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and if I said the Thunderbolts are more of a family than the Avengers were

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rip 2012-2014 tumblr, you would have LOVED thunderbolts*

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the legacy of being an MCU blogger circa 2016-2020 is that now you have to witness your old headcanons/fics getting reuploaded on TikTok where a robot voice reads it out loud while Subway Surfers plays in the background. it always spooks me when i'm scrolling TikTok and go "that sounds familiar- oh wait i wrote that." and not to get too philosophical about what is essentially TikTok slush content for views, but it feels dystopian and degrading to fandom culture as a whole. and this isn't something unique to the MCU either, i see it with Batfamily posts, or non-fandom Tumblr posts in general.

my issue isn't even the surface level "this TikTok got far more engagement than my original post did with none of the effort or creativity". because sure, that sucks. but what was fun about that older era of fandom culture was the "yes and" nature of it. when i look at my most popular headcanons/text posts/fics, they were me "yes and"-ing someone else's post. hell, my infamous Tony Stark wifi tower fanfic wasn't *my* idea. i just wrote a fic on someone else's post. but now fandom is treated like a content machine, where people want their fave ships and characters to hit a quota of fan-created content that they don't meaningfully engage with. what is the joy of my posts being spread around again if i can't see what people are saying about them, i can't build off of other people's thoughts. this blog is retired so it doesn't bother me as much, but i can't imagine how i would've felt back in the height of this blog, knowing people were leaving comments on a reuploaded version of my post i couldn't even see because i didn't know my content was stolen.

i don't think TikTok is this big evil monster some ppl on Tumblr treat it as, but i do think the algorithm-based "viewing the person in this video as a content creator on a pedestal and not an equal member of your community" is damaging to the way fandom spaces operate. people don't want to build off of each other's ideas anymore, they just want content served to them by a curated algorithm that they don't have to interact with other than clicking the like button. i tend to dislike "this is what's ruining fandom" takes that blame it on everything from the quarantine to modern streaming models. i think it's a myriad of a lot of these factors, and also sometimes none of them. sometimes you just have to accept a new generation is entering fandom and that new generation is going to interact with fandom differently and their recency bias is going to convince them that modern fandom is so terrible and toxic because they have no personal memory of some of the most iconic terrible fandom moments.

but i do think algorithmic content kills the natural way a fandom grows. instead of it being your job to find blogs you like and your job to *interact* with them through replies, reblogs, asks, etc to sustain those spaces and create more content, you just let an algorithm decide what to feed you. which is why these TikTok pages are recycling years-old content. they want content optimized for the algorithm, but don't have the "yes and" culture of fandom to sustain interesting creativity that requires meaningful interaction in fandom. that to me, is the real tragedy of my content (and content of others) getting stolen. it kills the *fun* in fandom. it makes fandom no longer a hospitable space for interaction and community, just a content machine where you wait for the next new thing to drop. call me old and cranky, but i find that to be so boring.

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This blog was created for loving and appreciating the character of Sam Wilson.

And while for years, we have been anticipating the next time we'll get to see Anthony Mackie on screen, playing our favourite character, and proving to everyone how he IS Captain America, this is a reminder that Captain America: Brave New World has been directly called out by the BDS movement (a nearly 20 year old movement created by Palestinians), and we have been asked to boycott it in its entirety.

A zionist settler has been cast. Disney itself has donated $2 million to Israeli relief groups.

it is incredibly saddening that we won't be able to watch one of our favourite's character's long awaited film, but our interest and love for this character, and for superheroes/comics/movies as a whole, are no where near more important then standing up alongside Palestinians, and doing all we can to help them and to listen to their requests.

Join me in boycotting the film. Pirate it if you must.

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Podfic of "Untouchable" by Gothic_Lolita. This is a gift for @pia-bartolini

When Tony finds out he's on a no-kill list for one of the biggest crime bosses in New York, he's confused. When he finds out said crime boss is his old ex from high school, he's even more confused.

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The MCU really be like

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pinned faq

hi, my name is roman. i used to be a semi-popular winteriron blog, but now this blog is mostly dead. so. rip, gone but not forgotten. but i still get some pretty common questions so here's a one-stop shop for most of them as well as links to the important things.

My Tumblr Fic Masterlist

My Ao3

My (dead) WinterIron Discord Server

Did you write the Tony Stark wifi tower fic?

yes, i wrote that fic! it is by far the most popular thing i've ever written and it will probably outlive me.

I found that fic on [insert site here], do they have your permission?

probably not, no. i have found that fic everywhere. and i mean everywhere. pinterest, wattpad, facebook, instagram, tiktok, mediachomp, and so on. honestly, it's been years and i can't control or chase down every single copy and i have no interest in doing so. i don't love that it was stolen from me (especially on for-profit sites) but it just is what it is. it's a fanfic rite of passage to have your stuff stolen, honestly.

can i do a translation/podfic/write something inspired by one of your fics/posts?

yes! there is always a blanket permission to do any sort of transformative work with my work, especially my older stuff. if it sparks joy and creativity in you, run wild with it. i prefer to be credited, but honestly, i'm just happy to see my stuff still inspiring people.

will you ever write winteriron/mcu fanfic again?

well, you should never say never. but in this case, you might want to say never. i have very little interest in winteriron or the mcu in general outside of nostalgia, and i likely will never write anything substantial for them again. it's sad, i miss it too, but i just don't have that spark for marvel these days. mostly i write dc comics fanfiction.

did you write [insert winteriron fic/post here]?

idk. maybe. probably. i wrote and posted a lot of things. you can scroll the tag on this blog to find all my old posts, some more popular than others. if you think it was me, chances are, it probably was. i got around a lot from like 2018 to 2020.

do you have a tagging system?

i used to but lord if i'm going to use it now. i don't even remember it, so your guess is as good as mine. tbh i just use tags as a place to ramble these days so navigating my blog is about as easy for you as it is for me. which is to say, it's not easy at all. because tumblr's search function is ass. i do know one of my old tags has my deadname in it. you'll probably find it if you look hard enough, but that is what it is.

are you going to revive this blog?

probably not consistently, no. if i have something i really want to say here, i'll say it, but i don't have much interest in maintaining this like i used to. i want to be able to, i miss posting here a lot, i just don't think it'll spark joy for me the way it used to, which sucks but that's just the way things go.

why did you leave this blog?

idk. life happened. i was an 18-year-old fighting chronic health conditions and mental health issues that led to me dropping out of high school so, tumblr sort of fell to the back burner, then got forgotten about entirely. eventually, i lost interest in the mcu as i felt the quality of it took a turn for the worst and i went back to dc, which i'm still into. i read some marvel comics, enjoy an occasional mcu project, but largely i just don't have the interest i used to. it sucks and i miss it, this blog probably kept me alive as a teenager. but now it's mostly just an archive of my past, and i'm okay with that.

can i talk to you/send you an ask/befriend you anyway?

sure, if you want, don't know if i'm good company though. but i'm always open to making friends and reminiscing about winteriron, marvel, and all that good stuff. i've gotta warn you though, tumblr fucking eats my DMs on this blog like no fucking business. i'm regularly fighting it. my discord is devilbonesofmetal if you wanna yell at me there, just say you're from tumblr.

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I pray my wife comes home and married me soon

good news and bad news.

good news, after abandoning this blog for four years, i have come home. bad news, i'm no longer your wife. i'm your husband now. i took so long to come home i transed my gender along the way. hope that's not an issue.

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Hi, excuse me for bothering you, I read one of your fanfictions on Pinterest and I'd like to try translating it. Am I allowed or not? And do you have an AO3 or a Wattpad so I can read more of your work? Good afternoon, thank you

this ask is months old i'm aware, but hello! you have total freedom to translate any of my works you'd like, so long as i'm credited wherever you post it! i don't have a wattpad but i'm Gothic_Lolita on ao3!

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hi love <3

cannot believe you're so gay you have followed me to my dead blog too. i love you so dearly hello <3

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rdj the (whitewashed) electric boogaloo

This is a reminder to everyone who's excited about RDJ's casting as Doctor Doom that this casting is whitewashing. Victor Von Doom is a Romani character and has been a Romani character since his introduction in the 1960s. (Fantastic Four Annual #2 [1964]) Not only that, but his Roma identity and the persecution he and his family faced due to it is integral to his character, it is what forms his identity. (Books of Doom by Ed Brubaker) Even if on the off chance this casting is meant to not be Victor but instead be some variant of Tony or whomever else becoming Doctor Doom, it is damaging to the character to rob him of that important cultural background. Doctor Doom does not exist without that history. Fans have been pushing hard to cast Doom as a Romani actor for years, especially since the MCU has whitewashed other Romani characters. (Wanda, Pietro, etc) This casting is not a celebration moment, it's fucking heartbreaking that the MCU repeatedly ignores the important and nuanced cultural backstories of characters.

I know I can't change anybody's mind on whether or not you want to be excited about RDJ's return to the MCU. But I do think at the very least you should be mad that the MCU is baiting us all and destroying nuanced and interesting characters for the sake of self-referential easter eggs and nostalgia bait. Because that's what it is. Feel how you'd like to feel about RDJ's return, but personally, this is soul-sucking. I had such a deep love for the MCU as a teenager, it was obviously something incredibly formative to me, especially Tony Stark. This isn't recreating what I fell in love with the MCU for. This is turning a well-planned and artistic storyline of adaptations into cheap cash grabs and fan service. Because, I think we're past the point of being able to call the MCU an adaptation of anything. They can use existing characters' names and powers, but to say they're being properly adapted is laughable.

This is not an adaptation of Doctor Doom. This is RDJ the Electric Boogaloo because Marvel's fear of losing the interest of dedicated MCU fans overrides their willingness to tell stories that are genuine to the characters. I don't know what there is to be excited about that. The MCU has lost its authenticity and aside from a few projects, feels heartless. Every movie is a copy of a copy. This announcement isn't something celebratory, it feels like a death knell of a cinematic universe that's so desperate to cling to relevancy it's resorting to nostalgia for a character/actor who hasn't even been dead for a decade. We're not getting anything new, we're just rinsing and repeating the same song and dance.

I get it. I love Tony Stark, his death destroyed me and I to this day, rue the ending he got in Endgame. It misunderstood his arc and it robbed him of a satisfying conclusion. But the solution to that isn't dragging the corpse out of the grave five years later to whitewash an existing character with rich and interesting nuance, just to forcibly tie his existence in the MCU to Tony. Whether he is a variant or not. Why would you want someone else's fave's legacy to be destroyed simply so your fave's legacy can go on? Hell, if we were really all so hellbent on the return of RDJ and/or Tony to the MCU, we have the multiverse for a reason. There were other ways to do it that didn't whitewash and ruin someone else. This just. Isn't something to be happy about.

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Close-up of Bucky because he’s so damn happy!!

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>recharge<

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natasha and gamora not getting the ending they deserved

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if marvel revealed that steve rogers was actually stuck in the quantum realm it would legitimately be one of the most unsettling plot twists they could manage like not only would it mean that old steve is not steve at all, rather someone or something else, but it would also imply that steve didn’t finish his mission and return all the stones & that the very fabric of reality is in danger

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Lost Time And Other People's Bullshit for the title meme (last one, I swear)

Read up on dyschronometria and wanted to use it for this! I’ve always been fascinated by the idea that Tony doesn’t mean to be distant, he just doesn’t realize he is.<:3c

Lost Time and Other People’s Bullshit

Pepper finds Tony standing in the hallway in the dark and nearly launches herself into the ceiling in fright. “Tony oh my God.”

Tony blinks at her placidly.

Pepper stares at him, clutching a folder to her chest, then reaches out and gently grabs his arm. “Where have you been?”

“I’ve? Huh?” Tony asks. “I’ve been working. Look! I made a new cell phone,” he adds, jerking his hand up. The cell phone is small and thin and probably the best thing to hit the market soon. “I’ve managed to make it pretty indestructible, and upped the battery life by seventy-three percent–”

He has no idea he’s missed three meetings and a deadline on a patent, Pepper realizes after a moment. She’s not sure how she feels about that–mostly unnerved, she decides. She covers the cell phone with her hand.

Tony stops talking abruptly to blink at her again. He doesn’t look guilty, or upset, or tired. Just excited to be able to show her the new thing he made.

“Let’s get dinner and you can tell me more about it,” she offers.

“I could eat,” Tony agrees, and then launches into the parameters he wants to add to the phone.

Tony doesn’t remember three of his PhDs. Bruce had seen one of the certificates on the wall and had tried to ask Tony when he’d gotten a PhD in Safenology, of all things.

“He hyperfocuses and then when he doesn’t need the information anymore his brain just dumps it until he needs it,” Rhodey explains when Bruce mentions it. “He uses that degree without realizing it whenever he goes over new safety protocols for inventions of departments.” He catches Tony as he tries to power-walk by, clearly focused on something else.

Tony stops and looks up at him, tilting his head. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Rhodey says, and then, “Shower.”

“Oh,” Tony says, and then continues power-walking away.

Rhodey drags him down to dinner and he smells fresh, so he must have showered at some point. It’s both boggling and horrifying that he needs to be reminded.

Steve finds old fashioned boxes of Monopoly, Scrabble, and Sorry! in the common room. He doesn’t understand. He’d made a passing comment to Tony while he’d clearly been focused on something else, and here these games were, ones that he’d played with Bucky and his sisters so many years ago. When had he done that? Why? He was always so busy, why add the stress of Steve’s passing complaint to his problems?

“It was no trouble,” Tony says when Steve asks him, looking past him out the window. “Is it evening already?”

Natasha finds a whole new wardrobe in her closet, from shoes hiding lock-picking implements to dresses that look sheer but are clearly made of fabric that’ll protect her from knife wounds. She stares. When had he done this? He’d been working with the military on bulletproof vests and also working on the next upgrade for the helicarrier. She’d only mentioned being annoyed that the dress she’d been given by SHIELD had ripped in passing, to Clint, as Tony was poking at his tablet. She hadn’t even thought he’d been listening.

“I want you to be safe,” Tony says when she asks him.

He sounds so reasonable that she begins to nod, agreeing, even says, “Thanks.”

“Well, I’m going to go to bed,” Tony says, even though it’s two o’clock in the afternoon, and pats her shoulder before he turns and leaves. It’s not until he’s gone that she remembers that she wanted to ask him not to do that anymore, since his plate was already so full.

Eventually things come to a head, and Thor puts his hand on Tony’s chest to stop him from leaving the kitchen. “Tony.”

Tony stares up at him, bewildered. “Yes?”

“Are you even aware that it’s been a week since we’ve seen you?” Thor asks.

“A week? No,” Tony says, and then tilts his head, looking more interested than concerned. “A week? Really?”

“You seriously haven’t noticed?” Clint asks, horrified.

Tony shrugs one shoulder, holds his hand out toward the door. “I was busy.”

“Tony,” the rest of the Avengers choke out.

“I’m better than I was when I was younger,” Tony says, shrugging again. “I’m on medication. A therapist comes to see me because I can’t remember dates. I’m not ignoring you. I just don’t have a concept of time passing. That’s why JARVIS has so many alerts for me, and why if Pepper really needs me, she’ll come and get me, and why Rhodey will just grab me and remind me of stuff. It’s not that I don’t care about you guys, I just literally can’t realize by myself that it’s been hours, days, or even weeks that I haven’t seen another person.”

“And you’ve always been like this?” Bruce asks, looking pained.

Tony blinks at him guilelessly. “Ever since the car crash I was in on my way home from boarding school, yeah. I was… s-si–seven maybe?” He scratches at his chin, squinting at the ceiling. “I don’t remember much of the years surrounding the accident because they all blend together into hospital visits and private tutors. It’s in my medical files if you want to see them.”

“Tony,” Steve says softly, frowning. “If you’re already struggling–why go out of your way for us, then?”

“I’m not struggling,” Tony says, brows furrowing together in confusion. “I’m actually functioning quite well. My therapist says I’m doing great! And why wouldn’t I go out of my way for you guys?” he adds, perplexed. “You’re my friends. I love you and want to take care of you.”

“Oh,” they say, stunned and quite humbled by it.

“Oh,” Tony says. “Is it dinner time?” He sits down in the seat beside Thor and looks around the table. “What’s for dinner? Curry! Nice!” He pauses, silent, as Steve reaches out and pulls him in for a side-hug, then leans back to look up at him. “Have I done something wrong?”

“No,” Steve says. “Just, some things about you make a whole lot more sense all of the sudden, and it’s nice to know I don’t have to worry about them.”

Tony stares up at him for a moment, then shrugs and turns back to the food, unconcerned. “If you guys haven’t seen me for a few days and want me for dinner, come and get me. I don’t mean to miss out. I just can’t tell I am.”

The rest of the team gets together after dinner to make a list of when and who will approach him and for what, which they run past Pepper and Rhodey and Happy, who seem cautiously happy about it. They still find Tony coming and going at all times, but with a reason for it, it doesn’t bother them so much anymore, especially now that they know they can tow him in to spend time with them and he won’t get upset by it. They’d known he hadn’t been aloof with them, not really, but hearing an explanation for why he didn’t spend time with them was enough to alleviate their fears that they were bothering him.

Even if Tony lost time, it was good to know that it didn’t make his feelings for them wane.