Appplication @ poly_chromatic.

[latenightfondue]

[nick / name]: Emma
[personal LJ name]: xrainbowcloud
[other characters currently played]: N/A
[e-mail]: rebelledagainstheaven@gmail.com
[AIM / messenger]: [AIM]: CaptainVibranium, [Plurk]: specificity

[series]: Captain America: The First Avenger
[character]: Howard Stark
[character history / background]: Marvel Movies Wikia || Marvel Wikia || Wikipedia
[character abilities]: Howard is a regular human with no supernatural powers or enhancements. But he is something of a genius, good with his hands and one of the best engineers in existence. He's a great inventor, always several years ahead of the rest of the world, picturing the future and predicting the needs it's going to have, and he takes it upon himself to prepare for times to come. He isn't perfect, though, as much as he might like to think it at times, and his work takes a lot of trial and error, endless hours in the lab, which results in a very limited personal life. He's also a businessman, the head of a young Stark Industries, making a name for himself as he helps the government with building weapons and ammunition to help win the war.
[character personality]: In many ways, Howard Stark is much like his future son, Tony Stark, and is by no means a simple man.

Throughout the film, Howard gets very little screen time, but even so there is enough to paint a clear picture of his character. Being a scientist and an inventor with a genius-level IQ, Howard often puts work before everything else. Even in later life, as we see through the eyes of his son in the Iron Man films, this never changes, even after gaining himself a wife and son. We also learn that he becomes a heavy drinker, which isn’t a far stretches, because we see that he likes a good drink, is an extremely outgoing man who loves to smooth-talk the ladies and pass the time living on the edge.

Howard goes to great lengths to see that his work is done properly, even if that does include crossing lines and experimenting with things that no one else would ever touch. We see him being the cause of several small fires and explosions as he tries and re-tries things while working in the lab, and he’s always getting things written down for him, compiling notes so that he can learn from every mistake and be the best that he can be. Whether it’s because of his intelligence level or simply because he has a strange sixth sense when it comes to knowing what the future will bring as far as technology is concerned, but he always keeps himself one step ahead of the rest, inventing new things where there is nothing else to fill in the gaps, and always with an all hands-on approach, starting from the blueprints to creating to advertising.

Not unlike his son, Howard is very much into the showmanship side of running his company, his face matching the name as he promotes what he has to offer the world that no one else has yet to dream of never mind put on the table, and even when he isn’t in the forefront, working underground with the US government to come up with the most advanced weaponry, he still never takes his eye off the ball.

Howard is also the guy who sits down and discusses business with Captain America, who, with Steve’s ideas, helped to come up with a final design for his uniform, and who put forward several prototypes for what would become his shield and adding the final touches once they were decided upon. He seems somewhat uncaring about the war, as if his work is all that really matters to him, but it’s obvious that he’s a bit of a daredevil, never afraid to put his neck on the line if it means move the world forward along with him.

Howard doesn’t appear to be a man who makes and keeps many friends, especially as the most important thing in his life is the work that he does, and therefore he does have a good working relationship with the people he works alongside.

We see no real interactions outside of their work in action, but Abraham Erskine is his partner in the Super Soldier project, the professor working on the genetics side of things as he creates the serum and Howard providing the technology that it needs to work. It’s safe to assume, whether or not they were close outside of work, that they made a great team together, and that once Captain America is born their years of work finally paid off.

Steve is under the impression that Howard and Peggy have something of a thing going on behind closed doors, but we eventually learn better of it, that Howard is actually capable of maintain a friendship, even if it does consist of him making endless come-ons and being flirtatious in the name of having a good time in and around their time-consuming careers that brought them together. Peggy, however, isn’t like most women of her time, and therefore doesn’t see this as a threat, in fact she seems to enjoy what friendship they have between them, but speaks very little of it beyond praising him on his work. He perhaps finds himself to be quite lonely at times, Peggy being a woman in what is clearly a man’s world, and the two of them making a functional team of their own.

We see somewhat of a friendship forming between Howard and Steve as they work together coming up with strategies and discussing artillery. Steve is clearly threatened by the relationship that Howard has with Peggy, but not enough to stop it from letting the two of them bond, and we even see him reassuring Steve about the topic of women and their mysterious ways as if they’ve been friends for years. It’s safe to assume that a friendship like this is probably not something that Howard finds much time for normally, which makes their bond that little bit stronger, and Steve proves that he trusts Howard early on, in his work if not on a personal level, when he helps him into the battlefield behind the colonel’s back.

During Iron Man 2, Nick Fury, head of SHIELD, informs Tony that he and Howard were once good friends, and if we are to do the maths of when Stark Industries was taking off and the time SHIELD was secretly coming into play, it’s around the time of Captain America that we learn he was involved with this project.

However unfeeling Howard appears at times, at the very end of the film after Steve has crashed into the ocean and disappeared, Howard and his people are searching long and hard for him amongst the wreck, and even once the Cosmic Cube is located, something which we might assume would be important for him to get his hands on, he never stops searching, which shows that, beneath it all, he and Steve did have a great friendship, even if we didn’t see it all onscreen, and that he cares enough about what it was that Captain America stands for and the work he did in protecting the world. Howard blames himself for this, and although we can only speculate, the weight of it and how much more he loses himself in his work after this point in time is one of the factors as to why he begins to drink much more heavily. Being a genius and not exactly like most people, however, is perhaps also a reason in itself for something to numb the pain of it a little.
[point in timeline you're picking your character from]: Close to the end of the film when Steve has disappeared and Howard is searching for him.

[journal post]:

[ Video ]

Is this thing on? I think I have it - ah - that's the ticket.

[ The screen pulls out and into focus on a well-dressed man wearing an expensive suit complete with waistcoat, carrying the style from the 1940s, and looking somewhat smug. ]

Whoever invented this piece of tech is good, but not Stark good. I gotta build myself one of these beauties. A little adjustment here and a little tweak there, and this thing'd really be something.

[ Blinking, Howard looks down into the small camera lens and grins as if butter wouldn't melt, every feature oozing too much confidence that walks a fine line into arrogance. ] What an unexpected pleasure this is. What year is it here? Judging by how advanced everything is I'd guess a good sixty, maybe seventy, years ahead, around the 2000s mark, but I could be wrong. So, who's the lucky lady - or gent - that's gonna fill me in on what's going on around here, huh? I may be good - well, actually, I'm great - but I'm not psychic good. Any volunteers?

[third person / log sample]:
Howard is working in the lab at the secret government base beneath the streets of London, England. Out in public and in the name of showmanship, Howard would usually wear something more fitting, expensive, going all out to impress the general public and any potential business associates who may happen to catch a show. But here wears a basic suit, grey trousers and a brown shirt, tie clipped back out of the way for safety and suspenders on show.

He nods to one of his assistances who come over and help him slip into one of the lab coats, and then he's approaching the glass casing ready to operate the mechanical hands. Steve and the guys who survived the taking down of their first HYDRA base brought back a few souvenirs, and Howard is determined to bring himself up to speed with their latest and much more advanced than his own technologies.

"Pens at the ready, people, I want extensive notes on this." It's an order, an air of professionalism hanging over him, but whereas out there is would be smug bordering on arrogant here he isn't the main attraction, the work is, and that's the important thing at the end of the day. He strives to be the best, and this is the biggest challenge he's had in years. "You might want to stand back, there, buddy."

He uses one of the arms to grab at the glowing energy stone and uses the other to carefully rotate it, needing a better look, as he leans in slowly closer, squinting at it, and soon being thrown back across the lab. "Just when I think I'm getting closer," he mutters with frustration to himself, and then remembers the room at large, adding, "Did you write that down?"

He takes a break long enough to straighten himself out and recover from the shock, helping himself to some of the officers coffee supply and informing Agent Carter that their dinner date will have to wait. Work always comes before socialising, no matter how much an evening drinking and in the company of a beautiful woman, their relationship platonic or otherwise, may seem appealing to him. Results, moving forward, the thrill of discovery and creation - they are all factors that win out over everything else in the end, are what he lives on, and are the only reason he gets out of bed in the morning.



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