If 'rumlow putting on the winter soldiers makeup' is one of your top 5 htp concepts please. Please pray tell what are the other 4??
mmm this is a toughie actually!! id narrow it down to these: [unranked i cant pick a fav haha]
the soldier being branded, in any way. my personal favorites include sort of a HYDRA symbol tramp stamp [lol?] burnt into his skin with a heated metal stamp [think one of the burglars in home alone 1 grabbing the heated doorknob and getting the M imprinted on his palm, sorry i cant illustrate this well and thats the first example my brain thought of] or tiny rows of signatures/initals of previous handlers and caretakers and engineers tattooed on. many many tattoos sort of like a credits list showing the sheer amount of people who have had a hand in creating such a masterpiece of weaponry (╥ ω ╥)...
the soldier who everyone treats like dirt + That One person who sees him as a tiny bit more human. i kinda cant decide if i like Rumlow or Pierce more in this [i switch my opinions very often it practically replaces my menstrual cycle atp] but its differently flavoured. With Pierce i dont think he'd ever truly LOVE love the soldier more find him fascinating but from the assets pov, Pierce lets him sit on the couch instead of the floor or lets him sleep in a normal bed which immediately makes him his god. With Rumlow he'd be a lot more genuine [?] about it.... this is sorta related to what Grillo had to say about the look they exchange during the robert-redford-slapping-sebastian-stan-like-a-fax-machine scene. He does feel bad for the soldier, he does think its kinda fucked up but in his opinion it's shit WAY above his pay grade. Theres something in the back of his mind screaming at him that this isn't okay but it's just so easy to ignore that feeling especially since nobody else seems to acknowledge it and the most dangerous assassin in the world just looks sooo cute all beat up like that.....<3 He loves him, but not enough to save him. He doesn't see the asset's life as something worth possibly sacrificing his own over
the soldier getting all dolled up for parties/celebrations etc. Im justa sucker for that type of dehumanization related shit, less to an objectifying extent but more like pet play-? This is tangentially related to the Rumlow-doing-the-soldiers-makeup thing since i'd imagine those types of responsibilities would fall onto him. Love it whenever its made abundantly clear that the soldier is for eyes only, meant to silently follow Pierce around at gatherings, sit on the floor next to the table and get scraps forked into his mouth as Pierce talks about important director stuff with other high ranking HYDRA members, conversations going way over his head because he's not even supposed to understand what theyre talking about ^_^ Haircuts, getting to shave, play piercings, ribbons, lipstick, getting to shower, a slightly gentler touch so bruises dont mar his ghostly pale skin, all that and he can't even enjoy being softly taken care of for once because he knows the night will end with him in an even more defiled state cause who could resist using such an adorable little thing wahh T_T i could probably go on but its nothing unheard of
this is kind of a classic one honestly - younger Pierce pretending to be Steve. Don't really have much to say about this one that hasnt been said already fucking rocks like EVERY time. Theres something so innocent and pure about something in the torture-hardened war-torn winter soldier's heart that still tells him to follow and fight tooth and nail for Steve no matter what. Because what seperated him from the other "winter soldiers" back in Siberia is that all he needed to truly convince himself that what he's doing is innately good is to see Steve say it. The other soldiers gave themselves up for experimentation willingly, they knew what they were getting into, they knew their entire belief system was in HYDRA, a group demonized by literally everyone else, so even if they were 99% sure that all of HYDRA's motives were right and good and pure and would lead to world peace, there's still that 1% that sees the truth, still something in their moral compass that draws them back and doesn't let them reach their full potential - potential that the soldier is reaching. We see a little bit of that 1% in the aforementioned bank scene with how Rumlow looks at the asset [sorry for mentioning him again, if i dont mention Rumlow every like 5 minutes i start to get violent :( ]. All the soldier's ever heard is positive affirmation. And it doesn't matter, the uprisings, the wars, the millions of people uniting against HYDRA that the other soldiers see, even if just a little bit - to the soldier, it doesn't matter, because all he sees is that stupid little blonde kid with blue eyes going hey, we have to go do this now, you've gotta kill this guy for us, remember, we're the good guys, and how could he say no to that? oh and also this usually comes in tandem with the soldier hallucinating and being drugged out of his fucking mind which i love to see.
OH MY GOD this is like way too long, especially that last one got suuuuuper offtopic. IM SO FUCKING SORRY LMAO T_T....... it was already some meta-ishhh stuff i had in my brain and ugh i guess i needed to let the floodgates open a little. wuddever(╹ڡ╹ )
nevertheless hope this was a bit fun its my first long post like this.
sorry if this post comes as a surprise to my pre-insanity-arc mutuals and stuff. yeah spoiler alert im batshit insane unfollow me now it only gets worse from here

















