Somewhere out there Ho Yinsen is turning to Tony Stark and saying, “you didn’t waste a single second”.
Ok but now I have this image in my head of Tony in some kind of afterlife, like his own personal heaven. It looks like his lab, not any specific one, rather it’s made up of all the best and favorite tools, parts and pieces from workshops throughout his life. He’s sitting at a table working with a small device, nothing really important just something keeping his hands busy, when he calls out “JARVIS pull up the Life-streams”.
“Any preference for this particular viewing sir.”
“Just the family this time J,” Tony replies as a number of glowing blue screens appear in front of him, “wife and kids.” Pepper and Morgan Stark, Peter Parker and Harley Keener come into focus a moment later. He spends his time relaxing like that, watching over them as he tinkers.
Footsteps approaching from behind pulls some of his focus several hours later, he doesn’t turn around, keeps his eyes on Morgan, Harley and Peter working together on an as of yet unidentifiable lego set. Visitors aren’t exactly rare but they’re not all that common either and Tony never knows quite what to say to the people who have come to see him.
“So this is the legacy of the great Tony Stark.” Familiar words said in a tone vastly diffierent to how they were once spoken startles him enough to look at the figure that draws up next to him. Ho Yinsen settles beside him peering curiously at the screens acting as windows to the lives of his loved ones. Struggling to come up with something to say to the man who gave him his second chance at life he turns back to the screens and focuses on Pepper, she’s having lunch with Happy he notices either talking about SI or reminiscing about him with the amount his name keeps coming up. “How’s the family?”, comes out before he really thinks about it. An amused huff is his immediate answer as Yinsen leans back to take in the rest of his surroundings.
“They are well Stark, enjoying the time we now have together”.
Silence falls between them for several beats before Tony swallows down the anxiety he can feel threatening to rise, “so, how’d I do?”
Ho Yinsen finally turns to face Tony Stark and says, “you didn’t waste a single second “.
In the funeral scene, the parting shot of the old arc reactor, placed on top of the flower wreath, was beautiful. That device is technically the reason why the MCU exists — it saved Tony’s life all those years ago in Afghanistan (then in Los Angeles) and morphed into a symbol of his heart. Both literally and figuratively. As soon as Tony built himself a new arc reactor, he told Pepper to dispose it. Instead, she kept the reactor and had it inscribed (Proof That Tony Stark Has A Heart). Long after Tony had the shrapnels removed, and built far more complicated arc reactors, I loved that the two of them had held onto the original one, despite everything they went through. Between 2008 and 2023, Pepperony survived a break-up; they were attacked in their own house; they lived through multiple world-ending catastrophes as well as the actual end of the world. The reactor became a symbol of their perseverance, their love for one another — it was a promise, it was a guide that led them back to each other. It was their North Star. In Iron Man 1, it was Pepper’s voice that pulled him back from the brink — of certain death — and inspired the idea of making an arc reactor. It was fitting that in Avengers: Endgame when she put the arc reactor on top of the flower wreath, she was finally letting him go.
ADHD culture is saying “what?” when you heard the question someone asked you but… It didn’t fucking… Register… In the brain? And then you hear the question before they ask again and interrupt them when they’re talking because now you’re An Asshole™ who understands
Someone: Hey what time is it?
Me: What?
Someone: Wha-
Me: It’s 3:20
This is actually a thing, while visual info takes 0.1 seconds to process, auditory infor can take 3 to 4 seconds to process, which is why you ask, and then actually hear the question because your brains only just processed it
My husband has ADHD and does this, and I hate repeating myself constantly. One thing that I feel has saved us from so much stress in our marriage is that I’ve just stopped repeating myself. After a while he caught onto what I was doing and stopped saying “what” over and over when I didn’t respond. Now occasionally he’ll ask me “what?” when I said something because he actually didn’t hear me, and I will happily repeat myself for him, but most of the time I just say silent and let his brain compute what I said. So now our conversations go one of two ways:
Me: Hey hon, where is the tv remote? Him: What?? Me: *silence* Him: I left it on the couch.
Or
Me: Hey hon, where is the tv remote? Him: What? Me: *silence* Him: Ok, I really didn’t hear you that time, what did you say? Me: *repeats question*
Even if you don’t have ADHD, I mean, auditory delay happens with a lot of people, not just ADHD folk. If you deal with it, try this approach with your friends and loved ones. It has helped us so much.
I jokingly suggested something similar to my gf called the “3 second rule”. If i don’t respond in 3s, assume I really didn’t hear you.
Tho Im p good at just masking the processing time with UUhhhhHhHhh
Also pro tip for communicating with ADHD people: say the name of the person you want to talk to before you share your thought and wait for them to acknowledge you. That way if we are distracted or otherwise occupied you know can be sure are listening. We very well may still need to process, but it will greatly cut down on the number of times we genuinely didn’t hear a word you just said.
THAT LAST NOTE
PLEASE
I AM BEGGING
Yo I’m just like an Alexa with legs. Ya gotta say my wake word if you want me to to pay attention.
This goes for autism too. And hell yes for the wake word. You can stand there talking at me for five minutes and I may not hear you if you didn’t get my attention first.
Can you imagine what it must have been like growing up for George and Fred. Notice how I said George and Fred because we always call them ‘Fred and George’ as if they were one person – just like their mum. Their own family couldn’t tell them apart. They didn’t have perfect grades like Percy. They weren’t as cool as Bill or Charlie. They weren’t the youngest male like Ron and they obviously weren’t female like Ginny. So they created a niche for themselves – The Pranksters. Because if people weren’t even going to bother to tell them apart then they were going to make people pay attention by pranking people and acting out. Then some scruffy looking boy in their younger brother’s year (ickle Harrikins) can tell them apart.
There’s a reason George Weasley and Fred Weasley never pranked Harry Potter – because he’s the only one that bothered to try.
I SWEAR I WILL REBLOG THIS EVERY TIME BECAUSE OF THE TEARS WELLING UP IN MY SOUL
I like to thing that George and Fred thought of Harry as their little brother too way before Harry had any romantic interest in Ginny.
Harry was also the one who invested in their niche fully, rather than being annoyed by it, he celebrated them for it. That’s why they gave him the Marauders Map and then he gave them the Triwizard gold:
‘
‘Take it,’ he said, and he thrust the sack into George’s hands. ‘What?’ said Fred, looking flabbergasted. ‘Take it,’ Harry repeated firmly. ‘I don’t want it.’ ‘You’re mental,’ said George, trying to push it back at Harry. ‘No, I’m not,’ said Harry. ‘You take it, and get inventing. It’s for the joke-shop.’ ‘He is mental,’ Fred said, in an almost awed voice. … ‘Harry – thanks,’ George muttered, while Fred nodded fervently at his side’
It’s why they agreed to his request Ron get some new dress robes out of it. They’re clever not just funny ‘they always get really good marks’ but as OP says they’re not as good as Percy, Bill or Charlie. They helped Ron get him out of the Dursleys:
‘But you can’t magic me out either –’ ‘We don’t need to,’ said Ron, jerking his head towards the front seats and grinning. ‘You forget who I’ve got with me.’
They get him into Hogsmede , they (unknowingly) helped the trio break into Umbridge’s ministry office. They liked Harry for himself
‘This is all your fault,’ George said angrily to Wood. ’“Get the Snitch or die trying” – what a stupid thing to tell him!‘’
And cheered him up when things went wrong, such as Harry being accused of being the Heir of Slytherin
‘They went out of their way to march ahead of Harry down the corridors, shouting, ‘Make way for the heir of Slytherin, seriously evil wizard coming through …’ Percy was deeply disapproving of this behaviour. ‘It is not a laughing matter,’ he said coldly. ‘Oh, get out of the way, Percy,’ said Fred, ‘Harry’s in a hurry.’ ‘Yeah, he’s nipping off to the Chamber of Secrets for a cup of tea with his fanged servant,’ said George, chortling
‘
Or when Ron and Hermione were made Prefects and Harry felt left out:
‘Yeah,’ said Fred slowly. ‘Yeah, you’ve caused too much trouble, mate. Well, at least one of you’s got their priorities right.’ He strode over to Harry and clapped him on the back while giving Ron a scathing look.
They tricked Dudley because they know how crappy Harry’s home is:
‘We didn’t give it to him because he was a Muggle!’ said Fred indignantly. ‘No, we gave it to him because he’s a great bullying git,’ said George
And of course:
‘Give her hell from us, Peeves.’ And Peeves, who Harry had never seen take an order from a student before, swept his belled hat from his head and sprang to a salute as Fred and George wheeled about to tumultuous applause from the students below and sped out of the open front doors into the glorious sunset.
Harry frequently heard students saying things like, ‘Honestly, some days I just feel like jumping on my broom and leaving this place,’ or else, ‘One more lesson like that and I might just do a Weasley.’
Harry’s relationships with George and Fred are some of my favourites
