#that brand did not exist when adam was first designed i'll bet | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kitkatopinions · 2 years

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Obviously I don't support canon Adam in anyway, either as a power fantasy or whatever. I'm betting that 99% of Adam fans are angry over what he could've been, not what he turned into by crappy writing. Think about it. If Adam was written with nuance, the White Fang plot could've stayed relevant and he'd be a compelling character. The simple matter is the writers were just lazy and chose the easy way out. They didn't care so they used Adam to push a ship before killing him AND the racism subplot.

Yep. There's a lot of conversation surrounding Adam right now.

There are questions over whether or not he was originally intended to be a full villain before his Fall of Beacon appearance, questions over whether or not he was originally intended to be an abusive ex or an abuser at all before the Fall of Beacon appearance, questions over whether or not he was retconned in volume six, etc.

Personally, I think the question of what he was originally intended to be is less important than the question of what he should've been.

NOTE: I'm not an Adam stan, I don't even like the dude. I binged the first five seasons during my first watch through of RWBY within the span of around three days I think, and I didn't watch the Black Trailer until after the fact. This means that I had almost no time between people talking about Adam in the show without really getting into any details past 'delving into violence' and watching him in volume five post the murder of Sienna Kahn and trying to get Blake shipped to him to be personally murdered. I thought his design sucked, his voice acting was some of the worst in the show and never got better, his dialogue was forced, and he had very little going for him past the vague idea that he might've maybe originally been intended to be something of a Zuko figure gone bad even before I saw his eye scar. I'll admit, what was it for me was post volume five, watching the end of RWBY volume six when I'd had time to re-watch the first five seasons and really think about it. Watching RWBY volume six was when I started going "what the fuck are they doing with this character" despite the fact that I did not care about him at all at that point past serving as a backstory for Blake. Adam killed tons of White Fang members despite having no intention of doing anything with the White Fang anymore, stalked Blake despite the fact that he had repeatedly let Blake go in the past (including during the Fall of Beacon) and got waaaay more heavy handed than ever in the abuse in a way that wasn't even that believable, and then had his branding mark revealed before being brutally murdered and that never really got talked about. Coming into RWBY late, I was told that the White Fang plot was messed up, but that the writers said they'd messed up and were gonna try to do better. I had no attachment to Adam and I didn't have any headcanons of what I'd wanted him to be because I didn't really want him to exist at all, but Volume Six was enough that I immediately was like "okay, so they're turning him into a hate sink in the same season that they're exposing that he was literally branded like cattle? They're not even gonna talk about that? What the fuck?" I only started thinking of Adam in more depth when I watched some YouTube videos about how messed up his storyline really was and why it was so important. So... Yeah. Anyone who wants to accuse me of being an Adam fan, I'm really not.

So! Let's talk about the bare minimum when writing for a 'fantasy version of real life racism issues.'

1. Don't make only one activist group and then make that activist group horribly evil terrorists where the only leader that we see for more than five minutes on the show is a horribly evil terrorist who doesn't even care about the cause and is only using the cause and the position to gain power and abuse a former significant other. 2. Don't make the only leader of a minority run only in-universe activist group that we see for more than five minutes into a rampant violent selfish abuser in the first place. 3. Don't make some characters (Blake, the Belladonnas,) symbolize peaceful protest while others (Adam,) symbolize non-peaceful protest, only to ignore all nuance in the discussion and present a white comfort based narrative of 'peaceful protest is the only good way to do anything and non-peaceful protest is a road to terrorism and selfishness and only horrible, mean terrorists who are okay with abuse would be involved with something like that.' Especially don't do that if you're going to blatantly state that peaceful protest doesn't work, thus implying that the writers think minority groups have to just take abuse and oppression because fighting back and fighting for your rights is a slippery slope to terrorism. 4. Don't make a new character who is very similar to the character you made into a rampant abuser - who shares traits up to being in love with Blake and trying to murder her loved ones - only to make her completely change her mind and conform to the exact moral code that Blake has, rejecting all form of non-peaceful protest in the process, thus again implying that there's this black and white narrative that only peaceful protest is moral despite the fact that in show canon, peaceful protest doesn't work. 5. When you get called out for writing an Fake Racism arc that's actually racist and fundamentally rooted in a white comfort narrative, don't just decide to drop the entire plot without doing anything to make things right or correct some of your horribly done narrative into something better. This point is especially important if you decide to not fully drop the Fake Racism and want to keep it in your back pocket whenever you want a quick 'this person is good' moment or a quick 'this person is bad' moment. 6. If you are going to drop the entire Fake Racism arc because you clearly can't fucking do it right and have been offensive and racist while you wrote the damn plot and had to apologize for it... Don't keep including the leader to the only Faunus rights activism group, and DON'T drain him of whatever justice-driven anti-oppression freedom fighting characteristics he did previously have in order to pretend that his entire character and motivation was only ever being a creepy power hungry stalker. 7. While you're trying to drop the Fake Racism plot and throwing the only leader that matters of the only pro-rights activist group under the bus to do so, don't reveal that he's been branded like cattle as part of a horrific backstory that shows just how deeply he's been affected, right before having him brutally killed without fully delving into that storyline. 8. Don't then dismiss the abusive head of the horrible company that has a long history of oppressing Faunus as 'just a nuisance' and more of a comical villain than a serious one, without ever addressing that either he was the head of the company during the time in which a child working for slave wages was branded like cattle by one of his workers or the grandfather we're constantly told is actually a good guy that Weiss looks up to and wants to reclaim the good legacy of that he started that she needs to get back from the mean bad apple was the one who was in charge during that time. 9. Don't make the number one 'bad' Faunus be the one who's arguably suffered the most at the hands of oppressors, especially if you're going to have them explicitly forced into the worst act they’ve done, and especially if you’re going to make your number one ‘good’ Faunus be one of the Faunus in the story who has suffered arguably the least of any of the main Faunus we see (this is no shade on Blake, I’m not invalidating what she has been through.)

I’m not a professional, and I know these things. I’m only around two years younger than Miles Luna was when RWBY volume 5 came out, and I’m around one year younger than Kerry Shawcross was. This isn’t rocket science, and if they were too stupid and ignorant to know this shit even five volumes in and didn’t bother to freaking educate themselves, then they have no business involving themselves into this and they should’ve completely removed and dropped every ounce of the fake-racism element in the show even five seasons in, because it’s better than them continuing to mess it up, but keeping it out of focus the way they have it so that they have Blake not even care about attending a political rally for the person running against Jacques freaking Schnee and goes dancing instead, but they still have a non-Faunus throw Faunus rights in Marrow’s face after calling after “Wags” because... We’re supposed to like her?

Do I think there are people out here who are just thirsty Adam stans who liked him because they thought he was hot and are just mad that he wasn’t good because they like their hot boys to also be good boys and will blindly defend anything he does no matter how heinous? Sure, I can buy that. I’ve never encountered one of those in the wild, but they must exist. People thirst over Voldemort, and people idolize the Joker, and people stan and show blind devotion to the Fire Lord Ozai. So like, Adam stans are kinda the least of my concerns. But from what I’ve seen, most of the people who like Adam like what he could’ve been, what he should’ve been if the writers were willing to write their meant-to-reflect-real-life-oppression arc with a bit of nuance. They like him in re-writes and re-imaginings where he’s different.

And some people are like me, and they literally don’t like Adam at all, but still recognize the way that Adam was wildly mishandled.

#rwde #anti rwby #rwby bashing #rwby hate #anti mkek #rwby criticism #canoncrit adam taurus #once again I don't feel like this is pro OR anti

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