#Blake probably didn't think Ilia liked her in that way and had feelings for her but abandoned the idea to not ruin their friendship

[rixx-z]

I like to think if Blake realized that Ilia had feelings for her sooner she would have dated her

[waheelawhisperer]

Every so often, I hear people say that Adam Taurus was wasted potential, and I am of two minds about this. While I certainly don't think he needed to be the morally gray revolutionary certain segments of the fandom insist that he was before the evil writers ruined him, I do think he (or, perhaps more accurately, the White Fang plotline as a whole) represents a missed opportunity - namely, he has no connection to Weiss whatsoever.

The conflict between the White Fang and the Schnee family/SDC is central to Weiss and Blake's dynamic in the early Volumes. They first fall out when Weiss reveals her racist attitudes at the end of Volume 1. During this story arc, we learn through Blake how the rest of the world (and Weiss's family/family company in particular) treat the Faunus, why Blake felt violence was the only solution left to her if she wanted to obtain equality, and we learn the effects that violence had on Weiss - the White Fang killed people she knew on a personal level, and her father took his frustrations out on her family. The end of Volume 1 establishes Weiss as an important component of the White Fang storyline and establishes the White Fang as an important part of Weiss's personal narrative.

Other parts of the early Volumes support this: Blake's first interaction with Weiss is dunking on her family company, Lieutenant Banesaw expresses pleasure at the thought of killing a Schnee, Roman Torchwick riles up a crowd, Weiss's big goal is to redeem her family name, etc. and we get more evidence in Volumes 4 and 5, where we see what Jacques is like in person and learn that Ilia lost her parents in a mining accident. All of this is setting up Weiss to be important to the resolution of the White Fang plotline, and yet she never really feels connected to it after Volume 3 at the absolute latest. She gets over her racism with minimal struggle, no one ever bothers mentioning it again (because that plot is done and it's on to the Next Cool Thing), and she and Blake eventually become comfortable enough with each other that Blake casually roasts her.

The reason (or one of the reasons, at least) Weiss feels so disconnected from the White Fang plotline is because Adam is the primary representative of the White Fang we see on screen, and Adam does not give a shit about the White Fang except as an instrument of his own will and power and vengeance, a tool which he can wield to make the world hurt the way it hurt him, something he can use to repay real and imagined slights tenfold.

I always find it funny when people say that making him abusive and self-centered violates his established characterization when:

A) He'd been on screen for like 5 minutes at that point and didn't have much characterization to contradict to begin with.

B) His literal first appearance involves him expressing his willingness to harm innocent people who were just doing their jobs (unless you think everyone who works for a crappy company is complicit in that company's misdeeds, but we see no indication that the workers on the train were doing anything more morally reprehensible than earning a paycheck).

C) His next appearance involves him showing up after one of Cinder's operations cost some of his subordinates their lives and got others arrested, showing no concern for any of them, and confirming that he'll ensure any dissidents fall in line.

D) The only scene that could potentially support the interpretation of Adam as someone that actually cares about Faunus rights takes place when he can't afford to lose face in front of his men. Considering everything else he does during his time as part of the story, it seems pretty clear that he's just posturing in order to maintain the loyalty of his troops.

The Adam his fans want to exist was probably real at one point, sometime long, long ago. He probably did care at one point, given that he was apparently willing to follow Ghira's lead until Sienna encouraged him to employ violence more readily, he started receiving accolades for his ability to kill people, and his newfound standing in a White Fang that was turning more openly to violence in general went to his head, but that Adam was long gone by the time he started playing a major role in the story. By the time Adam mattered to the narrative, everything was about him, not the cause.

On the one hand, making it so that Adam never interacts with Weiss is an interesting way to demonstrate how small and petty and selfish he is, how everything in his life is about how it affects him personally. He doesn't go after Weiss because she's less important to him than Blake and Yang, who (he thinks) hurt him more recently and threaten his power. The Schnees don't matter to him the way they do to his subordinates, even though he has an SDC brand on his face, because all Adam wants to do is hurt someone, anyone, the way the world hurt him. He's happy to attack the Huntsman Academies despite those not exactly being the fountains of injustice that plague the world of Remnant because they happen to be convenient targets that his allies are giving him the power to destroy. He's lashing out at whoever and whatever he can. Weiss doesn't matter. The SDC doesn't matter. Equality doesn't matter. Salem's targets or the consequences of attacking them don't matter. All that matters is Blake, who defied his power over her and made him feel weak. He targets her parents and maims Yang to hurt her. She's his priority even when he's in control of the White Fang. Even Yang only matters to him because she represents a threat to his control over, his ownership of, Blake. Ultimately, it's not even about Blake, it's about Adam's need to be powerful and in control.

On the other hand, Weiss is inextricably intertwined with the White Fang storyline and Adam is its primary representative, which means those narrative threads should've gone somewhere. The closest Weiss ever gets to confronting her family's complicity in the oppression the Faunus labor under is her conflict with Blake. She doesn't get a meaningful confrontation with any member of the White Fang besides a background character who mostly existed to give her someone to lose a fight to and her own teammate, who had already left the organization. The other side of that storyline, her connection to the SDC, fizzles out when her mother hands her the evidence she needs to get her father arrested with minimal effort and Ambrosius casts Meteor using Atlas as the projectile.

This is one of many reasons I hate the way they killed Sienna Khan off the way they did. If she'd survived, if Adam's faction had been a splinter group in truth, we could've positioned Sienna as the member of the White Fang with the conflict with Weiss and Adam as a more personal antagonist for Yang and Blake. We could've had Weiss express the frustration Sienna's White Fang caused her and given Sienna the chance to air her very legitimate grievances with the Schnee family, call Weiss a spoiled child, and all the other good stuff that comes with their ideological conflict. Give Weiss a real good look at who her family's hurt, let her come to terms with the damage Jacques caused to people outside her immediate circle, make her desire to redeem her family name mean something by showing her exactly what the world thinks of it. Hell, let her talk to Ilia. They had the chance for that, she was literally right there at the start of Volume 6, but I'm pretty sure by that point they were trying to close off the White Fang plotline as quickly as possible. I'm pretty sure the writers have never really been comfortable writing the fantasy racism storyline, which is a shame because I think it could've been really good if they'd knuckled down, done their research, and really engaged with it. Unfortunately, they didn't, and we switched gears to Salem on top of that and everything else kind of fell by the wayside.

Do I think RWBY could've told a good story if Adam really had been the morally gray revolutionary, the badass antihero, that certain people seem to think he either was or should've been? Honestly, yeah, it's not like that character archetype hasn't proven successful before, and edgy weeby characters can absolutely work, but also, like, I don't think RWBY needed to go that route, nor do I think it would have been significantly better if it had. Can't say I'm super thrilled about the decision to give Adam a brand on his face and then just... never really engage with that or acknowledge that literally being marked like livestock suddenly made him a lot more sympathetic and had implications for the worldbuilding, but overall I'm pretty fine with how they handled him.

In conclusion, goatman a bitch.

[thelastbraincellofthehive]

And we're back for V4! Honestly, I'm making it through more than I thought I would. I was sure I was gonna bail after 2 lol.

Anyways, the new engine was really a breath of fresh air for this volume, and it's impressive how much animation is still getting better every volume<3 RWBY makes me proud in a way no other show or just thing has ever done. I just wish it wouldn't hurt so bad lol.

Anyways, time for random thoughts!

I gotta go ahead and say that V4-6 is my favorite outfit for Blake. The pirate vibes on her are *chef kiss* and I'm just in love with her white coat RIP the coat, another good thing Adam ruined *sighs*

God, the yearning separated bees are so angsty <3 I love it, the payoff will be so great.

God, Sun was so annoying this volume, poor boy has a good heart but definitely is too eager for Blake to match him and things get aaaaaawkward lol I'm happy the managed to get into an understanding by next volume tho, Blake needed him, I can see that now.

It's so interesting to hear all the bits of story we get to learn each volume and how eventually it all falls apart with Jinn's story in v6. I don't blame Qrow for how hard he took it, poor man has been through a lot, and he really believed in Ozpin through it all.

I loooove the tale of the two brother's animation style<3 it's one of my favorite parts of the season.

The ship captain is another favorite part lol I don't know, I just think he's neat. Wouldn't be opposed yo seeing more of him.

Ilia <3 Love of my life, best lesbian Chameleon girl <3 good how I miss you!

Again, when is Ilia coming back so she can finally meet and fall in love with Weiss?? RT is homofobic to keep these two apart! /Jk

But seriously they are fuckin' perfect for eachother I won't get tired of saying it. Schnee x Faunus? Both sides of the Atlas/Mantle coin? Rainbow x white? Trying to live their families legacy without letting it consume them? What's not to like?

Ahem, anyways. The Kuroyuri arc had me biting my freaking nails. Seriously after v3 I was so sure someone was going to die!

Remember that couple days we were all terrified of the nuckelavee and then someone compared it to the wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tubeman and since then we just laugh about him? Lol this Is why I love this fandom.

Maya Zwei <3

I can't imagine how horrible it was for the girls all that time we didn't get to see in between volumes. Weiss being completely alone in Atlas, with no way to know if Yang and Ruby had gotten better, just knowing that Blake had ran into the night. Blake wondering everyday if Yang was thinking about her, so sure that she was hated, heating herself too much to ask for help or just company... Ruby missing the friends she had come to trust so wholeheartedly and seeing her big sister broken and depressed and not knowing what to do because Yang had never been nothing but bright and strong and perfect. Yang looking at books and thinking of Blake and wanting to hate her because it would be so much easier. And that's not even counting all of them mourning Pyrrha and Penny and everything they lost in the blink of an eye.

On that note, Ruby's outfit for this arc paying homage to both Penny and Pyrrha still hurts me so much</3 this is also probably my favorite outfit of her, thought her Atlas outfit is quite good too.

The moment we learn that Blake is practically a Princess lol I love it, I love seeing reactors get to that part.

But honestly my favorite part to see reactors will always be Taiyang's 'lost a couple braincells along with that arm' joke lol honestly I hate that joke, but the sheet shock on everyone's faces is just epic lol.

Honestly I feel I've slept on Yang's v4 outfit btw. Yeah, her final/v5-6 outfit is extremely badass and I love it, but the sweats + orange tanktop looks so good on her??? Honestly this was the first volume I looked at Yang and was atracted to her lol.

So yeah Yang please join the line of women who could step on me and I'd thank them.

Also: *puts Ilia there too*

Specially once she paints her arm yellow <3 I stan by my previous statement that Yang looks so much better with her new arm. It feels like her design is finally complete.

V4 villains really, really make me miss v1-3 villains lol. I'm sorry, but I just think Hazel and Watts are unninteresting (aside from the Emm-Hazel plot but I only like it because Emmerald) and while I find Tyrian kinda funny because he's an obvious theater kid lol it was not enough to put team WTCH in my good graces after getting rid of my two faves from team CRMNE lol. Also, Cinder being too hurt to cause chaos was a negative</3 I loved sassy overconfident world destroyer Cinder.

It is also extremely painful for me to watch Cinder slowly dig her own grave after seeing her backstory. I always had a soft spot for Cinder and that really made it worse.

Baby Nora and Ren<3 good they were cute! And god did the timeskip did them good lol this is also my favorite Nora outfit <3 she looks amazing.

That moment in Kuroyuri when baby Ren gives Nora the hammer while boop play in the background? I tear up every fucking time. It's literally imposible not to love them together, just as It was literally imposible for Nora to not fall for him <3 my babies

Qrow being bandaged over his clothes while injures will never not be funny to me lol oh, the joys of working with 3D models!

Weiss learning to summon <3 also just... Weiss <3 She's the best. This volume wasn't kind on her, but she rose to the challenge and got so far!!

Also, can I just say that I feel Whitley... Is what people thinks Draco Malfoy Is? Like... I always remembered Draco while watching Whitley, but Whitley is an actually cool character as you get to know him, while Draco just... disapointed me. He's also my baby and I demand him to be protected.

Seeing Raven oficially was one of my favorite parts of the volume <3 She's a bitch, she's the worst, I love her so much!!!!

Again with the controversial and refuted headcanon... Qrow getting a song that includes the line 'you don't want the burden of my name', talking to Ruby about how his semblance makes things hard on family... That delirious 'Tai, she's not coming back' while poisoned... Seriously it would've made so much sence if Ruby was his daughter lol. At this point it's just hilarious.

The Jaune - Ruby moment in Kuroyuri </3 seriously give these poor kids therapy, they need it.

This Is the only volume where I actually have a score saved on my Spotify playlist: the first part of The next step where you can hear the music box version of Divide. I would pay for a full of that song <3 I adore creepy music box covers.

The way Blake's voice breaks when she finally says Yang's name? I'm ok, I swear! I'm not.

If you didn't cry during Ruby's letter scene... You're lying!! It's not possible to not cry! Specially with Home in the background. Home is another special song to me, it was one of the first ones I memorised back when my english wasn't great <3

That part when Ruby talks about people who are still lost and people who wants to take advantage of them and it shows Ilia with the Albains? I loved it, that's why I never doubted of my girl<3

And so it became the long journey to have Winter back... I remember how annoyed I was during all of v4-5 that we never got to see her outside of the Weiss trailer lol you don't just introduce a character like Winter for two episodes and then take it away like that RT! I say, as if I didn't knew v5 at all lol

I'm still curious about Tyrian and the fact that he apparently couldn't fight while Qrow didn't have his Sword/Scythe? Did we ever got a reason for that yet?

I think that's all that comes to mind right now lol also, I watched the v5 trailers and I just had to say how much I love them <3 Blake's probably my favorite, but they were all great!

O better keep watching now lol I gotta watch as much as I can before saturday!

[smokestarrules]

Heya! What would you say your favorite rwby songs are from the rwby soundtrack? Hope you're having a good day!

ooooooooooh... I'm going to spend entirely too much time on this ask, but I don't care because it's going to be fun. I'll give myself two favorites from each Volume, I think? So I don't ramble on for-fucking-ever. Onwards!

(Also consider every intro song as one of my favorites as well, because it's true.)

Volume 1:

I May Fall. The amount of foreshadowing in this song is insane and the fact that it's in the v1 soundtrack is laughable. Notably, it of course does have a hopeful message, but man... they had no idea what was comin', huh?

Red Like Rose, Pt. 2. Of course. The first little hint we see of especially Ruby's flawed coping mechanisms, and to have a song about Summer, like, ten years before she actually appears in the show is insane. It's a banger, and the lyrics "I made a sacrifice but forced a bigger sacrifice on you" is just!!!!!!! You know?

(Runner-up: Wings. You cannot convince me it's not the very first Bumbleby song.)

Volume 2:

Die. I guess I just really like dark songs from the earlier volumes; this one's just fun, and it does well to set up the Bad Times (tm) that are coming with v3. If you thought everything was fine and happy during the first two volumes, just check out the soundtrack. It didn't just come out of nowhere.

Sacrifice. Continuing on with the theme, I guess. I'm also a known Cinder Fan, so this as part of her theme is just... really, really cool. Again, some serious foreshadowing. The chorus for this one is really good; just again a super fun song to listen to.

(Runner-up: Boop. Banger.)

Volume 3:

It's My Turn. Fav Weiss song, maybe? Certainly one of the best ones. Sets the stage for Weiss' feelings considering her family that comes up in this volume and the next ones, and it helps that this song plays during the first arena fight with Team RWBY, which is a bomb-ass scene.

Divide. PEAK villain song, and I mean peak victorious villain song. The goal to split up the protagonists isn't exactly a rare thing, but the fact that it works... this entire song is just a kick to the face; they've already lost, and now they're having to hear about it. Divide them, and that's already happened. It's a fucking fantastic song. One of my favorites overall, I think, not just from v3.

(Runner-up: Mirror, Mirror, Pt. 2. Weiss gets a lot of great ones.)

Volume 4:

Like Morning Follows Night. Bit of an expected choice, probably, but this song is just too damn good. I really love the argument in the beginning between Blake and Sun, and it's just... god, it's good. Blake songs are always incredible.

Armed and Ready. I mean, of course. Yang's Getting Back Up moment, Bees crumbs, the incredible way the tone of this one changes from fear to determination?? Fantastic. Also, the title being a pun is just... yeah. It's so good.

(Runner-up: Bmblb, because of course. Also, holy fuck this volume was hard. V4's soundtrack is stacked.)

Volume 5:

Smile. Ilia! Love Ilia. Love this song. It has one of my favorite rhythms in RWBY, and man, the amount of character backstory that we get from it is crazy. It's not a backstory you really need to know if you don't listen, but it's nice to hear nonetheless. Ilia beloved <3

This Time. Like I said: Blake songs are always incredible. Blake and her papa!!! Making a better world for the Faunus!!! Just really love the implications of this song, of Ghira and Blake side-by-side as they rally the rest of Menagerie. Really cool.

(Runner up: All That Matters. The yearning, my god. Yang is down bad and she's going to make it everyone else's problem.)

Volume 6:

Miracle. A lingering darkness from v5; they're not at all in a great place by the beginning of v6, but they're still fighting! Another one of my actual favorites overall, it's just a banger.

Nevermore. A Blake and Yang duet that explicitly details how they're feeling when they stab Adam??? That's one of the best concepts I've ever heard, and it's insane. This one is also a bit nostalgic; I watched RWBY after v6 stopped airing but before the soundtrack had dropped, and I specifically remember jamming out to Nevermore the day it was released. Peak romance, actually.

(Runner-up: Indomitable. Still makes me want to cry. Singlehandedly one of the most powerful songs, I think.)

Volume 7:

Touch the Sky. Blake song!! Blake song where she's happy! Blake song where she talks about finally feeling like herself again!!! What the fuck!!!! This one gets me so emotional every time. She's healed.

War. Complete opposite vibes of the last, but still cool as hell. The fact that they got four different voices in this one to play as RWBY is incredible, and my god is it a banger. Betrayal vibes, obviously, but like, looking down your nose at the person who turned their back on you. Super cool.

(Runner-up: Brand New Day. Another happy one!! God... we had no idea how good v7 was being to us.)

Volume 8:

Treasure. Oh, you thought v5's All That Matters was peak yearning? You were wrong! Blake's pining knocks Yang's out of the park, especially considering they're apart in this volume for like, three days maximum. Blake is in love and she's going to make it everyone else's (Weiss') problem.

Friend. I mean... what can I say about this song? RWBY's not exactly short on "mourning this person" music, but the fact that this one is explicitly cheery... it's just. Wow. It's Penny in a nutshell, and while it's still devastating, it's also, like. Celebrating her life. Celebrating what she did get to have, rather than grieving that she won't get to have more. It's really, really good, and the song itself is fantastic.

(Runner-up: Be Strong and Hit Stuff. Nora themes! Emerald themes! And what a catchy chorus!)

Overall, thanks for this ask, I had way too much fun with it. Sorry for how long it got lmfao, I have Opinions about this show. I don't think there's a single song I actively dislike, though of course I've got my less favorites. Hope you enjoyed my madness :)

[itsclydebitches]

Wait what was the mess with Ilia/queer representation? I don't usually look into these things so I probably didn't hear or see people talking about it

Happy to explain! First, the obligatory disclaimer: Ilia is a complicated case and, like anything else in RWBY, her place in the show is very much up to interpretation. I think her character arc, particularly in relation to her status as a queer character, is an absolute mess but I know others are of the opposite opinion. Many of the “flaws” I point out are perceived as her greatest strengths. So it’s subjective.

That being said, I wrote a little bit about this during Volume 5 when it was all going down. A simplified list of the primary issues includes:

Introducing your first, long-awaited queer character as a villain (even a sympathetic one)

“Redeeming” her in the span of one episode in a way that provides no punishment/responsibility/growth in the face of the horrific acts she committed

This character is left behind by the story at the end of the volume, presumably never to be seen again outside of, perhaps, a final battle that includes the whole cast

Tying her queerness directly to her villainy

It’s this last point that I take the most issue with. See, the fandom is right to point out that Ilia has motivations for her actions established throughout the volume, namely the death of her parents and the general racism that is still pervading Remnant. Ilia says multiple times throughout Volume 5 that this is why she’s going after Blake and her family. Because she honestly believes that they are a threat to the faunus’ progress. However, just because a character says something doesn’t make it true. Take Yang in the same season. She says she doesn’t want/care if Blake ever comes back to the group, which anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the show knows is BS. Rather, Yang’s emotions are functioning on multiple levels. A part of her really doesn’t want Blake to return because she’s still furious with her, whereas a larger part of her wants them to reconcile. Now, apply that logic to Ilia. It’s absolutely true to say that she’s motivated by activism and the death of her parents, however, her confrontation with Blake reveals that this isn’t the only reason for her attack. It is, arguably, not even the primary reason. Ilia gives a speech about how they need to be doing more for the faunus, how she doesn’t like to hurt people but she can’t deny that it has gotten them results. Yet when Blake challenges this part of her identity - you’re not a killer - the conversation unexpectedly takes a turn. When pushed to explain how she became this way Ilia does not reiterate her thoughts on racism or the trauma of her parents’ deaths. Instead, she starts talking about her unrequited feelings for Blake: 

Suddenly, Ilia’s motivations have changed. Or rather, they’ve become more complicated. Both sets of motivations exists, but this is the one she admits to under duress, framing it as more “true” than what she’s been saying prior to this conversation. Now, Ilia shows personal motivations rather than just the generically good rhetoric of I Want To End Racism Because It’s Bad. Having Blake down on her knees, shipping her off to Adam, and killing her parents is explicitly connected to the (perceived) problem of, “You didn’t love me.”  Blake is positioned as responsible for who Ilia became: You want to know why I’m like this? You were too busy looking at Adam. I wanted you to look at me that way but you didn’t. That’s how I learned that we can’t always get what we want. So now you don’t get to have what you want (your parents’ safety, distance from Adam). You get to feel what I felt when you didn’t love me back. When Blake poses the question of, “Why are you like this?” Ilia’s answer is “Because I’m queer, have unrequited feelings, and that taught me that life sucks. Now I’m returning the favor.” 

Suddenly, Ilia’s actions are removed from the (already ethically dubious) logic of treating Blake this way because she believes it will help the faunus in the long run and instead are implied to stem from a desire to punish her for not reciprocating those feelings. In this moment Ilia moves from a misguided activist-turned-terrorist and instead becomes a misguided lesbian seeking revenge. She might not admit it - she never explicitly says that she’s punishing Blake for not loving her - but that’s the implication by taking the conversation in this direction; by having Ilia answer with her sexuality rather than her activist views. By drawing such an overt connection between these actions and Ilia’s admission, these things - the impending death of Blake’s parents, kidnapping her, sending her back to her abuser - are framed as things that she “deserves” according to Ilia. If you’d just looked at me with love from the start we never would have ended up here. This falls into a number of horrible tropes including, but not limited to, The Predatory Gay, The Psycho Lesbian, and The Queer Character Falling For Their (Presumably) Straight Friend.

Now, the takeaway here is not “You can never write villainous queer characters.” More often than not any statement beginning with “You can never write ____” is going to be a bad take. Indeed, there are tons of queer/queer coded villains who I adore. That doesn’t mean I want media to perpetuate that long, stereotyped history though. “But Clyde,” the world says. “That doesn’t make any sense. How can you both want and not want this setup?” To which I respond with the iconic words of Jane Lynch:

People’s identities are made up of multiple parts and those parts can read the same writing choice in different ways. As a queer person who loves the ~drama~ of a flamboyant villain I want that entertainment (like Watts). As a queer person who is disgusted by the implications tied to that trend (you’re evil, you’re unnatural, you’re sick, you deserve to be punished, to be killed) I don’t want to see our only queer character be a villain. Which is what Ilia was at the time of her reveal. She was all we had and we didn’t know if RT would ever going to give us anyone else. That was just awful to watch and worry about. It didn’t make me happy. Which sounds like a shit thing to say - This isn’t your story! It doesn’t cater to you! - but after years of waiting for queer rep it felt like a kick in the teeth to get this character in this way and leave her behind when we had a cast of five main women right there, any of which could have been queer. Ilia’s reading was made worse by the lack of rep surrounding her, but to be frank things haven’t improved much. I adore Saphron and Terra, I think they were really well done as characters, but they’re still very minor characters and we can’t ignore that, like Ilia, they were left behind by the story. Blake and Yang are not canon yet, leaving all the hints at their relationship sitting in the limbo of, “Is this just queer baiting?” If you’re someone who pays attention to queer coding, a lot of queer-coded men have been killed off in this show (Roman, Ozpin, Clover). We supposedly have one trans character… whose identity thus far only exists in a tweet.

Kudos to RT for hiring a trans voice actor - they absolutely deserve recognition for that - but it’s still not enough in this day and age. It’s 2020. Queer coding, queer minor characters quickly shuffled off screen, and queer “rep” in the form of paratextual info simply doesn’t fly. We decided that in the most vocal terms possible during the Harry Potter era, a fandom that took over most of the world and, thus, had one hell of an impact on media going forward. No, it’s not rep if you say Dumbledore is gay in an interview but never work that into the story. It’s not rep if you say May is trans on Twitter but don’t work that into the story. Not unless both characters are supplemental additions to a canon already filled with a variety of queer rep. “It’s so cool that this character is also queer! I get why you didn’t have time to work that in, so it’s a good thing we have those five other characters to identify with.” RT might do that in the future. Blake and Yang might become canon in Volume 8. May might be confirmed in the show. Saphron and Terra might unexpectedly arrive to become a part of the story again. We simply don’t know. But as of right now Ilia is one of only three in-canon queer characters out of a cast of ten bajillion (approximately lol) and out of those three she is the only one who was developed into a well-rounded character. That means nearly the entirely of RWBY’s rep rests on her shoulders. I think her queerness is fine for a cast already full of queer characters. There it functions as good diversity - “Some lesbians do join extremist groups and blame unrequited love for their murder plans!” - rather than representation for lesbians/queer people as a whole - “It’s a good thing we have these three other heroic lesbians in RWBY to balance out the message Ilia sends!” But since we don’t have that the takeaway is just what we’ve seen for decades: Queer characters are villains. Queer characters are violent and predatory. Queer characters are written out of the show.

Historically, Ilia’s characterization has problems on its own, but those problems were very much exacerbated by making her the first and, at that point, only queer rep. I - and no doubt others - would have been far more receptive to her as representation if we’d already gotten queer heroes prior to her introduction. And again, that’s a preference. Some fans want more queer villains as a way to say, “Anyone can be queer.” For me though, I’ve seen enough Ilias throughout my life. I’ve seen enough versions of my identity painted as unwanted and dangerous. I was expecting RWBY to do better and I hope that they will do better in the future.