#just like we the fndm can bc damn

[owletarc]

Owley! Do you consider the whole Clover and Qrow thing queerbaiting?

i think it’s a complicated situation, because there are a lot of parts that contributed to this shit storm but lemme try & dissect this bad boy.

shippers.

we know ‘em, we are ‘em. mlm are given a raw fuckin’ deal in this fndm & a lot where they only really matter if it’s to get a dude away from a m / f relationship so the girl in it can usually be in a wlw relationship. rwby in particular is a majority female show & heavy with the wlw relationships in the fandom space, not so much in the show but it’s there more than it is for mlm.

shippers. are. rabid. they’re like cujo an hour into the movie with foam from the mouth & just nasty lmao. there are good ones but yeah. so people saw a potential ship in clover & qrow and ran with it but there was a hella sense of entitlement. like there is for a lot of ships in the show, and in fandom in general! viewers are hella entitled nowadays. however …

show / media engagement.

i will say straight up, rt is one of the most unprofessional companies i’ve ever seen in regards to social media & fan engagement. i have Never seen voice actors / actors in any regard or showrunners or official twitters act in such an unprofessional manner to the fans. they’re too close, they blur the lines because they want to be a family company and want to have that engagement with the audience. they want to be our friend. but in this day & age with fan entitlement at it’s highest ; that just can’t happen. it does more harm than good.

shippers feel entitled, toxic fans get emboldened, lines that were once drawn are now smudged & blurred.

rt’s official twitter is a fucking shit show. no one knows how to tell the va’s, especially the likes of arryn or barbara, how to shut the fuck up about things. episodes get overhyped and most pertinent to this ask ; validations are given that aren’t true.

just outside of this situation we’ve had people say nora is trans canon because a tweet was liked. toxic shippers are emboldened by tweets from their vas concerning the ships. neath promised a great v6 finale only to be hung out to dry when it was chopped up & fans felt gypped at the poor finale we did get. we have show runners endorsing abuse comics. people were mad that a dance didn’t happen because they thought they were promised it via a fucking emoji.

and now fairgame. the rt twitter teased it like they tease bumbleby and that for me is gross. that for me, is dangling hope of a prospective ship that the show seems to endorse, only to rip it away at the drop of a hat (or stab of a harbinger … )

seeing things that aren’t there, yet.

i have no strong thoughts either way with fairgame. i think it could’ve been cute, however if it didn’t happen, i wouldn’t of cared. i do think the way that shippers jumped right into shipping them from the moment they met ; even though the moment was an upsetting one for qrow as he was confronted with someone who was everything he isn’t, is very telling.

it’s no surprise that ships are a big part of fandom space. love is something that most people seek out, romance has been a theme of stories since storytelling existed. however i think it’s gone too far these days that for a lot of people ; it’s the only thing that matters. and it shouldn’t be that way. romance should support the story, not the other way round.

if there had been time, perhaps qrow & clover could’ve grown into something more. but as it was in canon, they were friends with paralleled flirting on clover’s part alone. nothing from qrow said it was reciprocal. there was nothing for an in canon basis of them being a legitimate romantic couple ; and i don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, if it existed in a vacuum on it’s own.

but it didn’t.

these moments, combined with shipper entitlement & social media engagement lead to a firestorm that could only blow up in the end. and it did. people were hurt emotionally & i will say here. it is okay for this to upset or disappoint you. however, if it’s getting to the point it has genuinely distressed or emotionally harmed you ; that’s not healthy. that’s not a good engagement with the show and at that point i would say switch off and walk away. you have gotten too emotionally invested to a point of it being damaging and that is unhealthy because it has now blurred the lines of fiction and reality.

in my own opinion, i think fairgame wasn’t going to happen. i think that it was slated as a friendship that qrow desperately needed, not a relationship but that also feeds into the disturbing mindset of a lot of shippers where they confuse growth in a relationship with one partner fixing another, like another major ship in this fndm. they are not the same.

so, what now?

fairgame had a tragic end and eddy has commented that he will discuss the issues taken with the ending for them & treatment of mlm in the show into consideration. however the official twitter is still stoking the flames and i’m afraid that will only hinder rather than help in the end.

however there is also an issue with us, the audience. the entitlement of shippers has got to fucking stop because at the end of the day, you are blurring your own lines of what you want and what could happen and think the two are the same. this is not your story to tell, it’s only yours to consume. if you don’t get what you want, don’t throw your toys out of the pram in a titty fit. don’t threaten the showrunners, don’t act like a child jesus christ. a majority of this fandom is adults and yet the behaviour that’s been seen is one someone would expect from toddlers.

have realistic expectations. it’s okay to ship things off the bat, i do that to. but don’t expect things to become canon just because you want them to. don’t use your ship being canon as a battering ram to put down other ships because guess what, canon = / = good. don’t cross lines that shouldn’t be crossed.

for crwby i would say use this as a moment to realize that you need to start implementing some professional courtesy into your interactions with the fandom. there has to be social media managers for your twitter, for your va’s. stop allowing them to rile up the fndm because they don’t have to deal with it ; other parts of the fndm do. use this moment to realize where you need to improve & have that honest, open communication with the lgbt, especially mlm, members of your community. this hurt them. part of it was their fault but part of it was yours too. everyone lost here.

[nexyra]

Okay so This is just a way to let out some frustration so I can put it out there and stop mulling on it bc I'm bad at this sort of stuff - Feel free to ignore it

I'm putting this under Read More; if your fav past-time is to call anyone who likes Ironwood's character or was disappointed by his V8 turn to villainy a stupid bootlicker who "should have seen the signs he was always a tyrant !!" please don't interact with this post. You're ultimately free to think what you want but honestly I see enough of that in the main tag when left alone, I don't need it on my blog it doesn't make me feel good.

Anyone else... well you can read if you're interested but you don't have to either. Feel free to respectfully disagree though, I'm not that bullheaded that I can't partake in a friendly argument =) I'll just be listing some things about Ironwood's reading by the FNDM who get old or draining as someone who doesn't like the V8-characterization they went with

Can people please stop just... copy/pasting real world issues on a world/characters that have nothing to do with them or a completely different context ?

Like,, I genuinely try to educate myself on real-world issues. I know I'm rather privileged so I try to listen and hear out people who speak out about the issues they live through day by day. I know why the "ACAB" moniker exists. I understand the problem that lies within the american police system (and likely other countries as well). I see why the army, on our blue planet, is criticized & its many failings. Etc, the list can go on...

But I'm sorry to say, Remnant isn't OUR Earth. Their Army's primary job is to fight actual evil soulless monsters, not people. The Ace Opps or Huntsmen are not an organization directly inherited from slave-hunting groups. James Ironwood isn't the US army general bombing Middle East. Clover Ebi isn't the racist cop you want in prison. So WHY are they treated as such by so many people ? Stories are not a 1-1 where you can take everything you know and just apply it to a completely different world.

Has Atlas been presented as a country that suffers from racism & classism ? Certainly. Has it be shown this way ? That's already more debatable since the only racist arguments we got were in Mantle (which is the city we're supposed to be rooting for so that's a weird choice but eh it's whatever). Are the characters, as persons, shown to evoke these issues in a way that deserve our scorn ? Not really.

Is Ironwood depicted as particularly racist for example ? I wouldn't say so seeing as one (or more considering Tortuga) of his Ace-Opps are Faunus & it seems perfectly accepted; and he hates Jacques Schnee's guts. So why does he get to shoulder all of our real-world issues as if he was responsible for them, in a context where (pre V8) his army had most likely never killed anything else than Grimm and was shown to elicit very positive reactions from most of the population (V3) ? (In direct contrast to the polarization that the US army might evoke for example.)

You can totally hate Ironwood because of the feelings he evoke, the trope he stems from or the parallels to be made. That doesn't mean however, that he IS truly guilty of every one of OUR world issues (pre-V8)

Just because classism is prevalent in Atlas society does not make Ironwood the figurehead & leader of this issue.

Is classism an issue in Atlas ? Yes. That's been made clear because of Mantle's state as well as Jacques Schnee entire existence & even Cinder's backstory. Does that mean every single one of Ironwood's decisions reeks of classism ? NO

Trust me, as someone who found Ironwood's V8 characterization not... well-executed & too much; there's nothing more annoying than being assaulted by posts about his fall going "it was so obvious !! look at -" only for them to then list reasons in a really biased way or even headcannons based on (again) irl problems. An exemple...

Reasons his turn was good that I see thrown around : "Ironwood left Mantle behind because he only wanted to save the rich. He's a selfish coward & an asshole !"

What we were actually given : "Ironwood suffers from PTSD, and faced with Salem's imminent arrival, he tried to save what he was CERTAIN to be able to protect aka the flying city and all the people on it including Mantle evacuees. There is absolutely no text backing the idea that he wanted to leave with Atlas because it's rich. We could even suppose that he would have left with the 'poor' Mantle if it was the flying city and rich people were hanging safely on the ground. There is indeed an issue with Atlas & Mantle disparity, but Ironwood isn't directly responsible for it."

Does that make his decision to leave Mantle behind a morally right one ? That's of course NOT what I'm saying. The situation is still very ambiguous. But the classism theme has NO place here.

"Ironwood leads Atlas & Mantle. As such, he inherently holds responsability for the issues plaguing it." THIS is an acceptable reading according to me. I would probably argue that even if Ironwood's the only Atlas leader we're shown; he actually only oversees the military & academy (where we haven't ever seen classism issues), so putting Atlas' classism issues on him still doesn't sound fair to me. However the idea & argument is sound.

Acknowledging only how his actions look/the tyrannical surface reading and not the reasonnable justifications or glimpses we were given (pre-V7) of Ironwood being more than his trope

I'll probably stop after this one, but the last thing that is both tiring & annoying after too much of it; is seeing people boil down all of Ironwood's character to the most basic summary, inherently written to paint him in a bad line. And then saying that everything led up to his downfall by using these watered-down versions of the show's events to justify it. Or worse (imo), saying that people who are not satisfied with his V8 characterization that THEY don't understand how good a character he is and don't really appreciate him.... All the while only ever highlighting his characters flaws. Please stop this.

"Ironwood brought an army to the peace Olympics why are you surprised he turned out this way ?" ==> Ironwood brought an army to a country where the civilians visibly have no issue with said-army, to protect a peaceful event that he KNOWS to be targeted by foes. It's definitely overzealous & his conviction that threats should be dealt with by blunt force IS one of his flaws; but pretending that he did it for fun or because he's a tyran is just as misplaced.

"Ironwood said he'd shoot Qrow if he were one of his men why are you surprised he shot Oscar ?" ==> Do I really need to flip through every joke in this show and consider it as absolute truth & proof that the character would enact these words if given the occasion; even when we're shown with certainty that they actually don't mean it ? (IW hugging Qrow to welcome him, refusing to attack Qrow when he's certain Qrow IS attacking him...)

"Ironwood has his military all over Mantle, there's a curfew, all of this is tyrannical why are you surprised he's also down for genocide" ==> Damn, it sure is criminal to have Mantle defended from the litteral monsters roaming inside & out, and to make sure with a curfew that the people are not at risk during the night. I wonder if any recent events could make us reconsider our stance on how evil a enforced curfew is. Mhmmm maybe a pandemic ? Nah I must be imagining things. For real though, at what point did Tyrian's framing/lies (IW has his soldiers all over Mantle because of politics/he's a tyran who refuses opposition) became the truth of the situation for the FDNM too ? Again Mantle's situations SUCK, and that's a problem in itself. Making up problematic reasoning for the situation is dishonest though.

To end this, I'll just make clear. I do not condone any of Ironwood's actions post-V7. I don't think he had to be the big hero of the Atlas arc. Nor that he was without faults. I merely think that he'd have been a better antagonist than villain. And that it'd have been nice to keep the ambiguity/morally greyness that surrounds him; the knowledge that he's TRYING hard to do what's best for everyone; that he has good intentions. That he cares about individuals too to a lesser degree, and that he had people who cared about him as a person.

For short... Ironwood as an antagonist with understandable issues, flaws & failures; making questionable choices but with good intentions ? Hell yeah. Ironwood as a villain, more irredeemable than Hazel, willing to kill people for NO reason or even wipe out a city ? I'm not convinced.

[ask-beacons-finest]

Buckle up kiddos because Admin is gonna talk about sad stuff.

Fricken, “Don’t speak” By No Doubt is the best Taiyang-Summer song,

I mean seriously the beginning is just like, perfectly fitted to them, lemme explain

“You and me, we used to be together, everyday together always” They were teammates who eventually fell weirdly in love “I really feel, that I’m losing my best friend, I can’t believe this could be the end.” adjksfdalhfdjkjasdfi, Summer was dying and Taiyang is crushed “It looks as though you’re letting go, and if it’s real well I don’t want to know.” Almost everyone in the FNDM that I’ve spoken to likes to think Summer was nearing death anyways and then sacrificed herself for the greater good, which fits into the ‘looks as though you’re letting go’ and the ‘if it’s real I don’t wanna know’ is just Taiyang not wanting to accept that the love of his life is going to be gone forever

Then the chorus itself works pretty well too, but we’ll maybe get to that later.

The next set of lines are, “Our memories, they can be inviting, but some are altogether mighty frightening.” Taiyang is looking back through all their time together, the good and bad, with the bad being literally scary as hell bc inconceivable grimm monsters? (As well learning that Summer’s time left is limited) “As we die, both you and I, with my head in my hands I sit and cry.” Summer wasn’t the only one who died, a literal part of Taiyang died with her, he already lost on love with Raven, now Summer gets ripped away from him too

And then there’s this line,

“It’s all ending, we gotta stop pretending who we are.” This could fit so many things, Team STRQ is basically done at this point, Raven’s missing, Qrow (around this time) is probably either missing or so undercover for Ozpin he hasn’t been heard from for years, Summer’s dead, and Taiyang is basically retired from Huntsmen duty with two small children to raise, the dream of Team STRQ is gone. And maybe Taiyang also thought that even though Team STRQ wasn’t together, its members were invincible, I mean they’re the parents/family of the main character, so that’s basically a telling point that they were the cream of the crop when they were in Beacon, they were probably the best of the best. An untouchable team of master hunters. Until Summer died, proving to Taiyang once and for all that Team STRQ is not invincible, and is really just a bunch of kids who got thrown into a crazy world and learned what they needed to survive.

“You and me, I can see us dying, are we?” This just like, deepens my point, Tai is so built up on the idea that STRQ is invincible that he seriously needs to be told that the team can actually die, AS A MEMBER IS DYING. That, AND his relationship with Summer is dying now, since she’s...well...going to die. He’s in horrible denial.

Okay, now the ending of the song (which does have the chorus, we’ll also break it up a bit cause it’s basically lalala and whatnot)

“Don’t speak, I know just what you’re saying, So please stop explaining, Don’t tell me cause it hurts.” He knows deep down that Team STRQ is mortal, and that he can’t do a damn thing to keep Summer from dying, he knows this despite his denial, and once people start really digging into him about it, he breaks.

“Don’t speak, I know just what you’re thinking, And I don’t need your reasons, Don’t tell me cause it hurts.” This is literally Grade-A quality last words, it could literally be the LAST THING word for word he says to Summer before she leaves to go do some crazy Silver-eyed thing that leads to her death. I mean it kills Tai, he knows she has to go do this to save the world, but he just doesn’t want to hear any of it because of how hard it hits. He says this and then his wife, the mother of (basically) both his children, the love of his life, and then she leaves and never comes back

“Hush hush darling, don’t tell me cause it hurts.” Is this just him telling Summer? Or is it... “Daddy, when’s Summer coming back?”

The end