#whereas both of the most popular rwby ships are f/f

[honeyby]

In regards to "where is the m/m at?" question, its actually an interesting reversal in fandom to see the f/f ships on top. Most fandoms you find have m/m ships as the runaway leaders. Its a more recent trend to see f/f ships actually compete and occasionally be the top dog. If you go to the main AO3 page and just click through each of the top 5 listings for each category, you'll find that more often than not the m/m ships reign supreme, and its super interesting that RWBY subverts this.

It really is such a fascinating reversal, especially the sheer dominance of the top two f/f ships. What really helps is that RWBY’s main characters are all female and that the show has a large female cast in general. You’ll also notice that the most popular m/m ships (other than Se/amonkeys, which gets a boost by being a “solution” for getting Sun away from Blake) involve the adults, of which we have more guys than girls. If you look at media where the biggest ships were or are m/m (Supernatural, Voltron, or Kingdom Hearts just to name a few), there tend to be significantly more male characters than female ones.

 Of our initial main cast (RWBY and JNPR) we have only two guys, both of whom have been linked with women since their introduction. By contrast, most of team RWBY’s interactions are with each other and the closest thing any of them have to a male love interest is Blake and Sun, and Sun doesn’t get introduced to the end of volume 1 and it’s easy to read a lot of their interactions (especially in volumes 4 and 5) as platonic. Not to mention we have characters like Weiss and Yang, with Yang especially never having a significant moment with any guys her age (Mercury comes the closest in their singles match but they’re pretty soundly on different sides so it’s not exactly romantic).

Personally it’s refreshing to be a part of a fandom with such a large f/f shipping community; hell, it’s refreshing to have a show with such a large and strong female cast in general.

[itsclydebitches]

Do you find any similarities between Qrow and Clover's writing and Jaune and Pyhrra's? I was a huge Fair Game shipper way back when and the reason was because a lot of their relationship hit a lot of Arkos' beats: character with something main character lacks(luck, competence) spends 90% of their screentime with MC and their relationship grows exponentially in a short amount of time until character is handed the idiot ball and dies. 1/2

FYI I took psychic damage from hearing Fair Game shipping described as “way back when.” How has it been three years since the beginning of Volume 7? 😱

Anyway, I’d need to re-watch more of the first three Volumes to give a really solid answer, but the tl;dr is yeah, I can definitely see the parallels you’re talking about. The “character with something main character lacks” also ties into RWBY’s tendency towards romantically pairing opposites. Yang is the sheltered, extroverted party girl dressed in vibrant colors while Blake is the introverted activist dressed all in black. Nora is super duper energetic while Ren is so quiet he barely speaks outside of his arcs. Pyrrha is an insanely talented fighter that everyone is eager to befriend and also an open book whereas Jaune is a newbie that others often dismiss (with the contrast seen most strikingly in how Weiss treats them both) who is hiding a pretty big secret.

Clover is an optimistic soldier who puts his responsibilities first and wields good luck as a weapon. Qrow is a pessimistic freelancer (for lack of a better word) who has little regard for other’s expectations and wields bad luck as a weapon. There are ways their dynamic fits into our expectations for written couples—or potential couples—even outside of the obvious flirting moments like the Clover-waitress wink parallel which means that yeah, by default they end up reflecting Arkos to a certain extent.

As an example, that wink is a moment that I think mimics Arkos in some ways. In that both appear to be a pretty overt indication that the writers are setting up a couple, relying on a bit of humor to get that implication across. In Jaune’s case he says, “Where am I supposed to find another nice, quirky girl to talk to?” and as he walks away we see Pyrrha watching him go.

She is, quite obviously, the nice, quirky girl that Jaune will get to talk to soon and later behavior—saving Jaune despite fending off Weiss’ desire to partner up with “I was planning on letting the chips fall where they may,” immediately following that with an admission that she wants to spend time with him: “Jaune! Do you… have any spots left on your team?”—reveal that Pyrrha was always interested in Jaune despite not knowing him. It was instantaneous interest/attraction, a love at first sight sort of deal, and absolutely no one questions that because we are so used to m/f couples following that pattern. “Where am I supposed to find another nice, quirky girl to talk to?” is humors code for “They’re going to start a romance.” As people who have watched television, film, and webseries for our entire lives, we know how to pick up on these established patterns.

(Oh shit the wink looks horrifying in a screenshot SORRY LOL)

I’d argue that Clover’s initial behavior is code too, but viewers are more inclined to dismiss it because it’s occurring between two men. But answer me honestly: if we were to watch a man catch a woman from falling, talk about his talents, wink at her, and say, “Lucky you” would we really, truly think, “Oh yeah, they’re 100% platonic and there’s no chance at all that a relationship will develop. The fall, bragging, wink, and flirty dialogue are in no way tropes and popular short-hands for romantic interest. Nope. Not at all. Neither is someone staring in amazement at the person who just saved them and effectively changed their life in a single moment.”

From the light-heated moment to the idea of falling in love (or at least developing interest) simply from looking at someone, both Arkos and Fair Game pull from this established coding at the start of their interactions—and later with the screams of rage, the lost love, the revenge quest—it’s just that RT claims to have honestly not realized they were doing it the second time around. Their intentions matter in regards to the question of queerbaiting, but they don’t matter when it comes to reading these scenes as their own, artistic presentation. Strip away the homophobia (“Badass, skirt-chasing Qrow can’t possibly be into guys!”), the preferences that color analysis (“I’m personally not into the ship so I’m going to insist there was never anything there”), and the presumed authority of the authors (“We didn’t intend an attraction so it doesn’t matter that we ended up implying one anyway. The same way it doesn’t matter that there’s no evidence for Ironwood’s semblance because we did intend for it to be there. Prioritize what we tell you in interviews, not what ends up in the actual show, please”) and I’d challenge anyone to persuasively hand-wave away everything attached to Fair Game. Much of that does parallel Arkos, but I think that’s more because RWBY is just drawing (intentionally and otherwise) from a lot of established romantic tropes, not because there’s meant to be a parallel between these two specific relationships (obviously not given that Fair Game isn't canonical). RWBY pulls from everything that’s already popular, so when we see pieces of all these classic romance dynamics—the non-consensual kiss, the death, the revenge quest, the opposites attract, the jealousy, the blushing, the love triangle, etc.—of course there are going to be similarities across the board. It’s just that some of those tropes went to canonical relationships, others went to “What do you mean people think there might be a relationship??” and others went to “I think they’re supposed to be a couple but, uh… what counts as confirmation?” and therein lies the problem.

Also, random visual parallel to end on, but both pairs also start with one person quite literally being at the mercy of the other. Pyrrha pins Jaune to a tree and is the only one willing to get him down (Weiss deliberately walks away, Ruby is too happy to be partnering up with her to care what happens to Jaune). Clover traps Qrow along with the rest of the group and, as the leader performing the arrest, likewise decides when and if Qrow gets set free. Both seem to enjoy being in this position of power, with Pyrrha coyly asking Jaune about teammates while he hangs there (is he really going to say no when he's stuck?) and Clover twirling his horseshoe with a smirk (an accessory that never shows up again?) There are obviously other, distinct differences between these moments—Pyrrha pins Jaune to save him, Clover pins Qrow to (he thinks) keep the people safe from him; Pyrrha chooses to get Jaune down, Clover chooses to keep Qrow in bonds—but it’s just a moment that struck me while looking back through some of their interactions. Even the cinematography emphasizes a height difference with Pyrrha look up at Jaune and Clover looking down at Qrow.