RWBY Volume 2: The Novelization: Best Day Ever

RWBY: The Novelization is not endorsed by Rooster Teeth in any way. Views, opinions, and thoughts are all my own. Rooster Teeth and RWBY are trade names or registered trademarks of Rooster Teeth Productions, LLC. © Rooster Teeth Productions, LLC.

On a beautiful day in the summer, students were returning to Beacon Academy after their summer break. Many had already returned and were spending time catching up with their teammates in the cafeteria.

Except for their leader, Team RWBY was sitting at one table all on one side. Across from them at another table was Team JNPR. While Weiss drank a cup of coffee and Yang seemed to be making faces at Nora, Blake had one of her notebooks open. In it, she had doodled pictures of her former White Fang partner Adam Taurus. Ever since the fight at the docks, she had been obsessed with trying to figure out what he was after.

“Whatcha doin’?” asked Yang.

“Nothing!” said Blake, quickly shutting her notebook. “Just going over some notes from last semester.”

A green grape flew at Yang and she caught in her mouth. She looked back at Blake. “Lame!” Nora catapulted a second grape and Yang caught it again.

It seemed like everything was going to be normal that day until Ruby appeared and slammed a giant white binder on the table. The title of the binder read “Best Day Ever Activities!” in bright red marker. Above that, in a conservative typeface which had been crossed out was “Vytal Festival Activities: Property of Weiss Schnee.”

Ruby cleared her throat. To her team, “Sisters!” To JNPR, “Friends!” And then, “Weiss.”

“Hey!”

“Four score and seven minutes ago, I had a dream.”

“This oughta be good,” said Yang, catching a cherry in her mouth.

“A dream that one day, the four of us would come together, as a team, and have the most fun that anyone has ever had… ever!”

“Did you steal my binder?” asked Weiss.

“‘I am not a crook’,” said Ruby, throwing up a pair of deuces.

Blake asked, “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about kicking this semester off with a bang!”

Yang replied, “I always kick my semesters off with a Yang! Eh? Guys? Am I right?” Suddenly, an apple hit in her face and Nora booed.

Ruby continued, “Look guys, it’s been a good two weeks, and between more exchange students arriving and the tournament at the end of the year, our second semester is going to be great. But classes start back up tomorrow. Which is why I’ve taken the time to schedule a series of wonderful events for us today.”

“I don’t know whether to be proud or scared of what you have in store,” said Weiss.

Yang chucked a green apple back at Nora.

“I don’t know,” added Blake. “I think I might sit this one out.” She had more research to do.

“Sit out or not, I think however we spend this last day, we do it as a team. I for one think—” But then suddenly, pie. It hit someone in the face. That someone was Weiss.

Nora looked at her hand like it wasn’t hers. It had betrayed her. How had that cream pie managed to tumble off her fingers so badly that she hit Weiss instead of Yang? Never mind the fact that she completely missed Blake who sat between the two.

The pie slid off Weiss’ face leaving her with a whipped cream facial. She shook with anger and embarrassment. She reached for the nearest food object, an apple, and cocked her arm.

Meanwhile, outside the cafeteria, Sun Wukong was with a teammate of his from Team SSSN, Neptune Vasilias. Sun had been telling him all about the fight that had happened at the docks the previous semester. “Man, that’s harsh,” commented Neptune.

“So then we were there fighting side-by-side,” continued Sun. “She was super fast! And then I threw a banana at a guy which sounds gross but it was awesome!”

“Nice!”

“Right? And the best part is, she’s a Faunus.” Sun raised a hand to his lips in shock. “But that’s a secret. I didn’t say that! Okay?”

“Got it.”

“And not a I’m-going-to-go-tell-Scarlet-the-second-Sun-turns-his-back secret. I’m talking secret-secret.”

“Whoa, whoa. Chill out, man, okay? I got it.”

Sun eyed him.

Neptune whispered, “I got it.”

“You better. I just don’t wanna screw this up, you know? The people here are the coolest. No offense to you guys.”

“None taken.”

Finally, Sun and Neptune reached the cafeteria’s entrance.

“Okay,” said Sun, “they’re right in here. I’m really excited for you to meet them. So, be cool, okay? You’re gonna be cool, right?”

“Dude,” said Neptune. He stood back and folded his arms. And in his tight pants, slim fit hoodie over collared shirt and tie with his teeth sparkling in the sun, he did cut an impressive figure.

“Good point,” admitted Sun.

But as Sun and Neptune entered the cafeteria, an onrush of students exited. Some of them shouted “food fight” and a feminine cackle echoed.

Sun and Neptune saw Team JNPR at the far end of the cafeteria with several tables stacked upon each other. Ren, Jaune, and Pyrrha acted as honor guards protecting Nora who was on the topmost table declaring, “I’m queen of the castle! I’m queen of the castle!”

Team RWBY meanwhile was closest to the entrance with Ruby declaring war on JNPR. “Justice will be swift! Justice will be painful! It will be…” she crushed a milk carton in her hand, “delicious!”

“Yeah!” her team chimed.

“Ha! Off with their heads!” ordered Nora.

JNPR started lobbing watermelons en masse at RWBY.

“Yang!” said Ruby. “Turkeys!”

Yang dashed forward and stuck either fist up a turkey. She banged them together and faced the onslaught of watermelons. They came fast and furious, but no melon could stand up to her Iron Turkey Fist technique. Having smashed them all, she launched them from her fists and hit Jaune full in the body with both.

Pyrrha, witnessing the loss of her teammate and captain, took up a baguette and sought to mete out her vengeance on Blake who had grabbed a pair of baguettes. The two clashed and pushed against each other neither stale loaf giving way.

Pyrrha broke the bind and struck but Blake dodged. There was a flurry of expert French Dough Cuts between the two well-seasoned warriors. Pyrrha made for a wrathful cut, but Blake used a shadow copy to dodge it. From the air, she cast one of her baguettes at Pyrrha and missed.

As Blake fell, Pyrrha surged forward and delivered a Spear Roll Thrust to Blake’s gut knocking her back several yards. Pyrrha then threw her baguette as a javelin at Yang. Yang managed to break it and the next, but the third baguette succeeded in knocking her back also.

Ruby advanced in Yang’s place sliding among the spilled fluids of the cafeteria’s tables on a tray. She jumped and kicked Pyrrha back.

Ren and Nora now charged forward in Pyrrha’s place. Ruby spun back and deferred to Weiss. She spun forward daintily and squirted the floor in copious amounts of ketchup. Ren slipped and slid into a cluster of tables. Nora however jumped into the air and grabbed a flag post from the top of the cafeteria’s wall. She snapped it off and upon hitting the ground, embedded the end in another melon.

Nora did an impressive flourish and smacked the melon hammer into the ground. The force of the blow knocked Ruby back. Weiss had dodged it and picked up a frozen swordfish by the tail. While not a practitioner of the Xiphias Gladiae arts, Weiss found the fish to be about the right length, weight, and handling of her Myrtenaster. She engaged Nora in savage combat, but her Xiphiidae rapier let her down not being able to match the sheer brutality of Nora’s Cucurbitaceae hammer. She delivered a crushing blow to Weiss’ abdomen and knocked her all the way back to the other end of the cafeteria.

Weiss hit a pillar and shattered it. As she fell unconscious, Ruby leapt and caught her saving her from the pillar’s collapse.

“Weiss?! Weiss! Don’t leave me!” But seeing no reaction from the Ice Queen, Ruby couldn’t stop a lament from escaping her lungs.

Meanwhile, Yang and Ren were back in the fight going at each other. Yang was armed with her Iron Turkey Fists and Ren with his Fresh Leek Kali Sticks. Being fast as lightning and with expert timing, the two fighters showcased their martial art prowess against one another. Yang got the upper hand with a Turkey Hammerfist to Ren’s head and followed it up with a Turkey Uppercut launching him into the air. Ren regained enough faculty to throw his leeks at Yang, but she dodged them jumping into the air herself and then meteored him straight into the ground.

As Yang landed though, Nora avenged Ren with a powerful upward sweep with her melon hammer. The force caught Yang full force destroying the melon and catapulting her up through the cafeteria’s ceiling.

Disarmed of her hammer, Blake seized the advantage by lashing Nora with a Weiner Whip. Nora was knocked back into a grape soda machine breaking it open and releasing cans of soda all over the ground. She picked up a few and bombarded Blake with the refreshing and sweet taste of the vine.

Blake managed to dodge Nora’s bombardment, but she couldn’t dodge Pyrrha’s unrelenting salvo of grape sodas driven by her magnetic semblance. Caught in the carbonated explosion, she was blasted back.

Having regained her composure and seen enough of her comrades fall in brutal battle, Ruby stood and faced the four fresh members of JNPR. They prepared themselves for whatever the tiny girl would do, but they received the shock of their lives when Ruby rushed at them maxing out her speedy semblance. As she became a blinding vortex of red, a vacuum was created in her wake picking up all the remnants of food that had been spent in battle.

Ruby rocketed past Team JNPR and they were caught in the vacuum. Ruby stopped before the cafeteria wall and JNPR slammed into it. Ruby backflipped away just as the tornado of food caught up with JNPR coating them in greasy, sticky, leftover victuals. Having suffered a consummate defeat, the only thing they could do was slide off the wall to the floor.

“I love these guys,” said Sun. He looked over at Neptune who was covered in grape soda.

Just then, Glynda burst into the cafeteria growling. She waved her riding crop and in a complicated but sentient harmony, the tables of the cafeteria were all realigned in their proper places and the wasted food disposed of in their proper receptacles. Through grit teeth, Glynda warned both teams, “Children! Please! Do not play with your food.”

The damage done and pain subsided, both teams felt ashamed of themselves in their stained uniforms. Suddenly, Yang fell back through the cafeteria roof and shattered the tension of the moment. Both teams erupted into laughter. Glynda let out an exasperated sigh.

“Let it go,” advised Ozpin, materializing at her side.

Glynda reluctantly relaxed. “They’re supposed to be the defenders of the world.”
“And they will be. But right now, they’re still children. So why not let them play the part? After all, it isn’t a role they’ll have forever.”

Keep writing, my friends.

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Should You Write Fan Fiction?

Hey, everyone.

So, for this week, I'm going to be taking a look at fan fiction and trying to figure out whether or not you should write it. So, let's talk about writing.

For starters, let me tell you that I hate fan fiction. My biggest problems with it is that it is often written poorly, whether it be because of the punctuation, grammar, usage, or the story is just terrible, and because most fan fic writers out there write as if everything they've ever learned about writing came from reading erotica. Things are phrased weirdly, there's always a sexual tension, and there's a strange focus on the characters body parts.

Mostly though, I hate it because it's about ego--people are just writing a story with characters they like with a storyline that they want to see. And in doing so, their own impressions of the characters and their world is all they take into account, and you're likely to find non-canonical bull sh*t everywhere. I once read a Final Fantasy VII fanfic where the guy made Vincent Valentine a douchebag who drank beer and sat in his chairs backwards.

That's not who Vincent is.
He's a real cool guy.

But, I have to admit: I have dabbled in fanfic writing myself. I once tried writing a FFVII fanfic, and my first attempt at writing a novel was full of "homages," actually more like "rip-offs," to other works i.e. the game Drakengard, Van Helsing, or The Lord of the Rings. Sure, I was impressed with the fact I had written forty chapters or more, totaling over 400 pages before I stopped, but I knew I was ripping sh*t off. Hell, two other attempts I made at novels were other rip-offs. However, despite my past, I am vehemently against the practice of writing fan fiction. Why? What harm could it do me? Well, let's look at the list.

1. Non-canonical bullsh*t.

Alright, I admit that this has less to do with the actual writing of fanfics and more to do with the fact that I hate fan ships and people ruining my favorite characters on sh*tty as f*ck storylines. But honestly, if you like a character, why would you change said character to match your ideals and dreams? Probably because your an egotist, like I said before. If you have genuine care for a character, you would adhere to the established rules of the story's universe and not make your favorite character more bad ass than they were in the game, movie, or book, and you wouldn't make them fall in love with your waifu or husbando from that same medium. It's seriously BS.

2. Wasting an original story.

Fanfic writers use the characters they want and insert them into a story they want to see play out. I don't fault them so much for this because like all fans, I too am hungry for content and want more from my favorite shows, movies, and video games. But, if you're going to go through the trouble of making an original story, why wouldn't you also therefore make original characters, and then make yourself an original story story?

This one I fear has less to do with ego and more to do with laziness. Creating characters and a universe can be challenging, but writing a good story that doesn't break the rules of the universe and doesn't throw away the limits you've imposed on your characters is where the real challenge comes in. With a fanfic, writers don't really worry about this. They already have fully developed characters, their universe, and they have "sample work" in the form of the original media. Ergo, it's easier for them to write a story of their own when most of the hard work has been done for them. And, if they do happen to break the rules or throw away the limits, meh, it's their fic; they can do with it what they want.

So, all this complaining then begs the question: is there anything good about fan fiction?

I honestly can't say. I have read some fan fiction, and not all of it is terrible--just most of it. But for those pieces of good fan fiction, I have to ask, why write good fan fiction when you can change the names and basically invent an original story? It always comes back to that for me. If you're going to go through the trouble of writing a story, write an original story!

But anyway, like I said, not all fan fiction is bad. In fact, my sister has written a number of Resident Evil short stories. She even got some feedback from a fan who said that reading those fics always made her feel better on crappy days. The reader even printed them out and put them in a binder. Now, that's a pretty strong compliment. And, some people would argue that my RWBY fan project RWBY: The Novelization is fan fiction. The devout fanfic'ers on the site don't, but some of those losers actually took the time to tell me a show can only be "anime" if it comes from Japan. It's like, really, dude? You're going to be that much of a stickler. I understand disliking American attempts at anime because they almost always suck, but to be like, "It's not anime unless it came from Japan," I have to wonder about you.

Anyway, I do know that there are people out there who cherish my RWBY:TN. One of the reasons why I started re-editing and rereleasing it was because I had taken a break from writing it, which I needed, and I said I wouldn't be working on it for a while in favor of some of my original work. One of my readers actually commented saying she was disappointed because she liked The Novelization so much. I had no idea, and that's what got me working on it again. So, what are the redeeming qualities on fan fiction?

Well, for one, they help bring together the fandom and even brighten up a fan's day to read a well put together piece. Another boon is that so long as the fanfic writer doesn't violate the characters' character or the universe's laws, it can be a dandy little practice for people who want to try writing but are either scared to come up with an original story or don't have the time to put into creating an original story. It's also possible that by writing fanfics, some writers will evolve into writing full stories.

So, I guess there are some good things about fan fiction, but generally, I still hate it. Again, it keeps coming back to the idea of writing an original story. So much time and effort is spent writing a fanfic, just write an original story instead. I just can't get around that point.

Anyway, that's it for this week. Next week, I'm not sure what I'll cover. It'll either be on why I chose to self-publish my novels over traditional, or why it bothers me that it bothers other people that main characters have "plot armor." We'll see which one burns my ass more when I come back to writing a Let's Talk About Writing. So, until next week...

Keep writing, my friends.

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