Protect Tony Stark - Tumblr Posts
From what I’ve been able to see, Tony deals a lot with ‘too much’: too much input, too many things to think about, too much to worry about... And his defense mechanism, at the beginning, was ‘can’t care’, because caring means he has to do something, and there’s just so much to do and so much that he can do and it would’ve been overwhelming. Someone like him, he’s incredibly sensitive to compassion fatigue.
Except then he found out what avoiding all of it had done, and he can’t do that any longer. And in the rest of the movies, we see him become increasingly traumatized, increasingly beaten down, because it’s never enough, never good enough. Not to him, and not to others either.
One of the things I admire most about him (and that make me want him to just be at peace for a little) is the fact that, despite all the pain and the worries and the exhaustion and the suffering, he keeps going. He started out avoiding everything because it was too much, and I think it still is.. but having learned the consequences of avoiding it, he can’t any longer. But he suffers for it every day.
the common idea of “tony stark goes through a character arc where he’s totally self-absorbed for a while but then as there are more movies we come to like him” is……a misconception that bothers me.
I mean, okay, I would so much rather people say this, that he develops from being “narcissistic” to caring about others, than saying that he has never cared about others, but still….I don’t think it’s quite the right read of his character. Heck, I used to say that about Tony too, but the more I watched the first Iron Man, the more I realized that it wasn’t quite right.
Tony Stark was a lot of things back in the beginning of his epic arc, but lacking care for others and being totally self-centered weren’t any of those things. He wouldn’t have been so immediately shaken and then have so much self-loathing over the use of the company’s weapons if he truly didn’t care about others. He wouldn’t have become Iron Man. In one of his first scenes in the movie, he forgoes accepting an award in favor of having some fun at the casino, and then gave the award statue to some random employee at the casino. If he were really as self-absorbed as people say he was at the beginning, wouldn’t he have wanted to bask in the praise of the presentation and the applause of the ceremony and give a speech about how great he is and keep the award to remind him of his greatness?
What I see when I watch the beginning of Tony’s arc is naivety, immaturity, bad communication skills, and recklessness- plenty of flaws to improve on, but not really a lack of care for others.
His arc wasn’t exactly about caring about others. His arc over the course of a decade was about becoming aware of the harsh reality of the world, learning how to communicate his feelings to people he can trust, and becoming comfortable enough to let people into his world and comfortable with showing others how much he really cares on the inside. His arc was about breaking out of the mold he’d been forced into by his father and growing into the man he always was on the inside- someone who feels fiercely and cares deeply.
Can I just talk about how important this press conference is to me. He just got back from Afghanistan after months of torture. He refused to go to the hospital and instead immediately went to a press conference. He could barely stand, and instead had everybody sit with him, but he showed up.
“We have become comfortable with a system of zero accountability” Tony’s first thought when he arrived home, now aware that bad people were using his weapons was to stop it. He didn’t go to the hospital or to his own home. He went to the public and told them.
‘Hey bad shit happened because of me, so I’m going to hold me accountable, and I’m gonna tell you what I’m going to do so you can hold me accountable too.’
Now when I get home from vacation the only thing I want to do is go home, and I don’t generally have emotionally scarring things happen during my vacations. I just miss my home. After months in Afghanistan I’m sure Tony did too. Yet he prioritized shutting down weapons to that. Which he should have, but it shows incredible strength of character.
I’m just so proud of him as a character. Like good for you Tony.
Let him smile please
you so fuckin precious when you 💖😘💖💗💫🌟 ⭐️ 💖 💗 smile 😍 💖 💫 💖💗😍⭐️💖💗
for @lovinthepizzalife 💖
honestly tony builds personal relationships with machines and other inanimate objects. he never upgraded DUM-E and U’s 20-yr-old flawed software even though he gets aggravated over it. he spent decades tinkering with a vintage car that belonged to his dad. he greets broken tractors with puns and asks them to tell him what’s ailing them. he creates AI with distinctive personalities. he nicknames every single one of his armors like they’re his children. he gave the mark 42 an official introduction. “imminent arrival of your bouncing badass baby brother.” he calls his workshop a “birthing suite” he made party hats for his robots??? he nicknamed the bots
like i know everyone realizes tony loves machines but do they realize that he Loves machines. do the avengers realize tony will talk the sink disposal through its stress while fixing it. do they realize that tony has talked about his day to every piece of avengers technology that they use. again, i know that they know that tony loves tech but like do they Know. do they KNOW. DO THEY KNOW THAT EVERY PIECE OF ANYTHING THAT TONY HAS EVER GIVEN THEM IS CARRYING HIS HEART AND LONELINESS AND CRAVING FOR LOVE AND HOPE FOR REDEMPTION AND SALVATION
tony’s armor was born in fear and nightmares and RESOLVE and the arc reactor has yinsen’s ghost in it and both his AI systems are manifestations of how much he loves and misses a specific person like holy shit do people knoW??? DO PEOPLE KNOW TONY’S HEART IS ALL OVER EVERYTHING, ALL OVER ABSOLUTELY FUCKING EVERYTHING GOSH I’M JUST!!!
That’s what’s been missing... the wonder. It’s felt like lately all there’s been to it is urgency, need, desperation. I want him to get that sense of wonder back again.
“The future,” he said, looking down at his open hands, “begins here.” - Iron Man #325
Rhodey getting a cat that hates him but loves Tony
Carol’s cat is a menace.
This is a fact, like Newton’s laws, and the fact that the sky is up, are facts.
Goose, which Rhodey spitefully thinks is a wonderful name for a cat as awful as the orange monster that has somehow been left in his house, is an awful, awful cat.
He bites, and claws, and yowls at all hours of the night.
And is currently napping peacefully on top of Tony’s lap, who is staring down at the thing with stars in his eyes, like he’s been given the greatest gift ever.
“Tones, be careful,” He whisper-yells from across the room, because he is not getting anywhere near that fluffy asshole, not even to protect Tony, but Tony’s just met Goose, and if he’s not careful he’s gonna get clawed to shreds and then he’ll do that thing where he’ll pretend he’s fine and then go and cry in the bathroom, and Rhodey does not want that.
Tony, ignoring Rhodey’s extremely good advice, slowly brings his hand down, and pets from the top of Goose’s head down to his tail.
Rhodey braces for the yowling and screaming.
Nothing of the sort happens.
Instead, Tony’s eyes get even bigger, his already big eyes growing cartoonishly wide, and he does it again. Goose stretches up, and headbutts Tony’s stomach, and Goose-
Goose is purring.
What the fuck.
“What the fuck,” Rhodey whispers, as Goose, the horrible, asshole of a cat Carol had dropped on them with absolutely no warning because they were the only two people she knew who weren’t under dorm rules, pushes into Tony’s hands, purring like a goddamn motorcycle.
Tony looks like he’s been told he’s won a trip to CERN, and to meet Stephen Hawking, and has been given a time machine so that he can go talk to Tesla. He looks like every single one of his heroes has told him that they’re proud of him, and he’s petting the meanest cat that Rhodey has ever met.
The meanest cat he’s ever met, aside from, apparently, around Tony.
Hell, even Carol gets scratched to shit sometimes, and Goose likes Carol.
“I love him,” Tony whispers, stars in his eyes as he scratches under Goose’s chin, “This is my life now.”
Rhodey wonders how this is his life.
For the @winteriron-week; proof that Tony Stark has a heart. It was tempting to keep going, since there are a lot of proofs, but... So yeah, Tony Stark is awesome and deserves all the love.
Tony Stark’s overlooked superpower: his self-awareness and the rare ability to admit, honestly and without justification, when he is wrong… and then work towards becoming a better person.
So there’s a lot of “discourse” (or whatever you want to call it) over Tony Stark and whether he takes responsibility for his mistakes. Antis say he needs to step up and take responsibility; the rest of us say that Tony does take responsibility consistently, even when he probably doesn’t need to or when someone else is equally responsible. But the comment from @i-want-to-bethlieve on this post a while back got me thinking (hope you don’t mind me tagging you–didn’t want to derail the original post, but also totally crediting you for getting my brain rolling on this), with the comment that all the characters make mistakes, but only Tony’s mistakes are brought up in the narrative…and Tony clearly can and does take responsibility for his mistakes–in fact, no one else does it more often or more consistently than he does. And even those characters who do express guilt over their mistakes, they don’t fully own them, don’t fully accept the blame, and the narrative doesn’t show them putting in the hard work to atone.
When I first started seriously watching the MCU (right after Thor Ragnarok came out–before that I’d only seen Avengers and Thor…yeah, I was a late-comer to the MCU), I used to say that Tony’s superpower was his ability to admit that he was wrong. And I stand by that.
Seriously, Tony’s ability to repeatedly say, “I was wrong” without justifying his mistakes is a superpower! Because people don’t think about how much strength it takes to admit that you are wrong. Most people can’t do it, even with small things. Don’t believe me? Think about it, seriously think about it in your daily life. You’ll probably realize that it is incredibly rare for any of us to simply say, “I was wrong” without immediately following it with “but I didn’t mean to…” or “but I did it because…” Even simply saying, “I’m sorry” is hard for most people. That’s why people often give halfhearted apologies that are half defensive. “I’m sorry you were hurt, but I didn’t mean it the way you took it!” We’ve all heard or said variations on that. Most of us rationalize and justify and excuse our mistakes, even in the rare instances when we do admit them. And in everyday situations, people will argue over stupid things because they simply don’t want to admit “I was wrong.” People are stubborn that way.
But Tony admits fault and takes responsibility for his actions in pretty much every single movie! He admits he’s wrong immediately when he returns from Afghanistan, without hesitation or rationalization. Let’s break it down:
“I saw young Americans killed by the weapons I had designed to defend them.” [Admission that his previous understanding of the situation was wrong. He thought he was doing good, but was blinded to all of the harm his weapons had done.]
“I realized I had become part of a system with zero accountability.” [Admission that he was part of the problem.]
“And that is why, effective immediately, I will be shutting down the weapons manufacturing division of Stark International.” [Immediately takes steps to correct his mistakes.]
No rationalization. No, “but I thought I was doing the right thing” or “I was just following in my dad’s footsteps” or “other people make weapons too” or “lots of people told me I was doing good!” All of those things are true. But Tony doesn’t use them to rationalize or justify his actions. He doesn’t make excuses or get defensive. He also doesn’t hesitate to begin correcting his mistakes. He shuts down the weapons division. He begins looking into other options. He beings building Iron Man suits to channel his technology into new and better ways to protect people. And then he personally uses the Iron Man suit to liberate and defend Gulmira when it is clear that he hasn’t done enough to stop the destruction his weapons caused.
But that’s just in the first movie, you say? After that he makes more mistakes. Sure, because he’s a human being, and being human is hard. We all make mistakes and personal growth is not linear. There’s backsliding and missteps along the way. But Tony still, consistently, admits when he is wrong and accepts blame when appropriate (and sometimes even when it’s not. The boy has developed a guilt complex now, okay?).
So what about Iron Man 2. Okay, Tony’s apologies and admissions of responsibility are subtler here, but they do happen.
Rhodey: Look, I’m sorry, okay.
Tony: Don’t be.
Rhodey: No, I should have trusted you more.
Tony: I’m the one who put you in this position. Forget it.
Rhodey: No, it’s your fault. I just wanted to say I’m sorry.
Tony: Thank you. That’s all I wanted to hear.
Tony does not dispute that it was his fault. He admits that he put Rhodey in an impossible position. He wants to hear the apology, but he also takes full responsibility for his part in their fight (btw, kudos to them both, since this is a great example of a mature friendship where both admit fault, apologize, and still care about each other, moving forward without holding any grudges at all). And later to Pepper: “Don’t be mad. I will formally apologize when I’m not fending off a Hammer-oid attack.” So Tony knows that he did handle things poorly and he does need to apologize. And later he implicitly takes responsibility for everything with Pepper, admitting that she would be totally justified in quitting: “You deserve better; you’ve taken such good care of me. I’ve been in a tough spot and you got me through it.”
Then we get Iron Man 3, which is all about Tony admitting when he screws up. Repeatedly. From almost scene one on.
Tony to Pepper: “Hey, I admit it! My fault! Sorry. I’m a piping hot mess.” He takes full responsibility for ruining date night, even though Pepper herself was late for date night.
Tony calling Pepper from Tennessee: “Pepper, it’s me. I’ve got a lot of apologies to make and not a lot of time. So first off, I’m so sorry I put you in harm’s way. That was selfish and stupid and it won’t happen again. Also it’s Christmas time…the rabbit’s too big. Done. Sorry. And I’m sorry in advance because…I can’t come home yet.” He apologizes for like…everything, but crucially he avoids one of the most common mistakes people make when apologizing: most people apologize for hurting someone but not for their actual actions. But not Tony. He takes responsibility for his selfish, thoughtless, and reckless actions and admits that he was wrong for all of it, promising to do better in the future. Again, no justifications or excuses, just genuine repentance.
And what about CA:CW? “Clearly, I made a mistake. Sam, I was wrong.” And right after this, Tony admits that he and Sam don’t know each other very well. Unlike with Pepper and Rhodey, who Tony trusts because of their long-standing relationships, Tony does not have any reason to believe that Sam will forgive him; admitting he’s wrong to someone who already dislikes him takes an extra measure of vulnerability, but Tony doesn’t even hesitate (I will ignore Sam’s petty “that’s a first” retort because, well, Sam doesn’t know Tony well enough to realize that he has misjudged Tony). Tony had plenty of rational reasons to think that Bucky was responsible for the bombing and everything else, but he doesn’t bring those up as justification for his (again, completely rational) mistaken interpretation of events. He just admits he was wrong and then says he wants to help Steve; he wants to do what he can to fix his mistake. When he gets to Siberia, he says, “maybe your story’s not so crazy.” Basically, he again admits that he was wrong to discount Steve’s concerns and Bucky’s story about other super-soldiers (even though he only doubted it because all evidence pointed against it and because Steve didn’t tell him until the absolute last second possible, which made it look like a last minute excuse for Steve’s actions).
Even before all of that, Tony takes full responsibility for Ultron (“Ultron–my fault”)…even though plenty of other people share responsibility for that: Bruce for helping create it, Wanda for manipulating Tony in the hopes he would “self-destruct” and for actively working with Ultron to enable his destruction, and Thanos who (presumably) programed the mind stone (since the narrative heavily implies that Tony/Bruce failed to create a functional AI and the mind stone actually put the pieces in place on its own, and Thanos implicitly takes credit for the events of the entire movie in the end-credits scene). But yeah. Only Tony admits his share of the blame for Ultron, and by extension, for Sokovia.
All of this just shows that Tony is honest and self-aware, and strong enough as a person to admit his mistakes and face them head on, rather than justifying, excusing, rationalizing, or denying. We don’t really get that from the other heroes: not Bruce, Steve, Thor, Wanda, Sam, Dr. Strange, or even Nick freaking Fury (who, I would argue, has made a fuck ton of mistakes). The closest we get is Bucky admitting “I’m not sure that I’m worth all of this,” Bruce agonizing over the destruction that Hulk causes, Clint’s confession to Natasha that he might not deserve her sacrifice, and Natasha’s comments about “red in her ledger.” But even then, most of those are more examples of self-loathing (in often unhealthy ways) rather than truly admitting fault and taking responsibility for one’s actions in a mature way. Only Natasha really takes responsibility for her actions, as her work with SHIELD and the Avengers is her attempt to do good out of a desire for atonement (the writing for Nat was often pretty poor, so we don’t see this part of her character development very clearly–it’s alluded to repeatedly, but never developed in detail).
The other Avengers do express regrets, but they struggle to take that next step of fully taking responsibility, admitting to other people they are wrong, and doing what they can to correct their mistakes. Sure, Wanda and Steve both felt bad after what happened in Lagos. They both said (privately) they felt like they were at fault. But they weren’t willing to own that and do something about it. In front of everyone else, they offer excuses or say that it’s just the cost of the job…or they don’t admit any fault at all. I don’t necessarily blame them. I probably would do the same. It would have been monumentally hard to come out in a press conference and admit that they made a mistake (though that didn’t stop Tony from doing exactly that way back in Iron Man). But that moment in Civil War is the only time the other Avengers discuss mistakes or blame–and it leads to nothing. Steve struggles with this later too…He always has some justification or explanation for his mistakes, like in his apology letter to Tony. And the “liar” scene in Endgame is further proof. That was the one time when Tony said, “no, this wasn’t my fault. Not this time. It was yours.” And Steve isn’t able to be vulnerable and honestly admit, out loud, that yeah, he was wrong and it was his fault that the Avengers weren’t together. Steve starts to get defensive because he feels personally attacked (which, to be fair, he was). Tony mentions that Thanos is the exact reason he said they needed a suit of armor around the world and Steve says (one of his few lines), “yeah, and how’d that work out?” This is a classic deflection, an act of self-defense when someone feels attacked so they try to shift blame to the other person. We all do this in reality; it’s a natural tendency, although not a very emotionally mature reaction. After that, Steve shuts up, and I do interpret this as him internally feeling guilty about his actions because I think he knows he made mistakes and would do things differently if he had the chance to go back. But again, he doesn’t or can’t say out loud that he was wrong. And look, if we’re all honest, most of us would be like Steve…we might feel bad but we wouldn’t admit, out loud, that we were wrong. We’d rationalize or get defensive–it’s a very human reaction.
But it’s heroic to admit you are wrong and take responsibility for it. That’s not natural and it’s not easy, but it’s a skill the world desperately needs–maybe now more than ever. It’s also the only true path towards emotional growth and spiritual maturity. Robert Downey Jr. recently described the pre-Iron Man Tony Stark as “spiritually dead,” and I think any journey towards spiritual growth (or whatever you want to call it) has to begin with being 100% honest and self-aware and taking full responsibility for your own mistakes. Tony Stark does that, and he does it more fully and more consistently than any other MCU hero. He’s not perfect–but he knows that, and even more importantly, he admits it out loud, repeatedly. It’s an overlooked superpower because most people don’t really want to emulate this: people want to be respected and have super strength, but admitting you’re wrong? That doesn’t sound cool; that’s not a superpower most people want…which is why many of the other heroes don’t do it. Many of them are wish-fulfillment heroes, not three-dimensional characters who are human and flawed. Tony is the epitome of human and flawed…and he knows it. Ironically, that’s also what makes him heroic.
Yes, Tony’s mind and his heart are his superpowers, like a lot of people have said before, but let’s not neglect his capacity for reflection, for self-evaluation, for honest contrition, and the ability to admit when he is wrong and work towards righting that wrong. Those are all superpowers too.
Tony Stark: bambi eyes (requested by @mrstarrk)
I am... so incredibly soft for this, like if *anyone* were to write something like this (with Tony as character B) I would just... melt. Straight through the ground. So soft. So amazing.
Character A tilting Character B’s chin up to get a better look at their face and the evidence of the fight. A delicately thumbs away the streak of blood by B’s mouth, saying nothing as they examine it. After a brief pause, B’s heart skips a nervous beat as A looks them dead in the eyes. Their voice is quiet and tense, their anger barely restrained.
“Who did this to you?”
Based on a conversation about a possible story idea of hers with the lovely @massivespacewren over at the @winterirondiscord, she inspired me to make this, because... Well, it’s her, and it’s me, and it’s way too many of us xD
after Tony’s death, he becomes the kind of story that people tell their kids at bedtime. mothers and fathers whisper stories about the man who burned and then rose from the ashes like a phoenix, over and over again. they talk about the man who flew higher and higher, and got closer to the sun than Icarus ever did. they talk about the man who built everything from nothing, who saved the universe with one hand. they tell their kids to look up at the sky. and if they see a shooting star, it’s really just Iron Man, watching over the world.