A reminder most critics don't actually watch the show and just get their opinion from hate essays on youtube.

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A reminder most critics don't actually watch the show and just get their opinion from hate essays on youtube.
RWBY has racist elements in both the Faunus/WF plotline and how it treats its non-white characters (especially darker skinned ones). But if there's one thing I will praise it for is not making the Faunus like super-powered or inherently dangerous. Instead the are normal people who happen to have animal traits. Beacuse it could have been so easy to make Faunus "tribal" and "savage" because they are animal people. I am currently playing FFX and while the game is great, I hate how Ronso doesn't speak bc of "beast ways" and the characters barely try to communicate with him. RWBY is smart in not doing all that and make Faunus be people whose oppresion is equally nonsensical and unjustifiable as racism is in the real world
They also try to have more diversity in its cast and world, especially after Volume 5. Like thank all the gods for having people who are not paper white or it would have make my eyes bleed.
There is still a lack of worldbuilding for Faunus culture. Dark skinned characters often are villanous, violent and antagonistic, especially if they are a man. RYB were whitewashed after V5 and has not being fixed, even into V10. Most POC don't have brown eyes. Textured hair was only done recently in fucking Arrowfell and in V9 proper.
But at least its improving, which is better than a lot of fantasy shows.
Seeking to be the change I seek in the world I posted this to r/RWBY
It was immediately inundated with a thousand angry commenters calling me names and was then removed by the mods for "bait and/or trolling."
Liking RWBY is officially off limits on the subreddit dedicated to fans of RWBY.
Confession #1024
The RWDE/HTDM right about now:
RWBY Volume 10 is on its way, biz-nitches!
Shout out to R/Cardinposting for being literally everything wrong with RWBY criticism, they really are reddit incarnate.
I swear I've never seen a fandom hate it's show as much as the RWBY fndm does.
"I don't like RWBYs writing, it's sucks"
"Why??"
"Well it didn't go how I thought it was gonna go or how I would've preferred it to go and I misread the themes and setup so it sucks"
...like what?? Why in the world did you think team RWBY was gonna get the Maiden powers and defeat the big bad by being OP when the narration in the FIRST EPISODE said that wouldn't happen?? And that the whole reason why Beacon fell was because Ozpin believed in exactly that kind of thing??
RWBY literally repeats it's themes over and over and over again in every single possible form it can and it still somehow flies over people's heads.
To clarify, this isn't everyone, this is just an interaction I had that made me want to bash my head in.
So I gotta admit that these responses do decently to get into the headspace of those who though Adam was hot stuff. But they seem to put the onus too much on the show once more.
Still illuminating.
I recall doing a video talking about people needing to stop blaming shows when their head-canons aren't canon and I stand by it.
Adam's intro is not one that sets him up to be sympathetic, anti heroic or otherwise all that good to begin with.
He tricked Blake onto a mission where he intends to engage in wanton mass slaughter for shits and giggles, none of which she was aware of hence her surprise, has her act as his human shield, cackles maniacally when he gets powered up and then Blake end the trailer by escaping him.
That is his starting point, if one wants to make him more anti-heroic, or hell, heroic, then they have their fucking work cut out for them. Its not impossible, but its a steep climb and one rooted in headcanon.
Now, based on circumstances & context there's ways to do write a character like Adam differently. But stories and real world history also make clear that's not the only way these things can go, but the show isn't obliged to do that anymore than they were obliged to do anything one way or another.
But Adam stans did not realize or accept that and instead expected the show to cater to their interpretation which, even worse than trying to make Adam more nuances, just relied on ignoring or even somehow justifying all of the shitty, evil aspects of his character.
Then they got big mad when the show didn't do that and have spent the better part of a decade chucking a perpetual wobbly about it.
All while ignoring Blake, Ilia and especially Sienna who are characters that are a helluva lot closer to what they claim (At different tiems in different ways) to have wanted Adam to be.
IE, a Guilt-ridded redemption seeker, a person who just needs to be shown a way out, or a ruthless but heroic revolutionary; and I think its rather telling that they ignore them in favor of whining like stuck pigs.