#this is just a personal opinion not meant to attack anyone nor to spark discourse or debate ~~pleasedontkillme~~

[sp1resong]

not to be the artificer discourse guy (tm) but i Cannot believe 'Collective Punishment Bad' is in any way a controversial take in this fandom

[littlemisssquiggles]

...So about the ORNJ_JNPR T-shirt thing...

daggerpawstudios asked

“Okay I am the only confused by all the hate that Oscar is getting right now because they dropped some new merch at the RT Store. I am not sure if you heard that Team JNPR got called Team ORNJ on the new shirt. I feel like this is kind of a mistake on the marketing team's part and not really CRWBY. But now a lot of people are attacking RG shippers and Oscar fans and I don't really understand because it seems more like fragile egos”

Squiggles Answers:

@daggerpawstudios​

Hey there Dagger. Well to be honest with you fam, this squiggle meister has sort of been out of the RWBY loop for the past few months. Got a work project so I haven’t been as active as I normally would be in my squiggle shire here on Tumblr.

Nevertheless, I did sort of know about the shirt thing. I first heard the news from a tweet from RWBY Youtuber Calxiyn it over on Twitter. I then saw RWBY Youtuber ThatKaitoDan mention Oscar replacing Jaune as leader of Team JNPR in his own tweet post as well but I didn’t know the full context of what he meant by that until you brought this to my attention.

I didn’t know that RT had actually listed the shirt as Team ORNJ which in their case is…well…a big OOF on their part. Personally, I don’t think this is something that folks in the FNDM should be making a big hullabaloo about. I think it’s an obvious PR mistake on the marketing department who run the RT store releases since no offense to RT and whoever is in charge of promotion on their online store but…their record of “getting things right” their store especially with the FNDM hasn’t exactly been squeaky clean in the past.

Besides, another obvious giveaway to me as to why I think it’s more likely to be a minor error is the very fact that Jaune’s silhouette is still first in line.

Think about it. If Oscar had really usurped Jaune as leader of the team then why isn’t his silhouette first in the line up? 

Isn’t it not a golden rule of thumb that the leaders of each huntsmen team always appear first in the team line-up whenever they do the silhouette thing as we’ve seen previously with teams like RWBY and even the Ace Ops? 

Anyone with decent vision can clearly see that that’s Jaune’s silhouette at the front of the line. Not Oscar. If Oscar was truly the new leader of the team then why is he the third silhouette? 

If thing had really turned ORNJ, then the order should be Oscar, Ren, Nora and finally Jaune. But as you can clearly see, the order is Jaune, Ren, Oscar and Nora.----THE SAME ORDER THAT WAS FEATURED IN THE VOLUME 7 OPENING! Or did folks…y’know…forget that? 

I know V7 ended earlier in the year but have folks forgotten the season already with its opening sequence? After Team RWBY, we got the JNPR 2.0 gang and the order in which JNR and Oscar appear matches the T-shirt with Jaune being first, then Ren, then Oscar and finally Nora. So there you go. 

So I wouldn't worry too much about that Dagger. I agree with you in thinking that it was a simple error made by the RT store. However, that being said, the other part about people stirring discourse over this and worst yet attacking the Pinehead and Rosegarden community over this…do I even need to say how silly that sounds.

Much like with the ridiculous discourse that arose after the small Rosegarden moment in V7CH9, this is yet another classic example of certain-certain folks literally scraping the bottom of the barrel and using any excuse they could find to harp on something they don't like while unfairly accosting the people who do.

I feel really bad for my fellow Pineheads, Rosegardeners and Rosegardening Pineheads who were victims of this time of foolishness. Because that's what this all sounds like to my ears. Foolish fools acting foolish yet again.

Seriously, what does Oscar as a character or even Rosegarden as a ship have to do with something that was posted by the RT store and is clearly an error made by the people who run it?

Are certain-certain folks truly that desperate to stir up drama and conflict that they would honestly seep so low as to use a T-shirt design as fuel for an easy argument?

The Pinehead, Rosegarden and Rosegardening Pinehead communities get enough flak as it is but this is just...beyond silly!

I'm not implying that the hate brigade should train their anger on RT but how silly can you be to take something as a T-shirt design to that level of seriousness? Especially when the design more or less outs its own error. Am I missing something here? Is there another unknown part to this where the CRWBY Writers came out and confirmed that this is legit? Because otherwise, this is just…so…LIKE SERIOUSLY DUDE?!

I like RWBY a lot and in spite of my own personal gripes and nit-picks with the direction of the show at times in terms of its writing and treatment of the characters and their respective relationships and arcs---in spite of all that, I still actively enjoy the show and I’m still invested in seeing where the CRWBY Writers take it to the very end. However I’d be lying if all the constant discourse from the more “toxic” side of FNDM isn’t slowly starting to chip away at my excitement for the series. I can live with RWBY having flaws but what I don’t need are folks constantly going out of their way to use any excuse they could to express their own personal gripes with show; going as far as to abuse others in the process. That kind of stuff isn’t cool and it’s not good to witness through the eyes of someone who wants to enjoy the show or is at least trying to...y’know what I mean?

When I first heard the news of the JNPR shirts, I was excited. Not only is this the first merch we’ve gotten of JNPR in some time but it’s also the second merch to feature Oscar.

In case folks don’t realize, Oscar doesn’t have a lot of his own merchandise sold by RT which sucks for us Pineheads.

At least the OG JNPR/JNR have a couple of merchandise (albeit not as popular or abundant as Team RWBY’s but still there). 

But Oscar…not so much and the same can be said for Ozpin too.  It took RT six whole seasons to release ONE T-SHIRT DESIGN with Oscar and Oz on the front and even that was sort of short-lived since I don’t see that shirt advertising in the store anymore. It’s always the same ole Team RWBY stuff.

So with that in mind, this shirt was a first and a given. It’s so great to see Oscar together with JNR on a shirt because in a way, it makes it more official that he is a member of their group especially for those of us who were rooting for this to happen since V5.

I still don’t think it means that he is the leader because as I’ll say again, look at the order on the shirt design. Oscar is third. Right where Pyrhha used to be. How can he be leader and be third in the line-up? Oscar is meant to replace Pyrhha, not Jaune. 

In the case of this whole ORNJ JNPR T-shirt scandal, I don’t understand how on Earth a clear marketing typo could reach as far as to spark discourse for a fictional character of a series, his fans and the fans of one of his ships? AGAIN!

What does Team JNPR (or whatever they will be called) being miswritten as Team ORNJ has to do with us Pineheads, Rosegardeners and Rosegardening Pineheads? How are we as a fan community responsible for an error made by RT?

Even if there are Pineheads who think this should be official--NOT speaking for myself here but I have seen other Pineheads express their desire to see Oscar lead JNPR for their own reasons---still, this is no excuse to harp on someone for liking it just because you don’t.

You’re right Dagger; this doesn’t make sense to me either.

All I can say is that it is what is it. Another example of certain-certain folks using any excuse to harp on something they don’t like while trying to drag others down with them and/or ruin their good vibes. 

Seriously these types of folks are honestly scraping at the bottom of the barrel. I’m surprised they’re still able to see after sinking so low with their foolishness. If that sounds a bit too harsh then sorry; not sorry. 

Ever since the whole discourse over the minor Rosegarden moment for V7CH9, I have lost all patience with these types of fans. I honestly find them to be as dumb as their behaviour and it exhausts me just hearing about them and their nonsense. 

Losing their marbles and attacking my people over a bloody T-shirt error that ain’t got nothing to do with us.

SO...DAMN...SILLY!

I hope RT clears this up at some point. And even if they don’t, I really don’t see why people should believe this means anything. I certainly don’t.

Not like I want that to happen either. In my opinion, I was never in favour of ORNJ---at least, not right now when Oscar is still a teenager growing into his duties and responsibilities as a huntsman. To me, I only like the idea of Team ORNJ from the perspective of Jaune retiring/stepping down from his role as leader of a huntsman team; instead choosing to pass the torch onto Oscar after the former farm boy had matured into a fine huntsman under his team’s guidance and after proving himself in the eyes of his teammates, especially Jaune. 

Y’know that kind of idea. 

This is why I always referred to JNR and Oscar as JNPR 2.0. I want JNR to become Oscar’s team and surrogate brothers and sister in arms. I want Oscar and Jaune to have a close big brother-little brother type of dynamic where Oscar admires Jaune’s strength and leadership and looks up to him alot as both a close confidant (much like Ruby) and teammate while Jaune himself admires Oscar’s tenacity after everything he’s been through while making it his role to look out for him along with Nora and Ren.  

This doesn’t mean I want Oscar to replace Jaune as team leader nor do I think he should.

I’ve heard some folks rationalize that Oscar should lead JNR since he is Ozpin’s successor. Nothing against the folks who like this concept but if I were to add my $2.50 to this, I don’t think Oscar being Oz’s successor should automatically qualify him to take over JNR; y’know what I mean?

Jaune earned his place as leader of JNPR after proving his talent for leadership back in V1. 

The only time that Jaune took a step back was when Ruby led the group as RNJR between V4 and V5 since at the time, the trio were aiding Ruby with her objective to get to Mistral, as Ren said. But even then, Jaune was still a leader and  backed up Ruby’s calls with his own strategies. 

Not to mention that folks seem to be forgetting that Ozpin was the one who chose Jaune to lead JNPR.

Though we never got a scene of Jaune confronting Oz on his decision to make him team leader like we did with Ruby Rose in “The Badge and the Burden” episode (I think that was the title. Correct me if I’m wrong), much like Ruby, Oz picked Jaune and was of sound mind when he did. Oz picked Jaune to lead since despite his past hiccups and shortcomings, he saw that Jaune also had the makings of a great leader as shown during JNPR’s first fight against the Deathstalker.

So the whole notion of Oscar getting to be leader of JNR  JUST BECAUSE he’s Oz’s successor EVEN THOUGH it was Oz’s decision to choose Jaune to be leader of JNPR in the first place---yeah that doesn’t sit right with me. 

Jaune is meant to be a leader and JNPR is his team to lead; even with Oscar joining it. Sorry ORNJ-fans. But that’s where I stand on that. 

Anyways, that’s all I have to say on this subject. I hope I answered you Dagger.

~LittleMissSquiggles (2020)