#RWDEdom

[kitkatopinions]

I wanna become a RWDE blog, but I'm worried that if I do I could start getting harassment. I am aware of this happening in the RWBY fAndom and I want to avoid it.

This is a very valid concern, especially since I heard that you got some hate on a recent RWBY post. That always sucks. And btw, what you said in that post was completely accurate. XD

I can give some advice as a RWDE blog, because when I first started out, I used to get so much hate and RWBY megafans were constantly bothering me in the comments of my posts. It was tiring and sometimes really stressful dealing with them, but I've managed to get to a point where I don't see much from RWBY fans.

The block button is obviously the best tool for avoiding toxic RWBY fans. You shouldn't feel obligated to respond to everyone (or anyone,) or to only block when someone 'earns' it. But this is often a painstaking process of getting attacked, harassed, or bothered in order for people to know who to block. If you'd like, I can try to comb through my blocklist, and make up a list of the people I can remember are bad news and maybe should be blocked pre-emptively. Also, you can block hate anons now, and much of the time, there's one harasser sending multiple anons, so the ability to block them is very handy.

Another thing is that tagging extensively is always better than not tagging a lot. To avoid harassment, I would avoid using any character tag and the main RWBY tag, and instead use not only RWDE, but also RWBY hate, RWBY criticism, anti RWBY, so on and so forth.

A way that some people avoid toxic RWBY fans is to do things like spell RWBY as RVVBY or RW/BY. Because of Tumblr's bad system, people might see posts that have keywords like 'RWBY' when they look it up, even if it isn't tagged with RWBY at all. So this is just a way that people try to get around that.

But, if you don't want to deal with any of that, that's more than understandable. Toxic RWBY fans can get to be a lot, and even when you think you've blocked all of them, more will pop up. Some of them are ridiculously persistent, I literally think one or two of them might be following me right now so they can make posts about my content on whatever anti-RWDE blogs they have. I've learned to kind of laugh it off, though sometimes I have to take breaks here and there and some hate gets to me. But the RWDEdom as a general whole is a great way to express how you feel towards the show, and I really enjoy posting here. Before I started posting, I felt super pent up, and even though I could rant to my sisters (who have a lot of problems with RWBY too,) I felt like I was annoying them or talking about it too much. This is a great outlet and a nice place to vent. If you do decide to start up a RWDE blog, let me know, and I'll give you a follow! :)

[ironwoodprotectionsquad]

RWDEdome: what just happened?

Hello yes I am imagining the absolute chaos that would break out after James and Qrow got together with both of their respective friends and family trying to give them the shovel talk.

[kitkatopinions]

I just watched the video from twiins iink and other youtubers about toxicity in the fandom and its super cool and better late then never but its a bit late? To confront the fandom i mean. Like i remember when v5 was airing that people where actually pissed that Jaune was touching Weiss... in the healing scene and that Ruby took his hands away so he wouldnt non con touch Weiss, not to you know see what is happening to the wound. Like it was a whole thing, it wasnt one person? And now we are at v9 so i just wanted to ask your opinion if there is some hope for this fandom i guess ✌

Short answer... No, I don't really think there's hope to fix this fandom. It's gotten to the point where the fans aren't even listening to writers like Eddy Rivas and pro-RWBY youtube streamers like Murder of Birds about maybe not wanting the r/rwby subreddit mods to ban all rwby criticism posts from the subreddit.

Long answer, every fandom is toxic to some extent, but the way the RWBY fandom is, is worse than anywhere else I've seen. Every fandom has ships and characters you're expected to like and get hated on if you don't, every fandom has at least one character that people have decided it's illegal to like, every fandom has at least one character that makes mistakes but is good that gets huge and unjustified hate, every fandom has writer-worshippers who get angry at criticism or dislike or people pointing out author bias, every fandom has characters who got assigned sexualities whether or not it's canon, that results in people getting attacked for 'not adhering to it,' every fandom has an evil/bad character that has fans who will get angry at anyone who doesn't feel sympathy for said evil/bad character, and every fandom has tons of people presenting their headcanons as accepted fact. I can't think of a single one outside of the most niche/tame fandoms I've been in that doesn't have these.

But in the RWDEdom, it's considered a rite of passage to get a hate anon, it's treated as 'making it.' Even after blocking likely over a hundred people, I still see the people posting in the RWDE tag that all RWDE posters are horrible bigots. I recently have gotten several messages from someone calling me - a queer woman - a sexist homophobe for criticizing the sexism and homophobia in a man-written show, and what seems like the same person has sent similar anons to tons of other RWDE blogs.

I've openly admitted that there are bad RWBY critics and I've even gotten in arguments with and wound up blocking fellow RWDE posters. I've also disagreed with several RWDE posters who I don't block, because disagreements are just that, disagreements. I also admit that there are tons of regular RWBY fans and posters who are very nice people, who are just trying to enjoy the show, who just like the show. I don't mind, I don't have any problem with that, we just exist on different sides of this fandom and I think that's good. And you know what? Lots of them have points, because there's lots of good in RWBY. But the toxic RWBY fans will never admit that there are lots of good RWDE posters, or that some RWDE posters have a point because there's lots of bad things in RWBY, and that it's okay to disagree on some things. The toxic RWBY fans have in the past harassed and insulted even the easiest on the show, most generous towards the show RWDE blog I've ever seen. And no matter how much RWDE posters try to avoid interacting with the general RWBY fandom and especially the toxic people, people still insist that we're trying to destroy the show and force others to hate RWBY - while they themselves try to bully people into dropping their blogs and demand that they like RWBY.

Honestly, I only have a couple of working theories on why this fandom in particular has gotten so bad. Peer pressure taking over and guiding the generally accepted viewpoints is common in fandom, but I think one reason why RWBY has it worse than usual is because the fandom is smaller than other, bigger works like ATLA or Harry Potter, so while fans are just as devoted, there's less 'subfandoms,' less variety, fan theories get around easier... I don't know, it's just a theory. Another theory is that first off, the starting fandom of RWBY was already loyal to Rooster Teeth and into their content, and the people involved in RWBY have this kind of 'friendly interactive' persona with their fans that make their fans feel a deeper and more personal connection. So they feel personally criticized or feel like a friend is being personally criticized, and get offended. And it doesn't help that people involved in Rooster Teeth and the making of RWBY like writers and voice actors sometimes insult or get angry at critics themselves and make it public that they feel that way, which just encourages the toxic RWBY fans. And sometimes it feels like they put their anger at critics into the show - making Nora (portrayed as in the right) yell at Ren (portrayed as in the wrong) that Yang and Blake definitely make sense as a couple, having Yang and Blake respond to Marrow asking if they ever do missions apart with anger and coldness, having Robyn drag Clover's name through the mud after people were angry at them over queer baiting Fair Game, and turning Ironwood into a comic book level pure evil villain after some people weren't siding with Team RWBY in volume 7 - which again, just fuels the toxic RWBY fans.

Toxic RWBY fans will often say that they're fine with criticism, just not hate and bashing. Ignoring the fact that bashing is also not illegal and is fine so long as proper tags are used, and how they should just block the tags if they don't want to see it since it's their responsibility to cultivate their internet experience... The goalposts for what they consider 'allowed and good' criticism is varied, always moving, and incredibly hard to follow.

1. Criticism is fine, so long as every post with criticism also recognizes the good things about the show. 2. Criticism is fine, so long as it's completely unbiased. 3. Criticism is fine, so long as it includes no insults, no rudeness, no sarcasm, and nothing that's less than the nicest delivery - despite any actual hurt or offense the show might've caused you. 4. Criticism is fine, so long as it only is for small things and not big complaints. 5. Criticism is fine, so long as it only is for big things and doesn't include any nitpicks or personal opinions. 6. Criticism is fine, so long as it doesn't have anything to do with the moments people have generally agreed 'no longer matter.' 7. Criticism is fine, so long as it's not criticism of the main characters or other characters people 'should like' and isn't in favor of characters that we're 'not supposed to root for.' 8. Criticism is fine, so long as you criticize the actions of characters and not the writers, actors, productions, etc. 9. Criticism is fine, so long as you're only criticizing technical things and not bringing up any mistakes the writers might make on things like the portrayal of women, their people of color characters, their handling of real world issues, ableism or toxic masculinity. 10. Criticism is fine, so long as the criticism only fits the exact ideas of every RWBY fan that might get offended, and adheres to every headcanon we should have come up with and immediately accepted.

It's an impossible struggle. And I think that at this point, the toxic RWBY fans have dug in their heels so deeply that even if Miles Luna himself came to them directly and told them 'hey, stop being so irrational and just block the RWDE tag instead of bullying people,' they would say 'Miles, I'm sorry but you don't understand that these people are of the devil.'

[kitkatopinions]

So, every time there’s a ‘this is what the RWDEdom is like” thing going around from any toxic RWBY fans (who actually would be more likely to call us the hatedom not the RWDEdom) I’m very well equipped to see just how much bullshit goes into such a post. I look up the RWDE tag at least once a day and know all the frequent RWDE posters (at least except for the couple of them that I have on block.) 

Sometimes people will take a popular topic in the RWDE community at the time and talk about our takes, only twisting them horribly. For instance, during a time when Adam is getting talked about at length, people might make a post talking about how RWDE posters are obsessed with simping for Adam because they hate women. And I’ll be like “Well, you missed the whole point that half of us literally hate the character of Adam and that we were talking about *the racism involved in the White Fang arc he was intrinsically linked to,* but I suppose I can see how you either purposefully twisted that or misunderstood if you just saw ‘rwde posters are talking about Adam’ and made assumptions. But yes, you’re right that we’re talking about Adam atm.”

But sometimes, I’ll see or hear about what some toxic RWBY fans say we’re talking about and I’ll just be like 

Because some of the stuff that people say ‘the majority of the RWDE posters are like’ or even ‘a lot of RWDE posters are like,’ is totally off the wall, and like nobody talks about it! Like, I’m hearing that people are accusing RWDE posters of being Madoka Magica stans and of liking and not being critical of Celtic Phoenix’s ‘RWBY fix it’ stuff. And while I myself know pretty much nothing about either of those things (and from what little I do know about the RWBY fix-it, I actually think it doesn’t sound good, and is a re-write, not a ‘fix’ in the first place,) I’ve been super baffled, because I couldn’t recall almost any conversation in the RWDE tag about either of those things.

Today in order to make sure I wasn’t just forgetting, I scrolled down in the RWDE tag all the way to the fifteenth of last month, and do you know how many posts involved Madoka Magica or Celtic Phoenix?

Two Madoka Magica posts from a blog that only occasionally makes RWDE posts. Both posts about Madoka were about how weird it is that people are assuming that many RWBY critics like Madoka Magica.

Three Celtic Phoenix posts, two from that same blog that had posted the Madoka Magica posts, one of which was critical of the concepts of the re-write and I think one of the other two was about how weird it is that people are assuming that many RWBY critics like the RWBY fix-it.

I don’t think I missed any, though it’s possible, but that’s still a ridiculously low number of posts. I can only conclude that anyone who says that RWDE posters are defending Celtic Phoeniz and / or like Madoka Magica is literally basing their opinion off of one or maybe two blogs that they’re twisting the words of anyway.

Also, on this note, there’s people saying RWDE posters wish that RWBY was dark and gritty? No single post at least since November fifteenth that I can remember said they wanted RWBY to be dark and gritty, and most of the regular RWDE posters I know of want RWBY to be more hopeful. And people say RWDE posters are all a hive mind that never is allowed to step out of line or disagree? While I was scrolling, I saw several posts since November 15th where someone would get an anon, and start out by being like ‘gotta disagree on this,’ and I also saw posts that I remember kinda disagreeing about. And also, I started this out by noting that I may not see some things because I have some RWDE posters on block, because sometimes I’ve fought with RWDE posters. RWDE posters obviously sometimes disagree with each other.

I don’t understand the people who try so hard to pretend RWDE posters are mostly all just one thing, especially when it’s some off the wall thing like Madoka fans or approvers of this one random re-write someone did. I’m convinced some of them have never even looked at the RWDE tag in their life.

[kitkatopinions]

Hey guys! I’ve heard a lot about the toxicity in the fandom lately since some of the bigger YouTube names did a video about toxicity between the RWBY critics and the RWBY fans, and I wanted to go ahead and try to do my part to help dispel some of it.

I personally don’t see myself as particularly bad, I try to properly tag everything I post and try to stay as far away from interacting with the fandom in general as I can, because I really am not trying to ruin things for anyone or try to shame people just for liking something. However, that doesn’t mean I didn’t at least contribute. For an example, I originally started using ‘RWBY simp’ to try and make a clear distinction between average RWBY fans and the sort of people who were doing things like insisting all RWDE posters are trash, sending hate anons, and calling my sister the c word (which did happen and might be an... Explanation for some of my venom towards fans like that.) But, I know it’s kind of turned into a ‘anyone who thinks RWBY is actually very good,’ and I’m partially responsible for that and can see how RWBY fans see it as bullying. So I think I’m going to do the same thing @why-i-hate-rwby-now is and just table that word, and if I want to talk about the toxic fans I’ve encountered, I’ll say things like ‘the more toxic RWBY fans’ or something.

I also am going to try not to vague post anymore. XD Most of my vague posts have been about posts or posters who I blocked for various (imo, very well justified) reasons, and sometimes I just wanted to talk about the topic afterwards anyway, but sometimes I do tend to just make fun, and that’s not as nice as I could be.

Also I want to make three things clear. 1. Just because I’m personally deciding this and deciding to try and be a little nicer doesn’t mean that I don’t get why others might have a harder time with or don’t want to do that. Other people have had it worse than me when it comes to the bullying and hate they’ve been on the receiving end of, other people are also more personally affected by others dismissing the more serious problems in the show. 2. Just because I’m going to try to be nicer doesn’t mean that I’m going to stop calling out this behavior if I see it. I’m just going to try to do it in a less generalizing way, and try to not vague post. I don’t actively seek out any drama, but yeah. 3. I know there are also toxic people in the RWDEdom, I myself have had to block RWDE posters who were being horrible to me and others, and have blocked RWDE posters who I felt were being jerks, or were being sexist or homophobic or racist or so on and so forth. Although I one hundred percent think there’s a bigger number of toxic RWBY fans at least here on Tumblr, I do want to just make a statement that I recognize that not all the toxicity has come from their side.

My attempts to be a little nicer doesn’t mean I’m going to soften my opinions or take back the things I’ve said, and I have no plans to drop the show or stop posting the content I want, even the ‘less put together’ vent posts and random RWDE memes. I don’t want to be a toxic person or hurt others, but I also won’t just stop expressing my thoughts and feelings, as I put them in the proper tags and it’s the responsibility of others to filter out that content if they don’t want to see it. Sorry if this comes across as like... Weird to post? But yeah, I just wanted to put my own feelings about this out there and express where I am with the whole ‘toxicity in the fndm’ conversation.