#rwde

[sophieabigail2021]

"How fandom react to criticism" wheel

[thatguythatdrawsalot]

I live for character interactions with variety of different personalities, especially in RWBY.

Well done RWBY Dust Queen, you made me fall in love with the team again in giving them such personality through dialogue and animation that I missed for so long.

[spectralpixelsredone]

As a Ruby fan, the problem is that while Jaune’s interesting character points actually get explored, Ruby has a lot going on with her... yet the show does almost nothing with it.

Archenemy-wise, Ruby doesn’t really have one. Compare that to Jaune, whose archenemy is Cinder. They make great foils: Jaune is an insecure character who gives power away, while Cinder is arrogant and only takes it. Both have strong reasons to hate each other. Jaune hates her for everything she did at Beacon, including killing his first love, his first friend, and his teammates. Cinder hates Jaune because she’s an arrogant sorceress who believes she’s above him, so seeing him as a threat — especially one who’s actually hurt her — enrages her and challenges her self-image of being untouchable.

With Ruby, it’s much weaker. After Roman’s abrupt death, you could argue she had Cinder as a rival since Cinder hates her, but their dynamic flips back and forth between caring and not caring at all. At times they don’t even seem to acknowledge each other’s existence. Adam could’ve worked, but Ruby doesn’t even seem aware that he’s the one who hurt Blake and cut off Yang’s arm. Neo only counts for one volume before dying abruptly. Salem feels like a stretch too — she killed Ruby’s mom and wants to turn her into a lackey, but Salem barely cares about Ruby. She’s far more focused on Oz, Oscar, and especially Jaune. Ruby never even got to fight her despite all the buildup, and she remains low on Salem’s priority list despite her Silver Eyes being a legitimate threat.

How Ruby cares about other characters also feels lame. She has mixed feelings about Raven but never brings her up again after being attacked. She barely cared about Roman and completely forgot about him. She barely trains despite having arcs about mastering her fighting skills and her eyes. She barely talks to her mentor, who’s pretty much forgotten. The closest she got to real growth was in Volume 9, but she just loops back to the beginning. Even her death meant very little — I thought she’d at least gain some new power to fight Salem afterward, but she just came back following a “be yourself” message. Anything about Summer’s fate and Salem is also barely explored.

And the fact that everyone else does everything for her or drives the plot’s important actions is really annoying. The show is called RWBY (as in Ruby), yet she barely gets to do much against the main villains. She hasn’t even met Watts.

So its less that Ruby is less interesting like people say and more they don't do anything with those interesting details.

[matt0044]

“Toxic Positivity” is a cop out when someone’s negative take on something is challenged.

They go on about how fans “can’t take criticism towards their faves” until the detractor is criticized for their criticism.

Oh sure, the one responding to the criticism might lack a bit of tact to put it generously but that doesn’t mean they might not have a point or that their views shouldn’t be considered.

But the accusation of “Toxic Positivity” to me comes off as, “I am never budging an inch on my stance and you are the problem for trying to.”

[asm5129]

I was trying to give Fixing RWBY an honest shot just so I could best have my own arguments concerning it, and while I still plan to make my way through it i was using nitter to scroll through his posts on twitter and found out that he has repeatedly targeted @tumblingxelian personally. And not in the sense of discussion or concern like my work on hbomerguy’s video—no, this is mean. Spiteful. You can tell by the posts and the thumbnails alone that this is not about anything but being angry someone makes an effort to regularly praise the parts of RWBY they love.

Any good faith i was attempting to go in with (on principle, and to have the most objective criticisms of the material rather than merely taking common FNDM criticisms as my own) has been lost by this discovery.

To me this is far more damning of his character than a shitty fanfic.

https://nitter.net/Raymond_McNeil/search?f=tweets&q=Xel

[chaucer-blackwood]

RWBY "Critics" and Tropes

Most of the "criticism" of RWBY ultimately amounts to tropes and expectations, not the quality of the show itself.

Now are there legitimate issues with RWBY's story? Absolutely. Pacing, cast bloat, lack of planning, dialogue...

But that's not what people talk about. They talk about the tropes they wanted to see and are mad weren't used.

Why is Adam a bad character? Because "misunderstood and misguided anti-hero who fights for a good cause and gets redeemed" is a popular trope people thought was going to be used and they got mad when it wasn't.

Why do people still argue Ironwood was right? Because "strong man making morally grey choices for the greater good" is a popular trope and people got mad that it wasn't how Ironwood was treated. Never mind that his actions only ever made things worse and that narratively, he exists to show why that kind of thinking fails, it's a trope they expected to see and got mad that it wasn't there.

Why is Ruby a "bad protagonist"? Because "wide-eyed ingenue who gets their idealism broken and has to 'grow up' into a more cynical version of themself to save the day" is a trope they like and expected to see. Never mind that one of RWBY's core themes from the beginning has been rejecting cynicism and embracing heroism, it's a trope they like and got mad that it wasn't used.

Everything the "critics" say about RWBY basically boil down to them not liking the actual theme of the show and getting mad that it wasn't an entirely different show with a completely different tone, genre, and theme that they would like better.

[grayskyzephyr]

Every since Sheena came out with some insight with the stuff she worked on for vol 2 of rwby, and what she hinted at before posting her work, I always think back.

The rwby stans who use Monty's tweet "Dont insult my friends" to shut down criticism of Rwby, Miles and Kerry, and RT. Using a dead man's words to posthumously shame anyone for daring to think their precious show is not perfect because you're being so mean to Monty's friends! How dare you! They're trying their best to continue his legacy!

I always think "if the people in Crwby and RT were really Monty's friends, why didnt they stand by Sheena when she was being forced out of production? Why didn't they defend her when those nasty rumors spread that she killed her husband with cat allergies?"

The only person who was openly on her side was Shane and he was demonized as well by RT and the fandom as a a whole. Calling them both hysterical and irrational because of their grief. (How rich of RT not escaping the sexism allegations calling Sheena the hysterical wife)

Some "friends" Monty had.

[alwaysbringaphoenixdown]

Adam Taurus and his "Perfect Victim" conundrum

I want to specifically discuss how the fandom handles Adam's character because I feel that people who want to fix or criticize him deal with him in the wrong way

Sometimes, victims become bad people. However, even if they end up becoming bad people, their trauma should still be acknowledged

For those that hate his character for his attacks on Blake and Yang, some go too far to claim that he isn't really a victim of racism

Adam being an extremist that ended up harming other faunus doesn't change that he's still a victim. As a victim of violent mistreatment, it isn't that far-fetched for him to develop his own violent tendencies in response. Especially in a situation where therapy definitely wasn't an option

For those that support Adam, I also feel that we're too quick to want him to be without flaw. That he has to be a hero to work as a character and to me, that is a dishonest way to engage with his character

It is easy to remember the issue of racism when the victim is a sweet little angel who did no wrong. Can you keep that energy when the victim is someone who isn't a saint?

Once again, it's not that unlikely for a victim of racial violence to lash out violently. Maybe that's wrong. Maybe he shouldn't. Maybe he is the villain. But why is so easy for humanity to condemn him when they're complacent in similar crimes happening to faunus?

And I think forcing the story to confront that hypocrisy is more honest than sanitizing Adam's character

Broken systems create broken people. How can you see the damage that's happened to him and deny that Remnant's systems made him this way? How can you pretend that you'd be different if you were in his place? You created a system that oppresses a specific group of people and didn't expect someone to eventually snap?

The validity of one's victim status should not depend on their morality and I honestly think the people who deny Adam as a victim because of his actions and others who think he needs to be sanitized to be fixed miss a lot of important nuance

Sometimes the villains of the story were originally the victims of the story and you have to be willing to see the victim behind the monster's eyes to understand where the solution is