Fanfic / The Self Made Man

Jaune was down on his luck even before he found himself getting mugged in an alleyway. The last person he expected to be saved by was a man even more beaten up than he. Junior might not have been perfect but he and his gang made their own destiny, no matter what life threw at them. Junior's gang represented the one thing Jaune never knew he needed - the chance to prove himself.

— Fanfic Summary

The Self Made Man is a RWBY Alternate Universe Fic written by Coeur Al'Aran.

Complete as of September 22, 2022.

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Tropes are:

• Aborted Arc: Pyrrha appears in chapter 18 to tutor Jaune, because Ruby was busy that day. She shows interest in Jaune like in canon and doesn't mind tutor him again. But this will be her first and last appearance in the story and her interest doesn't lead to anywhere.
• Action Girl: While Miltia and Melanie were beaten by Yang, they still show why they are Junior's lieutenants when they are confronted by a room full of armed criminals and barely break a sweat taking them all on.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Team CRDL as a whole, even Cardin, act very friendly to Jaune and supportive about his dream to enter Beacon, with Cardin even giving the latter his scroll number so that he could give out exercise tips. The way Coeur puts it, bullies are often likeable and charismatic people when they're not actively bullying, and he hasn't seen them in school where they do that.
• Adaptational Villainy: In canon, it's implied that Tukson was fleeing the Fang due to moral reasons. Here, it's instead implied that he's just saving his own ass from the Breach.
• Adaptation Personality Change: Jaune in the original series was woefully ignorant and naive, put on a transparent veneer of confidence while pursuing his non-receptive first crush, had a complex about becoming stronger by himself without accepting help, and didn't even take those efforts that seriously. His experiences in the first chapter shattered all those illusions, showing him in painful detail that he didn't stack up, that fake confidence would get him nowhere, especially in romance, that he needs all the help he can get, and that he can't afford to slack off. As a result, he quickly becomes much more up-front about his shortcomings, much more diligent about fixing them, and much more reluctant to consider romance at all for the moment.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Team CRDL make fast friends with Jaune, as none of their canon reasons for bullying him apply. That friendship leads to a bad first impression to Team RWBY (sans Ruby who he already knew), which he later smooths over to Yang and Weiss but not Blake.
• Adipose Rex: One of the three biggest crime bosses in Vale is a profoundly obese glutton of a man who styles himself as an unjustly deposed royal bloodline that will eventually return to rightful power.
• All for Nothing: Qrow's attempts to keep Meg out of trouble. He and Ozpin get her out of serious charges for rigging a trial, he makes sure she doesn't violate her house arrest and blocks her from interfering in the investigation into the Xiong Family, only for her to continue to harass Jaune and the Xiongs until they have no choice but to silence her.
• Ambiguously Bi: Jaune believes himself to be straight and dates Tammy for most of the story, but the thought of dating Dove doesn't instantly turn him away like he thought it would, even if he can't quite pinpoint if he feels the same way that Dove does. Even after treating their time together during the tournament as a date, Jaune can't quite pinpoint what he feels, even by the end of the story.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • It's never revealed whether or not Roman actually sold Junior out to Cinder. Roman claims he didn't and Cinder claims he did, but both of them have reason to lie, and Roman's arrest takes him out of the story before it gets cleared up either way.
  • Vincent's specific wording during his meeting with Jaune implies that he realizes Jaune's role in Gormond's death and Jaune mentally notes that ignoring this would benefit him, but he doesn't outright state it.
• And There Was Much Rejoicing: Meg uses this to justify leaving Junior to be murdered by Cinder, and later to justify her own murder of Jaune - they were both criminals, and nobody would miss them. Never mind the fact that she was also a criminal and that one of the people keeping her out of legal trouble was a good friend of Jaune's.
• Armor Is Useless: The armour worn by the Atlesian gangsters is designed to resist gunfire, and turns out to provide no real protection from a furious Jaune carving them up with a sword. The narration points out that even when he hits it, the armor's design ends up directing his blade to flesh as the blade slides along.
• "Ass" in Ambassador: Dominic's replacement in Vale as a front for the Atlas underworld, Storm, is a rude, belligerent woman who openly disdains Vale and its people and leads negotiations with open threats. Sure enough, the Black Sun have absolutely no desire for diplomacy.
• Asshole Victim: The gang Circus and their leader Ringmaster try and strong-arm the Xiong for their desperately-needed Dust contraband, getting into an altercation that ends with Jaune being forced to execute Meg when she catches him in the middle of it. They find themselves in the unfortunate position of neighboring the former territory of the Atlas Gentlemen after the latter are wiped out by the Xiong. This, and their themed-but-generic uniform anyone can buy, makes them perfect candidates for a False Flag Operation targeting Atlas's reinforcements, so that Vale's gangs will see violence and band together for protection instead of ignore the encroaching enemy. Circus is wiped out with extreme brutality as retribution for something they didn't do.
• Bait-and-Switch: Jaune goes into the meeting with the rest of the Vale Aristocrats expecting to be the odd one out and having to worry about making a fool of himself... up until Kane, the Lower-Class Lout of the Aristocrats and leader of the only "gang" on the council, kicks in the door, chugs expensive whiskey from the bottle, and does a line of cocaine off the table.
• Batman Gambit:
  • After Jaune sells Meg out, he predicts that her response will be to try to get the Club in hot water, so he has the Club emptied of anything that could be incriminating for a day so the police won't find anything. This also has the added benefits of getting the police angry with her for "wasting" their time and makes her appear obsessive, so they won't bother listening to her again.
  • Jaune ends up killing Duke Gormond in this manner. He arranges for the Black Sun to "meet" with him at the Summit at noon, then, when it becomes clear that Gormond isn't going to play along, calls him to a meeting at the same spot at 11:50 that day to "prove his legitimacy" with a blood test. Black Sun, in their typical manner, arrive five minutes early and blow the building to smithereens with Gormond inside while Jaune watches from across the street.
• Benevolent Boss: Junior goes out of his way to help Jaune land on his feet, by giving him a job as the club's bartender.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Jaune's built up frustration and anger for the whole story comes to a head when the Atlas Gentlemen and the Laurettes raid The Club to wipe out the Xiong clan and assassinate him in particular. After having every attempt to de-escalate the gang conflict turned around on him and every mercy taken advantage of, at this point Jaune decides he's done trying to be nice. He slaughters the strike force meant to take him out, wades into a hail of gunfire to cleave his way through the enemy gangs' lines, has an ultimatum sent out to the remaining Laurettes to join or die, and personally executes all but one of the captured Atlas gangsters to send a message back to their kingdom. Bloodthirsty Mistral gang enforcer Sanlan sees all this and is vaguely awed by the uncharacteristic brutality.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Kane and the Ravagers fancy themselves real criminal masterminds, aiming to take their 'rightful place' as the feared heads of Vale's underworld, and immediately taking steps to eliminate the Xiong clan. That lasts until Jaune brings their betrayal of the drug cartel to the attention of an actually powerful crime family. Within one day, the Ravagers are all-but wiped out in a single bloody gang skirmish.
• Birds of a Feather: Ruby and Pyrrha struck up a friendship because they both just want to be treated like they're normal.
• Blofeld Ploy: When dealing with the surrendering Atlas gangsters after their siege of the Club fails, Jaune grabs one of the seven prisoners to make an example of him... and executes the other six, sending the seventh guy back as a messenger.
• Bodyguard Betrayal: Meg abandons Junior at the first opportunity, leaving him to be killed by Cinder.
• Both Sides Have a Point: Following Black Sun's attack which kills Gormond, Ozpin confronts Jaune in the Club, criticizing him for arranging such a public attack and clearly instigating a gang war during the Festival, when peace is absolutely necessary for the Kingdom. Jaune fires back that Ozpin told him to take care of the Black Sun and that a gang war is the only way to do so when you're dealing with an army of merciless killers, and at least with Jaune leading the charge, civilians are being left out of it as much as possible. He also criticizes Ozpin for acting like Jaune even has a choice at this time and that Vale's police and huntsmen have utterly failed in protecting Jaune from a life of crime; a point that Ozpin concedes to while still threatening to come back for him should he become too dangerous to keep on the streets.
• I Can't Hear You: Cinder tries to dramatically whisper to Jaune to get Junior while he is serving drinks in a nightclub. He is unable to hear her with loud music, background conversations, and drunk people trying to get him to serve them. She has to show him a message on a scroll for him to understand what she wants.
• Can't Hold His Liquor: Velvet achieves the dubious title of the lightest lightweight Jaune has ever served, getting absolutely destroyed to the point of vomiting after five (progressively weaker) mojitos over the whole evening.
• Celibate Hero: Jaune, in spite of several of his acquaintances hounding him about getting a love life. Getting rejected from Beacon and then having the tar beaten out of him was a wake-up call and hit to his confidence, showing him in no uncertain terms that he had nothing to offer as a romantic prospect. Even when he gets some good points like wit, professionalism, money, and more attractiveness, he still thinks he'd be dating upwards with any attractive girl he meets. And regardless of his opinion of himself, the simple fact is he has enough on his plate already, including a dire secret that he'd have to keep from any potential partners, and which might just kill him at any time. Sure enough, the the one time he goes for a relationship it completely stalls because he has no time for it, and it's ended for him by enemies threatening her to get to him. He's determined not to make the same mistake with Dove, not rejecting him but asking for time to get his head (and affairs) in order before they try and do anything serious.
• Central Theme: The burden of being the only one willing to act in a terrible situation. Much of the story revolves around Jaune trying to keep the criminal element from spiralling out of control, and the difficulties he faces due to his lack of experience and practical resources; which the Council and other crime families have in abundance, but are too apathetic to put them to use. Jaune and Ozpin both lament the moral lines they have to cross to solve problems that could otherwise be resolved cleanly, if it weren't the indolence of others.
• Combat Pragmatism: It doesn't win the fight, but Jaune manages to actually give a decent showing against Meg Scarletina by grabbing her Faunus ears to hold her still, allowing him to get in a few hits and bash her against a nearby forklift.
• Cornered Rattlesnake: Jaune is not much of a threat on his own, but when he gets truly desperate, he can reap destruction the likes of which the Underworld is not prepared to handle. By the end of his first meeting with the Syndicate, he's already indirectly responsible for the destruction of an entire gang and has directly killed two Huntsmen-level enemies - by the second meeting, he's directly wiped out two enemy gangs and dragged every gang in Vale into an international gang war. Black Sun showing up causes him to pull out all the stops, and soon enough he's established himself as the leader of the Valean Alliance purely by virtue of being the only one willing to take the role.
  Miltia: Huh. I guess all we need to do to make you a badass crime lord was put your life on the line. Good to know.
• Crime of Self-Defense: Jaune's encounter with the random teenage mugger is reported on the news the next day. The mugger makes out that he was attacked unprovoked in the alley and left for dead, instead of having assaulted someone for their money and been injured when they barely fought back. It hasn't traced back to Jaune yet, but the cops are clearly interested in apprehending this 'raving psycho' before he makes more 'victims'.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • In the first chapter, Jaune gets his shit kicked in by a couple street thugs. Junior, fresh from his own shit-kicking-in from Yang, still has no trouble laying both thugs out flat.
  • The Malachites were no match for Yang, even with their boss and entire club of mobsters backing them up. And if they couldn't stand up to Yang, there's not a chance in hell they could stand up to Cinder.
  • Much later, Jaune is accosted by another mugger. But now having Aura and some basic training, he's more than strong enough to defend himself against a dumb teenager with zero brawn and less than zero sense.
  • Meg initially delivers a brutal beating to both Jaune and the rest of the Xiong clan, taking a fair amount of damage by being caught off guard, but she is left in a clearly losing battle against Sanlan, who regularly fights active Huntsman, while she had been retired for several years. It's made clear that her only chance of survival is escaping, and she throws that chance away to go after Jaune one more time.
  • When Jaune starts to mouth off to the assembled crime families, one of them sends their Huntsman bodyguard to subdue him. Jaune surprises them by blocking, tripping the guy off his feet, and throwing him behind his back... straight into Cinder, who follows up by burning the guy to death.
• Cynicism Catalyst: In the space of one day, Jaune is the target of a drive-by shooting that leaves about a dozen bystanders dead and himself wounded, and then the target of a full-scale siege on The Club to finish the job. Even when the assault begins to turn on the attackers, they respond to his offer of mercy with a bullet to the forehead. Up to this point he'd tried his best to be reasonable, but this makes him realize that reasonable is not going to work, the underworld won't let it work. Tony watching this can almost pinpoint the moment Jaune makes the decision to transform from a good kid in bad circumstances to the ruthless crime lord he needs to be in order to survive. From then on, Jaune is shown to be through with wishy-washy placating and passivity, and begins making brutal strategic and leadership calls that he previously shied away from.
• Dare to Be Badass: Roger Lumens gives Jaune such a speech after Junior's death, telling him that Junior must have seen something in him to warrant such care even if neither of them can currently see it, and now it's up to him to take Junior's organization and keep it running.
• Death by Adaptation: In canon, while Junior has not been seen since Volume 2, there's no evidence that they're dead; here, Junior is killed during Cinder's takeover of the Xiong clan.
• Decapitation Presentation: The East Dragon Company's idea of telling the Xiong clan that Kane and the Ravagers won't be a problem anymore is to deliver them a sack filled with Kane's head. Melanie does not appreciate having to deal with a severed head first thing in the morning and has the thing cremated.
• Defiant to the End: Miltia reveals that even though Cinder killed Junior with little effort, he still refused to back down or beg, dying without making a sound of pain while burning to death.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • The Syndicate try to have Jaune thrown over to the Huntsmen in an effort to get them off of their back following Meg's death, seemingly not realizing the inherent flaw in just throwing a Huntsman at somebody who has already killed a Huntress. The end result is the poor sap getting defeated and burned to a crisp in seconds, and now they've pissed off the guy with a vicious killer behind him.
  • The Summit's plan as a whole reeks of lack of foresight. They set Jaune to the task of capturing Roman and tell him that if any gang tries to stop him while hunting him down, Jaune has the right to kill them. They clearly didn't expect him to succeed, meaning that when he not only gets Roman but wipes out the Atlas Gentlemen in Vale in the process (since they attack him while Jaune's hunting Roman), they've basically given him the power to drag them all into an international gang war.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: In canon, Tukson was killed by Emerald and Mercury after they ambush him in his shop. Here, he gets out of the shop pursued by Blake and Sun, but gets hit by a truck as he's fleeing and dies instantly.
• Dirty Coward:
  • Meg Scarlatina repays Junior for rigging Velvet's custody hearing in her favor by leaving him to die at Cinder's hands. She also takes great glee in the idea of beating the Xiong Clan to pieces and pounding Jaune into paste, all of whom can't possibly fight her off.
  • All of the Vale Syndicate talk big games about how powerful they are, when in reality they're nothing but sniveling cowards who would rather hide in the sand than acknowledge the danger they're in. They all try to throw Jaune under the bus for defending himself from a Huntress, yet immediately shift the blame for the plan onto each other once it turns out he can actually defend himself.
  • Laurie Laurette acts smug when it seems she and the Atlas Gentlemen have the Xiong on the ropes, only to turn tail and flee when the war she wanted starts going badly for her side. She's shot in the back for her trouble.
  • During the operation to assassinate Rust Dubont, Jaune notes with some annoyance that the target's reaction to an attack on his holdings is to flee without so much as picking up a weapon, leaving his men to die in the process.
  • Once Black Sun's viciousness becomes clear, Jaune outright tells the Valean Alliance that their options are to fight back or die. At this prospect, several of the gangs outright walk out of the meeting rather than try to fight the Atlas forces.
• Dissonant Serenity: Jaune reacts to Black Sun blowing up Duke Gormond due to his own machinations by sitting down and drinking a glass of wine.
• The Dog Bites Back: After spending too long being Roman's scapegoat, Jaune finally manages to get back at him by revealing all of his mistakes to Cinder, pinning him for all of the in-universe recent mistakes and issues and essentially washing his hands of the entire affair. Luckily for him, his story checks out more than Roman's does and she believes him.
• Dragon-in-Chief: Jaune brings Cinder to some of his business at her request so she can better understand the realities of organized crime. He presents her as a subordinate, when in reality she's likely the most dangerous person in any room she resides in, and he obeys her every command out of justified fear for his life.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • Jaune doesn't know what the deal is with Team RWBY hating CRDL. The series itself shows that CRDL are Faunus racists and bullies, but none of that has come up around Jaune so far, so he has no idea why the girls are all so hostile to his new friends. In turn, RWBY (besides Ruby) immediately lump Jaune in with CRDL and assume he must be just like them, when that's not the case at all.
  • Velvet ends up near The Club and Jaune brings her in from the rain, where she drinks and rambles a bit to de-stress from a bad argument with her mother. Neither of them know that said argument is about one big situation that they're all involved in.
  • After Jaune gets Cinder killed after getting the Fall Maiden away from her, Jaune notes that he wishes he could've seen her face as she realized her plan had come to ruin. Unknown to him, he did get to see it once already, he just doesn't remember it.
• The Dreaded: Qrow is the single most feared Huntsman in Vale's criminal underworld. Jaune's coworkers practically piss their pants when he brings Qrow to The Club for a quick drink and he tells them his name.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Mercury is offhandedly revealed to have died after he was wounded by Yang, with Jaune noting that Vincent must've jumped the gun and killed him too early. Emerald is later revealed to have died offhand when Cinder can't get a hold of her on her way to Beacon.
• End of an Age: The fic details the end of the Old Guard of the Vale underworld. The current powers-that-be are too old, cowardly, and/or incompetent; Jaune outright describes them as "shadows of their former selves". Even without the canon plot running roughshod over their operations, Mistral's and Atlas's criminal families are sniffing around, plotting to subsume Vale. Whether the new age sees Vale under its own sovereignty or as a puppet of foreign powers seems dependent largely on Jaune's machinations, since the Old Guard are too passive to do anything more than maintain their shrinking powerbase.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Roman reveals to Jaune that he did everything in his power to get Cinder to not go after Junior, first by trying to recruit him himself and then by trying to lead Cinder elsewhere to other sources of manpower when Junior said no. Roman may be a selfish criminal, but he had no intention of selling out a genuine friend.
  • Even Cinder seems genuinely shocked when Jaune arrives to the Dust trade-off having clearly not yet recovered from his fight with Meg, saying that even she's not cruel enough to have denied him a day of rest if he'd asked for it.
• Everyone Has Standards: Roger Lumens refuses to take advantage of the opportunity Junior's death provides and leaves the Xiong Clan alone, even giving Jaune genuine advice for taking his place out of respect towards his old friend.
• False Flag Operation:
  • After the Atlas Gentlemen are wiped from Vale by Jaune, their main branch in Atlas sends replacements to reclaim their territory and retaliate. Though Jaune tries to force the other gangs' hands into a united front, he isn't confident they won't just wash their hands of him and let Atlas have their revenge. His solution is to stage an attack on the Atlas newcomers disguised as a neighboring gang, hoping Atlas will fight back and show that they aren't limiting their aggression to the Xiong clan. It goes swimmingly — the Circus and Ringmaster are slaughtered in revenge for Jaune's attack, and the apparently unprovoked aggression spooks the other gangs so much that hours later Jaune is getting phone calls from fellow gang leaders who hated him, proposing an alliance.
  • Still, it isn't enough, as the gangs are content to put up a passive defense and wait for Atlas to attack. Meanwhile, Jaune is threatened by Black Sun into compromising the alliance and preparing it to play into Atlas's hands, and the Xiong don't have the strength on their own to deny them. The solution Jaune comes to is to create their own provocation — stage an attack on the alliance's weak leader appearing to come from Black Sun, and use that to rile up the other gangs into action, messing up Atlas's game plan and giving the Xiong the manpower to resist their threats.
• Fantastic Arousal: Discussed and Defied. Velvet rants that one of the most infuriating minor things about being a faunus is people fetishizing their animal traits unrealistically. No, her rabbit ears are not erogenous zones, thank you very much (at least, not more so than normal ears).
• Fingore: Jaune decides to make an example of a group of drug manufacturers by having Miltia break their hands. The ringleader gets his index fingers removed by Melanie instead.
• Friendly Enemy: Junior and Roger Lumens are rival crime bosses, but they have genuine respect for each other and their partnership is incredibly strong. Roger even appears to genuinely mourn Junior's death, saying that Junior should have lived to attend his funeral instead, and he gives Jaune actual friendly advice on what to do when he breaks down.
• From Camouflage to Criminal: Most of the Atlesian underworld is ex-military; some of it is speculated to be serving soldiers moonlighting as gangsters. While Dominic and his Gentlemen are more-or-less professionals, the Black Sun are full-on Sociopathic Soldiers.
• Frontline General: Jaune is this for the Valean Alliance when they make their advance on Black Sun, leading their forces; he deals decisive blows, including subverting one of their tanks. His grit and determination, coupled with his above-average combat skills and tremendous Aura, make this pragmatic as well as valiant, although it also makes him a Terror Hero to many of his allies.
• Gaining the Will to Kill: After arguing and trying to convince Meg to give up her delusions of moral superiority and obsession with murdering him, Jaune is pushed to his limit and kills her.
• Gas Leak Cover Up: In preparation for the all-out assault that Dominic and Laurie's forces are about to unleash on the Club, Tony reports a gas leak to ensure that no innocents are in the area. After the battle is over but before the cops arrive, Tony actually causes a gas leak and blows up a chunk of the building to sell the story.
• Getting High on Their Own Supply: The leader of a gang of drug makers who try to muscle in on Xiong territory is noted to be high as a kite, most likely on his own product.
• Gone Horribly Right: Jaune's plan to get rid of Tukson works in the exact worst possible way. To avoid doing so lethally, Jaune has Blake and Sun go after him instead, knowing they'll either arrest him themselves or report him instead of killing him. Instead, Tukson gets so freaked out by a former White Fang operative finding him that he runs away and gets hit by a truck, making it look like Jaune had him assassinated anyway.
• Good Cop/Bad Cop: Qrow and Marson, though Qrow notes that it's closer to "overworked cop" and "cop with a chip on his shoulder".
• Grievous Bottley Harm: Jaune winds up killing Dominic by jamming a broken bottle into his throat.
• I Have Your Wife: Storm uses Tammy to force Jaune into a meeting with her commander.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: Jaune realizes, at seeing Vale's highest crime bosses, that they talk a big game but it's patently obvious they can't back up their boasts any more. Only one brings a bodyguard who might be Huntsman-trained, the other two are a decrepit old crone and a spoiled pig of a man, and none of them can or will force the issue when the outsiders from Mistral disrespect them. Jaune muses that the organizations clearly got to the top for a reason, but their helplessness against the authorities and foreigners encroaching in the kingdom imply that they are long past the height of their power - and soon enough, Jaune arranges the deaths of two of them, while the third isn't in any position to stop him.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: Tony, one of Jaune's lieutenants along with the Malachites, is one of Jaune's top advisors and foot soldiers, capable of arranging pretty much anything that Jaune asks of him and always making sure Jaune goes with the right course of action. Following the attack on the Club, when they need a cover story for the police and decide to say it was a gas leak, Tony actually blows up part of the Club with a gas leak to sell the story.
• Hypocrisy Nod: Jaune is at times treated with suspicion and scrutiny for being associated with the Xiong clan, even if only as a bartender in a suspected front business. He summons up genuine offense when his character is questioned this way, while at the same time marveling at how he can feel that way about accusations which he knows are true.
• Hypocrite: Inverted; Hannah Steele, leader of the Black Sun, is pointedly not a hypocrite in her punishments, as it's revealed that the giant burn scar on her face is a self-inflicted punishment for a previous failure. This is not shown as a positive quality, as it proves that she is so insanely fanatic that there's no possibility of talking her down or appealing to reason.
• Implausible Deniability: Jaune notes that there's no way Ozpin and Qrow don't suspect his involvement in Meg's death, but he has no intention of confessing to it for as long as they don't say anything.
• Inspector Javert: Meg Scarletina becomes obsessed with proving Jaune's association with criminals, to the point of spying on him in spite of a restraining order and even being willing to frame him for other crimes. Once it escalates to being willing to murder him and flexing her huntress authority to excuse beating him to death, Jaune realizes he can't keep her alive anymore and kills her.
• In Spite of a Nail: Pyrrha doesn't meet him until weeks after school starts (as obviously he's not a student), but still takes an instant liking to Jaune when he still doesn't know who she is. It also helps that he shows an impressive work ethic.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Jaune and Qrow are neighbors, and hang out and drink when they can. Qrow says it doesn't feel weird to shoot the shit with a guy literally young enough to be his child because Jaune complains about adult stuff like work instead of teenager stuff that he can't relate to anymore.
• Internal Reveal:
  • In chapter 65, Jaune finally learns that Meg is Velvet's mother. It traumatizes him more than anything, given that he's long since killed Meg and is thus responsible for a lot of Velvet's current issues.
  • Chapter 81 finally has Qrow learn about the circumstances regarding Jaune's true lifestyle, as well as Cinder's general plan for Beacon.
• Invulnerable Knuckles: Subverted by Jaune, who does more damage to himself as a consequence of one-punching a mugger in the head than said mugger was able to do by attacking him. He's so inexperienced with Aura that he doesn't have reinforcing his strikes down yet.
• It Gets Easier: Over time Jaune is becoming less and less apprehensive about the crimes committed by the Xiong clan, and what he personally orders or participates in as its appointed boss. He's at least partially aware of this, and doesn't like what it says about him that the idea of crime doesn't repulse him like it used to.
• Jerkass Has a Point: When Jaune wonders if the Xiong Clan expanding their drug running in the name of keeping people alive is worth it, Miltia calls out his supposed moral superiority over it and points out that he's willing to let people die from low-quality drugs just to keep his hands clean. Jaune calls it out as a blatant manipulation while noting that it's still an accurate statement.
• The Jinx: We see a little of Qrow's day-to-day life and how his Semblance affects it. His bad luck causes a pipe to burst while he's having a shower, and while he tries to get the landlord to deal with it, it comes out that it's already happened twice earlier in the month and the fact that it's caused by his Semblance means that it's not incidental damage and the landlord isn't paying to fix it anymore. Jaune offers his own shower so the guy can at least finish getting clean, only to have the same thing happen.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Jaune's steady criminal decline gets exponentially worse when Laurie and Dominic attempt to kill him. He finally says "to hell with it" and personally massacres the attacking gangs, including executing several prisoners to send a message, then drags Vale's gangs into a war with Atlas as payback for throwing him to the wolves. When this backfires on him and he gets targeted by Black Sun, Jaune stops at nothing to see them wiped out, including killing his own allies should it become necessary.
• Jurisdiction Friction: The police are shown to not be appreciative when Qrow, a Huntsman, gets involved in their investigation of alleged gang activity. In general, they don't care for Huntsmen butting in because they're a bunch of flamboyant Cowboy Cops who not only think they are above the law, but deserve a voice in law enforcement, just based on ass-kicking ability and nothing else. As for Qrow in particular, Ozpin has already suggested he plans to use his authority to protect Meg Scarlatina from lawful punishment, and Qrow's presence put them on guard for signs of meddling on the Headmaster's orders.
• Killed Offscreen: Cinder is revealed to have been killed while Jaune was unconscious after she tried to burn him alive. Qrow starts to explain how it went down, but the narration cuts away.
• Late to the Realization:
  • Jaune only connects the dots that his rabbit Faunus friend who's recently dealing with family drama and the older rabbit Faunus woman against whom Jaune triggered some family drama are the same family and same drama... when he sees the former for the first time in a while and instantly has another flashback of her mother's severed head.
  • It's only in Chapter 79 that Jaune is finally told point-blank that Dove is into guys, him specifically, and it comes as a total shock. After he learns that, he observes that just about everyone else seems to have already known and been giving the two knowing looks the whole time.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Although Jaune plays a crucial role in stopping Cinder from obtaining the Fall Maiden, he never actually learns what it is she's looking for. Qrow almost lets it slip after Cinder's been killed, but he admits that Jaune still can't know what it was she wanted; not that Jaune particularly cares, since being kept out of the loop means he doesn't have to care about it anymore.
• Look Both Ways: Tukson is killed when, fleeing from Blake and Sun, he runs into traffic and get flattened by a truck.
• Make an Example of Them:
  • When Jaune discovers that Meg left Junior to die, he also discovers that her debt to him was due to Junior bribing the judge in Velvet's custody hearing to side with her. In response, he retroactively cuts off their partnership by informing Will Scarlatina of the bribe and giving him all the evidence he needs to prove it.
  • Mistral's government is totally subservient to the kingdom's various crime families. What cemented this was an event known as Bloody March, where Mistral sent Huntsmen (eventually eight in all) to put down the gangs, only to have them brutally killed and displayed for the public to see.
  • Jaune has the surviving few members of the Atlas Gentlemen tied up when their assault on The Club is defeated. He has them laid before him, grabs a handgun, and demands one volunteer as an example. When none speak up, he grabs the youngest and most greenhorn of the lot, rants at them all that this is their own damn fault for spitting on his mercy over and over... then guns down all the other Atlas captives, leaving the young one alive to take the story back to his superiors.
• Mentor Archetype: While being his boss and training him to do his job, Junior also gives him advice and tries to instill independence and motivation in Jaune towards his dream of becoming a huntsman.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: Junior is unceremoniously murdered by Cinder; the author explicitly compares him to Pyrrha's fate in canon.
• Might Makes Right: This is discussed between Qrow and Jaune incognito via an obscured voice call as part of their ongoing cooperation. Qrow asks whether it's occurred to him to be good instead of a violent criminal. Jaune replies yes without hesitation, and explains only people with power get to do the right thing. Qrow says he's had enough 'might makes right' from his sister, but Jaune clarifies that it isn't about the powerful deciding what is right, but about having the privilege of options. The weak either do what they have to to survive, or they die, while the strong have the luxury of choosing not to take every selfish advantage they can.
• Mistaken for Gay: While Jaune eats lunch with Dove before a movie, the waitress comes away with the impression that the two are dating, and Dove yanks Jaune away before he can cotton on and correct her. Dove, on the other hand, isn't "mistaken" for anything, except "taken".
• Mistaken for Racist: While Yang and Weiss are willing to give Jaune the benefit of the doubt in spite of their first impression (him hanging out with CRDL), Blake isn't having it for this reason. She's soon shown evidence to the contrary when he treats some faunus collecting for charity with respect and donates a fat stack to boot.
• Mook Horror Show: Jaune's slaughter of the Atlas and Laurette forces.
• Moral Myopia: Meg justifies Junior's death by pointing out that he's a criminal and no one will care that he's gone. Jaune angrily points out the fact that she became a criminal as well the moment she asked him for help.
• Mugging the Monster: A stupid teen who thinks he's 'hard' confronts Jaune on the street and demands his money. Really, Jaune still isn't dangerous, but he doesn't have literally zero going for him in a fight like this kid does, and he can barely even hurt Jaune before being laid out with one punch.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: Sanlan is a firm believer of this and repeatedly advocates murder as a way to deal with the law and Huntsmen and sees Vale's attempts at subtlety to avoid Awakening the Sleeping Giant as a sign of cowardice.
• Mythology Gag: When talking about how businesses have to make arrangements with the gangs, Jaune is told how just about all of the business owners in Junior's territory have met with him, just like Jaune himself has in Service with a Smile.
• A Nazi by Any Other Name: Black Sun is an Atlesian crime organisation comprised of the most rabidly xenophobic, ultra-national race supremacists that were dishonourably discharged from the military for various war crimes and misconduct. They are patriotic but despised by most of Atlas, with General Ironwood’s loathing of their depravity well-known, and when they come in to replace the Atlas Gentlemen in Vale the situation escalates well beyond what it already was.
• Never My Fault: Meg blames Jaune for her arrest even though all he did was report her completely legitimate crimes to the police. Qrow mentions that it reminds him of Raven. It eventually escalates to the point that Meg tries to murder Jaune for it, even saying that she'll frame him for murder if it gets him off the streets for good, all while denying her own crimes in the process.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Deconstructed. After being attacked in The Club by a petty criminal working for a rival gang, Jaune lets the guy off with a beating, ostensibly to deliver a message back to his employers, but everyone including the thug can see that it's simply to spare himself having the guy's blood on his conscience. His motive isn't because it's the right thing to do, it's a degree of selfishness, trying to retain a moral high ground he can't afford without regard for the obvious consequences. Jaune's reward for this is to have the guy come back for a second try, this time in his apartment with a gun, and he has to traumatically kill the guy in self-defense anyway.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond:
  • Jaune, as a barely-trained civilian with Aura, can't stand up to basically any other major character in RWBY, not even one of the Malachites who got thrashed by one of the show's main protagonists. He probably couldn't even reliably beat one of The Club's thugs. But among normal small-time criminals who don't even have his few advantages, he still comes out on top with disconcerting ease. Jaune doesn't realize it until it's pointed out, but a few months of working out and getting intensive combat tutoring have left him in very good shape... for a normal person. He's just been comparing himself to the Huntsman-level fighters he hangs out with.
  • Criminality as a whole has this issue, as Jaune gradually gets exposed to. The Xiong clan are (or were) feared on the streets and respected for their business, but several members of their cartel are more powerful and established even before the Xiong suffered their recent setbacks. Even then, the major organizations Jaune deals with at first are only the most powerful that operate in one part of the city, and in the grand scheme of Vale's underworld are middling at best. The East Dragon Company, one of the big players in the Xiong's neighborhood, are themselves a minor outreach arm of one of Mistral's biggest gangs, more powerful than any in Vale.
• Nothing Personal: Dominic claims this when he thinks he's killed Jaune. Unfortunately for him, Jaune is Playing Possum, and responds with a "Good to know." before murdering him.
• Not So Above It All: Ozpin is generally a very serious individual, but when he comes into Jaune's hospital room after he wakes up, he tries to pass the timing off as a coincidence; Qrow points out the security camera in the corner and tells him he doesn't need to keep up his "mysteriously good timing gag", and Ozpin only responds that he has an image to maintain.
• Oblivious Guilt Slinging: When Jaune sees her for the first time in a while, Velvet discusses her family drama reaching a tipping point and breaks down in grief. Meanwhile Jaune can't avoid the thought that he personally broke her family and executed her mother with his own hands. It takes him some effort to offer his condolences, because to hell with his own guilt, she doesn't know the full picture and right now she needs comfort.
• Oblivious to Love: Like always, Jaune. Dove clearly has it bad for him, even taking him to a romance movie as a pair, but the idea just won't click in his head. At the very least this is more justified than usual, what with Jaune having shown basically no romantic interest in guys.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome:
  • In one moment, we see Jaune tell Bon-Hwa that Kane is lacing his drugs with Dust and had tried to assassinate him, putting the cartel at risk. The next thing we see is a news report revealing that Bon-Hwa and his gang then massacred the entire Ravager gang over the course of a single evening.
  • After Cinder tries to roast Jaune alive, he wakes up in the hospital two days later. Qrow then reveals that the Malachite twins were able to hold Cinder off long enough for him and Ozpin to arrive, where they then managed to kill Cinder.
• Off with His Head!: Bon-Hwa has Kane decapitated and sends the severed head to the Xiong Family. Later, after finally being pushed to his limit, Jaune decapitates the defeated Meg, as her obsession with taking him down couldn't be allowed to continue.
• One Degree of Separation: Jaune ends up in so many named characters' circles that he's practically the center of a ludicrous Venn diagram, and very few of his associates know about one another or there would be (more) friction. He's an employee of The Club, nominally neighbours with both Qrow and Glynda (though they're usually away), friends with Team CRDL, Ruby (tentatively with her team), Pyrrha, Velvet and Coco, and getting tutoring from Dr. Oobleck. Jaune's law-abiding Hunter associates have no idea he's a (unwilling) crime boss, his criminal associates don't know how many highly-placed law enforcers he talks to, or that he knows the girl who wrecked his workplace, who is his neighbor's niece, another of whom he has tutoring him. Jaune's best guy friends don't know he's made friends with their bullying victim that they target based on race, and said victim and Jaune both don't know that her current family drama was started by him.
• Outside-Context Problem:
  • The Valean crime families rely on a system of honor and reputation, meaning that while blood does get shed in pursuit of their goals, there's a purpose behind everything and they run on mutual respect. No one's expecting someone like Cinder, who couldn't care less about any of that, to show up and wreck shop. No matter how unexpected she is, though, she simply can't become top dog based on surprise alone, and her inability to operate inside Context causes her some setbacks. In light of that, she sits in on some of Jaune's criminal dealings to get a better idea of how the underworld normally works and how she can play it to her advantage.
  • The Black Sun is such a vicious organization that absolutely no one in Vale (besides Jaune, who gets a closeup look at their workings early on) has any idea how to counter it besides essentially asking them politely to leave. Jaune has to arrange for the deaths of several gangs and even his own allies before the Vale gangs start getting the message that their options are to fight back or die.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Subverted. Ozpin says Jaune's Beacon application was rejected because there were just so many strong applicants this year that he didn't measure up in comparison, when he would have been accepted if it was almost any other year. In reality, his transcripts were fake, and he isn't 'overshadowed by prodigies while still being competent', but rather overshadowed because he literally has nothing going for him.
• Peer-Pressured Bully: Based on what little he's told Jaune, it's implied that Dove doesn't actually agree with Cardin's racism (if not bullying in general) but goes along with it to keep him as a friend. He has a lot of respect for the anti-racist Doctor Oobleck and describes the Doctor's and Cardin's disagreements in class as the latter making a fool of himself.
• Playing Both Sides: After dealing with the Black Sun enough, Jaune becomes good at predicting their responses to his actions and uses it as much as he can. In particular, he kills Duke Gormond by inviting both him and the Black Sun to the same place at the same time, knowing that they'll simply blow the building up rather than attempt negotiations while Jaune watches from across the street.
• Pragmatic Hero: Ozpin, with his hands tied regarding how to deal with the Black Sun, is fine working with Jaune, whom he knows for a fact is a criminal, if it means getting a much worse organization off the streets. He even offers him a future spot at Beacon as a condition for keeping things relatively bloodless - an offer that he keeps his end of when Jaune proves vital to taking out Cinder. Additionally, the final chapter indicates that as long as Jaune remains generally benevolent and keeps civilians out of the crossfire, Ozpin and Qrow are willing to leave him and the Clan alone.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • Apparently the human (or faunus) trafficking industry is negligible among Vale's criminals. Not out of any moral issue, but because it simply isn't practical or lucrative compared to just about any other criminal operation. A person needs food and living space, will try to escape, and can't easily be sold in portions, while their weight in cocaine is the opposite. If you want to buy a person, your best bet is to go into Vacuo.
  • Vincent, Duke Gormon's nephew, is noted to probably already know that Jaune's machinations killed his uncle, but regardless of if he knows or not, he has no interest in seeking revenge against a family member he couldn't care less about. Notably, Jaune also admits that even if he does know the truth, it benefits him far more to coast on Jaune's power for the moment.
• Reluctant Ruler: Jaune would like nothing more than to wash his hands of criminality and leave the Xiong and the underworld behind. But besides the issue of being threatened into leadership by Cinder, he keeps grudgingly putting himself in positions of authority because he seems to be the only one interested in getting shit done, while the other gangs coast on old reputations, stick to transparent posturing rather than force, and pray silently that the coming upheaval will pass them by, no matter how many gangs hoping the same die for it. He loses this by the end of the story, ultimately turning down the opportunity to study at Beacon, because without Cinder hanging over him and his reputation fully cemented he finds himself all-too-comfortable in the role of crime lord. He's grown too used to the sense of independence as a working adult and the power and adrenaline that comes from being a feared criminal, and he'd like to make sure the underworld is holding itself to a certain bare-minimum standard of conduct.
• Revenge Before Reason: In the docks battle, Meg, who has been thoroughly beaten by two clearly superior enemies, has the perfect chance to flee the scene and live another day, but instead, she chooses to go after Jaune in one last desperate attempt to finally kill him. This mistake gets her killed.
• Ruthless Foreign Gangsters:
  • Mistral's organized crime groups are noted to be much more powerful, influential, and vicious than Vale's.
  • Atlas by comparison is much closer to by-the-book, somewhat more violent than Vale is normally comfortable with but with an attitude closer to military than savage mob. The exception is a group called Black Sun, made up of dishonorable discharges from Atlas's army who were kicked out for virulent racism and war crimes, and who are just about as ruthless as it gets up north. Atlas's criminals send them as a vanguard to replace the Atlas Gentlemen because their approach to taking over the city is changing from subtlety to force.
• Secret-Keeper: Lady Catelyn is well aware that Jaune killed Rust Dubont, but she doesn't seem inclined to publicly reveal this information. Vincent is also implied to know that Jaune's machinations killed his uncle Duke Gormond, but it benefits him to keep it quiet.
• Shipper on Deck: Coco constantly teases Velvet and Jaune about each other. She urges both of them to go for it, not because of some unrealistic idea of romance, but because there's clearly some attraction (in no small part thanks to her putting the idea in their heads), Velvet could use more confidence, and what's the worst that could happen? The answer to that question is worse than she thinks, but that's neither here nor there...
• Ship Sinking: Coeur is keeping Jaune's pairing of the work hidden for now, but he has already confirmed that it is not either of the Malachite twins, as he likes keeping things fresh and he already did Jaune/Miltia in Service with a Smile.
  • Jaune/Velvet was teased for a good while, but seems to be dead in the water after Jaune killed her mother; when next they meet, Meg’s face has been seared so thoroughly into his mind that not only could he not be oblivious to their relation anymore, the gut-churning guilt and haunting reminder of Meg when he looks at Velvet makes an intimate relationship uncomfortable to even consider now.
• Spiteful Spit: When Cinder realises that Jaune screwed her over and is about to kill him, he spits in her face as a final act of defiance.
• The Syndicate: Vale's crime families can be influential and powerful within the context of criminality, but none of them can hold a candle to the power that Mistral's criminals hold in their home kingdom. It's not an exaggeration to say that Mistral is de facto controlled by organized crime, with the supposedly legal institutions either directly financed by the head families, or tentatively tolerated as long as the families choose to allow it. They are almost literally unaccountable to the government, and so can afford to be much more ruthless in their enforcement than Vale's families can get away with.
• Tautological Templar: Marson, Qrow's partner on the investigation into The Club. He's experienced in fighting Grimm, so he's used to a heavy-handed and combat-focused method of conflict resolution and is a firm believer that huntsmen and huntresses are more trustworthy than civilians, and so is a Jerkass to Jaune because of Meg's claims about him. Qrow gives him a dressing down for it.
• Tiger by the Tail: Jaune officially crosses the metaphorical line when he murders Meg Scarletina to finally get her off of his back. While she made it clear she would come after him again, in the moment she was already restrained, and it's the first time that he commits such an act in anything other than the pure heat of self-defense. It's at this point that he realizes that even without Cinder trapping him, he's stuck in the criminal underworld for good.
• Took a Level in Badass: It's no exaggeration to say that Jaune is pathetic at the start of the story. The very first chapter is him getting beaten unconscious by a couple of civilian thugs, en route to conning his way into a Huntsman school. But Jaune is very motivated to change that, and he quickly finds people to train him in hand-to-hand, swordplay, and gunplay. After he achieves a baseline level in those, and starts leaning on his main strength of absurd aura capacity, he becomes much more threatening. It eventually makes him one of the strongest criminals in Vale, though that says more about the average criminal than it does about him.
• Trapped in Villainy: Jaune can't risk leaving the Xiong clan's orbit after being placed in charge of it by Cinder, because even if he escapes, she will absolutely go after his family, most of whom can't defend themselves.
• Underestimating Badassery:
  • The other gangs are constantly testing and pressuring the Xiong for having Jaune as the new leader, rightly smelling blood in the water when the guy in charge is totally unfit for the job. What they don't seem to realize is that he has Aura and is training to attend Beacon, meaning he's a weakling compared to anyone else in that field but he's still objectively stronger than the vast majority of gangsters. They can't afford to not take him seriously, and after one too many incidents he resolves to demonstrate exactly why.
  • Sanlan and Kuja are criminal enforcers from Mistral, coming into Vale on behalf of their employers. Their proposed solution to every problem from law enforcement is gruesome violence, as that's how it works back in Mistral. They presume that Vale's government is as weak as Mistral's, and by extension see Vale's own criminals as weak for fearing the law. The problem is, Vale is not Mistral — at the very least, they've shown they're willing to throw over twice as many Huntsmen at a single sting operation as Mistral's gangs fought off for the entire period of Bloody March. They only have the foggiest clue what kind of forces they mean to tangle with.
• Unexpected Virgin: An example where the reader is fully aware long before another character comes into the story and finds out. Lisa Lavender's first impression of Jaune is that he's a nightclub manager and bartender, in great shape, and loaded enough to go halfsies on a real house in a city where property is ludicrously expensive. She assumes she has to set ground rules about keeping it down with all the chicks he's no doubt bringing home on the regular, only to be gobsmacked to hear that he's never done any such thing.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Jaune is far from the best fighter but he is massive pool of Aura letting absorb absurd amounts of damage and still keep fighting.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: By turning in Meg and getting her arrested, Jaune accidentally gets Ozpin and Qrow involved enough to begin investigating the Club. This eventually escalates to Meg trying to outright murder him and Jaune having to kill her so she doesn't expose him and endanger his family.
• Was It All a Lie?: A non-romantic, indirect variant; when Qrow learns that Jaune is actively involved in organised crime, he wonders if he’s the biggest idiot for not having figured it out. Jaune pointedly stresses that when he first met Qrow he really was what he claimed, that them being neighbours-turned-friends wasn’t part of a scheme, and that Jaune only became what he is after being held at metaphorical gunpoint.
• Wham Episode:
  • Chapter 11: Cinder kills Junior and forces Jaune to take his former position as leader of the Xiong clan.
  • Chapter 49: Meg's ambush of Jaune's Dust robbery ends when Jaune finally has enough of her endless pursuit of him and kills her.
  • Chapter 60: Though much of the actual Atlas Gentlemen/Laurette - Xiong conflict takes place in the prior chapter, it is here that Jaune gives up on playing nice. He wades into battle, slaughtering much of the enemy, cold-bloodedly executes all but one captive, and sends the last off as a message to the broader Atlas underworld.
• What the Hell, Hero?
  • Jaune is furious with Blake over her botching of the Tukson case, reaming her out at length for it.
  • Qrow reads Marson the riot act over his hostility towards Jaune due to his blind faith in Meg just because she's a huntress and Jaune is a civilian.
• With Us or Against Us: Qrow mentions this mentality to explain Marson's Jerkass tendencies to Jaune. Due to how different their lifestyles, social circles and values are from each other, most huntsmen and civilians don't mesh well with huntsmen tending to take sides of their own first and foremost.
• Xanatos Gambit: Roman asking Jaune to take out Tukson puts him in the best possible situation and backs Jaune into a corner. In essence, Roman can claim credit if Jaune succeeds but deflect the blame if he fails, passing the buck entirely to Jaune instead.
• You Are in Command Now: Jaune is abruptly forced into leadership of the Xiong clan by Cinder after she kills Junior for not submitting to her. She doesn't remotely care about Jaune's existing position in the clan (basically nil) or what's good for the organization, only that he was nearby and clearly scared shitless of her so he'll cooperate out of fear.
• Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: A interesting case where the one giving praise is as ashamed to give it, as the recipient is to receive it. Jaune is not happy when Miltia tells him how he's actually been doing a good job at leading the Xiong Clan after he executed Meg Scarlatina. All it means is that he is now a murderer and tied to crime in a way that may be impossible for him to get out of. Miltia isn't actually happy about how good Jaune is at the organized crime game, because she wanted to keep him from being corrupted by the underworld as per Hei's wishes.
• Younger Than They Look: Jaune is a bit surprised when he's told by Qrow that, wearing full uniform and in his element as a bartender, he comes off closer to early or mid-twenties than to his actual age of seventeen.

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