#infinite serotonin from DID tony!!!

[issuedsideways]

might fuck around and make a list of tony’s alters*!! right now. why not. its hard to differentiate but i could take some stabs in the dark. ok this got long so its under a cut.

mark aside (because ive said enough about him), there’s at least the two who look young, no surprise. there’s probably at least one more young one (younger, with more focus on home/family/howard trauma) but he wouldn’t be relevant to this whole... plot, anyway. but we do see one who looks to be in boarding school, so under 15, and a slightly older one who still looks ~young, i want to say 17-20ish?? and he’s very “look how fine and okay we are! our life is awesome!” but is literally in a racing suit as if fast cars aren’t somewhere he gravitates mid breakdown. i love that for him. very in character. 

there’s also uhh. cave!tony, actively bandaged. he absolutely never left the cave, and wont. theres no... yknow. there’s no adjusting to that that’s a clean split kind of thing. i dont know how long 616 was in the cave but i’m assuming also a couple of months?? like mcu?? more than long enough to end up with a permanent split who can’t really... i mean we all know he didn’t like. get therapy. he cant reintegrate. he’s probably either the old host who “died” in the cave, or he split in that environment, but either way, he doesn’t make it out. 

there’s at least two iron man splits, the sort of... early grey one and the red&gold one are shown, and i dont know enough about early comics canon to make a guess at why they’re distinct, exactly, but i’m guessing some sort of near-death-or-actual-death event that puts a nice clean line in between them. or a team change, could be less dramatic than that? unless the grey one’s JUST the mark I, in which case nvm because the difference then is obvious. escape vs be a hero, you’d need two. notably theres not a super modern iron man split shown, i’m assuming once he stopped doing the secret identity thing that stopped being a split type he’d need, but prior to that he’d need an active, functional iron man split at all times. and he’s got at least the two. (whether or not you want to call mark an iron man split... shrugs! he’s not quite the same tho, since his job is not to pilot the suit, necessarily.) 

there’s an actively drunk one, and he’s an important split, because he’s obviously going to hold onto a lot of the desire to drink/etc. i know tony does the “keep a bottle nearby to figure out how bad he’s doing” thing but honestly that’s also a “how close is this tony” meter, imo. he’s necessary but he’s also, generally, possible to keep away. if he’s holding onto the majority of that impulse it’d be, honestly... well i think it’d look like the way tony approaches his alcoholism actually (and the whole crown meant specifically to control, yknow, hulk, in ts:im? was also clearly aimed at this one, on tony’s end.) 

we’ve got this very coherent seeming business-y tony also, who i’d peg as “The Tony Stark” -- as in, the face, the name, the one who’s “on.” especially in the early days when the “host” tony was drinking, having a split whos job is company things, PR things, etc, that’s going to go a long way. he seems like that, but i’m stabbing in the dark. i could be missing sth obvious. 

we’ve also got the one in eScape in ts:im who doesn’t show up on the page in im2020 but because the kid shows up in both, i’m really... willing to extend this to him also. he has no reason to show up re: mark anyway but he seems coherent and specific and extremely out of time. probably an old host but cut after the alcoholism spiraled out of control? since he clearly drinks without much concern. but, fwiw, he doesn’t seem to line up totally cleanly with any “real” time period, and was actively being manipulated by motherboard, so...? i dont know. 

i’d argue there’s also The One Who Died In Civil War II but he wouldn’t show up in this whole convincing-mark thing because. well. he’s “dead.” like hes in there but he’s Deactivated, so to speak. host change. 

the new tony, post-mark, is someone distinct! new host. but a shaky one so far and i think this tracks with what i’ve read of iron man vol 6 also (which is only whats on MU), tony has no idea what he wants or what he’s doing but he’s trying a bunch of things, that are all very different from what he was doing before but also falling back on things that are familiar, like hosting big parties, even when it’s incompatible with his new goals. this would track with it being a whole host-switch since pre-CWII and post-mark tony are just... not going to be the same person, imo. 

i am on the fence a little about if ts:im tony and IM vol6 tony are the same person or not, and i was leaning towards “yes” because i feel like ts:im tony didn’t have enough time to stabilize, like, there were too many breakdown events happening in rapid succession while mark was building up in the background. but he had a relationship with jan that was going well, he was really trying with the eScape, etc, so i want to give him that distinctness, at least, and IM vol6 tony also did the thing where he changes his appearance up a bunch, which is kind of a red flag for host changes, especially... right after the year-long interruption that was mark’s whole... thing. 

i’d have to read a LOT more comics to say any more than this, because i’m sure i’m missing some obvious ones who should exist but aren’t present/relevant re: mark. but. here are some of my thoughts anyway!!!! tony& gives me life. 

[issuedsideways]

re: my last post. that is roughly the system alignment im going with for the eScape/double life fic except of course that i’m going with. you know, the co-hosts! irl!tony and vr!tony of course are not the same person, but they’re both... developing simultaneously, in terms of... post-mark, theres not enough time for irl!tony to Become Host Properly before vr!tony is also establishing himself, just as strongly. vr!tony can be set aside as... yknow... not the host, because he’s in this “other world,” but... frankly tony’s not self aware enough to understand what’s happening because from the inside this sort of thing is just... complicated. 

i do wonder if i can push him far enough to realize it, though. ive got some GOOD points where mark can be worked in already and i just... i’m interested in how far i can stretch the denial, or if this will really be too far for it to stay unnoticed??? either way it’s going to be so good. 

i am thrilled to be writing any amount of splitting and losing time, actually? i’m really looking forward to making it as obvious as possible to the reader while also making it accurate/covert/etc like... i want to see how far i can push these two tonys until one of them realizes that he really is not the other. this might just be an extreme enough situation to force it.

[issuedsideways]

thinking abt mark one and about like... how he was probably pre-split for a while? or splitting all across ts:im. despite identifying himself with the armor (as he too, is artificial and one of tony stark’s ideas) he’s clearly distinct from the other Iron Man splits, who don’t dissociate themselves from the name/etc. his whole deal, here, is that he’s having a bit of a trauma breakdown from the whole dying-and-coming-back thing and for various reasons is realizing he’s not “human” (or, at least, he’s not the original. this much is true). the identity crisis is strong.

so it seems reasonable that as tony’s trying to settle back into his life there’s this split forming, gently in the distance, who’s holding onto every single little panicked “i’m not tony stark” thought. and everything that worsens this goes to mark, everything that trips him up or triggers him or scares him about this, about whether or not he came back “right” -- he’s trying to handle it, but what he can’t take goes to mark. (arguably i think any tony would still have the concerns about whether or not he has a soul, that strikes deeper.) and he tries to process, tries to handle it right, and things just keep... piling up. and he gets this proof, this evidence he’s artificial, and oh! good! we’ve got a split lined up for this. it barely takes a push to get mark out and functional and absolutely running from tony’s life. 

and once mark is out, he’s got absolutely no intention of living tony’s life and that.... is so compelling, i’m so interested in the way he truly does not seem to see the problem with being mark, with leaving the people who care about tony, and with seeing their reaching out as inherently not about or applicable to him. that’s fucking fascinating. mark’s such a good, interesting split!!! he did great!! he hosted for like a year and helped run a robot uprising and i am proud of him! for! that!! 

[issuedsideways]

i actually sincerely did not like mark one when i first read im2020 but obviously now i’m love him. because!!! because. oh my god. he’s tony stark’s best idea??? :’-)???? the love?? the admiration for tony as soon as he can separate himself from being tony. the way he really sincerely just...!!! oh my god. the way he really said i cant be him i’m not him but i’ll be a shrine to the best things about him. oh my god.

[issuedsideways]

yknow what im switching over to just outright calling it DID because we need more accurate DID fiction anyway. like actual realistic DID fiction. and i think he falls under the label. and because im just gonna ditch the osdd label as a whole really for a couple reasons (im editing old posts actually because i had some. accidental misinfo in them. unfortunately the DID community online is just full of misinfo and i hadn’t weeded it all. out. of my beliefs abt system shit. shame) but STAY TUNED for a post about how i think it’s very canon compliant that 616 tony has DID, actually,