As far as Jaune goes, I really don't understand the hate directed towards him. The show has a really weak cast as far as 'main character potential' goes. Jaune and Blake are the only characters that even have character arcs. Jaune's is cliche and Blake's is pretty irritating to emphasize with, but they are something for writers to work with. So unless a writer wants to start from scratch, Jaune is one of two options.

A huge part of judging a story is how successfully it manages to take the reader away from reality and into its fictional world. It is called reader immersion. Whenever a writer gets cute and has a character say "for Oum's sake" to pay tribute to the dead creator of RWBY, they are removing their reader's attention from the story and back into reality. It is a practically identical mistake to breaking the fourth wall.

Whenever I see this happen, I get completely sucked out of the story and am directly faced with the authors stupidity and incompetence. Like I said, I know that it is silly to close the story when a author does this, but it is a juvenile mistake. Anyone older than ten should fucking know better.

Also, it is one of the few mistakes a writer can make that has no subjectivity applied to it. It is just dead wrong, no arguments exist to defend it.

 

My issue with Jaune is he has nothing to do with why I would want to read RWBY. I read this for the team and the dumb world with durpy villians. If I want to read a story with the main character being some dude standin with his main traits bring he tries really hard I can go read thousands of shonen stuff, like Naruto.

 

Jaune gets flak because a chunk of the fandom has embraced him the way the Buffy fandom did Xander, and like then other bits of the fandom hate that.

 

Man, we arguing about Jaune again? He's like the everyman. That's why he's the popular MC pick for most RWBY fanfics out there. Besides, reading a fic about overpowered teenage girls kicking ass and taking names just doesn't sit well with me.

Most RWBY yuri fics focuses on romance too much or they start off as super teens because that's canon. Blake's partnered with Adam Taurus and he's a beast, therefore, the logical assumption would be that Blake's pretty darn strong too since Adam wouldn't pick a weak partner.

Yang destroys everybody excluding OP characters like Neo. Seriously, why is Neo afraid of Raven anyway? She's got some mean jedi mind tricks up her sleeve and Aizen like powers. Same with Ruby and Weiss, they're all damn powerful enough and there's nothing left to challenge them except end-game bosses.

So, default option goes to Jaune. Like Ron-stoppable, or Xander.

----------

BTW, KaiDASH thanks for that script. Real nice not to read anymore of that stupid Oum stuff.

 

Well, there is also the fact the he is male. If you don't want a yuri pairing, you are somewhat limited in options. Most people don't want to get between Ren and Nora, team CRDL are either weak or assholes, Sun and Neptune join in midyear and Mercury and Roman are villains (and one an adult). So hetero romance fall to Jaune by default.

Other than that, the girls are awesome so some authors are reluctant to change them while Jaune... well, one doesn't feel as guilty making a new charaacter with his name as they would with the others.

 

For me, Jaune-centric stories feel sort of like coming across a story that had say, Neville Longbottom as a main character (or some SI).

There's certainly nothing inherently wrong with that concept and nothing that prevents a decent story to come out of it. But now make a story that roughly still resembles canon HP, except Neville is the one doing all the shit Harry did. Hermione and Ginny are in love with him, Harry and Ron are his sidekicks, Dumbledore is training him and Voldemort sees him as the main enemy. It may still be a well developed story, but you can't help but feel a bit annoyed on the behalf of all the canon protagonists and everything they managed to achieve. It almost feels like they're actually being downgraded as characters to make way for our new protagonist.

That's how I feel in most Jaune-centric fics I've come across. Jaune becoming the leader of Team RWBY, Jaune leading the charge against Cinder and him basically becoming the center of attention in the conflict. Canon characters are all ridiculously epic in their own way, and achieve a lot on their own, so naturally anything that throws Jaune in there feels like he is stealing their thunder.

I do find Professor Arc somewhat entertaining, and his interaction with characters like Roman, Neo and Cinder is a whole lot of fun. But seeing Team RWBY reduced to a bunch of shallow fangirls really irritates me. Auburn had some reasonable character development, an interesting (and different) plot and well developed Blake/Jaune development, it still made Team RWBY feel diminished from their canon abilities.

That's why I enjoyed Jaune more in fics like Arc of the Revolution, Zodiac and The Games We Play (other issues I have with it aside). Jaune has his story as the protagonist, but it is entirely separate to what is going on with the canon characters. They can still shine as the protagonists in their own story while Jaune has a separate one.

Again, not necessarily saying this is a sign of bad writing. Just personally irks me. I can also accept that Jaune may actually have a lot of potential as a character because apart from Blake, he's the only one who really sees any development in canon.

 

In Not This Time, Fate, Jaune isn't really center-stage. He and Weiss share protagonist status in Letters to Winter / Just a Few Pointers.

 

The thing I find amusing, and Mishie agrees with me on this, is that being annoyed at Jaune for being the Main Character in a fic for not being the Protagonist in canon is ridiculous. Jaune is essentially RWBY's Deuteragonist and has been getting set up as such from the very beginning. He's the Male Main Lead. While the focus is on Ruby, it could just as very well have been on Jaune and the story wouldn't have differed.

 

It is a couple weeks old, but Ryuugi posted a preview for TGWP's sequel here. It looks like it will be more focused on other characters and not just Jaune. I am pretty excited to see some more considering how poorly the first one ended.

Personally I was pretty skeptical that Ryuugi would continue it once he put it down. Hearing an author say they are taking a break to work on other projects always seems to be a death knell for the story. So it is good to see an update even though it isn't being regularly updated yet.

 

I don't know how to feel about that. More material from good authors is always nice, but TGWP ending felt like such a cop out that I'm a bit wary.

Ahh well, should be fun to see Jaune from other people's eyes for a change. He goes from "strangely talented hunter" in training to "god in all but name" depending on the person's level of 'in the know', so it should be entertaining if nothing else.

 

I'm about a million times more interested in the snippets he's posted than the sequel here. It his Percy/Dresden cross

 

Personally, i am super hyped. Pretty much the best parts of Part 1 were the other PoV chapters for me. Seeing the kind of inhuman shit Jaune does from an outsiders perspective was amusing as hell.

 

The Yellow Death
Jaune survives a childhood tragedy and life in the wilderness with the most unlikely allies. The summoned manifestations of slain Grimm defend him through his travels until he meets a band of refugees and a criminal willing to help smuggle them into the safety of Vale - and Jaune into Beacon Academy where he finally finds purpose for the sword at his hip.

I'm surprised that this, which is by DLP's own CareOtters, hasn't been recced yet. The premise is interesting, and the character interactions - Jaune and Torchwick, Jaune and Blake - are absolutely brilliant.
.
@CareOtters

Hope you don't mind me asking, but is this definitely abandoned? Or do you still have plans for it, albeit ones put on hold due to real life and such.

 

The latter. I got a new job at pretty much the same time updates stopped coming. I still have plans, but haven't yet sat down and polished the rust off my writing fingers. Maybe next time I get a weekend off I'll hammer out a chapter.

 

Title: Unknown Legends
Author: KTWizard
Rating: T
Genre: Adventure/Friendship
Status: WIP
Fandom: RWBY/Legend of Zelda
Pairings: None
Summary: In a land he doesn't know, he is surrounded by things he can't understand. Rules, Government, Weapons, Schooling, even their Goals. They are all unknowns, but so is he to them. Link, and the memories of his friends. But there is one common rule between their world and his. The Unknown has the Advantage. So he will remain just that as long as he can. [Pre-Season 3, Min-Canon Change]
Link: Fanfiction

I found this story recently and I figured I would link it. Link comes into Remnant and gets found by the RWBY cast.

The story amuses me. It deals with a Link that comes from after Majora's Mask searching for Navi. What instead happens is everyone starts to plot around Link due to the items he has along with the knowledge he holds. So while the story is set in Remnant, it does feel more like Links adventure.

The issues with the story is rather plain to see. 217,904 words in six chapters. It's horribly verbose and needs a ton of editing to be a bit more manageable. With that said, it isn't completely pointless since it does give times to have the characters feel like characters. It also gives time to let the action hold... but as KTWizard stated in his chapter seven note that's just a cry for a decent editor, he knows that most of his issues can be solved by a good edit.

I would give it a 4/5, but with the notice that it needs a good editor more than most stories I've seen before.

 

Am in the second chapter and I'm liking it, simply because it feels like an old fashioned Naruto crossover and it has been a while since I last read one of those.

It does mean, however, most of the first two chapters were dedicated to giving Link one of the most extensive blowjobs I remember reading about. Hopefully that'll stop after this but so far, it's fun and nostalgic.

 

http://archiveofourown.org/works/8145019

RWBY/ Vampire:The masquerade crossover. It's not great but it has its moments.

 

Ended up burning through the Zelda crossover anyway and well, while I did enjoy it, I can't say I recommend it.

It is, from beginning to end (well, it's not complete) a Link wank story. The story is all about how amazing Link is, how amazing his gear is, how good of a person Link is, how brave he is, how loyal to his friends he is, how hard of a life he lead, how he overcame all this hardship, how you shouldn't fuck with Link and so on. It's either the RWBY girls, mainly Ruby and Blake, making these observations or Tatl lecturing them on it.

He is also a Mary Sue, by the older definition of the word, in that Link absolutely warps the RWBY setting and story to be solely about him and his gear. There is not one scene, not one piece of dialogue between any characters that doesn't revolve around him, his past or his gear.

A huge part of those 200k words is him showing off his sweet, sweet gear, - often without good reason - and completely baffling everyone by how amazing it is or how emotionally deep and tragic the masks are, and amazing, of course. Then people react to that, positively and negatively, in that he draws the attention of bigots (because they take him for a faunus) and people in power who want his items but also the respect and curiosity of the good people in Remnant (the main cast).

No one does anything except for Link, well there is background scheming from Ozpin and Ironwood, but Link is the only one who fights, because so far, everything has been about testing him (i.e. Link showing off) and once you realize that, it's just so bizzare. The RWBY girls (and JNPR) are there just to react and to cheer him on. With the exception of Ruby in the very first part of chapter 1, none of them even drew a weapon, let alone fight.

Okay, you know what, I lied, Jaune fights Link once and you can imagine how that went.

The girls do nothing except be amazed and admiring of Link, and cheer him on when he does something awesome and cry and be emotionally overwhelmed by his tragic past when he explains the masks and stuff.

The RWBY characters well, it's a bit...disappointing to read them to be just there to emotionally (over)react to things that Link does or that happen(ed) to him. They have no initiative, they don't really do anything. So far, their roles in the story is to be there to show that the good, decent people love Link and feel for him. Ruby just finds him cool, Weiss starts of cool but soon comes over to the side of reason and loyalty, Blake I will go into later on and Yang just kinda is there.

Yeah, it is very much Link's story, to the point where him being in Remnant seems kinda pointless so far. He could have been anywhere else.

That said, I quite liked Link's "voice", in that he doesn't talk that much and it did give me a sense of this being an in character Link. The fairies aren't annoying and I liked their portrayal, and that's something of a miracle, giving that almost all of Tatl's dialogue is giving admiring exposition on Link's deeds and gear. And yet, she is likeable but then again, I always liked the fairies in OoT and MM. The dynamic between the fairies and Link is rather well explored, I'd say.

The fight scenes, - when you ignore the fact that they are the metaphorical ball-fondling to the blowjob that is every non-fight scene to Link and his stuff - are actually pretty solid. I quite liked the take on Ironwood, in that they didn't make him a villain.

Not sure I'm sold on Ozpin and Glynda here, they seemed a bit off at times. Especially Glynda at the pool scene, man did all that drama there feel super forced.


And on top of that, the Blake Link dynamic was rather interesting as Blake sees Hyrule as a land ruled by faunus, where they can be free, basically her utopia and Link as the champion and representation of that dream and forms an understandable attachment/investment in him. Sure, it's wanky, but it works.

The world-building, while not much, was interesting.

Spoiler

Especially since it at first led me to believe that Link crossed dimensions, no matter what he said at the beginning but later on, it does seem that a lot of the grimm are monsters that he had already fought in his adventures, so, it'll be interesting to see whether or not Hyrule is truly a continent/island that was never discovered or if there was a dimension/time jump.

Also, apparently Glynda's equipment sees Link as having Aura, and well, we'll see if that was true. That's about the most interesting thing in this story, subtly running in the background. Unless it's just something the author didn't think about and just made things match because it's easier.

So yeah, I stand by my initial comparison. It's exactly like one of those older Naruto crossovers where Naruto lands in a new land, where his bravery and skill make people admire him, where his good character endears him to everyone and where him explaining his tragic past makes the beautiful love interests cry because it is just so damn unfair that someone so good a person had to go through all that horrible stuff.

But we've all read a few of those and on some level, we enjoyed them, so this, while not exactly good in terms of using tropes and telling a story that should explore two settings, was decently written and made me nostalgic enough to enjoy one of these again.

I just hope we get out of this Link wank period and give the other characters something to do other than react to things that Link does or that are happening to him. I know Link is cool and that his gear is awesome. I knew before I started this story. I really knew after the first 100k and I was kinda sick off it after the second. I get it, we can stop with it now.

2.5-3/5

 

Your review of the story was quite fair and well written.

I think the major reason I was more willing to rate it higher than you is simply due to the fact that I am seeing the story more if it was edited properly, than what it is now. It's more of a self delusion that makes it better than it is... however everything you said is true and I know that in my heart.

The other note I have to ask, did you PM the author this or could you put the review down in FF.net? It would be quite helpful since KTWizard is trying to write better than the average even if he did screw up a bit. He is self aware to have a chapter seven that was asking for more critical reviews along with an editor that could prune some of the stupidity in the story.

 

Second Time Around
A RWBY Peggy Sue story where post Season Three Ruby wakes up on the day she first starts at Beacon.

A good fic, but possibly abandoned as it was last updated in April 2016.