This is one of the best new fics in the RWBY fandom but unfortunately that isn't saying too much. I have to agree with Zansa that the story suffers from a lack of a consistent tone, though I feel that it's an inherited problem from it's source material. Like the Coeur fics it's based on the primary problem with it is that the pacing is abominable, 39 chapters and 270,000 words should be a full novel but in this case we're probably not even two thirds of the way through.

Too much time is spent on other characters and it bloats the story to a near unreasonable degree. I can't honestly explain why we need to dedicate any time at all to the burgeoning lesbian relationship of his students or their petty pranks on each other in a story about a fake teacher seeking to steal an ancient artifact to power his revenge on the manifestation of all evil while trying to hide his intentions from its immortal wizard owner. There is, I think, an excellent plotline here buried under mountains of filler content.

I like that Jaune, and to a lesser extent Neo, have an actual motivation but feel that little of what they do chapter to chapter is actually related to their goal. As Zansa mentioned the inclusion of the coffee bits, which were already a massively overdone joke in the original, damages the tone and results in the characters acting strangely given their motivations.

Despite these issues I think it's a worthy successor to Professor Arc; most of its problems were present in the original and certainly either one is better written than the actual show.


If it was about half as long I'd probably give it a 4 but as is I give it 3/5 for competent writing and intriguing concepts dragged down by a whole lot of filler.

 

I like this fic, am looking forward to the next chapter, and yeah I'll grade a bit on a curve because RWBY is a starved fandom. There's some flaws, particularly in pacing, but the filler is still readable and decent even if there are parts I don't care for (Neo taking RAVN to a club, and the burgeoning lesbian relationship. Because even good RWBY fics need one of those, I guess). Also has tonal consistency, with a nice balance of casual levity and seriousness. That says 4/5 to me, which means it might be the best RWBY I've read so far.

If I was grading on just the semester one stuff, I'd probably say 3. The conflicts were handled better than canon, and it was all solid, but it was nothing gripping or novel. A nice timewaster, but nothing special. Wish it was shorter, but oh well. Now we're back on the main plot and it's deserving of a 4 again.

Overall, far, far, superior to the original. I'm reading a RWBY fic and it's not a guilty pleasure. Was honestly unsure if that was possible. Here's hoping it keeps up.

 

I've been enjoying it as I read it, but your complain about the filler has a lot of merit. To some degree the update speed mitigates this, and looking at the author's previous works they seem able to pump out an incredible volume, but if the story stopped here I'd also be annoyed that after a quarter of a million words we're still not through or barely through season one of a fairly short show.

 

Well, always good to see people discussing something I've written, so thanks to everyone for your feedback in advance.

I'll admit that the story's got some pacing issues, mostly born of the fact that I didn't really intend for it to go anywhere and started making it up as I went along in the early stages. By the time I got to the S1 material I had in my head to tell the entire story of RWBY, with the additions of Ilia, Neo, and Jaune rather than just focusing heavily on the Jaune/Neo plotline.

In hindsight; mistake, will admit that, word count got a little out of hand, and couldn't quite keep the core plot in focus in some areas. I'm working on correcting that from where I am in the second semester, trying to naturally tie up some of the secondary plots up faster and putting the focus back onto the relic-hunt part of the story.

 

Off to read it just because of this. It's the only truth I know.

 

i've run into an odd issue. i was reading this fic earlier in the year and i'm pretty sure i was enjoying it based on how close i got to to being current with it. then i went on vacation for several weeks without internet and when i went to go catch up on all the fics i'd been reading, this one fell to the wayside.

i'm not sure why—in fact i was ready to argue with all of the people who were rating this so low until i realised i wasn't coming up with any counter arguments.

it's not that i can think of places where it did badly either, because nothing stands out to me there as well. i guess what i'm saying is while this is a relatively enjoyable fic, even with all of the alterations when i think about it my mind keeps slipping back to the source material and i get back to 'oh i've read that already'.

 

Did the second half of Semester 2 feel like an improvement over the prior portions of the story? In terms of picking up the pacing, resolving minor plot threads, and then getting into the action scenes and aftermath?

 

It honestly felt a hell of a lot better, to the point where I feel like it's actually managed to make up for a lot of the flaws that I felt like the earlier parts had. The main improvement being the fact that it seems like you're less constrained by the flaws of the fanfic that inspired you, and that's really great to see since well... The stuff that you've been doing has been significantly less cringy and most of the time has had some really clever setup/payoff.

Overall I'd say that these last few chapters have brought it back up to being a 4/5 story despite the 3/5 trough of some of the previous chapters. And I'm now far more excited about what everyone is going to do next, as I'm actually left unsure about what you'll do next to finish off the season.

 

Finally got round to finishing this. Pretty decent, with solid writing and the imagination to take the MCs off in a radically different direction to canon. My main complaint is that the characters didn't feel all that compelling, and the action and intringue definitely wasn't particularly exciting, which is not a good thing for an adventure/crime story.

3-3.5 out of 5