Oh God that's so true. Same with Yang referred to as "The Brawler". Lots of similar shit in Buffy fanfics.

I really dislike canon re-hash and even if the writing in this fic is pretty decent, I'm having huge difficulties getting through it.

 

I used to more or less like canon rehash fics, but nowadays it just strikes me as a pointless use of time if you aren't introducing at least some significant deviation. It's not exactly possible to feel suspense or anticipation when you know exactly how it all plays out, after all.

 

Usually can't stand canon rehashes, but enjoyed Soulbound. I suppose it's because it explored a lot of things to greater detail which the actual series kind of skims over - such as more in depth view of how everyone feels about Blake being ex-WF.

Regarding using alternative terms for characters, I think the repeated use of names feel a lot worse for the writer than it actually is for the reader. Better to consider alternative sentence and paragraph structures which allow you use "he/she" a lot more if it really is a problem.

 

This oneshot made me laugh far too much while reading it last night:

Just be warned that it is an AU where most of the cast members are hybrid species... but that really has next to no impact on the story itself.

 

I finally got around to watching RWBY the other day. I was sold by the end of the Red trailer, which I actually still think is the best action sequence in the show. Y'all should write more about Ruby. Ruby is a badass. Everyone else is ok too I guess...

And because I have to vent about this somewhere, why the fuck do they make Ruby change the direction of her rotation not once, but twice, in midair, before firing her first shot in that trailer... everywhere else they at least pay some homage to the laws of inertia, but there it was like they said fuckit, let's just establish that physics have no power before this goes any further.

 

It's certainly still the most visceral of the action scenes. Definitely the one I like to keep in back of mind when writing for the series.

 

There are no laws of physics in RWBY, at best there are loose guidelines and suggestions.

As to why, because it looks and is fucking awesome. That's the answer to everything, by the way. To the weapons, the fighting styles, the battles, everything.

Wait until you see the foodfight = P

 

Ah, yes, the food fight...

"The Real World humbly posits that the amount of energy that must necessarily be expended in the blow that renders Yang airborne for such an extent of time would surely kill both combatants and detonate the entire cafeteria besides. But if you want to just carry on fighting, that's okay too, we're not sticklers for this physics shit, after all."

 

I was just thinking that.
theronin - Rule of Cool.

 

My problem isn't that they throw physics out the window, I get that, and I am ok with it. But watch the rest of that sequence and you'll see that they are actually very meticulous about maintaining the direction of her momentum unless she is firing to change it. But for some reason instead of having her draw in the direction she was already spinning while in the air, she changes direction to draw, then changes direction again to aim. It doesn't make sense even in context of the Rule of Cool. And it probably bugs me way more than it should. It's always the little things.... Owell. Foodfight was awesome though.

 

You really just need an excuse like Aura to get away with stuff like that or the weaponized and nearly indestructible food. Or how Goodwitch repaired everything with telekinesis. Or later on Coco's weapon unfolding into something too big for its unfolded form to contain.

We know it doesn't explain anything but we also shouldn't care. RWBY is cool and fun enough that it doesn't need to make sense. It's not that kind of story. It doesn't take itself all that seriously and doesn't expect the watchers to do so either.

That has good and bad consequences. The good are the cool weapons and fight scenes, the bad are the flat story telling and worldbuilding and inconsistencies that arise from that.

But yeah, I forgive and even love RWBY for doing things that I would criticize in other stories.

 

I get what you're saying - and honestly, what I thought was so cool about that trailer in the first place was how it used momentum generated by the firing of the gun itself to enable battle moves - but Rule of Cool isn't about consistency, it's about "the weave of the moment."

I'm not saying "RWBY is cool so physics can be loose," - or, I'm not just saying that. I'm also saying that particular moments and beats within a fight scene itself can vary the amount I'm willing to suspend disbelief. That particular moment is huge and highlighted as hell - there's a musical cue, 'the world holds its breath,' you've got slow motion, where's she's framed by the moon, a triple zoom shot, and a zoom in on her eyes, for God's sake. I would buy anything short of her turning into an actual dragon at that point.

 

RWBY/Devil May Cry. Dante was born for this kind of world.

 

Hopefully with the earlier more laid back Dante.

 

And even cockier.

 

Okay, getting back to the focus of the thread for a bit:

Who's got more RWBY fics for me to read? Spent last week getting caught up on most of what was rec'ed in this thread. So far I've tried:

With Friends Like These - Extremely fluffy and goofy. I got about halfway through it and determined that it wasn't going anywhere.

Soulbound - Canon rehash, but some brilliant moments. Writing gets overly ponderous at times.

Ruin - Reading this one now, finding it really hard to get into. Can't quite put my finger on why. Feels a bit stale, I guess.

Reunion - Honestly can't remember it that well, even though I read it a week ago. I think it was decent and fluffy if you like Ruby/Weiss (which I do.)

Rearranging the Board - Couldn't make it past the first chapter. Writing just wasn't at a level needed to effectively tell a story.

The Gentle Art of Making Enemies - Has no idea if it's a crackfic with some serious moments, or a serious fic with some WTF crack overtones and random smut. I enjoyed it, though. You couldn't call this "good," but it's pretty effective for what it's trying to do.

Four Deadly Secrets - Probably the best of the bunch, with a really solid attempt at fleshing out the characters and giving them darker, more interesting problems. The technical writing (redundancy, dragging prose) and some inconsistent characterization (emotions and decisions to trust/not trust seem to come from nowhere sometimes) is really dragging this one down.

Xekstrin's fics on AO3, maybe 4-5 of them - Probably the best technical writer I've come across in RWBY fanfic, but the subject matter isn't quite to my taste. The one about the cats is pretty solid. The longer Weiss/Blake story has some really nice characterization - making them bitch at each other, showing conflict, showing how they don't get along even when they're intimate in other ways is good. Pretty smut-focused, which isn't, you know, bad, just kind of annoying.

So, anyone got more recs? I tried delving into FFN searches, but that led me to stuff like Can You Feel My Heart and, uh, NO. By DLP's standards, I probably enjoy a good love story more and have a higher tolerance for fluff than like 95% of you, but this is just terrible.

 

Don't worry, I'm sure most of us read some pretty terrible fluff/smut in very limited fandoms like this, but none of us are game enough to admit to it (except maybe Nemrut =P).

I really like the Monochrome shipping and enjoyed the first 4 chapters of this. The smut actually worked pretty well to show their awkward, distrustful relationship and how that kind of evolved. But then it went to the usual Schnee Dust Corporation and Schnee family bashing that really irritates me. as OneirosTheWriter pointed out at one point, those aspects of Weiss shouldn't be presented as an obstacle she needs to overcome.


Anyway, as hard as it is to get used to Jaune as a protagonist, it is worth checking out:

Auburn - Basically, Jaune takes Yang's place on Team RWBY and becomes the leader, then the team is sent to a more brutal combat school which has popped up. Nothing amazing about the concept, but it's executed passably so far. A pretty cool fight which has taken up the majority of the last few chapters and a cool OC antagonist (Shirou). In most fandoms, this wouldn't even be worth mentioning, but the RWBY fandom is surprisingly lacking of fics like this.

Zodiac - A complete AU where there was a massive and bloody Human-Faunus war which has just ended. Pretty much all the RWBY characters at Beacon are Faunus who fought in the war, and are now training to fight the Grimm instead. Jaune is a human who decides to sneak into Beacon.

Zodiac has great side characters, and an amazing history. You get flashback snippets at the start of every chapter and a full length flashback that goes for a chapter later on. The aftermath of the war affects all the Faunus - PTSD, war crimes, enmities between clans and groups, etc. And the little snippets you see of this are used to good effect when contrasted with the more high school comedy scenes that seem to make up the rest of the fic.

Unfortunately it's also diminished because of that. The majority of the plot following Jaune just feels a bit dull in comparison which feel more like a B-grade ecchi comedy anime. But all these snippets of the side characters we see could be building toward something. So definitely worth reading.

 

Thanks for the suggestions, Jarik! I really appreciate when folks take the time to say why something is worth reading and what pros/cons it has, not just that they liked it.

I'll give them a try, especially the second one. Yeah, Jaune-centric doesn't really appeal to me viscerally, but I'm game for anything as long as the writing's good.

I have to laugh at some of these names for pairings. HP has some terrible ones, I guess RWBY is better just by default - White Rose, Bumblebee, Monochrome, etc. They're all kind of eye-rollingly dumb, though.

I just thought of a good one for a foursome pairing, Weiss/Ruby/Yang/Blake: Albino Coral Snake. Or, Normal Coral Snake Dipped In White-Out.

Anyway, I dug through this thread on Reddit/RWBY and came away with these suggestions just based on what people said about them as things I might be interested in. Anyone read these?

Fang's Embrace (summary looks pedestrian, but a few people chimed in that this was great, so I'll give it a spin at least)
(EDIT: Nope. This is bad. Poor writing quality kills it.)

Love in the Time of Zombies (summary has me pretty wary, but zombies?)
(EDIT: NOPE NOPE NOPE. Although I got a good laugh out of the sentence "Weiss engorged herself on junk food.")

Those Left Behind (love the concept - 4 one-shots about 1 member of the team dying. RWBY is a great enabler of prism-perspectivism.)
(EDIT: Really, really heavy-handed.)

Remanent's Reclaimer (seems to be popular?)
(EDIT: Great, future-Ruby has an eyepatch. So this is Edgelord!Ruby, I take it? Aaaaaaand a villain literally said the phrase, "Hahahahaha, finally! Yes!" You can't DO that. You just can't. I'm out.)

Broken Wings (just based on the summary I am probably going to regret trying this one.)

 

I read Ruin, which was ok but nothing special. The most I can say about it is that it held my attention enough to get through it, but not enough to make me read the sequel, and I can't remember anything that particularly stood out as good. There was a particularly wtf-worthy scene at the end when Ozpin finally shows up which probably contributed a lot to my giving up on it.

War in Remnant, which someone linked on page 1, was pretty awful. Started out ok, then got progressively worse and worse and the ending was bad enough to push it into terrible territory.

Four Deadly Secrets I more or less agree with Newcomb's assessment. It was pretty solid, despite the handful of issues. Worth keeping up with for now.

 

Only read Remnant's Reclaimer in that list. It's a pretty standard time travel fic - a Ruby returns from a grim, and fucked world having fought a war. Only difference is young Ruby hangs around, while old Ruby starts training everyone and fixing all their personal issues. Honestly, pretty dull.

Burnout - Here's another one I remembered. It's pretty short (so far), but is a Blake/Yang where Blake stuck with the White Fang and they're at war. I'm surprised this concept (Blake staying with the WF) hasn't been done much, but I like the concept. More of an enjoyable romance as opposed to anything seriously amazing.