Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-4010415-20141223120240/@comment-24994749-20141230034931

The Devil's Advocate WP wrote: Velvet being cheerful and nice does not mean that she is treated well. I have never supported the idea that her team are bullies to her, but rather that they just do not treat her like a good friend. Basically, they may get along well with each other, but Velvet is simply treated as a fellow teammate with respectable gifts. It would actually be good since it represents racism that is less of a caricature. Her team respects her and treats her well generally, but they distance themselves from her in normal social outings. Maybe that is why Velvet is so cheerful coming back from a mission, because it is one of the few times when she is actually able to be somewhat social with them.

The story could be such that initially there was friction in the group at having a Faunus in their team, but they came to a sort of arrangement due to her demonstrated abilities. Velvet is not their friend, but they will defend her in battle. Perhaps one of them could be less inclined in that respect and more desiring to be friendly, but is pressured against it by the other team members. Much of the racism in the story has been simplistic and obvious and that would be a good way to show the more subtle aspects of racism. That's how I imagined their relationship back when Monty originally made that journal post for the Combat Uniform design contest.

However, assuming Coco is the team leader (likely considering the placement of her initial in the acronym, her position in the opening and her overall attitude during Breach) the way she talked to Velvet did not give me that vibe. If they relationship was "we don't like you but you are useful so we will tolerate you", she wouldn't have gone the extra mile to stop mid battle to explain why she didn't think Velvet should deploy her weapon, she would have stopped at giving out the order of not interfering,  even less justifying her decision as not wanting Velvet to waste away the effort she put into building her weapon.