tony-the-mechanic

[tony-the-mechanic]

DEADPOOL 3 (2024) dir. Shawn Levy

[tony-the-mechanic]

#IronStrange #Tony Stark #Stephen Strange #marvel

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Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?

Just a reminder that Tony was a warrior even before he became Iron Man:

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"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."

Robert Down Jr as Tony Stark in The Avengers (2012)

#Tony Stark #Avengers #2012 #Bruce Banner #Arc reactor #Robert Downey Jr #RDJ #Mark Ruffalo #MCU #Marvel #The Avengers #my gifs

[tony-the-mechanic]

5, 19, and/or 27 for stevetony, take your pick!

5//hand kisses <3

Tony is no stranger to affection. In fact, he's one of the most affectionate people he knows. He's been called touchy-feely by the team more times than he can count, though no one complains about a back rub after a long mission, Tony is always quick to point out. But he's made his peace with it, it's his love language, et cetera.

What Tony hadn't been expecting, however, is just how affectionate Steve could be, once he got comfortable. And with Tony, the man is more than comfortable.

Steve Rogers, Tony has learned over the last several months, is curl up in Tony's lap after a long day, arms wrapped around Tony's waist while they cook, just one more minute before we get out of bed affectionate, and Tony is getting more than a little spoiled by it. Steve sleeps like a koala, whether it's a side effect of having grown up in twin bed and army barracks, a subconscious need to huddle for warmth, or a desire for closeness, Tony is certainly not complaining.

For too many years, Tony found himself alone at the end of a night with someone, wanting (but not needing, he'd never admit to needing it at the time) exactly the kind of warmth Steve is giving him at every turn now.

Just like that.

It's just for Tony, though. Steve is not one for PDA, and he wants the opposite of being in the spotlight. He's happy to support Tony at events, but he makes a point not to stop for reporters and photographers longer than to offer a polite hello and a smile.

Tony loves that about him, too.

He might just love everything about Steve Rogers, but he'll cross that bridge when it gets to it, when he's ready to say the thing out loud.

"You sure you're up for this, big guy?" Tony asks one night as Steve straightens his tie. It's a fundraiser for Stark Industries, nothing exactly new, but it's a cause Tony himself really believes in, and he's looking forward to having Steve at his side.

"Of course, Tony," Steve says, and Tony doesn't have to think twice about whether or not he means it. Steve always means it.

"Good," Tony says, "you clean up nice, and I'd hate for you to bail on me now."

Steve chuckles, setting down the comb he'd been using to style his hair and pulling Tony into reassuring a hug, well-pressed suits be damned.

"You're not so bad yourself," Steve murmurs. "And you're not getting rid of me that easily."

Tony grins up at him. "Good," he winks, then holds out a hand. "Shall we?"

Nodding, Steve takes Tony's hand, but instead of linking their hands together, he lifts it up to his lips, kissing it softly. So softly, Tony's stomach swoops a good few times over.

"Charmer," Tony says, a little breathlessly. If Steve notices, he's too much of gentleman to comment on it out loud, though his lips says more than enough on their own.

"Well, I learned from the best," Steve says, smirking as he takes Tony's hand in his and leads them out of the room.

[tony-the-mechanic]

so one of the things that i think is happening in the likes vs reblogs debate is that when people who support reblogging over liking say things like "likes don't do anything," they don't mean they literally don't do anything. what they mean is that in the grand scheme of how this site works--as a blogging platform--a like doesn't share the post any further than your own blog. no one else is ever going to see the post; it's going to end right there.

but, for whatever reason, whether it's in bad faith or just misunderstanding, people who support liking over reblogging seem to consistently take this as the other side does mean that liking literally doesn't do anything, which they then meet with the argument that of course it does something. it, as i saw someone put it today, gives my internet friend a boost of serotonin.

the thing is, a lot of these people who are against "likescolding" seem to have this idea that they're fighting against the all-terrible algorithm, and what they're forgetting is that in the process, they're hurting the very real people on the other side of the computer screen. going back to the serotonin argument, yeah, i do get a boost of serotonin from receiving a like, or i did back when i was still bothering to post here. so it would follow, therefore, that i get more serotonin from more likes. but in order to get more, someone is going to have to suck it up and reblog the post so that other people can see it, because my reach on its own only goes so far. if the entire argument rests on giving me serotonin, then shouldn't a reblog give me serotonin as well? why are likes the only form of acceptable serotonin givers?

which leads me into my next point, that by demanding reblogs, i'm supposedly just a greedy numbers counter who can't be satisfied with what i have. and frankly, at this point, after watching this argument go round and round in circles for literal years, i don't think that anything i say is going to change anyone's minds. the people who say i should be satisfied with likes are going to say that i'm greedy and want more attention no matter what argument i present. it doesn't seem to matter to them that i have activity muted on tumblr and statistics muted on ao3 and therefore can't even see the numbers. but i'm hopeful that some of the newer people on this site will see this and understand why i'm arguing for the value of reblogging, so i'm going to say it anyway.

let me paint a picture for you: i joined my current fandom on tumblr almost exactly five years ago. the biggest movie to date had just been released, the fandom was thriving, and i vividly remember seeing artwork after fanfic after gifset on my dash. if i tried to scroll back through my dash in the morning to where i'd left off the previous night, it would take me hours because so many fanworks were being created and posted and shared while i was asleep. the very first fanfic i posted to tumblr for this fandom got more than a thousand notes literally overnight. i'd only been a part of the fandom for a few months at that point and had very few fandom followers, but the field was more than welcoming to a new writer.

but then the landscape changed.

within two years, i'd started to notice a drop in reblogs. i can't tell you for certain what the reason was. maybe it was covid fatigue, maybe it was purity and anti-culture being driven to an all-time fever pitch, maybe it was that people were leaving my fandom, once one of the biggest on the site, for other, more diverse media. i really can't tell you what the reason was, but as the reblogs started to drop, fan creators started begging. and as the creators begged, i suddenly started seeing these posts circulating about how creators should be grateful for the likes and lurkers, and asking for anything more was just being greedy.

slowly, the number of fanworks on my dash started to drop. the fanfics went first. for whatever reason, maybe because reading a fic is more time-consuming, people were particularly hateful towards fanwriters wanting more reblogs. writers tried various tricks, writing shorter fics, putting things under read mores, posting in the form of bulleted headcanons, but nothing really worked. and so they stopped posting. and then they left tumblr altogether. i see a lot of them on discord, and occasionally, twitter now, but i don't see them on tumblr.

the art was next. see, a lot of the artists in my fandom make money off their art, which meant they relied on those reblogs as a way to get their name out there. and if those reblogs aren't happening, and if people are deriding commissions because they think fanworks should be free and available to everyone, then no one is seeing their commission posts. and if the site is already hostile to artists, which it has been since the tumblr purge of 2018, then why are they still on this site when they can be on twitter and instagram?

now i'm watching it happen again with gifmakers. that old resentment is building back up, this time around reposting gifsets and claiming them as their own creation. people claim to be unable to make cool gifsets so they have to steal them, and in the process, other people stop reblogging the original gifmaker. as of writing this, i haven't seen us reach the point where the gifmakers start to leave, but i'm betting it'll happen soon.

you know how many new fics i've seen this last week on my dash? three.

you know how many new artworks? eight.

you know how many shitposts i've seen? political posts? posts lamenting the deaths of whatever current fandom op is in? too many to count.

i'm one of the people who doesn't post my fics on tumblr anymore. i don't see the point. i'll get a much bigger reception talking about them on twitter. and i feel bad for all the newcomers arriving here because their dashes are going to be full of shitposts and politics and misinformation and reposts from tiktok where they once would have been full of stories and art.

but i wonder. if people keep on this reblogging hate train, will we lose the shitposts and politics and reposts from tiktok too? you're not obligated to reblog everything, i'm not even saying that you're obligated to reblog anything, but if we keep going the way we're going, if more and more people drop a like and keep scrolling, will we soon reach a point where there's nothing on our dashboards at all?

fandom is a community, and i think that that's something that people tend to forget. creators create for themselves, but they share for everyone else. i see a lot of posts talking about how creators will stop sharing if all they receive is silence, but most of those are old posts that miss that creators have already received silence. they've already stopped sharing. they've already left.

the thing is, before i gave up on posting to this site, i used to remind myself that if ten people were sitting in my apartment, listening to me read my fics, i would think that's a lot of people and be very honored in the hopes that it would make me feel less sad about the fact that in just a few years, people stopped reading what i wrote. and it isn't that it's wrong, but five years ago, even as a new writer, i was reading my fics to packed auditoriums with standing room only.

and there's a big difference between speaking to an auditorium and speaking to my living room.

no one is obligated to reblog. no one is owed a reblog. and likes do actually do something. but sharing does something too, and it doesn't hurt anyone to reblog it. truth be told, i think we're already past the point of no return; i don't think we'll ever see the creators who've already left come back. but that doesn't mean we can't make this a welcoming space for new creators or that we have to make them feel bad for wishing that more people would share their fanworks. i see a lot of those posts railing against likescolding talking about how it's not okay that likescolding makes them feel bad, so i guess my question to those posters is this:

why is it okay to make the creators feel bad instead?

[tony-the-mechanic]

The Avengers | 2012 | dir. Joss Whedon Avengers: End Game | 2019 | dir. Anthony & Joe Russo

[tony-the-mechanic]

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) dir. Sam Raimi

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Tony:

Stephen:

[tony-the-mechanic]

— nikita gill

[tony-the-mechanic]

The tremor never leaves Stephen. He can use magic at any time to relieve the trembling in his hands, but it's much nicer for these two when Tony takes care of his husband. 🥰

After Tony helped his boyfriend with the skates, it's time for Stephen to help Tony and teach him how to skate. 🥰

Although I think that the cloak is much more helpful. :D

How convenient it is to have such a friend.))

I wish everyone warmth this year. 💗

[tony-the-mechanic]

Who would die first in a horror movie? (Also I adore this blog. This is so hilarious!!!)

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@giftober 2022 | Day #26: “Bad Weather”

Movie: Doctor Strange (2016)

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I need it just for references 😏I swear!

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✧GIFTOBER 2022 (+ @mcuchallenge) | Day 1: Close-up.

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Cute little comic for SirLeafheart (twitter) 🥰

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Omg....