A Common Criminal Or Something Chapter 62: Post-Mortem, a rwby fanfic

Post-Mortem

Story's over, folks. This is the autopsy.

If you're a first-time reader who jumped to the end because the story was depressing… go back and finish it. You'll thank me when you do, if you do. If you can't without knowing the ending, this story isn't the sort for you.

For everyone else-

This is something new I've wanted to do with a project for awhile: an analysis of the story I wrote. Unlike my scenario construction projects (Renegade Reinterpretations, Fallout: Orleans) in which I upfront told people what themes they should look for and find important, this is a scenario deconstruction. I'll take apart what I put together, and point out what I thought was important. You get the pleasure of agreeing or disagreeing, since only you will be able to say if you saw these going in, or recognize them now that I point them out in hindsight.

What follows is lots of thoughts on the narrative, planning process, and intent of this all. Like, alot- this compilation of thoughts on the story is over a third of the actual story itself.

Obviously, your own impression is what's most important for you. But some of you might be interested in my thoughts. This is very informal, very wordy, and potentially very informative.

It (shouldn't be) necessary to understand the story... but you might find it interesting how I understood it.

Starting off: what was the Authorial Intent for what sort of story this fic was supposed to be?

This is a story about not giving up, even when things seem hopeless.

This was a character-focused drama with an underpinning of fantasy elements.

This was a 'Fall and Redemption' story, with the goal of blending drama and fantasy into something that would one day be remembered in legend and fairy tale in Remnant itself. The story starts as something of a greek tragedy, before Ruby's influence transitions it to a redemption-based fairy tale. Jaune brings the tragedy, Ruby brings the idealism, and by the end they've mingled so that Ruby takes on some angst so that Jaune can have a (happier) ending.

It never was, and never was going to be, a story of Jaune becoming a criminal overlord. The first clue should have been in the title- 'Common Criminal.' Something bad, but not irredeemable. The prospect of going past the line of irredeemable- the uncertainty about how far Jaune would fall- was a key point of the drama, but it was the prospect rather than the realization of it that kept the character suspense going.

But at the same time, the life of crime was never going to have a 'perfect' consequence-free ending either: Jaune loses his identity and will be a wanted man if he ever regains it. Ruby mourns, and doesn't quite realize she's gotten a fairy tale ending. Team PWBY is destroyed, with Yang the only one who can go back to being a hero. Sun is dead. Cinder is still free, and the White Fang still active. While the day is saved for now storm clouds linger on the horizon if/when it all unravels.

The overall tone for this story was to be bitter-sweet, in that order and spread over the duration of the fic. Heavy on the increasing bitter for the first half (up to the jail cell), and then tempering it with the sweet more and more as you went on. Some people never saw it as sweet- after all, who cares about faceless innocenets saved if named characters fall- but even with authorial fore-knowledge I feel the last half of the story is an upward climb from Jaune's pit of despair in the Underworld. There was uncertainty that marred things and made things seem worse- but uncertainty is the key to suspense, and the challenge of life. It's why optimism and heroism are so admirable- not because it's easy when you know it will work out, but when you try the right thing anyway without knowing that it will.

(Then again, I'm a very cynical person. It shades my sense of idealism. This is a 'dark fic' in the sense of 'night is darkest just before the dawn.')

It was always going to have a happy ending- but happiness was going to be the reward for enduring despair, uncertainty, and a certain amount of hopelessness without giving up when things looked bleak. The payoff for not settling for 'good enough' rather than seeing things through. And I'm not just talking about the characters.

Congratulations, dear reader: this story was also a trial of YOUR perseverance, a test of whether you would give up in the face of ambiguity and where the only promise of a happy ending came from a dead woman. The happy ending is your reward as well- and one you can hold over everyone who quit because 'it was too depressing' or 'my favorite character was killed' or 'the author is a pretentious twat!'

I'd only agree on maybe one of those three.

Moving on to 'what was the inspiration for this story'-

First off, this is another of the 'Or Something' series, aka my 'Jaune is something other than a badass hero' story ideas. Completely different style from 'A Farmer or Something', but same fountain of inspiration. The initial brainstorming of 'Or Something' is 'who in the RWBY cast could interact with Jaune in another context.' Ruby got rolled as the character, and a bit of artistic inspiration helped shape the tale.

If 'A Farmer or Something' was inspired by that piece of the Odyssey, then this one was tempered by the RWBY soundtrack. 'I May Fall' was the depressing-optimistic lyrics that served the the spine of the story about Jaune falling, but ultimately not. 'Gold' was what tempered what would have been a much, much darker story born from 'I May Fall' and turned it from bitter with almost no sweet to downright hopeful by the end. RWBY songs have an amazing balance of dark and light in the lyrics, and both 'I May Fall' and 'Gold' qualify. That balance may have been a bit on the dark side for most (nearly all) of the fic, but a story about not giving up and faith even in dark times needs that. There's no tension on redemption if it's all but guaranteed by the tone and foreshadowing devices: for redemption to be meaningful, being good needs to be hard- and that comes less from 'bravely standing up to impossible odds' and more about overcoming fear and uncertainty without a guarantee on the other side. Self-sacrifice is easy if you know it will make a difference. It's much harder if you don't. It's the people who do the right thing anyway tahat are more impressive, and it's the people who quit because they lack assurances who don't get happy endings. That applies to readers as well.

'I May Fall,' is depressing story of inevitable defeat and loss, but with a rousing chorus that while this may happen, that it's a very real possibility, it won't happen in a particular circumstance. The challenge was to balance the pressure on Jaune with the uplifting chorus. The song, which first saw where Jaune has fallen, had the chorus taken out to emphasize the fatalism. But it's Ruby who brings forth the hope, and the chorus, during Divide per Ciphra. That's the promise and sort of promise they share- which considering the words I used to describe it, was a clue that the 'Elysium' song, 'Red Like Roses 2', was a red herring rather than me trying to depress the heck out of you. The thematic contrast and flaws between the song, and what happened, should have been clues about the role of RLR2.

Reading Elysium the first time through, before Ruby rejects the song, is supposed to be dark and depressing, with the expectation that she's going to give up- except for the niggling inconsistency that keeps it from being convincing. Reading it again, when you can spot the thematic inconsistencies, cast's Ruby's role in the arc as a much more optimistic face of grief. Ruby thinks Jaune is gone- and in a sense he is- but the fact that she rejects Red Like Roses (which has him for dead and gone) and settles for Wings (which makes no implication, but is a song about overcoming hurt) were a thematic hint that Jaune wasn't necessarily dead. The line 'for as long as the memories of Jaune's death haunt her' was foreshadowing, obvious only in retrospect, about what actually happened. Ultimately 'Red Like Roses 2' was a red herring- and while the reader was intended to take the view that the two speakers were Jaune and Ruby, the resolution (and the effect of character resolution) disproves this fall (and death) as false.

I May Fall is ultimately a hopeful song about NOT falling, and even if you lost sight of it and forgot, it was always there. Which fits part of the thematic role of promises, both remembered (Jaune and Ruby's, which were commonly recited) and forgotten (Jeane's, which were much rarer). Ultimately 'I May Fall' applies to both Jaune and Ruby- Jaune, who does fall, but recovers and doesn't fall again, and Ruby, who comes close to succumbing to despair but ultimately doesn't lose her ideals. The song is the promise they share, with Jaune starting the depressing fall, Ruby bringing the chorus and the hope, and with Jaune finishing it off with his redemption. It's their song, because they both go through it all, and because thanks to the memories of eachother they both don't fall. Jaune pulls the break, and Ruby doesn't give up on being a Huntress.

Also, and this may be just me, but I'd swear that the male voice in 'I May Fall' sounds like Jaune.

On the other hand, 'Gold' (which was referenced rather obliquely in the story, in specific moments of hope and optimism) is an amazingly hopeful song about the unconditional compassion of someone who'd help and empower someone in a dark place. It came to epitomize my view of Ruby in the story regarding Jaune- Ruby as the singer, the person of unconditional compassion and Jaune as the person who needed it. It's important to note that as far as the song, and the story, are concerned, 'love' isn't even implicitly romantic in nature. It can be familial, or friendly, and in this context it's innocent affection and pure compassion.

'Wings' and 'Forever' were very late additions to the story- after the posting phase was well underway.

'Wings' was the ideal antithesis to 'Gold,' reflecting the effects of the memory alterations on Ruby. It's a comforting song about healing and flying in the future, as opposed to the empowerment to fly now of 'Gold.' As long as her memory is affected, Ruby is hurt and hurting and so falls more under 'Wings,' but because of that burden she's simultaneously able to give Jaune gold, and one day will herself. It a good sort of duality, more complimentary than contrasting.

'Forever' was special. It's technically the only non-RWBY song I used… but it's by Casey Lee Williams and Jeff Williams, ie the brains behind all the other RWBY songs. If it's not in RWBY Season 3, I'll be amazed, and so not only is it RWBY in spirit but it was such perfect lyrics that I felt it had to be used, even if it was a bit awkward. Obviously it's not Qrow's song- it's what he stole from Ruby (and a bit from Jaune) when he stole their memories. This is the song that Ruby should have had during 'Elysium' if her memories weren't tampered with- the song that would have applied between finding Jaune (unconscious) on the train, and until 'Gold' could be realized for both of them. Though there's only one singer, the song blends elements of both of them… which is perfectly appropriate, considering the blending the two go (thematically and metaphorically) by the end. The first part captures how Jaune wants to live life with Ruby, who keeps him from falling and who went all the distance for him. The second part captures Ruby's perspective of when Qrow explains that she'll have to forget, and so she holds the wounded Jaune and cherishes the little time they have before the mind wipe. The final could be a promise from any of them- from Ruby to Jaune or Jaune to Ruby- before the memory scrub, promising and setting up the fulfillment and resolution of 'Gold.'

So, hopefully you can see that music was a big part of this story. It was something that started small and got more blatant later on. This wasn't just because it wasn't being noticed- early fragments of lyrics and turns of phrases were stolen from the main songs were put into dialogue, but few noticed- but as a part of the rising influence and role of the metaphysical that was supposed to be in the background. Just as aura and semblances and Arc Words were getting more involved later on, so did the songs. In a sense the role of songs was the Rose family semblance, with the idea being that music was in a sense deterministic and would set/guarantee the tone of what was to come. If Arc Words guarantee promise into the future, than Rose Songs were predictors of what was and would happen (which, again, makes the rejection of Red Like Roses 2 significant).

On the subject of 'Would the Real Jaune Arc please stand up'…

Jaune is the subject of address in 'Gold.' He's that friend in a dark place, and while he's supposed to be sympathetic Jaune's not supposed to be admirable- he's afraid and desperate and stumbling from bad to worse, but he's also rationalizing and excusing himself as a harmless criminal and making one bad choice after another as they keep piling up. On one hand many of them are understandable- Jaune is broke and alone in the city and needs food, Jaune is afraid of the mob, Jaune is afraid of jail and the whispers of what go on. But ultimately Jaune's fear of the consequences of leaving are an obstacle that only grows larger, epitomized by the murder of Tukson the deserter, which serves as his 'point of no return' on various levels. This was the point that Just Jaune takes prominence, rather than being the occasional name for Jaune as it was earlier on.

Just Jaune was the criminal persona, tied to the red glasses, that Jaune Arc developed to deal with the life of crime. He's the mask Jaune Arc wore (the glasses he hid behind) when dealing with the crime and guilt and fear for his life- the worse things got, the more he relied on the more confident and capable criminal who would do what Jaune Arc couldn't or wouldn't in order to survive. Just Jaune's exact nature is ambiguous and left to the reader's discretion- whether he's a split personality or an actual second soul or a persona or something else- but he's supposed to be the 'unfettered' Jaune. The one who (thinks he) isn't bound by the Arc Semblance of never going back on your word and thus being free of consequence. As a criminal he's beyond the reach of the law, which means he can do whatever he wants… which begs the question of 'what does Jaune want?' It wasn't about the limits placed on him by outsiders, but self-imposed limits. Just Jaune didn't start after Tuscon- he'd already been subtly there before hand, in places where I seemed to use 'Jaune Arc' and just, well, 'Jaune' interchangeably. His first direct mention was when he introduced himself, by name no less, to Ruby in the burglary.

Just Jaune's rise is supposed to be subtle- you're not supposed to be immediately spot the difference, with some ambiguity between when 'Jaune' refers to Just Jaune or Jaune Arc or both. Ultimately he's a coping device for Jaune's piling guilt of the choices and people whose deaths he feels responsible for (the ghosts), but at the same time he has the core vestige of humanity by sharing Jaune Arc's desire to keep Ruby (the innocent) safe. His role towards the end, post-Tukson, is contrasting the confident criminal person with Jaune's guilt-driven mental breakdown, which culminates and resolves with Jaune no longer putting his own life and fears first and pulling the break on the Breach. Jaune throwing away the cleaver, but respectfully putting aside the glasses, is the point where Jaune accepts himself and becomes whole, rejecting the harmful life of a criminal while no longer hiding from the responsibility of his criminal past. He's prepared to accept his Fate, whatever it is… even as his judge, jury, and executioner is a Reaper with more regard for good than law.

'Justin John,' who was mentioned a few times as a late arrival but never ultimately appeared except in the hints of the Bad End, was the prospective future evolution of Just Jaune: a truly exceptional criminal who would have been more (and worse) than the Common Criminal that Jaune was. He's what Jaune would/could have been had he not stopped the Breach, the Jaune who had followed the path of the White Fang/Cinder's Conspiracy/Roman's apprentice. (Which one it would have been was left open for your imagination). He would have been completely different, being neither Jaune or Arc he would truly have been beyond the Arc semblance. Not just a fatalist but a nihilist, Justin John would have given up on hope, heroes, and Ruby, and would have been truly irredeemable.

Let's talk about powers and god damn ghosts.

On the topic of Jaune's powers and semblance- I don't write fight scenes. No apology, I just don't unless I feel I have to. I'm bad at it, they bog down my writing, and they're not for me or my style. That said, the question of Jaune's powers was something I considered since that was a clear sign of Jaune's growing status as a criminal. Aura was obviously the biggest signal that Jaune was gathering power, and I tied it to Tukson as another one of those moments of no-return as the story tone-shifted as Jaune started to really live in the underworld. His semblance was the second step, the stage at which the fantasy elements would begin to enter the story.

Jaune's semblance is deliberately vague and unclear, since there's actually two in play: Jaune's semblance, which is tied to ghosts, and the Arc Words semblance, which tied into Crocea Mors. Both play into the supernatural elements of the story, which while important they aren't the main focus, anymore than dust and semblances are the focus of RWBY proper. Cool and distinctive, yes. The plot and drama? No.

The Crocea Mors/Arc semblance plays on the idea of Weapons being an extension of the soul. For personally-crafted weapons, that's a powerful combo with the semblance, which is a reflection of a soul- but what about 'shared' weapons, like a family heirloom? If Crocea Mors is Jaune's weapon, but also his father's, and his grandfather's, and every other Arc's, then it's both an extension of his soul but also the extension of every other Arc's soul. But if it isn't just Jaune's soul, no one person's soul, wouldn't that mean that it's a soul in and of itself? A collective soul of the Arc family, one that could have a reflection of itself? I headcanon 'yes', and this collective soul, forged in Ye Mythic Past, has the semblance of the Arc Words. Crocea Mors and the Arc Words come in to parts: a shield (the unbreakable promise) that will never break so long the Arc keeps their word, and the sword (the oath-keeper) that will kill an Arc before they can go back on it. In exchange for killing them if they do, the Semblance empowers the Arcs who try to keep their words, to the point of enabling the otherwise impossible.

It's deep magic of a forgotten age, and arguably a bigger threat to the Arcs than their enemies, but it's also potent. Not necessarily easily applicable, but potent. The tautological nature of the semblance, of a promise that that the World will -not- allow to be gone back on, is what produces the time paradox at the end of Underworld when multiple Arc Words are pitted against eachother in loophole abuse by Jeane Arc.

It's best in-setting demonstration as a 'practical' power boost is actually when Ruby channels it during her little marathon: energy and determination pushing her to keep her beyond her limits in order to keep her word. If she hadn't- if she'd quit or run away or given up along the way, or later on given Yang the promise about giving up on being a Huntress- she'd havebeen killed. Ruby's heart pains after the dream sequence aren't merely emotional- there's a figurative and symbolic piece of the Crocea Mors, Jaune's Crocea Mors, in her and tying her into the Arc mojo. Congrats, Ruby- you're official an Arc in the eyes of the World. The two of you were bound together the moment Jaune entered your heart.

Wait, that sounds romantic, let's try that again.

You became a part of the Arc family the moment Jaune came into you- uh, that time Jaune sword was pressed against your chest- Er. Hey, Ruby, remember when Jaune's sister Jeane stabbed you with Jaune's magic sword in a trippy three-way role-play that still confuses you, back on that night you all swore to forget and never mention again?

(Alright, it wasn't really intended as a dirty virginity joke. But someone pointed it out by PM, and for all you shippers who kept trying to see it… now you can't unsee it. Hope you're happy.)

That's the Arc semblance. Jaune's semblance, just Jaune's, is related to the ghosts, who dabbled between real and not. Strictly speaking, it could be described and dismissed as a sort of aura-construct projection semblance like Sun's. The supernatural nature of spirits and ghosts isn't the point of the story, anymore than the magical aspects of dust and semblances are the focus of FRWBY, but Just Jaune's semblance is tied to that, empowers the ghosts to act, but most of all is the extension and reminder of his guilt.

Why don't ghosts talk to Jaune? Why can Jaune only see the ghosts he feels responsible for, even if one of them (Blake) might not actually be dead? Why does Jeane talk [like this to Ruby], but never to Jaune? What doesn't Jaune see the ghosts of the Arcs at all? Mostly it's just arbitrary stylistic decision, just like every other semblance that runs somewhere between 'rule of cool' and 'rule of drama.'

(Though they do have answers. Ghosts don't talk because Just Jaune isn't prepared to 'listen' to his conscience when his semblance develops. Jaune's semblance, undeveloped as it is, has mental limitations: were it fully developed, he could create apparitions of anyone dead or alive, even himself. He can't see the Arcs because he lost his link to them between losing Crocea Mors and rejecting the name by becoming Just Jaune. Jeane can talk to Ruby because she's empowered by Arc Words in order to help her keep her promise, and because of the link they have from Divide per Ciphra and the whole 'Crocea Mors in your heart' thing.)

If a semblance is the expression of someone's personality in a form, then Just Jaune's is a personal combination of 'memory' and 'guilt' that gave the ghosts form, not only for him but also those around him (the White Fang who see Tuscon). They may be guilt-based hallucinations, but they aren't just hallucinations: they have a real presence in the world, as seen when they move Roman's cane. If it had ever been developed and trained he might have been a summoner-sort of fighter, calling forth disposable ghosts to fight his battles for him, but as it was it was just a giant guilt trip aimed solely at him. Being a combination of guilt and memory is why Jaune can see the ghosts from those he remembers, but Resh (who remembers guilt, but whose memory is fake) does/can not.

Or maybe he is just crazy with guilt and there's no good answer for the rest. Delirious Jaune Arc does still see them at the end in the train, after all. Maybe he inherits Just Jaune's. Maybe he'll develop 'his' own some time in the future. But how does that explain the ghosts of the Arcs guiding Ruby through the caves and giving her aura to keep on running? Maybe Jaune's semblance runs a bit deeper than even I thought, or maybe Jeanne is a special case since she made a deathbed promise and planned her Arc Word on a post-mortem gambit knowing that it would fall on (and empower) someone else to fulfill it.

As you can see, there's a pretty steep rabbit hole you can go down here. Speculation for everyone lets everyone bring their own interpretations forward- even if their interpretation is 'the writer is a hack.'

Point is, rather than focus on Jaune Arc having a badass combat semblance to help with a life of crime, I thought it better if the magical/supernatural element linked Jaune's guilt to the people who passed before him and because of him. It might have no combat application in the story proper, but so what?

'WTF was the whole Ruby throwing the pillow and then seeing ghosts and what's with the time warp?'

Unlike semblances and stuff, there's a pretty basic answer for this.

It started with a drunk-post draft late in my writing process that got out of hand. And now I'm writing it down for posterity who will read this fic later and not get to live the fun of the week of fun that led to the 'bad end.'

Originally, and by originally I mean in the first beta'd draft, there was never a 'Ruby throws the pillow' scene: aside from some black humor musings, the original plan was always that Ruby would find the keys and realize that Jaune wasn't completely evil, which was what most of the foreshadowing and built-up chapters had been set up to imply. It was supposed to be a shock to the reader, the big plot twist that the 'bad' Jaune wasn't as in control as you thought. The next week (Crossing Styx) would be tension where the reader would be left wondering who was, or would be, in control: Just Jaune, or Jaune Arc? Which itself would be subverted by the reveal that it wasn't either-or: both Jaune and Arc were going to stop the train, together. So there was always a \/ sort of dip between the downward spiral of 'Underworld' and the rising action of Crossing Styx and the slow clawing upwards towards a happier ending afterwards as optimism built. It just wasn't that deep, or steep, since the final dip was Jaune walking out of the cell and not closing the door behind him.

My original intent was that that Jaune throwing the pillow and the keys would be the cliff-hanger, and that I would leave the story for a week or so there as I posted a separate fic, 'Househusband Macho,' which was also an update-a-day fic but which I wanted to finish posting on Father's Day. (If you haven't read it already- go check it out. Much happier, and the final chapter was one of my best pieces to date. End shameless self-plug.)

But as the time to make a choice approached, I realized that I was going to have some overlap between the stories regardless- I wouldn't make a clean cut-off. So I thought about how to address it, remembered that I'm a sadist, and thought it'd be appropriate and not at all hilarious to leave everyone on a mega-downer for a week rather than one of the most uplifting cliffhangers I've seen. It's not as childish as that sounds, mind you- cliffhangers usually aren't supposed to be uplifting, and considering that the rest of the fic broadly follows a 'rising tide' idea of only getting happier towards the end, I thought it'd be better to stop at the lowest part in the story (Ruby realizing she fucked up) rather than two days after what would have been the lowest part (Blake's capture, which was a meta-character of importance more than a core part of the story).

So I twisted the chapter into something suitably depressing, and thought I'd resume with a joke-chapter that blatantly broke continuity and use it to explain that I was never going to give you up, never going to let you go, never going to run around and desert you~

Ahem. (Yes. You just got rickrolled. In the author notes of how I had been planning to troll you. I am just that good, and that's the mood I was in at the time of writing.)

Anyways, the explanation was going to be at the end of a chapter in which Ruby sees dead people and does the time warp. I started it with the 'not sure if this was a dream' piece to parallel Common Criminal Finale, which was one of the most serious but also trippy sequences in the story. The parallel, that hint it wasn't necessarily literal, was to be the hook that kept you taking it seriously until you'd realize otherwise. Ruby sees dead people, a dirty joke or two, some breaking off the fourth wall, and yes I actually called myself out for trolling before doing the time warp.

And you know what? It didn't turn out like I had intended at all. It worked- or at least, there were enough parts of it did that I didn't throw it all away. I have no clue how or why- I was pretty much sleep deprived at the time I wrote it, which is like being drunk but cheaper- but instead of an outrageous comedy piece I got drama and much-needed character establishment and symbolism out the whazoo. There was back-side elaboration of some of the mechanics and things going on in the design/thought process that wouldn't have been explained otherwise, like how/why Ruby's semblance gets a super-boost when running after Jaune and why she was hearing Jeane's promise. Originally, the Arc ghosts were much more subtle, and Jeanne was only referenced directly in the final chapter's reflection. It touched on some of the deep themes and underlying premise of the story, which included the idea of Arc Words- promises that will be fulfilled, that won't be gone back on, even post-death. (You'll even note that, from a certain point of view, not one Arc Word is broken across the fic- neither Jaune or Jeanne say 'when' the wake-up prophesies will be- it's merely the characters who believe they failed the promise until they keep on trying to the point that they actually succeed.) It also touched on and elaborated the idea of weapons as extensions of the soul. It hid the quasi-deterministic aspects of the metaphysics of the story: the themes and foreshadowing were, in some ways, more than just themes and foreshadowing.

It didn't work perfectly. For some it didn't even work well. I'll be the first to admit that it was a severe shock: the equivalent of getting someone's toes wet in the semblance/magic side of the story by throwing them into the ocean rather than just jumping off the deep end. It was a drastic tone change (which was completely deliberate), it was confusing (if you think it was hard to read a paradox intended to be deliberately confusing, imagine trying to write that), and it did introduce a pretty volatile and iffy-thing element as time manipulation. (Which, and I'll be honest, would usually and generally should be the focus of any story involving it.)

The biggest problem with it, in my retrospect, is that just one part of the introduction of the fantastical elements became the focus of the chapter and the attention, rather than the character drama that began the chapter. It also violated my general posting rule of 'one main point or scene per chapter'- which added to the abnormality and let the paradox get in the way of the Ruby-Jeane scene. If I were to go back in time and change it (ha, irony), what I'd have done is keep the original section cut-off and leave the paradox piece for a separate chapter. You can see the pretty obvious break divider between where the Ruby section ended and the time warp began. It wouldn't have pleased everyone- people who disliked the first one would still be upset at the abrupt retcon without explanation, and people who enjoyed it would have been confused and think it was just an abrupt retcon- but it would have mitigated the sin.

(Fun fact: despite many people's reviews and suspicions, this wasn't inspired by the Nasu-verse, aka the Fate universe for the casually anime aware. It owes far, far more to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe for Deeper Magic fantastical fixes, and the anime Hunter x Hunter for how conditional-based superpowers can interplay.)

So it was contentious and controversial even from the start. The above probably doesn't build any confidence in my competence. Even I had doubts about it, and as my self-aware critique here should hopefully demonstrate.

So why do it? What made it worth keeping when I woke up and read over it again?

Because Ruby.

Above all else, it gave Ruby some much-needed character development, reflection, and relevance. Before then, and even after before the integration editing occurred, Ruby was less of a person and more of a prop. She was Jaune's idea of innocence and goodness, something he put on a pedestal and tried to protect, but didn't really know much about. She was a story tool, and not much else. Giving her scenes, giving her failure and despair and then leading it back into hope and uncertainty, helped establish her and why she would care about Jaune as a person. Why she could/would overlook Jaune's flaws rather than take him down like the criminal he was (because she realized she's not so different and can empathize with making the wrong choice you can't take back), why she'd go so far (because that's just the sort of person she is), and why she'd not suffer a cynicism or character change herself at the end of the story (because her character development was going to be her renewed conviction and commitment to her idealism despite failures, not because she had none). It made it less about Jaune's projection, and more about Ruby's reaction.

It also, and this was very important to me, established the limits of the Jaune-Ruby relationship. It put out the idea that there are things she wouldn't do for him, she doesn't put him on quite the pedestal he put her, and the very important fact that romantic love is never once suggested as a motivation for either of them. Between the uber-depressing chapter of angst and a supernatural 'meet the family,' Ruby become a better character and the story got a lot better in ways that it wouldn't have otherwise. I did lose the cliffhanger impact of 'Jaune is still good deep down!', but in exchange I got a deeper low point before a clear and decisive reversal of tone as the story switched from 'Jaune's fall' to 'Jaune's redemption.'

So it served a number of very useful rolls. It was a major disruptor that helped turn the tone from despair to hopeful after allowing an important scene that wouldn't have existed without some sort of 'well, it didn't really happen' trope. It set up some later scenes and references, and it strengthened other, later parts of the story. While I don't consider it good writing on its own per see, I do think it helped make other parts of the story better by contrast, even if you're one of those who more or less head-canons that it didn't happen. Call it a sacrificial play on my part, and yet another experiment.

Plus, I got to troll you. And demonstrate one of the frankly most overpowered Arcs in the fandom, in a fic during which most people were begging for me to make Jaune cooler and more kickass. You can keep your Jaunes with their invincibility or mega-regeneration or cheesy ripoffs of anime superpowers- my Jaune's just a common criminal who fights dirty, gets mother******* ghosts, and his family's signature weapon can create time-space-existence paradoxes without meaning to if their Word is broken by loophole abuse. Take notes, amateurs.

The previous paragraph was not entirely serious. Moving on like the mature, thoughtful, and serious writer I allegedly am…

Onto some mechanics, themes, and structural thoughts.

The post a day style. I touched on it a bit in the author notes, but here's the review. A post a day style is more or less my style because I suck at writing. Or rather, I suck at writing anything that isn't short, which is why most my non-drabble writings are little more than a series of drabbles. I can do chunks, but not the long prose- I get bored and move on to other ideas. But even when I do write longer stories, it generally feels like a waste (and losing an opportunity) to post it all at once. Most of my stories come a few days in which I'm sick, slightly loopy, and at home on my computer all day. I can't do that any given day.

A post a day helps control long build-up periods in-setting. Its strengths are best when covering long periods of time: say in Common Criminal, the first arc, when Jaune's experiences are over weeks or months. Rather than going through months in a few minutes and going 'oh, okay,' putting it out over a week lets the slow progression develop. A post a day is also good for dramatic suspense in short (2-4 piece) conversation or sequences: you get the dramatic pause and cliffhanger, and the patience of the audience. It's also a useful way to divide and address small groups of distinct ideas: the interactions and reflections of the three Big Bad Influences on Jaune (Roman, the criminal, the White Fang, the extremist idealist, and Cinder, the ambition), or Dirge, when Jaune prepares himself to die by coming to terms with four separate elements of his career: the consequences, the responsibility, the extension of his soul, and making peace with himself. Sometimes those were close enough that people found them repetitive, like in the post-lever pull when Just Jaune and Jaune Arc and the symbiosis, Just Jaune Arc, all got a chapter of reflection. But each chapter served its own purpose- even the pre-lever pull reflections by the Big Bad Three, in which Roman/Adam/Cinder's Conspiracy each had differing views on Jaune, differing intentions, and dramatic/implicit foreshadowing for conflict in the Bad End that was a very real possibility.

On the downside, though, a post-a-day style is really bad at covering an in-setting short period of time. It took about a week for Jaune to walk from one end of a train and pull a switch. It takes less than an hour to read the same. Not a good use of time of time dilation, especially if you were impatient with the introspection. If there was any part of the story that should have been consolidated into bigger chunks, it would have been Crossing Styx. I didn't because I generally like consistency (keeping pieces relatively the same size), and I abhor scene changes in post-a-day style writing (and the 'Jaune's criminal faction reviews' would have been three). But I maintain that even though it got boring for some, it also did a good job keep the lingering tension and drama of the readers wondering if the story was going to take a turn for the worse (Jaune beyond redemption) or better (Jaune redemption).

A post-a-day also has had some meta-advantages. It's made this story very distinctive and unique as an experience. That's both for me, the writer (who gets to see the story as it's going up, and make edits/corrections/minor changes as hind-sight kicks in before it's too late), and for you the reader. For about two months, you the reader have had something to chew on over breakfast- literally, in most of your cases. For a month this was something reliable to look forward to, and to come back for, and to watch and comment as it occurred. That built investment on your part- and that emotional investment and returning interest increased the tension, made you weigh whether it was worth it or not to continue, and gave you more investment when you chose to keep coming back. It makes any variation to the schedule more significant and take on more weight: a week without updates was a heavy pause and cliffhanger, a single day a dramatic pause, and two posts in a single day could signal importance and speed. That's an effect that's impossible to emulate with infrequent but big pushes of prose. You would never have gotten as long, or as steep, a roller coaster of struggling hope and despair and back to hope again if you read this in a single day.

(It also, and this is blunt honesty, gives more exposure for a larger audience. More chapters is more chances for people to give long and short reviews. Frequent updates means more time on the top of the FFN page, giving more time to be seen and considered. Which gives more opportunities for more people to see those more chapers and leave more reviews. That's not why I did it- you'll notice that most my works are much smaller, in small fandoms- but it's true.)

On the topic of ambiguity, ie 'how I kept you guessing (and confused) for as long as I did'…

Another of the structural design choice was the idea of ambiguity through grammar. There are a lot of things in Common Criminal that are vague and unclear- and this was intentional, from the thematic (hope vs. despair across Jaune's story, the uncertainty of the future) to the characters (Jaune and Jaune: good or bad?) to the setting (minimalist description allows/forces imagination) to even the events of the story (Jaune pulling the break, Jaune's 'death'), and even the sense of time flow (new events taking special meaning in light of old [flashbacks], while old events take new meaning with future developments, and how time dilation skewed anyone ability to keep track of it all, giving progression a dream-like feel). The key to all of these was the use of words and phrases that could have multiple meanings, and that you'd have to read through it a few times to catch most of them.

There's a lot of things in Common Criminal that aren't clear on the first read, and while some of that was inherent of the minimalist nature of the work (less description is less clarity), some of it was because of deliberate double-meanings and the occasional authorial misleading (red-herring foreshadowings, and the occasional author comment). To me, this is because deception and half-truths and contradictions are a core part of the story of Jaune Arc: a guy who never goes back on his word, which would imply honesty, but who's also a liar who cheated his way into Beacon. The inept heir to a family of impressive heroes. A coward who stands up for the right thing. A total loser, who we (Jaune fans, who are the ones reading this) ultimately like. They're all the same person, contradictory as it seems, so ambiguous and differing interpretations of scenes was a point in the writing. Even Just Jaune gets in on the action: is he strong or weak? Brave of the most afraid of all? Is he as bad as he thinks, or just as good if just given the chance?

Heck, Jaune's name was the most common ambiguity in the story. Just Jaune: is that Jaune, in the singular, implying that there's no one else in the room besides Jaune? Or the name of the character, the guy who's not an Arc? When I refer to Jaune- which one am I talking about? Some pieces of the story make sense with only one- but some parts of the story actually make sense if you re-read them with the other guy.

It comes up time and time again, including with the ghosts- who could be either Jaune's semblance, or a separate thing, or a bit of both. If there's no one alive who could let Ruby take back her mistake… what about someone who's dead? If an Arc dies before they can go back on their word, what about an Arc who's already dead? If Just Jaune is not Arc, and Justin John isn't Just Jaune, and Just Jaune is by definition not an Arc and just a common criminal, but common criminals by definition can't do uncommon things (or else they'd be uncommon criminals), could Just Jaune really have NOT pulled the break on the Breach? That's the sort of grammar tautology I played with, and it forms the heart of the Paradox piece and the various ghosts. Heck, I still won't say whether Blake is actually dead or not.

One of the hardest scenes to write on this idea of ambiguous wording was Jaune's 'death' scene. Dirge was all about Jaune coming to terms with his life and being prepared to die, and the scene had to fit three meanings in one: Jaune's (expected) death to Grimm, Jaune's metaphorical death (in which he will pass out and wake up as Resh), and, only in retrospect, what literally happened: Jaune being rescued by Uncle Qrow.

Those claws that 'scrabble' and try and break through? That's not Grimm- that's Zwei, who was with Qrow. Who is an authority who is and has been investigating since back in Underworld? Who's the Reaper he's waiting on? Jaune thinks it's Ruby, but earlier foreshadowing already indicated Qrow, which fits a theme of how friends and family can help keep promises in one's own absence. Why don't the Ghosts save or try to protect him from his Fate? Because Qrow is there to save him (and Qrow himself represents one of the Moirai, the Fates). Why does a single talon cut through the door like a scythe despite land-based Grimm having (multiple) claws, and talons only being found on birds of prey (who wouldn't be flying in a tunnel)? Because it is a scythe, named talon, which belongs to the weird bird Qrow. Why is Ruby one minute too late, and how did Jaune leave her behind? Because by then Jaune has passed out, and won't wake again until he's Resh Kolc.

In my view, some of the most powerful moments in the story were the scenes that were grammatically coherent in one way if taken at face value, while being just as reasonable in another way in retrospect. When Just Jaune 'pulled back' with the lever: even as I described the action, there was doubt whether he had stopped the train or stepped back to let it continue. (I ended that one quick- but seriously considered making it a cliff hanger in and of itself.) In Common Criminal Finale, in the alley behind Tukson's shop where Jaune was left as Mercury and Emerald went to get a getaway vehicle, Jaune's dazed meeting with Ruby has overtones of this idea of multiple meanings- they're speaking at cross-purposes for awhile, and it ends with Jaune 'being dragged away into the darkness.' It's simultaneously him passing out, him being dragged by Mercury and Emerald who have returned, and his metaphorical fall from Jaune Arc to Just Jaune.

But one of my favorite examples was the Moirai arc, where the implications of Qrow's cover up via mind wipe is laid out. Ozpin blows Qrow's story apart by directly attacking the ambiguity that I was exploiting: the question of 'which niece,' which set up the one-two punch of Ruby and Qrow's earlier scene of Elysium taking an entirely new meaning. Instead of Ruby complaining about the memory of the media, it becomes the realization that Qrow altered Ruby's own memories in order to try and keep Jaune's survival a secret from Ozpin and Ironwood (whose approach to Torchwick's secret survival was 'throw him in a hole without trial').

So grammatical ambiguity exploits the limitations of following Jaune's (and Ruby's) limited perspectives, and the audience's expectations, leading to scenes that can be read one way, and mean something else on a later read.

That's the sort of re-readibility I wanted to inject in the story. Yes, Common Criminal is very depressing and dark when you're uncertain- but, if you actually know that the light at the end of the tunnel isn't an oncoming train, the same words can be remarkably hopeful.

On the various sorts of uncertainty…

Across the story, one of the ideas I wanted to keep presenting the reader was the idea of uncertainty: about where the story was going, about what was happening or about to happen, to regularly and frequently subvert expectations and assumptions through the end. Sometimes this was giving you a false sense of certainty and pulling the rug out from under you- and then sometimes it was playing it straight in a way you were expecting a twist. The goal was to keep you guessing, and by and large I think I did.

To help it, each arc posed an implicit question to the audience- the same question of 'what do you think's going to happen,' but with a different context each time. Here's what I considered the narrative ambiguities at each stage that drove the uncertainty. These were implicit, rather than explicit, delimmas.

Common Criminal: 'How, and how far, will Jaune fall?'

That Jaune would fall was a given- it's right up there in the summary. But by going with incrementalism, and 'best intentions,' I was able to lead it on for awhile. A few people guess Tukson's murder once Cinder's conspiracy was introduced, but no one really guessed that there would be a 'floor' to Jaune's fall- that he'd fall and then linger at the level of 'common.'

Underworld: 'What does (just) Jaune want?'

This one may not have been a dilemma- or may have just been one people were willing to wait out. A lot of people suggested what they wanted Jaune's future to be, a lot of people wanted him to be a criminal villain, but few really picked up on that Jaune didn't care much about such things. Which is fine- Just Jaune at this point was more about audience projection than his own explanation- but for an arc about 'Jaune's rise in the criminal underworld' there was remarkably little ambition about what he'd do once risen. Just Jaune just wanted the power to choose- but once there, never had much thought as to what he wanted to choose.

Crossing Styx: 'Who will win- Just Jaune or Jaune Arc?' 'Will there be a Breach?'

Crossing Styx was a two-fer: whether there would be a Breach in 'this' timeline, and whether it would happen because of or despite Jaune. The different Criminal factions had their own views, the lingering shadow of the Bad End emphasized that failure was possible, but the setup definitely encouraged thinking that Jaune and Arc were at odds.

Dirge: 'Will Ruby make it in time?'

Jaune's 'death' was an obvious assumption from the arc title alone. The real question, framed by the last chapter of Crossing Styx, was whether Ruby would catch up in time to have last words with Jaune before he died. Even as Jaune came to terms with dying, the suspense was about Ruby making it in times. Ruby's 'just too late' was the dramatic anti-climax to the trope of meaningful last words.

Elysium: 'Will Ruby fall to despair?'

Elysium as an aftermath arc was really about Ruby dealing with the grief and depressing tone of the story to that point. Red Like Roses 2, besides really not being a happy song, was also a strong lead-in to leading Ruby away from being a Huntress. There was lead-up and suggestion could have become a weaponsmith, because her (in-story) friend was dead, her (canon) team was destroyed, and her (sole-survivor, traumaztized) sister was begging her not to be a Huntress. RLR2 practically ends with 'this story ends with misery ever after,' and an appeal by the second singer ('Jaune'/Summer) to not waste her life in vain as a hero. Ruby doesn't just fight corrupted memories- Ruby was fighting the narrative momentum to give up and have a bad end.

Moirai: 'Is Jaune dead or alive?'

Pretty simple sense of progression of going from one side of certainty to the other. Qrow and Ironwood play a game of words in which Ironwood leads to the accusation slowly. In the first two chapters, you get the sense of Ironwood's suspicion that Jaune isn't dead- but the reader doesn't understand why or how it could be, and Qrow is trying to deny it. Then comes the stinger of Moirai 3, in which Ozpin sets up a beautiful one-two of 'this is how he did it' to be followed by Qrow's flashback. After that, it never looked back despite Qrow playing coy.

Post-Mortem: 'Does this author note ever end?'

Keep reading to find out.

On the importance of formatting…

While language was ambiguous, formatting was intended to be very clear- the objective hints at certain things, without misdirection. We're not just talking about bolding for emphasis (or italicizing for more subtle things). [Flashbacks that could be remembered by a character were italicized text in non-italicized brackets.] [Unless they themselves were in an italicized text zone, in which they just plain text in brackets. Though the same style was used in Underworld to peak under Just Jaune's mask to reveal inner guilt.] [Ruby's fake memories used bold, italicized, underlined brackets to hint that they were somehow different from the regular flashbacks.] [Jeane Arc's ghost speaks in bold, italicized text and brackets.]

Formatting was intended to be hints and clues free of misdirection. If there's any errors- they were actual errors, not deliberate.

On the role of tense and voice, and other things, across the arcs…

Here's one area I had mixed reults in the attempt, but you could get a sense of. Each arc was supposed to have a distinct sort of tone, tense, and perspective to emphasize the different phases of the story. It wasn't always upheld- it was a lesser concern I dropped for various reasons or forgetfulness-but there was an intent for dominant tones.

Common Criminal was an arc heavy on the present tense, active voice (Jaune did things, rather than things being done to Jaune), and also the most chapters with the fewest words per chapters with the least introspection. This was intentional on a number of levels- the arc takes place over the longest period of time (starting some time well before Season One, and continuing through the end), even as Jaune takes incremental steps towards his slide and fall. Jaune Arc's lack of introspection is substituted by his rationalizations- his focus on near-term thinking, and his actions that are making his life worse.

Underworld was a radical shift, going from action driven and Jaune Arc as a character actively involved in his fall to just Jaune as a passive character who was just going along with the moment, and the passive voice. The rationalizations were replaced with introspection- short-term impulses gave way to a planning viewpoint- and Jaune's waning optimism replaced with a fatalism. All of these don't just replace Just Jaune's rise, but more generally Jaune's loss of hope. It's as if he's a passenger and a witness trapped in his own life, even watching through a screen as if from a distance when Blake is captured, and it's not until Ruby comes back into play that he's re-energized with anything. Despite the brooding and introspection, though, one of the key points for Just Jaune (who, unlike Jaune's progressive decline, was instead treated as a pre-existing character to be developed by passive reflection rather than action) was the ambiguity of what he actually wanted. He was the 'bad' Jaune, the one who gave up on hope… but it was also clear he was haunted by guilt, and despite proactively seeking power he was remarkably passive and unclear of what he was going to do with that power.

Crossing Styx was the mix of active and passive, just as it was the mix of Just Jaune and Jaune Arc. It was something happening in real time, but supposed to be bouncing between active and passive voice as the part of the ambiguity of what was going to happen. Was Jaune moving forward with a plan, or was he going along with the momentum like just Jaune had for so long? Who was the dominant persona- or, in retrospect, were they trading off the entire time? Grammatical inconsistency is generally a bad thing, but in this case switching between voice and tense was at least partially intentional, as part of the 'keep the reader guessing' as Jaune set up for the double cross and the climatic flashback chapter of pulling the break. It wasn't just laziness... or at least that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Once the break was pulled, though, it was all supposed to be active voice and present tense. Jaune has acted, now it's time for his final actions. 'Dirge' is active present tense even as Jaune prepares himself to die- appropriate for a guy with no apparent future, but he's living his life now rather than letting it be lived for him. Jaune Arc is back in the saddle, even as he makes peace.

With Ruby in Elysium, though, Ruby goes from her earlier active voice character role (the person who stirred and instigated Jaune back into active voice) to a more passive, reflective role. Elysium goes back to the past tense, and the reflective, since the big underlying theme is Ruby's memory and reflections on Jaune, even as she's haunted by the (false) memories. Ruby struggling through that, going from past tense and passive voice ('Ruby Rose is on an airship,' 'Ruby said') to a more active voice and present tense with an eye on the future in the Elysium finale ('As she rides her ship back', 'Ruby promises with a smile') is a reflection of her working through the grief and back to the optimistic viewpoint of taking control of her life.

'Moirai', being back to the 'passive/reflective' role, is in passive voice and more in the past tense- a lead-in to the focus of not only what has happened in the past, but Qrow's secret actions as well. It's an arc with little forward movement of the plot, but reflecting on what's already occurred, known or not.

The finale is, of course, a flash back… but it's in present tense and active voice, indicating that Ruby and Jaune are taking their (new) lives in their own hands. For the readers, who already know that Ruby will overcome the challenge of the false memories, the introduction of Resh is hazy and dreamlike, blending past and future. Chronologically, it's clearly in the past, pre-Elysium- but thematically, it's in the resolution of the arcs (and foreknowledge) of Elysium and Moirai. It's a blending of present tense, in the past, with a sense of the future. All and none, and hopefully giving a dream-like sensation.

Was I perfectly reliable in all of these? Hardly. I'm naturally inclined towards the past-passive tense and voice. But was there an intent with how voice and tense were to be used? Yup.

Also a related topic of ambiguity and 'not always what you thought they meant'- the Arc Words.

Arc Words: the really Super Significant promises that turned the story on its head and which a good part of the end-game revolved around. There's a lot of ambiguity about them, which is appropriate with the struggle of living up to promises. Arcs die before they go back on their word… but what does that really mean in practice? Do they only die if they choose to go against them? Is it a punishment for failure? For most of the story, it's treated as a horrible thing- so much so that Jaune metaphorically dies and adopts an Arc-free persona when he thinks he's broken the spirit of one, and the World turns in reverse when multiple Arc words are pitted against each other.

But the actual promises themselves are… pretty open ended. Jaune promises to wait for Ruby when he's in the alley behind's Tukson's shop after the murder. In a sense, he fulfilled that as soon as any time passed, because there was no time limit on how long or short he had to stay there- but at the same time, Jaune felt he violated the spirit of his Word, which is why it haunts him until the whole flashback deal with the train. Something similar happened when Jeane promised that Jaune would still be himself inside and that he wouldn't be alone in the end: you could think that it was true in the train because he was 'him' inside- Jaune Arc was whole once more- and because he wasn't alone (because he had the ghosts) (and he had you readers watching). But her Word isn't really fulfilled until Resh wakes up and takes Ruby's hand, because that's the point where things will be alright. So it's the spirit of the Word, and not simply the lawyering of it.

So the idea of the Arc Words, while potent, is also pretty lenient. As long as you try- and keep trying- you won't be struck down for broad promises. You'll even be helped as long as you try with the collective power of the Arcs- which fits the raised idea of how friends and family can help keep promises in one's stead. That is, admittedly, pretty forgiving… but very important, and appropriate, for a redemption story. That while there are limits, there's also a certain leeway for forgiveness so long as you keep trying. Puritanical moral absolutism, and legalistic justice, aren't the idea of the story- if it was, I wouldn't have kept things so ambiguous at a grammatical level.

Now, as for the inspiration for Arc Words-

My view on Semblances in general is that they're magical, related to the nature of the world of Remnant. While some are purely special effects (Ruby's speed, Blake's clones), some are 'conditionals.' 'Conditional' powers, in most fictional series, trade limitations for power: you must meet requirements to use them, or they have some drawback, but the stricter the requirement the more potent the power.

One of the better series to explore this and frame my thinking is the anime 'Hunter x Hunter,' which has some interesting similarities to the RWBY universe, including such things as being a death world where exceptional people can bring out aura powers and unique super-powers. Some people have general superpowers, but others have limitations in order to give themselves an edge. Yang's berserker semblance is an example of a conditional: her hair-trigger over her hair, and her berserker more-damage = more-power are both conditional powers. Another example would be Adam Tauros. Ever notice in 'Black' that he's always re-sheathing his sword, rather than keep swinging it free? In most series, that'd be an indicator of a conditional fighting style. If he kept his sword out, it'd probably be far, far weaker the longer he did. What makes them work like that? Why is he faster drawing his sword than people with an already unsheathed blade? Well, it's certainly not realism. It's basically magic.

So I peg the Arcs as 'conditional' users- in large part because of Jaune's (now overused) quote of 'not going back on his word.' It's an idea that goes quite well his sword and shield- the ideal shield being one that is unbreakable, like a good word, while swords have often been associated in used in various oath-giving ceremonies as both an enabler to keep a word and the reprisal if one fails it. Think of ritual suicides of apology in various cultures, including the saying 'fall on your sword.' It's not uncommon to have consequences/punishments built into a promise or contract in order to prove commitment and credibility needed to be believed. Think of a safety deposit when renting an apartment... or just think of the child's nursery rhyme 'Cross my heart and hope to die.' Combined with my earlier thoughts on weapons as a whole- and how Crocea Mors would be the extension of the Arcs as a whole- and you can see where I come to the idea of a family semblance that's a conditional power with severe consequences tied to the idea of promises. Is this purely a headcanon invention? Totally. Nothing in RWBY suggests anyone could have two semblances, or even that there's such a thing as family-inheritable semblances. But it's a concept I like enough to use for the purpose of this story.

Loopholes are important in stories about conditional powers- it's still magic, but magic with rules. Which brings back the idea of 'Deep Magic' and 'Deeper Magic.' Those are terms from The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, which is also an inspiration for my view on conditional magic in most settings. 'Deep Magic' can be thought of as the rules of the World: the metaphysics of how magic works, and when it will. People who use conditional powers are tapping into the metaphysical laws of the world to empower their magic- but in exchange, they (and everyone else) is bound by those laws. In the Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, the White Witch of Narnia, Jadis, was entitled by the Deep Magic to kill every traitor. If someone denied her this right, then all of Narnia would be overturned and perish in fire and water. So her conditional power, Narnia's destruction if someone stopped her from killing a traitor, was used to blackmail the Big Good of the setting, lion-Jesus Aslan, into ritually sacrificing himself in the place of an actual traitor. In the context of Arc Words, the Deep Magic is the consequence of Arcs going back on their Word: that the Arc would die before they go back on their words. For some, that just means an open-ended and never finished promise. For others, it would literally mean being struck down dead before they could break it.

So magic has rules. But what happens if the rules aren't fulfilled right? In the above example, the Big Good, Aslan, was innocent, but killed as a traitor. This is where Deeper Magic comes in. Deeper Magic is to Deep Magic what Deep Magic is to the plain magic- the rules for what happens when the rules are broken. In Narnia, the Deeper Magic was a secret rule: if an innocent sacrificed himself in the place of a traitor, the ritual table would be broken and death would work backwards. Bam, Aslan is alive. Combing back to Arc Words, the Deeper Magic is what happens when the Deep Magic is glitched. When the Arc Words couldn't be applied in Divide per Ciphra because of the paradox, the Deeper Magic is what rewound time and de-glitched things.

Is that an elaborate headcanon of the meta-physics? Certainly. Explained in story? Not really- and it didn't need to be. It's magic, not science, and the ambiguity is better for the character's limited understanding. It's not even critical to the character's progression for the story. And regardless, 'conditional' superpowers are a meta-thing in the first place. Consider Yang- if Yang loses hair without realizing it, would she go berserk? Or would she only go berserk if she realizes it? But if it is when she realizes, what if she thinks she lost hair, but actually didn't? Could, hypothetically, Jaune trigger Yang's semblance by cutting off his own hair and then showing her and telling her it was hers? And so on.

So, having talked about the power of Arc words, let's talk about how they impacted the story in the most controversial part of it all?

Just what happened in Divide per Ciphra? Stripped of the symbolism?

Here's the short version: it's all Jeane Arc's fault.

Here's the somewhat longer meta summary. All tell to the previous show. It's all Jeane Arc's fault, and [Jeane Arc] is a ghost with some unfinished business, unfulfilled Arc Words, and an idea so crazy it just might work.

Jeane's deathbed promise, besides spoiling the story's ultimate ending as early as chapter 16, had three parts: that he'd still be him (Jaune) inside when he woke up, that he wouldn't be alone in the end, and that things would be alright in the end. Justin John's rise after the Breach violates all of that: Justin John would be a lonely nihilist who never believes in anything or trusts in anyone else and would be forever alone, things would be about as far from 'alright' as they could be, and there won't be any sense of Jaune left inside him. Not even just Jaune, who as a common criminal will no longer be just Jaune after becoming Remnant's Most Wanted. Jeane's already dead, so she's already paid the consequence of her word breaking, but between being an actual ghost with unfinished business, being empowered by her Arc Word of that same promise to watch over Jaune, and possibly a bit of Jaune's ghostly semblance, Jeane is still able to act in this world, barely.

Jeane can be empowered by her Arc Words as long as she tries to fulfill her Word, but she's still just a ghost. Worse, without a sense of guilt about her or the connection to the family spirit symbolized by Crocea Mors, Jaune doesn't see her. The best she can do is have the other ghosts, ghosts he feels responsible for and can see, keep an eye on Jaune. If she's going to change things she needs help, needs someone real who can keep her word for her. Someone connected to Jaune.

Someone like Ruby, who's connected to Jaune by his promise, who's tied to his sense of guilt and vice versa, and who's asleep right as the stars align and the moon is right and Justin Jaune threatens to emerge. These are all Very Important because they are Meaningful and Magical and would make no sense in trying to explain from any in-universe perspective but they're totally Symbollic. Point is, Ruby is Jeane's last chance to save Jaune.

Jaune's promise to Ruby guaranteed that she'd be alive when she woke up, but she's not awake yet. And Ruby had promised Jaune that she'd come for him, as well as giving her word that she or her family stop him and whatever he had planned*. Obviously Jaune's promise will be fulfilled when Ruby wakes up safe in her cell after the Breach, while Ruby will live through her broken word.

(*Which, ironically, is his plan to die stopping the Breach. The Bad End is the various routes in which Jaune fails at this: where Ruby, trapped in her cell, can't call her family, who don't distract the White Fang guards and occupy Roman and Neo, which doesn't give Jaune the chance he needs to enter the engine room, which leads to Jaune waiting too long and living to witness the results of his actions (and inaction). The criminals never realize what he was trying to do, Jaune Arc dies inside from guilt and shattered faith because Ruby didn't keep her word about her or her family stopping him, Just Jaune fades away, and Justin John rises as he watches Vale burn. Bad End.)

So Jeane needs someone who can act in the land of the living, and is empowered by Arc Semblance (Crocea Mors) to bend the rules a bit to keep her Word and save Jaune because, you know, he's family. And we all love him. So Jeane enters Ruby's dream, because semblance-empowered ghosts can do that don't you know, and makes Ruby an offer without explaining her gambit.

What happens next is: Jeane promised Ruby it wasn't too late to save Jaune, in exchange for Ruby promising to take up Jeane's deathbed promise. Jeane in effect gives her Arc Word to Ruby, her Crocea Mors, to literally give Ruby the Arc Family semblance. But using the loophole abuse that her Crocea Mors is simultaneously Jaune's, and how she promised she'd look after him even beyond the grave, she's not giving Ruby the extension of her soul- she's giving Ruby the missing extension of Jaune Arc's soul, the missing bit of him he gave up when he sold Crocea Mors back in chapter 1. Which, ignoring your shipping impulse, means that Ruby is in spirit an Arc at heart, which makes Ruby's own promises sacrosanct and unbreakable, and lets her tap into the Arc semblance to empower her to keep her word. With the Arc Words empowerment at her disposal, Ruby's potential if she had Crescent Rose would be… well, the stuff that Arc legends were made of. She might not be able to solo the entire train, but Team RWPY (Ruby, Weiss, Pyrrha, Yang) would have won. Easily. She'd rescue Jaune, stop the Beach, everyone would be happy until the political fallout, and so on.

But that would be boring. And she doesn't have Crescent Rose. And the train already left the station, Justin John has risen, and even if Ruby hasn't woken up it's too late now. So Jeane kills Ruby with Jaune's spiritual Crocea Mors, setting off a cascade effect of Arc Words playing against Arc Words, because at this point Ruby has been inserted into a three-way cycle of Arc Words.

Jeane's Word is broken if she kills Ruby right after she promising she can save Jaune. Ruby's Word is broken if she can't fulfill Jeane's deathbed promise, or if she fails to keep her own promises to Jaune. And Jaune's word (which guaranteed Ruby's survival) would be broken if Ruby dies, regardless of whether it's Jeane who kills her (in the dream) or from Ruby's failure to keep her word (if Jeane doesn't kill her, which would allow her to wake up, at which point her Word would be broken and so the World would kill her before she could break it, right before she could wake up) of if he does it himself (the extension of his own soul stabbing her). And if Jaune dies before redemption that would break Jeane's word (that it would be alright, that he wouldn't be alone in the end, etc.). And Ruby has taken up Jeane's Word in exchange for Jaune's soul, which would mean her Word is broken if Jeane's is, even if her own promise wasn't. Which would kill Ruby. Which would kill Jaune. You remember the rabbit hole.

In the end, all three of them would be made liars, and all three of them would have had to be killed, but at that point none of them can be. Jeane's already dead. Ruby is dead at Jeane's hand and the blade of Jaune's soul. And Jaune is more or less dead himself: the extension of him that is Arc is in Crocea Mors is in Ruby's heart and dies with her, the part of him that is just Jaune ceases to be when he's no longer just a common criminal, and what little of Jaune Arc is left is more or less snuffed out like a flame when Justin John rises. The World has no one to pre-emptively kill for breaking their word because of the paradox, and so the Deeper Magic takes it all back far enough that things go differently and no paradox forms. But, because Arc Words are unbreakable at a fundamental level, Ruby gets off with a bit of Jaune Arc's soul in her heart and has Arc words of her own.

Which, by the way, is a hidden tension in the Elysium arc if you put together the clues to realize the nature of Ruby's upgrade. If Ruby had given up- if she had agreed to Yang's demand to promise not to be a Huntress- she would have been going back on her Word(s), and would have been killed. Died of a heart attack right in front of Yang before she could make the promise. Wouldn't that have been fun for Resh to learn, considering they promised to make a weapon together? Might have even broke his heart killed him. Which would have-

Oh dear. Let's just be glad I steered clear of that paradox. Fortunately Arc Words don't get broken, unlike the minds of those who try to understand what happens if you try. Not that I blame you. I even drew a diagram for myself at one point.

Moving on to themes of the story…

'Not giving up' is the central one- or, in Monty Oum terms, 'Keep moving forward.' This is both for the characters in the story- Jaune, the criminal seeking redemption, Ruby, the redeemer who keeps failing to deliver- and for the Reader. 'Hope' is obviously in short supply, while 'Despair' is plentiful… but I'm of the viewpoint that Hope is most admirable not when you can see that you have a chance to succeed, but when don't. Anyone can face overwhelming odds when they think they can win- but how many people keep trying when they don't, or even after it seems too late? If Jaune, or Ruby, or the Reader, had given up when things seemed bleakest, then they wouldn't have earned, let alone reached, the happy ending.

'Chance' and 'choice' are obvious themes throughout the story, so much so I sometimes felt I was beating people over the head with the words. I wanted a moral of the story to be that Jaune's excuses for not having a chance were really a consequence of his choices. There were circumstances behind his fall, but costs and consequences didn't mean there wasn't a choice- that's just him rationalizing to himself, especially when Ruby kept popping up. Jaune's fall was supposed to be understandable, not admirable, and not inevitable. Likewise, Jaune's redemption is when he makes good choices despite not thinking he had a chance to survival, with the happy ending with Ruby in his next life being thematic reward for conquering his fears.

That in mind, Ruby represents a lot of things here: not just 'innocence,' but also 'help' and 'another chance' wrapped up in unconditional friendship. She's also tied into the motif of Weapons, which are the idea of the power that enables someone to be strong enough to have an honest chance to make a choice, rather than be so weak that the 'choices' one faces are between bad and worse. Every time Jaune and Ruby meet, Ruby offers to help Jaune leave his current path, to escape before it gets worse and to empower him as a better person. Every one of Ruby's scenes was edited and re-looked at half a dozen times to make her words more broadly applicable- to make her offer of friendship and help relate to Jaune's general situation, and not just the encounter of the hour. And every time, Jaune chooses otherwise and things go from bad to worse. Jaune's refusal to accept help (totally canonical) and take the chance and owning responsibility for his choices are his fatal flaws that Ruby calls him out on, even if part of his reason was that he was concerned for her wellbeing.

Until, of course, he realizes that his choice in enabling the Breach would have hurt her regardless (in principle, if not in deed), and so make the right choice and gives her a chance, and gets a bitter-sweet but ultimately happier ending in line with the song 'Gold,' with Ruby being narrator of it. His chance is starting all the way from the start by going back to school and making a new start, and new weapon, with Ruby, even if he had to do it under a new life.

Which fits the theme of death, and life after death, that occurs throughout the fic: Jaune symbolically 'dies' a half a dozen times across the story. When Jaune Arc becomes Just Jaune, when they fail to stop the Breach and become Justin John in the Bad End, when they (briefly) become Just Jaune Arc when they do stop the breach, when Just Jaune is put to rest, and when Jaune Arc gives way to Resh Kolc. And, implicitly, when one day he'll probably become Jaune Arc again, finishing the cycle.

Now for the totally not subtle Greek myth allusions. In mass.

Greek mythology was a useful unifier of the themes and ideas across the various arcs: the first, the pomegranate allusion to the Persephone was the myth and foreshadowing of Jaune being stolen away and trapped in the underworld for a (temporary) period of time. 'Underworld' was totally not subtle in its allusion of the criminal underworld as a literal and metaphorical underworld ala Greek Mythology, caves and three-themed guard dogs and all. (Cinder's Conspiracy, Roman's goons, and the White Fang being the three fears/guard dog that trap Jaune in his life of crime until he no longer fears them.) Ruby's marathon through the underground (again- marathon. Think of the origin of the word.) was an indirect allusion to other Greek myths of heroes who braved the underworld to find and retrieve people, though hers was a bit more successful than most. Elysium, the epilogue at Beacon, was the Greek idea of an ideal paradise in the afterlife that virtuous mortal heroes would go to- appropriate both as an afterlife allusion for the nominal after-fic conclusion, with the extra points that not only did Ruby leave rather than stay there, but people who recognized the Elysium myth might have been clued in by how absent Jaune was, when he should have been there in spirit, so to speak.

The chapter title "Lethean Field' refers how Elysium was bordered by the River Lethe- the river of forgetfulness. It wasn't just an indicator about how virtuous souls would end up in Beacon- it's the point that 'Red Like Roses', which implies Jaune's death, is forgotten/washed away in favor of 'Wings,' which doesn't, and a separate hint the memories were somewhat suspect (even as they were enough for a bitter-sweet resolution).

'Leaving Elysium' makes a (too subtle, in retrospect) allusion to Beacon as the Blessed Isle. For those unfamiliar, Elysium is broken into two main areas: the Elysium Fields (including the Lethean Field), which is for the generally virtuous, and the Islands of the Blessed. Elysium was reserved the exceptionally virtuous and heroes of legend, but unless you were a demi-god, to get to the Isle of the Blessed you had to choose to be reincarnated and earn your way into Elysium over three lives. If you consider Beacon the metaphor for Elysium, and would consider Jaune Arc deserving one ticket in (for virtue) and Just Jaune a second ticket in (for becoming a legend, and Cinder's help), then Jaune's absence (and Ruby's 'won't find who she's looking for- yet') can be seen as the hint for the third incarnation- Resh- who will really get in.

(Admittedly that's really heavy on the meta. I didn't expect anyone to think of it that much unless I made Jaune's survival blatantly obvious too early- which is why I'm having this post-mortem.)

Now for the Moirai Arc, Ozpin/Ironwood/Qrow. Also the best part for subtle meta-puns that no one caught. Like how it's the Post-Jaune Arc arc.

The Moirai were the Three Fates who spun, allotted, and ultimately snipped life and people's fates. Remember how Jaune 'waited for his Fate'? Qrow spins a yarn (a lie), Ironwood draws its measure when he sees through and challenges it, but Ozpin does not cut Resh Kolc's brief life short by choosing to call Qrow on it. Qrow is a cheating Fate - which is what he does for Jaune, helping him cheating fate. (Or, if you prefer- the Grimm Reaper is a cheating death helping Jaune cheat death.) In the context of Resh/Jaune, whose life and fate is being decided, Qrow is Clotho (the spinner, the one spins the thread of life- the creation of Resh), Ironwood is Lachesis (the allotter, the one who determined length- Ironwood's willingness to confront 'Resh' immediately), and Ozpin is Atropos (the inevitable, the one who cuts the thread- though note that Ozpin does NOT cut Resh short, but gives two years, and so 'the inevitable' also refers to Resh/Jaune going to Beacon like they always would). Unlike the Elysium meta-symbology, this one was easier and more blatant.

And finally, giving Ren's father the code-name Lethe in the Metempsychosis chapter. Lethe was the river in the underworld that flowed around the cavern of Hypnos in the underworld. Not only was Hypnos the Greek personification of sleep (an important idea considering Jaune and Jeanne's promises regarding waking up), but people who drank from the river Lethe were said to suffer from complete forgetfulness. Guess what Elysium residents had to do in order to be reincarnated?

Oh, and those references in Gold, and the song lyric about 'turning what you touch into gold.' Guess where the Midas touch originates? Yep- greek myth once again.

Also, did you look up Metempsychosis? Metempsychosis is the greek term that refers to the transmigration of the soul at death into another body of different or same species. IE, reincarnation. Except it's totally Greek.

Is your mind blown by the pretentious symbolism and Greek theme? You almost wouldn't believe how much of that wasn't accidental or retroactive justification.

The Myth That Matters Most: The Abduction of Persephone

But all that's just flair to the most important (but least explicit) Greek reference: Ruby's role in the context of Jaune and the Pomegranate metaphor. If Jaune is Perephone, stolen into the underworld and trapped due to eating the seeds of a forbidden fruit (shout out to something I didn't make clear- Sun totally stole the Pomegranate back, hence the why Sun tosses a half-eaten pomegranate- a hint he wasn't really trapped), then Ruby is an equally important actor. Most people who remember the myth as 'Persephone and Demeter'- but there was a third key player as well.

In the myth, when Persephone was abducted to the underworld, she cried for help- but the only one who could hear was the Goddess Hecate. Hecate wasn't able to stop the abduction, but she found the family that was looking for her (Demeter, Hecate's mother- analogous to Jeane, Jaune's sister) and together the two worked to rescue Persephone despite the fact that neither was strong enough to do so by force. They ultimately appealed to higher powers (who are family) for intervention, but there are laws that even the most powerful fixers can't challenge (Zeus can't go against rules of Fate, Qrow can't openly break Kingdom law). Because of what's happened in the Underworld Persephone can't get away scott free. Demeter threatens to ruin the world with a famine (Jeane's gambit of Arc Words are threatened to break- which the Divide per Ciphra chapter indicated was Serious Business that could not be allowed to happen), until a compromise solution is proposed. Persephone can't fully escape the underworld and the consequence, (Jaune Arc can't be free and in public), but she none the less becomes one of the first (and only) people in Greek mythology to be rescued from the underworld after being taken their unwillingly.

Even though it's not a perfect ending for those involved- even though Persephone is only back half the time (even though Jaune is only half back with his mind-wipe)- it's a happy ending, and as a result Persephone and Hecate become close friends and inseparable companions, with Hecate accompanying Persephone into the Underworld when Persephone is forced to go under (Ruby takes the same sort of mind-wipe that Jaune does), but also taking Persephone back out and being a close companion ever after (Ruby being Jaune's friend/partner at Signal).

Ruby isn't Jaune's Demeter- Ruby is Jaune's Hecate.

So… yeah. The entire story of 'A Common Criminal or Something' is basically me being a hack writer and putting a RWBY twist to Greek myth and framework, with my own twist and style and other themes and ideas kneaded in. It's not so much that I built the story around the myth, but after reviewing it I realized how close the influences were, and went with them- including Jaune's (successful but imperfect) escape from the underworld rather than dying. It's a myth about the triumph of love over death- not sexual love, but agape, both by Detemeter (familial love) and Hecate (a virtuous stranger and voluntary champion turned close friend). Or, as they correspond here- Jeane (the hidden actor) and Ruby (the champion).

It's not a perfect metaphor, not a perfect correlation for the myth, but consider this: among her other roles, Hecate was a goddess associated with holding torches (the beacons of light for those lost in the dark: ie, Jaune, who without the arc/light in his eyes lost his path), the moon (which Ruby and Jaune both have strong thematic and imagery ties to, though it rarely came up in the story), ghosts (which is upheld more by Jaune, but Ruby gets to hear [Jeane], and magic (including necromancy, which also applies to Jeanne's semblance that Ruby starts to pick up, and the Rose Songs). Hecate was also, and this was very rare and remarkable in Greek myth, a virgin goddess- which underlines the non-romantic nature of the Ruby/Jaune relationship, and of agape love beating death and the underworld.

It should be no surprise that Hecate was often cast in a role as a savior or protector goddess… and did I mention that she was also associated with crossroads? The oldest symbolic representation of 'choice'?

So yes, Ruby is Jaune's Hecate. And Just liking Hecate didn't go after Persephone for the chance to bone, I'd consider the Ruby-Jaune relationship to be pure agape- love, in the sense of benevolence/empathy/good will/affection for friends and family. Not the romantic sort. At no point in the story, for Ruby or Jaune, is romantic attraction ever indicated or raised as a motivation or desire. This is not, and never was, a shipping fic.

Now, as for how many people recalled or saw any continuing parallels to the myth of Persephone, rather than see the pomegranate allusion as a one-off thing… that answer is sadly none. No doubt because Jaune was such a dominant viewpoint, it'd be hard to see except in retrospect. After all, no one tells the myth of Persephone from Persephone's viewpoint. And the role of other themes and symbolism in the story helps obscure the source material. And there's the events that don't really correspond, which blurs the line. There's nothing obvious about it, even in retrospect.

I could have tried to make it blatantly obvious, I suppose… but this is one of those things that probably works not at all in practice, but better in retrospect from an outsider's perspective.

Too subtle to be able to claim to be subtle, if you would. But a cool thing to reveal in the post-mortem.

On happy endings…

Even if Lancaster shippers could hope for the future… Ruby and Resh/Jaune are in mourning now. And have two years to go before Beacon and memory drama and all that sort of stuff would start. Save it for after the two start getting over some significant emotional trauma. For now, Just Friends- Jaune is lucky enough to have survived, and Ruby is the selfless friend to have given him a chance at life, and they both need time to heal and recover and then deal with the memories together as friends. If you really insist on thinking of pair-ups, think in terms of them going to Beacon in two years.

I was seriously considering not giving them that much- in my mind, the story originally (first outline) ended with Ruby and Yang in Beacon, where the butterfly effects of Jaune's life (and actual death) of crime were revealed- Yang was to be the only survivor of a team RWBY where Ruby was never present, Cinder and her cohort were captured by Ozpin and Ironwood thanks to Jaune's post-mortem confession, and where Ruby was the only one who would remember how Jaune was a hero in the end, because everyone else would just remember him as the common criminal who got cold feet. It was a 'greater good' ending, better for the world, but not better for Jaune or the RWBY primary cast. The only hope-spot was that Ruby wouldn't give up, and because of that Yang wouldn't either- and even Yang was questionable, since it might just have been her being protective.

'Gold' convinced me to make it a more uplifting ending, so I tempered the bitter and the sweet and gave more hope instead. Team PWBY is destroyed and RWBY is impossible- but Yang will be back, it's ambiguous if Weiss is the injured person (who could thus still play a role in the future), and Blake's 'death' is made less clear when Jaune's assumption is challenged by Qrow. Even at the Meta level, I'm going to demure on that: Jaune's semblance is tied to ghosts, but also guilt, so it can work either way. The Adam Tauros scenes, which I was iffy about, were deliberately vague on what happens to Blake so that Jaune's assumption doesn't get answered by Adam, and in Divide per Ciphra Ruby didn't see Blake's ghost despite seeing Tukson and Sun. You can choose whatever interpretation you'd like from that.

The Breach is stopped, but Cinder escapes to plan again. Jaune and Ruby get to be friends, but the cost of the chance is Qrow having their memories scrubbed in order to keep Jaune's survival a secret. Ruby thinks Jaune is dead, and while the extent to which Jaune's memories have been changed is vague, everything he associated with Ruby is replaced, for the moment, with a fictional childhood friend who died saving him. It's unsustainable, as indicated by Ren's father, Ruby fighting off the despair 'Red Like Roses' which relied on the false-memories, and the fact that 'Resh' calls her Ruby without her being introduced by name. That promises to unravel by or about the time they get to Beacon… but at least they have a chance to live that happy ending for awhile. Until two years pass, at least, and fate brings all the pieces and people back into play.

Rule of Drama, obviously.

Amusingly enough, one thing did change for the worst and get edited-in during the posting phase was the idea that Pyrrha was the fourth member of the Team RWBY that wasn't. That wasn't the original plan- originally Pyrrha's only mention was that she was the tournament front-runner after the Breach didn't occur, while the fourth member was an ambiguous KIA who was never identified and could have been any random stranger. But it was raised in the comments section that without Jaune and Ruby than Weiss really might have made her intended partner, and after thinking on it I agreed. Ren and Nora were easily ignorable by being a part of some other random team, since they have no role in the plot to speak of, but Pyrrha and Weiss didn't need to be loose ends. Plus, Team Puberty. Hehe.

(Nora has no appearance at any point, but Ren is intended to be the bartender at the Club when Jaune re-visits. He was a hint at doing undercover spy work on Crow's behalf, but in my head it was also a subtle nod to the various 'Jaune is a bartender' fics out there. I like to imagine that Ren didn't know what he was getting involved into, but needed the money for Nora-related reasons.)

On ending certain characters (or- why did you kill X in the way you did?)

One of the bigger (and yet less controversial) twists of 'A Common Criminal or Something' as an AU was the use of character death. The three main character deaths- Sun, Tukson, and Blake- were key moments in Jaune's fall and figures of his guilt, haunting both his conscience and as a part of his semblance.

That said, though… in many respects character killings were a meta-concern aimed at the audience, not Jaune. Few people noticed or cared about the mentions of Jaune hurting people- faceless, nameless people that I admittedly didn't put much (any) focus on. But the character deaths, they marked clear and decisive points away from the canon, even as the story handrailed the general sequence of canon events. The story was recognizable- many people recognized that the Breach was coming- but the use of character death cast the future in doubt.

Sun's death was the decisive break from canon compatibility. At pretty much any point before the docks, Jaune's story as a common criminal could have had a quick and happy ending: if Jaune had taken Ruby's hand at any point before then, before he'd gotten into real trouble, then Qrow could have smoothed things over in exchange for Jaune's confession and then Jaune would have been a student at Signal within weeks, and with Qrow and Ruby watching out for him he'd have been safe from the mob and White Fang. Things would have gone, if not exactly as canon, close enough- Ruby and Penny would have gone to the docks, Ruby would have interfered with Roman, Penny would have won the battle. Sun would have survived, Sun being around would have tempered Blake's obsession, and eventually Blake would have gone back to Team PWBY and things would have been close to canon. Happy enough ending overall.

Sun's death was meant to be a wake-up call about where this fic would be going. Technically, Sun doesn't mean that much to Jaune- Sun's role is more of the wakeup call that what Jaune's doing is dangerous, and to trash Jaune's rationalizations that he was being a good-ish person keeping people safe and out of harm's way. For the reader, who understands this is an AU, the implications of Suns death were an important piece of the drama of wondering what was happening off-screen with the main cast- wondering about the fallout over Blake- but for Jaune, Sun was the first fatal casualty who showed just how dangerous Jaune's path was going. Sun's death at Roman's hands, aside from allowing demonstration of Roman's racism (disrespecting the corpses) and contrasting it to Jaune's lack of it, was a useful way to demonstrate that Jaune's seemingly 'common criminal' boss was just as dangerous as the White Fang terrorists.

The second death, Tukson, wasn't itself a divergence from canon- Tukson dies regardless- but his death is the moment when Jaune truly has blood on his hands and isn't the innocent goofball we started with. Beforehand, even if Sun was dead, Jaune could have gotten out and been recognizable: Qrow might have had a harder time post-Sun, but the glimpse at Cinder and the conspirators would have been worth a deal. But after Tukson, and especially in conjunction with Mercury and Emerald, Jaune is truly tangled in the life of crime. Just as Tukson's death in Season 2 set the stage for the tone change between RWBY Season One (which was mostly light-hearted and focused on Grimm) and Season Two (which had darker themes), Tukson's death in Common Criminal set the stage for Jaune's despair and fatalism to manifest as Just Jaune. A similar transition point for both, which better indicated the increasing divergence between canon and Common Criminal.

Blake's 'death' was important as an emphasis of how things were going further (and worse) from canon, but her capture was important to (re)introduce the role of uncertainty and assumption into the narrative that would pay off later, It was uncertainty that could be for the better, rather than for the worse. Technically, Tukson is the last named character confirmed to be killed in the story- which is rather surprising when you look back on it, considering how much more death seems to follow Jaune by the end. But it's true- Jaune's guilt over Blake is more important than whether Blake is actually dead or not, and it reflects the limits (and implicit biases) of relying on the limited perspectives. Jaune's imagination and memory are enough to convince him about Blake's death- which was an initial dry-run of the same sort of conviction and survivor guilt that Ruby had later. It's not that Blake's ambiguity was foreshadowing for the memory wipes, but rather that Blake's 'death', firmly believed but not necessarily true, set a precedent for how Ruby could be wrong later.

Ruby's death in Divide per Ciphra was a highly symbolic affair all around. At this point you like it or you loathed it, and I won't try to change how you feel about it, but it occurrence (and reversal) were a decisive reversal point for the story in tone and direction.

Pyrrha/Weiss are another version of that idea of ambiguous state of life and death. One of them is dead, one of them is alive, but as far as Common Criminal is concerned it wasn't important which was which. In fact, it's important that it could be either: at this point in the narrative we were on the rising action, the increasingly optimistic half, and so it's honestly up to the reader's preference about which was which. It's bitter-sweet, it's not a perfect outcome, but it still offers a little bit of hope about your favorite character being alive.

Why Jaune's death/not-death wasn't a Deus Ex Machina.

Because it really wasn't.

'Deus Ex Machina' isn't short-hand for 'plot twist I didn't expect that worked in my favor' or 'a solution I didn't see coming.' It refers to a specific narrative device in which an otherwise insurmountable problem is suddenly resolved without forewarning by a newly introduced something. One of the two key requirements for a Deus Ex Machina is that it can't be foreshadowed- and the other is that it has to resolve an otherwise irresolvable problem. If it lacks either of these, it's not really a DEM- if it's previously foreshadowed, it's a chekov's gun. If it doesn't fix the unresolvable problem, it fails to provide the function of a DEM.

There is a Deus Ex Machina in 'Common Criminal or Something'- but it's in the mid-fic, in Divide per Ciphra. Arc Words weren't a DEM, but the implications of breaking them- the fact that the paradox would be unwound by rolling back time- that was. The DEM in Divide per Ciphra is that she gets another chance by time manipulation. It's not foreshadowed, not really, and the ability resolves an otherwise insurmountable problem.

That doesn't apply to Jaune's death. The memory wipe comes closer, but even it isn't quite.

Jaune's death is the easiest- he never actually died. I didn't tell you he died- Jaune thought he was going to, Ruby believed he did, and Qrow claimed it- but, objectively, I the narrator never told you he died. I led you towards the conclusion, encouraged it with the buildup (and naming) of Dirge and Ruby's (tampered) perspective, but the rest was ambiguous language and letting you trip yourselves. Was it a reasonable trip? Yes. Could you have realized something was up during the Elysium arc, even before Moirai? Also yes.

The means of Jaune's not dying is very simple: Qrow was the Grimm Reaper who entered the engine room.

Which is pretty far from a DEM, since Qrow's presence was explicitly indicated, if not by name, by the fact that there was a Reaper on the train even though Ruby had lost Crescent Rose. There's only one other scythe-user of note in the RWBY setting, and that's Qrow, who was also indicated by the family (and not just sister) Ruby mentioned earlier and how she tried to call him during the bad end. Qrow was present, Qrow has the power, and if you remembered animal biology you'd remember that a 'talon' is only associated with birds of prey- and were an anatomical impossibility for land Grimm. Jaune was prepared to die, but he wasn't dead yet, and Qrow wasn't going to let him. Qrow isn't a DME, since he was previously established.

On the other hand, about that memory wipe, which is independent of Jaune's survival…

That is closer to being a deus ex machina, but it's not quite. Not in the same way that Jaune's survival was- not in the sense of a chekov's gun- but by failing to meet the role of a deus ex machina: resolving an insurmountable problem.

The reveal of the mind wiping wasn't quite out of nowhere- even though I never went into it, there were clues and indicators that something was off. And I'm not just talking about Jaune referring to mind-altering semblances when he was looking for his family's ghosts in the train either.

Elysium's dialogue when it came to Jaune was focused on Ruby's memory- but also hinting that there were issues and glitches with it. That was a major point of the dissonance with the Rose Songs, when Red Like Roses 2 (which remembered death) was replaced by Wings (which didn't). The phrase 'lingered like incense' was a clue, especially in the context of Elysium 1- when Ruby reveals she's felt that ever since The Breach-That-Wasn't (ie, since her mind-wipe), and that it feels so wrong because deep down part of her knows it's not right, but for the life of her she can't remember why not. The whole point of 'Red Like Roses 2' is that Ruby is rebelling and resisting the false memories- albeit, not understanding why. Even her flashback to Jaune's death broke [appropriate flashback formatting].

And hey. I did outright tell you "Jaune did not die in vain." And then finished off with 'I may fall,' which is a song about them NOT falling. Not like they could have.

(No, really- it's not like they could have, because that's not what happened. Ambiguous double-interpretation wording, go!)

So the memory issues had a bit of prior indication- and they weren't outside of what had already been established either. Tying semblances into the mind had already happened earlier in the story on a few modest, subtle, occasions. Jaune's ghosts were something that sometimes only he could see- indicating a mental angle. Ruby's experience with Divide per Ciphra, and her losing most of her memory of it except in a vague dream, was a more practical (if unspoken) example of experience and knowledge being wiped away by semblance-magic of sorts.

Not quite a chekov's gun. But the capability was already established, and Ruby's experience gave clues that her mind and perception weren't quite right.

But that's not where the mind wipe really fails the Deus Ex Machina test. The mind-wipe fails because it doesn't solve the problem.

By the time the DEM is revealed, both Jaune and Ruby have already surpassed their character delimmas and completed their character arcs. Jaune has accepted his life of crime and is willing to accept the consequences and whatever judgement awaits him, whatever the source- Grimm, police, or vengeful criminals. Qrow deciding to mind-wipe doesn't change that resolution. You could argue that the mind-wipe is a DEM in that it prevents Ruby from being at odds with Ozpin and the Kingdoms… but that's not the problem posed or pending by the time of the reveal. The existence of the mind-wipe creates the final narrative problem for Ruby- to challenge her idealism and willingness to be a Huntress- and she surpasses it with her idealism in check without discovering the memory tampering. Without a DEM, she'd still be a good person- she'd just be a good person who'd be at odds with the system that locked Jaune away (if he survived), or she'd overcome the same grief and master her idealism (if he died).

The problem that the mindwipe is supposed to solve isn't hiding Jaune from the enemies so much- it helps, but the disguise of 'Resh' and Qrow's protection help with that. It was to hide Jaune's survival from Ozpin and Ironwood- who, if you remember in Moirai 1, approach Torchwick's secret survival by throwing him into a dark pit without a trial so that no one will ever find him, and only considering letting him out if he can break the conspiracy. That reaction doesn't surprise Qrow- and he knows Jaune can't do that, so Jaune could expect the same sort of treatment. Hidden away in a cell because his death is more convenient to countering the conspiracy, denied a future to attempt atonement despite redemption in an unjust mockery of justice.

But Qrow's deception doesn't work. Ironwood and Ozpin see through it- and so Qrow has to intervene personally. It's not the memory wipe, but Qrow's stand, that solves the problem of letting Jaune not only survive, but live a better life.

So the mind wipe doesn't work as a Deus Ex Machina because not only does it not come out of nowhere (prior indicators), but because it doesn't resolve the insurmountable problem (because it doesn't). It is, more appropriately, an 11th hour plot twist.

Why have a plot twist at the eleventh hour? Well, keeping you guessing through the end is fun. But it helps resolve some themes of the story, including not giving up, redemption, and taking chances. It fulfills all the Arc Words- that Jaune would still be himself inside when he woke up, that he wouldn't be alone in the end (of the story), that it would be alright, even as Jaune promised that he himself wouldn't be there. It finished the rising tide of optimism of a generally bitter story with a bitter-sweet ending that was sweeter than bitter.

It also keeps an eye to the future and sets up the prospect of the sequel and drama therein- the two-year timeskip and the resumption of the story of what Ruby's Year One adventures would be, even though things have changed so much. Most of the post-Breach arcs were built around aiming for that in the future: Ruby, Yang, and Resh going to Beacon, where they'll have to confront not only the renewed conspiracy but deal with their pasts. You might also remember that the Bad End was the first part in the story to make that reference- that Ruby and Jaune would meet again in two years, but not as the person friend she carelessly threw away.

Well… sequel foreshadowing! In the mid-story!

I'll probably never write that sequel, mind… but I wrote with the idea that the story doesn't end, there's just a point where the story teller stops talking.

Now, for how the Beacon plots more or less moved in the background parallel to Jaune's story, since Jaune's perspective is highly limited and occasionally unreliable…

Obviously divergence point 1 is Jaune distracting Ruby in the store. Ruby doesn't get Ozpin's attention, doesn't go to Beacon, and Jaune obviously isn't there either to pair up with Pyrrha and make the teams. Ren and Nora are their own thing, as per canon, which leaves the rest.

I imagine that team PWBY (which may or may not have been their official name, but I can't imagine Yang dropping the idea of 'Team Puberty' ) was a powerful but volatile mix that couldn't quite stick together without Ruby- they were close because they were all ultimately good people, but Pyrrha lacks Ruby's stabilizing emphasis that would have helped keep them a good team. Blake and Weiss would have been a bit more at odds, Pyrrha too meek to intervene, while Yang was the one left to play Team Mom and the de-facto Team Leader. She tries, but Blake and Weiss come to a head about faunus, and Blake goes on her White Fang obsession.

Which brings us to Divergence Point 2- the night at the docks with Jaune stopping Ruby from intervening right when Roman has Sun at gunpoint.

Ruby doesn't get hurt/sucker-shot by Roman, but the important consequence is that Sun dies because Ruby isn't there to intervene and get hurt/sucker-shot by Roman when Roman has Melodic Candle right in his face. This sends Blake further into a guilt trip, and without friend/team-leader Ruby on scene as Blake gets even more guilt-angst towards the White Fang, Blake never returns to Beacon. Even though Weiss would eventually cool down and try to find Blake, Yang/Weiss/Pyrrha have few leads of their own and no plan on how to take down the White Fang to try and find Blake. Weiss can tap into her Father's anti-White Fang efforts, and Yang can ask Uncle Qrow for help, and Pyrrha would be open to asking Headmaster Ozpin directly for help or leads, but Team WYP (Wipe) can't quite catch up to or cross paths with Blake, who is doing her own one-woman army thing against the White Fang.

Had I made another viewpoint character, Blake would have been one to serve as a negative foil for Jaune during the Underworld arc- sort of seeing his impacts on the White Fang from the outside, and serving as parallel development. It would have been angsty and hard for her, with the bad breakup of team PWBY contrasting with the only good human-faunus interactions and co-existence she could see being the sort between Jaune and the White Fang. (Which was an idea I hinted at but never really developed- the White Fang was more of a context than an actor in Jaune's story.)

Jaune would have been the target of an curiosity/interest that turned into obsession/hatred once Jaune's tie to Sun's death was revealed- something along the lines of Jaune taking responsibility (but seeming to take credit) for Sun's death because he'd spotted the suspicious banana before the fight and hadn't intervened. That little Arc would have been a few foreshadowings before Jaune more or less being kidnapped and interrogated by Blake, with Blake's vengeance/guilt-driven morality crusade being the foil to Jaune's guilt-driven fatalism and thirst for power to have a choice. The two would have argued over what they both perceived as their own lack of choice vis-a-vis the other person's choice in living a bad life. Blake thinks she has no choice but to address the White Fang herself, even though she has a home: Jaune is choosing to go down this life of crime, even though he believes he can't escape. Blake would ultimately intend to turn Jaune in to the cops and intend return to PWBY because at least she still had the chance and a home to go back to, but before she could have Jaune would have killed her (or helped his criminal allies kill her), choosing to stay in the underworld rather than be dragged out and thrown in jail and worse.

Ultimately that entire arc was dismissed as too distracting. A new viewpoint character aside, it got in the way of the Rally and the train scene and I couldn't think of a good Ruby or Adam scene afterwards like I wanted. Adam's role depended on being the anti-Ruby with a touch of ambiguity about Blade, while Ruby's call-out would have been undermined if Jaune already had it from Blake before killing her. File that in the 'could have been' folder.

Instead, Blake's loose end is rolled up when Jaune spots Blake and is responsible for her capture at the Rally. This, not Tukson, is the real divergence point 3 from canon- the White Fang and their stolen military hardware isn't exposed. Thanks to Jaune's interference (and removing Ruby's repeated interferences), the Breach plan is on schedule and going smoother than canon. Which results in Ozpin (who's hearing the rise of Just Jaune and knows his plans aren't working well) and Yang (who's worried about Blake) to reach out for the mysterious Uncle Qrow, Ruby's uncle and teacher at Signal.

If I had a chance to redo that scene, after some feedback, I think I would change it slightly so that Jaune was more involved in Blake's capture. Not simply from the cockpit of the mech- though that had a thematic point in indicating how Jaune was practically watching his own life go by without being personally involved- but something along the lines of being involved in tripping/tackling her in her attempted escape. Jaune would have been a goon on a catwalk below the window, Blake would have shot out the lights, but when she makes for the window he can see her golden eyes in the darkness from the light coming in the window and manages to check/tackle her awkwardly. Neo subdues her, Blake's still dragged away as Jaune can't help but look her in the eyes, and Jaune gets lauded as a hero by the White Fang on stage even as the guilt begins to grow.

Qrow deserves his own section. He's the reason why Jaune's survival is not a deus ex machina- Qrow's role was foreshadowed, mentioned, and even referenced a few times. It was just very subtle.

Qrow is the most subtle actor in the story, so much so that despite various foreshadowings no one actually mentioned him in the reviews until Crossing Styx, and only one person remembered and guessed him as the Grimm Reaper during the Dirge finale. Even some of the most perceptive reviewers forgot about him. Since Jaune had no insight on him and no direct contact with him, it was pretty hard to hint at his involvement without being too blatant. The clues had to be in the showing, not the telling.

Qrow (foreshadowed by Ruby's early references to her uncle helping Jaune, the Ozpin flash and the mention of Jaune's dossier, the 'little bird' that was telling PWBY where to hit, Ruby's reference to her family (plural) and not just Yang in her jail cell confrontation with Jaune, and by the 'Reaper with a corgi' when Ruby's scythe was missing) is the ticket/plot device that helps bring the Breach train scene back together somewhere resembling canon, even though Ruby isn't at Beacon and team PWBY is too focused looking for Blake to care about Beacon classes or Dance drama.

This is actually how it comes back together, because Yang seeks out Qrow's help to track the White Fang and look for Blake because he's an intel guru with leads into the underworld. For similar reasons, Ozpin also called Qrow in during Underworld when Jaune was rising up the ranks, in hopes that Qrow would be able to make things happen. Such as helping place Ren as a bartender/informant in Junior's club, right in time for when Jaune to come back for a visit to talk about the shipsments for the Beach. Ozpin has already called in Qrow because the worrying progress of Cinder's conspiracy, Qrow has the dimmest of leads on the White Fang, and Qrow brings along Team WYP to Mountain Glenn to investigate, with Qrow replacing the Beacon faculty professor of canon.

Qrow, a smart guy who I see as putting family above friends and being more 'good' than 'lawful', has put various pieces together and pegged Jaune as (a) Ruby's friend (Jaune's claims, and the fact that he kept Ruby out of trouble and a burglary that Qrow would have been investigating because Torchwick, even if Ruby wasn't aware), (b) involved in the Roman/White Fang/Cinder conspiracy (the meeting with Ruby at the docks and the dust robberies, ties to Torchwick and Mercury/Emerald, and the Tukson event), and (c) alive and not entirely happy to be a part of his life of crime (Jaune's post-Tukson confession to Ruby, the fact that he was moved by someone else, and that bartender!Ren would be in a place to hear about Jsune's departure from the Club).

So Qrow brings Ruby to Mountain Glenn as well, nominally because Team RWPY could use an extra person but actually because Qrow has a vague idea of using Ruby's friendship with Jaune to turn him if the possibility arises. It's not that Ruby being captured and talking to Jaune is part of the plan, but the fact that Jaune releases her safe and sound with both a key and her scroll to pass on information more or less proves to Qrow that Jaune is the real deal of someone stuck in a bad situation.

Oh, and Qrow may actually have promised the Arcs that he'd try to take Jaune in, but failed to reach him in time- I'll leave that part of Resh's backstory as another ambiguously vague thing and neither confirm nor deny it.

After breaking out of the jail thanks to Jaune, Ruby's divergence from the Bad Future (where she didn't) isn't so much what she does- it's her calling on her family and Yang's team to do what she can't, fulfilling her Word on her behalf. In the Bad Future, Qrow and Team PWY miss the train. Here, they make it… but they're understrength, Jaune's interference at the Rally means that the White Fang has another Paladin and more strength, and Jaune is trying to focus all the defenders (Roman and the White Fang) in the rear and away from the engine that he's planning to stop. So they get mauled. Yang is rescued by Raven because You-Suspect-Why, but Weiss and Pyrrha aren't so lucky. One is crippled, the other is dead, and even if I have a thought I'll leave it up to the reader to decide which they prefer. At this point in the story, we were clearly on the 'tension but more optimistic' side of things, so even your casualties are left to your preference.

After Jaune stops the train, Qrow makes his way forward to secure the victory. He captures Roman (who jumped ship and tried to flee rather than hole up in the train car awaiting certain death), which is a major coup in his efforts to find who's behind the conspiracy. He saves/stabilizes Weiss or Pyrrha, and has them guard Roman. And he (and Zwei) also finds Jaune... which is a major complication.

If people realizes that Roman was captured alive, then the Qrow's advantage on the conspiracy (of them not knowing that he knows things) will be lost. But the thing is, Jaune's survival threatens that. If Jaune is spotted walking around in public, not only might someone realize the implications that he survived by virtue of being the betrayer, but his survival would open the door to realizing Roman's survival. Which, again, threatens the Qrow's advantage.

So the survival of both Jaune and Roman needs to be a secret. The world can be fooled with a news report, but Jaune would be recognizable to the local criminal underworld and Cinder's conspiracy if he's walking about free in Vale and in the company of Huntresses as an implicit snitch. (Which, if you remember, Cinder was already concerned and talking to Roman about.) If Cinder realizes just how much she's been exposed, she could really go to ground and escape their notice for real. Especially after her escape when Emerald and Mercury are captured. Qrow doesn't want to take the risk that his flimsiest advantage might be compromised if she realizes the implications of Jaune's survival.

And that's not even touching how being found alive would put Jaune's life in danger- and, by extension, Ruby. Who, by the time she shows up and finds Jaune passed out but alive, damn well isn't going to be separated. Where Jaune goes, she'll go, or kick up a storm and blow the secret trying. So, short of killing Jaune and his niece, Qrow has three main options. He could let Jaune be arrested and put into isolation like Roman, hidden and locked away for his own protection. Problem is, Ruby would kick up a storm against the injustice, almost certainly blowing the secret. He could send Jaune way out into the boonies, exiled but alive and not in jail. That's less of a problem… but Ruby would probably follow him. Or he could try to hide in plain sight while covering up his survival.

He doesn't choose option A. You can take your pick as to why: because Ruby, because Jaune is redeemed, because he promised the Arcs, because he knows about the power of Arc Words, because he's not an asshole, or all of the above. But if he's going to do B or C, he needs to hide Jaune's survival from friends and foe alike: Ozpin and Ironwood would sooner exploit Jaune (and Ruby) as a pawns for the greater good than let them live in peace. They aren't totally fooled- Qrow's deception against them fails- but Qrow's made his choice and there are better things to do in the meantime than pick a fight over someone in Qrow's control and who will fall to into theirs soon enough. Thus a two-year break before Jaune no longer his ward and things start moving again.

So Jaune gets a hair dye and hair cut, and contacts to make him look not at all like Jaune Arc. (But, ironically, look like a blend of Jaune Arc and Justin Jaune: the red contacts much like the glasses, and the black buzzcut matching a black bowler hat.) But Qrow's knows there's a risk of Jaune revealing and exposing himself on accident, which means his memories need to be altered for the time being. But even if he stays, Ruby could be the one to accidentally expose him.

When faced with the choice that Jaune, now Resh, live a nice, safe life in peace far away, or be able to become a student at Signal with her on the condition she forget his survival, Ruby chooses to have her memories edited as well if that's what it takes to keep Jaune close. Because, agape. And Arc Words. And Symbolism. And one of the best damn chapters in the story, and you know it.

(There is a lingering question of 'how much does Weiss/Pyrrha and Roman know?' This is ambiguous- and there are multiple ways it could have occurred. The could know nothing- Qrow could have helped Ruby run away with Jaune and telling her to hide him on the bullhead, and then gone back for Weiss/Pyrrha/Roman with them none the wiser. Qrow could have asked Weiss/Pyrrha to keep it a secret, and blackmailed/threatened Roman with how if Roman spilled the beans, Qrow would ensure Roman's punishment would be far worse. Considering Qrow had the Lie's on standby, they too could have been put under a much smaller memory scrub of how they survived the train. Or it could have been a mixture. Call it a loose thread in Qrow's plan.)

The Lie Clan semblance is part of the same personal headcanon of the RWBY verse that includes the idea of Arc Words. As the brainwashing doesn't exactly solve any plot or character delimmas (in fact, it introduces current and future dramatic problems more than it resolves anything), it really isn't a deus ex machine as much as a final plot twist of Themes and Symbolism At Work.

It plays the conspiracy angle that Jaune was and still is tied up in, it touches on the role of sparingly explained semblance/supernatural elements that were progressively more in the end-stages of the story, it plays into the highly significant ideas of 'identity' and 'life after death' that abounded for Jaune across the fic, and it enables the simultaneous fulfillment of the spirit and not just the letter of all the important promises and Arc Words that Jeane, Jaune, and Ruby had in play. I feel it's a thematically appropriate end to what is, in the end, a redemption story worthy of a Legend in Remnant.

Plus, it's explicitly a temporary solution. In a matter of years, it would be breaking down and the old memories return and the risk resumes. It might be even sooner- who realizes that Ruby is already fighting against and breaking down the effects of the mind washing within days?

So say that it will all be unraveling within two years… which, totally not coincidentally, is when Ruby is looking to get into Beacon, when Yang will be back, when Cinder will probably be ready to move again, and when the hypothetical sequel would no doubt start.

That's right. Sequel. And hypothetical. While the story was finished with the open-ending to start off at Beacon Year 1 again, don't get your hopes up. I'll never write it.

Why? Because this is 'A Common Criminal Or Something,' not 'The Name's Resh Kolc or Something,' and this story is complete. It has a unique style, a unique tone, unique themes, and it's concluded. A sequel of an AU Year One would be an action-adventure comedy project that, while perhaps good on its own terms, would be radically different in feel. Let Common Criminal rest in peace, now that it's found its end.

I may write an outline of it one day, just to try. Or may not. This project is concluded regardless.

NSFAQs

(Not So Frequently Asked Questions)

Here's the answers to miscellaneous questions not already answered.

-What does Roman think of Jaune's decision?

Ambiguous, since it's ambiguous what Roman even knows. But probably a mixture of 'hate' and 'impressed'- he'd make Jaune suffer if he ever gets the chance, but there'd be an undercurrent of 'I didn't think he had it in him- they grow up so fast.' Roman and Jaune weren't friends- there wouldn't be personal feelings- but Jaune was a personal pet project of Roman's.

-Who was Jaune buried as? Jaune Arc, Just Jaune, or Justin John?

Jaune Arc. Jaune buried his family who died to plague, but that doesn't mean anyone else knows where he did it. Without a body and with no surviving family, his (empty) grave is wherever someone else cares enough to put it. The people who care enough about Jaune Arc can be counted on one hand, with fingers to spare.

In time, as the Breach That Wasn't is investigated, Justin John's myth will fade and Jaune Arc will be remembered as the criminal.

-Does anyone else know about Jaune's personality/identity issues?

Not really- not enough to understand, anyway. Most of the criminal types only know Jaune as, well, just Jaune. A few might know his last name, but they don't think there's any hero with a conscience lying in wait.

Ruby (and Jeane) would be the only ones to have a sense of both sides of Jaune- but they wouldn't really understand the mechanics of it or anything. Jeane just knows that it's her brother deep down. Ruby, on the other hand- she might have befriended both parts of Jaune, but she doesn't really distinguish them as separate entities. There's Jaune, the guy who was a friend to her when she had none and looked out for her, even though he was a criminal. There's Jaune Arc, the boy with ideals who needed help and made a promise with her. They aren't different people to her, they're different sides of the same coin, which they are, and she appreciates the whole.

-Is Resh supposed to be Jaune, or a different person?

Both.

It is supposed to be ambiguous- you can interpret however you'd like, and that's deliberate- but Resh is Jaune living his redemption, even if he doesn't know it. His personality would, memory quirks aside, be a mesh of Jaune Arc and Just Jaune's.

Which is to say, had I had time to flesh him out myself... he'd have recognizable traints of Jaune- both Jaune's. He'd be good-intentioned, keep his word, stands up for his friends, suffer from motion-sickness, and want to become a hero. He'd also have only a casual relationship with 'total honesty,' and be more than willing to make non-idle threats when friends are involved. And that's just from Jaune Arc. Daddy Two left him a criminal mind, a tendency to fight dirty, and an approach to morality that occasionally borders on the frighteningly amoral, especially when lives (and friends) are at stake. But there's also one person that he'd never, ever hurt or leave behind ever again- and that's Ruby, who serves as both friend and morality teather.

Resh is Jaune in the sense that a reincarnation of you is still you, even as it's different. Resh has different memories. Memories and experiences make for distinct people. But the core of it is much the same- especially since Resh's memories have their own criminal past at least somewhat analogous to Jaune's.

(More than that, kinda. This goes into the speculative, future-fic-that-doesn't-apply-to-this-story territory, but- Resh's memories and sinful past are basically 'Jaune, if he'd taken Ruby's offer of help in the jail.' Resh was a criminal caught up in something big. His friend 'Xia' tried to make him stop and oppose it outright. Resh's memories would be that he accepted her help- even though she didn't have a weapon- and that she died as a result in the attempt. So Resh's memories, and guilt, are based on what Jaune's would have been had he taken Ruby's offer and opposed the Breach by force rather than treachery. But that's headcanon of mine, not a relevant or even canonical part of Common Criminal.)

-Is Resh ever going to remember that he's Jaune?

Maybe. The future- at least outside of sequel-thinking- is up in the air and uncertain in Common Criminal.

That said… Ruby is probably going to remember the truth first. Ruby's Elysium arc has her already fighting off the effects of the mind-wipe and fighting against Qrow's memory manipulation, in days rather than years. It's ambiguous how long the effects will stay- she's not going to remember Jaune not being dead any time soon- but she's closer to the truth. Resh/Jaune, who are grateful to be alive and have this chance, aren't fighting anywhere near as hard against it.

There's also the question of Resh resisting it- though this comes in the sequal-thinking territory. Resh has his own feelings and own memory and own sense of identity- and future drama in any sequel would undoubtedly focus on him resisting being called 'fake.' His feelings and guilt for 'Xia' are real enough to him- and by the time Ruby remembers 'the truth', she'll be friends with Resh in his own right. And that's not even touching on the pragmatic issues with Resh abandoning 'his' identity.

-Is Resh Kolc an anagram for 'Sherlock'?

No shit.

(/jk)

-During the Breach, what was the deal with Raven and Yang?

Raven saved Yang from Neo, as per canon. However, since Yang's team was on the cusp of total failure and a party wipe and the Breach seemed imminent, Raven carried Yang out of there by portal. I thought it was reasonably obvious.

Now, here was something so subtle no one at all picked up on it.

In canon, Yang wakes up almost immediately after fighting Neo, and gets a glimpse of Raven. In Elysium, Yang has no memory of who saved her or how she got to the Bullhead, where she is found still asleep and doesn't wake up until later. In Moirai, its revealed Qrow had the Lie's with their memory semblance on standby. Which, when used on Ruby, left her asleep for a remarkably long amount of time.

Which niece indeed, Qrow? Which niece indeed.

-During the Breach, who died- Pyrrha or Weiss?

It really is left to the reader to decide. I have my own thoughts- it'd be made 'canonical' in a sequel- but for the purpose of Common Criminal as a stand-alone, it doesn't matter.

I'll just go and say that it wasn't Weiss leaving Yang's room when Ruby visits Beacon, though. Important words are important: I said the girl was no older than her, not no taller.

-You've got to tell me- is Blake alive?!11!1!?

I will feast on your tears and write the sequel before I ever tell you.

-But seriously- if she's not dead, what's the deal with the her ghost? That's got to mean something.

Semblance magic. Or maybe Jeane Arc pulling strings on the far side. It could mean everything, or nothing.

-Did the whole Divide per Ciphra chapter come out of the Nasuverse?

No. I've been geeking out with fantasy elements and rule-based magic longer the Nasu-verse has existed.

-Will I write a future epilogue chapter of what happens one or ten years in the future?

Absolutely not.

Writing a future-epilogue piece would be a huge thematic betrayal about this story- which is based on the uncertainty of the future. That uncertainty was a major cause for despair, but it was something consistent from start to finish, and the fact that you could have hope despite certainty was a key point of the end. The fact that the future is still uncertain is why the optimism of the ending is so important- going out and telling you 'this is how awesome the future is' robs the role of hope in the face of uncertainty. This is (one of the reasons) that the final chapter, of Ruby and Resh, is actually a flashback- it's something that already happened, that gives hope for the future, rather than tells you what the future will be.

The only sense I might ever write future content would be in the context of a sequel outline for 'The Name's Resh Kolc of Something.' But that would be a sequel, not an epilogue, and an entirely separate project with entirely new structure and themes and concerns.

And finally, a question I asked myself…

-Why did I write this Post-Mortem?

Card tricks in the dark.

If you've never heard of the concept- imagine an entertainer who can do an impressive card trick with the lights turned off. That might be impressive- a technical feat worth lauding- but what does it matter if no one can see it? It might as well be nothing.

Common Criminal was big on brevity, and certainly confusing at times. It was an ensemble of emotion, with tons of twists. But despite plenty of planning, so much of it might never have been noticed. Parts I'm proud of, even if they weren't necessarily the plot.

Take the songs. There was always a musical element behind the planning. There were even snippets of lyrics scattered through the dialogue throughout. It was subtle- so subtle that only one person ever remarked or noted it, and I'm fairly sure most never noticed. I always intended to have outright lyrics- I May Fall in particular- but there's a point where you have to be direct. Elysium is the best example of this.

Earlier drafts of Elysium didn't have Red Like Roses 2- but they weren't suspenseful either. Instead of struggling with grief, Ruby was an undaunted, almost chipper girl who didn't have any real signs of grief. Jaune might well have not died- and to be fair, he didn't- but that missed the point of Ruby not knowing that. Instead of 'is Ruby going to drown in grief' there was no real tension. Red Like Roses 2 brought the tension of 'this is a sad story.'

But, thing was, there was none of the 'Ruby's thoughts on the song' at first. You can still see it in the chapters- you can pretty much read the first half, the parts without the music, and see what it originally was. Thing was, though… the lyrics of Red Like Roses 2 were too convincing, and Ruby's refusal to go along was jarring rather than heroic. Most readers, I'm fairly sure, wouldn't have understood why it wasn't the right song.

So to help the drama, Red Like Roses 2 was brought in. But to make Red Like Roses 2 work right, it needed to be tempered with insight. Which brought the 'Ruby reflects on the Rose Song' segments. Which allowed the arc to work as intended- Ruby struggling through grief, not unchallenged but ultimately overcoming, and having a symbolic victory over Uncle Qrow's memory gambit.

I liked that. I like what I ultimately had, even if it's not perfect. But you'd never have gotten the affect that was intended if I hadn't did what I did… and you would never have known if I didn't pull aside the curtain and let you see the card trick at play.

That's the sort of reason for this Post-Mortem Autopsy.

And that's it. Thank you for indulging me for so long- for this fic, for the tricks, and even for this autopsy.

Shout out and thanks to PhantomGalaxy13, both for agreeing to beta this and for letting me borrow the names Resh Kolc and Xia from his story "How I Made You Meet Mom." Resh Kolc is the (fake) name of Jaune's son from the future, while Xia is his childhood friend. I highly recommend anyone give the story a chance, as it steps up its game quite well once it hits its stride. In exchange for giving him uber-spoilers and losing his reviews as a first-time reader, PG13 caught a lot of bugs and typos and bad turns of phrases. He was also kind enough to leave non-spoiler reviews from time to time. Then again, he's also the one who convinced me to put in 'Divide per Ciphra' as a one piece mind-screw rather than break it up, and he didn't argue against it at all.

He also laughed at speculations, drank in your tears, and dined on your angst, despite knowing the ending, so you can thank him for that as well.

As a thanks to my readers, I'll leave off with a cast call from me to you. Feel free to ignore it if it crosses your preferred headcanon for this fic. Just consider it the teaser of the very different sort of story that would have follow.

Cast Credits: Who was in Common Criminal, and where will they be two years later?

Jaune Arc: Dead. Really. If you don't believe me, just ask anyone who ever knew him. He was just the last of the dead Arcs, who himself died in the Breach That Wasn't. At least people have finally stopped confusing him for Justin John. His short-lived criminal career is almost as famous as the death of the Arc Family, and is synonymous with crime and a fall from virtue. No one knows what happened inside the train, but a rumor is spreading that it was Jaune's bloody cleaver that cut the brake. What that means is the real question- if he was the one to do it at all, did he do it in an attempt to stop the train, or stop it from being stopped?

Resh Kolc: Alive, best friends with Ruby Rose, and recently graduating Signal with a straight shot to Beacon. Nice enough in person, he has a reputation for being downright nasty in a fight. A good guy who's trying to make up for a bad past he doesn't like to talk about, he's a bit of a social outcast in Hunter school because of mediocrity. Despite his age he's only average for his class, an issue made worse by the lack of any recognizable semblance or even a truly signature weapon. Also struggling with nightmares of hurting people he can't remember hurting, and having trouble with his memories. Like, he doesn't remember when he started dying his hair, needing contacts for an eye problem he never notices, or why Uncle Qrow insists on regular buzz cuts- he just knows it's important. Afraid of ghosts, and swears he's haunted despite never seeing one.

Just Jaune: Laid to Rest. His red glasses remain in the Train, and his Weapon is shattered. Were anyone to find the glasses and give them to Resh, Symbolic Things would happen. Were anyone to find both his glasses and Rubrem Mors and bring them both to Resh, Even More Symbolic Things would happen. Just Jaune has always been his own spirit with a mind of his own, and even if the extension of his soul was shattered, his memories were never wiped.

Ruby Rose: Alive, graduating Signal with her best friend on schedule, and definitely a Big Girl now. Recognized as a prodigy, her abilities have separated her from many of her peers- except best friend Resh Kolc, even if her abilities with a scythe overshadow his hard-earned competence. Her completely platonic relationship with her best guy friend is staying that way for the foreseeable future- not only does Resh still moon over his old dead friend Xia, Ruby has an increasing tendency to conflate him with her own old dead friend Jaune Arc. Has a tendency to hear [whispers] that no one else does, helping keep her a fellow socially awkward person with Resh.

Pyrrha Nikos: Dead or crippled, and famed as the Huntress who stopped the Breach That Wasn't regardless. Is the one to give meaning to the term Pyrrhic Victory. The public believes that it was she and her polarity semblance that hit the brakes and derailed the Train. Her statue is first and foremost in the statue of Team PWBY that stands in the Beacon courtyard- a replacement for the monument destroyed by the captured conspirators. A Legend in her own time. If dead, only Yang and Weiss remember the lonely girl she really was. If the survivor, the crippled Champion is trying to keep the memory of her late partner and friend alive by keeping a promise.

Weiss Schnee: Dead or crippled. Her sacrifice in stopping the Breach That Wasn't brought honor to the Schnees- which has only further enabled her Father to escalate his war with the White Fang. If she is the one who died, only Yang and Pyrrha remember the Schnee Angel as the acerbic girl with a strong sense of justice. If alive, the no-longer Heiress apparent struggles to retain influence and gather allies within SDC… at would have, if she hadn't received an offer from the person she least expected to help. The reason she survived her fall in battle is one she refuses to talk about, but every day she wakes up she offers a prayer of thanks that the train stopped just in time.

Blake Beladonna: MIA. No one's found the body, and only the elite of the White Fang knows for sure.

Yang Xiao Long: Alive, beautiful, and troubled. Famous as the Sole Survivor, a name she hates, for being the last active member of Team PWBY and for being the only one known to (be able to) walk away from the Breach-That-Wasn't. She's spent the last two years investigating the White Fang and her own past, with indecisive results. Has a good opinion of Resh Kolc for helping Ruby get over Jaune Arc, who Yang has a less than positive opinion of due to bitter memories of two years ago. Even if she's not as strong as she would have been had she not dropped out, when Yang finally comes back to Beacon to fulfill her promise to Ruby, she is going to kick so much ass.

Lie Ren: An upperclassman at Beacon, works part time as a bar tender at seedy bars in Vale where the money is better than the customer. Former classmate, current contact, and occasional sparring partner for Yang to keep her skills up over the years. Takes a special interest in freshman Resh Kolc, claiming their families were old friends, even though the closest Resh remembers is a black-haired girl, not boy.

Nora Valkerie: Ren's closest friend and fellow third-year. They're together. Maybe not together together, but she's probably the reason he needs money. She may seem too crazy to follow sometimes, but sometimes she's the only one who can follow the craziest things.

Uncle Qrow: Melancholic as Ruby and Resh prepare to graduate. Has been preparing Ruby and Resh for Beacon, even as he runs his private spy network and investigates the Breach That Wasn't. Has weird healthcare beliefs, a special interest in Resh's problems, and a tendency for cryptic wise guy advice. Has a tendency to hum when left to his own thoughts.

Headmaster Ozpin: Still Beacon's Headmaster. The near miss of the Breach That Wasn't was a shock to his standing and his personal sense of control, and trying to track the culprits has only added to the stress and grey hairs. Still a good man, but the near-catastrophe have left him less risk-tolerant than he once was. Has started a collection of relics and weapons of fallen heroes as a new hobby of his. Also has a troubling interest in Resh Kolc's past, much to Ruby's unease.

General Ironwood: Known as the General no matter what Kingdom he's in, because he organized and leads an autonomous international taskforce to both investigate the Breach That Wasn't and to stop the White Fang's attempts to spark a faunus revolution. Close partner with Schnee Dust Corporation, who shares the later goal in so much as it helps President Schnee's agenda. Has held his trump card close, but believes its coming time to release her.

Penny: Alive. Hasn't seen Ruby since she was pulled out of the Vytal Festival post-Breach That Wasn't, but has stayed in correspondence. Looking forward to returning to Vale to see her first friend again, keep her promise to return for second friend Jaune Arc (whose body was never recovered), and finally meet Resh Kolc. About the second, Ruby tells her that it's important to keep your promises, even if the person is already dead, so she's willing to return and bring back whatever she can. If only she can just find something of his that would have his signature…

Hei 'Junior' Xiong: Alive, owner of The Club, and Ren's employer. Makes his living on the crossroads of legality and the criminal underworld. Ever since word started spreading that it was Jaune's Bloody Cleaver that cut the brake on the train, he's been entertaining the customers with the tale of the most famous common criminal of all, who started right here. Slightly embellishes the tale to make himself look better by association.

Roman Torchwick: Alive, imprisoned, and the only one to know The Truth, even if he's not saying until there's enough in it for him. Locked in solitary for the last two years with no one to talk to but the rare visits from the Moirai, he's changed. Ever since his Weapon was stolen, he hasn't just lost a part of his soul- he may have lost a part of his mind as well.

Neo: Alive, on the loose. Roman's accomplice is said to be uncatchable, extremely dangerous- and looking for someone. Several someones. No one knows who or why, because she ain't talking.

Cinder Fall: Alive, on the loose. The master conspirator whose plans were foiled in the Breach That Wasn't has gone to ground for the last two years. Now she has a new plan, and needs some old pawns to help with her new ones.

Mercury Black, Emerald: Alive, imprisoned. Beaten in the Beacon Courtyard in a battle that destroyed the Hero Statue, they know they were betrayed- but not by who.

Adam Tauros: Alive, on the loose. A nominal leader of the White Fang has a curious interest in the late Arcs- and not merely the sort of satisfying blood lust or revenge against one in particular. Known to spend much of his personal time alone in off-limits areas guarded by security robots.

Jeane Arc: Dead. Having given up her Word, and on close watch by the World for her earlier trickery, her ability to manipulate events is [minimal]. Totally rooting on Resh to find a nice girl, even if only one can hear her.

Bloody Tukson: Dead. Moved on. Except sometimes in Resh's dreams, and isn't that an awkward thing to explain for the guy who never met the man who died in the building right beside the alleyway where Ruby Rose once met Jaune Arc?

Sun Wukong: Dead. Could move on if he wanted, but may have some unfinished business with the whole Blake deal. Ghost most likely to prank Resh Kolc.

Blake Beladonna's Ghost: ?

(Yang Xiao Long swears she's sometimes seen her dead partner around when she visits Qrow's place after a few too many drinks.)

Crescent Rose: Lost somewhere between Mountain Glenn and Vale. Even though Ruby has forged Crescent Rose Mk.2, she still misses her first baby. About the only place she hasn't checked is the last place anyone remembers seeing Roman Torchwick, the man who took it- the Train.

Rubrem Mors: Shattered. The remains of the growing underworld legend are safely sealed in Professor Ozpins private collection. Ozpin occasional takes it out to remind himself how close he was to failing Vale- and each time he does, he swears he can still see blood on it.

Crocea Mors: Dormant. The extension of the soul of Arc, of all the Arcs, still slumbers since it last shined two years ago. No matter how hard anyone else tries, only an Arc can wake and wield its power. Which may be a problem, or a very good thing, considering that while there are no more Arcs, there are people beginning to grasp the implications of what happened the night of the Breach That Wasn't.

And one important character who appeared just once, and not even name…

Winter Schnee. Alive, but shouldn't be. The two-years younger sister of Weiss Schnee is supposed to be the new Heiress of the Schnee Dust Corporation, but has thrown herself into training to be a Huntress instead since the events of two years ago. No one has asked her why she wants to follow in her sister's footsteps and train as a Huntress- fewer still even care- but she does, and not just because it's in her own interest. Ever since the crippled survivor of Team PWBY unlocked her Aura, Winter hasn't dreamed of her life since Breach That Wasn't, but of one that ended in a Breach That Was…

End Post-Mortem