Tony, the futurist
Buckle in folks, I've had some thoughts and I'm about to make it ✨everyone's✨ problem.
Been thinking about Tony Stark, the futurist who saw the end of the world.
Tony, who in IM1 escapes kidnapping and torture and says, "I shouldn't be alive. Unless if was for a reason."
who, in The Avengers, has this exchange with Bruce Banner:
Tony: You know, I've got a cluster of shrapnel, trying every second to crawl its way into my heart. This stops it. This little circle of light. It's part of me now, not just armor. It's a… terrible privilege.
Bruce: But you can control it.
Tony: Because I learned how.
Bruce: It's different.
Tony: Hey, I've read all about your accident. That much gamma exposure should've killed you.
Bruce: So you're saying that the Hulk… the other guy… saved my life? That's nice. It's a nice sentiment. Saved it for what?
Tony: I guess we'll find out.
Bruce: You might not like that.
Tony: You just might.
Right after this, Cap tells Tony, "You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you."
And then Tony flies a nuke into a wormhole, tries to call his girlfriend because he thinks these are his last moments, did not go in there expecting to survive.
Although he survives, he witnesses an alien army so terrifying, so unbeatable, it gives him crippling PTSD nightmares and panic attacks, knowing they are not prepared to defend the earth.
I'm thinking about Tony who, in AOU, gets manipulated by Wanda into witnessing his worst nightmare.
Which, by the way, involves losing all of his newfound friends.
Later, he has this exchange with Nick Fury:
Tony: And I'm the man who killed the Avengers. I saw it. I didn't tell the team, how could I? I saw them all dead, Nick. I felt it. The whole world, too. It's because of me. I wasn't ready. I didn't do all I could.
Fury: The Maximoff girl, she's working you, Stark. Playing on your fear.
Tony: I wasn't tricked, I was shown. It wasn't a nightmare, it was my legacy. The end of the path I started us on.
Fury: You've come up with some pretty impressive inventions, Tony. War isn't one of them.
Tony: I watched my friends die. You'd think that'd be as bad as it gets, right? Nope. Wasn't the worst part.
Fury: The worst part is that you didn't.
Tony's worst fear is to survive in a world he's failed to save. He has to "do all [he] could" or else the future he's terrified of will happen and it will be his fault.
(Not to put too fine a point on it, but there's a reason why Tony and Peter are so compatible as mentor and mentee.)
Tony's seen what's coming, and he's willing to do whatever it takes.
Here's the thing, though:
Tony doesn't actually want to die.
In AOU, when they're arguing about why he created Ultron, Tony says this to Cap:
"Isn't that the mission? Isn't that the 'why we fight'? So we get to go home?"
He tells Bruce that the reason they should create Ultron is to have "peace in our time."
He tells Pepper that his constant tinkering, his inability to ever, ever rest is because he needs to keep her safe from the oncoming threat.
Tony has a life he wants to protect, people he wants to keep safe. And, unlike the other Avengers, he knows exactly how impossible this will be to achieve.
Tony is the only Avenger who understands how severely outmatched they are. Maybe Thor understands the threat, but he has no ability to imagine losing.
Tony tries to get them to understand:
Tony: Recall that? A hostile alien army came charging through a hole in space. We're standing three hundred feet below it. We're the Avengers. We can bust arms dealers all the live long day, but, that up there? That's… that's the end game. How were you guys planning on beating that?
Steve: Together.
Tony: We'll lose.
Steve: Then we'll do that together, too.
Well, they do lose. And they don't do it together.
And it turns out Tony was right about everything.
He was right that he would survive to face his world that he'd failed to save.
He was right that the Avengers would not be enough.
He was right that Bruce's powers would be worthwhile someday.
And, apparently,
some people think he was right that he was only alive for this reason.
Because, obviously, the only "reason" for someone like Tony Stark to be alive is to eventually sacrifice himself, right?
A character so traumatized can only find peace in death.
Right?
No.
Stop that.
Tony Stark may have been willing to risk his life for his family, but that doesn't mean he wanted that to be his end.
Remember when this happened?
Bruce: Saved it for what?
Tony: I guess we'll find out.
Bruce: You might not like that.
Tony: You just might.
Bruce gets to live long enough to like his ending.
Remember when this happened?
All Tony ever wanted to do was make the world a better place.
And, what about this?
You're telling me that Yinsen didn't value family above all else?
That he thought Tony should die and leave them behind?
No.
Tony Stark is a futurist.
He is the Cassandra of the MCU. He warns the others constantly of the oncoming threat that only he, apparently, can see. (Even Thanos calls him "cursed with knowledge.")
No one believes him. Alone, he tries to prepare for the threat that he has witnessed. He sits with his nightmares and tries to find a way around them, constantly.
He builds a life worth living, finds people worth protecting, just like Yinsen told him to.
To protect the future, he does all he possibly can.
Tony deserved to be part of the future too.
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I'm gonna Go There for a second: for a bunch of fuckers who won't shut up about being the OnLy PeOpLe with reading comprehension, them thinking that the Nabateans committed ANY genocide at all is, ironically enough, them not comprehending what they're reading.
"[The False God] will bring extinction to all children of men, and salvation to all beasts of the land, sky, and sea. For the children of men who spilled too much of the blood of life, it promises only cruel retribution. The False God must be defeated before the world sinks into a watery grave. To this end, the children of men have erected pillars of light upon the land. Thinis, Malum, Septen, and Llium were utterly destroyed. Those lands have vanished from this world. Yet even still, the False God stands. And soon, a flood aptly named Despair will drown this world.
The children of men fled to the depths of the earth, beyond the sight of the False God, beyond the embrace of the sacred sun, and beyond the reach of the waters of Despair. They swore a fervent oath of revenge against the surface world, ruled by beasts, and against their tormentor, the False God."
What this is saying:
Sothis will bring extinction to all children of men... who have already killed too many people. Meaning by this own propaganda's logic she is NOT bringing extinction, she's just killing specific people who have done horrific deeds to OTHER PEOPLE already
Sothis had not and has not flooded the world. "must be defeated before the world sinks into a watery grave" "And soon, a flood aptly named Despair will drown this world" - all the language pretty much explicitly says that she hasn't done shit, they just arbitrarily think she will and went underground because of this arbitrary belief. AND, even if there WAS a flood... obviously it DIDN'T bring about the apocalypse?? Because we can, like???? Play the fucking game in Fodlan??? Which has plenty of nature in it that's just fine and NOT soaked in water??? So either there wasn't a flood and the Agarthans were COMPLETELY wrong, or there WAS a "flood" of some kind and it didn't do anything like "sinking the world into a watery grave" and the Agarthans were STILL wrong.
"To this end, the children of men have erected pillars of light upon the land. Thinis, Malum, Septen, and Lilum were utterly destroyed... Yet even still, the False God remains." Meaning that despite these lands still standing, the propaganda details shock at Sothis being alive. Meaning that CLEARLY, it was THE AGARTHANS that fucking blew up those lands in an attempt to kill Sothis, not the Nabateans. Meaning that FUCKING CLEARLY, it was THE AGARATHANS that nearly killed all of humanity, NOT THE FUCKING NABATEANS. Of course they would blame the Nabateans for it, because they need a scapegoat to cover for their fumble of the fucking millennium - OF FUCKING COURSE they're not going to say "in our attempt to murder Sothis for no reason we the Agarthans killed scores and scores of Agarthans, our bad dawg" and the fact that people like that mod and that reblogger ACTUALLY FUCKING BELIEVED THEM AT THEIR WORD is absolutely ASTONISHING ("NeItHeR tHe AgArThAnS nOr NaBaTeAnS cAn Be CoNsIdErEd UnBiAsEd SoUrCeS" SHUT THE FUCK UP you could ONLY FUCKING THINK the Nabateans were oppressors BY TAKING THE AGARTHANS'S WORDS AT FACE VALUE AND COMPLETELY IGNORING THE NABATEANS' holy good GOD does that shit piss me off).
And just. "Nemesis was still considered a liberator even though Rhea rewrote history!!" yeah because evil tyrants have NEVER EVER EVER forced their oppressed people to unironically revere them as gods before!! With that sort of national brainwashing being something that becomes CULTURAL FACT and something that is EXTREMELY FUCKING HARD to erase, that definitely doesn't exist!! I bet Kim Gung Un really is such a swell guy, ask anyone from North Korea!! MY GOD these people would fall into Scientology just by LOOKING at a poster for it I swear.
Sorry that you have these assholes all over your post, they are legitimately infuriating with how blatantly they just repeat the worst kind of rhetoric with zero self-awareness
PREACH IT ANON! PREACH IT!!!
The Agarthan propaganda piece even admits they started the entire fucking thing lmaoooo. It was a self fulfilling prophecy.
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WIP TAG GAME
thank you for the tag @quillkiller & @themuseoftheviolets my beautiful femslash rarepair warriors
Rules: In a new post, post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it and then tag as many people as you have WIPs.
of phantoms & fixer-uppers
evan rosier save me. save me evan rosier
chapstick, chapped lips, & things like chemistry
when i tell him that i want it (he says ‘louder’)
gunplay [REDACTED] [REDACTED]
beasts of a little land / beneath dark arches
radios dream of electric angels
no pressure tags also idk who has been tagged already: @carniferous @itsjaywalkers @static-radio-ao3 @sanguineerose @xjustakay @theapocryphaofantares @stillagoodwitch @pupmotif
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