#like many love to simplify kurt as just having feminine interest which nothing wrong with that

[satellitesunset]

I can't believe we aren't milking the fact that Kurt worked as a mechanic, knows how to use sai swords, had a tongue piercing enough, I just personally think we should talk about it more often, just an opinion.

[itsclydebitches]

Hi Clyde! I know this might be a bit late to the conversation but I just wanted to ask if you think M&K are writing Yang through a male lens? Not in the sense she's hyper-sexualised, but in the sense she lashes out at her allies without consequences (Fiona), has little empathy for female survivors of abuse (Salem and Blake) and gives her loved ones the cold shoulder when she doesn't agree with them rather than trying to reach an understanding (Blake and Ren).

Hi there, anon! No one is ever late to the conversation around here, not when I'm forever answering months-old asks lol

On the whole I would say no, simply because - as many others have pointed out in regards to other posts - this behavior is by no means seen solely in Yang. Ruby is out there lashing out in Volume 6, Jaune was giving Ren the same cold shoulder, no one else has expressed any empathy for the abuse survivors lately (though Yang might actually have a point in her favor there, given her talk with Weiss in Volume 5, when she learns about her mom's drinking). My point being, pretty much everyone is written with this classic masculine lens right now, where being angry, violent, and dismissive are framed as the correct way to approach problems, whether we're talking about Weiss shoving her weapon in Whitley's face, or Nora coolly brushing aside Ren's concerns. The exceptions being, to my mind, Ren - who learned this season that considering a kinder, more strategic approach is wrong - and Oscar who is embodying the archetype of the innocent child so fully that it allows him to forgive/grant absolution outside of the bounds of the story's internal logic and gendered expectations. Him reaching out to Hazel, Emerald, and even Ozpin is less a commentary on gender and more an extreme upholding of his status as the youngest and, comparatively, most innocent (which, as said previously, bumps up against Ruby's same, former status). Think Harry Potter, destroying evil with the love in his skin as an 11yo by merely touching Quirrel's face, not an older teenager hurling a dark curse at Malfoy while overflowing with rage. Oscar is still very much in that initial stage of being the young, baby-faced character who is not yet jaded and is thus able to overcome evil purely by wishing it so. Yet everyone else, including Yang, gets by on lies, secrets, violence, and anger - no matter how much the story wants to dress it up as heroics. So Yang is by no means alone in that.

What does interest me regarding Yang characterization right now is not, strictly speaking, about Yang. Rather, it’s about the presumed relationship with Blake and how changes to Blake’s character have reflected back on Yang. I won’t go into a full, eight season analysis of it here, but suffice to say, Blake’s personality has taken a sharp dive lately, most notably in the most recent volume. She used to be an opinionated, outspoken woman, the kind of person who marched up to Weiss in the middle of the street to denounce her family’s slavery, fighting for her people with as much intensity in a conversation as she gave on the battlefield. This is the woman who stormed off in anger at Weiss’ racism, demanded a solemn oath from Yang if she was going to believe her about the Mercury fight, rallied an army to defend Haven, set her own house on fire to defend her parents... I could go on. Blake used to only be quiet when it came to settling down with a good book. Now she’s far more meek and submissive. She’s been reduced to blushing prettily at Yang’s praise, begging Ruby to save her, going along with Yang’s plans for betrayal because she’s scared about killing again, clasping Ruby’s hands to assure her that she’ll save them all, etc. I use the term “reduced” intentionally because, on their own, there’s nothing wrong with any of these traits. If anything, Blake should be a more well-rounded character for being able to collapse crying over Adam, or go tongue-tied at a compliment. The problem lies in replacing her original personality with this new one: softer, less confrontational, less skilled, no longer as determined, no longer as angry, keeping to the background to play at comic relief or the damsel in distress. I bring all this up because - within the comparatively slim queer rep we’ve gotten in media - there’s a long history of writing them so that one is clearly the “man” in the relationship and the other is clearly the “woman.” This extends from visual markers like dividing them between assumed masculine and feminine clothing preferences - who wears dresses and who can pass for a boy in a baseball hat and sweats? - to caching in on equally assumed personality traits - who is the calm and compassionate individual; who has the temper and is constantly itching for a fight? To use two examples, think of couples like Sapphire and Ruby, or Kurt and Blaine. One is a cool blue in flowy dresses, always working to be sensible, while the other is an angry red in a sensible shirt and pants, easily pissed off. One is practicing a version of Beyoncé's “Single Ladies” in a sequined leotard, framed as the lady, whereas the other sings “Teenage Dream” in a suit at the piano, a song meant to appeal to the teenage girls watching, no matter the character’s sexuality. I’m simplifying a LOT here, including the context for the times (Glee) and the ways in which this divide is sometimes flipped (Ruby and Sapphire’s wedding), but my point is that whether authors realize it or not, they often force their queer characters into the gender binary, even while they’re supposedly meant to be challenging those norms. Blake and Yang, to get to a long-winded point, are becoming a part of that trend, wherein the closer they get to becoming a canonical couple, the more classically feminized Blake becomes. That, in turn, positions Yang as the “man” of the relationship. Already embodying some of those assumptions with her tough personality and brawl fight style, Blake’s regression into someone in need of rescue, someone less likely to speak up, someone who is visually positioned as less confident and in need of emotional care (think of her drooped ears and inability to make eye contact in “Ultimatum)” only increases that reading, especially given arcs like Yang’s insistence that she doesn’t need anyone protecting her, morphing into her becoming Blake’s protector instead. Yes, the dialogue states that they protect each other, but we all know RWBY struggles to show what the characters claim. Scenes like Yang arriving on a badass motorcycle to fight the majority of the battle against Adam, ending with her cradling a sobbing Blake who promises to never leave her side, or confidently taking Blake’s cheek in hand to comfort her after their not-fight, a moment of confidence and (unneeded) forgiveness... this all speaks volumes of something RWBY doesn’t think is there. So I don’t believe it’s intentional and, as said, there are a lot of complexities to take into account here, but I nevertheless don’t think it’s a coincidence that we’ve lost so much of Blake’s original personality right around the time the show got more serious about their relationship. As a presumed queer couple, there’s an instinctual desire to figure out which is the “guy” and which is the “girl” in the relationship, with Yang being positioned as the former the more Blake changes to fit the latter.