#cause i can't tag individual fandom - ah fuck it

[sayruq]

i dont think key fivers were afraid of sansa of course fandom toxicity ramped up as the season went on and post show but its probably because the show whitewashed a lot of characters and their conflict like tyrion both because they were favourite character by the showrunners and the show wanted generic conflict instead of complexity and many characters and arcs got cut because of it, this turned fandom into thinking key 5 didnt mean "characters who affect the story good or bad depending on point of view" but turned into "the key 5 are heroes that'll save the day against the others and have a happy ending" by season 5/6

sansa was mostly ignored or victim blamed even by book fans before the show exept by a few so i dont know what they really thought her story was gonna be by the end but the show made it worse by not giving her enough nuance even in the early seasons and while diverging her arc pretty badly, it had her in a position of leadership, this pushed the idea in BROAD strokes that might be explained better in the books that her character did matter so i guess it did ruffle some feathers of theorists that didnt think about her all these years and a lot of there theories were proven wrong in the end

I'm telling you it's to exclude Sansa. The whole point is to 'prove' that she's not a main character and won't be involved in the final war(s) of the books. I've seen it with my own eyes.

GRRM himself said he was mostly pulling shit out of his ass with that outline and most people moved on from it once the novelty wore off but a contingent of antis saw it as all the evidence they need that Sansa won't

help free Winterfell from the Boltons

play a part in the fight against the Others

play a part in the war between Aegon vs Daenerys

have a romance with Jon (I don't ship Jonsa but you can't deny that a big part of Key Fiver is the idea that Sansa isn't important enough for a romance with Jon unlike his aunt and other sister

rule the North as Lady of Winterfell or Queen

And I have to disagree, while many people ignored all the signs pointing to Sansa becoming a big player in the game of thrones, they didn't ignore Sansa as a character at all.

I also get where you're coming from but the idea that Jon, Dany and Tyrion (with help from Bran and maaaaaaaaybe Arya - the idea that she'd become some sort of Batman in the Riverlands with her army of wolves was more popular than the idea she'd play a role in fighting the Others which is why D&D chose her specifically to deliver the killing blow) was there before we got the outline. Key Fivers just absorbed it into their DIY lore.

[thecuriousblitz]

I caught your amazing post summarizing the whole Fairgame issue and RT's corporate responsibility but can't find it in the tags anywhere. everyone should read it! particularly because there are so many people who are like 'CRWBY did nothing wrong'

Ah the Tumblr blackhole strikes again? Original post here, and reposting below, just in case. And thanks for reading. Hopefully it injects some much-needed nuance into the mess.

Hopes for RWBY Vol. 8: A commitment from RT to do better by their queer mlm fans

I waited until the end of Vol. 7 to put this out there, in case there was a Hail Mary fix-it that, while not able to erase how Fairgame was handled, would at least shed some light on certain narrative decisions.

And so when RT started peddling paired Qrow/Clover pins and a ‘Born Unlucky’ Qrow drinking cup after weeks of radio silence, I said to myself - calmly - well fuck.

Having worked as both a writer and marketer for a games company and several creative agencies, I know it takes gallons of blood, sweat and tears to make a show like RWBY shine. For that, CRWBY has my utmost respect. I also know that the directors, writing, animation and marketing departments of a commercially significant project are typically very connected and cross-communicative - for many reasons, but mainly to avoid preventable shitshows.

That’s why the idea that no one important knew about and therefore can’t be held responsible for the prolonged queerteasing engaged in by several animators and marketing staff is friggin’ bizarre.

In criminal law, the severity of the punishment often hinges on the presence of mens rea, or a ‘guilty mind’. For example, if it’s proven you both intended to and did kill someone, you go down for murder. If you’re drunk and run over someone, it’s manslaughter - a lesser crime, but a crime nonetheless because harm was caused through recklessness or negligence. ie. You should have fucking known.

I don’t think there’s enough to prove intent to harm, but holy shit if it was your run-of-the-mill agency, there would have been someone tripping over their balls to shut down the weeks of ‘we gave you bumbleby, now how bouts some Fairgame wink wink’ marketing and your ‘I ship Qrover hardcore/CLOVER IS A TOP’ animators, knowing where the narrative was going. Either RT operates on some alien plane of existence where common sense/corporate liability isn’t a thing, or some serious soul-searching and a company-wide policy change needs to happen. At the very least, please have the fucking talk with your marketing and animation teams, for their sake and that of your company’s.

Additionally, anytime we were working on something that could even remotely touch on minority or sensitive issues (eg. those concerning people with disabilities, indigenous peoples, LGBTQI, potential trauma triggers), we would hire external subject matter experts to extensively comb through anything that might cause problems. The writing, character design, animation, VOs, marketing, every fucking end-to-end detail.

Once, our design team had to completely re-do the hairstyles of several minor NPCs in a game for kids because they were too ‘phallic-like’. I lead with that example because it’s my favorite ‘wtf’ workplace moment (you really had to squint to see it), but in all seriousness, there have been many times where the input of qualified experts saved our collective blind asses. When it comes to representation, details matter - even if you personally don’t see a problem.

Note the use of ‘external’ experts. We never relied on having minority members on our team to pass muster. One, that puts way too much fucking pressure on the crew member who happens to be part of that minority group to speak up. Two, and this might be shocking for some, not all members of a minority group think and feel the same way about everything.

If you can manage to sweat the details, hire experts, and have (what I thought were normal) cross-department communications, you avoid situations where individuals who are part of an underrepresented group are forced to defend the validity of their pain.

By virtue of queer/mlm being a minority, the majority of the fandom won’t see a problem. Hell, not all queer/mlm will see a problem, and that’s totally fine.

The problem is this: Once your product is out there, and your rogue animators/marketing team have at it with the baiting, you’ve just provided the perfect storm for a barrage of censorious attacks against a vulnerable group, all of varying degrees of fallaciousness, and all of which were completely preventable: ‘You’re just overreacting’, ‘You just hate that your headcanon didn’t work out’, ‘It’s sad, but no one’s to blame’, ‘I’m gay and I thought it was fine’, ‘The show has queer wlw rep, how can you criticize’, ‘I know what queerbaiting is and that wasn’t it’, ‘It’s just a fictional character/SOME BLOODY PINS, get over it’, ‘CRWBY didn’t encourage this ship’ (most people will not make the effort to dig into super shady tweets, comments and fandom interactions from months ago), etc. etc.

And by the immutable laws of internet fuckery, what should have been a beautiful opportunity for representation - whether it would have ended happily or not - gets turned into a convoluted shitstorm where argument from ignorance wins the day.

In short, RT, please, please do better. You have every right to freely create, but with freedom comes responsibility. You have a really good thing going - as a fan, it would be the ultimate tragedy if nothing is acknowledged or changes after all this.