#// you can watch his character start out kind of stuttery and then...start to grow

[shellheadtmark2]

@auntlarb if I was to start reading comics for 616 Tony, which comic would you recommend to start with? like I have zero idea how comics work or where to even begin

honestly, and this isn’t really a good answer, but it’s the honest one, it depends on what you want to know.  because otherwise the answer is everything.  every single scrap you can because...well, to be absolutely real with you, shit from one panel from one comic fifty years ago will be referenced in a comic now and the only footnote you get in explanation is something like “AS SEEN IN INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #5! - EDITOR” when invincible iron man #5 was published in 1963.

i’m also going to really preface this in general for anyone reading this and also be incredibly real and say if anyone that wants to start reading iron man comics and goes in expecting anything at all like mcu tony - you’re gonna be disappointed.  mcu tony is as different to 616 tony as ultimates tony is to both of them, which is to say...they’re different characters.  or, rather, very different takes on the same character.  the mcu is something like what if 616 and ultimates had a baby and that baby grew up to marry thanos.  616 tony is less cinnamon roll too good for this world and is literally charred cinnamon roll, crunchy, been through hell and back, throw him in the trash.  i love him a lot tho.

alright, that’s my expect something completely different disclaimer.

the problem with reading guides in general is that they don’t...you don’t get the full picture.  with comics you have to jump around, read an issue here and there of a title you wouldn’t normally do so with (as i wait patiently for wednesday so i can read loki #2 and find out why tony’s wearing armor on the cover he logically shouldn’t - assuming that’s even addressed).  there’...honestly i’d argue there’s no perfect place to jump in, you just pick a spot and start reading, and if you get to the end of an issue and it says “contined in [some other comic title and number]” you hunt that down and read it, and then bounce back to what you were reading.  so you get the full picture.  you read  a lot of comics - and i mean a lot - digging out every scrap of one storyline.  

which is a lot of words to say pick a spot and just dive in.  but it’s true.  i can, however, offer suggestions for runs that i personally enjoy and think give good groundwork for how 616 tony feels different from mcu tony, and eases you into it being less jarring because of that difference.  

iron man: extremis director’s cut (2005) will never not be on my recommended list.  it shows you how extremis works in 616 and why tony would do that to himself.  it’s also one of those comics that gives you a little bit of a sense of how 616 tony’s brain works.  be warned tho, it’s...it’s dark.  and gory.  i can tell you right now most of the iron man comics on this list are going to be both of those things, because that’s just how iron man rolls.  there’s no happy endings for tony, y’all.  this is one comic i reference a lot.

invincible iron man (2008) is another favorite.  it’s a little bit director of shield, a little bit of a mandarin face off story, a little bit of yanking tony out of the armor, a little bit of getting involved in asgard’s bullshit, a little bit of a detective story.  this is the run with the brain thing.  also gory.  also, at times, dark.  it does not shy from the body horror of what tony does to himself.  but it’s a solid look at tony’s world, i think, from tony’s point of view.  also i can verify you can read this one without having read others because @gwinnetts did it for reasons and furthermore and didn’t have any trouble.

invincible iron man (1998) is another good run, though it’s one that...goes for a long while.  the mandarin shows up, you see bits and pieces of tony’s ridiculously bad love life, he’s secdef for a while, there’s all kinds of weird horror shows going on, it’s dark, it’s gritty, it’s the golden age of iron man comics, in my opinion.  also a good place to start because it’s post heroes-reborn so everything’s new and shiny and you can follow along right through it.

avengers (2013) requires some prerequisite reading and some intermittent reading of other stuff (AXIS, superior iron man, new avengers, infinity) to get the full picture by the end, but good lord it’s a beautiful avengers run.

because that’s the thing.  you can’t just read iron man comics, you gotta start dipping in all over the place to understand what’s going on.  

new avengers & young avengers (2005) is okay in the set up to civil war.  you’ll get to see characters like luke cage and spider-man, stature and patriot, as well as jessica drew and wolverine, and it starts laying that foundation.

civil war is super! super! important to tony, even if he doesn’t remember it anymore firsthand.  and there are so many tie ins to civil war like...you could spend forever just here.  on top of the seven issue run, i also highly recommend fallen son, the confession, and what if? civil war for maximum tony stark manpain.  because civil war fucking wrecks me.  it’s been fifteen goddamn years almost and it still fucking wrecks me.

demon in a bottle, because tony being a recovering alcoholic is such a huge part of his character development, and demon in a bottle is crucial to that.  to add on to that, in invincible iron man runs in the early 80s help fill in the blanks from this nicely.

iron man legacy is incomplete, but it’s so so good.  so good.  it gives you a taste of homeless tony in a modern sense, as well as how inventive his brain is when he’s armorless.  well worth the read and it won’t even take that long.

the armor wars (both of them) are another set that definitely deserve a skim through, because it shows just how out of hand shit gets sometimes, and how far tony will go to get his shit back.

iron man: viva las vegas is also incomplete, which is a goddamn shame, but it’s another quick read that gives you and idea of tony doing tony things.  it was also a great little plot, killed before its time, and the art was, imo, solid, in the same style as iron man: extremis.

iron man: fatal frontier is hooo boy.  it’s sure a thing that happened.  think mining boomtown.  on the moon.  with tony as the sheriff.  who’s also suffering from a metal poisoning that’s making him megalomaniacal because “tony knows best”.  it’s good.  if anyone doesn’t agree, we can meet in the pit, i love fatal frontier.  i have lots of feelings about fatal frontier.

fantastic four/iron man: big in japan is great to lighten things up again.  kinda gory but in a cutesy...way?  it’s hard to explain, this comic is just wild as fuck.  also hilarious.

captain america: man out of time is probably a weird choice outwardly to put here, but it’s about the avengers finding cap from cap’s perspective, and how badly tony was mancrushing on him.  the start of the unnecessary touching.  tony wiggling in excitement to take steve rogers out.  tony’s dual identity.  it’s all here, and from steve rogers’s perspective.

anyway this thing is...really long, and this is a good start.  it gives (i personally think, anyone else is welcome to disagree / make suggestions) a good comparison for just how different 616 tony is.  you’ll both hurt for him even more?  and feel pretty unsympathetic to some of his bullshit by the end of it.  but what you will see is a lot of nuance that’s missed just because the mcu couldn’t develop these kinds of layers in the time it had.  tony’s complicated, and that’s putting it...extremely mildly.  he’s so so good, but he’s willing to throw himself on the pyre and nail himself on the cross and it fucks him each and every time he does it.

[ladyoflosgar]

GOT showverse AU, Sansa marries Domeric instead of Ramsay

Some wordvomit on how using Domeric would smoothly integrate the North and Vale plotlines and wouldn’t stray as far from book!Sansa’s (and also Littlefinger’s) character after the cut. Warning that as Domeric is a Harry stand-in who was dead in the original anyway, he was doomed from the start.

I didn’t watch season 6 or season 7 because I ragequit at the Sansa/Ramsay wedding episode, I just know memes like “battle of the bastards” and “poisoned by his enemies”. Also I know nothing about what happened to the southern storylines until Dany showed up at Winterfell in S8. I’m a book gal. 

Marrying Sansa to Domeric instead of Ramsay makes Littlefinger less stupid. This could go along similar lines as the Harry the Heir plot: instead of raising the Vale against the Boltons now that Tywin Lannister is dead and the Crown is weakened, Littlefinger could come to a deal with Roose to get him friends in the Vale instead of enemies. Littlefinger would then exploit the chaos of battle with Stannis/the existing tensions between Roose, Ramsay and Domeric to off each of them in some order, after Sansa has safely borne a child, after which he would become the power behind the North. Domeric is also a cultured nobleman with a good reputation as a tourney knight instead of a bastard serial rapist so it wouldn’t come across as a critical research failure on Littlefinger’s part.

How would we incorporate Domeric into the Game of Thrones story up to S4/5? You would need to introduce him in S1 at the Eyrie when Cat and Tyrion show up. Maybe before, during the Tourney of the Hand. When Cat is about to leave, give him a scene where he says “my lady, I would fight for you, I am a Stark man through and through” and Cat tells him, “ser, you would be of better service to House Stark here in the Vale, speaking for our cause”. In S2-S3 have Cat read dispatches from him about how Lysa isn’t being helpful, the knights of the Vale won’t march without her leave, etc. This would build up trust in the Boltons and kind of justify why Robb gives so much control over to Roose, and amplify the gut wrenching horror of the Red Wedding.

Begin the Sansa Bolton arc. By S4 when Littlefinger shows up with Sansa at the Eyrie we could have a scene with Domeric and Lord Royce (because they cut Lord Redfort) where Domeric says something like “what a family I have, my father the kingslayer, and my brother a would-be kinslayer”. Give him an angstbro moment where he is dejected because his father undid all the work he put in, give him the need to go on a redemption quest for something he wasn’t involved in. After Lysa dies when Lord Royce goes up to the Eyrie, give him a fluffy moment with “Alayne Stone” where he’s playing the harp alone and she sings along or something. Then at a feast, Lord Royce says his name, and Alayne flinches back, he mutters ‘even the novices at the motherhouse curse the name of Bolton’. Then he watches her and figures out that she’s Sansa Stark. He talks to Lord Royce about it, Lord Royce doesn’t believe him, and then the conversation with Sansa and Lady Waynwood happens where she outs herself. Then Littlefinger, Lord Royce, and Roose go into talks. Have Littlefinger recycle the “bewitch him” line he used in the TWOW sample chapter.

Preserve intrigue/suspense at Winterfell by pushing forward the Ramsay & Domeric Cain and Abel plot and make Domeric a player in the Northern conspiracy. Have Sansa use her observation skills to figure out what he’s doing. Have Domeric not involve Sansa in the GNC because 1) he saw her kissing Littlefinger and discuss their plan and 2) it’s about bringing back Rickon and he doesn’t want Littlefinger to know. Turn him into a paranoiac - ‘everyone at Winterfell is trying to kill me except for my dad, who I hate’. Have his opinion of Sansa sour while her opinion of him grows. Domeric’s suspicion of Sansa would also seed the Northern lords’ reluctance to follow her: they believe she is Littlefinger’s creature. Bonus: Sansa’s latent warging ability manifests in Ramsay’s hounds and she learns more about the intrigue at Winterfell.

Leadup to the Battle of Ice. Conflict swirls between the pro-Roose (+Ramsay) and pro-Domeric (Manderly/Stannis) camps at Winterfell. Too many men and mouths to feed, Roose needs to get them out to deal with Stannis. Sansa and Theon flee into the night, to Stannis. Jon receives the pink letter at the wall (but to add mystery, it’s probably not Domeric who wrote it). Mel and Selyse don’t believe it, they burn Shireen to grant Stannis victory, instead they resurrect Jon into wight!Jon. Confusion in the battle because Stannis has Sansa. Maybe Ramsay does something gloriously stupid like kill Stannis in a parley (let’s keep Brienne on the Arya plot) and now the Northmen just have to crush Team Dragonstone. Or, the conlfrontation ends without resolution, Stannis nopes back to the Wall, finds Shireen dead and his wife a depressed husk, and an heroes. Huge blow to the GNC, they all ride back to Winterfell in shame.

Ousting Littlefinger, the fall of the House of Bolton, Sansa vs Jon conflict. Knowing that the lords of the North still want the Boltons gone but won’t include her because of Littlefinger, Sansa’s attention needs to be on disentangling herself. She also has a personal motivation to be rid of him because he is a creep who keeps forcekissing her, and he killed Lysa. In the end I think Harry will grow on Alayne/Sansa at least a little bit, so Domeric has to grow on Sansa too. This is just a wordvomit so I don’t know all of the logical steps but Sansa needs to get rid of Littlefinger by herself without making herself look too bad by outing him to the Lords of the Vale and help Domeric get rid of Ramsay while Ramsay’s about to arrange a hunting accident, perhaps by warging into a dog. Domeric’s arc would be about Roose so he’d need to be the one to play the poisoned by his enemies card. Now that Sansa and Domeric are working as a team, enter Jon, stage right, dark!Wight with a wildling army to rescue his sister. Noone can find Rickon (shaggy dog story). Half the Lords of the North still want a son of Ned Stark, and like Lyanna Mormont said, “Lady Sansa’s a Bolton now” and Domeric is a kinslayer. Stark Bowl, get hype, it’s a Northern civil war. The Knights of the Vale come in to bail Domeric out but it’s too late. The Northmen make Jon KITN because that’s what happens in the show and also he killed Domeric, and they are still reluctant for a ruling Lady Stark without a husband. It was a real tragedy because this is Westeros. Now it’s time for the White Walkers and Daenerys plot.

Impact on Sansa’s character. At the end of the day I don’t think show!Sansa and book!Sansa are the same. IMO steered in a different direction from the girl who led the women in the Queen’s Ballroom signing hymns to the Mother, who asked for a maester for Lancel, and sang the Mother’s hymn to Sandor during the Battle of the Blackwater. The sass queen who goes “uncle, sit” to Edmure Tully is not the same person who helpfully finishes stuttery Wallace Waynwood’s sentences and spares him further embarrassment. This might be naive but I hope GRRM is going to have her retain her kindness, her mercy, her goodness while having her do things that are genuinely grey (her role in whatever happens to Sweetrobin for example). She would express regret, just as she expresses regret for outing Ned to Cersei. If her endgame fate is to end up alone, and not with someone brave and gentle and strong who loves her for her and fulfills a beauty and the beast metaphor, then I think the role Harry (Domeric here) would have played in her narrative is to have made her come to regret using someone as a piece on the board rather than treating them as a person valuable in and of themselves, with their own hopes and dreams and flaws and virtues. It happened to me, I did it to someone else, I am sorry, etc.

Thanks for reading my badfic outline.