So (according to the concept art book) as the Fellowship travels deeper into Middle Earth, the places they pass through become inspired by progressively older periods of history. The farther along you are in the story, the more ancient the design influences
We begin in The Shire: which feels so familiar because, with its tea-kettles and cozy fireplaces, it’s inspired by the relatively recent era of rural England in the 1800s
But when we leave Hobbiton, we also leave that familiar 1800s-England aesthetic behind and start going farther back in time.
Bree is based on late 1600s English architecture
Rohan is even farther back, based on old anglo-saxon era architecture (400s-700s? ce)
Gondor is way back, and no longer the familiar English or Anglo-Saxon: its design comes from classical Greek and Roman architecture
And far far FAR back is Mordor. It’s a land of tents and huts: prehistoric, primitive, primeval. Cavemen times
And the heart of Mordor is a barren lifeless hellscape of volcanic rock…like a relic from the ages when the world was still being formed, and life didn’t yet exist
And then they finally reach Mount Doom, which one artist described as
“where the ring was made, which represents, in a sense, the moment of creation itself”
Literal text (notice the naked man in Tony’s bed):
A male (!) villain insinuating Tony can’t resist him (because of his “playboy” reputation, which is a big “hmm”):
This speaks for itself:
Tony waxes poetic about Steve’s attractiveness:
Actually Tony calls Steve handsome a lot; it’s kind of a thing:
Oh and that time Namor called out Tony for sleeping with Madame Masque (after Tony said she looked like Doctor Doom) and Tony trying to swerve the convo:
That time the media was openly suspecting Tony Stark was HIV positive (this is from a comic in 1992 when AIDs was still thought of as a disease that primarily afflicted gay/bisexual men):
… Just saying, the subtext (and even the text) has been there for a long-ass time. Tony’s dating profile being set to woman and men was just more evidence on top of the pile.
Tony is so obviously bi, T’Challa knew.
Even the evilness of Victor Von Doom isn’t enough to keep tony from acknowledging how handsome he is.
More of Tony swooning over Doom (added by @i-gotta-go-good-day-bitch in the replies but i wanted to keep the ones above too).
Also added by @i-gotta-go-good-day-bitch, implications Tony and Rhodey were/are more than friends:
And I forgot to add this classic. A gutter note during the development of Iron Man vol 3 implied Tiberius and Tony had slept together (given their relationship was very much portrayed like them having been exes, this isn’t a shocker). (Link to @whatjanesays‘s blog who originally posted these images)
“better roll” meaning “roll around the hay” (so saying sexual partner). The “Ru” here is talking about Rumiko Fujikawa (who, while broken up with Tony, slept with Tiberius).
“I miss when comics weren’t political!!” the dudebros whine, apparently unaware that manly-man playboy Tony Stark has been canonically bisexual since THE 80S, a time when the majority of Americans were still quite homophobic.
tbh this is proof that social media has completely ruined my sense of humor like i could go see a stand up comedian live and not laugh as hard as i did from reading this one fucking tweet
