#but i just do think like. things don't have to be Inarguably Inherently Bad to wound people who've seen similar patterns before

[aeide-thea]

seeing multiple ends of a discourse football on my dash, reblogged by good well-intentioned people who i respect and think highly of and whose values i'm pretty sure have a great deal of overlap, and just thinking abt a post i saw recently that i'm p sure is still wending its way thru my queue, abt tumblr/socmed discussions as border skirmishes intended to underscore division, rather than as consensus-building...

#this is not the discourse football in question but i'm also thinking again abt the yennefer discourse in witcher fandom #where like. there ended up being this really binary hardcore divide #between yennefer stans and ppl who had any reservations abt her #and if you belonged to the latter group you often got told it was Definitely You Being Racist #which just. then and now struck me as a much less helpful line of discussion #than saying something like 'it's rough to be someone who cares about/identifies with women of color in this (read: every) fandom... #...bc they get written off for being less than perfectly pleasant and compliant much more quickly than white male characters do' #'and while no one has to love yennefer‚ and there are reasons to find fault with her other than racism... #...it sucks that it's impossible to be a fan of hers and seek out content related to her without seeing people bashing her over and over' #'and maybe we as a fandom could brainstorm about how to create an environment that rubs a little less salt in people's wounds' #'because you don't have to be irredeemably racist to be perpetuating patterns that people have understandably been sensitized to' #'and presumably we'd all like to avoid wounding our fellow fans in those ways‚ rather than writing them off as oversensitive?' #like. that's a long-winded set of tags & i don't mean to‚ like‚ retroactively tone-police people who got too upset to frame things carefully #but i just do think like. things don't have to be Inarguably Inherently Bad to wound people who've seen similar patterns before #and ultimately it's worth saying‚ look‚ this feels different to me but i value you and your presence in my community and i want to listen #rather than being like 'i know i don't mean this the way you're saying i mean it‚ so i'm going to write you off as absurd & over-aggressive' #if you're serious abt building relationships and coalitions you have to actually hear people out about their perspective #and not just say 'your stance sounds ridiculous to me from my perspective‚ which i refuse to step outside of' #anyway these tags make this sound as though this is just abt Fandom which i don't actually think it is at all #just that that was an issue i could raise without getting into the specifics of the current football #but like. ultimately this is about valuing and respecting other people and being willing to hear them out and enter into their perspective #which is frankly fucking hard and i've failed at it plenty of times myself! #theory #interpersonal #also i guess #Fannish Ethical Concerns #given the tag spiral

[unofficialadamtaurus]

Personally i hate the whole like.. question about adam u got like.. U KNOW.. that one. The “white saviour” one. Because rwby’s faunus stuff is NOT comparable to IRL issues. Coming from a native person. It’s not a good place to speak on.

Especially if you’re white. Anything you say about it will look fucked because you’re trying to use the comparison. The white fang stuff? It is Fictional. When you say it’s like a real thing it feels like the actual non-fiction stuff gets dulled down in reality.

They hit some points, personally, with the faunus stuff. I understand how it is, but the story is still really messy around there by default. But it’s not IRL issues.

Adam is a faunus, yes, he has power in the white fang, yes. That’s base thing. But you cannot compare it to IRL issues because that’s fucked within itself. IT’S STICKY.

I see people use it as a joke, I have never seen someone call him that legitimately. This whole thing just hurts my brain. He is not comparable.

I hope this is understandable enough. I don’t like getting into RWDE stuff and I don’t like debating the faunus allegory, because it’s a mess in certain spots.

Like. Obviously. Look at me.

I think people just need to stop comparing it to IRL issues because it’s harmful. It’s a completely different area. What.

-⭐️

I have seen the white savior take in the wild, but it was months ago and I blocked the person who said it immediately so there's zero chance I can dig it up. This is not a case of rwde posters making up a bad take to clown on it, much as I wish it were.

I'm going to disagree with most of what you said in your ask, but the tl;dr of my position is this: tackle serious topics, expect serious critique.

I don't want to discount your experience as a native person since I am whiter than milk. However, I think the stance that nobody can analyze a work of fiction through the lens of real events is a bad one that flattens the landscape of discussion regardless of the race or ethnicity of the author/critic.

Speaking as a white person who grew up in the United States and is critiquing the work of other white people who grew up in the United States, I think it's fair for me to point out where I personally believe RWBY's portrayal lacks nuance so long as I do not seek to drown out POC voices in the process.

My biggest point of contention with your ask is the idea that because RWBY is fictional, it cannot be compared to reality. To be honest, that stance is somewhat mind-boggling to me. When you say RWBY's racism isn't comparable to racism in reality...why not? Purely because it's fictional? I need a more compelling reason to understand why you're stating this like it's inarguable. Furthermore...what else are we supposed to compare it to? Nothing? Should we treat any instances of fictional works presenting experiences also found in reality as untouchable? Or should all fictional works only be compared to other fictional works? I personally believe the answers to these questions should all be a firm no.

Reality is, whether I like it or not, where we live. It informs our experiences and particularly the art we create. This includes web cartoons founded on the Rule of Cool that decide to add racism to their world building.

To explain my side in more depth, commentary on how RWBY portrays racism is inherently comparing it to reality because that is the single source of truth we have for how racism presents itself outside of fiction. (Outside of comparisons to other fictional media.)

Have I personally experienced racism? Of course not. Can I usually recognize when someone or something is racist? I sure fucking hope so. In this case, I can look at RWBY's portrayal and explain why I believe that, compared to what I have seen of racism in the real world and based on other opinions from fans and critics of color, it falls flat.

Basically, I don't critique RWBY as though it is trying to do a 1:1 retelling of racism in reality. I critique it as though it is a show written by white American men that tried to translate aspects of real-world racism into a cartoon and did not do so in a way I find satisfactory. Tackle serious topics, expect serious critique.

With all that out of the way, I do agree with the idea that discussing serious real-world topics like racism through the lens of fictional media can be problematic. We all saw that disgusting Ironwood = Putin post and I personally cringed my way through some Marvel fans trying to reconcile the events of January 6 with their favorite spandex-clad superheroes. That shit is bad; it displays, on some level, an inability to engage with reality on its own terms.

That is, however, not what we're doing here. In the simplest possible terms: RWBY translated racism to a fictional medium. Critics critiqued that translation. This is very, very normal. I don't know how else to say that your discomfort with this behavior in rwde indicates a discomfort with how a significant body of academic work engages with fictional media.

#star anon #unofficial adam answers #rwde #fictional works tackling irl topics has been a thing for as long as fictional works have existed #so to say that because something is fictional it cannot be critiqued via comparisons to *the reality that birthed it* is odd to me #long post