#mostly rwde at miles

[kitkatopinions]

Quick note, I don't know the person who made these tweets or what the "THIS is what they do" is referencing, I'm only using this as a jumping off point to talk about what seems to be a pretty regular repeated opinion among people who hate rwby criticism and rwde posters.

First things first, it needs to be clarified that the "don't call it a rewrite or a fix-it fic, only call it a fan AU" is in my opinion very ridiculous and also fundamentally misunderstands the differences between AUs, rewrites, and fix-it fics.

Fix-it fic: These fics are made in an attempt to fix something the writer did not like in the original project. They write things in a way they think is better than the original, or they write a thing that they didn't do in the original but the fic writer thinks is better than what was in the official content. There are pretty high expectations on fix-it fics for good reason, as the writer obviously is setting out to fix things. So for instance if somebody makes a rwby fix-it fic, I kind of expect them to do things like improve queer rep in rwby or improve world building in rwby and so on.

Rewrite: The writer is fundamentally changing things from the original, but a rewrite is not automatically a fix-it fic because people aren't always trying to fix anything. A fix-it is always a rewrite, but a rewrite isn't always a fix-it. Because in a rewrite, the writer could just be doing things that they think are interesting concepts, for fun, and not out of a desire to improve the official content. There are still expectations on rewrites to follow at least some element of story with format and all that, but there's less pressure to *be better than the original* because that's not automatically a part of writing a rewrite.

AU: A term for 'alternate universe,' this just means that the fic is not going to follow canon, there might be alterations as big as all the characters going to a regular high school in our world in modern times, to an AU where Pyrrha lives instead of Jaune. All fix-its and rewrites are technically 'alternate universes,' but AUs are even more relaxed and for fun than rewrites. So they're even less bound by any sort of expectations. There doesn't have to be any sort of formatting or anything for just an AU. If someone writes a romance based AU where Yang gets partnered up with Pyrrha and the two of them start a relationship, there doesn't need to be any fall of beacon, quest for the Relics, Salem doesn't even need to ever come up...

Not properly tagging a fix-it fic as a fix-it fic because some RWBY fans get angry whenever someone they don't know dares to think they can improve on the story of a bunch of other people they don't know... Doesn't actually do anything helpful. The fact that people have this 'you have to show only the upmost respect to the RWBY writers!' Why? Especially when Miles Luna specifically has a history of misogyny, biphobia, and said the n word as a twenty six year old. Why should I or anyone else be required to 'respect' a man who slutshamed the character of Tifa Lockhart by derogatorily calling her a prostitute because of what she was wearing and then lied about it when he got called out? It's a ridiculous expectation that really reads as massive insecurity on the side of anti-rwde posters.

So before even getting into the pieces of advice in the messages here, I just want to say that most of them do not matter in a rewrite or an AU. "This is my AU where Roman lived after the Fall of Beacon" is not immoral or wrong in any way. "This is my RWBY rewrite where I explore the ships I like rather than only the canon ships" like bro, who the hell does that hurt? So on and so forth. AUs and rewrites are just fans exploring fun ideas they like, it doesn't mean they actually wish the thing they're writing actually happened. For instance, I have plans for a fix-it RWBY fic where I try to mostly stick to the choices made in the original content and just do it in a better way (because I don't feel obligated to consider Miles "video games for your girlfriend" Luna better than me and stay in my demure place where I couldn't possibly improve upon a hot mess of a thrown together show.) But I also wrote a long fun non-published AU fic with my sister where we did this whole redeeming Torchwick, Mercury, Emerald, and Neo thing. AUs and rewrites should not be held to strict rules everyone needs to follow about who they are and aren't allowed to like or redeem. That's just killing creativity in fandom spaces.

But, now to get into these rules in practice of writing an actual fix-it fic (which again should actually be called a fix-it fic,) because a lot of these suggestions are actually good ideas... But A. Not all of them are, and B. I would bet good money that even the ones that are phrased well are used to baselessly attack people who aren't even doing the thing, and C. The actual original content of RWBY itself goes against these rules, but the same people that would pick apart a fanfic actively get angry when people dare criticize rwby.

So let's get into it.

Try to focus on the female protagonists

This is great advice for fix-it fics, and something that often puts me off of fix-it fics I've seen when they don't do this. 'Fix-it fics' that make men the protagonists or spend a lot more time focused on the men in RWBY than the women in rwby, it carries the implication that the person writing the fix-it fics thinks the there should be less focus on the women in rwby. However, this will also result in some anti-rwde posters who will see fix-it fics that do put a lot of focus on the female protagonists and have them be the protagonists and expand on their character and role but then also do things like have a chapter focused on fleshing out the character of Oscar and the anti-rwde poster will flip their lid about it. Also, this

Do not have a straight white male shame them for their actions

I'm assuming this part is focused on characters like Ironwood (arguably not white considering he was based in appearance of his Asian voice actor,) Ozpin (because despite the fact that most of the Oz reincarnations aren't white, Ozpin was,) Qrow (granted, very white, but is also one of the most coded as queer main characters,) and probably Adam. However, this ignores a couple of things, which is that if people are keeping to canon characters, Qrow, Ozpin, and Ironwood have all at times been mentors in canon - and also Ooblek and Port. It is generally a good idea to be careful when you DO write the main RWBY characters to mess up and get scolded especially if they're being scolded by white men, but the idea that you can't make the canonical mentors ever tell the RWBY girls they might be wrong is a strange one. Also it's worth noting that if you try to make RWBY more diverse by making some of these 'straight white males' into queer men or people of color, people are probably just gonna be more angry at you and still forbid you from ever having them say anything against the main girls. Also it's worth noting that RWBY canonically specifically had a scene where the white old man Peter Port who sexualized Yang got to tell off Weiss for being spoiled and entitled. So like... Maybe that should be criticized.

Do not make a cis white male have more of a role than them.

This is basically the exact same thing as the first point, which we'll see again. This list of suggestions has a couple different repeats.

No straightwashing

Another actually good suggestion, for the exact same reason as point one. Yang and Blake should stay queer, it's a very good idea to keep Jaune's sisters in mind (and maybe increase their role,) and May Marigold should of course stay a trans woman (and maybe get her role increased too!) However, it's worth noting that a lot of people consider it 'straightwashing' to have the bisexual Blake or the 'has expressed attraction towards men in like episode three' Yang ever be in relationships with men, and that's not straightwashing. It's biphobia to call a wlm bi ship straightwashing.

And NO fanservice

Now, look, "fanservice" to me has certain connotations of objectifying women, so I one hundred percent get this suggestion and think people should be very careful to make very sure they're not drifting into objectifying in their fix-it fics. However, I know how this fandom can get in regards to even young women so much as writing the now currently nineteen year olds to make out, so just to clarify. Even if it might feel like it sometimes, not everything romantic or sexual regarding the rwby main protagonists is inherently objectifying. Again btw, I want to clarify I'm not defending any specific current fix-it fic, just reflecting.

Don't make evil men "morally gray"

And we've come to the 'this is definitely about Ironwood and Adam and possibly Ozpin" thing. Here's the thing: There are problems with how the RWBY writers handled all three of these characters, and it's not immoral for anyone to make a 'fix-it fic' where they explore any of these characters as not evil especially considering that RWBY is meant to be a hopeful story, so making less characters plain straight evil is a perfectly reasonable thing. It's also worth noting that the actual show of RWBY made Hazel get redeemed as if he wasn't evil and treated him as at least partially in the right, while not having him truly apologize for the heinous actions he's done.

Also keep bumbleby canon

For fix it fics, this is a good recommendation because you can fix any problems you have with bumbleby. But also it's fine to not think bumbleby specifically should've been canon (though it's something I think could've actually been done well,) and going with something else. So long as you do include good other queer representation in your fix-it, not going with bumbleby shouldn't be viewed as an automatically horrible thing. You can make a fix-it fic where you put Yang with Weiss and Blake with Ilia or something. It's very silly to act like Blake and Yang being together should be a necessity. Again, there should one hundred percent be other queer main characters in your fix-it fic if you decide not to go with bumbleby.

Don't have Jaune or Adam date anyone in Team RWBY

...This is also something I think is a generally good idea tbh, and I don't have much else to say about it. In fact, adding a romance element to Adam and Blake's relationship actively hurt the show imo. Having Jaune date a member of Team RWBY can be done, but generally speaking I do feel like people should just avoid that, especially if the character is Weiss. But again I should point out that in the actual show of RWBY, they've made Weiss openly attracted to Jaune in season 9 while they had aged Jaune up a good twenty years, so... Yeah.

Ruby is to be idealistic, and it shouldn't be a character flaw

This is an interesting one, because I mostly believe in this. Ruby's being idealistic is something about her character I actually enjoy, and I also think that in a good show her beliefs would be challenged, and she would come out of it stronger, still with her hopefulness and her ideals but also willing to be smarter and more careful. And in a good show, there would be good characters who might have a different outlook that isn't villainized. So while I don't think that Ruby's idealism should be treated like a flaw, I do think her beliefs should be challenged and not treated as the only good and moral thing (and something tells me the people that complain about fix-it fics might consider that the same thing as 'treating it like a flaw.')

Yang is not a party girl, not an alcoholic, and not a slacker

So, the alcoholic thing is so specific that it makes me think this was specifically directed at one fix-it fic. But as for the other two. On the note of 'Yang is not a slacker' I would argue that in the early episodes, she wasn't actually shown to care about her studies much, but that the early episodes kind of rush through 'team RWBY finding their footing,' so in rewrites giving Yang an early character flaw of being a slacker... What's the issue with that? I'm genuinely confused with that one. Is it not in her early character of being an energized, fun loving girl? I don't get it. Now for the party girl thing... I'm also confused about that, because - and correct me if I'm wrong - didn't Monty Oum make 'party girl' like part of Yang's early characterization? When he was concepting her? And there was a whole thing in volume 2 where Yang and Weiss are planning a party and she's like bringing in loudspeakers and wants a fog machine, should we not think that means that she likes to party? Her whole first appearance in the Yellow trailer was specifically set in a club to get across the vibes they wanted for Yang. Yang goes to a club in volume 7 and is specifically talking about dancing at the club and the loud music at the club. Also my sister found this for me from the back of a V1 DVD.

They literally call Yang a party girl themselves! Do people just think there's something immoral about clubs and party girls and therefore don't want Yang to be one? Because that doesn't sound good, it sounds judgmental.

Jaune is a side character

This is advice that is very much not in line with canon. Jaune is at the very least a deuteragonist in canon and is often very much so treated as a main character, sometimes out stripping some of the main girls in terms of lines or screentime in a volume. I do think that fix-it fics ought to either reduce his role or increase the roles of the main characters, again to give more focus to the title characters in Team RWBY. However, it's just ridiculous to me to complain about Jaune's prominence in RWBY fix-it fics because I'm just like... Look at the main show! Complain about how much importance is put on Jaune in the show!

Adam Taurus is irredeemably evil So is Torchwick

I am certain that this is about one specific fix-it fic that some anti-rwdes make it part of their core rwby beliefs to hate, because most people only actually put Torchwick in the same category as characters like Adam and Ironwood in the 'you're not allowed to like and/or redeem them' category when they're talking about one specific fix-it fic. XD But just because other people do not like these two doesn't mean it's ILLEGAL to like and/or redeem them! In my opinion, there is no such thing as a person who is completely irredeemable! And in a hopeful show, wanting to redeem villains - especially villains who have been horrifically branded in racist acts - is not a bad thing??? This is your reminder that these are not real people who actually did bad things in real life, they're fictional characters, they're tools to be used to tell stories. This is basically just the "don't make evil men 'morally gray'" thing again but like, extra specific. Yes, Adam and Torchwick in the canon of RWBY are horrible evil people. But they're fictional people, you shouldn't villainize people for wanting them to be better and writing them to be better in a fix-it fic of a show that's meant to be fundamentally about hope. There's nothing hopeful about 'some people are irredeemable,' but 'even bad people can change and get better' is a really hopeful sentiment.

Once again, none of these expectations should exist for just 'rewrites and AUs' and are only applicable to actual fix-it fics, and some of them are just so pointless. It's literally just enforced fandom rules, and fandom rules kill creativity imo, there shouldn't be characters that people are forbidden from redeeming or just shouldn't ever make morally gray, or ships that are absolutely required that must be done. Even in fix-it fics! One person shouldn't expect everyone else in the fandom to fit with what they or what the writers want. Yes, there are things that I think should generally be done in fix-it fics like focusing on the main girls and keeping to the general outline of what happens in the canon series, but some people act like fix-it fics should really just unquestioningly copy paste the original work and call it good, and that's ridiculous.

Two more things to note:

Sometimes when people are trying to make a fix-it project, it can snowball into more of a rewrite. If they decide to start inserting characters just because they like it, or branch off into random tangents just because they find it interesting, or so on. So even in fix-it fics I think there should be allowances made and people need to understand that not every single thing in even a fix-it fic is something that the writers sincerely think should've happened in the actual canon of RWBY. I can't tell you the amount of times my sister and I have sat down to make a fanfic (we never publish btw) that was supposed to be 'a fix it for volume six onwards' or 'a fix it of volume seven' or something and wound up completely spiraling into a separate thing, and then we wind up being like 'okay but we really should write an actual fix-it sometime.' If you're publishing while you write, or posting your fix-it online as you go, you can't just be like 'guess this sorta became more of a rewrite than a fix it lol' if your fic is already titled as a fix-it. So I'm just saying, it's worth it to expand a little understanding that sometimes people making fan projects for their own enjoyment aren't always going to be hypervigilant to not let a little bit of personal bias and personal enjoyment leak into their choices.

Next thing to note: We should be holding RWBY to a much higher standard than any fan project. RWBY is a product that people are trying to sell us that's making an actual company money, it's the actual product itself, with a team of writers and their job is quite literally to make the story of RWBY good. Fics and fan projects are things people do as a hobby, that they're not getting paid for and therefore aren't selling to anyone. It's wild to me that some people will let RWBY the actual show get away with anything and actively try to stop people from criticizing it and then go around reading fanfictions nobody made them read so they can insult the people that make them over every little perceived injustice. If you're going to get angry at a fanfiction writer for including a little too much Uncle Qrow in their fix-it fic, please ask yourself why Jaune is such a prominent character in RWBY the actual show and why it doesn't bother you then. If you're going to get angry that a fix-it fic writer has Ozpin criticize the main girl protagonists, please go back and rewatch Jaune as a forty-something year old scream in Ruby's face that she's responsible for all bad things while she's crying, and get just as angry at the show writers as you would get at a fan if they did the same thing in their fic.

Anyway, this post was super duper long, but.... I'm done with it now.

[myrtenasterrose]

No, but the thing that really bothers me about M&K...

Is their refusal to take criticism, let alone politely. I was at RTX16 and went to the Saturday RWBY panel. At the end of most panels, they open the floor to questions from the attendees. One guy got up and mentioned that a lot of fans felt Pyrrha's death in the season 3 finale was a cop-out or not well done, and asked for their thoughts on the matter. M&K (and even Gray) immediately shot the kid down. Can't quote them word for word from memory, but it went something like this, "This has been planned since the beginning, and if someone doesn't like it, sorry." No consideration for the kid's question, no answer except your typical "don't like, don't watch" that RT fanatics pin us RWBY critics with here on Tumblr. 

However, that is not answer, and their refusal to take criticism from the fans that basically fund their doings says a lot about the kind of writers and people M&K are. In fact, I'm almost willing to give a pardon to Kerry, as it is Miles we always see posting on Twitter about either RWBY or the infamous "Korra missing it by a mile" post. Still, Miles Luna needs to learn to accept criticism instead of immediately passing things off if they threaten to harm his fragile ego. 

I felt so sorry for the guy who asked the question, and perhaps it was then my disdain for Miles began. You don't just shoot down a fan like that. Several other people then got out line at the shutdown, so it was obvious they probably had other critiques and figured, "well that's not going to work." 

So I implore you, Miles, Kerry, even Gray, LISTEN to our criticisms. I can guarantee you that most of our critiques aren't meant as blatant, personal attacks. Some? Sure, but you need to learn to distinguish those from true critiques where our only interest is the betterment of this show that we all love.

[dragynkeep]

that 'satire' article was pure cringe, ngl, and offensive as hell. Nearly every Ironwood fan I still see around tumblr is gay, jewish, asexual, neuro-diverse, asian etc, but the fndm simps are still trynna pretend ironwood fans are some weird shade of fascist apologist instead of a group of diverse people criticising how a group of mostly able bodied white men demonised the fictional disabled man for a plot twist

i find the true irony in the person describing ironwood as an “angry white man” was miles ... a white man, despite the rwby fndm’s conviction that he’s actually their “mawck king.” he’s a self admitted white & played youse for fools.

most, if not all ironwood fans i’ve seen, have been in some way or form poc, queer, neurodiverse or a mix of all three, as you’ve said. this can really be stretched for a majority of the rwde community; which makes the larger fndm’s attempts in painting us all as queerphobic, angry, cishet white men  —  as opposed to the creators being legitimately that  —  incredibly suspect & disrespectful.

[maripr]

Since rwde ppl are now accusing Shannon of "clout chasing" for validating my headcanon, lemme reiterate

He never said this was canon XD he doesn't write for the show! He's completely removed from the writing process, he doesn't know what the writers have in store for any future volumes and, for the record, he didn't even know Ozpin was gonna die in vol 3!

So the only opinions he ever shares are, on his own admission, only headcanons!

Miles did reply with "hell yeah" but that's also not something I'd descrive as a JK Rowling move. Mostly because Miles also tends to specify that any opinions he has outside of the actual writing of the show are hcs. He is a writer on the show but he's not the only one!

So can y'all just... Chill for a bit? Shshhs i do feel responsible bc he was replying to my post specifically, but CRWBY and the VAs have always been encouraging of fans' interpretations and headcanons so can we please stop reading everything as canon?

If we harass creators who are encouraging of headcanons, we're not gonna do anyone a favor. Learn your fandom history, folks!

[rwdestuffs]

The fans of this show are honestly more annoying than the arrogant writers and crew-members of the show.

Like… Remember the amount of outcry and whining when Vic was kicked out? They clamored more for his return than for any other character. There was no call to get back Kathleen or JJ to be the voices of Glynda or Mercury, and instead the higher-ups decided to sideline Glynda and replace JJ with… Yuri goddamn Lowenthal. The fans had no issues with RT spending more money on big-name actors than just keeping the VAs in-house.

Vic’s behavior catches up to him and he gets booted, and the fans cry out. Admittedly, it was also a bunch of assholes who wanted him to keep being Broly, but still.

Ryan gets outed as a predator and people actually want him to return.

The fans are goddamn monsters. More so than the writers. They’ll defend any shitty decision that the team does.

Like… I’m mainly neutral on Barb’s whole thing on twitter, but I’m of the opinion that the guy she’s responding to shouldn’t have directly replied to her, but that Barbara should also have just ignored and maybe even muted/blocked the guy. The people over at DEATH BATTLE can take criticism when it’s paired with insults and death threats, so why can’t these guys handle someone being a bit rude to them on the internet?

Point is, is that these fans have created an environment where the creators are far too comfortable with their own ego. Miles says that he regretted not making Pilot Boi gay even though he was planned to be killed, and that would have resulted in the Bury Your Gays trope being used, and fans outright ignore that part because they don’t want to think that their precious company would deliberately hurt them in such a way.

They throw their animators under the bus for the whole qrover thing, and the fans let them do that.

Several of the fans even outright send death threats and demands that a person commit fucking suicide over a negative opinion on the show. See: Quite a few of the anon messages that @misterblank42​ gets.

And the fans get very little repercussions for this. They’re always looking for some kind of angle or “gotcha“ to paint rwde tag in a negative light.

People who sent hate to the writers and VAs of the show were associated with rwde tag (see here) because these rabid stans want to make sure that criticism is the one that they approve of. As in, it has to be worded nicely, and it has to be something that everyone can agree on. Something like, “Oh, there was a lighting issue here” is something that they’d approve of. Whereas something like “The racism subplot was a massive mess, and I wish that they’d put in more research into it” is not something they’d approve of.

People associated toxic assholes like kob with rwde tag (see here) because he said unpopular things. But because he was a toxic asshole, he was associated with rwde tag. Nevermind that he was massively toxic towards them, harassed rwde tag by using alt accounts to block-evade, and was an entitled asshole in general- He was toxic, therefore, he was rwde tag. Same with the person who referred to Barbara as a c*nt.

These assholes get associated with rwde tag simply because they’re saying negative things about the show that these fans love so much.

Like… This guy had a point in his first tweet. He had a legitimate point. Hell! This post is pretty much agreeing with that first point. The fans coddle the writers and the crew to the point that they keep making the same mistakes of fucking up the racism subplot, giving disproportionate screentime to certain characters, queerbaiting, making so many unfortunate implications in regards to their minority characters and characters with disabilities, and so much more.

But then he adds that second part, and not only is he toxic, but he also gets associated with the rwde tag because the fans don’t want to hear criticisms unless they approve of it.

And whenever these criticisms are brought up, it’s always the same tired excuses.

“We bit off more than we could chew.” or “You baited yourselves.” and so on. These crew members need to stop being so chummy with the fans.

Barbara’s initial excitement for Volume 9 is honestly where things should lie. As is a writer answering any general questions.

But when you have these writers, Voice Actors, and… Well really just those two, when you have these guys being all chummy with the community, it creates a massive problem. They have more power as they are more involved with the creation of the content than the fans are. There is a distinct power imbalance, and it is something that needs to be addressed.

I don’t mind them doing something like a Q&A where they’d answer questions like “What is Qrow’s semblance called” for example. And the issue with them not putting an explanation of a trait important to a character in the actual show being a different problem in of itself (They took the time out of a high-stakes fight to explain Adam’s semblance, they had no excuse to not explain Ironwood’s in-universe), the fact of the matter is that these fans give them way too much cover.

Any criticism of the company is met with hostility, no matter how warranted it is. The crunch thing a while back was a massive problem, but people seem to just take their word of “We’ll be better about it” at just that. They have yet to give a reason to trust their word on anything.

But the fans just take them at their word. Despite the fact that these guys have zero network execs telling them that they can’t make Blang an explicit couple, or have the character who is actually wearing the colors of the trans flag to be trans, these guys just do a bunch of things that are arguably the bare minimum.

Here’s the thing: TeamFourStar are big fans of Dragon Ball. But they’re more than willing to critique it, and make fun of it all the time. If the fans of this show aren’t willing to accept or even consider the criticism of their favorite show, then they’re going to be left in the dust once some new thing comes along that has better representation, treats the subject of racism with respect, and has more concise storytelling.

Like… The writers and VAs have problems, but they’re mostly enabled by the fans to continue with that sort of behavior. So I blame a lot of this on the fans than I do the crew members.

[chaoslordjoe]

In defense of "Shitley."

Whitley Schnee has been sort of a base-breaking character in recent events within RWBY. Namely with the on-screen reveal of the neglectful matriarch of the family, Willow.

Willow: No matter what happens, Weiss... please don’t forget about your brother.

Weiss looks at her mother.

Weiss: Whitley wants nothing to do with me.

Willow stops at the door and turns to look at Weiss.

Willow: Of course not, you left him alone.

She looks at the portrait of Jacques behind the desk, and Weiss looks at it too.

Willow: (sadly) With us.

For all the mixed general reception for V7, Willow might have been seen coming from a mile away, eventually bringing up how Weiss left her family to go save the day. Which, depending on whether that was relevant or not has MADE ME THINK!!!

*Dun-dun-DUNNN*

The inevitable line that Willow would bring up about Whitley might not have been foreshadowed, necessarily, ever since some critics have theorized that Whitley is just as much of a victim considering the obvious fact that Jacques is a controlling bully of a father and husband.

But I feel that the "Shitley" camp who cannot 'stan' him if you will still have reasons to not care for him, as much as there are reasons to go easier on him.

I want to clarify that this is not meant to attack Whitley stand in any way, shape or form. This is simply an opinion-based piece that I felt like putting out there based on discussions with friends about the character. With that being said, let's begin.

Ever since Whitley's debut in V4, and with how quickly he turned on Weiss, most of the FNDM agrees that she never should have been treated that way. And with Weiss being seen as a beloved character by do many that it has made some of us wondering who's in the bigger wrong: Jacques or Whitley.

While we mostly agree that Jacques is a horrible father, husband, CEO, and generally a bad person there is always the possibility of how one abuser can corrupt so many others. As Vladimir Lenin once said: "One man with a gun can control 100."

The same applies for Jacques, given how he sent his wife into an alcohol-related despair, neglected his daughters into joining the military with the other becoming a Huntress respectively.

And the son has become a pawn in Jacques sphere of influence, by kicking Weiss while she was down and put under house arrest for finally speaking out against the Colonel Sanders-looking motherfucker we all love to hate.

None of this is really deniable at this point. What is more debatable however, is Whitley as a whole. Is he a victim? Is he just an unsympathetic little twerp?

Just so there are no secrets to any biases here, I am in the Shitley camp.

I myself grew up in an abusive home. Mom was a violent drinker and pill popper who drove my siblings and I to madness, which is why Willow was revealed to still have a heart and care for her babies.

This whole conversation between her and Weiss resonated with me, because of how I didn't have a mother with a heart like Willow's underneath all the booze. All the misplaced neglect. Which I never experienced.

Perhaps this can come off as more of a RWDE/venting post, but I just wanted to write something about how I feel that Shitley is a valid belief. And that I suppose I felt like presenting a more justifiable reason than: "oh Whitley is an irritating little shit" without any major explanation.

I can't speak for all Shitley believers, but you could say I was sorta coming to my camp's defense with this post and we really mean no harm to those who believe in Whitley being redeemed, which some of us do not.

Look, given the near endless string of abusers I dealt with besides my mother as a kid, I'm basically a little jaded with seeing people take sides with abusers of different motives since that's what Whitley reminded me of.

Shitley isn't an empty fallacy at this point, as there are good reasons for why some people still believe this argument. Hence this post. No more to say, really, now that I've gotten this off of my chest.

[irandomblogfulb]

Hey so I've been reading some ofyour content under the tag rwde and i know of the rwde population of the rwby series but i have to aak, why watch rwby if you seem to just hate it? It's like putting yourself through pointless sh**. I may be biased cause i like rwby, yes it needs work but once more, why do u watch it if you seemingly hate it?

I kinda have this weird relationship with Rwby. Volumes 1-3 was a so bad that it was entertaining to watch, especially volume 3.It’s almost funny. 

Volumes 4-6, (more so 5, 6 was heading in the right direction for the first half) was testing my patience. 

This probably should be it’s own separate rant, but idk if you were around back then when we used to complain about the school setting, but now looking back it did more good for the series then them going off on a macguffin quest. 

If we get more volumes like 5 then I’d totally jump ship.

I’m mostly in it for the crwby narrative. Gray’s gone and they’ve got 2 new writers, one who does have experience in writing but is pretty problematic when handling LGBT representation and dark themes. With the glassdoor reviews fiasco (which RT said they’d fix ) and Gen:lock in limbo, I’m curious to see how it effects Rwby.

I doubt all that would instantly make Rwby a better show for me, (Miles and Kerry whilst not  total pieces of shit like Gray are still hack writers and Miles has an ego) but hey I need to know how badly Gen:lock screwed over Rwby. 

[rwbyconversations]

Why I think some people don’t like Jaune

Jaune Arc. Jauney boy. You make very hard to like you sometimes. 

Jaune Arc is almost certainly the most discussed character in RWBY, even more so than the titular four girls. This is not a very good thing. Since the early days of Volume 1, Jaune has been derided and mocked by portions of the community, often dismissed as a poorly planned out audience surrogate, a writer-insert and/or Miles shoving in a cliche shonen protagonist into Monty’s tapestry of art. That last one is hyperbole, for the record. But regardless, Jaune is far from unanimously loved by the fandom- just go see how many RWDE posts are about him. I tried reading some of them and after I finished washing my eyes out with bleach, I found myself mildly disagreeing with their contents. 

(sidenote if anyone ever convinces Dudeblade to learn how to use italics, bold or underline to emphasize something instead of random capitalization like Baby’s First Word Doc I will actually pay you in pesos)

But while the reasons people give for hating Jaune are many, some of them have little basis in reality. Others, meanwhile, are quite painfully true and have incredibly valid criticisms that can be applied to RWBY as a whole at the core of their message. So today, I’d like to explain why I think some people hate Jaune, why some of the reasons don’t hold much weight, and why a few are quite valid.

Reason 1) “Jaune’s a Self/Author Insert!” 

Perhaps the most common and damning criticism of Jaune, especially in the earlier volumes, were claims that Jaune was just an insert character for Miles to fawn over. Miles and Kerry have themselves said that Miles has had very little to do with writing Jaune in the show proper since Volume 1, and that most of Jaune’s larger scenes were done at the behest of Kerry or Monty. Quote:

In the first few Volumes, if Jaune was in a scene it was almost always because either Monty or myself wanted him in a scene. From the very beginning, Monty was very big on having that archetype of character be fairly prominent in the show. Miles has always been incredibly hesitant to insert Jaune into scenes, to the point where he's voiced before that he wishes sometimes that he didn't voice him.

That said, this only came out in early 2018 after Volume 5 had already wrapped. In the years before then, many a fan was utterly convinced that Miles was behind most of Jaune’s more limelight-hogging scenes in Volume 1 particularly. This wasn’t helped by some quotes of Miles that got taken out of context, primarily that he based Jaune off himself as a younger teenager (the quote is in fact referring to Jaune’s voice).

Fandom also plays a purpose in Jaune gaining the inglorious title of self-insert. Jaune’s lack of a semblance, conventional attractiveness, age that put him close to the girls and vague backstory meant it was very easy for fanfiction writers to appropriate Jaune into whatever they needed, which at best included harem comedies and at worst...

Well, hell on earth. Fandom has had a large impact on RWBY, and I believe the “self-insert” accusations regarding Jaune are perhaps the most clear example of this. Some people do still believe to this day that Jaune is an SI, but I am willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the writing team and assume that no, any intent was not maliciously planted and it was an accident.

Reason 2) Jaune’s an audience surrogate

This one actually has basis in reality since the crew have actually said Jaune’s purpose in the early volumes was to be the audience surrogate (see above, second bolded part). To explain the term the audience surrogate is a character, usually found in fantasy or science fiction stories, who is new to the setting and its more complex rules. Thus, when someone tells this character how the system works, it doesn’t feel weird for the audience to have this information. We learn with the character, drawing us further into the setting. On the surface, an audience surrogate is not a bad storytelling device, but what it comes down to is execution, and here is where I feel that RWBY falls flat on its face in handling Jaune.

Jaune’s primary purpose in the first half of Volume 1 is largely to serve as the vehicle through which we discover Aura. Aura, the resource incredibly common in-setting and able to be tracked to an exact percentile in tournaments. In fact, Aura is so easily tracked, Remnant’s smartphones can track other people’s Auras no sweat. Most audience surrogates usually only need lore explained to them when it’s a rare facet of life, hence why it’s often seen in fantasies with magic to get the reader caught up on the rules. 

For example, in the Mistborn series, while Vin is aware of burning metal, she unlocks her Mistborn powers at the beginning of the trilogy and then has to learn about the other metals she didn’t know she possessed, and gets further training on the one metal (brass) she could burn that she thought was just her luck. As well, Vin infiltrates high society, so alongside learning about the different metals, we also use Vin’s inexperience to learn how high society works under the Lord Ruler.

For Jaune to have no clue about Aura, despite the commonality of it in-setting, is almost unthinkable and essentially requires his parents to have locked him in a basement for his entire life. While surrogates aren’t meant to know everything about a setting, it is expected that they at least know the basics- again, see Vin from Mistborn as an example of this.  Therefore, I will not deny that Jaune is an audience surrogate. However, I do believe that Jaune is a bad audience surrogate who breaks the internal rules of a character alongside the logical rules of the setting.

Reason 3) Jaune’s a cliche shonen lead

Let me rattle off a quick idea for a story, like I’m giving an elevator pitch.

Our story is about a young boy (usually with spiky hair) who goes to join a magical academy so he can slay monsters. He’s not proficient in the art of combat but he has a big heart and genuinely tries most of the time, so through outside circumstances he manages to enroll in the school. Immediately, he gets pegged by the headmaster for special reasons and develops a crush with an cold-hearted young woman who rebukes his advances. All the while, he develops a close friendship with a shy girl who is holding a candle for him but he doesn’t see her desires until it’s too late. In the meantime, he continues to train to prove himself a great hero.

Now, who did I describe. Jaune Arc? Or half of the shonen genre? There’s a reason for the popularity in the stock shonen hero cliche- it’s pretty easy to get right on the first try, makes for a mostly likable hero who the audience can get behind and root for as they aspire to become a Pokemon master collect the Dragonballs win the Battle City Finals become the greatest hero who ever lived. Jaune hits a lot of the cliches of the Stock Shonen Hero in early RWBY, and this set off alarm bells in the minds of many of RWBY’s more anime-conscious fans. The moment Jaune fell for Weiss and she shot him down, the early fanbase were on-edge about Jaune. RWBY had been advertised as four girls fighting monsters and kicking ass with great choreography. And here comes this blonde wannabe in a hoody trying to insert a love triangle into all of that? Yeah, no thanks. Again, this was likely something Monty intentionally pushed through since the AMA says Monty was big on Jaune’s archetype being in the show.

Though Jaune, in my opinion at least, did step away from these trappings later in RWBY, becoming more sullen and less focused on traditional shonen ideals, the early days played no small role in defining why people loathed Jaune in early RWBY. And once the label of “shonen lead” was plastered onto Jaune, it would prove nearly impossible to remove. 

In all honesty, this is one of the smaller reasons for people’s dislike of Jaune, but notable in that it set the groundwork- people already dismissed him as a cheap shonen lead, and that principle latched onto Jaune like gum onto a shoe. 

Reason 4) Jaune’s stealing scenes and where it hurts characters

Though Jaune has had a significantly reduced presence in RWBY since Volume 1, it seems that his primary scenes in Volumes 4 and 5 had a very unintended consequence of taking away from other characters. One of the often-cited scenes of this is Volume 4 Chapter 10, Kuroyuri.

The scene is set for Ruby to finally confront the trauma bubbling beneath the surface that had been eating at her since Volume 3- Penny and Pyrrha’s joint deaths and the Fall of Beacon, her Silver Eyes and how no one was willing to talk to her about them. And yet who does most of the speaking in this scene? Jaune. Jaune indirectly hijacks the scene away from Ruby so that instead it can become a scene of, quite frankly, platitudes that ring hollow. Despite supposedly being a scene where Ruby is being built up, despite supposedly being about Ruby,  and how inspiring she is, the active character in the scene, the one with agency and prevalent on-screen characterization... Is Jaune.

Volume 5 Chapter 11 is the other standout example of this, in what is now an infamous string of events. Jaune basically hijacks not one, not two, but three active character arcs- he again strips Ruby of her agency by going after Cinder, who also has her sub-plot of hating Ruby curtly kicked out a window because of Jaune hogging her attention, and then Weiss takes a frankly insulting dive so that Cinder has someone to spear so we have a cheap cliffhanger so dramatic tension can die onscreen so Jaune can have an excuse to pop his Semblance’s virginity. And let me stress, Ruby has about as much agency as some belly-button fluff for the rest of the Battle of Haven and by extension the entire Volume.

This is a reasoning for disliking Jaune that I fully understand and can get behind. Through a mix of tragic circumstance (the Volume 5 scene is effectively the one time Jaune takes relevance in the entire volume) and some mind-boggling creative choices, Jaune now twice in a row stripped Ruby of agency she has desperately needed, interrupted a two-year in the making subplot with Cinder, and indirectly killed RWBY’s dramatic stakes. Did you really think they’d kill Weiss in Volume 5? Exactly, no one really thought they’d go through on it, Weiss and the rest of RWBY are basically safe until the last two or three volumes. Regardless of whether or not Jaune is meant to be seen as a main character or a side, his focus scenes have the tragic mishap of constantly coming at the expense of someone else being undermined.  

Reason 5) He’s... not actually that good a strategist.

Jaune is a crap fighter, he’ll readily admit to being much weaker in direct combat than anyone else in the heroes side. So instead, he adopted the sub-trope of shonen leads, the strategist/quick thinker. Be it Izuku in My Hero Academia or many of the protagonists in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, shonen has a long history of heroes who fight as much with their minds as they do with their fists.

Here’s the problem with that. Jaune’s really bad at being a strategist. In fact, despite not even doing it since Volume 3, Ruby has displayed far more tactical acumen than Jaune.

JNPR vs BRNZ isn’t won through tactical skill beyond just throwing Nora at the problem after Divine Cindervention (compare this with how effortless RWBY make taking down ABRN look). Jaune even rips off Ruby’s idea of code-names but his attempt fails due to insufficient practice. Meanwhile Ruby says “Checkmate” in Volume 5 and despite not having trained together for months, Blake and Weiss immediately jump into action.   

Jaune explicitly quotes one of RNJR having said "you're the strategist", and is the character that gets to come up with a plan for taking down the Petra Gigas. And even though the way his plan is phrased initially gets played as humorous, his dumb strategy ultimately gets vindicated by actually working.

“Keep moving, run in a circle” is pretty poor advice (in fact, Ren had already been trying this strategy when Jaune said it and the Nuck still landed a blow on him), but in-universe it’s treated like gospel. Nobody points out how weak Jaune’s strategies are because from a meta perspective, the only way Jaune is able to stay relevant in fights in Volume 4 is to shout inane “strategies.” The issue with this is that (yet again) it comes at the expense of other characters, including (again) Ruby, who in Volumes 1 through 3 was shown as far sharper when it came to using her team and their strengths. Everyone else on the hero side has to take an intellectual dive so Jaune can take home a glorified participation trophy. 

Jaune using his greatsword for a stabbing attack when it’s built for slashing in the Haven battle. I brought this up in my “What went wrong at Haven?” post, but I thought it was worth repeating that this is a massive blunder.

Reason 6) General misc stuff

I couldn’t make full points of these, so I made bullet points for some of the smaller reasons Jaune is disliked

The Weiss obsession. There’s no real nice way of sugarcoating Jaune’s actions in Volume 2, no means no. That this came about from some glorified improv and the idea that it would be a funny idea makes my stomach churn. 

The bully arc taking so much time. Thanks to how Volume 1 cut some episodes, Jaune’s arc with Cardin took four weeks in real life to complete. This only exaggerated the issues people took with Jaune, and had RWBY not immediately come back with the fight-scene Renaissance piece that was Blake and Sun vs Roman, I can’t imagine how many people would have dropped the show thanks to an after-school special that got wedged in their fighting anime.

Jaune looking away and letting Cinder shoot Amber. Ignoring that Cinder’s Semblance can let her shoot around targets, which she does in the Pyrrha fight, Jaune never stood a chance against Cinder, and no matter what, most friends would be distracted by their friend’s agonized screams and would likely turn around in despair.

Jaune hating Qrow in Volume 4. Thanks to Jaune being the one member of RNJR willing to call out Qrow for his and Ozpin’s parts in Pyrrha’s death, Jaune got some flack from Qrow’s notable fandom. Ironically enough, people began to dislike Jaune more when he refused to ever act on these feelings after Ozpin’s return in Volume 5, with Jaune only ever calling out Ozpin after Yang did it with the Birds Reveal (I’ve written a piece before about why that reveal fell flat). His out of nowhere tepidness in approaching Ozpin regarding Pyrrha’s death was so out-of-nowhere that people were begging for Jaune to have screentime again, that’s how random it was.

To conclude, there are many reasons why people hate Jaune Arc, and the story doesn’t really help his case a lot of the time in all honesty. While some of the stated reasons are far from logical (I at least hope I’ve explained why I think he’s not a self-insert), Jaune unfortunately fails to set himself as a distinct character without it usually biting someone else in the ass. He fails to be a proper audience surrogate due to lacking essential knowledge about the setting. He has an unfortunate tendency to overshadow other characters and hijack their plots for his own scenes (poor Ruby), and he fails to even be that competent a strategist, leaving his supposed skills to be more of an informed attribute. Add in a variety of smaller reasons for his hatedom, legitimate or not, that have stacked up over the years, and Jaune unfortunately has several valid reasons to dislike him. While I still personally like the Noodle Boy, and I do hope that he can develop and grow stronger as a fighter, tactician and character in the coming future, I cannot deny that I fully understand why people would be turned off by Jaune. So much could have been done with Jaune, but much like a bad salad that comes before a great main course, you’ve already lost your appetite before the main servings arrive.

To surmise, Jaune-hate began because of a perfect storm of circumstances that would be impossible to make happen on purpose. He could have recovered from the flirting with Weiss, the Audience Surrogate/Shonen lead status, or being the main character in several drawn-out arcs, but all at once? Was too much for any one character to bear, and Jaune was unfortunately the character who had all of this lumped on him within a year of the show beginning.

Thank you for reading.

... damnit kid why do you make it so hard to like you sometimes I don’t like doing this

[i-am-the-entertainer]

A Mid-Volume RevieWBY

Let’s be honest. Most of us were holding our breath for the entire hiatus: we’ve been burned before by this show.

RWBY has always been a show with potential, but has been unable to get as big as it wants to be just due to the nature of how it’s made. Rooster Teeth is still an independent production studio, they can only put out so many episodes a year, and for the past two volumes it was just two guys writing basically everything.

It’s also worth pointing out that RWBY wasn’t originally a masterpiece on its own. What made it stand out was a) the fact that the mostly comedy-driven Rooster Teeth was making an original IP and b) the fights. People jumped onto this show because even if the animation quality was subpar, the vocal performances were all over the place, and the writing was slow as hell, there was charm to it, and part of that charm was watching the show gradually improve.

Which is why everything started to feel stagnant when the show stopped improving. Sure, they upgraded to a more professional-looking animation engine, they started hiring more professional voice actors and the original cast’s performances improved with experience, but with the loss of the series’ creator, visionary, and key animator, the ability to have epic fights was lost, as was a major guiding force for where the show could go. Couple that with key missteps in major storytelling in Volume 4 and 5 (including storylines that were just completely dropped or failed to receive any focus) and wildly inconsistent fight quality from chapter to chapter, the show was getting so many things wrong. Yeah, some of the criticism was just unnecessarily toxic, and I recognize the CRWBY’s discomfort at the level of hate they were getting (no one’s forcing you to watch the show, people), but seriously, it got to the point that even some of the show’s more positive fans were calling RWBY out for its problems. These issues were finally acknowledged by the team in a Reddit AMA following the Volume 5 finale, and they promised they would try to fix them. Miles himself posted this:

A couple of us went into this Volume with cautious optimism. While Volume 5 had been a disappointment, some of the new guiding philosophies they were claiming to use to fix RWBY for the next Volume had been used surprisingly successfully for Nomad of Nowhere. Everyone thought that show was going to be another cancelled-after-one-season failure for RT Animations, but surprisingly it turned out to be one of their best shows. If they could create another entirely new world and actually do some really good storytelling, maybe there was hope for RWBY.

If you saw the Volume 6 premiere in theaters like me, you may have watched with baited breath. They felt the need to screen the last hour of Volume 5 first, which just served as a reminder of how disappointing the overall product had been. Then they showed a behind the scenes video where the CRWBY discussed changes to the pipeline: a new co-director for the series, an actual writing team to assist Miles and Kerry, the animators being given more control on certain scenes, etc. etc. Overall, suggesting “We heard you and we’re going to try to improve.”

And then the first episode was shown. And honestly? It was pretty good. Good balance of humor and action while starting up some of the major storylines of the season. The fight scenes were well-choreographed, they’d clearly spent a lot of time working on the episode, they even had time to add little details and quirks to the character. It’s probably one of the best premieres of the entire show: it felt like it was doing a better job of marking a new era for the show than the Volume 4 premiere had been trying to do.

So, let’s assess how things have gone, at least so far.

Focus

This has been the biggest improvement for the show. The big problem in Volume 4 and 5 was having the team split up and attempting to give each their individual focus, while also giving secondary characters basically the same amount of focus, which was waaaay beyond what this kind of show could do. There were simply too many story threads and events going on that made following the show fun to watch––whole storylines would be dropped for several episodes at a time. I mean, the whole reason the Apathy didn’t appear in Volume 4 despite what they’d planned was because there just wasn’t any time to include them. As of now, there are only two major story threads we’ve been concerned with: Team QRWBYOM and Team Melted Ice Cream. A third could be Salem’s faction, but they’ve only had one scene so far: I suspect they’re going to play a more major role in the second half of this volume, though, considering they were waiting for the heroes to reach Argus. A fourth is Adam, but he also has only had one actual scene so far, I wouldn’t be surprised if they pushed him aside for the first half so they could focus on the main characters and he’ll have a bigger role later on.

This renewed focus has allowed us to finally get some proper interaction within the main team, plus actual character development. So, good on that.

Pacing

So much better. Volumes 4 and 5 relied way too much on cliffhangers to get people to come back each episode, instead of relying on a story playing out in single chapters. When I say cliffhangers, I mean cutting off a key story moment in the name of shock or not allowing the episodes to stand on their own. We’ve gotten a lot of episodes with an individual focus where they could potentially stand as an independent episode of the show, even the more arc-like episodes like what happened with Brunswick Farms: "The Coming Storm,” the second episode of that arc, had the Cinder vs. Neo fight that everyone adored and some amazing interactions with Blake and Yang and Weiss and Ruby.

I had a concern that having major revelations/moments in only the first few chapters was going to kill the pacing for the entire volume, and I still kind of have that concern. That said, I am surprised that they’ve kept up the momentum this far into the volume, so I’m cautiously optimistic. With maybe the exception of Chapter 4, each episode had a major story beat that packed a punch the volume needed to keep going.

Tone

This has been another problem for the past two volumes: the show kind of established itself with the anime vibe of visual comedy mixed with legitimate drama, but hasn’t really kept up that momentum volume-to-volume. In the cases of Volumes 4 and 5, they both began with some anime-like humor but failed to use it consistently. These seven chapters, meanwhile, have been pretty consistent in delivering those humorous moments: even Brunswick Farms, the most horror-based arc in the series thus far, has some laugh out loud scenes.

And on that note: the horror elements of the Brunswick Farm arc were really well done. Sure, there was no way anyone was going to die, but that doesn’t really matter (repeat: THAT DOES NOT MATTER, CERTAIN PEOPLE) because a combination of writing, animation, and even sound design made for a couple of episodes that were legitimately terrifying.

Animation

I don’t want to make too many calls on this because I’m not that great at assessing this kind of thing (writing’s more my forte), and @hypeathon writes some really great analyses on the topic, much better than I ever could. But overall I think it’s safe to say the animation quality has really improved. You can really tell with certain episodes that more time was spent to make them look their best, especially Chapter 1, which had these little touches that I wouldn’t have expected at all from the show five years ago. Minus a couple of animation errors here and there, things are looking good. No random teleportation, all the fight scenes we’ve gotten have been sufficiently epic, they’ve been placed at points in the show that satisfy our epic fight cravings, overall, good work. Kind of the payoff to the mention from the premiere documentary that they’re leaving a lot of creative decisions in the hands of the animators, which has overall made a much prettier-looking show.

Character Development

One of the problems of juggling multiple storylines in Volumes 4 and 5 was that we weren’t given a whole lot to work with in terms of character development: a lot of it seemed to just happen offscreen, we weren’t really shown what changed a character from the start of a volume to the end of one. The biggest victims of this problem were the core four, who were often pushed aside in favor of development for side characters. Ruby has been the biggest victim of this problem, with a planned arc about her survivor’s guilt in Volume 4 getting pushed aside to focus on Ren’s story, and only really getting one legit moment of development in Volume 5 in her brief talk with Oscar. Yang’s arc about recovering from the Battle of Beacon was almost non-existent in Volume 4, with only a few drops of it popping up at moments in Volume 5 that didn’t form a cohesive development arc. Blake and Weiss actually had a decent arc, but Weiss wasn’t given a whole lot to do in Volume 5 and then kinda sorta got fridged for an episode or two.

With the characters reunited and a renewed focus on the core team, we’re finally seeing some actual on-screen development. Chapter 5 “The Coming Storm” is the clearest example of that, with the team dealing with the fallout from Jinn’s story in (what appeared to be) a lower-stakes setting. Key moments included Blake and Yang’s interaction, which brought the much-desired angst everyone was waiting for, knowing how betrayed Yang felt when Blake abandoned her at the end of Volume 3. Ruby and Weiss, who were set up from the beginning of the whole show as partners, weren’t really interacting a lot, even when they reunited midway through Volume 5. We get a nice moment of their dynamic while they’re looking for food.

Jaune

Well. That might explain why he’s gone for most of the first half.

(listen rwde, they’re never gonna get rid of him completely. He’s an established character, they can only push him aside for most of the volume, stop chasing your tail and get over it already. If they abruptly killed him I’m sure you’d be celebrating but all of us would be thinking “What...what purpose does that serve to the overall plot?”)

Storytelling

This is probably the best Volume in terms of storytelling. After years of World of Remnants and exposition dumps delivered by characters standing around talking, the philosophy of “Show, don’t tell” finally actually happened on this show. Flashbacks, which didn’t happen much (if at all) before, were finally used, and we ended up with some great material: again, the Grimm Reaper flashback in Chapter 7 continues the volume riding high on good quality fight animation, but also gives us a sense of the world the characters inhabit. More than before, a lot of minor things in this world are implied rather than fed to us, like the danger Silver-Eyed Warriors have to live with, the efforts people will go to to live out normal lives in Grimm-infested territory, etc.

I brought this up earlier, but Chapter 3 “The Lost Fable” was basically to RWBY what “El Rey” was to Nomad of Nowhere: a massive lore-dump that provided some much-needed context to what the heroes were doing, completely changing the stakes of the show up to that point and potentially changing the course of everything for the rest of the season. And we desperately needed that kind of episode, where we were shown instead of told the background of Ozpin and Salem, instead of just blindly thinking “Here’s the good guy and here’s the bad guy.”

And yet if I’m being honest, I can’t say I really liked it. I’m not sure why, maybe I’ve gotten cynical like the rest of the angry commenters on YouTube, it feels a bit like this is happening way too late, like it should not have taken this many years for something like this to be revealed, or there should have been a much better buildup to that reveal. At the same time, I understand that some major events in RWBY’s production (the least of which was the way too large scope of Volume 4 and the biggest of which was the shocking loss of its creator right when the show was about to enter a shift in tone) meant any proper buildup had to be killed in favor of telling cohesive stories volume-to-volume. So yeah, I can’t say I liked that episode individually, but I know the greater purpose it serves to the show so it doesn’t really bother me that much.

Conclusions

I try to be positive with my reviews of RWBY, especially considering how vitriolic reviews of this show can get. That said, this volume’s not perfect. The big criticism I have right now is that this is a show that wants to tell an epic story on a grand scale but can only tell it in fourteen 10-20 minute episodes per season. It doesn’t help that the last two volumes were the attempted execution of that plan, while this one seems to be scaling that back so the show doesn’t lose focus. But that’s just my issue with how the show has tried to established itself in the post-V3 era and how we’re no longer getting that. I think the biggest improvement this show could have would be longer episodes, and I could sacrifice having a volume per year if it meant they could spend more time on the episodes and tell the big story they want to tell. But I know Rooster Teeth can’t function as a production studio while only putting out one volume of RWBY, its flagship show (sorry RvB), every few years. Actually, I suspect that might be the model gen:LOCK is gonna follow, considering the first season alone has taken a year and a half to produce.

At the conclusion of Volume 5 I remarked that even though it was a disappointment, it was an obvious step in the creative direction the show needed to go in. Even if the fight animation was very often subpar and it felt like they were trying to clean things up after Volume 4 got too big to handle, there was a better blend of storytelling and action.

This volume so far has been the payoff. I haven’t felt the urge to seethe through my teeth with disappointment after a single episode this volume: each one was satisfying in its own way, I no longer feel like I have to keep track of 200 different characters and what they’re up to, and I walk away from the fight scenes feeling like something epic actually occurred rather than “Okay, so they punched things defied gravity and that somehow defeated their enemies.”

Yes, there are problems, but the show is showing clear signs of improvement. I think it’s safe to say after seven fairly good episodes that Volume 6 could very well become the best volume of RWBY. Any clear issues with the story and scope for this volume should’ve come up by now, and nothing really comes to mind. As far as I’m concerned, as a serialized TV show RWBY is succeeding. Whether that will all payoff for the final overall volume? Well, we’ll have to wait til the finale airs in February.

[knightofbalance-13]

https://sokumotanaka.tumblr.com/post/178352745964/were-aware-this-is-a-fictional-show-picking

We’re aware this is a fictional show.

But you don’t care you hurt real people because of it.

Picking apart tthings you don’t like is a lazy excuse.

Can’t be an excuse if it’s true.

No one that I know of has threatened anything.

Xenodweeb

Also you PERSONALLY have suicide baited me.

If they stop making it it’s not our faults

Yes it i, you’re just lying to yourself.

It has nothing to do with a lack of empathy do you even know what that word means?

empathy is the ability to understand and share other’s emotions.  If you had this ability, you wouldn’t use their dead friend to attack them, repeatedly slander them, support people attacking them and attack anyone who supports them.

Here’s the bottom line: This is a criticism tag made so it didn’t spill into the rwby tag, for your convenience. People stating the truth about the bad world building, writing and so fort isn’t picking apart anything and if they stop making it over criticism that they should really ahear then they truely didn’t care.

A. Then why is the RWDE tag mostly shit that ISN’T criticism?

B. No, creators have the right to REJECT criticism, They are not your slaves

And C. Yeah because when Hideaki Anno made EoE, he didn’t care about the show despite showing the NUMEROUS DEATH THREATS he got from it Because the creators of Voltron didn’t care about criticism despite attempted BLACKMAIL. Because Rebecca Sugar doesn’t care about SU despite the NUMEROUS lies and controversies people like you have made around her.

Or maybe, just maybe, people like you cause this sit by being a bunch of bullies.

It has nothing to do with a lack of empathy cause me saying “Oh hazel’s motivation is really hypocritical with him litterally killing a kid, or how the first episodes of each season have a notible glitch on each of the characters. (remember nora’s outline floating around her in season 4 episode 1 anyone?) that isn’t me attacking anyone it’s me pointing out a flaw that should have been fixed in editing and the only one who sees that as an attack is you, cause you want someone to antagonize.

A. One is missing the point and the other does’t matter. Gee, just like the SU critical people you hate so much.

B. Then how come YOU never take criticism? When someone says “Hey you misspelled a bunch of stuff”: You yell racism and block them. When someone says “That’s not how this trope works” you yell racism and block them.  When someone points out “You’re using misleading information”, you yell racism and block them. When someone says “Hey that contradicts what is said in canon!”, you yell racism and block them.

Tell me Soku-

When those complaints fundamentally BREAK what you do and you say it’s just bigotry: Who is perceiving everything as an attack now?

grow up quinacridone.

A. That’s a chemical compound dumbass, it doesn’t apply to anything here.

And B. This coming from the man who does NOTHING with his life but bitch about RWBY.

This coming from the man who is only a year younger than Miles but has accomplished so little I have done more with my life.

This coming from a guy who tried to get people to attack people in the comment section of a Super Best Friends video.

This coming from a guy who blames all his criticism on racism.

Yeah, how about you look in the mirror?

You can like something and still notice it’s flaws-

Lani pator  (voice of that stupid bat faunus)

And to finish it off, doesn’t even know Lani is a member of Team Four Star.

Also, from what I’ve read: You’ve admitted you have RWBY.

[polandspringz]

Okay, @ everyone who was correcting me for saying it would “fix Jaune’s PTSD” I hope you all realize that wasn’t really what I meant? I’ve gotten into enough debates on here because I made a rushed text post in reaction and used poor wording, so I don’t want that to occur here but what I was attempting to say was that it would help Jaune “cope” with the loss of Pyrrha because he helped saved someone else he cared a lot about (specifically another ponytailed female).

Also, I’m not one to participate or advocate for the RWDE section of the fandom, but I do sometimes feel they have valid points. A while ago, during volume 4’s run, I saw people making RWBY bingo boards for all the worst events that could happen in the season. Jaune having a healing semblance was always on there, but it makes sense. Jaune would become way too overpowered with a healing semblance, and for all the Jaune haters out there, it would be another trait that they say Kerry and Miles had tacked on to him to make their own character have a bigger role in the show. When I called him a deus ex machina, I realize some people may not know exactly what that is, but it was used at the end of volume 3 when Ruby’s silver eyes were revealed and when the lockers came down on the nevermore. Although some had been foreshadowed events, the heart of the matter is these things came out of left field sometimes and solved an issue. Rather than having Ruby fight the Nevermore with Penny’s weapon, we had a literal deus ex machina (machine of the gods) rain down in the form of rocket lockers that took down the creature and saved the day. Rather than Ruby fighting Cinder, her silver eyes miraculously “turned on” and saved the day. That happened again this episode, allowing Jaune to get the hit in. If Weiss is spared, which she will be, it doesn’t mean much to the story, because the threat of death has already been established in the terms of Pyrrha and Penny, but mostly everyone who has died had been a side character (team JNPR were the deuteragonists until recently, but they still were side characters at the time) If Jaune does get a healing semblance, the reason I would call it a deus ex machina (which are normally bad for the series) is that it eliminates the threat of death from any of the main characters. [see Mother’s Basement video on how SAO became the worst anime ever]

Note, I’m not saying that I want Weiss to die, but the fact is that putting her in a lethal scenario like this only to fix it is pointless and bad. I’ve rewatched the episode and although this was one we’ve been waiting for a while, full of rematches and such, that ending was more shock value after a break to get people to come back. Also, I like Jaune, and I feel like I’m one of the few people in the fandom who wants to see more of him and see him grow, but not at the cost of the story. Lastly, I’ll apologize once more for yet again not thinking through my wording when originally making this post, which I should have corrected earlier. Before anymore people call me out for my poor wording, please, can others direct them to this reply? Thank you.

THEYRE PROBABLY GONNA PULL THE HEALING SEMBLANCE OUT OF JAUNE NEXT EPISODE THAT IS THE ONLY WAY TO FIX THIS

WE ALL DONT WANT IT BUT IT WILL FIX JAUNES PTSD AND SAVE WEISS SO LETS JUST ACCEPT THIS DEUS EX MACHINA

[kitkatopinions]

I have this theory that RWDE types always viewed Ironwood as infallible and perfect from the very start, solely because he was a badass dude, and rather than reconcile the fact that they ignored his flaws only because they saw him as an "alpha male" they would rather attack not only the writers but every woman who disagrees with and acts against him.

This is so funny, because I'm an openly feminist queer woman who doesn't hate any of the main characters, loves the female characters, and happens to view Ironwood as very flawed and I've criticized things like his 'go to space' plot, and will NEVER defend things like him shooting Oscar or Sleet or his frankly absurd levels of clear and present villainy in Volume Eight. Most of the RWBY characters I hate are men like Port, Cardin, Hazel and even Adam (though I like his concept,) and most of the women I hate are villains I'm MEANT to hate, and I don't criticize any character in RWBY nearly as much as I - a woman - criticize the majority male writers, but you apparently feel the need to defend people like Miles Luna. I have never once said Ironwood is perfect, I've VERY CLEARLY stated repeatedly that he's flawed. Also I hate alpha men and dudebros and btw your fandom is lousy with them (and maybe start with Miles Luna if you're interested in criticizing misogyny.) You're literally accusing me of misogyny JUST BECAUSE I pointed out flaws in anti-rwde logic, criticize a show that was created by and mostly written by men, and like a fictional character.

ALSO, just so we're clear, you didn't even TRY to refute anything I said, just threw out some buzzwords, accused me of saying something I didn't say (that Ironwood is perfect) and then pretended you did something. 0/10 Very unoriginal comment, and you exposed your cowardice by being on anon.

ALSO also, it's always funny when people accuse me of seeing Ironwood as an alpha male, because I always write him to be a very emotional person who lets his friends get away with way too much, admires Penny more than any other person alive, looks to Glynda as a confidant and role model, and hasn't had a relationship since his teen years because he's been pining after Qrow since they met during the first Vytal Tournament. Like, maybe unpack your stupid assumptions, stupidhead.

[rwdestuffs]

this is a loaded question but is there a reason why people hate miles so much?

Miles has been known to disregard virtually all criticism if it’s not worded nicely, bemoans not knowing how to write racism well (and then going on to still not change how he writes racism), put a lot of favoritism towards jaune, and in give the rest of the main cast the shaft in general.

At one point, he said that if he had known how popular Pilot Boi would have become, he would have kept the line about him having a boyfriend in the scene, not realizing that the issue would have been him pulling a “Bury Your Gays” right there. His inability/unwillingness to learn from his mistakes is what makes people dislike him.

In a post-Volume 3 interview with Buzzfeed, Kerry made a comment that heavily implied that Miles shoved in Silver Eyes without consulting him. Miles has had a history of just also being really cocky. And while I haven’t heard him doing it much now, responses to the criticisms regarding the plot holes and such were met with “Monty wrote it.”- Effectively trying to deflect blame.

Effectively, Miles has acted a lot like jaune in the sense that he just doesn’t want to take responsibility for his screw-ups.

Miles also surrounds himself with fans who won’t complain about anything, constantly reassuring that he’s doing fine without providing any tips on how to improve. He’s also hypocritical, making claims that LoK missed the mark when rwby seems to be heading in the exact same direction.

On top of which, while not directly Miles’ fault, there’s also how the company has treated Monty’s friends and family. Sheena was cut off from the project unceremoniously and Shane was fired. This was before all the lay-offs. Miles and Kerry took a show that had so much potential, and made it a run of the mill show that doesn’t really do much.

The LGBT+ Rep came off as really bad considering that the first confirmed LGBT+ Character we had was Ilia, a bitter lesbian who was complicit in the attempted murder of Blake’s parents and was willing to drag Blake back to Adam against her will. The way they handle racism is horrible too, as it comes off as “The oppressed people should stick up for the oppressors and simply ask kindly that they not be oppressed.”

The way the narrative frames female characters’ reactions to male characters is also one of note. Yang rushes in to save Blake, and she’s met with belittlement and a lost arm. Jaune rushes in to get revenge and he’s met with unlocking his semblance and being validated. Yang, Blake, and Salem are all traumatized and they’re met with “They should get over it! They ruined everything! They’re being drama queens!” while tai, jaune, and oz are also traumatized and they’re met with “Oh, poor things! They deserve all the sympathy! They should be allowed to rest!” Yang yells at Oscar to bring back Ozpin and she’s met with “What a bitch” qrow and jaune physically assault Oscar and they get “Well, they’re angry and are feeling betrayed, it’s understandable!”- Miles’ inability/unwillingness to address these issues is also a point of contempt.

Plus, Miles was known for constantly saying stuff like “I’m not a professional writer!” Which led to his staunch defenders to leap to his defense and make excuses. While I have no issues with Miles not being a professional writer, he doesn’t ask for help, nor does he accept it when it’s offered. It’s very jaune-esque.

TL;DR: There’s a lot of things, mostly stemming from Miles’ ego, that makes rwde dislike him.

[knightofbalance-13]

https://queenypie.tumblr.com/post/178782465728/how-not-to-write-yang

Here’s a deal for you: you stop mentioning Miles, I’ll stop doing this.

I decided to watch the last 1/3rd of volume 5 to try and grasp how truly disappointing the finale really was. Needless to say, even burying my expectations, I was shook by how awful it was.

I’ve caught you lying in all your posts on RWBY. You bitching about the finale is more evidence it was good than bad at this point.

With that said, this post will focus on Yang and Build up + Payof

Spoiler alert: They just vomit up what Dudeblade says and never talk about payoff until the final paragraph.

Of all of the characters to suffer from Miles’ Chronic inability to both build something up and have that same thing pay-off-

Between Red Vs. Blue that builds up Church degrading due to being an AI fragment and paying off in the most memorable ending to an arc the series has had, let alone the build with General Kimball being so openly and irrationally hostile to Republic of Chorus and paying off with a deconstruction of how people view each other in conflicts (all of this done BEFORE RWBY mind you)

And Camp Camp where there is a three season long build up of David’s worship of the Camp Camp’s founder and paying off with him having his adoration in the founder crushed alongside having built up Max’s cynicism for two seasons ending with the reveal that his parents never cared about him so he had a very GOOD reason to be cynical.

And Nomad Of Nowehre where there is an entire season f build up with how the Nomad just running and running from everyone only makes his situation worse and makes the people he cares about leave him which pays off with him finally fighting back and defeating both of his major opponents in the first season.-

If that issue even exists which, considering your history of editing out information and lyinbg just to create issues that don’t exist, it may not:

It’s probably KERRY’S issue, not MILES.

You know Kerry, the OTHER guy who writes for RWBY except he’s the DIRECTOR of the show so writing mistakes would be his fault even more so.

Or are you blaming Miles because he’s a widely hated guy for no reason and Kerry would just push you away?

Yang gets it the worst.

No, that would be Jaune. The guy whose built up as an important character with Monty then gets sidelined for Volume 3, has all his development funneled into Ruby in Volume 4 and gets less screentime, less lines and less focus than ILLA in Volume 5.

Huh, Miles also hates writing Jaune, mostly because you people won’t stop harassing him.

Funny how that works.

Ruby usually doesn’t get anything period, with the exception of the Silver Eyes which had basically two lines of introduction in volume 1 and have had two separate pay offs.

Which are....what exactly? Oh right, clarification is your kryptonite because making things vague makes it harder to disprove.

Weiss has had a family arc with good build up and a weak sauce pay off (but it was something).

How do you have a payoff for an ONGOING arc?

Blake has awful build up, because the white fang are a singularity point of failure, and even worse pay off, but she at least both.

And you completely failed at it so it’s more like RWDE’s the singular point of failure.

After going through an arc where the show tells Yang she’s incompetent -you be the judge on whether that’s accurate or insultingly wrong- 

Being FLAWED does not make one INCOMPETENT. You can be competent AND flawed at the same damn time.

For fuck’s sake, come back when the show treats the idea of Yang fighting as a joke like it does Jaune.

for using her rage ability and losing to people with far greater experience, you’d think the show would have the decency to at least have her refight those same people and get back at them.

Because it’s not like one of those character is gone (Neo), one of them has no way to even meet Yang again (Neon), one of them is the villain of a DIFFERENT CHARACTER (Adam) or that she HAS fought them, it just wasn’t focused on (Mercury).

But no, Yang has only thus far had a chance to fight Mercury again, and most of that was off screen before she just had to run to the plot.

Not like Raven is more important, more substantial and more emotional to Yang than Mercury and thus having THEM have a conflict is just better writing-Oh wait...

Also, Mercury doesn’t fit that critera. Yang won against him. A thrown fight yeah but your critera doesn’t fit. If you’re gonna be anal about this, so will I.

No rematch with Neo, Adam is no longer worth a rematch, and neither is Mercury after getting headbutted.

because durr pacing, what is that?

After being beat down by every villain like she’s the town bike

She lost twice, get over it. Fucking Weiss, Blake and Ruby have had a worse track records, let alone Jaune.

having her arm sliced off and having PTSD from the event

*points to the rest of the cast* They all have PTSD too. 

and having a best friend leave her and sending Yang to her lowest point

Really the only thing unique here is Yang losing an arm. And uh, according to RWDE standards: That’s nothing special.

what’s the payoff?

Nothing like what you’re gonna say next?

Yang gets insulted by her dad and told a tone-deaf story from Oobleck and Port and then just gets over her current funk.

A. So we’re gonna ignore how she acted in the Volume 3 finale being depressed and junk? You know, THE ACTUAL PAYOFF?

B. ‘tone-deaf’ says the person overlooking how Yang tries to talk down to her twice widowoed, numerous abandoned father about loss.

C. So we’re gonna ignore how she acts in Volume 4 Episode 9?

Oh, D. So jokes are serious now? okay, I’ll remember that when you joke about killing Miles.

Yang puts on the robot arm and the whole hesitancy to use it just vanishes. 

Because durr, I no understand basic human psychology like fear of change.

Yang spars with Tai and gets told to keep a cooler head. This alone lets her fight on par with villains who previously acted like she was leagues below them, despite now having trained barely any after a long period of doing nothing.

Because it’s not like the reason WHY Yang lost those TWO times was because of her anger issues aznd that was what was holding her?

because solving your issues...doesn’t solve your issues...

Or maybe you’re a liar.

Yang gets her arm sliced off by Adam, and not only does she not fight him, Blake manages to take Adam out with a move that he should be well aware of given their interaction in V3, and a smack to the back of the noggin.

Because not like Adam is not only BLAKE’S villain but Adam kind of reflects Yang so he has similar issues.

Also what about their interactions would show he expected that? That time where he fell for the EXACT SAME TRICK?

Pick just one of these four and with a little brain power you could come with an idea that has infinitely better payoff.

Self destruct in 3...2...1-

How about Tai give Yang a motivation speech

You mean what happened in canon no less than TWO times?

or Port give an actually heartfelt story,

You mean what he did in canon?

or Yang struggling to get used to the arm before doing crazy tricks in volume 5

You mean ignore all the training she did in Volume 4? The MONTHS of training?

or Yang running off to confront Adam before jumping in to help Ruby and Co like Blake does?

You mean leave someone, probably her sister, to fight the trained killer while she goes off into the courtyard to fight someone she didn’t know was there and get dogpiled and probably killed all WITHOUT the excuses Blake had (like not knowing about Ruby and the others as well as focusing on stopping Adam long with OUTNUMBERING him?)

Anytime you build up suspense for anything, it needs to have a pay-off.

You’re right but the thing is-

You completely ignore anything that makes RWBY function. As shown above, you listed two things that ALREADY HAPPENED and another two that would have contradicted the writing already, one of which would require Fairy Tail levels of plot armor to survive.

So why should anyone listen to you?

Look at the Karate Kid: the main character gets his ass kicked, gets trained by a martial artist, and then comes back to defeat the people who wronged him.

Yeah and if this happened in RWBY, you’d ask ‘why didn’t he fight the guy who wronged him?’ It’s not the writer’s fault you ignore facts.

There’s a problem, there’s build-up to a solution, and then there’s the pay-off. Yang in this situation would be Daniel if he got beaten up, trained my Mr. Miyagi, and then just went off to study abroad.

Except this is more like you watched the Karate Kid and then walked out of the theater half way through the movie and complained that it didn’t happen.

You say you’re gonna make more of these but what’s the point? We have enough liars to make another Senate and all you’re doing is vomiting up what Dudeblade has said.

You have no point in making these. There is no way anyone will listen to you aside from people who already agree with you and they can just listen to other people for that. Unless you’re doing this to try and control people but again, you’re just another brick in the wall. 

[knightofbalance-13]

https://santaclausdeadindian.tumblr.com/post/178117566175/proof-that-it-was-people-in-the-rwde-tag-well

A few prominent users? Who? You say that the people who are considerate enough to create a separate tag to air their grievances as to not hurt the feelings of the main tag that is about 33% underage porn, btw, will go and harass a blog of a different show for if I remember right weeks on end? Really doesn’t sound like any prominent poster from here, to me. I don’t doubt, that they will use wordings and such from this tag, dumb little trolls rarely have original ideas on their own. Also, when this went down, several of the most prolific posters raised word against it.

Yes, considerate enough to build an echo chamber around themselves and shut out anyone who disagrees with them and constantly insults and harasses their own critics (mind you, my friends get called every name in the book for not putting up with your shit) while regularly cross tagging into other tags or threatening to do it like yourself.

Also proof anyone prominent in the RWDE tag has said this. Because uh, I never saw anything.

I’m sorry but this evidence holds up to me exactly as strong as the arguement Miles hates Jaune, and always did so. ‘Cuz this fella here remembers him saying he created his voice after a younger himself, and just generally, he never said that to my knowledge before the anti-J sentiment grew really strong and kinda widespread. I have absolutely no doubt he doesn’t like voicing him now. There was a point when he himself put the stupid Weiss infatuation thing in it and then went balls out. That, and the fact that they succesfully talked Monty out from other, even stupider ideas. So, in conclusion, Since the one guy who could without question solve this arguement kicked the bucket, we are stuck here with someone’s words, who might be telling the truth but also has every reason not to. So as you yourself said: from here on, everybody can take a side, according to how they already feel about this whole thing. You, as someone clearly liking the character will obviously take his side, I have no inclination to do so. 

A. Yeah see, thing is: That’s what mpost VOICE ACTORS do. Team RWBY’s VAs have admitted to doing similar shit. And though you can try to sya they aren’t writers, you have NO PROOF that Miles wrote Jaune and evidence points AGAINST you.

B. Yeah...you know, aside from the fact that Miles is the only one on the CRWBY who insults Jaune.

C. Proof they convinced Monty to stop doing anything? because uh, The ending to Volume 2 disagrees.

D. And another guy who has nothing to lose by lying but would lose if he told the truth. Funny how you missed Kerry eh?

E. yeah and how much of that is because if that where true you’d realize you’ve committed horrible as sin actions towards Miles for no reason then? Or that Kerry has left Twitter and therefore has moved beyond your reach so you can’t hurt him now?

But the fandom really is a bad place, to be honest, I don’t see any chance of improvement, mostly because imo most of the fans who would be ready for an intelligent arguement have long abandoned it, partly because the usual fandom bullshit and toxicity that is apparently every fandom now, and partly because the writing is just not good. If I was a smart man, I would watch better shows and not talk about them online at all. Yet here I am, and likely will be when vol.6. airs, even though vol.5 was so dense with the stupid, I honestly thought I can drop a show for once. 

A. Mind you, RWDE is the SOLE source of the modern toxicity bullshit in the fandom. Well, that and the so called critics but you guys are the same.

And B. You people drove everyone willing to have an intelligent argument away by making everyone who doesn’t toe in line with you automatically wrong.

This shit is still your guy’s fault.

[knightofbalance-13]

https://caddeter.tumblr.com/post/174539392695/for-fuck-sake

Dude, I just left the fandom. Why the fuck are you doing this?

KKKoBias, what the fuck is wrong with you?

Depression

Anger issues

A lack of impulse control

Asperger’s

Take your pick

No, seriously, what the fuck?  You harassed someone for an entire week.  You did nothing but attack they’re opinions and the user just because they dared say something mean about RWBY.  You enabled a portion of the FNDM to attack that user and made a bad situation worse.  And then, when people bring that shit back because A. That’s kinda hard to just forget.  B. You still practice the same behavior that almost caused someone to kill themselves. and C. You bring shit back all the time, no matter how legitimate what your saying is(Which knowing you, it isn’t), you try to make it sound like we’re the bad guys?

Funny hyow you don’t bring up the link in question whereas I did.

And do.

https://comments.deviantart.com/1/619991269/4290345087

Probably because if you looked at the comments, you’ll notice something:

A. While the comment chain began on Dec. 22 and ended on Dec. 27...The person in question only responded on Dec.26. Meaning that not only are you two days short but you’re also three days off. Two days of internet arguing is not that bad.

B. I didn’t enable anyone. I posted the link on reddit but I never encouraged anyone to attack them. And looking through the comments, it did NOTHING to the reaction which is mostly positive. I was wrong to post it on reddit yes, but that ISN’T your argument here so it is not correct.

C. I only bring stuff up when someone tries arguing a moral point. Dudeblade calling the CRWBY homophobic looks a lot less convincing when you see he is guilty of the same thing and still acts like he’s better.

D. I’m gonna be blunt: They weren’t gonna kill themselves. Having looked back at the situation in hindsight and discussed the situation: This was just someone trying to use suicide as a way to end an argument. I never told them they were shit or hell, even insulted them in the slightest or implied anything that would trigger such an event. And immediately afterward, they edited their journal entry with lies about the situation. None of this is like what an actual sucidial person would do.

You harassed a DeviantArt user and block evaded for an entire week, always ignoring when they told you to leave them alone.  You brought this into the RWBY reddit, and knowing you, I’ll be my entire house that you did it to tell them “Hey, look at this idiot.” You didn’t even bother to try and apologize until you were told to, like the spoiled, self-righteous child you are.  You called them a member of a fictional terrorist organization just because they said something you didn’t like and stood their ground.   You claimed you wanted to ‘educate’ anyone who disagreed, as in didn’t like, didn’t enjoy, didn’t find interesting or compelling, several emotional responses, completely subjective things, to see things your way.

A. I couldn’t have block evaded for a week if our conversation was only two days long.

B. Already apologized for it and stopped doing it.

C. https://www.reddit.com/r/RWBY/comments/5khw9y/my_thoughts_on_pyrrhas_death_rwby_and_rt_by_jswf/

I never expressed that sentiment here. So do I get the house or do you just give it up?

D.

Being a terrorist isn't the point of the White Fang: It's the fact that they were once peaceful and in the right. Until their own hatred and anger devolved them into being no better than the force they fought. Kind of like what happened to you and your group. To the point that I see you as below me. And considering I think about killing myself, that's pretty fucking low/

Context disagrees with you: I did it to illustrate that he wasn’t any better than what he fought against.

E. Press Ctrl+F and type in the word ‘educate’.

I only said the word once and

And I never said "educate', just show them both sides of the argument. Just like in Civil War, there is no right or wrong here. Just a difference of opinions. I only aimed to give a balanced view.

It was a response to him saying that I was saying that. I never said that: you’re lying.

And you have the god damn nerve to try and say we’re making shit up?

Context, the link you gave never said that and what you’re referring to could just be me pointing out how you people make stuff up about the show, which is seperate from this argument.

jswb wasn’t and isn’t trying to shame people into not speaking against them, neither is the RWDE tag.  You are trying to scare people into not talking.  This has happened multiple times before.  Someone posts something you don’t like, and you stalk and harass them until they delete the post.  You threatened Kidgecat with physical violence over a shit post. The idea that you nearly caused someone to commit suicide isn’t an impossibility.  The only impossibility is the idea that you didn’t. You’re not some grand anti-hero trying to help the FNDM, you never were and never will be.  The first reason for that is that anti-heroes don’t see themselves as heroes.  The second reason is that every time you get involved, a situation goes from bad to worse as you pull out every underhanded trick, every lie you could tell, every alt blog you need to pull out and make, just because someone said, ‘Hey, I kinda don’t like this thing about RWBY.’  Be it an in-depth analysis or a fucking joke, you don’t stop until they concede, till they say your right and give up their opinion for yours.

1.

The guy I've been chatting with Knight of Balance, has basically says he wants to 'educate' everyone who disagrees with the direction the show has been going, insulting me and others who dislike Pyrrha's death and he wants to silence us. I hid his comments so he wouldn't get a chance to 'educate my audience', his words not mine. He says he 'won't let Miles and Kerry bring Pyrrha back'. Oh really? Let's show him that he doesn't control us. Do not be quiet about how awful, insulting, needlessly cruel, and forced Pyrrha's death was. Don't let them get away with it, let them know how disappointed you are and let your voices be heard. People like him think they can control us, let's show them how wrong they are. 

He says this right AFTER blocking me.

I broke down crying, shaking, nearly throwing up, I read all of those hateful, hurtful, cruel, and insulting comments and I replied to the guy's comment with a off-putting all caps reply telling him know that I was breaking down and was about to end myself and when I did that he backed off, probably feeling like he had won, because he said himself that he was 'metaphorically' willing to drag me down to hell. I was a nervous wreck, I was being overwhelmed and felt like I wanted to die. I grabbed some scissors and nearly killed myself but thankfully I was able to remember all of the reasons I have for living like my family, my friends, the stories I write and the fans I've gotten, the stories I want to continue reading or watching, I realized I had so many reasons to live so I was able to stop myself.

To stuff like this:

*Sigh* Look, I never meant for you to get this stressed out. Hell, I understand where your coming from. Thinking about killing myself is such a common occurrence now I'm not even fazed by it anymore. So putting aside my feeling towards you and your conduct, I want you to listen to what i have to say: Your life matters. No matter what you think I've said, no matter what other people have said, no matter what you say, your life matters. You have friends and family who love and care about you and if you kill yourself, all it will do is wound those around you. It's painful I know but it's true. The best thing you can do is seek help above all else. Trust me, psychiatrists maybe be expensive by by divinty' sake they are miracle workers. And I know you're sick of hearing about this anime but really, look up Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. That anime is a large part of why I get out of bed in the morning even thought I know there's a very good chance I'll choke to death on my breakfast, lunch or dinner or that my life probably doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things. It taught me to keep moving forward no matter what I lose or what I suffer because there is a light at the end of the tunnel. The journey is hard and long but it's worth it. I never intended on hurting you. Had I known you were this psychologically fragile or you were this invested in Pyrrha I would have said nothing. I understand where you are coming from and I'm sorry I did so much damage to you. I was wrong and you were right. Good day.

So I don’t think any of THAT is valid.

2. Link ouright contradicts you...And that was froma YEAR and a HALF ago.

3. And you guys have caused mental damage to several people in teh fandom. However not all of it is your fault because some people are just that way. Your reactions of ‘not my issue/fuck that person’ however...

4. Two points. A. Batman sees himself as a hero and he’s the basis for most anti-heroes. B. I stopped thinking myself as someone right a LONG time ago. I just act in what I think is best and trust that if I’m wrong, I’ll fail. I live by a ‘The right are the strongest’ AKA people who are right will defeat people who are wrong philosophy. People have beaten me before in debates and I have immense respect for them.

5A. Like not linking your proof?

5B. Like making up a quote?

5C. Stopped doing that after people told me it was wrong.

5D. Explain why I personally make an effort to care for certain critics of RWBY. Like @faboover who despite disagreeing with about Volume 4, I personally make an effort to help him and encourage him. Explain the CRTQ blog which I was the most active member of and made quite a few complaints about RWBY. Explain the event of this very situation you quote I NEVER call his opinion wrong, just his actions.

6. Then I wonder why a lot of my friends have differing opinions of RWBY.

You know what, screw it.  Not only is this going in the main tag, it’s only going in the main tag, and I’m doing everything I can to make sure the fandom sees you for the self-important, unrelenting, egotistical, uncaring, and cruel person you are.

So you try arguing a moral position while expressly trying to slander me? ... So you contradict everything you’ve done here?

And you got half of these wrong. I’m self important, I’m not egotistical nor am I uncaring. I am unrelenting though it switches from good to bad at times and I do have a sadistic side.

But here’s teh deal:

jswv is self important in thinking that disagreeing with them is hateful.

Sokumotanaka is egotistical because he thinks all criticisms against him are invalid and his opinion is objective fact,

And Dudeblade,someone I KNOW you personally interact with, is uncaring as he suicide baited an LGBT person after talking about LGBT suicide rates and proceeded to make a backhanded apology.

And the last two are EXCEEDINGLY cruel people, as well as sociopathic and bigoted.

So why don’t you call them out?

Easy: They agree with you. You don’t care about other people if they don’t agree with you. I’d bet if jswv was praising RT and I was arguing about how much of an ass kisser they were: You’d fucking love me.

Not that any of this matters: You people crossed the fucking line with that doxxing incident so i ain’t dealing with your shit anymore.

Go find someone else to call your boogeyman.