#rwby bashing

But funnily enough, the whole thing with pushing the idea of 'Ironwood was always a bad guy, clearly a dictator, clearly everyone needs to have seen that or they're a pro-dictator bigot themselves' take... Really just makes both the team of RWBYJNROQ and the narrative that the RWBY writers painted seem worse if you ask me. Like, Team RWBY and co were actively and willingly working with IW for like two months, right? Like, they were down in the thick of it in Mantle sometimes, they saw the security camera that some people swear means that James kept the citizens of Mantle under constant surveillance, they saw the broadcasting of James and Winter that some people swear means that James was obviously feeding Mantle propaganda, they saw how he worked on a project that they actively believed in apparently instead of using the easily transferable resources of a communications tower to fix a broken wall. They saw James put things in place like curfews, which some people are swearing is proof of the ironclad hold Ironwood had on those poor defenseless citizens. They saw that he pulled his forces out of Mistral (on the advice of Winter,) which apparently is heartlessly hording protection, and they also saw him bring some of his forces into Vale which according to some people was a show of power. And despite the fact that there was every indication that IW was fully authorized to be in Vale and fully authorized in bringing over weapons, and despite the fact that he only brought them because he thought there would be an attack (which there was,) and despite the fact that he clearly didn't bring his whole fleet - No, he was invading Vale. And Team RWBY and co also saw his 'over-reliance on machinery' and his 'hatred of humanity' at play, and they saw him let teenagers do any fighting and saw that he was running a child recruitment school (ignore if this breaks the premise of the entire show by implying that Ruby shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a fight,) and they saw that he was supposedly grooming Winter. And they saw that he *gasp* was put in charge of security for an event after an attack that could've been really bad while Ironwood and the rest of Oz's inner circle was anticipating worse I MEAN he was completely unnecessarily put in charge of obviously completely unneeded security for your average everyday not in danger at all sporting event that can easily be compared to sporting events in our world where Salem and Grimm don't exist, and so that was clearly an act of aggression and exercising control.

So, if Ironwood is really a terrible dictator who has clearly been doing off the charts bad things that prove that he's a bad dictator since his very first appearances in volume two, then the options are A. Ruby and co are all so hopelessly naive that they completely ignored the clear and obvious signs of a dictator and then made shocked pikachu faces when he 'tried to leave all the poor people behind to die because of nothing but laziness, cowardice, and classism,' which makes them look really bad. B. Ruby and co are all so dumb that they just didn't realize that all the obviously bad stuff he did was obviously bad and should be a deal breaker because they're just that oblivious. Or C. Team RWBY and their friends can be slotted into the same category that the anti-rwdes put IW fans who say that the fall to villainy was rushed and that he wasn't always clearly bad, and written off as pro-dictator probably classist bigots. Ruby literally shared information on the war with him after a bunch of stuff in season seven because she and Oscar decided to trust him.

(Just to be clear, I don't believe any of that. I believe that Ironwood wasn't clearly super bad until he shot Oscar, and Team RWBY weren't in the wrong to work for and help Ironwood and believe in some of the things he was doing.)

But, using that 'James was always a dictator who was always clearly bad' logic, what does that say about the narrative RWBY the show was presenting us with. Because... Team RWBY and co weren't treated as in the wrong for working for and helping Ironwood and believing in some of the things he was doing. They doubted him a little, here and there, but for the most part just worked with him, and then nobody was like 'we were so stupid to trust him after everything he did' and nobody was like 'We need to be more careful because we were working with a dictator FUCK." In fact, Yang and Ren saying anything against Ruby was still treated as completely bad and something they needed to take back, even though she was the one who told the supposed clearly evil dictator important war secrets. Sooooo, if Ironwood really was a dictator, what was the 'Ruby did no wrong' stuff supposed to tell us as viewers? XD Like I honestly truly prefer thinking 'these writers just screwed up their fall to villainy arc pretty badly' rather than thinking 'these writers deliberately made the heroes willingly and happily work for an evil dictator for months and trust him with important war secrets.'

The Big List of the FNDM's Ableism Regarding Ironwood.

Dehumanization

Done by the writers themselves when describing his last amputation as "losing his humanity", and by fans who call him "more machine than man" in what they wanted me to believe was a serious fucking in-depth analysis of the character that they apparently didn't have the fucking sense to see was an incredibly ableist thing to say, as well as being full of absolute cannon rejecting speculative bullshit that they straight up made up just to try and convince everyone else that their Headcannons are what the character was actually like-

There are also people trying a little sneaky thing where they bullshit up a backstory for Ironwood where it's actually him dehumanizing himself. Now, I love a good traumatic backstory and unhealthy trauma response, but these often feel like they're just people are just trying to justify the ableism in the writing by misattributing the writers ableism onto the character that they chose to write in an ableist way.

Threats of violence

People talking about how Ironwood should be torn apart at the seams of where his prosthetics are by characters like Pyrrha. Does anybody remember that one? Or how about how people go on and on about how they wish violence and rejection on him while ignoring how the way the narrative demonized Ironwood because of his disabilities, because if they noticed that the writers have intentionally manipulated them into hating a character for his disabilities, they would also notice how fucked up it is that they are wishing for a disabled character to be hurt worse than they already have been, even though they had just witnessed that character be horrifically mutilated and forced to be retraumatized.

Sexual Harassment

Calling Ironwood unfuckable may seem like the exact opposite of sexual harassment because it's stating a lack of desire for the character. But responding to that post going into depth about how the state of his body makes him undesirable, as well as implying that this disabled character has no worth because you personally find his prosthetics a major turn off. That's sexual harassment.

Victim Blaming

There are so many instances of victim blaming Ironwood that it's not even entertaining to see it. Ironwood reacting poorly to be triggered, mutilated, and betrayed, are used by writers of the actual show to demonize him. Fans have been caught straight up saying that Ironwood losing his arm was his own fault. People have stated that Ironwood's robots being hacked without his knowledge or consent was his fault. They have even made up bullshit backstories about Ironwood's prosthetics coming from him refusing to wait until he got better and intentionally replacing his body parts cyberpunk style because Ironwood's disability has to be his fault. Because if it's not, then they can't shame him for it. (Not that they should shame ANYONE for their disability no matter what the circumstances that caused it were)

Invalidation

Ironwood has extensive prosthetics going all across the entire right side of his body and then in volume 8, has another prosthetic arm. You would think that having this information so clearly and unabashedly obvious to you, you could see that Ironwood is clearly an amputee, and therefore, disabled. And then some self awareness lacking peace of garbage decided that because Ironwood's a badass, and because Ironwood doesn't use a wheel chair, and because Ironwood can easily hide his disability under clothing, that he is not disabled. His status as a disabled person is completely erased, because he's not a pathetic helpless baby you want to donate to charity for.

Final thoughts

That's basically all of the ways people have been ableist about him in my recent memory. There was also the instance of people editing a Nazi esc. Armband onto him and that other time someone essentially claimed that Jason Rose was lying about how Ironwood was designed to look like him because this fandom can't accept that this character they hate beyond any semblance of sanity is not a white person. But those have more to do with the fandom's already well documented racism and antisemitism and this post is about ableism.

To show what I mean in regards to how Semblances can be written better, is that during Yang's depressive state she tries to use her Semblance but can't, and when she gets out of it then she can use her Semblance again but it's changed to reflect her new mindset.

If I remember correctly, the stated reason why we didn't see Yang's Semblance until V6 is because they were still trying to figure out how to make it in the new engine. Well, here's your excuse for that without the story's logic snapping in half. Seriously, Tai comparing her Semblance to a temper tantrum brings up a whole can of worms that make the story worse, namely why neither him or Qrow told her that before she went to Beacon. It makes them look like terrible teachers and if Adam had killed Yang then it would've been on them for being crappy teachers. Same goes for them not telling Ruby about her Semblance being turning into rose petals. I'm fine with the idea of Ruby's Semblance developing into her becoming rose petals, but when I say that, in my head it involves years of meticulous build-up and gradual character development so when the change is shown rather than told there's an "a-ha" moment, rather than the "reveal" coming out of nowhere and contradicting everything that came beforehand. Ruby having to be told her Semblance by Penny just makes the character look incompetent (as is RWBY tradition) and the writers pointing it out with Blake lampshading it doesn't make the writing problem any less of a writing problem.

It was obviously created to exchange information between kingdoms, and y'know, make sure communication never fails between kingdoms ever again. Fuck me, man.

And what's the fucking point of saying it's some nationalist ploy when Salem can watch TV with the thing? You know, how Ruby just broadcasted live and assumed Salem wouldn't see it? Does she think Salem doesn't know how media works?

It's not so secret when Salem -- of all fuckin people -- can just sit and watch TV with her henchmen.