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RWBY Thread III: Time To Say Goodbye

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Stop: So gotta few things that need to be said real quick.
  • Staff Post
    • so gotta few things that need to be said real quick.
    We get a lot of reports from this thread. A lot of it is just a series of people yelling at each other over arguments that have been rehashed hundreds of times since the end of the recent Volume. And I get that the last Volume - and RWBY in general, really - has some controversial moments that people will want to discuss, argue about, debate, etc.

    That's fine. We're not going to stop people from doing that, because that's literally what the point of the thread is. However, there's just a point where it gets to be a bit too much, and arguments about whether or not Ironwood was morally justified in his actions in the recent Volume, or if RWBY and her team were in the right for withholding information from Ironwood out of distrust, or whatever flavor of argument of the day descend into insulting other posters, expressing a demeaning attitude towards other's opinions, and just being overall unpleasant. That tends to happen a lot in this thread. We want it to stop happening in this thread.

    So! As of now the thread is in a higher state of moderation. What that means is that any future infractions will result in a weeklong boot from the thread, and repeated offenders will likely be permanently removed. So please, everyone endeavor to actually respect the other's arguments, and even if you strongly disagree with them please stay civil and mindful when it comes to responding to others.

    In addition, users should refrain from talking about off-site users in the thread. Bear in mind that this does not mean that you cannot continue to post tumblr posts, for example, that add onto the discussion in the thread, with the caveat that it's related to RWBY of course. But any objections to offsite users in the thread should be handled via PM, or they'll be treated as thread violations and infracted as such.
     
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  • Staff Post
    • Psyga315 said:
    Yeah, but the problem could be that WayForward will take the fall while people prop up RT in an attempt to deflect any blame they get.
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    Well, a recent drama ended up proving my point.

    The context is that MurderOfBirds and Calyxin brought up a rather suspicious writing where Yang insists that Blake is like a sister to her despite the show clearly pushing for the Bumblebee endgame (as well as Weiss threatening Penny). Lo and behold, someone brings up that the game was written by people who worked for WayForward... Even though the game's plot was confirmed to be written by MKEK.
     
    hellgodsrus said:
    Explain how it is, then.
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    Because sisterhood/brotherhood is a commonly thrown around term to express camaraderie in a group?

    Like no one heard the Albains throwing out terms like sister & brother and went "Oh then obviously Ilia liking Blake & Adam having dated Blake is incest." Because that would be as stupid as assuming something similar in regards to Yang & Blake.
     
    hellgodsrus said:
    Explain how it is, then.
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    If I understand what I have seen, Yang in Arrowfell at one point comments on how she sees her team as sisters.
    This has sent various people into a tizzy because they think this somehow effects shipping, such as the ever growing feelings between Yang and Blake.
    I (and some others), however, do not see it that way.
    It has been clear for a LONG time that RWBY and JNR and Oscar have more or less forged a family-like bond with each other over the course of their journey. Thus RWBY is indeed a sisterhood, as Monty once described it as. However it is also clear there has been another bond growing between the Bee pair. Some think these 2 feelings can not exist together, and yet that is not the case. If having a family like bond means they can not have a romance, then the other inter-team relationship of Renora would also be moot.
    There can be many layers of a relationship. And that is something some people tend to forget.
     
    Zam said:
    Because sisterhood/brotherhood is a commonly thrown around term to express camaraderie in a group?

    Like no one heard the Albains throwing out terms like sister & brother and went "Oh then obviously Ilia liking Blake & Adam having dated Blake is incest." Because that would be as stupid as assuming something similar in regards to Yang & Blake.
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    Okay but... you are also aware, I assume, of the history of queerbaiting media that pulls out the 'like a sibling to me' card to claim closeness wasn't intentionally romantic, yeah? You're aware of that?

    So explain to me why this out of nowhere statement about two otherwise semi-romantically entangled characters isn't that.

    EDIT:
    Pugman said:
    If I understand what I have seen, Yang in Arrowfell at one point comments on how she sees her team as sisters.
    This has sent various people into a tizzy because they think this somehow effects shipping, such as the ever growing feelings between Yang and Blake.
    I (and some others), however, do not see it that way.
    It has been clear for a LONG time that RWBY and JNR and Oscar have more or less forged a family-like bond with each other over the course of their journey. Thus RWBY is indeed a sisterhood, as Monty once described it as. However it is also clear there has been another bond growing between the Bee pair. Some think these 2 feelings can not exist together, and yet that is not the case. If having a family like bond means they can not have a romance, then the other inter-team relationship of Renora would also be moot.
    There can be many layers of a relationship. And that is something some people tend to forget.
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    To be clear - you are saying the statement was applied to the whole team? And that no-one thought that, given what I mentioned above, they might use more general rather than loaded terminology?
     
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    hellgodsrus said:
    Okay but... you are also aware, I assume, of the history of queerbaiting media that pulls out the 'like a sibling to me' card to claim closeness wasn't intentionally romantic, yeah? You're aware of that?

    So explain to me why this out of nowhere statement about two otherwise semi-romantically entangled characters isn't that.

    EDIT:

    To be clear - you are saying the statement was applied to the whole team? And that no-one thought that, given what I mentioned above, they might use more general rather than loaded terminology?
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    A term is only as loaded as one let's it be.
    I see the line, and I never thought of it effecting the Bee Ship.
    And it's not that out of nowhere, as the closeness of a team was brought up in V7 in the episode following the PetraGigas fight in the mine.
    Where Team RWBY brought up Team As Friends. And no one lost their shit back then.
     
    Pugman said:
    A term is only as loaded as one let's it be.
    I see the line, and I never thought of it effecting the Bee Ship.
    And it's not that out of nowhere, as the closeness of a team was brought up in V7 in the episode following the PetraGigas fight in the mine.
    Where Team RWBY brought up Team As Friends. And no one lost their shit back then.
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    True. But a) trust was higher, and b) IIRC it was bought up by several characters rather than just Yang and part of the contrast with the AceOps i.e. it was both character development and narrative setup.
     
    hellgodsrus said:
    Okay but... you are also aware, I assume, of the history of queerbaiting media that pulls out the 'like a sibling to me' card to claim closeness wasn't intentionally romantic, yeah? You're aware of that?

    So explain to me why this out of nowhere statement about two otherwise semi-romantically entangled characters isn't that.
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    Yes I am aware, I also know reaching when I see it; seriously its a semi canonical game and the term 'sisterhood'/'brotherhood' or otherwise "like a family to me" are thrown around in media a lot and do nothing to undermine romantic relationships. Like, you are aware something is only queerbait when one of the characters involved dies, starts a het relationship/says something like "Sorry I'm straight" right? This isn't queerbait, and you're making me want to put that word on a high shelf where it can't be misused anymore.
    Pugman said:
    A term is only as loaded as one let's it be.
    I see the line, and I never thought of it effecting the Bee Ship.
    And it's not that out of nowhere, as the closeness of a team was brought up in V7 in the episode following the PetraGigas fight in the mine.
    Where Team RWBY brought up Team As Friends. And no one lost their shit back then.
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    Weiss also explicitly calls her team her family when confronted by Jac and Yang was saying the sisterhood stuff in explicit response to one of the BRIR characters making that comparison and essentially going, "yes my team is also incredibly important to me".
     
    Zam said:
    Yes I am aware, I also know reaching when I see it; seriously its a semi canonical game and the term 'sisterhood'/'brotherhood' or otherwise "like a family to me" are thrown around in media a lot and do nothing to undermine romantic relationships. Like, you are aware something is only queerbait when one of the characters involved dies, starts a het relationship/says something like "Sorry I'm straight" right? This isn't queerbait, and you're making me want to put that word on a high shelf where it can't be misused anymore.

    Weiss also explicitly calls her team her family when confronted by Jac and Yang was saying the sisterhood stuff in explicit response to one of the BRIR characters making that comparison and essentially going, "yes my team is also incredibly important to me".
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    a) Isn't it officially canonical and b) actually, those phrases are thrown around in media a lot to undermine romantic relationships; perhaps not always, but frequently.

    Also that is a very narrow definition of queerbaiting which fails to cover a variety of things. In general, assume I'm using the term (roughly) to cover behaviour in media where LGBTQ characters or relationships are clearly hinted at or indicated through repeated references and setup, but any payoff is delayed or diverted (obviously this can be hard to judge in the middle of an ongoing piece of media like a TV show; this is why I wouldn't say RWBY has been 'queerbaiting' so far, though others would disagree (or to be even more precise, I'd say it is but as it's incomplete and there was no indication it was anything more than extended setup, it falls into the same category as, say, Catra/Adora who didn't get together until the last episode of their show and thus were, in my opinion, also (in a sense) queerbaiting up until that confirmation that recontextualised previous events)).
     
    hellgodsrus said:
    a) Isn't it officially canonical and b) actually, those phrases are thrown around in media a lot to undermine romantic relationships; perhaps not always, but frequently.

    Also that is a very narrow definition of queerbaiting which fails to cover a variety of things. In general, assume I'm using the term (roughly) to cover behaviour in media where LGBTQ characters or relationships are clearly hinted at or indicated through repeated references and setup, but any payoff is delayed or diverted (obviously this can be hard to judge in the middle of an ongoing piece of media like a TV show; this is why I wouldn't say RWBY has been 'queerbaiting' so far, though others would disagree (or to be even more precise, I'd say it is but as it's incomplete and there was no indication it was anything more than extended setup, it falls into the same category as, say, Catra/Adora who didn't get together until the last episode of their show and thus were, in my opinion, also (in a sense) queerbaiting up until that confirmation that recontextualised previous events)).
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    A: Everything not the show is secondary canon. B: What media are you watchin?

    That's literally what I described, you just go on to broaden your definition to "If the characters in an unfinished story aren't dating its queerbait until they do" which is not what Queerbait means. I'm gonna be honest, this is such a legitimately bad faith way to interact with media that it comes off as entirely unworthy of engaging with. Like, yes queerbaiting is a thing and it sucks, but if you're going to approach all media with "its queer bait until proven otherwise" you are actively knee-capping your ability to even engage with the story in a meaningful way.
     
    hellgodsrus said:
    assume I'm using the term (roughly) to cover behavior in media where LGBTQ characters or relationships are clearly hinted at or indicated through repeated references and setup, but any payoff is delayed or diverted (obviously this can be hard to judge in the middle of an ongoing piece of media like a TV show; this is why I wouldn't say RWBY has been 'queerbaiting' so far, though others would disagree (or to be even more precise, I'd say it is but as it's incomplete and there was no indication it was anything more than extended setup, it falls into the same category as, say, Catra/Adora who didn't get together until the last episode of their show and thus were, in my opinion, also (in a sense) queerbaiting up until that confirmation that recontextualised previous events)).
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    It was clear Adora and Catra had a VERY deep connection since the first season. Part of the reason they did not outright say "love" until the ending was because the staff did not know if they would even be allowed to give them the Gay and Happy end.
     
    Pugman said:
    It was clear Adora and Catra had a VERY deep connection since the first season. Part of the reason they did not outright say "love" until the ending was because the staff did not know if they would even be allowed to give them the Gay and Happy end.
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    I would also note Catra and Adora were literally raised together by the same... Mother, and in the same shared dorm room; like if any piece of gay media was gonna be able to get away with using sisterhood to get out of canonizing gay, it was gonna be She-Ra.
     
    Zam said:
    Like, you are aware something is only queerbait when one of the characters involved dies, starts a het relationship/says something like "Sorry I'm straight" right? This isn't queerbait, and you're making me want to put that word on a high shelf where it can't be misused anymore.
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    {pulls out the dictionary}

    The term queerbaiting refers to the practice of implying non-heterosexual relationships or attraction (in a TV show, for example) to engage or attract an LGBTQ audience or otherwise generate interest without ever actually depicting such relationships or sexual interactions.

    For example, a TV show may be accused of queerbaiting when interactions between two same-sex characters are consistently suggestive of sexual attraction or a sexual relationship but the characters never actually enter into such a relationship (including and especially when their sexuality isn't otherwise discussed or portrayed).
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    Emphasis is mine, but there have been numerous people who have defined it in a way where it doesn't just fit into the extremely tight requirements of your version of queer-baiting. A quick google search will quickly disprove that it's only those two exact scenarios where it happens.

    Like, I understand that the reaction is overblown, but you have to understand that when someone hears "they're like a sister to me" in media, that usually means a torpedo to that particular ship and given the recent shenanigans with Rooster "we've done enough for the queer community" Teeth, it's clear that some fans were at their wit's end with them so it's clear that, at least with Arnold, it was the straw that broke his back. He had since deleted it, so he may have calmed down about it and even he may have noticed the reaction was overblown, but it goes to show just how seriously this whole thing is becoming.
     
    Pugman said:
    It was clear Adora and Catra had a VERY deep connection since the first season. Part of the reason they did not outright say "love" until the ending was because the staff did not know if they would even be allowed to give them the Gay and Happy end.
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    Right, exactly. If they hadn't been allowed to, it would have been queerbaiting, as they were, it wasn't; but up until that ending it was in a Schrödinger's state of being both queerbaiting and not, dependent on what they could accomplish.

    Zam said:
    A: Everything not the show is secondary canon. B: What media are you watchin?

    That's literally what I described, you just go on to broaden your definition to "If the characters in an unfinished story aren't dating its queerbait until they do" which is not what Queerbait means. I'm gonna be honest, this is such a legitimately bad faith way to interact with media that it comes off as entirely unworthy of engaging with. Like, yes queerbaiting is a thing and it sucks, but if you're going to approach all media with "its queer bait until proven otherwise" you are actively knee-capping your ability to even engage with the story in a meaningful way.
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    Right, okay, you're kind of ignoring my point to focus on a secondary one, but to clarify that's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying 'assume queerbaiting until proven otherwise', that would be paranoid (though sometimes a lack of trust is justified by a company saying things like 'we've done enough for the queer community' or a creator having engaged in queerbaiting activities before). Nor am I saying that people have to leap into each other's arms and not having them do so is queerbaiting. I'm saying if a piece of media continues to suggest desire, orientation, gender identity, etc. without confirming desire, orientation, gender identity, whatever for an extended period of time when it'd be trivial to do so - not necessarily culminate those things, just confirm them - then that thing is potentially queerbaiting. It isn't necessarily doing so, but it's entering that Schrödinger's state I described above.
     
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    hellgodsrus said:
    I'm saying if a piece of media continues to suggest desire, orientation, gender identity, etc. without confirming desire, orientation, gender identity, whatever for an extended period of time when it'd be trivial to do so - not necessarily culminate those things, just confirm them - then that thing is potentially queerbaiting. It isn't necessarily doing so, but it's entering that Schrödinger's state I described above.
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    I think that given what's been established in the show thus far, this is still not a high level of concern; keep in mind Blake & Yang only reunited in V5 and only resolved their issues at the end of V6 which also involved a highly traumatic murder. Meanwhile V8 took place over like 24/48 hours, much of which they spent apart and in which any kind of revelations or reveals would have been overshadowed by the surrounding drama. IE people wanted a kiss when they reunited after the explosion but that would have been instantly under cut by Ironwood's ultimatum, ETC.

    Plus, as an aside, this feels pertinent    .
     
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