#faunus stuff

You're telling me Adam was branded with an SDC logo over an eye because he... got into a fight with someone????

in the world of rwby there’s this low-key stress that faunus aren’t human at all, but this whole thing w/ ‘faunus only have one (1) animal trait’ kinda contradicts that? because it implies faunus are just ‘humans w/ animal traits’, yeah? faunus aren’t humans w/ animal traits nor are they animals with human traits. they’re faunus! a separate entity! they’re not part of one thing and part of another - they’re wholly faunus!

so when writing enclosure, i really wanted to stress that weiss and blake are all faunus, and not just in visible traits. hence, this line: 

“Blake sees that she’s lithe in a way that’s not wholly human - too thin in some places, too elongated in others - and again their ears twitch. Blake can relate. People think they look out of proportion, too.”

fanfic writers have already gone into some great detail about how being a faunus might be different psychologically, but then i realised that the faunus should be physiologically more diverse from humans too, since they are another race, after all! for example, if i had a human skeleton and a faunus skeleton, what would tell me they’re different? cause there should be differences! in real life, we can tell races apart by skull structure, proportions, scale... we can tell age, gender, and way more. we shouldn’t need to see horns or scales just to be able to tell who was faunus and who wasn’t.

anyway, point being that’s what enclosure was looking to explore a little. faunus might look kinda human, but there’s probably way more differences deeper down. this is also me telling y’all to go ham when writing faunus! write about em being different in little ways - like being double jointed or super duper flexible, or having less teeth or more teeth or sharper teeth, or guard hairs on their head or tougher skin on their palms and feet, or having skin that’s weirdly more waterproof because you’re a shark faunus, weiss, is that why your skin is so rough?

Like, the issues with the writing are obvious to people who paid attention to 3.7 and recognize it makes no sense how he made a 180 backspin on genocide from “oh, sorry, I don’t want to join your vendetta against humanity because my people would get hurt, I will now allow you to leave unharmed because I have no qualms with you specifically even though you and your two young friends are clearly human. Oh wait, now you’re using ancient Avatar magic on me and I have no choice but to join” to “MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA BLAKE! GENOCIDE IS AWESOME! I’M GONNA KEEP WILLINGLY WORKING WITH THIS WOMAN WHO HELD ME AT GUNPOINT A COUPLE MONTHS AGO BECAUSE I LOVE MY PEOPLE BEING USED AS GRUNTS TO ATTACK HUMANITY.”

But the issue with Sienna is even more upsetting. The whole time we were lead to believe that the current leader of TWF was a radical revolutionary who understood violence was necessary but took things too far. Which is why Blake initially left! But then we found out Blake actually left because of Adam after she’d found out he was genocidal and abusive! But we don’t learn about who Sienna is or what she stands for until 5.2. We went four whole fucking seasons without knowing if what Adam was doing was regular WF policy or something his own faction was up to. We went 4 seasons watching the WF ally themselves with Cinder and Roman to steal Dust, start the Breach, attack Beacon and Vale, harass Blake, and the whole time we had NO IDEA that Sienna was firmly against ALL of this. We’re supposed to believe that the whole WF organization that was supposed to be for expanding Faunus rights were willing to ally themselves with Roman and Cinder and Salem. And only during 5.2 do we hear otherwise. And in the same damn episode Sienna’s murdered and usurped by Adam so it literally doesn’t matter that she’d stood against Adam the whole time because she’d done nothing to stop him and then dies before she can exact any punishment against him.

Had Sienna actually been a character since season 1- or even season 3 where we finally are introduced to Adam properly- I’d be less angry and annoyed. Even if she absolutely had to die during 5.2, at least we would’ve known where she stood and what the WF actually stood for from way earlier. If Ilia hadn’t been “converted” to Blake’s “pacifism to the point of impotence” bullshit philosophy I’d be less upset, because then at least we’d have one radical revolutionary who actually wanted revolution and not revenge on his ex.

Instead we’re left with, what, no one currently in charge of TWF? If they still even exist? The current racism plot going to Weiss white-savioring some Faunus along with zoo animals because THAT sends and AMAZING message? Ilia doing… nothing? Ghira and Kali and the Menagerie militia doing… nothing? Marrow giving us a raving speech about how bad racism is but “oh well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯” and doing nothing?

RoosterTeeth has been targeted for a LOT of issues the past couple of weeks, and have come out and actively apologized for their tonedeafness and their inaction and their compliance. But if RT really wants me to believe that they’re trying to change- besides standing up for their black employees first and foremost- they NEED to take a closer look at this show and realize that the message they’ve been sending isn’t a good one. It’s the message of people who see any disruption of “peace” as more egregious than the racism that’s gotten more people killed than the rioting or looting ever could.