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Short Tony Stark meta for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nihstel, who asked me the following question:
When Tony Stark looks at things, what does he see?
Okay. Firstly, I am not an authority on this. And second, I'm presuming you mean what he sees that makes him act the way he does, what he sees that makes him Tony Stark and not someone else. Because he sees the normal things, he does, a car is a car and a person is a person, he sees that part of them. Everyone does, to an extent. But what Tony sees that makes him different, that makes him Tony ...
nihstel, who asked me the following question:When Tony Stark looks at things, what does he see?
Okay. Firstly, I am not an authority on this. And second, I'm presuming you mean what he sees that makes him act the way he does, what he sees that makes him Tony Stark and not someone else. Because he sees the normal things, he does, a car is a car and a person is a person, he sees that part of them. Everyone does, to an extent. But what Tony sees that makes him different, that makes him Tony ...
Short answer? He sees potential.
It's the futurist thing, in part. It's the engineer, in part. But I think everything Tony sees is on the way to being more. The world to him is a panoply of half-finished things, of systems in progress, of potentials lurking just beneath the surface. Tony looks at things in terms of bigger, better, more, some part of his brain looking at their constituent parts and the things that make them them, and seeing how those parts might be realigned, just a little, seeing where the explosion, the beacon, the energy is waiting inside them.
*rubs temple* It sounds clinical, maybe. It's not. It sounds mechanical. It's actually not. It's not that things aren't good enough as they are. It's just that there's a part of him that can't help but see how you could tweak this, just a little, and then awesomeness would happen. And then you could tweak it a little more, maybe add this other thing here, oh, and then you could ... And he'd keep going, there's a bit of his brain that tacks on to everything he sees and follows a line down through 'and then you could' until he hits the explosion at the other end, and some things don't have explosions at the end, they just keep going and going and getting more faceted, more brilliant, more terrible all the way down the line, and he has to tug it back, pull it back, detach that thread to focus on the ones he needs, but it's all there, it all goes down like that.
And people, too. It's not just things. People are like that too. What he sees in Bruce, the Hulk, more than the Hulk, it's not a monster, a static, terrible thing, it's a potential, it's the power to strut, it's something you could pair with control, with compassion, with team, and then you have something you could trust to take on gods at your side, and why would you shy from that when it's only this far away, just one act of trust? And Pepper, when he met her, it would have been the same, he'd have seen the part of her that pushes, the part of her, probably one dry comment and one delicate twitch of organisation at the start, that could grow and revolve and push against his force, and followed it down, seen the thing she could be, the strong, powerful thing that he could push and push and not break, and later, through the years, he could see further down, to the hand inside his chest and the CEO and the partner at his side. Maybe. Not all the things, he's blind in some ways, but he would have seen the potential, the force inside her that pushed back, and he would have seen the power it could be built to.
And that has the downside, there's the darker side of that, because he looks down the line until he hits the place where things explode, and he was a weapons engineer first, and every line he looks down has a darkness to it. Every power, every potential, can be twisted, can be shaped, can be pushed to the breaking point and his Dad was on the Manhattan project and Obie slipped betrayal past his sight, and there's a part of Tony's brain that's always seeing the lurking shattering, too. The threads along the line where things break, where they shear, where they cut you open or break the world. He can see that too.
But he sees more than that. The future. It's not just a catchphrase to him, no more than it was to Howard. He actually does see it. Technology, his technology, is just the symptom, the expression of what he sees that he understands best and can affect most easily. What he's seeing, what he's always seeing, is that potential. The lurking energy in everything around him, the way every moment, every system, every situation, has the threads inside it to be made more. He's seeing a world half-finished, a world that's always half-finished, a world he can reach into and change around and sometimes make explode. He's seeing what happens when he fumbles, he's seeing what happens when he makes mistakes, the horrors and the terrors, but he's also seeing what happens when he gets it right. When other people get it right.
He's seeing Cap turn on him, seeing Cap understand how dark and small and wicked he is. He's seeing SHIELD's toys tear the world apart the way his did before them. He's seeing Loki break open a sky and rain down horror.
But he's also seeing the Hulk fighting beside him, seeing Bruce come back to save them. He's seeing Pepper stand beside him, seeing her standing up under whatever he can throw at her. He's seeing the Iron Man leap and bound. He's seeing the arc reactor light up the world. He's seeing JARVIS become something so much more than a programme. He's seeing people fighting together, he's seeing people saving the world.
Tony sees potential. In everything, in everyone. He's seeing a world on the way to the future, he's seeing the future lurking in everything around him. The parts of him that make him him, the technology, the genius, the trust, the hope, those are symptoms of that. Of that endless, intrusive, overwhelming vision of the future that literally permeats everything around him.
It fuels his inventiveness, letting him see how broken missiles and steady hands can create a power to light up a world. It fuels his paranoia and his mistrust, letting him see how betrayal can lurk under every action, how responsibility can destroy you with one fumbled grip. It fuels his courage and his hope, letting him see how one changed alignment, one act of trust, can preserve you against all the odds. It fuels his arrogance, his intrinsic sense of power, because when you can see so much of how to change the world around you, how can you not be powerful, how can you not act to change things? It fuels his wonder and his delight, because oh my gods, how could you not love something that intricate, that powerful, that full of potential? It fuels his recklessness, because everything is only shades of potential and he knows just where to put his hands, it's not as risky as they think, no, oh no, they just can't see what he can, they just don't know how strong he is, they just don't know how easy it is if you know just the right change to make.
Tony sees potential, Tony sees the shape of future power lurking under and through the world around him, the components and the choices that will spin them up into explosive, impossible power, into hope or horror. It drives everything about him, makes him as volatile, as reckless, as inventive and as desperate as he is. Tony is lightning in a bottle, sees everything around him as the same, and that makes him ...
Well. That makes him Tony Stark, really. Heh. Or so it seems to me, at least. *shrugs sheepishly*
It's the futurist thing, in part. It's the engineer, in part. But I think everything Tony sees is on the way to being more. The world to him is a panoply of half-finished things, of systems in progress, of potentials lurking just beneath the surface. Tony looks at things in terms of bigger, better, more, some part of his brain looking at their constituent parts and the things that make them them, and seeing how those parts might be realigned, just a little, seeing where the explosion, the beacon, the energy is waiting inside them.
*rubs temple* It sounds clinical, maybe. It's not. It sounds mechanical. It's actually not. It's not that things aren't good enough as they are. It's just that there's a part of him that can't help but see how you could tweak this, just a little, and then awesomeness would happen. And then you could tweak it a little more, maybe add this other thing here, oh, and then you could ... And he'd keep going, there's a bit of his brain that tacks on to everything he sees and follows a line down through 'and then you could' until he hits the explosion at the other end, and some things don't have explosions at the end, they just keep going and going and getting more faceted, more brilliant, more terrible all the way down the line, and he has to tug it back, pull it back, detach that thread to focus on the ones he needs, but it's all there, it all goes down like that.
And people, too. It's not just things. People are like that too. What he sees in Bruce, the Hulk, more than the Hulk, it's not a monster, a static, terrible thing, it's a potential, it's the power to strut, it's something you could pair with control, with compassion, with team, and then you have something you could trust to take on gods at your side, and why would you shy from that when it's only this far away, just one act of trust? And Pepper, when he met her, it would have been the same, he'd have seen the part of her that pushes, the part of her, probably one dry comment and one delicate twitch of organisation at the start, that could grow and revolve and push against his force, and followed it down, seen the thing she could be, the strong, powerful thing that he could push and push and not break, and later, through the years, he could see further down, to the hand inside his chest and the CEO and the partner at his side. Maybe. Not all the things, he's blind in some ways, but he would have seen the potential, the force inside her that pushed back, and he would have seen the power it could be built to.
And that has the downside, there's the darker side of that, because he looks down the line until he hits the place where things explode, and he was a weapons engineer first, and every line he looks down has a darkness to it. Every power, every potential, can be twisted, can be shaped, can be pushed to the breaking point and his Dad was on the Manhattan project and Obie slipped betrayal past his sight, and there's a part of Tony's brain that's always seeing the lurking shattering, too. The threads along the line where things break, where they shear, where they cut you open or break the world. He can see that too.
But he sees more than that. The future. It's not just a catchphrase to him, no more than it was to Howard. He actually does see it. Technology, his technology, is just the symptom, the expression of what he sees that he understands best and can affect most easily. What he's seeing, what he's always seeing, is that potential. The lurking energy in everything around him, the way every moment, every system, every situation, has the threads inside it to be made more. He's seeing a world half-finished, a world that's always half-finished, a world he can reach into and change around and sometimes make explode. He's seeing what happens when he fumbles, he's seeing what happens when he makes mistakes, the horrors and the terrors, but he's also seeing what happens when he gets it right. When other people get it right.
He's seeing Cap turn on him, seeing Cap understand how dark and small and wicked he is. He's seeing SHIELD's toys tear the world apart the way his did before them. He's seeing Loki break open a sky and rain down horror.
But he's also seeing the Hulk fighting beside him, seeing Bruce come back to save them. He's seeing Pepper stand beside him, seeing her standing up under whatever he can throw at her. He's seeing the Iron Man leap and bound. He's seeing the arc reactor light up the world. He's seeing JARVIS become something so much more than a programme. He's seeing people fighting together, he's seeing people saving the world.
Tony sees potential. In everything, in everyone. He's seeing a world on the way to the future, he's seeing the future lurking in everything around him. The parts of him that make him him, the technology, the genius, the trust, the hope, those are symptoms of that. Of that endless, intrusive, overwhelming vision of the future that literally permeats everything around him.
It fuels his inventiveness, letting him see how broken missiles and steady hands can create a power to light up a world. It fuels his paranoia and his mistrust, letting him see how betrayal can lurk under every action, how responsibility can destroy you with one fumbled grip. It fuels his courage and his hope, letting him see how one changed alignment, one act of trust, can preserve you against all the odds. It fuels his arrogance, his intrinsic sense of power, because when you can see so much of how to change the world around you, how can you not be powerful, how can you not act to change things? It fuels his wonder and his delight, because oh my gods, how could you not love something that intricate, that powerful, that full of potential? It fuels his recklessness, because everything is only shades of potential and he knows just where to put his hands, it's not as risky as they think, no, oh no, they just can't see what he can, they just don't know how strong he is, they just don't know how easy it is if you know just the right change to make.
Tony sees potential, Tony sees the shape of future power lurking under and through the world around him, the components and the choices that will spin them up into explosive, impossible power, into hope or horror. It drives everything about him, makes him as volatile, as reckless, as inventive and as desperate as he is. Tony is lightning in a bottle, sees everything around him as the same, and that makes him ...
Well. That makes him Tony Stark, really. Heh. Or so it seems to me, at least. *shrugs sheepishly*
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