacts

https://silentspringmods.dreamwidth.org/1007.html?thread=3311#cmt3311

Invite source

Housing Preferences

What is your usual tagging speed? Tagging patterns? I try to tag back once a day at least, in the evening, but sometimes I get busy and have to reply the following day.
What activity level is ideal to you in a partner? Similar once a day or once every other day, although happy to work with weekend warriors who want to boomerang during the day.
What is your timezone? How important is it that the other players in the household be in a similar timezone? I am Eastern/GMT-4 or GMT-5, and work a day job. It is not important to me at all if other players in the household are in different timezones/availabilities.
Would you like a household with a child, without, or do you have no preference? No preference and I will be out of the country for the last week of January and all of February, in the completely opposite timezone (GMT+8 so literally 10am Eastern will be 10pm or 11pm for me) so I'm completely okay and happy for Bucky to be in a single household to start and have everyone else get their assignments first.
Are you okay with being placed with a character/character(s) that would impact your character's reputation? No preference/any placement is fine.

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Bucky Barnes

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