The Writer Games (Or Something)
It can take decades to write a masterpiece, and years to plan it- so see what a couple of amateurs come up with in 15 minutes after a prompt. College Fool, Couer Al'Alran, and the Jaune story concepts that followed.
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Authors Note:
So what is this?
This is a product of collaboration, introspection, and deep consideration of... oh, sod it. This is what you get when two geeks like thinking up stories as much or more than writing them.
Hi. This is College Fool. That's Coeur Al'Alran. If you don't know us, we're a pair of RWBY fanfic writers with a particular focus on Jaune. I won't get into the why, but it's been a point of a long and enduring PM exchange we've had appropriately titled 'Non-badass Jaune fics,' because we both like the well-written Jaune stories where Jaune works through his weakness, rather than is OP from the start or gets OP semblances. But, like Coeur sometimes says, if you want good fanfics you like, sometimes you've got to think of them yourself.
(Actually, he doesn't say that- he's got good grammar- but something along those lines.)
Recently, instead of just sharing ideas we might never write, we started playing a game of producing ideas under pressure. One of us gives a prompt- the other has to try to plan a story in 15 mins. That's... pretty tough, actually. Sometimes it's good, and you'll wish we actually intended to write it. Sometimes it's so bad, you won't believe that we're the ones who came up with it. It's informal, rushed, and that's the point because it keeps it fun and occasionally silly.
Now we're posting it here. Kinda a reflection of the Ghost Jaune stories we have going: I like planning more than writing, Coeur likes writing more than planning, but we're both doing both.
I'll let Coeur speak on the next update tomorrow, but here's your first taste.
-C.F.
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Coeur's Prompt - Jaune Arc's semblance is so dangerous, that before he came to Beacon, he accidentally killed his father in a spar.
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Concept: Weapon
Jaune wanted to be a strong warrior- but his semblance is too strong to be trusted. After killing his own family by accident, a young Jaune falls into the hands of General Ironwood- where he straddles the line between being raised a person, or a weapon.
Beat 1 – The Hook – Why the protagonist needs/wants romance.
Jaune manifests his semblance after his Father agrees to train him- and promptly proceeds to accidentally kill his family. Jaune's semblance is effectively an indisicriminate aura-based poison gas: 'if it breaths, he can die.' Great for killing people-useless against Grimm without aura.
Beat 2 – The Meeting – The two characters meet and an attraction, or reason for one, is established.
After awakening, Jaune is a national security issue: too dangerous to let near the Kingdoms, he's almost killed. Instead he falls into the hands of General Ironwood, who sees him as a potential asset for protecting Remnant if his powers can be controlled. Young Jaune is taken into a quarantine lab... where he meets his fellow subject, Penny.
Beat 3 – Conflict Point 1 – Wherein the protagonist realises they should not be together, as it conflicts with their goal/dream/beliefs.
Jaune is afraid of connecting with Penny for fear that she'll be hurt if he loses control of his aura. Penny is hiding that she's a robot (prototype). However, they're the only friends that the each have- the only other person who interacts with Jaune without a hazmat suit is Ironwood himself.
Beat 4 – Raising the stakes – Wherein the two characters are bound together, despite the conflict. They accept their love/relationship/attraction.
Jaune and Penny discover the things about eachother and become very close. Penny, as a robot, doesn't breath and so isn't affected by Jaune's semblance. Jaune is so desperate for contact he doesn't mind Penny. Though Ironwood is cautious, he lets the two be people.
Beat 5 – Conflict Point 2 – The relationship looks good, all is working, but there is niggling doubt. The conflict continues to gnaw away at them, it's a false happiness.
Penny is Jaune's keeper when Jaune is finally trusted enough to be allowed into Vale, the first time he's been in public in years. Jaune and Penny meet Ruby and team ala Penny's encounter.
Both Penny and Jaune are stunted, and get some laughs, but make a tentative friendship with Team RWBY.
Beat 6 – The Black Moment – It all goes wrong, all hope is lost. The relationship seems doomed.
During the docks, Jaune is captured during the effort to save Blake. The entier Kingdom goes into a crisis as it's realized that the White Fang now has its hands on something that could destroy the entire city. Jaune is exposed, and considered a weapon to be disposed of rather than a person to be saved.
Penny spends the Ball miserable, trying for anything to find Jaune.
Beat 7 – Resolution – Obstacles overcome, romance achieved, or tragic ending.
The Breach is altered by the White Fang so that Jaune is the payload- they intend to forcibly activate his semblance in the city, killing thousands.
Penny and Team RWBY, from a tip by Cinder (who doesn't like how White Fang has abandoned her plans), lead a strike against the team to recover Jaune.
Ultimately Jaune activates his semblance in the train- and thanks to training, Jaune's semblance goes from 'poison gas' to 'sleeping gas', allowing a nearly bloodless resolution. Jaune is recovered, and put into an extreme quarantine- but Penny is with him, and Team RWBY spreads the word about how what he did helped stop the Breach.
The story ends with Jaune unsure of when/if he'll ever be able to leave again, but reunited with Penny. He (and Penny) are publicly seen as people- not weapons- and Ironwood promises them that if they're able to help stop Cinder and save the world in the upcoming conflict, he'll be able to let them go as free people.
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Coeur's Impression:
When I originally gave the prompt I imagined two different scenarios:
1) That any other writer would have some over-the-top semblance that would leave Jaune in a near-unbeatable state.
2) That College Fool wouldn't force me to read through that tripe.
I'm glad to see I was proven correct. The semblance, while powerful, is indiscriminate - giving it a very real consequence that many writers miss out on. If you want a character to have a supernatural edge, then it needs to come with real world costs - otherwise it is difficult to justify why they don't use it to solve every problem. Gas is quite the nice touch as it had a lot of negative connotations for readers as well as people in the series. Like fire, gas does not judge or choose - it simply affects.
Jaune as a weapon is a common theme, but it's nice to see it being treat like it might in real life, that is to say - never intentionally used. Many fics make the mistake of assuming a weapon is constantly drawn and thrown at the enemy - see any Naruto fic, but that's not always the case. The US and Russia have been sitting on nukes for decades now, and no doubt every country has more weapons they haven't mentioned. Due to Jaune's potential for absolute genocide, if he were to be used by Ironwood, it would no doubt lead instantly to the next Kingdom War.
Penny is a nice touch as a friendship option due to her immunity to the poison, and similarly it's good that Jaune doesn't recognise this immediately. It would have been easy to introduce her as a cyborg and have Jaune bond with her, but she has shown in series that she does not want that admitting, so sticking to that keeps this in character.
This fic also offers some nice potential for Ironwood to be fleshed out as a character, and though it's not really mentioned, I'd have liked to see him as somewhat kind and fatherly, but also coldly efficient. In that he wants the best for Jaune, and tries to help him, - hence introducing him to Penny. But that when Jaune is captured, he is willing to make the tough decision to kill Jaune, though he does feel regret at having to make it. Someone who knows that they must do, but wishes they did not have to. Sometimes the bravest men are simply those who act where others might seek to delegate responsibility.
Overall a good plot, if rushed. My own approach might have been a Jaune emotionally crippled from killing his father - a man afraid to use his own weapon. So that in an amusing role reversal, he kind of is trained and strong coming into Beacon, but due to a fear of his own abilities he is always holding himself back, leaving himself as weak and unconfident as he is in canon. But overall, this worked well too.
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C.F.'s Reflection:
A PM exchange that started with being fed up about OP Jaune semblances... and what was the first prompt in our game? Ah, the irony.
'Protagonist raised as a weapon' is a cliche in fandoms that's used to justify radical personality change and OP kick-ass- usually the 'I was raised a perfect soldier, love my angst'- so this was my take on that, in the spirit of 'try and do it well yourself rather than just haste it.' Still got angst, still got personality change, but here you have a case where Jaune's not a dominating badass (or rather- too powerful to use), and Jaune's personality is something that you could see as re-emerging through the healing. And looking back- I like the fundamentals here. Penny, the Real Girl/Robot Girl/Military Superweapon, was the appropriate foil and co-lead, since she could (a) relate to the dehumanizing aspect of being raised/treated a weapon rather than a person, (b) to the isolating effect of power, and (c) had a good reason for not being affected by Jaune's semblance.
The idea of Jaune's semblance being some sort of poison gas was two-fold: a musing of my own about 'what would be the most OP combat semblance,' while thinking that aura can't stop people from breathing or else it'd suffocate everyone, and the character C.C. from the anime Code Geass. If you don't know her- C.C. is an person with supernatural powers who was locked inside a military capsule that was stolen by terrorists who thought it was poison gas. It fit the idea both of how seriously Jaune would be kept by the authorities... and the dynamic with White Fang by the end.
While I agree with Coeur that Ironwood is under-utilized in the summary, my main regret is that I couldn't think of how to get Jaune into the Ball. In retrospect, I would re-jigger the timeline a bit- let Jaune and Penny be friends with RWBY post-Docks for some time, develop them as friends and people, before letting Jaune get kidnapped during Blake's White Fang investigation arc (which would be after the ball). After a romantic high point of Jaune and Penny admitting they're not just together, but together together, follow it with Blake/RWBY angst for getting someone caught up in Blake's obsession. It'd give the supporting cast development, give Ironwood reason to let RWBY help find Jaune to save him, and spread the word afterwards.
Overall, a decent effort- with the limitations reflecting the time crunch. One of the only ones that I planned and typed in the 15 min window- you'll notice my drafts get longer.
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Final Notes/Rules
To ward off some questions, before we get swamped in PMs-
-Yes, feel free to take any prompt or plot here. General writer etiquette applies: give us a heads up, mention in your story, and treat with respect. But yeah- these are ideas we don't intend to write.
-No, we aren't looking for prompts, so please don't spam us with PMs about your 'really great idea.'
You can leave a review, and it might even be good, but it probably won't work out as you want. Not only do people get weird ideas that being entitled to share an idea means we're obligated to play our game around them, but we aren't guaranteed to take it in a direction you want. Nor do we beg prompts from eachother- if one of us likes a prompt enough, they'd be giving it to the person less interested.
There may be an invitation for review input in the future, once we work through backlog... but it'll be in the vein of 'theme week,' rather than 'give us a plot.' If the theme is, say 'Highschool,' then we'll each give a prompt based on it. (Note: Don't ask for highschool.)
-If you want to play this game, feel free. If you want to play the game with us... sorry, but we're not looking to be plot generators for everyone who wants a fill. We have our own loads, IRL and fanfic, to handle- and the more we spend on numerous requests, the less we do on everything else. Including this.