#figured i'd make this its own post since people are still reblogging my original post looking for it

[laceratedlamiaceae]

You should watch Faux Paws!

It's an indie movie about gay werewolves and it's on youtube. What more do you need to know?

[fannish-karmiya]

An update, sort of?

It's been ages, years? since I've posted to my tumblr. It was a mixture of getting frustrated with fandom drama, and depression over my art and writing. It's easy to say I just haven't posted long enough to build up an audience, etc, but I've had a lot of failed starts on social media with my art over the past near-decade and the lack of traction has made me reach the point of an intense, deep depression. As ironic as it is, I almost resented that people like my fanfiction; why are people reading that, but no one is interested in the art and writing I'm actually passionate about?

I love MDZS, and I enjoyed writing fic for it, but I'm far more interested in writing original stories. If I think that Jin Guangyao's background is interesting (for all that he lets himself become a monster), or have my interest captured by some of the new dramas featuring eunuchs in more diverse roles than the traditional villainous roles, I'd rather sit down and write my own story about those themes, not just hop around between fandoms.

I always tried to reblog stuff from my artist-tumblr to this one, but it never really made any difference. Anything I posted about outside of fandom metas flopped. Some people seem to be able to endure this, but I just couldn't. It hurt deeply in a way that I can't explain; every time I tried to post anything to social media, or even logged on, I was filled with this gaping hole of dread.

I do still want to upload what I have written of my fanfics; anything which I've started posting is either complete or at least halfway. I may still pick those fics up and finish them, too. Who knows.

But overall I'm so much more interested in original writing and art. Writing fanfic for MDZS was a rare event for me, because I love that novel so much that I couldn't let it go after just finishing the novel/radiodrama/donghua.

I'm writing my own novels, and am trying to figure out what the hell to do with them (self-publishing seems most practical, but also dubious for someone who has no social media skills whatsoever). I also am experimenting with a website where I am able to make much more detailed posts about my interests, though it is still in early stages.

So far, this post is the one I'm most proud of, if anyone is interested. I am deeply fascinated by shoujo manga and its history, and wrote this post trying to chronicle how the iconic art style developed. It was a huge amount work to research, write, and lay out the visual examples for this post, and I'm incredibly proud of it.

I don't really know what to say or how to end this, so...there you are.

[note-boom]

(abt ur tags on that fic rec list post) I'd love to know more gen bsd fics!!! if u don't mind pls make a list of them

OP, I hope you understand that you have unleashed a monster considering how many BSD fics I consumed. But that said, I'll try to keep it short and strictly gen for this ask, then just reblog with the rest (some do have implied ships, though). Most of them are just fluff and one-shots. And I haven't really read much fanfic recently, so most of these are my bookmarks from before I even really got into this blog and my memory on them might be shaky; generally, I either liked them because good writing, good characterization, good analysis, and/or it was just too funny/too interesting to not bookmark. Some might have Americanisms/Westernisms of things that probably don't really happen in Japan (probably?) and some might have slight character assassinations, but I don't think anything should be too gratuitously unforgivable. Also, all opinions are my own and do not reflect on either the writing or the author's original intent.

So under the cut are my absolute favourite of favourites.

Morning Light (18021 words) by FallenBrie (time loop, Atsushi character exploration, ADA!found family)

O expectations, stale and dismal airs, leave this body of mine! (20976 words) by aptlydapper (3 chapters, still my all-time favourite bsd fanfic for the writing and the concept and its execution, Chuuya joins the ADA basically but so much more than that to me)

Conundrum (23921 words) by AdmiralTDeVanto (hi, I love this AU so much, role-reversal where aku and atsu are the older figures and dazai and chuuya are the younger ones, some other au roleswaps happen but that's a surprise)

circle of praise (1898 words) by Oxalisalis (have a few by this author (love their works so much, they have some great BEAST things), basically compliment assault, ADA family, sweet and funny)

The Scent of Milk Tea (1343 words) by Sternstunde (Atsushi and Chuuya are housemates, neither is aware of the other's job, please let them meet in canon, 2 chapters and unfinished)

Reason To Live (1746 words) by Allwalkfree (time travel fic with a take on akutagawa's future character arc that left me DEAD, just...him being better than the people he was taught by okay? and him having a clearer picture of the stuff he went through etc)

hell is empty (all the devils are here) (1065 words) by Origamidragons (legit one of my FAVOURITE Gin character explorations, shoutout to the use of her character's irl short story)

in the end, you write your verse (6858 words) by Origamidragons (ADA and PM role swap and it's honestly SO GOOD that I desperately wish there was more of this (in a this fic is INCREDIBLE way, that is))

In The Choice, There's Peace (2561 words) by treetrunkdaddy (chill vibes, fic that explores Atsushi's character so nicely to me through how he copes with anger)

Mark of a Teacher (527 words) by Seito (Kunikida has been framed as a terrorist apparently and his students see the news headlines, it's hilarious and just fun)

A Study From Stripes (teach me to be loved again) (29684 words) by MidnighttWriter (beloved fic with beloved writing, Atsushi trauma exploration, might feel a little dark or emotional for bsd (in a different way, since BSD doesnt exactly shy away from being emotional or dark) but honestly beloved and SUCH a fascinating Atsushi character study to me)

would you believe me if i said i was blinded by the light? (1203 words) by elijay (half-blind Dazai real to me, but no its a really neat headcanon and that's all the fic is, which is all i wanted)

good bones (838 words) by Quintessence (I LOVE THIS SO MUCH, another Atsushi has a lot of trauma and the agency is flabbergasted)

5 Times Dazai Didn’t Understand Math And The 1 Time Kunikida Tried To Do Something About It (3746 words) by zededs (math is difficult, so is Dazai, Kunikida is stressed out, just a funny story)

how to get away with murder (10000 words) by magdalenes (11 chapters and unfinished, but it's SO SO good, the author is setting up the mystery so well, and it's basically just....detectives doing detective work but possibly also avoiding other detectives, more plotty than charactery)

what is a name (640 words) by Seito (guys, seriously, read this, im serious it has SUCH a good theory and the IMPLICATIONS of this to the larger bsd story????)

a secret for a secret (2302 words) by Oxalisalis (another of my FAVOURITE Gin fics, this author DELIVERED so well on their characterisation, slight canon divergence but perhaps not?)

But yeah. Because I somehow ended up opening over 130 tabs (that was after narrowing things down. i am so normal about BSD) for this ask, I'll just....reblog with more for those who are interested in gen fics. (It's why it took me a while, apologies.)

[neechees]

since miisagi has been a bit of a topic here lately, i'm curious about your perspective on a narrative they've been posting about lately. they've recently been reblogging/posting posts calling it ignorant for people to say israeli people should just move out of the country, because most people who participate in colonialism are disenfranchised by their original countries (used america and australia as examples) and we need to have some amount of sympathy for that. what are your thoughts on this concept? it seemed like bullshit to me at a first glance, but i figured since i'm a white descendant i should probably ask like an Actual native person for their thoughts

I'm gunna start of answering this by showing a screenshot from web-archive of vaer blog & a "before you follow list" on that blog in 2018 (& this is AFTER vae started calling vaemselves "Ojibwe"). Look at the second last bulletpoint under the "Do not follow if you are a ____" heading.

Lol. Vae have been posting some "both sides" bullshit according to my beloved Palestinian mootie, so I think it's pretty safe to say that this person is a zionist. Normally, I'd say that 2017 is quite a while ago and is a long enough time for a person to have changed, but if this person is STILL using some z*onist talking points, again I'm inclined to believe vaer position is relatively unchanged.

Now, I'm not Palestinian so I'm not going to try to tell Palestinians how to decolonize or how they should feel about settlers on THEIR land. Unlike some other people. But I think it bears reminding that this is literally what Isntreal's zionism uses as a justification for its colonial existence, and as a justification for Palestinian genocide. Isr*el has also done things such as carrying out bombings against the Iraqi Jewish population in order to encourage them to move to Isr*el in 1950-1, which worked, so it becomes this loop of "its dangerous for you there, come move here!". (And I don't mean to say that certain groups, or in this case that I provided, Jewish people, are not discriminated against to the point of fearing for their own safety as it is already, that much is true: but rather its that this colonial State will weaponize that fact and then help commit atrocities against the population it claims to want to protect in order to reinforce genocide & colonization.)

People often use the "imagine if someone went into your house and said 'this is mine now' and just kicked you out" to try help people understand how fucked up the colonization of Turtle Island was & how stupid it is that people still celebrate people like Columbus. In a lot of cases, that analogy is quite literally what is happening in Palestine. Palestinians are quite literally being kicked out of their actual houses to make way for settlers.

So vaer literally just parroting colonial talking points, and given the screenshot above I am not inclined to give vaem the benefit of doubt. If anything this kind of shows me vae have DEFINITELY spent a good chunk of vaer life as a White person because the irony of defending the existence and settlement of one colonial, genocidal state (Isntreal) but not another (the "Americas"), despite the fact that the EXACT same tactics for genocide & colonization have been used in both, while claiming to be "Indigenous" to the latter and talking about Indigenous rights & issues that vae may not even have had to live through is just. Too much. The richness of calling OTHER people "ignorant" is red velvet rich.

[sexcromancy]

what's the deal with john darnielle /gen

ah I figured I would one day get this kind of ask bc I do vague post about it a lot. and sorry if I made anyone paranoid w that I'm only ever like. exorcising my own feelings. that being said, what I'm gonna describe is completely my own experience, I have no expectation or desire for this to become any sort of call out or whatever. I'm making this post unrebloggable for that reason.

in September of 2018 a tumblr user who has since deactivated (and who I did not know personally or follow) made this post in which they described a long and difficult interpersonal relationship they'd had with jd, in which the op felt manipulated and uncomfortable. you can't access the read more bc they op deactivated, but there's someone in the reblogs who reposted the entirety of what was under the cut. there's also a lot of people being nasty to op in the replies and reblogs. I have no interest in relitigating the discourse that followed. tmg tumblr was, at the time, comparatively tiny, but it got pretty ugly on twitter and reddit. I did not follow all of that. I know other fans talked about similar experiences (also detailed in reblogs I think).

entirely separately, I had just been through one of the hardest seasons of my life, and in fact, on the day I read this post, I had just torn my acl. I also had concert tickets for a tmg show the upcoming weekend. I cried for a long time after reading that post (also bc my leg hurt) and I had absolutely no idea how to feel. I had been a tmg fan for 7+ years at that point; like many other fans, their songs were hugely emotionally important to me and helped me get through a lot. and I felt the kind of intense parasocial connection to jd that op described as the origin point of their relationship, which scared me a lot. I have been through many phases of grief over this, and I spent a longgggggg time in straight up anger, at jd for the way he treated these fans, at myself for getting caught up in what I could now see was an extreme fan mentality, at the music for still meaning an enormous amount to me. I'm not gonna call tmg fandom (at the time) a cult, but I do think there is/was a kind of cult worship mentality surrounding the music and especially jd, which is also tied up with his own experiences with christianity and religion, and just generally this belief that the music can save our lives. he often says we saved our own lives, he was just the soundtrack. in my own journey with suicidality I've found that the rhetoric of having saved my life (past tense) actually positions me to fall even further the next time. I also went through a period of questioning the masochistic relationship i had with a lot of the songs that are about being a monster/being unforgivable/not deserving existence. those are just some of the many evolutions of my grief I've experienced over the past 5 years.

its all really messy and gnarly and big to me, and I have no way of knowing if i would've come to these conclusions if I'd never seen that post. a lot of tmg songs still mean a lot to me and I think they will forever. mostly I think the whole thing was a catalyst for me thinking differently about my relationship to the music and jd as a figure, and that thinking has been through many subsequent evolutions which can to some extent be tracked backwards through my tmg tag. thanks for asking, and again, I have no expectation that anyone else will change their position based on my experience.

[cidthesquid]

The origin of this account! Answering Questions+ Quick Update 03/26/24

Quick Update 03/26/24 + The origin of this account!

Hello all, It's been a while since my last post, so I figured I'd post a short update regarding new content.

In short I'll continue to update this blog when something of note happens in Style Savvy Trend setters, but it's still been pretty quiet/slow, and with FF7:Rebirth out soon, my progress will be slow. ---

Also, I'd like to take some time to respond to a few questions that were sent in. For some reason, I can't see my question inbox, so I'll just be making a short reply based on what showed up in the email preview.

Since, I'm not sure if this person is comfortable with me sharing their name, So we'll just call them 'sender', and I'll 'find and replace' it later if they're okay with me sharing it.

Anyways, 'sender' mentioned that they have a two-week wait before they can post comments. I did not know tumbler had a wait system like that. I'm still fairly new here.

From what I've seen 'like' and 'reblogs' are the most common forms of interactions, so comments are pretty rare, (Fairly different from other social media.)

I've actually been a bit hesitant to comment on others posts because of this. (don't want to rock the boat) But anyone is free to comment here, and I'm open to constructive criticism as well. So if you have an idea of how an outfit could look better (in the style I'm going for) feel free to let me know!

---

'Sender' Also mentioned various setups I could use to make playing ' MODEL Debut 3' easier. Holding up my phone to my pc screen was very uncomfortable, so their suggestion of using a phone tripod setup would have helped a lot, if I go back to the game, I'll give it a shot!

---

'Senders' Third message mentioned how they'd been enjoying reading through the content I'd been posting, including both the game commentary, and the sections that tied it into some of my related personal stories.

And that really meant a lot to me, I honestly considered just switching to 'Outfit of the day' style posts, as in a comment-lite platform like this, it was hard to see what from the content people enjoyed most.

This is why I started front-loading a lot of the outfit pics, After posting them, I'd add a line or two about what happened that day (in-game) as a quick summary, then I'd say "hmm, maybe I should explain a little more about thought process behind the outfit", followed by "ok, but wow, X was done way better (or worse) here compared to Fashion Forward", and next thing I knew hour and hour had passed, XD

As for the little personal stories and connections to my experiences with fashion, and why these games mean so much to me, that has its own story behind it, (buckle up!)

---- /!\ Caution: End of blog updates, Mostly unedited Ramblings beyond this point /!\

The short version is, a few years back I was looking for a way to try to practice being more social, and open about stuff. Normally people would just post online to do that, but I'd been using the same online name since high school, so most the people I knew IRL new it, and it was used on all my social media/online games.

And as it was prime covid time, everyone I knew irl was at home on social media, so any post on my normal social media would likely actively promoted to the people, who I did not really want to see it.

So I figured a 'fresh slate' would be the best way to practice being more social, without having to worry about what people thought about me!

It sounds kinda crazy now, but I ended up making a new discord twitter, reddit and steam account, tumbler was honestly just an afterthought, as I hardly ever used my main tumblr.

So I played some online game, joined some discord groups, and followed and messaged people on twitter…

…and after the first year, I was borderline right back where I was before. Still second guessing everything I post, leaving tons of replies in the drafts, and while I had 'mutuals', there were just other people I followed so I could get more of the content I already enjoyed, there was no real connection outside of a quick reply here or there.

I spent so much time thinking "oh I'm just not comfortable with these IRL people", that simply having a new 'pool' of people to interact with would fix all my social issues, and while I did feel a little more comfortable talking about a wider range of topics with these new people, I'd still feel held back in many of the same was as before.

Every action had to be fueled by multiple layers of second guessing.

"I like this art, I should tell them…well they probably already hear that all the time, it won't matter" "I Also like the thing they're talking about, but they're WAY more interested, so I can't really add much to the conversation" "I really like that outfit/artwork, but it is a tiny bit suggestive, so would that sound creepy coming from a guy?"

…and much more. Addintally, when I often have trouble wording things in a natural sounding way, I'd have to worry about not just 'what' I said but "how I said it" And with multiple questions behind each action, just like with my main account, I just stopped interacting.

And it really took a lot of positive exposure to situations for me to be able to see, sometimes the intent matters almost as much (or sometimes more) than wording.

I've already gone into details on the process here, and in my reddit post prior to posting on tumblr.

But in short, playing in the fantastic Final Fantasy XIV community, gave me a lot of great places to experience this.

You could get carried through a dungeon by a tank that only speaks in the 3rd person, or get great healing from a cat girl, who's every single message contains at least one cat-related pun.

How they presented that help, did not matter, it's the fact that they were willing to help. And you could also look however you wanted, Even if that meant you were protected by a 2.5' very angry munchkin of a tank, people would just roll with it.

Style Savvy was just as helpful, I may never understand modern fashion or trends, But if someone comes into my shop asking to look a specific way, I get to help them achieve their ideal image!

I got to explore a small section of the fashion world, without having to worry about "well, technically that's out of season" or "ooh, that was IN last year, but now it's OUT", or "Why am I dressing this person that way, what would they really want?"

I just got to have fun living in my own little fashion cubbyhole, a comfortable little cutout with only the parts I enjoy.

And Fashion Forward had such a big impact on me, I just really had to share it, so I made the above reddit post, I kept playing and kept enjoying the game, and started sharing my thoughts here as well, as it's much better for images than Reddit.

And just like with playing the games, over time I started sharing more of my thoughts, and eventually explaining "why" I felt specific ways about some parts, it felt fairly uncomfortable at first, but I remember just telling myself, "It's still topical, and if they've gotten this far, they kinda know what there getting into",

My main concern was not making anyone uncomfortable, or upset

but still trying to be open, and I think I've managed to strike a fair balance. As in general, I want this blog to be more about my adventure with fashion, rather than simply sharing screenshots, or just me venting. And even if a majority of people are here for the screenshots, it still means a lot that others are interested in my content!

---

Anyways you all for reading, hopefully this little look inside the creation of the channel was insightful! (I have to head start work, but I'll do a quick edit pass later) I still have a long ways to go when it comes to 'social improvements' , but I feel I've made a ton of progress in the last year or so. These games have helped far more than my 'dramatic social media change', and now I'm getting some external support to manage as well!

And while I won't yet be providing exact details of my situation, Questions and comments are always open!

[angstandhappiness]

Interesting

@bardock1991 I'd like to think that Yang has the "Scars are prove that I'm still alive & are a sign of pride" mentality, while Adam & Ironwood have the mentality that Scars are a sign of weakness & must he covered at all times. Stuff like this is why i love this series, this is subtle storytelling at its finest! The dualities of this show are so powerful, i love it!

@bardock1991  Which is ironic since most HTDM assholes themselves are Abelists, looking at you Adel Aka!

@lore-of-the-silvereyes-rwby I think I have talked about this and I wanted to talk about again but honestly this sums up just how much of Ironwood's nihilism insecurities narcissism and megalomania have really screwed him over and instead of learning and accepting his flaws to improve himself he only covers them to save face and maintain his screwed up perspective of himself as this perfect hero that can do no wrong making him make things worse for the people around him just because he wants to be the center of attention These are my thoughts but let me know what you think?

@bardock1991  I've already shared my thoughts in an earlier reblog, so i don't think it bears repeating just yet. I certainly agree with you, though & it's definitely something that you don't usually take note of on a first watch, i love when stuff like that happens since you're rewarded by paying attention to the smaller details of the show & its characters

@matrixdragon  #dammit james#military dumpster fire

@italeteller  I imagine, even with all of Atlas' technology, amputating a limb and attaching a prosthetic still leaves the user in a lot of pain for a good while So there's a good change Ironwood spent the entire volume 8 high off his tits on painkillers #I'm sorry I know this is a serious post#but I've been thinking this since V8 aired

@crimson-caracal  #I cant describe how much I love this post  #Just#Please keep being this passionate#Cause holy shit you just unloaded so much I originally overlooked

@xaykwolf  #This Blog Is A Cherish-Yang-Forever-And-Always Blog Make No Mistake#Also That's A Really Good Point Vis-A-Vis How Ironwood May Have Come To Have The Amount Of Prosthesis We Saw In V3...

@herebeminis  #you're right and you should say it

@thesheepwhocriedwolf yang also took time for her wounds to heal before she put the arm on too. Which this also makes the realization of WHY ironwood immediately had an arm made for Yang (unless that was Pietro who did it and ironwood took the credit which also tracks) that much more interesting. 

@imma-dragon53  #there was no real reason for him to cut off that arm#sure it would take time to heal#plus therapy because a bet there was some nerve damage#but it would heal#yang didn’t have an option. her arm was straight up GONE

@foulbearobservation  #oh interesting analysis#rwby meta#I also think this informs why Winter goes out to fight again after she's so clearly fucked up from cinder#like she's held together by little more than a brace and clearly needs bed rest but still goes back out#I think ironwood really informed this sense of duty and reckless abandon with her own body#she's held together by spite and duck tape and still she goes!#anyway what I'm saying is ironwood being a father figure to winter fucked up her own anatomy#in ways that really echo what he did to himself#the sins of the father etc etc

@ladditt my bet is on “intentional dramatic thumb tacks” what’s worse than a man with the best of intentions failing  to his worst traits of paranoia and authoritarianism just as the city he sacrificed everything for needed him most? if it all happened just when he as learning to be better.it can be both, it was a heroic moment where he was SO CLOSE to becoming the competent caring leader we all wanted him to be, but it was still a metaphor to his true nature.

@bmblboop  #the only good ‘Tinman’ allusion and analysis#in-show meta#ironwood critical#James ‘it’s just an arm’ Ironwood#he’s still a good character#the writers know he’s a good character#it was clear to me from V8C1 that that is what happened - he has to get back in the field pronto so he got a bone-and-tendons open format#and jumped right back into the action

@wyvernseeker Honestly, this makes me think about what happened with Zuko at the end of Season 2 of ATLA, both him and Ironwood being so close to learning the lessons they should learn, only for the two of them to give into their worst vices and traits and think they should keep with their previously scheduled broadcasting. No, strike that- keep with previously scheduled broadcasting and dismiss any and all sorts of advice from others. Ultimately, Zuko bothered to realize where he went wrong and change things for the next season whereas Ironwood... didn't and ultimately got the kingdom and possibly even himself canceled. 

@roses-are-not-always-red    #idk#isn’t ironwood supposed to mirror the tin man where he has to gain his heart back? #like maybe he’ll hit a point where after he replaces so much of himself that he realizes how far he’s gone#idk though

@maripr  #when people sayjng criticizing James and Ironwood is ABLEIST#while Yang is RIGHT THERE

@crimson-caracal People are saying this post is filled with ableism when it's not the first time cybernetics are used to show withering humanity. A great example is General Grievous and Darth Vader. People gotta step away from the pc sometimes or at least switch a tab and check out peeps who live life with a mechanical arm or leg. The technology behind those prosthetics are so fucking cool. Example here; https://youtu.be/aQfVZnuJyvk Just copy and paste it in a tab. Anyway, it would be awesome if prosthetics were easier and cheaper to obtain. I live in Regina, and there are alot of homeless missing limbs (Usually from gangs from machete use.) Anyway, keep making posts, your content is enriching! @anthurak

@rainbowninjaprincess1 This is so smart and it's got me thinking

@phazonfire This is the inverse to Mercury not necessarily going out of his way to hide his prosthetics but absolutely owning them and using them for evil like when he fucked Yang over at Amity. Interesting approach

@caelin-2020 It's also important to note that it was Ironwood that sent Yang her prosthetic in the first place

@merrytimemouse @thesheepwhocriedwolf I don’t think it’d make any sense for Pietro to have came up with the idea, I don’t think yang’s injury was something people just knew about and  @hivemind42 what? Did they ever say that this was not a head canon? This is their interpretation of what happened And I don’t see this as hating ironwood, I think this theory makes him more interesting

@overlord-flinx That’s sort of his entire character. Efficiency at whatever cost. He quickens recovery by replacing it with more machinery that he knows will work, he puts Winter in what is essentially an advanced mobility harness so she can keep working even after her fight, and he moves to murder one of his top agents the second he disagrees. James doesn’t suffer delays if he has a word about it; all the more so after he hardens his heart.

@shipandrunforit I don’t really get why hiding scars makes you weak. People can hide scars bc they want to project an image or bc they don’t want others to know about them but that doesn’t make someone weak. Also Yang having her prosthetic being visible and bright is something that just feels in character for her since she’s always been bold and out there, her doing this is just her going back to the person she was before she lost her arm.

@thegirlwholovespines  #this is brilliant#i think this is a very deep analysis and I admire it

@shark-pup   #how did this post get better

@wyvernseeker Ironwood's arm may have been badly burned, but it wasn’t unsalvageable. And honestly, using his mechanical arm to destroy the rings was possible, as someone else pointed out.

One particularly interesting detail I haven’t seen many people talking about is the fact that Ironwood has a prosthetic left arm at the start of Volume 8.

I mean, think about the implications here. Ironwood’s arm was badly injured in his fight with Watts, but it’s not like he actually LOST the arm.

It seriously looks like that in the scant few hours between the end of Volume 7 and the start of Volume 8, Ironwood decided that he wasn’t going to wait for his arm to heal and simply amputated it and had it replaced with another prosthetic.

Ironwood didn’t lose his left arm due to battle or self-sacrifice. He lost it due to his own impatience.

Now in the moment of Volume 8, this is a pretty stark indicator of Ironwood’s villainous turn and how much he’s started dehumanizing those around him. He’s flat out dehumanizing himself.

But in the broader context of Ironwood’s character, I really have to wonder: Is this even the FIRST time Ironwood has done this? Replace part of his body with machinery not out of necessity but out of convenience?

Looking at this turn from Ironwood in hindsight with the massive, Robocop-esque cyberization we see in Volume 3, I wonder how many of those numerous prosthetics were actually the result of horrific, crippling injuries, and how many were the result of Ironwood simply not have the patience for his injuries to heal?

How many times do you think Ironwood was laid up in a hospital bed after being injured in battle, hearing a doctor explain that his wounds would heal, but he would need to stay in bed or physical therapy for a few months, weeks or even days. And Ironwood deciding that it would be faster and easier if he simply had the injured parts replaced with prosthetics. Maybe because he ‘can’t afford to stay away from work for that long’ or ‘can’t appear weak in front of his troops’ or simply refuses to feel weak by laying in a hospital bed for weeks or even just days. And to him, those parts of himself are just flesh and blood. What’s the problem with just replacing them?

Again, it can all serve to reinforce how Ironwood’s villainous turn was a long time in the making. If he can dehumanize himself so easily, is it any wonder he winds up doing the same to tens of thousands of people?

And the great irony of all this is that despite how much Ironwood may have replaced his body with machines, he still clearly feels great shame about those prosthetics at some level. Just look at his choice of clothing and how he’s always trying to hide his prosthetics with long sleeves and even gloves. It’s really one of the many ways Ironwood winds up being quite similar to Adam.

Despite how important Adam’s scar is to his motivation to avenge the injustices humans have perpetrated on faunus (and more importantly, HIMSELF), Adam still does his best to HIDE that scar under masks and blindfolds. Both Ironwood and Adam are men desperate to project an image of strength, so they are deeply ashamed of the scars and wounds that they believe make them appear weak.

Which of course, contrasts perfectly with Yang and how she wears her prosthetic arm openly. Heck, Yang even painted her new arm to make it stand out even more. Even when Yang was wearing detached sleeves in Volumes 5 and 6 that partially covered her right arm, she still clearly had no issue showing that arm off. And of course, Yang’s Atlas-arc redesign doesn’t try to hide her arm at all.

While Ironwood clearly tries to hide his prosthetics away Yang wears hers openly with pride.