#rwde discussions

[peacefulmultishipper]

Tldr; The biggest piece of evidence for “The Bees was planned from beeginning” was debunked ten years ago by hazleapricot aka Arryn Zach (The VA of Blake) who was simply making a lesbian joke about her character and Pyrrha being a secret relationship.

Don’t blame the Bees fans for not knowing about as this was from ten years ago and the only way to find it is via reblogs since the account is dead or being linked directly link to the post, still sucks that this spread as far as it did because shippers wanted solid proof that their OTP was planned and not the writers just thrown to pander to them.

(Don’t worry, this will be the only time I will use the main RWBY and Bee tags as I want to spread awareness to this even if just to a few people.)

[knoneawe]

Stolen from Reddit

Say something good and bad about this character

[dextixer]

The hypocritical Woobification of Raven Branwen

I dont think it is a secret to anyone who has followed any RWBY discourse, that female characters are treated VERY differently from male ones in the wider fandom, especially in regards to the morality of their actions. I dare anyone who wishes to enter the words like "Raven" "Ironwood" "Adam" "Cinder: and the like into the search bar of websites like twitter and even Reddit to some extent. What you will find more often than not, besides fan-art and porn are discussions about these characters.

After browsing through these discussions one can quickly notice a pattern. Ironwood and Adam are either demonized or have complicated discussions surrounding them. While characters like Raven and Cinder, while having their detractors mostly have discussions focused on shipping or on justifying/excusing their actions.

Raven Branwen is of course, the most iconic example of this.

Raven Branwen in Canon

In the canon of RWBY, Raven Branwen and her brother Qrow both hail from a bandit tribe. They were sent to Beacon to learn how to kill hunters where they learn the values of family and friendship, with team STRQ becoming close. Raven even marries Tai, her teammate and has a kid with him, then ditches him with the child and leaves Summer to come into the picture while Qrow remains an eternal bachelor.

It is revealed to us that Ozpins tendency to keep secrets is what lead Raven to losing trust and leaving the side of good. That, and feat of Salem who she knows is immortal and thus cannot be killed directly.

She returns to her bandit tribe and becomes a bandit queen, killing entire villages for loot and plunder. One of which we can see in the show.

Her becoming a bandit is not something that was thrust upon her, she was not forced to do it or anything of the sort. She chose to do it under her own volition.

Her only "redeeming" point is not being allied to Salem and having a "I will save you once" rule with those she knows and nothing more.

And yet...

Raven Branwen in Fanon

If we were to follow the most common discussions of Fanon then Raven is a tragic lesbian who could never be with Summer, a mother who understood her limits and wanted her daughter to have a better life than with her and who was forced into the position of providing for her tribe and had absolutely no choice but to raid villages for survival of her poor tribe.

If people arent thirsting over Raven herself and or her "romance" with Summer then one can always find many excuses and people calling her a "tragic" and "understandable" figure. They will say that "Shes not perfect" and things like that when in reality, Raven Branwen is just a straight up evil person in the story. Complicated? Yes. Evil? Also yes.

Her only saving grace is that most of the time she is not an antagonist. And she is not related to Salem and in fact would oppose her if she wasnt a coward. And yet, her actions, her being a literal murderous bandit seem to be ignored by a lot of the fandom.

The same fandom that will give shit to Ironwood for bringing 3 airships to Vale and calling it a "military occupation" and Adam wanting to blow up a train (with its crew) will then turn around and pretend that Raven killing innocent villages for shits and giggles on her own volition never happened.

They will cry about how Ironwood and Adam never deserved redemption! How they are deeply evil and have always been deeply evil people, while convincing everyone that Raven is perfect for redemption and was just "forced" to be a bandit queen.

The hypocricy of the RWBY FNDM is staggering, but not news.

What is worse however is how Raven is seemingly receiving the same if not even faster way of redemption that Emerald has. By now most people have probably seen both the RWBY:Beyond first episode and of course the ending animatic. And who else is there in Vacuo if not Raven. Shes just there. Like she just belongs amongst the heroes despite being a literal BANDIT QUEEN.

Despite Ironwood and Adam turning evil they had a good cause at the end of the day. A cause they wanted to fight for.

And instead the people praise and want the redeption of a terrorist who worked for Salem and a literal bandit queen, both of whom did the things they did out of selfish needs? Seriously?

Whats worse is that it seems that CRWBY is more than okay with that. It seems that this is at least currently one of their goals. Which to me is just staggering.

Conclussion i guess

Sorry for the ranty nature of this post. I know that im preaching to the choir but i just needed to get this out of my chest after seeing 10000000000000 posts about Raven and Summer fucking on twitter. Because yeah, THATS Ravens most identifying feature, being a girlkisser. After fucking years of being called a fascist and a bootliker for simply saying that Ironwoods heel turn was shittily done and that SOME of his plans were good it fucking maddens me to see people simp for a literal BANDIT QUEEN without push-back.

[constantvariations]

Why Some People Don't Like Jaune Arc

I've seen some folk confused about the dislike towards Jaune, such as @the-sapphic-raven and @foxgirltail so I thought I'd compile all the reasons (that I can remember without a whole-ass rewatch) in a single post. For the most part, it's not the character himself that earns ire but the way he's used

Volume One

All the goodwill Jaune built up by being sweet towards Ruby is immediately soured by his chauvinistic attitude towards Weiss and his dismissal of Pyrrha, a strange choice given this is supposed to be a progressive society/show. And Pyrrha, the prodigy of the entire school, is somehow into being treated like dirt

There's also the matter of his sneaking into a school dedicated to protecting people from man-eating monsters despite the fact that Jaune had negative skills (while somehow being from a long line of warriors). It makes for good story, but it's also an incredibly selfish and dangerous decision that put people, most directly his teammates, at risk due to his inexperience. This would've been smoothed over had he actually been proactive, but instead he sleeps in class and Pyrrha has to take initiative in training him

The biggest problem comes in the "Jaune Arc" where his generic bullying plot not only overshadows the anti-faunus attitude, not only comes before Blake or Yang get an arc, but takes up an entire twenty-five percent of the first season. That was a whole month of Jaune instead of RWBY back in the days of release

Volume Two

Once again, Jaune has a disproportionate amount of time dedicated to him but this time he's joined by Neptune so we can have a love triangle between these two and Weiss. Given that Jaune and Neptune are voiced by Luna and Shawcross, the writers who, yknow, write Weiss's every word and action, this comes off as super creepy. Additionally, he pursues Weiss despite her multiple unambiguous rejections, and the narrative is clearly on his side. And then, after learning that Neptune turned down Weiss - something well within his right to do - Jaune gets pissy and confronts him with language objectifying Weiss as some sort of possession and forces Neptune to reveal something he's obviously very ashamed about

There's also the man-in-a-dress "joke" that shouldn't be considered a joke in a gender-equal society, but that's simply more bad writing choices with Jaune as the victim

Volume Three

There's not as much here since Jaune plays more of a supporting role to Pyrrha, which is where he really shines as a character. There's that bit during the Vytal Festival with the team name shenanigans throwing off the scene's rhythm, but it's more of an annoyance than anything else

But then after Pyrrha sends him away, instead of calling Glynda like he'd been about to do or any authority, he calls Ruby and breaks his phone before calling anyone else. Grief does make people do stupid things, but this is goes beyond that. This was a choice of the writers to refuse Pyrrha backup so she could die, leading into the most consistent complaint of Jaune in all subsequent volumes: trauma hogging

Volume Four

While Ruby, Ren, and Nora get only outfit changes, Jaune gets upgrades to both his armor and weapon using Pyrrha's crown and sash. This is pretty blatant favoritism since Ren and Nora don't get anything of hers to symbolize their connection to Pyrrha despite them also being teammates and friends. This trauma favoritism continues when Ruby wakes from a nightmare about Pyrrha only for the scene to be about Jaune's feelings. We never come back to Ruby's trauma (unless you want to count that one talk with Oscar in V5, which still isn't great) and Ren/Nora are completely passed over

Then in the Nuckleavee fight, instead of Ruby being the one to rescue Qrow from oncoming attack because she's got the speed and that's her uncle, it's Jaune who saves the day. It's Jaune who gets that silent handgrab with Qrow, which means nothing because these two don't really know each other but would mean a wealth of things had it been Ruby instead

Also, the sword sword "upgrade." It's not Jaune's fault that it's poorly designed, I'm just legally obligated to say it sucks every time I talk about this fight

Volume Five

When Qrow and Lionheart talk about Raven, Jaune knows she's Yang’s mom despite the two of them sharing maybe 10 words with each other. Yang didn't even tell Blake, her own partner, much about Raven, but for whatever reason she told Jaune? Sus

The climatic fight nerfed everyone, but Weiss and Cinder got special stupid juice specifically so Jaune could be the main character. Cinder spent the last two seasons building up and reinforcing her hatred of Ruby, even agreeing to Raven's alternative plan just for a stab at the kid. Yet her attention during the big fight is solely on Jaune because...? And he goes toe-to-toe with her! She was trained by a professional huntsman for years as a child while Jaune has, what? Maybe a year of training? And she's a Maiden! The deck is so stacked against Jaune it's not even funny

Then to punish him, instead of attacking Ruby - who's entirely preoccupied by Emerald, his very first friend, and the person he crossed continents to follow - Cinder goes after Weiss. His crush. Who conveniently forgot her sword isn't a wand and her glyphs can do just about anything so her aura could be broken

Weiss got fridged so Jaune could discover his semblance. Female empowerment at its finest

(Before anyone tries it, no, I'm not saying Ruby should've been fridged instead. The situation as written is set up so that somebody HAS to be fridged, which is stupid. This could've been revealed in a million ways that didn't involve girls being maimed)

Volume Six

Getting aggressive with Oscar was out of line. I understand (not condone) Qrow being violent because he's been in the game longer than any of the kids and just watched an entire HD powerpoint of Ozpin's lies. Being Oz's spy was essentially his life

Jaune does not have that same depth of investment. One can argue that he was acting on his grief of Pyrrha, but that falls flat when neither Ren or Nora come even close to the same reaction

Once again, Jaune hogs all the Pyrrha-related trauma, even getting a visit from her mom(?) while looking at a giant statue of her (despite the fact that Pyrrha blatantly said in V2 she didn't like being treated like she's above others)

Volume Seven

Jaune hogs the camera for JNR's new landing strategies, his hair is dumb, and grown women fawning over a teenager is gross, but overall Jaune this volume is fantastic. Super swell in his supporting role here and that bit where he compliments Nora after her failed flirting always makes me giggle

Volume Eight

Imma be honest, I don't remember much of V8 and I do not have the time, will, or energy to rewatch it, so I'll just skip to the biggest thing in the volume: Penny's death.

Jaune did not try hard enough to save her. Whereas any other time this trope of mercy killing during combat has been implemented, it's typically done as a reluctant last resort after every other option has been exhausted. Cinder was still preoccupied with Weiss and Jaune's pretty beefy; he could've made a dash for the exit while still healing her

Instead, he boosts her aura for a whole 2 seconds before agreeing to stab her in the heart.

Another fridge for Jaune's collection

Volume Nine

Everyone's fears of Jaune stealing the spotlight once again get confirmed. He gets a legendary role in a story loved world wide, a pedestal only matched by Ruby's weird deified status in the rtx V9 epilogue, which may or may not be canon

Weiss is into him for "being mature" despite never having shown a preference for older men. Not counting villains we have Ozpin, Oobleck, Port, Klein, Qrow, and Ironwood; all of whom could've been used to establish this trait, yet it only comes out with Jaune? Highly suspicious

His relationship with the paper pleasers is incredibly terrible. He has no respect for their culture and treats them like children despite their obvious intelligence. It rings far too closely to missionaries "saving" people, usually of color, in third world countries

Then, when Ruby finally snapped and is venting her frustrations, Jaune cuts in to take his rage out on her. Jaune, at this point, is at least in his mid thirties, so we get a grown ass man yelling at a seventeen year old girl who then runs away, putting her in a vulnerable position that is immediately taken advantage of. Nobody blames him for being upset, but as an adult he now has a responsibility to take care of how he treats people significantly younger than him

Not even an hour after Ruby drinks the tea right in front of them, the entire group hugs Jaune with big, bright smiles. Ruby not once had someone actually comfort her despite her obvious failing mental health, but Jaune gets comforted by both the team and the narrative

Thanks for surviving this far

Feel free to add on, but I'm tired of this being in my drafts so Jaune be upon ye

If y’all disagree with any of the points, I'd love to hear your view and have a nice discussion

[dragynkeep]

there is something mentally wrong with rwby fans that consistently block evade to meatride two incredibly bigoted white men lmao

[sokumotanaka]

Did you hear what they did with the few remaining RWBY videos? They did episodes of "what happened during" to the characters no stuck in wonderland- and one of them is about Jaune...they guy who was in volume 9 when we could of gotten...ANYTHING ELSE XD

RWBY based asked || God help me.

-

I genuinely hope you're fucking with me Anon, cause that be...really stupid. I can't believe this, here I go getting up on my soap box again.

So instead of showing us other characters engaged in anything, maybe Oscar could of lead a group of hunters to go find the last relic or free beacon from the grimm threat or something.

You waste an episode on the guy who was a main factor and had tons of focus the entire series and then some, and when you write ideas for what other characters are doing- you write the guy ALREADY doing stuff AGAIN rather than anyone else?

Here's a list of things a mini-series epilogue could of been instead:

(With the point being there are tons of unfinished plot threads they left sitting around they should be working on, more than giving Jaune MORE screentime.)

Learning about Semblance

Learning about dust

Where the last Relic is and someone getting it

Emerald now being apart of the good faction

How Vacuians feel about the rich 1% racist parking on their front lawns.

How they feel about people putting a memorial to strangers not from their nation on their property

Where's Ciel?

Any of the other teams actually DOING things

Where are the faunus from? Cause Menagerie was "gifted" to them so what continent do they actually come from?

How did Kali and Ghira feel about them hopefully telling them their daughter disappeared and not them holding onto vital important personal information.

What the rest of the Asops are doing.

Who Theodore and the Last maiden are

What the hell is mercury doing?

What the white fang is up to?

Where's Ciel part 2?

Any contingency dealing with the Grimm

A reason as to why the relic of Destruction wasn't used on Salem decades ago? And don't feed me she reforms, so does venom but if you throw him in lava or acid it fucking stops cause you DESTROY him. So what's the excuse here? You could literally use the relic that made penny a real girl to make the relic destroy Salem.

What's Mile's, Eddie, Kerry and the other one's beef with dark skinned people? Why are real and fake minorities most of the villains yet Jaune, Weiss and Cardin get to live?

Anything about silver eyes

The world's reaction to that salem news

What happened to Pietro and Maria? Seriously what's with these people and either killing or making their dark skinned POC go missing?

Where is Ciel for the last time? Give her to me I'm not afraid to storm that building.

Who is the council and why is there one?

Insert your own here [ ]

This is incredibly stupid!

-thanks for the ask.

[orchidvioletindigo]

Love the collections of sapphic cartoon kisses people are making and adding B/umbleby to with "Finally" and bandying around that "Good romance is earned" tweet without stopping to consider how fucked it is that every other kiss in those collections came from shows that had to fight network or streaming service censorship, which RW/BY did not, and their same gender kisses still happened first.

I don't accept "Good romance is earned" when you're talking about dragging out confirming that two same gender main protagonists are romantically involved so long that you wait until it's more culturally acceptable to do so before pulling the trigger instead of going in when other shows were having to fight to be allowed to do a fraction of what you could have given us in terms of explicit representation in a corporately enforced desert a decade ago.

[normalest-of-knees]

Did they really..... do absolutely nothing with the fact that Jaune "had" to kill Penny?.....

I thought maybe they could pull something out at the end somehow; maybe have Penny be the one to help Ruby through her rough time as well as the tree lady

Though then again with all the Summer build up I'm not surprised

But I'm.... both flabbergasted and defeated that we went through this entire Volume without ever actually addressing Jaune killing Penny.

Back after Volume 8, so many people were like "So they HAVE to address this, right? Oh man how is Ruby gonna react to this??" And many were speculating and wondering

Apparently she won't, is the answer. We don't even know if Blake & Yang know either. They just never actually talk about or react if they do know

And I'm wondering.... why? Why did they tease about the Penny angst and then it amount to nothing in the end? Why did Ruby have to pass out while Weiss talked about the subject, and then never gets to talk about it afterwards? Why did she get to find the sword (that shouldn't even exist, mind you), give it up, then when it's thrown away she just leave it at that?

I know the answer is random angst and Jaune angst, but still.

Penny deserved so much better, and so did we. The audience deserved to be treated better and respected, but we got... this.

I wished they had picked between wanting to push the Summer stuff or the Penny stuff, since they clearly couldn't do both. And what we got of each was so... nothing

[kitkatopinions]

I think that V9 really just made me convinced that the friendship between Team RWBY is pretty out of obligation and that their friendships and relationships will not last with the possible exception of Ruby and Weiss. Like, the writers might continue on to make them 'bffs forever' with relationships we're supposed to think are perfect, but I really just think they barely even like each other.

Trigger warning for discussions of attempted suicide.

Ruby spends the entire volume going through a terrible depression and grieving over the loss of her friend and struggling with trauma and very clearly not okay, and meanwhile only one of her friends really seem to care and only when she's not distracted. Ruby then blows up that she doesn't want to be the leader anymore, doesn't want to be treated like she's perfect, doesn't want to be the one who provides answers, and basically admits that she feels like no one cares what she goes through. Then her friends don't do anything when a forty year old man screams in her face that she's responsible for all bad things, don't do anything but watch as she basically tries to kill herself after being tortured, don't care much after the fact, and then when she comes back, they all basically says she's perfect and would never be weak and announce they're still looking to her as a leader for all their answers.

Blake and Yang have never addressed any of their actual past issues and Blake became a completely different person and the doylist reason might be that the writers just changed her character but in universe it feels like she did that for Yang, but then in V9 Yang is pretty much just blowing off all of Blake's concerns while Blake tries to control Yang's temper for her by coaxing Yang like a mom with a toddler, they were forced into confessing their feelings for each other and what Yang said to Blake basically amounted to 'I think it's cute that you're a minority, also here's some incorrect things that indicate that I don't pay attention to you or your past as an abuse victim,' and then the little sister that Yang supposedly cares about killed herself after implying that Yang was ignoring her for Blake's sake.

As for Weiss's relationship with Blake and Yang, did they even talk outside of Weiss telling them that Ruby was going through too much and sharing eye-rolls about how exasperating the Ever After was? Weiss put way more work into her friendship with Jaune than them and basically acted like they were just her co-workers and she was Angela in the first season of the Office.

And you know what, let's include Jaune in this too, because despite the fact that Jaune was closer to Ruby than almost anyone for the majority of the show... This whole thing made me not believe in them as friends from here on in. Jaune screamed in her face victim blaming her for stuff that wasn't her fault while basically saying she has no right to feel anything bad, after Ruby dismissed the Paper Pleasers as imaginary, and Jaune is now young again but has spent like twenty years apart from her and it would only make sense for Jaune to care way more about a lot of different things and it seems like he has a lot of resentment towards her built up. And meanwhile, I have no choice but to think they're trying to set up White Knight but he's??? Forty in his head??? And also Weiss was one of the people dismissing him as an unreliable crazy person. Which Blake and Yang also did, and he'd barely talked to Blake and Yang EVER before falling into the Ever After, especially Blake. Their little group hug meant next to nothing when half of them had no real relationship anyway and if there's a romance between Jaune and Weiss I cannot and will not believe that it'd ever work out especially now that's he's like mentally twenty years older than her.

The reason why I think that Ruby and Weiss have a chance for their friendship to survive is because they both still act like they care and would be willing to admit when they've been wrong. I honest to god feel like if Ruby tried to sit Yang down and have a conversation about feeling like Yang's past actions hurt her, Yang would get defensive or just be like 'what are you talking about of course I love you' and then go on doing the same stuff she was doing in volume 9. Of course I don't think the writers are actually going to act like anything is wrong or that anyone in the team needs to change and adjust and especially not anyone but Ruby (who somehow managed to get partially thrown under the bus this season for the power couple and the fandom's best girl and best boy 🙄) But I really just feel like no matter how much longer they writers try to make us think they're close friends, I'm still gonna feel like a year down the road Yang and Ruby will have very little contact, Blake and Yang will have broken up, Jaune and Ruby will be fighting, Weiss will have fallen out with Yang and Blake, and Ruby and Blake will have an incredibly awkward 'let's hang out some time,' small talk infused conversation like once every two or three months, and that's it.

[goldsrc-hl1]

Do you agree with the idea that the white fang plot as a whole was poorly handled even tho Adam was done fairly well in a vacuum?

That's... Tough.

You see, I do think they handled racism very poorly. Not because the plot itself was racist, or because the racism portrayal was bad. The plot isn't racist and the racism portrayal, although limited at first, gets a lot better as the show goes on and overall I'd say it's good.

What they failed to do is discuss racism.

The message of the White Fang arc is hardly related to combatting racism. The message is about how terrorists can't be allowed to represent minority groups, because oppressors will use the terroristic minority to generalize the entire group. As such, the minority group as a whole must stand up to the terrorists and show that they are not represented by the terrorists.

It's basically "one bad apple spoils the whole bunch" and how to solve it. That message is good, great even. I personally think that the responsibility shouldn't fall onto the oppressors to show that the vocal minority doesn't represent them, but it kinda has to, seeing as the oppressors aren't gonna be doing it anytime soon. Overall, I think that's a great message.

But it's hardly about how to combat racism. In the end, there is no message about how to do that, other than don't let crazy terrorists represent you cause people are gonna end up hating you, but that applies to pretty much everything.

I could say that for Muslims. Al-Qaeda's 9/11 attack didn't cause the U.S. to cower in fear, it generated HATE, and it made the U.S. intensify their efforts to eliminate Al-Qaeda. I really, really, really fucking hate that this is the case, but most Americans that generalize Muslims through Al-Qaeda aren't going to educate themselves. As such, it falls upon Muslims to show that they are not represented by Al-Qaeda and other Islamic terror groups like the Taliban. And, many Muslims have done this. Malala Yousafzai comes to mind (damn that girl is brave holy shit).

I can apply this to any minority group that is generalized by oppressors, not just racism.

As far as combatting racism goes, RWBY glorifies civil disobedience and MOSTLY peaceful stuff with Ghira, who is shown to not be against using violence in self defense as long as no one is killed and is ok with breaking laws (Adam robs a dust processing plant while still working for Ghira in the Adam Short), it takes a neutral stance on using violence and terrorism to achieve equality (doesn't vilify or glorify Sienna) and takes a hard negative stance on using terrorism to achieve revenge (Adam is a villain).

There's really no big discussion about the morality of using violence / terrorism to achieve equality. It's just not discussed. They had the setup to do it with Sienna Khan, but it was completely dropped. Naturally, RWBY fails to discuss racism in it's White Fang subplot by merit of kinda just giving up on it. The White Fang subplot absolutely succeeds at discussing terrorism and it's effects not just on the terrorist's targets but also on the people the terrorists are fighting for (or at least claim to be fighting for), and that's all fine and dandy.

However, I am still disappointed by the lack of racism discussion. The potential was all there, and it was just... dropped. Now, CRWBY themselves admitted they were naïve about racism, and yes, they were. Racism portrayal wasn't all too god in Volume 1-3. So I honestly think it was still the right decision to drop Sienna because it wouldn't have been well written if they kept her around, and they knew that.

So, in a way, yes, I do. I think the White Fang subplot fails to discuss racism and the big political question of if violence is justified if it's in the name of equality. It has no take on it, it's completely neutral on it, despite all the setup. However, I do think the White Fang subplot succeeds at discussing terrorism. To me it feels more like a subplot about terrorism with some racism sprinkles (terrible analogy but I'm trying my best lol) instead of a racism subplot with terrorism sprinkles. If the intention was to discuss terrorism, which, obviously, it was, then yes, it succeeds, but dropping all the discussion about racism was extremely disappointing and I 100% agree that it fails to discuss racism, not because of bad writing, but because it... doesn't try to.

In summary, the White Fang subplot has a very good message about terrorism and how it impacts not only the targets of terrorism but also the people the terrorism is done for. The White Fang subplot does not have any message about whether or not violence is justified in the name of equality. It fails to discuss this by merit of not trying.

So, I guess it was handled well when it comes to terrorism discussion, but not racism discussion.

I'd once again like to repeat that the White Fang subplot was never, has never, and if it comes back, hopefully will never be racist. Not once.

So yeah, I hope this answer satisfies you and have a wonderful day :D! If I did a shitty job at explaining myself feel free to let me know and I will try again to make it much clearer.

Till next time

[mylittlerwde]

Fair notes about keeping Maidenhood under wraps in a random scuffle. I guess my main attempted point about Blake was how her 'sneakiness' seems very conditional and less of a baked-in character role than much of the fndm presumes. Far as semblance use goes, I was trying to point out Blake doesn't use her clones for 'stealth' so much as split-second dodging aids, propulsion or baiting foes into traps after engaging them. Being slightly less conspicuous than most of her wacky early-volume classmates ain't really saying much.

As for Pyrrha's supposed semblance subtlety…her using it on peoples' gear is easily missed, but stuff like the pop can spam still seems liable to get around with witnesses like Sun & Neptune-and Ren's likely her only teammate/friend who keeps his lips zipped enough for a conspiracy's purposes. If Merc hadn't sussed out how she uses it in spars, they might've struck up a chat with Nora for a bit & gotten an earful (or just framed someone else-Watts' hack gave them almost total control over tourney details). But outside the context of Cinder's festival plot, you're quite right that Pyrrha wouldn't need much use of any new powers, making it easier to keep 'em concealed.

I usually don't even like Maiden!Yang as a concept, mainly 'cause (a) she's tough enough without cribbing from ATLA and (b) fans often seem to treat it as a package deal with Raven Nobly Making The Ultimate Sacrifice Like A True Mom (which seems maddeningly cliche and character-unfitting), but Burgers raised some interesting points vis-a-vis this 'Oz doesn't try to recruit Pyrrha for whatever reason' scenario. Good talk.

Oh, this was wonderful. Thank you for clarifying what you meant about Blake semblance. I never realized she'd never used her semblance for stealth. I'm glad we had this talk. It reminded me that Blake isn't used as well as I remember.

[peacefulmultishipper]

I just going to put this here because I’m honestly sick to death of the “Sisterhood” argument and already saw people bringing up Monty again on Reddit.

No, Monty never said he intended Team RWBY to be a sisterhood (Besides Yang and Ruby who are sisters), that bs came from a random website.

The closest thing is Monty saying the interaction between the girls in Volume 2 Chapter 10 were almost sisterly, not that they are unless there a post I missed where he said otherwise then link me it.

If you prefer Yang and Blake, Ruby and Weiss, ect to be strictly platonically with each other or prefer another ship entirely then that’s fine and cool but some of y’all need to stop bringing up a dead man so your preference can some weight to it.

[fndmstrugglecomments]

My RWDE post of the day is that if RWB really were tired and had to perform life saving surgery on Nora they could’ve just told May that, and the only reason May got so aggressive with her “What side are you on?” comment is that her original assertion that Atlas can defend itself well enough and Mantle needs them is a completely airtight statement that Ruby can’t argue against, so the writers did what they always do: they made RWBY’s opposition more aggressive and unreasonable than necessary so RWBY looks better by comparison.

[dextixer]

There is no point in discussing Ironwood/Atlas in the fandom.

Since Volumes 7-8 the way that Ironwood and Atlas were written, their actions, whether they were justified or to what extent they were justified and the like have been discussed to death. There is no stone that has not been overturned, no statement that has not been made, no argument that has not been disected.

Regardless of ones stance on the subject, there is nothing left to discuss, the only thing left at best is sharing ones interpretation and opinions on it with people willing to engage with them. Or it would be, if there were actually such people left.

Around a week ago, against my own better judgement i once again engaged in an Ironwood discussion, something that i have mostly avoided for nearly a year, and i got just the right reminder as to why exactly there is no point in discussing it with members of the FNDM, and especially the fanatics.

They do not care about the show, how its told, what it told us. What they care about is to show how "moral" and "morally upstanding" they are by repeating the same mantra over and over. "Team RWBY are heroes, Ironwood is a fascist.", its both to show how morally "good" they are and also to protect the writing of a product that they love, because their beloved product possibly being deficient would be seen as a personal attack on their taste.

Lie and Lie again, if that doesnt work, lie once more

One of the most important factors in having any discussion is for both of the people talking to not only be truthful with one another but also agree upon some level of common ground that a disagreement comes from. In the case of RWBY, an Animated show, one has to agree with what is canon, what we can see in the story, from where on we can start arguing about interpretations. The problem however is that many people in the fandom, in regards to Ironwood especially, do not care about canon.

This being one of many examples. Since as far back as Volume 7, when we saw Ironwoods forces, everyone could look back to Volumes 2-3 and see that Ironwood brought 3 airships to Vale, a small detachment for the security of the festival.

Yet time and time again, RWBY fans refer to it as an "army", implying some kind of excessive force, in fact, some people in the past have went as far as saying that Ironwood was MILITARILY OCCUPYING Vale with his forces, i am not kidding.

But the most often directly lied about scene is of course the scene of Ironwood abandoning Mantle. In the show, after seeing the chess piece, he encounters a seer left behind in his office, this seer allows him to talk to Salem who pretty much tells him she is coming, which is then confirmed by the Ace Ops saying that the Grimm sensors have ceased working. That is canon. And yet, many a RWBY fan often pretends that Ironwood takes his decision after seeing the chess piece and "conveniently" ignore the chat that Ironwood has with Salem.

Fans of RWBY will not hesistate to lie about the canon itself to make their point, for people who claim to appreciate the shows writing, they will often directly ignore or even contradict it just so that they could hold true to their moral obligations.

But what happens when lying doesnt work?

Misdirect, Motte and Bailey and bad faith

When direct lying fails, RWBY fans will often take a different stance, instead of directly talking about canon, they will instead make the most bad faith assumptions and arguments imaginable.

This often takes form in Omissions or other less direct types of lies. Many times, it wont even be lies, but the most riddiculous arguments that they dont themselves believe.

For example, saying that soldiers helping to protect an event from terrorists is a stupid move.

In Volume 7, one of the earliest things we see happen is that Ironwoods forces are fighting against Grimm, the Sabyrs when they breach into Mantle, after which Penny shows up to assist in cleaning them up. And yet, fans of RWBY will say that these soldiers were not meant to protect people against Grimm, they were meant to abuse the citizens of Mantle.

The same goes for the curfew that also gets established in that same Volume. It is done explicitly for peoples protection. They instead say that its to control people, implying that the threat of Grimm isnt real? Which is exceedingly funny since COVID lockdowns happend near the same time, which were also curfews that meant to protect people.

Ironwood shooting Oscar is also a key part of such misdirections. Often times when RWBY fans talk about Ironwood shooting Oscar they refer to him as a "child" a "defenseless child", conveniently ignoring the Ozpin shaped hole in his brain.

This is yet another form this takes. Strawmanning and of course, the reference to "Ironwood runs away" argument, which they hold as true despite the show never stating it ever. They take Ironwood statement that Atlas will always stay out of Salems reach as a direct statement that Atlas will just rise and stay away. And not for example become a flying city which is also a possibility.

This is also another example of dishonest arguments. RWBY fans pretend that Ironwood is classist, that he only wanted to save the rich and leave everyone else to die. Despite the fact that Ironwood ordered Mantle to be evacuated into Atlas and only wanted to leave to save as many people as he could regardless of status. And yet, they have to pretend that he only cares about the "rich".

But the most often seen tendency among RWBY fans in regards to argument is something else.

Doulethink

Doublethink is acceptance of two contrary opinions being right at the same time due to ideological reasons. For example, decrying someone as weak when convenient and as strong at the same time.

And RWBY fans love this type of argumentation, especially with Ironwood.

As shown before in a picture, they pretend that Ironwood only cared about the rich. And yet they also argue that as a fascist he hates and controls the rich by how he treats Jacques.

They will both pretend that Ironwood is a sociopath who wants to control the world and at the same time will claim how sorry they feel about his PTSD and how he clearly should have been thrown out of the army due to it.

Ironwoods prosthetics both show how he suffered so much and should have been told to sit out due to his clear mental issues, yet at the same time those prosthetics prove and show how evil he is, how he wants to replace his body with metal because he wants to be an unthinking machine.

They will pretend to care about how Ironwood holds 2/5 seats on the Atlas council, decrying how UNDEMOCRATIC he is being, yet at the same time, when convenient they will constantly bring up how Ironwood did not ask for Ozpins persmission for his actions in V2-V3. They pretend that he usurped Ozpin despite Ironwood acting directly under Vales council.

As shown in this exchange. The cries for "democracy" quiet down all of a sudden when people take Ozpins side against Ironwood. Suddently, the opinion of the council doesnt matter, only Ozpin does. Oh and this is also an example of how they will change the topic once an argument is lost.

Oh, and of course, their favourite is in regards to team RWBY.

Who are at the same time both small teenagers who know no better and cannot be judged for their actions because they are smoll beans uwu.

And they are also literal jesus.

Because NOTHING says "we are being honest" when the protagonists are amazingly "weak" and "smoll" uwu beans whenever anyone criticizes them for making shit decisions for entire COUNTRIES which they CHOSE to do. And at the same time those protagonists are amazing badass girbossing jesus-like heroes who everyone should worship.

Ending word

I guess what im trying to say is that there is simply no point or hope in arguing about Ironwood, or hell, even arguing with RWBY fans in general unless you are in relatively neutral spaces with people who are willing to listen. They will lie, if they cant lie they will misdirect, and they will never be honest about their beliefs. Because their true beliefs are only "RWBY is good and what it attempts to say is correct". Nothing else matters. RWBY is good. Its messages (no matter how mangled they are) are good.

And to protect those beliefs RWBY fans will do ANYTHING. Because just like religious fanatics, they have faith, a belief, and nothing will stop them. If you oppose them, you are everything they think is evil. If you accept their words uncritically, then you are now a "friend".

[constantvariations]

Listening to the V7 director commentary for the first time and I almost dropped my jaw when I heard Luna call the racist drunkards the "faces of Mantle" like??

You want these two assholes to represent all of Mantle yet expect the audience to give a shit when it's threatened? Fuck em and fuck Mantle!

[rwdestuffs]

TFW I've concluded: (a) most fndm *and* rwdeposters have jank Yang takes (especially her true problems) but it's not worth the hassle now; (b) the show said some inane stuff in early marketing (where the 'party girl' shit started) and V4's 'arc' ('don't try saving injured hostages, dummy!'); (c) her characterization wasn't really gutshot 'til V9, which sucked less due to 'ignored sister 4 GF' than 'script-frozen in the face of Ruby's crisis'. Wish I hadn't fixed on this fictional person so hard.

Volume 9 was more about Ruby than it was about Yang. And while I have issues about how Yang (and other characters) were handled, she still ultimately came out of the volume much more mentally healthy than previous volumes.

It’s okay to fixate on a character, I feel like we’ve all done it. But if the character isn’t for you anymore, then that’s okay too.