(no subject)

[quigonejinn]

Stronger (Harder, Better, Faster)

Tony Stark set to Kanye West and Daft Punk
XVid, 35MB

The song is on my default playlist, and last week, in the throes of full-blown fandom crazy, I started obsessing about what a fantastic track this would make for an Iron Man vid. And then one of the DOOMTHREADS -- it is 4:30AM, and I am too brainfried to figure out where, even with Gmail's halfway decent search engine -- somebody mentioned wanting to see it. And uh. I was too tired to write tonight, so here! HAVE MY OBSESSION.

Started at 10PM or so of Friday night, finished around 4AM of Saturday morning. Not much in the way of movie-independent storytelling, which is probably why it came together so easily. It usually takes me about eight hours per minute, but I banged this together in way, way under that. Think more like a 5:20 recap of the movie than anything else.

Comments

Re: TONY STARKS WON THE OSCAR, Y'ALL.

[amonitrate.livejournal.com]

Pre-Af Tony only interacts with people when he's wearing his game face, and his game face is an asshole. In fact, you can almost see him transitioning to a slightly more public version of himself when Pepper comes down into the shop.

That's a great observation. I actually know a few people like Tony, and it's very, very hard to get beyond their game faces. They're always *on*, even when they don't want to be. It becomes habit, kind of instinctual, and sometimes they can't turn it off.

I have a pet theory that Tony blew off the Apogee Awards when he realized that they were going to do a mini-biog heavy on the CHILD FUCKING PRODIGY and INHERITOR OF DADDY'S MANTLE and MAGAZINE COVER BOY thing on top of Rhodey presenting the award.

I think this is a sound theory. In fact, it makes a hell of a lot of sense, because clearly he'd been there at some point, as there was an empty chair and half drunk glass of something or other next to Obie.

Okay, I totally agree that Pepper picks up on the difference, and that's why she's still there all these years later. She's the one who sees him like this the most, as she sees him actually working in the lab, and when he's working it's harder for him to wear the game face (notice he doesn't wear game face AT ALL when he's with Yinsen. Not once.

Also, yeah. I think Christine/Tony would be kind of hot, because he knows he can't really pull one over on her, but he'll just keep trying. And because she's awesome.

Re: TONY STARKS WON THE OSCAR, Y'ALL.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

notice he doesn't wear game face AT ALL when he's with Yinsen. Not once.

SHIT. I hadn't noticed that, but you're right. You're exactly right. How can you wear a game face when it isn't a game anymore? Shit.

... I was going to talk about how brilliant you are and how this is incredibly helpful to my cracky Yinsen story idea, but I see that you've already thought it through and put it to far better practical application than I would have thought of. :D NO FLYING ROBOTS. What does that mean? No battle to conclude the movie, probably, or SHIELD having to bring out the heavy artillery earlier.

Re: TONY STARKS WON THE OSCAR, Y'ALL.

[amonitrate.livejournal.com]

well. It would be more interesting if he built the flying robot and Yinsen had to deal with that. Because it's not like Tony would magically stop trying to solve problems with engineering. But Yinsen might be the only human on the planet who'd be able to talk to him about it.

re: the cave - I hadn't realized it until now. But he doesn't try to crack one joke. it's really unusual in the scope of the film, and I think that's the real Tony Stark. We get glimpses of him after that (and when he mentions his dad to Christine) but really he keeps the damn game face on nearly all the time, doesn't he? He even does it with his robots, to a certain extent, when no one is looking.

Re: TONY STARKS WON THE OSCAR, Y'ALL.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

But Yinsen might be the only human on the planet who'd be able to talk to him about it.

Yeah. That makes perfect sense. SO maybe try to re-route Tony harder to develop the arc reactor stuff? We never really hear about it after Tony manages to build a better one for himself, and from the HE BUILT IT IN A CAVE FROM SCRAPS convo, it doesn't sound like he's feeding even legit enterprises of his company the info. I'll choose like to think it's characterization rather than, uh. You know.

I wonder what he would have made of the NO MORE WEAPONS move.

Re: TONY STARKS WON THE OSCAR, Y'ALL.

[amonitrate.livejournal.com]

I think he was planning on eventually sharing the arc reactor tech, since he mentioned it to Obie as an alternative. But he got all side tracked with THE MISSION and the flying robot suit. I think once things calmed down he'd get back to it.

He seems to have got pretty paranoid right off the bat about sharing his tech - from day one of his return he's not keeping anything on the company servers - and it's HIS company, and he has no reason to suspect Obie yet.

Re: TONY STARKS WON THE OSCAR, Y'ALL.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

I think once things calmed down he'd get back to it.

Yeah, that makes sense. And the destruction of the old one would certainly give him a kick in the ass to start working on the tech again. A chest generator in each child by 2085!

Although. At the same time, Tony does get sidetracked from arc reactor pretty easily. And while we never learn whether the old, shitty arc reactor got improved on because of an advance in tech or because of better materials, you'd think that if he were seriously motivated, in the time it takes to build a full-blown Robotosuit Ego Booster, he'd have time to dictate an e-mail to send to his tech guys.

I wonder why he's so immediately paranoid. (OK, plotwise, it's probably to keep Obie from having a totes awesome suit and just mopping his ass with it, but still.)

Re: TONY STARKS WON THE OSCAR, Y'ALL.

[amonitrate.livejournal.com]

Well - I think, if I had to really think hard, that Tony has no idea what to do if he's not building weapons. So the arc reactor - using it to power his heart out of necessity, sure, that's easy - but coming up with a workable plan for supplying clean energy on a large scale - not really up his alley.

Plus, he's a bit obsessive. This ties in with the whole beginnings of PTSD, because he can't actually concentrate on anything but the suit and the mission. He just can't do it. Especially after Gulmira, and I can see this just getting worse after Obie.

Immediately paranoid: well, he didn't exactly get embraced with open arms after the press conference. Rhodey reacted badly, Obie definitely wasn't too happy, despite pretending. Even Pepper was taken aback.

Plus - back to the PTSD - he had to keep what he was doing secret from the Ten Rings for months. It's only natural that that mindset stick with him when he gets back. Keeping secrets kept him alive in Afghanistan.

Re: TONY STARKS WON THE OSCAR, Y'ALL.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

I'm heading off to bed now (OMG), and my brainpower suffices to say only: yes, that makes total sense. Inability to control information almost led to open-mouth-insert-coal for poor Yinsen.

Re: TONY STARKS WON THE OSCAR, Y'ALL.

[besyd.livejournal.com]

This ties in with the whole beginnings of PTSD, because he can't actually concentrate on anything but the suit and the mission.

Oh! Huge puzzle piece slides into place for me.

Plus - back to the PTSD - he had to keep what he was doing secret from the Ten Rings for months.

And another! "I don't know who to trust ..." He didn't know who to trust after Afghanistan because the only person he had learned to trust in captivity was dead.

Thank you for those. I love potential PTSD angles, and yet I wasn't snagging those.

Re: TONY STARKS WON THE OSCAR, Y'ALL.

[amonitrate.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm all about the Tony Stark PTSD right now. Heh. Poor guy.

Re: TONY STARKS WON THE OSCAR, Y'ALL.

[dafnap.livejournal.com]

it doesn't sound like he's feeding even legit enterprises of his company the info.

YOU'RE RIGHT. Dude, I didn't even follow that through. And I think it comes back to control (if it's a character thing and not a time thing), because the realization that Obie could go behind his back to the board and shut him out, and he was his friend, and now Tony has literally NO ONE besides Rhodey, like you said:

with Obie dead, Rhodey is the person still in Tony's life who's known him the longest

Tony isn't going to trust anyone in the company, not anymore, not after he's been burned by a person that was as close to family as he had then.

Because when it comes to Tony, his ego (i.e. raging control issues) will always trump his good intentions.

Ow.

Re: TONY STARKS WON THE OSCAR, Y'ALL.

[besyd.livejournal.com]

I wonder what he would have made of the NO MORE WEAPONS move.

I think he would have quietly called him on the suit. Pointed out: weapon.

Re: TONY STARKS WON THE OSCAR, Y'ALL.

[dafnap.livejournal.com]

It becomes habit, kind of instinctual, and sometimes they can't turn it off.

Which, I think, is why he drinks. He's not excessive yet, not in the film. Because the tech is still new, it still feeds into his "HOLY NEAT LOOK WHAT I MADE GUYS" portion of his brain, he still thinks it's the answer, and it still feels like it, for the moment. But the downtime after the announcement, after Obie, is going to wear the high a bit, and nothing after will really match, you know, that night because the variables will never be perfect for that sort of crisis again. Obie became a representation of what Tony no longer wants to be (complicit, manipulated, gullible), and directly responsible for those three months gone.

And he killed him using his big shiny suit he built himself. That's got to be a great feeling, it's got to be practically tangible. And the high from that will never going to last or be that good again.

So he'll keep chasing that high, and he'll never feel like he's achieved something as tangible as that first time, and he'll get more and more frustrated as he discovers one man really can't do everything, because now he's discovered "everything" no longer just includes him, and that's going to sting.

So he'll drink, because it's a way to turn off, it's a way to forcibly override his code, it's a hack to relax.

notice he doesn't wear game face AT ALL when he's with Yinsen. Not once.

I never even considered that. Wow.

I love you.

Re: TONY STARKS WON THE OSCAR, Y'ALL.

[amonitrate.livejournal.com]

aww. thank you.

YEah. lots of Tony's behaviors are very much in the realm of an addict. Dysfunctional at the very least.

And pretty soon game face just doesn't work any more - at least not with himself.