Title: The Comission
Author: CV12Hornet/Xominac
Rating: T
Genre: Adventure
Status: WIP
Fandom: RWBY
Pairings: No pairing focused
Summary: RWBY AU. At the flip of a coin, good can become evil... Right can become wrong... Light can turn to dark... And the mightiest of heroes... can become the greatest of villains...
Words: 136 378 as of 14.02.2016
Id: 11309716
Link:ff.net and Spacebattles

So, discovered this today, roughly at the halfpoint and already, this has become on of my favourite RWBY fics so far.

Please ignore all the ellipses in the summary.

It follows two factions. On one hand, we have team RWBY, who here, are roughly a decade or so older, already Beacon graduates and all up to no good. They are basically the villains, in fact, the canon villains so far are all their subordinates. Yeah, Roman, Cinder, Neo, Adam all work for RWBY, pursuing a goal that I still have to find out.

The other, are the students, who very much take the place of RWBY in canon. Teams JNPR and CFVY (and latter SSSN) also have major roles. Team JNPR is starting their studies in Beacon, and stumble on the scheming villains in one way or another.

So, yeah, on one hand we see RWBY pursuing their goals whilst JNPR and co try to make sense from all the criminal activity going on.

What makes this all work is that everyone is essentially in character yet there are clear differences and changes that suit the characters better without making them different people. I liked the take on Team CFVY who are mostly blank slates and team JNPR especially feels rather lively.

I admit, Ozpin's parts were a bit meh so far, a bit melodramatic with his musings but honestly, on a whole, am really digging this. I like seeing where RWBY is right now and wondering what they are planning. It's entertaining, doesn't take itself too seriously while also not being a crackfic or too silly at all. Or rather, it hits the perfect mixture of being serious and being silly and funny when it needs to be. A perfect balance for a good adventure story.

Writing can be a bit clunky at times, bot yeah, one of the better RWBY stories out there.

Gotta love villain RWBY.

4/5

 

I like this story but I feel like it's stuck between two great premises and just can't make up its mind. The villain segments are great; the author actually can write fun villains that are unambiguously bad yet enjoyable to read about. The team JNPR segments are a lot less interesting in and of themselves, really only coming into their own when they interact with the RWBY members in their public personas. I want the narrative to either stick much more with our lovable villains or to just have left them being evil up as a mystery and worked the stories around team JNPR being thrown into the plot headfirst and having to find out on their own. Trying to have it both ways is just a bit of a mess.

3.5/5

 

Yeah, I'm with Mutton on this one. I'm still only on chapter 3, but there's a weird disconnect with "okay what kind of evil are these people exactly"?

I'm not sure the narrative really knows what it wants me to think. Take Yang setting Neo on that General guy, which is pretty much the first time you get an "okay so this is different" vibe. I'm just left feeling... empty. That moment could go a lot of ways - it could be very, very dark, insofar as we're contrasting the Yang we know from the show and the Yang we see here, seeing the echos of that character, the remnants (hah!) - and having that really land as an unsettling, disturbing, but very cool moment.

Or, you could play is as a black comedy - Yang as a glorious exemplar of a Heroic Comedic Sociopath. I feel like this is kiiiiinda what the author was going for? It's just not exactly landing.

But yeah. Mutton's right. This is a weird no-man's land where I'm really struggling to get a handle on the characters. The writing is definitely not doing itself any favors. It's pretty... clunky. With a hefty dose of your standard "non-said dialogue tag followed by unnecessary adjective" rookie mistakes. And plenty of the classic "I have no faith in my readers' ability to understand a situation without using ALL OF THE WORDS to describe the feeling," like so:

When you're having a character say something that you as a reader should be able to intuitively grasp is sarcastic / playful, and then feel the need to have that character emote "drawled with a grin," there's a pretty significant cap on how good your story can be.

Won't rate unless I get a bit further along, not sure if I'll continue or not, but so far this would be a 3/5 type story.

Which is a shame, because on paper I like the concept a ton.

 

Newcomb, as usual, voices my opinions before I do.

To add on, I think a bit of a problem this has is that it feels like a large part of what the author did was just snatch-and-grab segments off tvtropes to create the characters. That being said, it's pretty good for rwby fanfiction which is a sadly sparse place.

Also, Nemrut, your avatar! Nooooooo! The end of an era @_@

 

Also, I read another two chapters, and it's annoying because it's just interesting enough to keep me reading without any real hope that it'll get better, which is just, like, the worst.

 

It's not that you're wrong on anything you say Newcomb, in fact, yeah, agree, but it's still enjoyable to me. I do tend to get blinded by stories I like, regardless of their flaws, so, yeah, probably more of a 3-3.5/5 story but I would still say it's well worth a read.

I like the fact that the story tried to portray both sides as POVs and managed to handle both with some competence. RWBY and JNPR (and associates) are all likeable and fun to follow (even if I much prefer the RWBY side), and this way, there is no endless stream of victories on one side. Since they are enemies, one has to lose for the other to win and that automatically makes things more interesting.

That said, I do absolutely agree on the technical aspect though.

Still, fun story and among the more interesting stories in the fandom.
Lungs : don't worry, it's just a phase =P

 

Yeah, make no mistake, I did enjoy it when I read it. It's just one of those fics that, when you look back after the fact you're kind of like "hmmm..."