#ask rc

[rwbyconversations]

To be honest, Jaune being the one to kill Penny is reversed any development he had in the past two volume. He gets shit on again by the fandom and CRWBY for this action. I guess Jaune will never get positive development in this god forsaken show

How blind were CRWBY to not realize the visual of having Jaune- easily one of the most controversial characters in the series, a character so tainted by the early seasons that even now they wear kid gloves when writing him and largely relegate him to comedy content- and have him kill Penny- a character a lot of people read as trans or have read trans allegories into her character arc- as part of Penny committing suicide. And then having the narrative let Penny go “This is the choice I get to make” when it’s about her goddamn dying. 

It’s just... wrong. Thematically wrong, story-wise wrong, morally wrong... this wasn’t the right way to kill Penny. I don’t get why she had to die again. What was the point of resurrecting her, to try and induce stakes because killing her the first time did? 

[rwbyconversations]

Still shitting your pants over V8's popularity and the fact that being an obsessed psycho won't stop people from enjoying a show?

I’m tagging this in RWBY proper because I know this is a problem a lot of people who’ve spoken frankly about the series and their issues have with it so I wanna highlight that this, this toxic positivity, is a genuine problem in the community. But seriously:

Why do you care.

Why are you still obsessing over a random person on Tumblr who occasionally checks in and talks about a mediocre web anime instead of actually living your life anon? You have been doing this now for nearly a year. Are you still spreading that toxic positivity instead of actually doing something productive with your time like... engaging with people on Tumblr whose content you actually enjoy? 

This song and dance has been going on now for like. Eight months. Do you literally have nothing better to do with your time than check in with these constant YOU’RE A LOSER SHIT YOUR PANTS WA WA WA crap? Do you not have friends? Or like... a pet that needs water and food? Parents? A partner? Am I literally all you’ve got? Man that’s sad.

Keep in mind by the way: I’m done. I’m not watching Volume 9, I have officially dropped the show. You don’t get it that you’ve already won, I don’t plan on watching the show after this and it’s partly because of pasty basement dwellers like you defending your favorite 3D waifus. I’m gonna write a few more bits during the hiatus about Volume 8 and its weaknesses, and that’s it! I’m gone! You don’t have to worry about me after Volume 9 starts! You’re harassing a person who’s already decided to leave the fandom over harassment! 

Like seriously. Get off my fucking blog if my content is so upsetting to you. I’m not making you read my stuff, I’m not going up to people on street saying READ MY BLOG. If you don’t like it... you don’t have to read it. Go do something worthwhile instead of stalking random people you fuckin’ incel. Y’all love preaching about DON’T LIKE DON’T WATCH but fail to ever take it into account when it’s something you love to shit on. And I know it’s not just me given a lot of other people have been saying that talking critically about the show post-Volume 8 has only led to a direct uptick in freaks like you harassing them. You have people saying “I can’t talk about why I didn’t like it because I’m too afraid to say why.” And it’s your fault. You’re a toxic fan. And you don’t even realize it! 

People like you are why normies shit on the RWBY fandom. Because folks like you only perpetuate the stereotype that the fandom cannot take a shred of criticism to save its life without throwing out the kitchen sink. You wanna go on and on about how good the show is, but you can’t let people just say what they didn’t like about it without flying into such an incoherent white male gamer rage that you have to resort to shitty anons? 

If you’re so sure about yourself, if you’re so confident in your beliefs? Get off anon and tell me to my face what you said there. Go on, I dare you. Prove what a big bad man you are and stop using anonymity as a shield. Make my day, prove to me, my followers and inevitably your own friends what an awful person you are. Come off anon and talk to me. I know you won’t because you thrive on anonymity. You’re a coward, and your mother probably cries herself to sleep at night knowing what you are. 

Touch grass anon. Or just get therapy before you shoot up an old folks home because your grandma said “I tried out that RWBY thing you suggested. Didn’t like it.” 

[rwbyconversations]

You're last re-blog about RWBY criticism reminds me how like a month after his RWBY vid, hbomb did a ministream and he thought it was weird that there were people saying his criticisms were invalid because "The show's not like that anymore/They addressed it" or people going "We know all this, this isn't new" and he said something along the lines of "but you still need to talk about these things, fixed or not."

Oh yeah, the r/rwby thread was full of people acting like because he only talked about Volumes 1-3 that it inherently made his video pointless.

Like, those seasons still exist. Even if CRWBY fix something in later seasons, it doesn’t erase those original points.

Honestly this entire idea of “You can’t talk negatively about something if it gets somewhat fixed later” is such a dumb idea.

[rwbyconversations]

So anon straight-up ignored all the REAL PEOPLE who were hurt by RWBY's terrible handling of disability, in favor of writing off criticism as "lying" and "being assholes". I know I shouldn't expect basic human decency in this fandom, but come on.

Yeah, anon really did. 

And you know, I don’t know any other fandoms where a bunch of people with disabilities can come together and say “This show didn’t handle the topic well and we’d like to explain why that’s the case,” only to be met with a bunch of people calling them liars/clout chasters/assholes/etc. Like, the fandom has long had a problem with criticism, but especially since V8 wrapped there’s been a ton more people just being violently hostile to anyone who speaks out about RWBY’s issues, as if pointing out that a show written by two Xbox Live frat bros isn’t entirely perfect when it comes to its issues with representation and depiction of minorities. 

And let’s be entirely honest here between us anon? A large portion of the people doing said harassment are almost entirely always white, able-bodied cis men who are using the excuse of “Defending my favorite show” as a chance to let their latent ableism surface in an environment where they won’t get flamed for it.

[rwbyconversations]

Just say you hate women and leave already you fucking nazi nobody wants a bigot like you here

I like how I got this after sharing a post about the undercurrent of sexism in RWBY’s writing, indicating if anything I don’t hate women, but whatever rocks your boat anon. 

Anyway. RWBY fans and not knowing what the word nazi actually means (Or pedophilia. Or queerbaiting. Or homophobe for that matter.).

Name a more iconic duo.

[rwbyconversations]

I know that you've written about the Bunta manga adaptation and the CFVY books but how do you feel about the Shirow Miwa and the anthologies manga, along with something like the RWBY companion book?

I adore the Miwa manga. It’s a stellar retelling of the color trailers, has a great art-style and I love some of the costume changes Miwa made. I bought a physical copy a few years ago and I’ve usually re-read it at least once a year since then. 

I especially love his version of Weiss’s outfit, which is basically just her Snowpea look but with blue stockings. It’s such a simple but great combination and the blue makes that outfit particularly striking. 

As for the anthologies, I own the Ruby and Weiss ones, never got around to buying the Blake and Yang ones. I remember thinking they were OK, if unremarkable, and I feel they’re usually only remembered these days in the context of the Red Like Roses one being how Scarlet was confirmed gay. The only other strip I remember from the Weiss one was this one where she and Yang tried to stop a theft at a jewel store, only for it to turn out to be Emerald who presents a ring to Mercury. If you like White Rose and Bumblebee, they’re all filled with gag comics and interactions between the partner pairings. Some are funny, some are not. Overall I found them inoffensive, albeit forgettable.

And the companion book... well it happened? I never bought it. It didn’t have a whole ton of new or pertinent information outside of confirming a ton of weapon names. I wouldn’t consider it essential reading otherwise. I feel the book tried to do a little too much of anything- behind the scenes look at the show, art book, lore book, etc, and as a consequence it didn’t really accomplish anything particularly well. RWBY has a lot of concept art that I (and the cosplay community) would love to see liberated from the RT vaults, and that would be something I’d consider buying. But there just wasn’t enough that interested me enough to throw sixty bucks down on it. 

[rwbyconversations]

Eddy made a tweet about how work on V8 began on the backhalf on 2019 and ended yesterday (friday) and I've been staring at going "So y'all did crunch?" and the fact that no one is calling them out on that in is astounding.

He clarified that primary animation wrapped up a few months ago- what finished on Friday was largely just the secondary post-production stuff that’s run to the wire like audio mixing, post-processing and rendering. This is just something that’s always only finished right before deadlines.

That being said, they absolutely crunched during Volume 8. Give it a few months and I’m sure some staff will share horror stories.

[rwbyconversations]

So I know people say Ironwoods descent into paranoia and his actions were ableist (they are), but any idea how it can be done better? For a rewrite or when done with a different character?

I’m probably not the best person to ask about this. My ideal version would be James nearly crossing the event horizon of morality but getting pulled back from the brink and remembering to preserve his humanity (which the show could have done had they given more focus on James and Qrow’s bond). Keeping the general arc of tragic hero to anti-villain can easily be done, but it’s not something you can do over one season. 

Anakin Skywalker and his fall into Darth Vader is a case of both sides of this coin, weirdly enough. Film Anakin is often seen as sliding down the path to the Dark Side because we see him at the beginning and end of the war, after a lot of his corruption would have festered. But then Clone Wars Anakin shows said corruption and shows it perfectly; we see him gradually becoming more comfortable with killing as a first resort and leaning in on the Dark Side, alongside his growing dissatisfaction with the Jedi Council.

Yes, Ironwood’s arc in RWBY Volumes 2-7 does lean this way and you can string together the story of him becoming the anti-villain of Volume 8 (though you can just as much have him be the reasonable military figure with a darker side and whom grapples with his issues that his fans wanted him to be), but Ironwood sitting out Volumes 5 and 6 means that we have the Film Anakin issue of a bit too much being left off-camera and as such, we have to abridge his fall. I like his fall in Volume 7, keep in mind- best individual season for a character the show’s ever had is what I said in my review- and they could have made it work, but you’d have to basically scrap the connections to him losing his humanity to him losing his arm from the commentary because that was... horrifying.

And give him a better Semblance, of course. God, I hate Mettle.