#anti-bumblebee

Weiss asks out Neptune. Blake goes on a date with Sun and she and Adam had a prior romantic entanglement. Yang openly leers at shirtless men and verbally says that she approves of their shirtlessness. Jaune is romantically interested in Weiss and kisses Pyrrha. Nora kisses Ren and openly says she's in love with him. Pyrrha kisses Jaune. Ren 'melts into' the kiss with Nora and talks about his feelings for her. Qrow goes on about how he was undone by the sight of a female waitress's skirt length. That's eight out of ten main characters (the other two being Ruby and Oscar,) and if you count Sun and Penny as main characters, that's nine out of twelve because Sun asked out Blake.

The majority of this happened in season two. In the second season of the show, people were asking out people of the opposite sex, and the only characters that didn't have their interest in the opposite sex confirmed within the first three seasons were Ren and Nora. When Ren and Nora kissed after they were hinted at being romantically interested in each other for seasons, they were far and away not the only main characters to have confirmed attraction to the opposite sex and weren't even the first kiss between characters of the opposite sex. If someone wanted to prove that the ship between Jaune and Weiss was going to happen, they don't have to say 'Jaune looks at her, he was upset when she almost died, they go out with a group one time,' they can say 'Jaune has confirmed romantic attraction towards her' and 'At the very least, Weiss has expressed canonical interest in men.''

Here's what we have for confirmation of attraction to the same sex from our main characters:

Nothing. Literally nothing.

We have two very small side characters who appeared in a couple episodes of season six, a villainous character who is in love with her former friend who is described by her voice actor as straight in what looks like official RW/BY merch, and a transgender character who has only existed for two seasons as a more minor character. And then we have Blake and Yang, who have been coded as queer for years now with no canon confirmation so that even though they're clearly meant to be perceived as romantic by queer people, homophobes can pretend it's not happening and Yang can still describe Blake as her sister in side content like video games while Rooster Teeth the company with a huge history of bigotry can sell pride shirts. This is behind the curve of heavily censored cartoons made by big companies like Cartoon Network and Disney. There's no excuse.

When people say that there's nothing queerbaity about Bumble/by and that it's just a slowburn like Re/nora and therefore we should all say nothing about it, they're really ignoring that Re/nora is the exception, they were some of the only main characters who hadn't expressed confirmed interest in the opposite sex, while even Ruby and Penny had seemed to want to talk about 'cute boys' in season one. And even Re/nora at this point is far more confirmed than bumble/by. People like saying that Bumble/by is a slowburn, but that doesn't mean that Blake and Yang couldn't have been confirmed as queer looong ago. Like, people act like Jim and Pam had zero confirmed romantic interest in each other or any other people until they got together and were shown dating in season four. Most slowburns don't look like this.

And people also are pretending like no outside meta matters at all, whether that's the history of a lack of representation for queer characters or considering the company's history of bigotry or the biphobia of one of the creators and lead writers Miles Luna. Despite the fact that there's no queer main characters in ten years, despite the fact that Blake and Yang's progression is unnatural because their tender moments are not allowed to be backed by even a discussion of feelings, despite the fact that the first male character who was coded queer was brutally murdered, despite the fact that there was wild heteronormativity in the early seasons where several characters just casually talked about their attraction to the opposite sex while the creator of RW/BY said that he'd be willing to include queer ships eventually maybe if he thought they were earned, despite the fact that Blake was described as straight by her VA as late as 2019, despite the fact that RW/BY is the biggest money maker for a company that is not only seemingly always struggling with funding projects but also constantly having controversies often about displaying bigotry and needing to get back into people's good graces, despite the fact that they've tried to sell Pride merch and Bumble/by merch that said like 'maybe they're a couple,' despite all of this... No one is allowed to suggest that there might have been intentionally stringing queer audiences along, or that it's a bit suspicious, or anything like that. No queer person is allowed to side eye a bigoted company. Because then we're 'ignoring the slowburn' and just being really unfair to Miles Luna the man who told an 'anecdote' about how hot he thinks watching girls make out is. No queer person is allowed to think that Bumble/by is badly done, because we'll literally get attacked, no matter how much we might like tons of other queer ships, including the canon queer ships from other shows like Adventure Time, Owl House, or Steven Universe.

I think that it is because Blake and Yang are likely to be the end-all-be-all as far as their confirmed queer characters, I think that's why fans are so defensive. Blake and Yang as a ship had juice before volume six and had a lot of people who shipped them, I'm not saying that the only reason they've been shipped is because they're likely to actually be confirmed. But. There's a habit in most fandoms to take what's either the only confirmed queer ship or the queer ship that's most likely to be confirmed and then instead of asking why there aren't more queer ships, people start acting like any fan who doesn't ship it or has any problem with it is trying to hurt queer people. Like if the content creators hear that the ship might not be popular, they just won't do it. Like we'll be punished for not being grateful for the scraps. So fans take it upon themselves to be knights and guardians for these ships, because instead of having grievances against the content creators who make queer ships so rare (and sometimes, badly done,) fans often seem to act like other fans are the enemy for not liking the one ship we have or might get. There's this element of...

A lot of rwde posters who care about queer rep wouldn't care very much about the relationship between Blake and Yang if they weren't the end-all-be-all of the main character rep in the show. If Weiss and Ruby or Weiss and Penny had been a thing, or Jaune and Neptune or Jaune and Ren or something, or other queer ships involving the main characters existed, then Blake and Yang's own status as queer wouldn't be as important because they wouldn't be the only (coded as) queer characters. Like, Lapis Lazuli and Peridot in Steven Universe weren't in an official relationship, but we had Ruby and Sapphire, and Pearl had been in love with Rose Quartz, so I at the very least didn't feel strung along by their 'roomies' language.

Another thing to note is that once again, what I at least care about is whether or not Blake and Yang are confirmed as queer, not whether or not they're in a relationship. People accuse rwde posters of not being happy with a slowburn queer ship and that we think that queer relationships should all be rapid paced (the defense against comparisons to Disney's the Owl House or Arcane having Vi out and out say that she thinks Caitlyn is hot.) But in actuality, this is willfully ignoring that they could've been confirmed as queer without getting in a relationship, just like Jaune talking to Ren about his feelings for Weiss doesn't mean they're destined to be together, and Weiss asking out Neptune doesn't mean they need to have an emotional journey with each other and have a passionate kiss at the end of the show. Yang could've gone to the Vytal dance with Velvet instead of with no one. Blake could've had feelings for Ruby before she had feelings for Yang instead of going on a date with Sun. Ruby could've had feelings for Penny before the Fall of Beacon the way that Pyrrha had feelings for Jaune. Neptune could've had a crush on Jaune during the Vytal dance, instead of having only turned down Weiss because he couldn't dance. Clover could've actually been confirmed as queer and wound up in a relationship with Qrow. But instead all we have is... Ten years of nothing but side characters who don't get much screentime and two main characters nuzzling foreheads and a bunch of fans screaming at us for saying 'we want more.'

First, the songs in RWBY need to be explained. As you know, the songs in RWBY are character driven and narrative driven. The songs also reference things said and shown in the volume they are in.

For example, the song Boop is about the characters Nora and Ren. “Never knew a time when you weren’t by my side,” “Always there for me,”  “We’ve been together for  long, long, long, long time” are clear references to when the two were introduced and Nora says this long quote: “We’ve been friends for sooo long. What are the odds we’d still be together? But not ‘together,’ together. Not that I’m not saying you’re not handsome, you are handsome. But that’d just be weird, right? Right. What was I thinking?” There are also references to other volume 1 scenes, such as “So come and  join in my castle” being a reference to the forest scene where Nora gets the castle relic and says “I’m queen of the castle.” And for characterization, the lyric “I know I have a tendency to babble” is clearly showing Nora is talkative. In volume 1, this is evident from the first scene they are in where it’s Nora doing all the out loud speaking.

The point in explaining Boop? It is to show that songs in RWBY take clear reference from the things shown, said, and alluded to in the volume. The only reason why the name Bumblebee is even referenced in the song as the title and the metaphors for bees in a flower garden, is because RoosterTeeth is just pulling our legs. They want us to pay attention to the RWBY Volume 4 releases, both soundtrack and DVD package. Including such a controversial topic such as ship wars will definitely bring hype and attention to RWBY as a whole. You hate Bumblebee? Then talk about it and mention RWBY. You ship Bumblebee? Then talk about it and mention RWBY. It’s a win-win situation.

As for the lyrics, they do NOT reference anything in volume 4 or volumes past. It is a generic love song. “All the butterflies and the birds keep our secret, no they won’t say a word, but they watch us and they know, and they’re happy as they see our love grow.” Where in volume 4 does this fit ANY character in the ship of Bumblebee? At the end of volume 3, Yang is obviously upset, more likely angry, that Blake ran away again. Ruby asks why Blake ran and Yang replies: “I don’t know…and I don’t care.” She is mad at Blake, rather than having a “loving” statement about romantic love. It would also be an ass pull to have Bumblebee always been a “secret/forbidden” relationship all this time. There is no evidence for it, so why make that a thing in canon? It isn’t though because this song is not about Bumblebee the ship. The generic line of “You could be my queen” could even apply to Renora (referencing all the Renora in volume 4 and given that in Boop, Nora is a chatelaine and wants to share her reign and have Ren join her in her castle).  Since this song is so generic and gives NO specific references to things seen ON SCREEN, then it isn’t about Bumblebee the ship and is simply referencing it to make metaphors and the birds and the bees and love in general.

To prove this song could apply to ANOTHER ship besides Renora, then how about BlackSun as well? “Like a serenade, every word you say has me fallin’ more and more in love with you.” In previous songs about Sun’s love for Blake, he already says how everything Blake does makes him fall for her, and this line is similar to that. Heck, this generic love song can even be applied to Arkos even though Pyrrha is dead!  

“Life’s like a fantasy, maybe set me free, let me be your bumblebee.” Pyrrha always had love for Jaune. What about all those wild fan theories about Pyrrha still being alive somehow? In the past we’ve gotten many love songs and they were mainly because of Pyrrha’s obvious crush on Jaune. “Now the flowers are in bloom and you’ve chased away my darkness and gloom.” For instance, Jaune was the first person to see Pyrrha for who she is and not what she is. She wasn’t a famous all star fighter to him, she was his friend, mentor, and a brave and kind person through and through. Pyrrha’s darkness could have been referring to her lonely life of being at the top and separate from her peers. “My doubts disappear every time that you’re near. Clouds seem to run from the sky. The thought of your kiss sends my soul into bliss, I get high.” Who is the only person to have gotten a kiss scene? Pyrrha. Pyrrha kisses Jaune goodbye. It was a kiss full of sorrow, but also love.

So now, to the other root of the problem. Maybe Bumblebee shippers claim Yang has flirted with girls, therefore making her bisexual. But that is the problem: Yang’s personality is loud and she reaches out to everyone. She also just likes having fun and messing with people. That is just her personality. In volume 1, Ruby says their dad wouldn’t be too happy with all the boys around, but Yang says she is, confirming she is happy about all the boys at Beacon, showing her interest in boys. Then when they were looking out the window in volume 2, they spotted some guys and Yang was more than happy to make a comment on it.

Many like to argue that Yang made Blake promise to give the first dance to her. That has to mean she is into girls and especially Blake. That is not the case. Yang is very caring towards her friends, and in this moment, Yang’s only goal was to make Blake realize she should go to the dance. By telling Blake her first dance is with Yang, it gives Blake more reason to actually go be a good friend and go to the dance. It’s a promise to further push Blake to go. And besides, Blake goes to the dance with SUN. She says he looks handsome in a tie and after Blake and Yang have their dance, Blake is seen dancing with Sun later. Why? Because she went with Sun as his date.

And also, Blake is also interested in guys. It is implied by Adam’s pet name calling (my darling, etc.) that he and Blake used to be a couple. Blake has confided in Sun about the White Fang long before she confided in her team. And Sun only followed Blake because he cares about her to the point where he can’t leave her alone to do this alone again. In the song Like Morning Follows Night, Sun’s narrative speaks about what happened in volume 4. Not only did he follow her so she wouldn’t face the danger alone, but the song also alludes to their talk towards the end of volume 4 with “you’re not being selfless but selfish for running away” (not exact quote, but it is a paraphrase). And in volume 4, Blake and Sun spend it together. Blake at first is not happy about Sun being there (because like in the song says, she didnt want to risk another friend), but later, it is shown Blake now cares about Sun like he does for her, and how Sun was mature enough to give Blake that needed speech about  her running away.