squiggyyyy

Latest Posts by squiggyyyy

oh man i could go on about how the song "hurt" by nine inch nails is a song that perfectly represents bucky and to a lesser extent bucky and steve's relationship, but i won't,,

SIKE

the entire opening of the song just perfectly encapsulates how bucky would feel after he pulled steve from the potomac and spent 2 years on the run. we know that bucky was controlled not only by manipulation and the wipes but also with physical (and implied sexual) assault. we we see pierce slap him when he doesn't comply, which doesn't faze anybody, meaning it's completely normalised. rumlow also says this to sam:

"there are no prisoners with HYDRA. just orders. and orders only come through pain."

the clever trick in this line is that at surface level we think rumlow is referring to the fact that sam would never be kept prisoner, he would just be immediately killed. however it's clear upon inspection this line is a direct reference to the winter soldier: he's not seen as a prisoner as he follows HYDRA'S orders, and he complies through means such as pain (i.e torture to make him subservient). this makes the meaning of the line "the old familiar sting" to be that he finds familiarity (and possibility stability, which brings comfort to his changing world) in pain.

"i hurt myself today, to see if i still feel. i focus on the pain, the only thing that's real." it's very possible that whilst on the run, bucky was paranoid that this was all a dream and that he'd wake up back in hydra's biddings, therefore he used methods of self harm to make sure it was real, to ground himself. additionally, by condensing pain as the only real thing in his world, for a brief period of time whilst self harming he allows himself to effectively block or repress all of the thoughts haunting him.

"try to kill it all away, but i remember everything." this demonstrates bucky's memory slowly coming back without the wipes, shown through him writing in all of the those journals in civil war. he has memories of his assassinations, so he views himself as killing all his memories when he's having a nightmare or flashback, as that's literally what he's doing: murdering another memory of a person. but unfortunately, he can't stop himself from remembering, no matter how much he tries.

"what have i become?" bucky is haunted by all of the horrible things he's done and the fact that he has completely changed, he does not recognize himself, it has been 70 YEARS - he spent nearly 30 years as james buvhanan barnes and fucking 70 as the winter soldier, double that of his original life. if you go back to tfa and then watch tfatws, you realize just how much he's changed (and i'm saying this as somebody who thinks his trauma was toned down). he's just fundamentally not the same person.

"my sweetest friend, everyone i know, goes away in the end." god hate talking about endgame steve and he doesn't exist in my mind but this shows exactly how bucky would feel when steve left, his sweetest, dearest friend has gone. everyone who he knew is now dead, or has left. he also probably believes that it is his fault that steve left, as he wasn't good enough to make steve stay because he wasn't the "real" original bucky. he refuses to form emotional connections with other people because he believes he will destroy everything and everybody will leave him due to the horrors he's done, which is why he's so distant to sam at the beginning of tfatws and near completely isolated.

this one's interesting as you could interpret it completely as steve's thoughts towards bucky.

"full of broken thoughts, i cannot repair." steve knows that bucky has been traumatised severely and that steve cannot simply fix it all, he cannot fix all of the things that hydra put into bucky's head that go far beyond just the activation words. this can be seen as him saying this through a thick lense of guilt, he feels ashamed of the fact that he is not good enough to repair bucky's "broken" brain and that bucky is irreversibly changed by what has been done to him.

"beneath the stains of time, the feelings disappear." this one is very interesting as you can view this as steve believing that due to the simple passage of time of 70 years alone, bucky's feelings towards steve have been reduced to nothing as bucky no longer remembers steve, he's just a footnote in his life. (and he's wrong because steve was bucky's lifeline). steve sees time as a "stain" for bucky because bucky's whole existence during hydra was negative, as well as the fact that whilst steve was napping on ice, bucky was getting tortured which makes steve feel immensely guilty. (not looking at YOU, endgame steve!)

"you are someone else, i am still right here." this obviously portrays steve's outlook on how they have changed. bucky has been completely changed, he lived through those years, he was concious and suffered unspeakable damage, steve went into the ice and immediately woke up as the exact same man with the memories of 1940 fresh on his mind as being a day ago. for bucky, even with his memories back, 1940 may be foggy to him simply because it was so. fucking. long ago for him and he had so many other haunting memories afterwards. i also think this line is steve showing his unyielding, unrelenting stubbornness towards bucky: no matter what, no matter the absolute worst case scenario, steve is still there for bucky. he's still here for him despite the fact that bucky has changed.

i believe these final line of the song portray how bucky feels about his life: if he could start it all over again, he would do everything in his power to not become the winter soldier as he knows he lost so much of himself and was shattered into pieces. the idea of "starting again" could also imply if bucky was able to start from the very start of the winter soldier days, he would immediately find a way to kill himself so that he didn't lose himself, as he believes his death would've been better than the subsequent life he lived. we already know that bucky was suicidal and the only thing that kept him going in romania was steve - imagine how he felt when he was a captured pow in 1940's and was told captain america died. it's completely believable he tried to attempt suicide somewhere in the early days of his capture, and he wishes looking back that he had succeeded by "finding a way" in order to keep himself.

of course, much simpler, this could be bucky reminiscing on life BEFORE the war even, as he already started murdering people during the war and was experimented on at krausburg, both of which would've affected him deeply. bucky envisions a life where, from the very beginning, he didn't have to suffer through what ultimately lead to him falling off that train, a fantasy life where everything was okay forever.

your night time usual, sir

anybody else ever randomly hit with how little autonomy bucky had? was reading a fic where bucky was uncomfortable with his stubble because he had been shaven for the whole remainder of his time as the winter soldier and it just makes me realize how little control he had to the point where somebody else probably shaved his facial hair for him. there was probably so much more but we only ever get to see the physical appearance change, which is enough to make it clear that he isn't in control anymore. his hair is long and specifically styled, he has to smear that black makeup across his face, he wore that restrictive mask/goggle combo, his ws outfit looked more like a straightjacket than anything else..

and he probably had absolutely zero say in it.

me consuming media of my favourite little guy ever (and the person who's down bad for them because they are inseparable)

does anyone else ever see 1940's bucky and just feel a great sadness like damn this bitch had no idea and now he will never be the same man

collection of some my all time favourite bucky photos (๑ > ᴗ < ๑) (ones mostly from winter soldier)

>:[

it's still so crazy to me that in civil war, it is stated multiple times that the government has an illegal order to SHOOT BUCKY ON SIGHT yet nobody except steve seems to acknowledge or care

"you're going to have to hurry.. we have orders to shoot on sight." - sharon carter to steve

steve is already considering seeking out bucky here. he has been tracking bucky for two years and sam says that they "found nothing" which indicates there have been no more "winter soldier" attacks since bucky left steve on the potomac, which means a sudden terrorist attack like this is very rightfully suspicious to steve. then he's told that these people are going to straight up murder bucky, who he has been trying to reach independently with only him and sam for the past two years

"well the people who think you did are coming here now.. and they're not planning on taking you alive" - steve to bucky

in the minute steve has with bucky, he listens out and somewhat believes him when bucky says he didn't do it. it's clear nobody else on earth would believe bucky, which is why bucky doesn't bother to ever defend himself from the bombing later, but he defends himself against the one man who might believe him. so steve now knows he's being framed (even though this was already a possibility) and then immediately makes sure to relay the news that people are trying to kill bucky on sight. it's clear steve's plan here was always to take bucky and run away from the authorities or to fight them as they try to murder bucky

on another note - tony stark, who i love as a character. is a bit questionable in this regard

"so far nothings happened that can't be undone if you sign.. barnes gets transferred to an american psych centre instead of a wakandan prison" - tony to steve

this is tony trying to appease steve by saying that his friend will be better off if steve goes along with their wishes, because he knows the government will be more likely to abide by steve's wishes for bucky if steve complies.

HOWEVER

tony completely disregards here that one big thing that otherwise wouldn't be "undone" without steve's intervention is bucky getting fucking shot point blank! there would've been no wakandan prison, just a dead body. steve knew this and therefore took action into his own hands to save his friend. so can we assume tony didn't know?

"barnes would've be eliminated in romania if it wasn't for steve" - ross to tony and natasha when they question if steve is going to be shot at

ross then says this a short while later to tony. nothing in tony's reaction implies any shock to this news, it's more "yeah yeah i know i'll get em this time.."

basically this means tony stark was using the art of lying to get steve to sign the accords. he knew bucky was supposed to die and that government authorities are supremely unhappy at steve for this to the point of willing to murder captain fucking america to get through to killing bucky yet he completely disregards that point and instead tries to LEVERAGE by claiming that if steve cooperated, maybe bucky wouldn't be in this predicament.. even though he's in a much more alive predicament.

so yeah.. maybe bro deserved to catch this fade when bucky ripped the reactor out

current mood

now that thunderbolts has been released, i'm once again seeing people online responding to complaints that bucky's trauma is never fleshed out, with the following similar responses:

- "his trauma had 10 years to be fleshed out, why are you guys so obsessed with seeing him suffer?"

yeah.. no. bucky may have been on the screen for all six phases but he is rendered absolutely irrelevant after civil war (where - and i'm saying this as somebody who loves civil war bucky - he kinda is just a plot device for steve and tony to have more tension between them).

it's laughable to ever describe his trauma as fleshed our when no character even acknowledges his trauma?? he has gone through the worst horrors imaginable. it's like marvel thinks if they point his trauma out, they realize his "recovery" is near impossible (which is why it wasn't shown on screen). bucky DID have all these years to be fleshed out, but he wasn't. even by the second act of civil war it was like "okay we gotta make them teamup, make bucky stop being rightfully feral and guarded and just have him chill with steve and a bunch of randos who he doesn't know if he tried to murk an hour ago."

i've always adored this scene in civil war. despite having been practically feral, at arms length and desperate to run, once caught, bucky shows that he has regained himself somewhat and accepts the name of his past enough to correct zemo. this one scene gives us so much insight into bucky's psyche.

my favourite part about the bucky in civil war by FAR - aside from that red henley - is the way for the first half that bucky is on edge, has no idea what's going on, he's anxious, guarded, like a volatile, stray dog.

the way he looks at t'challa with shock, then just starts fighting. the way he is guarded with steve, yet comes up behind him, just to lie to him. the way he runs in the tunnels and frantically swerves to avoid being hit by a car here because he just has no fucking clue what's going on yet he's still fighting the fight

one thing about bucky's mcu story is that we never see how he heals. i don't buy for one second that a man who was brainwashed, manipulated, tortured with electroshock, physically abused and spent by far the majority of his life as a weaponized soviet assassin is going to be in any way okay. for christ's sake, this dude should have the final boss ptsd. yet it's nearly wrapped in a bow in some cameos of wakanda. we. never. see. it.

you may have also noticed that a lot of bucky's trauma is not credited to the writing of it, but to sebastian stan's amazing SILENT acting that makes you feel it. seriously, the amount of praise sebastian (rightfully) got for the way he made bucky look tormented is insane. this dude carried it

tfatws was arguably the last chance to do something with bucky - finally, six episodes to focus on his psyche! wowzers! instead, we get the INSULTING storyline that bucky needs to apologise to the people HE hurt and that this also somehow cures his mental health issues, though honestly the show swept around this by laughably not even showing us anything not skin deep. he has nightmares, he's a bit angsty - sure, that's easy to recover from when that's a you show a character going through. it's clear the backstory of bucky was them biting off more than they could chew, and wouldn't fit in with their story, so they condensed it and made it easier to make bucky a sidekick by essentially retconning his past trauma so that instead of having any of the severe mental health issues we expect of bucky, he was instead just. chilling.

so no. i'm not somehow being evil to a character and wanting them to constantly suffer. i realized, walking out of the cinema (spoilers for thunderbolts!!) that the reason i wanted bucky to have a void room is because it would mean the mcu would finally acknlowedge bucky's trauma. because let's be real. the character of the winter soldier, and post winter soldier recovery bucky are so unbelievable different with barely any material for how he got here that he may as well be a different character and not a loved character who i know and connect to the fucking winter soldier movie.

so, by having bucky never acknowledge the winter soldier apart from a quip, it makes it so easy to not have to ever, ever communicate just how he got from point A to point B. i want him to suffer because it means his backstory would finally be acknowledged by him, and others, and it would be cathartic and we'd see how he healed from it instead of the mcu just TELLING us that he healed from it. or even better just having him suddenly be better because the plot requires it (looking at you, second half of civil war)

anyway.. where was i on that civil war point?

you recover from trauma, expecially with the right support system, but trauma changes you. that doesn't have to be a bad thing, but for somebody who went through what bucky did, if he was a real guy he would've found a way to commit suicide a million times over by now, it's only bearing the logic of him being a character on screen that he lives. i think bucky would've been at his best if he fundamentally stayed the way he was for the first half of civil war - constantly guarded, closed off, timid in a way, volatile and willing to fight when needed even though he's just so exhausted of it, because something in him is just urging him to survive. that, at least, would've been way more believable than "completely adjusted, a bit angsty and awkward, skirts around any real discussion of mental health in favour of prancing around how steve rogers something something" like we got in tfatws.

civil war bucky was the last time mcu was willing to establish to us that bucky has FUNDAMENTALLY changed from his experiences, he doesn't go leaping in steve's arms and is clearly constantly on guard, and i think that's important to note because it's so easy to say "well they do acknowledge he's changed and he has trauma, he had the code words erased in wakanda.." but that was not a demonstration of how he was fundamentally forever affected by this trauma at all, it was a one-off point in a series manufactured only because they needed him to be more mentally stable than he'd never be to move the cogs of the plot along. (along with the fact it's clear that somehow erasing the words is meant to heal bucky of all his problems)

so yeah. no, i don't want to see bucky suffering and i am absolutely reasonable for being upset that thunderbolts is just another movie to sweep bucky's trauma and recovery to the side, because we never saw his recovery so the only way we'll ever connect this guy to bucky is if we see. him. acknowledge his past because holy shit he is a different person and i'd love bucky to be this mentally stable if we were shown it

one thing to note is that this dissonance is always made exceptionally clear by things like fanfiction that actually show bucky's trauma and recovery and do it in a way that doesn't shy away from any scary topics, which makes it all the more realistically brutal and cathartic when he recovers. that's why i've never fully gotten past 2016 bucky - because neither did the mcu as it just made a new character, whilst fanfiction writes all the things in the gaps of the original movies, so it also never got past it

decided to make a bucky blog so i can just post my yaps into a void (i've never uploaded things to tumblr before ever in my life)