Sneaking His Way into the Multiverse (RWBY Jaune, WC-lite mechanics)

[KinKrow]

"Omigod they're all like that." Tattletale sounded ill.

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"They're himbos, all of them. Even the women, and the children too!"

 

[Misoby]

Yeah, trying to grow in these different worlds without sliding into complete moral bankruptcy (like that guy Jaune killed in the first chapter) and without meta knowledge is going to be slow to start. It's not like Jaune understands who to speak with to gain unlimited power, and he doesn't have any of the incredible snow balling abilities offered by the WC.

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Frankly speaking, the entire WC system is built on meta-knowledge and cheesing. And also on the complete lack of imagination of the authors of the stories.

Hopefully Jaune's sponsor gives him the porn powers for no reason and without explaination. I need Tats to grow increasingly intimidated about Jaune'e growing schlong.

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Eight inches, what the hell!? Yesterday it was seven!!!

 

[Adudefromthesea]

Cat—*stuck in a high place*
Jaune—*locks in*

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Never underestimate a hero's instincts to save cats from high places

 

[Anom1]

"Someone who by all rights was fated to never fly, yet did? Perhaps that was a rarer, and precious, thing." - Chapter 28

All Jaune has is an extendable arm, a hammerspace, and a little more mobility. Sounds pathetic, doesn't it? In most stories, those stuff warrants a single line of mention at most, before the bona fide MC goes on to gain the power to wipe continents off the map.

Jaune has the equivalent of 3 Semblances.

...Well that's certainly a different way to look at it.

A relative way, in place of an absolute way. A personal way. In the bigger scheme of things, in normal power fantasy convention, it's chump change. Trash. A blip upon the ascent to the top. We know what the best powers across all the media franchises are, let's get to it and forget this kiddie stuff.
On a character level, it is power beyond his dreams.

I pasted warnings of what the story will be in my synopsis, in the author's note of the first chapter, and in the text itself. You read it, drew a mental picture of what it means, and the result is based not on the context of the character, but on the knowledge of all the worlds and characters you are familiar with including ones where gods and demons and more roam the land.

I think, that you have fallen deep, deep into the power fantasy, power level hole, and that has warped your perspective without you realizing it. What you consider overcorrection, I consider working as designed.

Starting from the bottom. It's a phrase we are familiar with. MC gets a gamer system and he's starting from the bottom.
It very often does not start from the bottom.
The MC already has ultimate power in his hand with that system, so things have to escalate from there in the narrative to keep the reader's interest. Powers gained must always top the last, because the threats are always above the last. Right out of the gates, we are sprinting to the top.

Does not a man need food? What hero can go to wage war against the gods without toilet paper?
I put forth a theory, bastardized from Maslow's, that the pyramid of power fantasy escalation does not have to start with OP power at the bottom, and proceed to aura farming at the top. That the bottom when referring to 'starting from the bottom' can still have meaning when it is the point where a person is concerned with the basic needs of living, and seek quality of life improvements. Where even the next meal can be something worth fighting for. Once those needs are met, then the person strives to go higher.

Feats. Power levels.
Jaune cut off the head of an Ursa. Dark Souls lets you upgrade a stick to beat up a god. Combined, would this not mean that Jaune's sword can now cut off the head of gods?
Jaune fought one godlike Tier 8 entity. Does that make him a contender among the Tier 8 godlike entities?
The entire way in this arc, I present a world that, on a fundamental level, is different from what the characters have faced. Bursting with life. Evolution taken to a whole new level. I meshed gameplay and lore together so that you may see what the Monster Hunter franchise is about.
But, by putting the label of 'flesh and blood creatures' and 'monsters' on them instead of 'godbeasts' and 'starspawns', they're apparently now of a lower Tier. An arbitrary ranking system shifts the threat that foes pose in the various different settings, creating a scenario where a character that has scratched a higher Tier must now keeping going higher, never returning to a lower Tier, even if context would suggest it is not lower at all and that the settings exist irrespective of each other. In short, power fantasy escalation takes place.

Personal power.
Jaune plays backup to other people, and you consider that a mark of shame, translating it to mean that he cannot survive in more dangerous places, or 'be of use.'
There's an idea that gets thrown around a lot. DPS is king, healers and tanks are trash. What's strategy, can we eat it?
I posit that the ability to connect with others has a value that lies beyond the numbers. Bridging the divide between strangers, bringing them together in a cohesive unit, is a skill that carries forward to multiple challenges.
Look at Monster Hunter. A team turning the tide against a foe Jaune cannot triumph over alone. He watches. He takes notes. A lesson reaffirmed to him piece by piece ever since Beacon, developing towards an epiphany. Is that not a valuable takeaway? Is that not growth?
Not if growth means personal power. DPS is king.

Character growth.
Emotions, principles, outlook. Why is that gained solely through battle?
I walk through the woods, and encountered a sweet songbird by a river stream. For a while, I listened, and once it ended I wished to hear another song. With such hope, I stayed there for an hour on, watching the river stream flow by, carrying with it the fallen leaves of autumn. Yet, in the end, the bird never sang again, no matter how I coaxed it. I didn't know what I felt then as I left the forest, but years later I looked back through all my experiences, beginning with that day in the woods, and thought "My happiest times are within those small moments."
---an example, written on a whim
Character growth is not one and done. It does not fit in a sentence, a paragraph, or a chapter. It is not a writer stating outright that this is what the character learned, he is this sort of person now. It proceeds in starts and stops, sometimes never expressed. Often, it is the character's journey in the entirety that reframes for them the various components in a new light.

This is my question. You say that 'Part of the hero's journey is their own growth.'
Are you thinking in terms of Jaune's growth, or a nebulous mix of genre conventions that establishes a baseline and an expectation in your mind of what growth is?

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So admittedly the way I expressed my critique could have been better. I wrote that at like 2 in the morning and it definitely shows. Also I feel I should note none of this is saying the story is bad, or even that these aspects are terrible. If it was bad I wouldn't read it, let alone take time to respond. So the critiques are more for the points that feel the weakest to me as a reader, and you can disagree. But I do think feedback is important because sometimes what we say (or write) and what people hear (or see) can be different. You as an author have an intent, but I want to give what I get out of the story because it may not match.

To start I feel I should clarify that I am mostly focused on power and the character growing in strength as that is where I feel the story is weakest. I didn't bring up things like his growth as a person through his interactions with Solaire because I don't have anything to add there. So when I talk about his growth in regards to personal power and not say as a friend or leader, its not me saying that personal power is the only growth that matters. I just don't think I need to give any feedback on the other ways he is growing. Personal strength is just the space that feels the weakest, writing wise, and it is important to the story.

That is not my opinion, not me saying "I hate adventure stories and everything should be a power fantasy. Why cant he solo a dragon yet?" Growing in strength is the basis of this story, that is the main plot, that is what you wrote. Personal power and growing stronger is the basis for the actions taken by Jaune. The motivation you gave is "My friends are dying, my home is burning, and I need to gain the strength to save them." So yes personal growth is more than power, and teamwork can be a part of power. But when you make a motivation like that as the driving narrative source, personal power does need to be a major point in the story, it is innately central to the plot and how that character grows. It cannot just be learning to work together, there has to be a point of getting stronger, gaining tools, of preparing to face the invasion he knows is waiting. There has to be growth in regards to personal power.

As for the idea of starting from the bottom, and gaining basic necessities being a form of power, I honestly hadn't thought of it that way. That is a very cool idea that does help to make the whole magical index arc seem less filler like. It is interesting as it adds the element of preparedness. How going on an adventure is more than diving into a dungeon. It is also getting a bag of holding and camp supplies, it is choosing spells and building a forward base. I really do like that. However on the other end to that I do have to point out, that means you have effectively spent two books setting up camp. I do like the idea of building a solid base to start from, but are you sure you needed 150K+ words to do that? Just food for thought there.

That is not helped by the latest fight, and I think I expressed why it was frustrating wrong, so let me see if I can explain better. It is not that I think the sword should be able to behead gods or one shot a tier 8 being. It is more that you undermined one of the only real growth points (power wise, at this point please assume I am saying power wise) that we have gotten. Look at some of what you wrote on it "The first hit he managed got the Rathalos on the snout, and failed to even break the scales.... 'Like, I'm tickling the Rathalos right now'.... Crocea Mors felt more akin a dull knife against the tough flesh of the monster." Can you see how those come across as the weapon just not being good? To be clear I am not saying it needed to cut straight through the tail, but just that there were better ways to get the same effects. Something like "His sword swung across the beasts snout, its edge leaving a gash upon the scales. Unfortunately at this distance his blade simply could not reach deep enough to get its flesh. He would need to get closer to really hurt it, probably far too close," or "Crocea Mors bit into the Rathalos' tail, but for all he loved the sword, it was not a cleaver. It just did not have the top heavy heft of something like an ax, it was not made to hack trough limbs. However it was all he had, so he set to work sawing through as fast as he could." Obviously you would write it differently, but can you see what I am getting at here? The results are the same but the way you say it changes how it appears. What you wrote seems like Crocea Mors just isn't a good enough weapon to really work in this world, like the upgrade and time in Dark Souls didn't actually add much, as opposed to it just not being the right weapon for the job. It is a great longsword but longswords really are not made to delimb elephants, no matter how good they are.

Maybe I am wrong, maybe it is meant to show that the sword still needs a ton of work. But I think that would be disappointing and this is more a show vs tell issue. You told us that Crocea Mors was better than ever, but you showed us a dull blade. That undermines the very upgrade you gave and makes it seem like he is standing in place. I do not think that was the intention, but I do think it was the result. Of course I could be wrong, maybe this was to show how strong the world was that even his upgraded sword was not up to the challenge. I don't think that is the result though, instead of us seeing a strong sword fail against A greater opponent, it is more that the sword seems weak.

Which leads into the idea of coaching expectations and growth being shown. I do see what you mean by the worlds escalating, that the threats are growing bigger and that they need to so as to maintain any tension or drama. Which I think is what you meant when talking about tiers, not entirely sure honestly. That makes a lot of sense, but there is a reason shows bring back old rivals to get stomped on my the now stronger character. If you always have him face off against stuff that is better than him, we will never see him grow. It is like watching a level one fight a level 4 monster, then later watching him at three fight a level nine. You can tell us that he is now three times stronger, but we are just going to see him get his shit rocked. He may be moving, but he will seem to be stationary. It is important to let us see him get better, something I think is missing so far. Maybe not in this arc, but just food for future thought.

Finally on the powers gained so far, I don't think I ever said they were not good enough or needed to be stronger, just that they are all utility. Like none of them actual match his fighting or make him better. It is a series of side grades. And I do see what you are saying about them being semblances, but let's actually take a look at that. A semblance is a reflection of a persons soul, as such they almost always match with and improve that person. Blake is a distraction based hit and run fighter, so her semblance lets her generate shadow clones to confuse her opponent and add maneuverability. It enhances her strength, not just because it is a good ability but because the plays into her build. Yang is an up close brawler, so her semblance absorbs some of that damage to make her punch harder. It matches. My problem isn't that you are giving Jaune weak talents, it is that they are all rogue talents. He is a paladin. I am not knocking the usefulness of some utility talents, but it is all you are giving him. You say more than DPS matters in a game, that is fair. Man is a tank, give him a taunt or a shield or the ability to switch with allies. Just something that actually works with the baseline kit.

You sent him to the magic index world and originally it looked like they had a plan to go into the research section to try and get their own new abilities, or at least see if they could. Then you redirected to Accelerator and instead gave him double jump. I am not saying he needed to become a level 5, that is insane, but like a level 2 ability that lets him enrage nearby beasts, or draw attention? Would that not have fit better? It isn't any stronger as a power, but it does feel like meaningful growth in his power, because it makes him better at what he is. I am glad he is so happy with his pseudo flight, but from a plot perspective you cannot say it is actually progressing him or his strength, and yes there is more to a story than just strength. But this story is about him growing stronger. If it was meant to be about the joy and adventure, it could use a very different start point. Its is not about the powers needing to be stronger in themselves or him needing to be a god king by this point. It is about the powers you are letting him get needing to actually progress the main plot at some point. Which in this case is personal power, at least until he save Pyrrha. After that it can be found friends or making their way in the multiverse, skys the limit then. But right now you seem to refuse to allow his personal power to grow in any meaningful way, for him to become a better Jaune that can save his friends.

P.S. Reading the response again I think you took my comment on what he has faced in the original one to mean I think he should be way stronger. That is not it, man got creamed by Accelerator (as well he should). I wasn't saying it made him tier 8 in strength. It was more a comment about gains relative to threats faced. You made the man fight a god and all he got was a fancy toilet. That is messed up man, like facing down a tiger and only getting a lousy t-shirt.