Me But For My Book

So... about the "Ironwood Was Right" thing.

I recently saw this resurface a bit, in the context of Ruby's regrets in Volume 9. Basically, taking the fact that she felt like she'd failed as the show saying that yes, actually, she was wrong to go against Ironwood's plan in Volume 7.

I feel like I went into thinking about this trying to debunk it on a logical level. Like, is it actually a good idea to fly off into the sky in one big long stalling measure when your opponent is literally immortal? What's stopping Salem from grabbing all the rest of the relics and then just waiting as many generations as it takes, until the people of Atlas forget why they came up there in the first place and return to Remnant out of curiosity?

The thing is, treating it as an argument about what's the more "rational" choice is missing the point that like. We're talking about a story. We don't know exactly how many people are in Atlas and in Mantle and where they are and how many more trips they'd have to take to finish the evacuation, because details like that would just bog things down.

This is not a trolley problem with x number of people from Mantle on one side and y number of people from Atlas on the other. This is a trolley problem with a wealthy and powerful person on one track, and a disadvantaged person an alternate track, and Ironwood choosing to pull the lever instead of trying to stop the trolley. The point is not "how many." It's not about math. The point is that there is a fundamental difference between dying in the central location while a bunch of Huntresses and Huntsmen do absolutely everything in their power to protect you, and dying abandoned in the mines you used to work while the city built off of your labor flies away to safety.

The question this conflict is asking is about whether or not other people can be sacrifices. Ironwood says yes—team RWBY disagree. That's the actual crux of this argument. Does Ironwood have the right to decide who deserves protection and who isn't worth the risk? Do we get to give up on other people before we've even tried to save them? It's about the idea of certain people being disposable. Mantle's wall isn't important, Amity is. Amity will protect all of Atlas, and that wall will only help the people in Mantle. It implies that their safety is an acceptable sacrifice for the greater good. It treats them as disposable.

There's a reason it was Nora who spoke up and pointed out that it's always Mantle being asked to bear the burden for the greater good. Nora has been a disposable person before. Hell, Cinder has been a disposable person! The way Atlas (through the madame) treated a living person as a resource to be exploited or sacrificed is the entire reason that Cinder is trying to burn the kingdom down. Thematically, Atlas cannot escape the danger she poses by sacrificing more disposable people.

One of the biggest themes of this show is cooperation. It's all about how Salem can only be defeated by working together. But working together is not possible if certain people are taking on all of the risk, all of the sacrifice. Everyone has to be willing to put some skin in the game. Like, imagine trying to do a group project if you knew half of you were guaranteed to get an A no matter what and the other half weren't.

So the idea that Volume 9 is supposed to come back around and say that actually, that plan that would have literally divided a city in half and cut loose the poorer half like fucking ballast, that was the right thing all along and Ruby Rose was wrong to challenge it... that would be an absolute disaster of a thematic statement.

This is not a show about hard military men making hard military choices. It's not going to contrive a situation where cold-blooded calculation determines that the right thing to do is to pull up the ladder. Because outside of weird philosophical experiments about trolleys, the right thing to do usually has more to do with empathy. Compassion. Cooperation. All that gay shit.

The rumours are true. Well, the good ones are, anyway. Netflix is delighted and thrilled that so many of you, all over the world, have been watching and loving Sandman, which means that the thing we were all hoping would happen...? Well, it's happened...

I wrote this on my phone so please excuse my life I mean mistakes

You might not think so but I swear painting this was stressful first the green was bitch because it was too light I so mixed in some black but it turned to grey so then I cleaned it up chose a different green And then and then the red decided to be motherf*cker and somehow got into the other colors so then I cleaned that up got all my colors together again and then the red was bitch cause I got it on my brush and as soon as it gets over the paper and fell in a place it would never be even if I turned it upside down so I had to get a new piece of paper and redo the tape THANKS SOME MUCH RED I THOUGHT PURPLE WAS THE BITCH

putting this in a separate post + even more silly battinson/corensupes stuff based off this post (and op’s tags)

#Despite everything, they didn’t kill him

Diana of Themyscira (Wonder Woman) Reading List

Foreword: Molded from clay by her mother Queen Hippolyta and blessed by her patron gods of Olympus, Diana grew up on Themyscira, mentored by her Amazonian sisters. When Steve Trevor’s plane crash-landed on the island, ending the era of isolation from the patriarch’s world, the Amazons held a tournament that would produce a champion who would go back with Trevor and spread peace and hope to the outside world. Through the ages, Diana has served as a military secretary, a UN ambassador, a member on the Justice League, and most importantly, as Wonder Woman herself.

As always, the issues or runs that are strongly recommended are bolded and italicized.

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my fav frenchman <3

I know the new Hunger Games book announcement is exciting. But in what world are we hearing more about a book announcement than we are about the bombing of 40 children in a UN school-turned-refugee shelter? These two events occurred on the same day. Only one is being widely spoken about in the media.

Let’s not forget why Suzanne Collins wrote the series in the first place. One night, she was watching TV, flipping back and forth between coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a reality-TV show. That's when she had the idea that would ultimately turn into The Hunger Games.

Please don’t let pop culture distract you from a genocide.