#rwby rewrites discourse

[iamafanofcartoons]

Why RWBY Criticism is rarely constructive or respectful, and why haters of RWBY hide their toxic behavior behind the “criticism card”

When I blazed a RWBY Positivity Resource post last weekend, I was harassed by RWBY Haters accusing me of being unable to take criticism.

These people? Kept saying “RWBY Bad” or “RT is pandering” or “Fandom is toxic” but act like they know what criticism is.

They also screamed about “valid criticism” and “lost potential”

Here is from https://twitter.com/meliorqte/status/1540864352357699586

Judgmental Critter and her sister Twiins Iink repeatedly make video after video defending male villains and attacking female protagonists.

If you ever call out their severe hatred towards RWBY and their harassment of RWBY Fans, critics accuse anyone defending the show from their criticism of being “misogynists” or “toxic positivity”

I have never heard of toxic positivity until RWBY Critics started using it in their videos to harass RWBY Fandom and the writers.

Vexed Viewer repeatedly makes one video after another insulting female characters...People claim he’s “progressive” even as he insulted the #MeToo movement in 2019 while he was mourning Vic Micnogna’s sentencing.

UoW basically made transphobic rewrites that supported abusive relationships. Which was after his ex, another youtuber, left UoW for being emotionally abusive, something that UoW’s rewrite promotes, to where Bumbleby and Renora are written as emotionally abusive, and people defend that?

Raymond McNeil made sexist and racist “fixing rwby” that basically was one big middle finger to each and everyone one of rwby’s themes and elements (he made a sexual predator the stepfather of Yang and included “faunus heat cycles” while having women lose to men in most fights)

And Eruptionfang promoted the toxic “qrow is ruby’s father theory” and repeatedly idolized adam taurus before his channel got taken down.

A criticism is meant to be respectful, meant to be helpful.

Accusing the show of “sucking, bad, etc”? Wanting RWBY to die? NOT Criticism.

Behold every single RWBY Critic. “RWBY deserves better than the writers who literally created it”

These are the same people who like to talk about Monty’s vision or what Monty wanted.

But what was it that Monty wanted.

Here’s the first from the man himself! The first one being? Qrow is not Ruby Rose’s father.

But as you know, every single defender of this theory accuses Monty and CRWBY of being liars.

When a theory is shut down by the writers/creators, its no longer a headcanon, its an obsession with wishing a lie would be truth.

Sadly?

Too many “youtubers who claim to love RWBY more than CRWBY” refuse to accept canon because it doesn’t serve their bias. This youtuber, Sytokun? Who is basically making “RWBY Remnants” Basically claims to love RWBY but repeatedly insults the show’s writing and its writers. How many times must the writers Debunk a theory before these fanatics accept that the theory is wrong, and that insulting the writers because you don’t get what you want is wrong?

THIS is why I treat the “Qrow is Ruby’s father” theory as beyond contemptible. Because not only does it involve the writers lying for years on end, romanticizes the deadbeat dad, and encourages spitting on the complex family dynamic that is the xiao long rose family?

But also 95% of every single one of these theorists has insulted Monty, his friends, etc....and then claim “its just a headcanon, bro” when called out on their toxicity.

Anyway, moving on to Quote 2 from Monty Oum

Well....I’m sure I don’t need to explain this one?

Every single RWBY Critic when asked to please stop watching RWBY if they don’t like it or if they keep insulting Monty’s friends? They refuse , because they say they “criticize from a place of love” while they accuse Miles and Kerry, who Monty handpicked to write RWBY...of “Running RWBY into the ground after Monty’s death”

So wait, they wait till after Monty is dead to insult his friends and coworkers Checks every single RWBY Critic channel....yep, looks like pretty much every single RWBY Critics ignores this quote...especially HBomberguy who made half of his 3 hour video into a hate spiel against Monty’s friends.

And finally....Number 3

This was for the fans who actually enjoy RWBY....

I just.....whenever I hear “I’m making this rewrite as a love letter to Monty and RWBY” All I think about is Fallout New Vegas Frontier, whose writers had the similar arrogance the these rewriters do with their claim of FNVF being a “magnum opus”.

I cannot confirm this quote by George Martin but...

These people have got to stop.

I’m going to leave it at this.

And will end this with a fantastic statement by Neath Oum...aka Monty’s Brother.

[citadelofmythoughts]

A friend claimed that the Evermorrow and Dust Queen creators were less interested in Celtic or Sy in their opinions or dumb rewrites as much as them supporting their project as well as their voice acting abilities. Likely a very centrist mindset of, "It's just their opinion" and likely haven't be the victim of their more eggrigious behavior directly.

As sort of desire for peace amongst the FNDM without understanding all the factors as to the discourse. It's not just "fanwank" but rather a whole group that can't stand RWBY existing as it is.

My only opinion on it is, they can do what they want. It is up to the individual to watch them or not. I only think people should be informed as to who is participating in the projects to have an informed opinion.

As for myself, I am not so desperate for non-canon RWBY content that I will go against my conscience. I have the ability to make my own content after all.

[onewomancitadel]

I also am emphatically of the attitude that oldfan experience good and newfan experience also even better. They can be different experiences, and this is a good thing, because a fresh perspective can shrug off the weight of fandom expectations/fanon/established attitudes, and equally I am here to set the record straight that actually a lot of the things people said about V3 and onwards were already being said about the show before that. I would even argue that the bizarro RWBY fandom is not a product of what you think it is.

Long before there was fanon and a rewriting of how fandom went, people were already insistent that 1. RWBY was not anime, and subsequently not a real story, and derivative at best, 2. everything RWBY did was wrong because the creators are weird (unhelped by the relationship RT had with its audience) and 3. flashy combat interests a lot of people. It also makes people think the show is not anything else at all and is at best seasoning (and yes. I liked the combat scenes, but I'm not sure there is lasting narrative longevity in those, and that's why I think RWBY was made, and not a different property, or another Haloid or Dead Fantasy).

No, I am not diminishing problems behind the RWBY production (in fact I would contend that we are cognisant of more issues with RWBY than others, and it's industry-wide worse than you think), but rather I am trying to draw a picture that before all the V3 furore of deviating from the vision started - and beyond that, from V4 through V8 a shade of this discourse has persisted - there was already a perfect storm of rhetorical issues surrounding the show, and I would say that these actually still largely persist.

There are things I personally would've done differently to avoid this, with the benefit of hindsight and making a better narrative product overall. But nobody really knew it would happen, and nobody certainly knew RWBY would go beyond RT's animation webshow when their flagship was RVB. And now I would say that an issue RWBY is facing is that there are other, similarly mature 3D animation productions (just look at Arcane) seeing success with commercial budgets. At the time, it was very weird, and contributed to the general disgust directed at the show, but now they both don't have Netflix money and they can't really paddle through the storm as a purely independent/free production bankrolled by RT's money-making projects (this is what I expected way back when Fullscreen acquired RT, actually), so I don't envy the position they're in. I have mused before that I would watch RWBY in whatever form it comes, even if it meant V2-4 level of production, but I don't even know if they can do that anymore. If they did V8-level production I'd kiss the ground. I want Volume 10 for fuck's sake.

[everafterfrisk]

Rwby isn't Pandering to the Audience's Desires

Whether it's youtube,reddit or Twitter,it's always the same thing

So let's go through each of them one by one

Bumbleby discourse

Claims I've seen thrown around are

"Blake and Yang only became Canon because of its toxic Fanbase" and queerbaiting

This conclusion has no real leg to stand on. While there have been toxic fans of the ship, not everyone who supports it acts this way.Also these people just completely ignores the clear slowburn love trope is prevalent with these two after the multiple hurdles the girls went through before coming back together.

•Like Nora compares her relationship with ren to Blake and Yang

•Adam claims "what does she even see in you" to yang

▪︎ Weiss's About time in Vol 9 Chapter 2

▪︎ In Vol 8 C10, Yang and Blake are shown with a soft blush before putting their heads together

If yall think that's queerbaiting

Then I guess the Earth is flat I suppose

The show only cares about Shipping

This is simply untrue

Especially when we go through so many different plot threads outside of that

Just to name a few

▪︎ Nora finding her self worth

▪︎ Qrow's Crippiling Depression

▪︎ Blake's self depreciation and discrimination

▪︎ Penny's themes of Choice and choosing it for herself

Jaune's the Show's Self insert

I've seen this being claimed alot within the reddit community.

What's my thoughts?

This has like zero merit

Just because one of the showrunners voices him doesn't automatically mean he's a self insert.

If anything Fanfiction make him as such as Battling Gods with ease or hell even being connected to them.

What would the show look like if the Series did what the fans want

White Rose becoming a thing in Vol 4 and onwards(No shade to people who ship it, just that the Narrative paints them more as friends compared to say bumbleby or Renora)

Ironwood would be excused for letting mantle's citizens live and perish in dangerous conditions

Adam would get redeemed in the way I've seen most people write it

[Blake talk no Jutsu Adam into giving up via because he had a hard live then redemption is viable which just doesn't sit right with me]

Ruby would kill Cinder or something and go on this whole "The world sucks and I was wrong to think there is any good" type mentality

Roman becoming a Good guy and Become Oz's Host as well [and yes I checked out the rewrite, the execution is lacking]

Pyrrha comes back from the Dead and everyone just acts like nothing happen

Ozpin wouldn't be held accountable by the Rwby gang and will suffer zero repercussions

Cinder would get killed off for being "a idiotic villain"

The Everafter Plot would not exist

Yang would rush through her recovery Arc and "act like her old self as she's now grumpy and an asshole"

Ilia,Maria and Oscar gets erased from the Narrative entirely

Jaune gets the most overpowered Semblance in the show and sidelines the main girls

Weiss would have made up with whitley immediately without build up cuz "Weiss should know that he suffered too"

[cyrusvgz]

The world if the RWBY Community learned how to shut the fuck up, ignore things they don't like and stopped stirring up bullshit.

Every time I turn around there's a new discourse and it's always the most fake ass nonsense problem a person can have. Not talking about the stuff about the inner workings of RoosterTeeth.

I'm talking about all the other shit.

If you don't like RWBY then stop fucking watching and talking about it.

If you don't like R-18 art of RWBY characters then shut the fuck up and stop looking at it. Learn how to filter and block people.

If you think RWBY is a bad show then fuck off and stop shilling rewrites to people who still like the show. Stop trying to convince people who like it that it's bad.

If you don't like something or someone then just leave it and them alone.

There's always something with you fucking people.

Just stop.

[twilightguardian]

Xel went whining to his friends that you blocked him. Figured you deserved to know that they were shit-talking you over on a forum called Nyanarchy where he and Fairen come together to bemoan the persecution that comes with being a RWBY fan or some self-serving crap. His exact words are that you're "fucking weird and obsessive."

Thank you for the information, Anon.

I didn't want to have to block him, but once he reiterated that he refused to take Raymond at his word, I felt there was no reasoning with him. He wanted to be malicious toward Raymond and Fixing RWBY and I felt that was dishonest. He can compare this or that to politics all he wants, but that doesn't make the justification reasonable.

This isn't politics.

This is a cartoon fandom on the internet and someone is taking a significant portion of their time and energy to create something they have passion for. Whether you like Fixing RWBY or not, at the end of the day, one has to be a fan of something in order to spend multiple months on such a project. And to see someone refuse to be understanding of that because it's not an artistic venture they personally enjoy, but to also spread lies about them and their project makes me sad.

I'm a deeply creative person. A lot of the things I do stem from the passion I have for something, even if my conclusions have a negative bend. I did not like Digimon Adventure 02. It famously split the fandom back in the day. I have seen plenty of people post rewrites of it on fanfiction.net and other websites. I liked Adventure tri. and I know a lot of people didn't, and know of at least two rewrites of that. I don't get mad at people who want to rewrite tri. because I happened to enjoy it. They're allowed to express their discontent as much as I'm allowed to talk positively about it, and I'm happy they're doing it creatively. Dissatisfaction, unhappiness, sadness, pain, all stem creativity just as much as positive emotions do.

I'd like to think of myself as a reasonable person, and one that tries to see the best in people if I can see something there. That's why I reached out to Lilith as a fellow creative despite some nasty words exchanged. That's why I engaged with Xelian despite having lurked and seen previous discourse in rwde and the Rwby fandom and how he acted and who he engaged with. If he acknowledged that mindset is incredibly twisted and allowed for no one to defend themselves, then I'd unblock him and try discourse again. But that cannot happen when he effectively calls Raymond a fake fan and my friends in the SH gullible idiots who don't know they're being used. That's incredibly rude and ignores their own words and agency on the matter.

If he wants his dissatisfaction with the accusation with porn forums to be acknowledged, he has to acknowledge the strife he's causing with his own words and have some basic human decency.

I asked him for proof that the anon was lying. He said he couldn't prove a negative. But he could easily prove where he has an account on a site that he's not banned from in prominent RWBY circles. That would be enough for me. While it wouldn't prove that he has no account on porn forums, it would mean he doesn't have to engage only there. But I still stand by that it's not a big deal if he did. Assuming he's an adult, of course.

But how can I take him at his word when he lies about not being friends with Lilith? We have it on record he says he doesn't talk to Lilith, only reblogs a few things when he happens to agree with her, but apparently is a stool pigeon and goes onto this forum to have an old hen party with Lilith and co. Gotta be friends with someone to do that. As far as I'm aware, that's a rather small community.

I wouldn't have even cared if he said he was friends with Lilith because he was at least willing to talk to me and not block me practically on sight like Lilith did. But ultimately I felt I had to block him because it felt like he was being malicious, and I didn't have the energy for that and his mental gymnastics attempting to justify why he's not a massive hypocrite.

[neptunevasilias]

Pinned post below 🌌💙

My name is Chris. I’m 20, use he/they pronouns with a preference for he/him, transmasc, mlm, and asexual.

My main blog is @doctor-ciel

I’m running a rwby heritage posts blog now! @rwby-heritageposts

I’ve been a fan since volume 4.

The biggest thing to know about me is that I am a HUUUUUUUUUUUUGE Team SSSNN fan. I’m also a little bit of a Neptune kinnie but mostly ironically.

I’m very into minor characters in general :> this especially includes the Vytal Festival contestants.

I’m also big on rarepairs.

I used to be moderately up to date about discourse but especially with how often I’m on hiatus I just do not care anymore.

I haven’t watched any of the Justice League stuff, or ice queendom, or anything else that came out after volume 8 except for volume 9

I occasionally post criticism of the show, I tag it appropriately

I used to have the url @/scathing-eyes, I changed it back in 2020 when the old owner gave it to me. That was so long ago that I doubt many people even recognize me as that url, but since I think the old owner of this url had at least a moderately sizable following(it’s hard to tell follower count on tumblr), I like to have this clarification somewhere that’s easy to see.

I don’t mind spam likes/reblogs, in fact PLEASE DO. I mostly reblog, especially during hiatuses, because I like to curate fanart. I do this for myself but also so that other people can look through my tags.

I sometimes reblog art of my friend’s OC, Roan Wood, and their friend’s OC, Nicole Vermillion

I use this emoji ☀️ on all SSSNN-related posts because I like being able to browse all the posts on my favorite guys at once

God willing I will finish my rewrite of Before the Dawn

[kaedeichinose]

the state of rwby discourse being on misconstruing and absolutely rewriting adam/ironwood as the victims just sucks because like yeah sure there is a point to be made about ableism, there's a point to be made about how the character fighting for equal rights is a violent abuser and a violent murderer, but like that doesn't take away from the fact that these characters both suck and harm others. But then again when have rwby people ever understood the concept of nuance

there absolutely is justified complaints about their character writing underlying it all its just so telling people would rather focus on these white guys being "done dirty" or whatever the hip turn of phrase is these days in a vacuum rather than like. the abelism and racism inherent to the writing as a whole? like im sorry i dont think going "the white military dictator who kills people who question him is good actually bc theres abelist aspects to his writing :(" is as cutting a commentary as you think it is. like we need to workshop this one maybe.

[formerlyrunephoenix6769]

oh wow.. so @branwenrose 

I sent a rather lovely ask to do with their comment of Unicorn of War’s rewrite. As they were getting annoyed about the amount of curious asks they were receiving.

I deliberately didnt do it on anon as I wished to show that there was no malicious intent behind it, (I even sent them a second ask just to make sure that they understood my position and explained why I didnt say it on anon)   Given the limited amount of characters in an ask, 

My comment was, and im paraphrasing.   “ What did you expect to happen? When you leave a comment on a non problematic and much loved RWBY youtubers videos, doing vids from a place of love, people are going to be curious and send you asks. (Regardless on my own thoughts about rewrites, UOW is one of few that Im willing to entertain. They are well thought out and add avenues , not take away) This is what happens when you grapple with the internet, people are going to be curious.”

“If you are going to poke a cuddly bear with a stick expect to reply with unwavering conviction, patience or honey.”

I suggested that if they were annoyed at the number of asks coming in, maybe turn off asks for a while, as UOW is very popular and they were bound to continue receiving curious asks (I genuinely hope that none of UOW’s fanbase sent them hate.)

Yes, I understand that in the medium of text and with limited characters that tone and inflection can be lost, hence why the second ask to make sure that my intent was not misconstrued. 

Their rebuttal to friendly, non malicious advice was to reply to the ask and promptly blocking me, not even giving me time to even read the reply. 

So if anyone is out there and sees my ask or their reply, please understand that I sent a second one stating my lack of malicious intent, if @branwenrose doesnt publish it. 

And I wasnt given the opportunity to reply to their comment on the first ask. 

If anyone is friends with @branwenrose, and you read this, feel free to comment, though I am not demanding or encouraging anyone to pass this along as her wish is to be respected.

“Im sorry you took it the wrong way and got the wrong end of the stick. I was simply attempting to give friendly advice in the most concise way due to the medium with which communication was presented. I genuinely hope that you dont receive any hate from anyone. Everyone is entitled to express their opinion on a subject, such as preference of not liking rewrites in general, and I agree with you, most folks who suggests rewrites are frothing at the mouth to shove their own headcanons into the narrative and yes, that ought to be kept to fanfiction etc etc.

I despise most rewrites because of exactly that.

However, UOW is not one of those people. If you give their RWBY rewrites, esp Vol 5 , a chance I think you might be surprised at how rich the UOW rewrite is. 

It is not taking away from the show, or shitting on it. UOW is one of a handful of RWBY youtubers who actually doesnt do that. He loves the shows, genuinely loves the show. And the care and attention to detail in the rewrites shows that. He does not take away from the show, he adds to it and presents different avenues by which the narrative that is already there, is presented.”

I will not be posting this underneath @branwenrose’s comment on youtube, though I have been encouraged to, as I respect the choice she made on this platform, and therefore other social media platforms are given the same consideration.  

Which gets to another point

A friendly reminder to anyone that makes statements or opinions on anyone’s social media that may go against the OP’s views. 

 Be aware that there is a cause and effect when making a comment or expressing an opinion, esp on a blog/platform of a very popular person.

Be prepared for a backlash, esp if its an inflammatory comment. 

Its going to happen.

 If you suddenly find your inbox flooded with asks/comments, you are under no obligation to reply to any of them, esp if they are nasty. 

You can turn off the ask box. 

But dont be naive enough to think that making a comment or statement wont result in curious questions or in some cases inflame people. If you put a comment out there, dont expect everyone to agree with you and then get upset when people make it known that they dont. 

If you are inviting a discussion or debate by expressing a difference of opinion, which you are as soon as you make a public comment, you cant then suddenly cry foul when it does not go your way. 

As I said above, 

“If you are going to poke a cuddly bear with a stick expect to reply with unwavering conviction, patience or honey.” 

In the famous words of the Scouts and Girl Guides, 

“Be prepared!”

However, You DO NOT have to tolerate nastiness, thats what the real use of the block button is for. 

[tumblezwei]

Thread on the Reddit asking 'How many people did RWBY kill with their plan?. 0. 'They' didn't kill or directly cause the deaths of anyone; Cinder, Neo and the others -did-, however. The hell is this shit that this Volume made people start really thinking this is what happened, plus that 'RWBY are the real villains' BS I've seen touted around?

It's actually very simple, Ironwood leaving Mantle behind and definitively killing thousands of people is fine because "greater good." Sacrificing the lives of the few for the many is a common trope, and especially beloved by people who love angsty, self-sacrificing male characters. Oh how they weep for the poor man that has to shoot the gun and kill the innocent victim lest his family be killed instead. He simply had no choice.

Team RWBY, on the other hand, rejected the idea that anyone had to be sacrificed. And this is bad because trying to save everyone is unrealistic, you see. It's naive to have hope, it's stupid to even try. All you're doing is condemning all parties to ruin by not making a decision. All blame is placed on the teenagers trying to figure out a way to let everyone live and not the actual villains that are doing the killing, because in rwde's eyes there's nothing worse than a hopeful message during a bleak situation.

[dextixer]

This might be the weirdest flex that Harraser Canonseeker has ever made. So, to prove that the RWBY community is not toxic, its all the critics fault. He shows...

A person who came into r/RWBY subreddit and was harrased just for daring to advertise their rewrite. Then when they were hurt they searched for a safe space where they will not get harrased....

And with this, Canonseeker tries to prove that it is the critics that are toxic? Are you okay my friend?

This is just the perfect example of how you and your harrasement community think. You see someone you dislike, you harras them, and then blame them when they search for a safe-space.

Im glad that an ocean separates me and most of you, because you people are just creepy and i would be afraid of you in RL with the logic you use.

[mightyjensblog]

So in the New hero Hei video, he talks about a Twitter post by a Twitter user with the Name "Bumblby IS canon". And this tweet they made

The point of the video was to show the "Hypocrisy" of the tweet. With the thumbnail saying "Our theory is Canon but yours isn't!"

Now....Bumblby, wether you like it or not, is a ship that the show has gone out of its way to tease. Whereas the "Qrow is Rubies dad" thing is a theory that the writer debunked out of annoyance of constantly seeing it. So that's false equivalency

He also claims that no one really thinks that Qrow is Rubies dad anymore....with a straight face.

He then uses this situation to talk about how this is a case of some parts of the RWBY fan base being obsessed fanatics(Though to his credit he does acknowledge that not all of them are like that)

At this point I think people are just making up controversies to drag Bumblby down with.

[rubyneo]

Hey I just saw you post on unicornofwar about their rwby rewrite. And I'm wondering why you seem so against it. They are doing it for fun and not out of any malicious intent. How exactly is this any different from fanfiction? Apologies if I seem agitated, I'm just slightly confused.

its different from fanfiction because theres no reason to rewrite ALL of rwby. whats the point???? i write AUs and fic all the time and ive never felt the need to rewrite the entire damn show. au where jaune isnt there, au where ruby and pyrrha were actually shown to be friends, etc etc. rewriting the whole show??? why???? theres no point????

unless a show is like v-slur which was filled with racism and qbaiting and all over nastiness, theres no reason to rewrite, especially when theres so much story left to tell.

anyway no one else send me asks about this because its boring and aggravating. rwby rewrites are rarely well done.

[vincedudetheguy]

RWDE/RWBYCritics, Fandom, RoosterTeeth etc.

I’ve been rewriting this a few times, but I want to keep it as brief as possible. It’s wild to me that the discourse of RWBY in it’s current state isn’t one of genuine interactions, but more just echo chambers of people dropping long essays on each other while never really having a proper dialogue. The fact that the speech is being blurred regarding disdain for RWBYCritics and critique in general makes it difficult to walk away from this show without either being super content and complacent about most things happening in fear of being deemed “one of the bad ones” or just leaving the fandom due to alienation. The fact that V6 era RWBY onwards has had a following of right-wingers and chuds who put up the facade of a “critic” in the fandom with no real good points to bring up other than thinly veiled bullshit. The amount of conversations I thought I was having with folks who had genuine points only to turn out to be people slowly going mask off about their hatred for any group that was hiding underneath “constructive criticism” The fact that a big aspect against RWBYCritics is the one off users who will say stupid shit insulting the company has now made the main fandom so parasocially to the faces of RoosterTeeth as if company higher ups and faces are the ones who need protection while the average worker is a mystery to the fandom as we hear of crunch culture and clique culture potentially making working there a living hell. All the signaling and prefaces that need to be said before discussing anything regarding the IP, it’s fandom, and the company it’s associated to in worry that you could easily just be thrown out of the flock at any moment just as a lot of fans of some characters have felt. It’s insane, it feels like you either see yourself fall into the forum wars of two sides who trade blows and attack vague strawmen of each other. Or you ascend high enough for what boils down to fanart reposts overtaking any potential discussion of the show. There’s no in-between.

[twilightguardian]

"Imagine thinking that responses to someone cannot be longer than the thing being responded to."

Funny thing is, this is frequently a thing the political right do in America- they spout random bullshit all the time as part of a carpet-bomb misinformation tactic, so that the left spends more time debunking the misinformation.

Fairen is basically pulling from the far-right playbook of covering discourse in FRWBY with so much bs that the series is incapable of standing on its own two feet- because fans of it have to spend time explaining why the lies she peddles (that she often gets from biased recaps because she doesn't watch the show) are based in falsehoods rather than talking about FRWBY on its own merits.

kinda funny that the person who rushes to use sexism as a catch-all excuse to smear her opposition has no problem pilfering far-right debate tactics, huh.

Unfortunately, such a tactic can be used by anyone with proper motivation to do so. So it's not surprising to me that Lilith, who seems to lean very left, would also do this. I don't really want to make this about politics or pointing fingers at one side or another. I mostly made note that Lilith primarily focuses on common politically motivated aspects of book writing, whether coincidental or born from insular spaces.

As for her biased recaps, yeah, they're lies, but I wouldn't say they're just a Gish gallop of lies that one has to debunk. More that she uses half-truths, obscuring the truth in vagaries and massive omissions.

She has a very big habit of ignoring when someone calls her out, and if not, she claims people are bullying her. I've seen quite a few people in the RWBY fandom space say that people disagreeing with them, or messaging them to correct them is 'bullying'. People, like Lilith, weaponize the block button just as much as it's used legitimately.

But it is funny to me that anything she says about FRWBY being bad because it can't stand on it's own misses the point of FRWBY in the first place: It's not designed to stand on its own. It's meant to be complimentary to RWBY. Just like Lilith has written a first draft of her Glints Saga series, she'd taken them down and rewritten a second draft of it. It's like, 'congrats, Lilith, you did the exact same thing functionally that FRWBY is meant to be to RWBY.' A second draft. You also don't typically publish second drafts, either. But the purpose of Fixing isn't meant to make RWBY perfect, it's to show that RWBY can be better than it currently is with only minimal tweaks.

Some people aren't going to like the changes. The majority of the takes I've seen either misunderstand FRWBY by citing canon as the reason why Fixing is flawed, despite Raymond having stated those particular things they evoke have changed for his lore in his rewrite; or they deliberately don't pay much attention and miss the inference, so used to the fact that RWBY usually tells the audience things they should be showing instead, then getting upset that Fixing doesn't do the same.

There's been a few legitimate critiques I have come across, such as one that talks about Ozpin and the host changes. But unfortunately in canon we don't know for certain how the hosting works, or what the end result entails. It kind of seems like they waffle on the answer. There was nothing to really say on the critique, as it was just their opinion that they liked what seemed like their headcanon for RWBY better than Raymonds. Okay, sure. If there was deliberate misinformation or misunderstanding about FRWBY's version, I'd probably step in. But other than that, there's no need.

Stepping back into the writing and politics for a moment, for clarification:

There's a lot of talk within some writing circles or just media circles more generally about women's role in media, and the extremes of that seems to be what Lilith subscribes to. A recent example of this mindset is from authortuber Jenna Streety who released a somewhat problematic video talking about female characters in fiction, where for much of it she was preaching more her personal politics rather than talking about women in fiction (and even insinuated that if you want to write characters outside of your sexual preference or gender, you might be gay/trans. Because you can't just... write a character, you actually just want to write yourself. It might also be why Lilith insists on calling Roman Celtic's self-insert all the time).

Among the things she says is reminiscent of the things Lilith talks about, namely that it's apparently sexist for female characters to have motivations surrounding characters other than themselves, but especially men.

Also like Lilith, Jenna tries to silence all disagreement and criticism levied at her by means of deleting comments and bragging about it on her twitter, calling anyone who disagrees with her homophobic and sexist.

It gives off the implication that actually feminine women are undesirable, and the only valid way to write women is to make them masculine in some way, or unlikeable, selfish assholes. Considering what some critics of RWBY claim the girls are like, it wouldn't be a far stretch to equate this mindset of women being well written if they're this way to the reason why Lilith likes the RWBY girls so much. But with no actual confirmation, it's still a stretch gleaned from inference to how Lilith talks about and treats the female characters of the shows she likes and how the characters are.

Of course there's nothing wrong with a female character having motivations for herself, but the problem is that characters don't live in a vacuum. Yet some advocates of this act like they do. Women, even fictional ones, are human beings (or representative of humans) in case anyone forgot, and we are social animals. Women especially, with ancestral roles dating back to our ancestors in the trees, are more naturally inclined to other people. Friends, parents, siblings, children. There's nothing inherently wrong with a female character's main motivations stemming from another character other than herself, not even a man, and that also tying into who she is as a person. We as people resonate strongly with fictional characters having those connections. It's why so many people criticize Yang for not paying more attention to Ruby, and vise versa. Or all four girls in general not being like we expect women to be and act socially. Indeed, apart from a few small moments, they almost act like they were written as male characters with an S pasted on to the 'he'.

Do I think that was how RWBY was actually written? No, of course not. But male writers tend to need to be a bit more cognizant of how they write female characters on average, or else oddities may occur. It may not have been intentional, subconscious, even. But there's something there with the writing of the girls that feels wrong to enough people in the fandom to take note of.

Here's a response video a youtuber I've come to like named Ian posted recently in response to Jenna's video (In Majima from Yakuza Cosplay), and her issues with the woman's opinions and outlooks regarding writing women or even just as a whole.

This turned into a much longer discussion on the topic than I thought, but I had fun, so thank you for messaging me!

[matt0044]

The Insidious Appeal of “Monty’s Vision” Conspiracies.

(warning: I will hold back on major spoilers for Broadchurch but I might dip into minor ones for the sake of my points).

Season Two of BBC’s crime drama, Broadchurch, takes place in the fallout of the solved murder of young Daniel Latimer where the killer is put on trial and pleads not guilty despite that we saw them confess to everything. The legal team defending the perp spends much of the new courtroom drama twisting events of the previous seasons to make their client look like the real victim.

Much of the lawyer’s words spin a yarn that suggests that what was official reported of the case’s resoluton was fabricated at best. She suggests that Alec and Ellie were desperate to bring in anybody with the pressure put on them that they beat a confession out of who we know was the killer.

They even try to pin Danny’s father as the true perpetrator due to an affair he was having on the night his son died, suggesting Mark killed his son in desperation to keep him silent. I don’t think I have to tell fans of the show that this nearly made me sick to my stomach. We knew what the truth was. We saw the truth in Season One yet here’s this slime ball trying to rewrite the narrative.

What made it chilling was that I could imagine myself as the impartial jurors, hanging onto every word and starting to actually think, “Maybe... she’s right.” They weren’t there to see what the detectives investigated. They weren’t there to see the killer caught and confess up front. What if the story wasn’t as straightforward as officials claim it to be? What if... there was more?

Isn’t that more hooking? Wouldn’t it be more... satisfying if it wasn’t as straightforward as, “boy killed, killer arrested,” but rather a complex web of deceit? It might not be the truth and is clearly based on extrapolation rather than actual concrete evidence... but it sounds like a damn good story, don’t it?

And that is how the “Monty’s Vision” discourse sustains itself.

Tell me which narrative sounds more compelling:

“Monty Oum regularly collaborated with Miles Luna as well as Kerry Shawcross to flesh out his raw ideas for characters and storylines, It was a team effort that involved many others contributing be it off-the-cuff or long term. After Monty’s passing, Miles and Kerry took it hard but knew that it was important to see RWBY through the best they could with their ever expanding team.”

Vs.

“Monty Oum wrote the whole of RWBY volume by volume on his own, considering ideas from Miles and Kerry when need be. He was a visionary, an auteur who had to deal with corporate stooges looking for a quick buck. With his passing, Miles and Kerry saw to it that they make RWBY into a shameless cash cow with nary regard for quality of the story or action.”

Admittedly, I skimmed a bit on both but a former fan of RWBY would find more satisfaction to their frustrations with the latter narrative. It’s not enough for Monty to have died while leaving big shoes to fill. It has to be an secret plan to ruin his vision for the sake of capitol. What, is the show... just not doing it for you anymore period?

Thus YouTube grifters like Hero_Hei get to make bank over the dissatisfaction of miffed fans looking for an answer, peddling stories of “what’s happening behind the scenes” that are hyperbolic at best and fabricated at worst. They need to keep this hate train a-chugging because any acceptance of the truth means that they can’t get the views the need.

The worst part? I get it. I’ve occasionally fallen for the some of the less egregious conspiracies for fear of the worst. However, Tumblr Meta as well as actually good video essays such as by Hypeathon helped me realize that it really wasn’t anything shady despite these bad takes worming into my mind.

Ask yourself this: Is a video essay or blog post convincing because it’s based on actual official sources or because it’s just like something you saw on HBO?