#this is a whole lot of very broad strokes so obviously there are outliers but generally if u see a flag u dont recognize u should ask abt i

[mantisgodsdomain]

You see, we pay very little attention to queer microlabels (we generally favour using the broadest umbrella terms we possibly can), and we're pants at geography, but we generally know what a city flag looks like, and we also generally know what a pride flag looks like.

That said, it was very funny to open the basic quiz and immediately be met with our own damn flag.

Pride vs Place!

Introducing the hot new quiz show: Pride vs Place!

It's simple: you just have to identify whether the flag belongs to a place or is a pride flag.

Easy Mode

Hard Mode

[itsclydebitches]

I think with romance in RWBY it was always so glaringly obvious. No subtly in the early volumes. Who liked who was made very clear and fit popular tropes. Because RWBY was so simple the obvious parings made sense to be the only pairings. Shows gotten more complicated since then. It lacks the time to do complex romance along with everything else. you get B and Y fighting in the shed to being just fine a few days later with no real in between seen. Poorly executed and not simple like early volumes

I think your last two acts really hit on the difference. Yes, straight ships are absolutely criticized, though it’s usually for a particular reason: this romance prioritizes Jaune’s character over Pyrrha’s, or that romance implies that a romantic attachment is superior to the friendship that was already in place. Criticism of straight relationships usually revolve around how the relationship is written, not whether a relationship can or should exist at all. Asking for better setup is indeed a valid criticism for Blake/Yang (one that I share) but in my experience those who are against the ship existing in the canon at all (not those in the “Eh, it’s not my thing” camp but the “RT should have never let this happen!” one) tend to discus the relationship in broad-stroke terms that reject any and all versions of it: Blake/Yang makes no sense, it only exists because the fandom demanded it, it has single-handedly ruined RWBY, etc. Meanwhile, the straight ships of the show might get criticism revolving around how they’re portrayed, but the fact that they are portrayed at all is still pretty easily accepted. Obviously there are always outliers, but in my experience fans aren’t yelling about how Ren/Nora or Jaune/Pyrrha are the worst thing to ever happen to RWBY - or if they are it’s not nearly as common as what Blake/Yang get. Regardless of whether there are valid criticism of the ship as a ship (which of course there are) the fact that it’s a queer ship does have an impact on how viewers respond to it. Whether they realize that or not. 

Then yeah, we have the question of which ships are “allowed” to suddenly and inexplicably become a thing. Based on the above, it seems like timing is a crucial element: it’s okay if the characters appear to be in love the moment they come on screen. Ren and Nora already love each other, Pyrrha already loves Jaune... and theoretically it would have been “okay” if Blake and Yang followed that same pattern, giving one another bedroom eyes from Volume 1. Though in reality there isn’t really a difference between what we got in Volume 1 and what we’re seeing now in Volume 7, particularly when it comes to Pyrrha/Jaune. Meaning, we’re not given any reason for why Pyrrha loves him. It just happens and if anything it makes more sense that she would dislike him given his lack of skill, tendency to ignore her, Nice Guy routine, etc. Yet the show says “Pyrrha love Jaune!” with no real reasoning behind why that’s a thing now and we’re expected to say “Sure. That works.” Which, notably, most of the fandom does. So why can’t the show likewise say, “Blake loves Yang (now)!”? Blake/Yang absolutely could have been done - and could still be done - with a smoother progression, but at the end of the day they have no less buildup than the girl who fell in love with a guy by looking at him across the room, and the guy who fell in love with a girl despite chasing after a different girl during most of his first year. Pyrrha/Jaune gives us little reason for why they like one another, especially on Pyrrha’s end. If anything, Blake/Yang arguably has more buildup since they at least did things together and came to care for one another by the time they were supposedly in love vs. Pyrrha who is apparently romantically interested in Jaune after he... ignored her to talk to Weiss? So it circles right back to those comparative expectations. On the whole people are much more willing to accept “badly written” straight ships - even if that acceptance comes with some mild criticism - but a queer ship that pulls the same bad choices, or arguably pulls a bad choice that’s still less bad than what the straight ship did... and it’s pandemonium. People are suddenly up in arms over the bad writing. I mean, I haven’t done any formal cataloguing, but I’d bet I can find a lot more angry posts/vids/etc. on Blake/Yang and how horribly written they are than I can on Jaune/Pyrrha or Ren/Nora. Because for a lot of viewers it’s not actually about the writing and whether it was “bad” or not. It’s about it being two women and the biases - internalized or not - that encourage people to read that ship through a far more critical lens than their straight counterparts get.