Okay, before we start, i just want to make one thing clear. I'm not a shipper and would have nothing against Yang and Blake being in a romantic relationship, had it been given on-screen development. The only problem is that there's zero evidence of this or that Blake and Yang are anything other then friends until
possibly the V6 final. And if RT
did plan Bumblebee to be in the cards all along, they went about it in one of the worse written way possible.
To me, romantic relationships should be established because the two have chemistry and support each other in a way they don't get from anyone else. But besides being aspiring Huntresses and good people, what do Blake and Yang have in common? Do they have similar hobbies? Similar ideals on something not a lot of people agree on? Can they talk for hours about a specific topic because both are so into it they loose track of time? Have they stated that they enjoy spending time together just because the other person is around? Do they strive to be more like the other person because something about them the other admires and or respects? No? Nothing? Then they don't have chemistry.
Also, the two of them get a hell of a lot more support from other people than they do each other. So it's not like one pulled the other out from a dark place or drastically changed them for the better. They did that by
themselves without the other being around and weren't even
inspired by the other person to do it.
Evidence for it includes, but is not limited to:
- The fact that at no point in the entire show has Yang expressed attraction to men, and has at several points expressed frustration when she receives unsolicited attention from them
Demonstrably false. Volume 1, Chapter 3: the Shining Beacon Part 2.
Yang: It's like a big slumber party!
Ruby: (not looking up) I don't think Dad would approve of all the boys, though.
Yang: I know I do! (purrs as she watches several muscular, shirtless guys... and Jaune, dressed in feetie pajamas, waving to her, which makes her groan before she returns her attention to Ruby) What's that?
Also, Blake has repeatedly shown interest in guys. See her relationship with Adam (which might or might not have been retconned in V3 from friend/mentor figure to abusive boyfriend, but that's neither here nor there) and Sun being set up as a possible romantic option at the end of V1. Furthermore, there's also Illa's line in V5 (Alone Together) about Blake's previous relationship with Adam, as if there's any doubts that Blake was in love with the person she thought Adam was.
Ilia: I was always jealous of the way you looked at him [Adam]. (her spots turn pink) I wanted you to look at me that way. (she closes her eyes, and when she opens them, they are suddenly pink) But we can't always get what we want!
Also, before anyone brings up the bisexual-angle,I'd be willing to accept that...except it falls flat because we've never seen either character show or expressed any interest whatsoever in women romantically.
- The fact that the only person Yang is scene dancing with is Blake.
Actually, we don't see Yang dancing with
anyone on screen at all. We're told that she wanted Blake's first dance for the evening. However, we're both told and shown that Sun is the one dancing with Blake the rest of that night.
Sun: Sooo, does this mean we're going... together?
Blake: Technically, though my first dance is spoken for.
You can actually see Blake and Sun dancing here, alongside Nora and Ren.
- The moment in Volume where Adam tells Blake that he'll kill everything she loves, and the camera immediately cuts to Yang looking for Blake
If you mean in V3, of course he said that. Given all the WF's encounters with team RWBY, Adam would probably know by now that Blake and Yang are partners, or at least on the same team. Not to mention even if Adam doesn't know anything about who Blake's been hanging around, consider the scene in question. Here he is, giving this speech to blake about destroying everything she cares about and suddenly he hears this Blonde girl running around trying to find Blake. Doesn't take a genuis to figure that they mean something to each other. And 'Love' doesn't just mean romantic love and I doubt Adam would just stop at people Blake loves romantically anyway. (As for V6, that's either
extremely bad retconing by RT or Adam just seeing things because he's totally gone off the deep-end)
So, what would I have done?
1. I don't think that shipping should be a component in RWBY in general, given how short each episode is and how big the cast of characters are. Having whole plots dedicated to romance is an inefficient and unnecessary divergence from the main story.
2.
If you really needed to put in shipping,
AND Bumblebee was in the cards from the beginning
AND it's central to the story in a way that can't be accomplished by Yang and Blake being friends...then RT should have removed Sun from the plot- as his role as companion and character to exposition dump at could easily have been taken up by Yang-, not spent two whole volumes teasing the idea of Sun/Blake being in a relationship when you could have used that time developing any pre-existing romantic feelings between Yang and Blake, stick with Adam being a mentor to Blake then someone she had a romantic interest in and just made it completely clear that Yang and Blake were attracted to each other from early on.
Bam! No shipping war, no confusion and the relationship has plenty of time to set up. As right now, it comes across as RT trying to say that Blake and Yang only really became interested in each other after defeating Adam, who'd been the source of so much mutual trauma for them. Which, to use some terminology so beloved on places like tumblr, is '
highly problematic'.
"I know writers who use subtext, and they're all cowards."
-Garth Marenghi
So what I'm saying is, if the writers wanted to set up Bumblebee or have it happen, they had plenty of time to do so. But instead, all we're left with is the writers baiting the audience into believing in something thats not really there, and, while I don't claim to speak for them, I consider that an insult to the LGBT community that wants representation.