(no subject)

To distract from a screaming case of "I am utterly failing at pretending to be a human being", an observation:

It causes one hell of a moment of dissonance when you drive by a construction site and see an excavator with the name "STARK" emblazoned on the side of it.

At least it wasn't hovering or sporting futuristic weapons packages or anything.  That I could see.

Archetypes

When I was younger and just really starting to find the stories that meant something to me, I imprinted hard on Dark Angel and Gundam Wing.  There were other things, too, but those were the shows whose threads I picked up and wove into my own narrative--Nanashi owes so much to them both. 

I can see the common piece between them now, and it's something reflected in many of the other characters I've fallen for the hardest over the years.  In both shows, you have these people who have been shaped and crafted into an ultraproficient tool--a supersoldier--and they are desperately trying to claim some scraps of identity/humanity for themselves.  There's something incredibly compelling about that tension between power and vulnerability.  Not to mention the struggle to belong to oneself rather than another.

So, yes.  This was a formative thing for me.  And that's also the major reason why Bucky just tears at my heartstrings.