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.
color playtime ;)
listen ok so i made some good jokes yesterday about Lestat having an onlyfans but i am back today with a new essay and this one is entitled
come on this journey with me.
ok so on one hand we have Louis, who does not like to leave the house except when he absolutely fucking has to and even then he resents it. my man wants to be at home with a book 100% of the time and he's so fucking valid for that. When he leaves the house, bad things happen to him. He has learned this and honestly i can't fault his evidence. it sucks out there. it truly incredibly sucks out there.
the problem is that sometimes he is married to lestat, who starts clawing at the walls if people aren't paying attention to him for 12 consecutive seconds, and being Out Of The House is the best place for him to go foraging for People To Pay Attention To Him. my man once had a rock star career the way that some people get addicted to meth brewed in a trashcan in someone's garage. Louis, through no fault of his own, is simply not capable of filling this psychological need no matter how hard he tries, except he should not even HAVE to try like that, because no one can do it, because Lestat is fucked up and like wasn't hugged enough as a child or something
this imbalance in their relationship is the core source of all their marital problems since day 1: THIS man's idea of a good time is chilling on the sofa in silence and maybe staring contemplatively at the wall for a while, and THIS man starts self-destructing at a truly astonishing rate if no one is making eye contact with him. If you make Louis go outside and socialize with people, he's miserable and sulking and whining about "are we done can we go home". If you make Lestat sit in silence in a chair for five minutes he starts crying and claiming that No One Has Ever Loved Him, Ever, Ever, And No One Understands Him, And He Hates Everyone In This House and He Is Being Actively Neglected And Cruelly Mistreated Right Now And No One Even Bothers To Feel Sorry For Him, This Is BASICALLY Domestic Violence Against Him Personally, If Only Anyone Knew About The Quiet Hidden Tragedies Of An Unhappy Marriage, and then he breaks some furniture and a window and isn't seen again for six weeks and comes back like "you will not believe what just happened, i [checks notes] met Merlin and also a dragon who gave me three wishes, brb i'm going to write another book about it :))))"
all you fucking have to do to fix their problems is to hand Lestat a cellphone and say the words "do you know about social media? you can say whatever shit you want and there's always someone awake in some time zone to talk to you." Suddenly Lestat is now very interested in sitting quietly on the couch, Lounging Alluringly and posting thirst traps on instagram and finally getting emotional fulfillment from all the likes and comments of "omg???? omg this is the hottest man alive". he does not have to leave the house anymore to get his attention meth. His yawning abyss of neediness is being fulfilled by having parasocial relationships with millions of strangers online who all think he's sexy and don't have to experience how fucking awful he is up close. he can flirt pointlessly with 200 people at once which is FINALLY ENOUGH FLIRTATIONS FOR HIM TO SATISFACTORILY JUGGLE
Meanwhile Louis is 3 feet away, vaguely reflecting to himself that HE is feeling all emotionally fulfilled because they're spending this great Quality Time together in perfect silence while he reads his book and Lestat plays on his cellular telephone and only OCCASIONALLY giggles to himself or says "louis which of these photos do you think is sexier, the one with four buttons undone or the one with five buttons undone" Louis is feeling like his Opinion is being Valued, Louis feels like he is being Consulted on Matters that are Important To Lestat. He has opinions about the photographs. It is not that much trouble to be interrupted from staring philosophically at the wall to spend five seconds looking at a photograph and then saying "that one". Finally he is experiencing Cozy Domesticity. he is so horny about it. lestat is surprised and bewildered about the sudden sharp increase in the amount of sex he is now getting but before he can make any vaguely mean comments about it (bc he's confused and vaguely defensive and worried that it's going to stop out of nowhere and he doesn't know any other interpersonal skills for expressing a thought) his phone pings about how he's just broken 5 million followers on instagram and he totally forgets to even mention the sex thing, which means that he continues getting the sex instead of inciting an argument about the sex and going through his 800th divorce from Louis
all their friends are extremely confused when a whole month, and then six months, and then a year goes by without another Loud Divorce happening and no one crashing through their front door like "I HAVE TO SLEEP IN YOUR GUEST COFFIN FOR THE NEXT MONTH, HE IS INTOLERABLE". They are worried. they are concerned. what is going on over there. are they both dead. no, they can't both be dead, Lestat just posted another tiktok of him sucking on his own fingers, which he would not be doing if Louis were dead. there is an ecosystem collapse happening in the groupchat and it's because the main Drama Vectors have been neutralized
In no particular order:
- The batfam have their own language of chirps, trills, tweets, and whistles, and they use it in front of other ppl (civilians, the jla, whatever) and the other ppl go “what the actual fuck”
- Bruce throwing the batarang at Jason Todd’s neck actually Does Damage™, and eventually the other members of the family find out and lose their shit
- “Hey Tim?” “Yeah?” “Where’s your fucking spleen :)” “Lost it.” “LOST IT??”
- Damian calling his brothers Akhi :)
- “How many kids do you HAVE??” -The entire Justice League
- Jason going to Titans Tower, seeing Tim, saying “is anyone gonna parent that” and then not waiting for an answer.
- Literal Toddler Tim Drake informing the Batfamily that yes he knows everyone’s identity, and really if you didn’t want people to figure it out you should stop showing off your extremely niche skills during patrols Nightwing.
- “Dude your son is a crime boss.” “Ex-crime boss :/”
- A Batfamily member hearing someone talk about their civilian identity (bc, yknow,, they’re famous) and just having to Deal With It because what the fuck else are they supposed to do??
- The Justice League hearing about Batman and assuming he (& his family) are demons or vampires or some other cryptid, and then meeting him and finding out he’s just Some Guy.
- The batfamily learning the origin of the name Robin
- The Justice League meeting the Batfamily and specifically learning who Red Hood is, and one of the heroes nervously asks “Didn’t the second Robin.. die?” and Jason just goes “yeah lol”
Edit // If ur seeing this original post by itself, I already posted a fic rec list related to these tropes :)
when shuri was crying That One Time and she said 'mommy' it fucking broke me btw. she may not be a child but she's still so YOUNG
Solidarity
Day 29: Uh-oh
Palpatine dangling from Anakin’s leg like “I know I didn’t hear what I think I just did”
it really hurts me to see so many gazans asking us for help, though that's through no fault of their own. they've been forced to use a social media site that they're probably not familiar with (because tumblr has kind of faded out of popular consciousness), to interact with us in a second language, to distinguish themselves from the scammers who are taking advantage of genocide, and to ask strangers for help. i don't think there are any cultures where it's easy to ask for help like this, but i'm intimately familiar with how humiliating it can be in arab culture. please be kind, gracious and helpful to the gazans in your inbox. this is a desperate time for them, and in addition to the physical danger inflicted by "israel", the prices of basic resources in gaza are extremely high due to scarcity, and those that manage to escape to egypt are financially exploited by landlords there and have an extremely difficult time finding work due to their unofficial status as refugees. these families will continue to need our help and i hope we can all continue to provide it to the best of our ability.
got this in my notes for my Shuri x Namor post and 😐
im a queer person... im just some aroace agender being shipping Shuri x Namor for the toxic shit and power imbalance thing that's going on their shaky alliance/relationship
I'd still ship Shuri x Namor if they're lesbians / gays bcs im here for the bullshitery that will go down in their "relationship"
queer people are also capable of loving unhinged shit... queerness isn't just sunshine & rainbow
and im literally so offended bcs ive enjoyed dead dove do not eat lgbtqia+ fandom contents. i even participate in writing dead dove do not eat gay & lesbian fics
the only reason i prefer Shuri x Namor over Shuri x Riri is bcs i love angst and i like to subject my favs (Shuri, in this case) to unimaginable (that being the pain of loving the fckr who murdered her mother & annihilate her nation, in Shuri's case)
let this queer person love a toxic het ship in peace pls being a fandom police isn't very nice
if u don't like the content, u can just not look at it ya know... the block button and blacklist option exist for a reason
to moving forward
well you can read so (I have a writing blog on here check it out @rwritingblog)
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