He smiles slightly, the corners of his lips twitching and threatening to turn it into a smirk. "A little bit of both really. Some times I feel the need taunt people before I get down to business. It's problem really. But with the Intel I have, I can afford it. HYDRA and the KGB worked together in the past a lot. I have names and locations of a few of those agents. Specifically ones that were involved in controlling assets."
Bucky Barnes’ Brainwashing: AKA How It’s Totally Possible This Could Happen
Okay to start off with, brainwashing isn’t an exact science and really is only something we can imagine. Kinda. Maybe. This won’t be a super science-y one, but if people would like me to do one, I’d be more than happy to do so.
Now with that out the way, let’s begin.
Bucky had probably already suffered brain damage from his fall and so this would’ve made it so much easier for them brainwash him, plus the fact that he was missing an arm probably helped.
Why?
Because do you really think they had that mechanical arm up and ready to go straight away? No. I highly doubt that. So this gives them some times to destroy all previous memories. But not motor memories - that way he still has his ‘muscle memory’ left. In theory, it’s pretty easy to destroy memories, destroy the synapses - those things that like neurons fire and stuff, they help make make memories, that’s all you really need to know. Side note: If anyone wants the super science-y version, then I’ll go into more detail.
So basically, destroy the synapses and you’ve got a blank memory. Or you can slowly alter the originally memories and tweak them to have Bucky remember exactly what you want.
Now, most likely what happened with Bucky was the first one, or a combination of both. We know our boy is a fighter - see the HYDRA scene in the first movie - so more than likely if they tried the second option then they’d realise just how unstable that would make him. Most likely he’d have random burst of rage or confusion, because like I said, it’s not an exact science and for reasons I’ll discuss later, he’d most likely remember the correct memories at some point.
Okay, back to the first idea. HYDRA basically took should be dead Bucky and saw an opportunity. A highly skilled agent who they’d previously tested on and knew could take what they threw at him. They’d already been trying to develop brainwashing techniques, so why not try it on this guy? So the did, and it worked. Obviously. But how?
Well to create a memory you’ve got a three step process: input — encode — retrieval. Now, for the blank slate, it’s the synapses at the retrieval end that you’re gonna want to destroy, that way he can’t retrieve them and therefore they don’t exist. Theoretically. They’re still encoded somewhere, but you don’t want to mess with that because you run the risk of making it so that he can’t encode any memory ever. And what use is that if you wanna control him?
So he can’t retrieve any of his old memories. When this is done, you wanna wake him up. He’ll be confused, disorientated and probably angry. Hell, a lot angry. But you’ll be seen as a friend who is here to help him, and guide him through everything. You give him a new arm, and you sympathetically tell him about the memories he’s missing. But you’re also inputing these new memories into his head whilst he’s unconscious, allowing him to encode them, and when you mention them, you’re giving a cue and making him more likely to retrieve these fake memories.
My theory is that Bucky Barnes doesn’t have amnesia. Bucky Barnes just doesn’t have any memories.
For HYDRA it’s be easy to separate his brain into three distinct area: the self, the order, and the loyalty. The self is fluid and you can easily create this by altering and giving him new memories. The orders, now this will be what we would’ve seen in the movie. This one is where they input all the necessary information they need to get him to do what they want. His target, fake memories of wrongs they’ve committed, reasons why he needs to do it, and most importantly, link it all back to his loyalty for HYDRA. That loyalty area is a key component because it needs to be so strong that it influences the self and his orders. This’ll be where they spent hours upon hours inputting propaganda into him, creating childhood memories of him wanting to sign up, him signing up, doing his duty proudly. Anything you can possibly imagine. Think extreme religion, and that’s what they’ll’ve done to Bucky.
Now, like I said all of those memories are encoded in there somewhere, he just can’t retrieve them. And we know that cues help trigger retrieval, and that the more often a memory is recalled, the stronger that is. Bucky has known Steve since childhood, and I bet he’d often tell stories of them. Constantly recalling and strengthening his memories of Steve Rogers. So when he sees Steve, he might not be able to make the connection to these lost memories, but they were strong enough that after everything he’d been through, his brain could make the link that he knew this person.
And then they destroyed the link.
But Steve Rogers is not someone you forget easily, and the more he talks, and most importantly, his actions towards Bucky helps reactive these synapses. (Which is not scientifically impossible either, think repressed memories, oh and that medicine from that Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes with James DeFranco and Tom Felton). He might not remember Steve, but this conflicting feeling of knowing him and his memories is what makes him unstable, and is what makes him go into hiding to try and find out where this feeling of knowing Steve is from.
I’ll just let that sink in. Bucky Barnes has had his head messed with so many times that they altered his sense of self, his memories - probably all the way back to childhood - and is probably so indoctrinated with hatred for America that he no longer resists order. But when Captain America turns up, something sparks and all of the is questions. HYDRA is so afraid that Captain America will render their killing machine useless that that they have to erase the particular mission, and reinstall a new one with hatred for Captain America. But it’s still not enough.
Okay, I’ll just give a quick overview of the second one. Memory is very suggestible and there’s lots and lots of cases where people have remembered things that never ever occurred, and eyewitness testimonies where they’re completely 100% sure that’s what they saw. So already, there’s an inherence flaw within our memory. HYDRA used this to their advantage. Instead of erasing the retrieval like they did with the blank slate method. They alter these emotionally charged memories and fill them with HYDRA. HYDRA everywhere. They’ve changed the way it’s been encoded in his brain, but this probably wouldn’t work and would result in eventually having two conflicting memories and cause so much psychological distress that you’d have to go with the first option anyway. Think of Earth-616 Natasha Romanoff. The KGB altered the memories, she had two different memories and basically freaked out. To put it simply, either way you should read those comics to see what I’m talking about. Just read all the comics.
If you made it this long, congrats. Sorry that it’s probably a little vague and patchy, but this was wrote when I was ill and I didn’t want to get too much into the science of it. Though, I probably will during the summer because this stuff is just so fascinating.
"That’s just who he is, he understands that you never had any control over your actions." He believed that Bucky could still be saved, even when no one else did.
He didn't answer at first, rather he looked away and bit the inside of his lip. Everything that HYDRA had told him about Steve was completely wrong. Given what he'd learned so far, that wasn't surprising. But what was was just how much the guilt was burning away at him.
"But does he - or anyone really - understand that I am a weapon. I was a special ops soldier, I should've been able to resist them."
So because I love my followers (even though we might not talk much), and I because also really love sewing, I’ve decided to do a giveaway for you all!
Most of the items in this giveaway are handmade with love, which I think is pretty neat.
There will be THREE prizes for this giveaway! At the end, I’ll randomly pick three winners (using either a fancy computer program if I can get my software engineer friends to help me, or by writing down URLS the hard way and drawing them out of a hat, we’ll see):
the FIRST WINNER decides their prize from the four.
the SECOND WINNER decides their prize from the remaining two
the THIRD WINNER gets what’s left!
||ABOUT THE PRIZES||
PRIZE ONE:
A custom designed sweatshirt in the color, size and design of your choice (within reason). See above images for examples of what I can do, but obviously the design choice is by no means limited to these.
PRIZE TWO:
A custom designed laptop/tablet/phone cover in the style, size and design of your choice (within reason). See above images for examples of what I can do, but again the design choice is by no means limited to these.
PRIZE THREE:
A one-shot fic request, to be published on both A03 and tumblr. Characters, setting, content, and relationships between characters all at winners choosing, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to mandate that its of a fandom I’m actually in/have reasonable knowledge of.
||RULES||
Must be following me (becauseyouaremyalpha) to enter.
Both likes and reblogs count, but you can reblog as many times as you want to maximise your entries.
If you select the first or second prizes, you must be comfortable with sharing your address. (Although I reserve the right to redraw the winner if the winner lives somewhere I cannot ship to, or if they live somewhere where shipping is prohibitively expensive)
Must have your askbox open so I can contact you if you are a winner.
The entries will close at 10pm on the 1st June 2014 AEST. The draw will happen as soon as practical after that.
"This is Captain Rogers. I’m not sure if you’re hearing me- but there’s a matter I have to bring to the attention of all those who I’m able to reach.
We are under attack. SHIELD. The Avengers- HYDRA, all of us. The whole Marvel RP community.
You know that feeling you get sometimes, when you think people are saying things behind your back? That maybe rumors about you have done a few circles of the Earth before you’ve had time to get out of bed? Friends suddenly abandoning you? Perhaps people even beginning to say hurtful things to you?
You want to know the truth? That gut instinct isn’t wrong.I’m talking about Marvel’s Burn Book. This blog openly, and voluntarily solicits anonymous hate about named individuals. The comments it distributes are hurtful in nature, often profane, and downright awful.
I know we are better than this, Fandom. I want to say that you’ve let me down, but I won’t. Because you haven’t. Not yet. I need you. I need you to spread this message, these exact words-
I ask only that you not alter them, escalating the situation is an outcome we absolutely must avoid.
Do not fight hate with hate. It makes you as bad as the haters. Trust me, folks- just don’t. It’s never worth it because, in the end, when the game is over- all the chess pieces go into the same box.
What I’m asking of you, is that you do not endorse the burn book, or submit to it.
Yes, I agree that not everyone will get along with everyone 100% of the time. But just because you don’t like the way someone does something- doesn’t justify you in saying downright emotionally hurtful messages about them. Anonymously and behind their backs? That’s even worse.
I understand that by siding with me, you might attract some unwanted attention of the malicious kind. That you feel that by getting involved, you might get hurt. I understand if you would rather pass this post by and have nothing to do with it.
But, as long as I live, no matter how much hate I receive… I will not back down. I will not stop.
No-one deserves to have their feelings abused. RP’ing is a hobby, and it’s supposed to be fun. We’ve lost good people. Our friends. Hawkeye to name but one.
I refuse to let more names be added to this list.
Send me hate all you want. I’m not going anywhere.
The price of freedom is high, but it’s one I’m willing to pay, and I bet I’m not the only one.
Okay, I've came out of my self-imposed hiatus to tell you all one thing.
You've probably seen the marvel burn book by now, and I would like to take this opportunity to remind people that this is bullying and harassment and you can report that. This post here details how to report a blog. We need to band together and stop this because whether or not you agree with what is being said on this blog, it is not okay to harass someone to the point they want to delete their blog.
Now the blog does make a valid point about there being elitist within the community. I'm not talking about the people who are selective in who they RP with, it's your blog and you have the right to decide who and who you do not RP with. I'm talking about the people who think they're better than everyone else, and when someone tries to challenge that shitty attitude it's considered hate and they're targeted.
That's also got to stop.
We all RP for fun and not a single on of us is better than the other. We need to start challenging our own attitudes and other attitudes. If you only RP with male OC's, ask yourself why you don't RP with female OC's. Yes, I know I said it's your blog and you can RP with whoever you like, but things like this can cause problems because at the end of the day the answer might just be that your sexist.
The reason these burn books are so effective is because there is major flaws within our community. If we can start to eradicate those flaws then we can create a safer and happier community for us to RP in, which is something we should all want. But these burn books are not the way to go, especially considering that the burn books are based off of Mean Girls. Did you not understand the concept of Mean Girls? The entire movie was about how behaviours like this are unacceptable and gross and hurtful and we need to stop them.
[Text: Tasha] I just dropped food on the floor and instead of picking it up I sat and shouted at it for 10 minutes.
[Text: Tasha] Then as I went to pick it up, I fell onto the floor. I’m just glad my triple, triple vodka didn’t spill in the process. That would’ve been a lot of vodka wasted.
[Text: Natalia] I've somehow ended up with a rabbit and I don't know what to do with it.
[Text: Natalia] It keeps looking at me with its bug like eyes. I don't wanna keep him in the cage, but when I let him out he scratched my face up trying to get down from me.
[Text: Natalia] My face is my most valuable asset. I can't have it ruined.
[Text: Tasha] I just dropped food on the floor and instead of picking it up I sat and shouted at it for 10 minutes.
[Text: Tasha] Then as I went to pick it up, I fell onto the floor. I'm just glad my triple, triple vodka didn't spill in the process. That would've been a lot of vodka wasted.
I'll be in contact with these people soon. However, after these winners have chosen the digital comic codes they'd like, I'll still have some codes left and will be giving them away to random people who entered.
Steve and Sam chase the Winter Soldier’s bloody trail as he kills people across the globe in what appears to be an indiscriminate fashion. Steve desperately wishes to stop Bucky — desperately wants to get Bucky back. But the Winter Soldier disappears like a ghost every time they come close, leaving a pile of corpses in his wake for them to clean up, tragedy upon bloody tragedy.
Finally Steve catches up to him in Kiev. He knows this has to stop. The families of the victims and his own government demand it. He points a gun at his old friend, ready to take the shot, ready to end it — and the Winter Soldier turns, and after months upon months of avoidance and utter silence, finally meets his eyes. He murmurs “It’s over” and turns himself in quietly, speaking not one further syllable.
Natasha later informs Steve that every person who died had been involved in the Winter Soldier program in one way or another. He’d been wiping his ledger clean of red.
He was the one who would always have her back, not because he thought she needed any help, but simply because it made her happy.
-
She was the one who always found him in his darkest moments and understood. She didn’t try to rationalize it, didn’t try to belittle it, she just accepted all the worst… and stood next to him anyway.
-
In the end, they’d always find their way back.
