#bookshelfofstuff

Why has 616 moved away from them being in the same spot so much? Is it the fallout from events in the past, that they’ve still not recovered from? I’ve only read up to vol. 3 so I’m perpetually curious,

Well, if you’re in v3, they’re on the same team for much of v3, the portion of NA v1 that Steve is alive for, most of v4, and v5 until everything falls apart -- though v5 is very much about them anyway. After Secret Wars, this right now is the first time they’ve been on the same team, which I think you can mostly attribute to “Steve wasn’t Cap” and then “Steve was evil” and then “Tony was in a coma” because these days they seem to be pretty good about putting Steve and Tony on the same team other than that -- this hasn’t always been the case. For example, Steve and Tony pretty much aren’t on the same team for most of the 80s and 90s, starting with when Tony starts drinking. He moves to the west coast after he gets sober, he joins the WCA, and as far as I am aware he doesn’t become a regular Avenger on the main team until v3. Steve stays on the east coast. That’s about fifteen years.

Hi! I can reassure you but my answer is going to have some caveats.

For most of Tony’s comics career, Tony has been written as a good guy, a genuinely good human being who wants to do everything he can to help people. He’s a responsible superhero who puts the greater good ahead of his own needs, and even when he’s not a superhero he is basically a fantasy of ethical capitalism -- he uses his money to help so many people (seriously, he funds multiple shelters including one to help get sex workers job training and safe places to sleep but he doesn’t run it himself because he knows that’s not his place), and as a boss he is extremely kind to his employees, knows their names, et cetera. And generally people think well of him. He has friends. His teammates like him. And this is the characterization that fandom mostly goes with no matter when their stories are set, so if you pick up almost any fanfic, this is the Tony you’re gonna get. No worries there.

If you pick up a comic book from before about 2006, this is also the characterization you’re gonna get in canon. (I will extend this up to about 2009 for Iron Man solo comics.)

The problem is that Civil War happened in 2006, and, well... then a lot of people started hating Tony Stark. He does a lot of things in the Civil War comics that are... not great. (If you read the tie-in comics that focus on him, he comes off more sympathetically and explains his reasoning, but, I mean, if you already thought he was an asshole, you’re not going to read them.) You can sometimes still find people calling Tony a scumbag fascist dictator and so on and so forth.

The character has been in this weird position in 616 ever since where he’s basically become the star of the MCU and they don’t seem to know exactly what to do with the comics; his solo runs have been uneven in quality, partly (I would say) because of that, and partly because they keep trying to turn Tony into their new idea of what a genius industrialist billionaire should be like rather than the kind of guy he was before. Like, now he’s some kind of... weird power and wealth fantasy? He’s still generally a good guy in his own comics but not the same kind of good.

And there are also clearly a lot of people writing for Marvel, who, when they have to write Tony as a cameo in some other book, uh, don’t have the best opinion of him. Other characters will make it clear that they don’t like him, and so on and so forth.

So I’d say that as far as fandom and fanfic goes, if you want to read 616 Steve/Tony fic and be in 616 Steve/Tony fandom, we are as a whole generally very Tony-positive -- and, for that matter, we are also generally very Steve positive. Since the wounds of Civil War have healed, we generally like to bond over complaining about comics as a whole rather than arguing about whether Steve or Tony is better because we, y’know, like both of them.

Is it vol 3 that’s the 1998 era stuff? Because I LOVED their friendship in that. Rhodey was a hero for Tony frequently, iirc. I just loved how much he did for him.

Ugh that really upset me. I think it was meant to show the tragedy and futility of the conflict- so many good people were lost to it, for so little reason. Thrask ftw tho

idk I thought it was to show that Mages aren’t just victims of the Templars but they can be murderous/evil/vicious too, which every game keeps repeating so it was pretty pointless. But in either case

It would have made SO MUCH sense to have him instead of Cullen as Commander and advisor. I would have liked to see him finally break off with the Templar order and realize he can now help them outside of it and quit lyrium and we could have actually gotten a Templar calling out the order’s shit and reforming (in DA2 he’s more sympathetic and helpful than Cullen in DAI imo, Samson was too). Also confronting Samson since they basically worked together behind Meredith and Cullen’s shoulders.

Or (since it was stated that since he disagreed a lot with Meredith and so never got high up in the hierarchy and Cassandra would have looked for someone with a higher rank like Cullen instead of him) he could have been with Cullen in Inquisition, Cullen in his usual position and Thrask quitting the order too and talking some sense into him, maybe as a companion.... (then maybe Cullen would have gotten some actual character growth). I would have been happy with some quest with him still helping Mages and the Inquisition having the choice to help him (maybe he helped keep the mages safe after the Circles were annulled with Merrill? Merrill canonly remained there to protect elves from the fighting between Mages and Templars, I feel like Thrask would have stayed too and tried to help Mages).

......I have way too many bottled up feeling over a dead minor character /sob

1. Secure a job in China

2. Finish my nanowrimo novel

3. Lose all the weight I gained in uni and get fitter

4. Start a webcomic

There you go! Number one is obviously the one that will take me close to the future I want, and it's the one I most want to achieve this year. Number two I think will be pretty fun, I really enjoyed writing the first ten thousand or so words and I have so much planned for it. Number three will make me a healthier person - I just need to take better care of myself! and number four is something I've dreamed about doing since I was a teenager. My friend bookshelfofstuff started one last year which made me realise it was something that was totally possible to try and do! My artwork is pretty lacking but not trying isn't going to improve it!

I'm feeling pretty motivated - I've got my new bullet journal for the year set up (I'll post pics soon), I'm excited about trying the whole 30 again and today I turned 23! (That's right - I'm a new year baby). 

YEP. i squealed when bunny picked me up. ^\\\\^

@bookshelfofstuff said: I’m sure they’ll remember you :)