#btches making me write this at 4am

[dragynkeep]

defense of whitley schnee.

& weiss you suck, holy shit i cannot believe this is a controversial opinion at all.

with the latest episode of rwby, 8x04, aptly named fault; we were given the scene towards the end of the show where weiss & her entourage consisting of ruby, blake & an unconscious via electrocution nora seek refuge in her former home & find only whitley there. he informs them that the staff have left & willow has locked herself inside her room. when whitley is snarky & combative to his older sister, weiss makes the delightful choice to point her loaded, military grade weapon in his face & then orders him to go to his room.

in short : this scene is disgusting. i have no doubt it’s another of crwby’s “””humourous””” scenes or at least what passes for their attempts at humour nowadays & even so, it is still disgusting. especially when you put it in context of their family dynamics, past interactions, differing power dynamics & levels & the current situation whitley has found himself in.

now to start off, i’ve seen plenty of defense for weiss when people have been faced with the appropriate reaction of what the actual fuck, weiss? ranging from “well if i was dealing with that little shitlord” to “they’re siblings, my siblings & i have done worse to each other” to “well, weiss isn’t his mom !!!1!” all of these excuses are piss poor. they ignore everything i laid out up above about the context of the scene & honestly, about the characters themselves. i understand the need to try & defend a favourite character, weiss has been the only one i could stand for the past few volumes out of the main girls but this scene was incredibly shitty & shows a nasty side of her that the writers probably don’t see anything wrong with. considering this episode was written by eddy ... yeah. so, since we need to defend a 14 year old, unarmed, abused child from a fndm that apparently sees nothing wrong with brutality from what’s basically a cop, let’s go through them.

if i was dealing with that little shitlord / okay but he was mean to her once / he was being a brat.

i simply do not know how to tell people that even if someone is being petty to you, you do not get to point a loaded, military grade weapon in their faces. yes, i understand that they were on the run & nora was severely injured; but jesus christ ruby managed to get through to whitley just by treating him like a human being & not an annoyance. maybe you should try it weiss.

some people hold a grudge against whitley for him “being snarky” to weiss; ignoring the fact that for a majority of his life she has not been there. like willow said last volume, weiss left. not only did she leave, but she left him alone with two abusers. no, it is not weiss’s responsibility to care for whitley & i would never wish that to be put upon her, but she cannot act blind about why he might have just the smallest chip on his shoulder. he was left behind to jacques narcissism & abuse, willow’s neglect & disinterest while miring in her alcoholism & as far as he cared; two sisters who abandoned him. pair this with jacques doing what narcissistic abusers do, applying the roles of golden child & scapegoats, then it makes perfect sense why he acts the way he does. & just to lay it out; whitley did not cause weiss’s disinheritance. she did that, through her own actions. whitley is in no way shape or form to blame for weiss’s brashness getting her disinherited & some of you need to get that into your skulls quick sharp.

even if whitley had done all he was accused of; at the end of the day, he is a fourteen year old child who is unarmed, abandoned, auraless & a civilian. if certain huntsmen can be compared to cops then weiss, who had the power to arrest her abusive father, can also most definitely be considered a cop to. this is not the first instance of her brutality against civilians & whether or not if you think the victims “deserved it”; that doesn’t matter. we don’t get to decide who deserves to be protected from brutality & who doesn’t. pointed a loaded weapon in a child’s face is disgusting. end of story.

they’re siblings, my siblings & i have done worse to each other !!

weiss & whitley are not you & your sibling(s). end of story. not all sibling interactions can be generalized across the board, especially in instances of abuse where narcissistic dynamics of the golden child vs scapegoat are in play. weiss & whitley canonically have a very fraught relationship where they barely know each other, have clashed over weiss’s chosen profession & have had clashes where weiss was disinherited & whitley had wine thrown over him ( which in context of their mutual alcoholic mother is a giant fucking oof & was also never funny, crwby just stop. )

even if they did have that type of relationship like we’ve seen with other siblings in the show; there is a difference between playful roughhousing or fights that escalate to minimal violence vs once again, pointing an armed military grade weapon in your defenseless younger sibling’s face & treating him like he’s beneath you & a hindrance. this is not okay. this is not teehee funny or acceptable on weiss’s part. if your relationship with your sibling ends up in serious or life threatening violence; that is also not okay. that is dangerous, that goes beyond the scope of just “normal” sibling relationship boundaries & should be examined in closer detail before being used to excuse this incident.

well, weiss isn’t his mom !!!1!

the final point & one i actually agree with; weiss isn’t whitley’s mom. & she shouldn’t act like one. like i said, right after the scene where she points her weapon at whitley’s face, she orders him to go to his room. like a mother, only their mother has probably never done that because for a majority of whitley’s life, she’s been a useless drunk & he’s had to rely on the manor staff & his father to have his needs fulfilled.

but right now, he has none of that. the staff are gone, willow has locked herself in her room because of course that stupid drunk can’t step up to the plate & the only adult in his life that ever seemed to give a damn is gone because he was arrested by the sister who is now laying down the law in his home like she owns the place. whitley is far better off without jacques & honestly, willow too, in his life & we know this but he doesn’t. all whitley knows is gone. he has a right to be snarky to the older sister who only ever seems to cause trouble, especially when we don’t know how long it’s been since he’s eaten or hell even talked to someone. imagine being hungry, alone in a giant, lonely mansion with your only guardian actively ignoring you, only for your older sibling to come home & immediately treat you like you’re the dirt on the bottom of her shoe.

it’s kind of disturbing how easily weiss slips into the gaping hole left behind by jacques arrest to play that domineering figure in whitley’s life; just look at how this scene basically paralleled the one of jacques telling whitley to get lost in v7 when arthur showed up. knowingly or not, weiss is mirroring the actions of their mutual abuser & furthering those shitty actions onto whitley because no one has thought that he might need a way out too.

i honestly do think of whitley was whitney; that this scene would’ve played out a lot different in fndm perception. just look at the perception of “abusive winter” because she bopped weiss on the head in v3, mirroring ruby fucking decking yang when they were rough housing in v1. neither of those situations are abusive because there is not a difference in power dynamic, at least not one that drastically affects the ability to speak up or retaliate; but for whitley & weiss there is. not only in age, but in weaponry, training, status in society, etc. in every one of those, weiss ranks higher than whitley & she has an inherent power over him.

& she used it to drive him further away. that’s not something to be excused.

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby 8 #whitley schnee #weiss schnee #weiss schnee critical #pro whitley schnee #owl.txt #btches making me write this at 4am #to combat stupid ass takes #smh