Honestly, count me in the camp of Jaune going "nah fuck 'em" and going in it for himself.

Everyone losing their shit over whether Lancaster or Knightshade will be the endgame and I'm sitting here hoping Jaune goes the Mikazuki route WITHOUT the ending.

Ain't like Salem is picky on who she wants to off to torture him with. She's already targeted both of them. before.

After reading some of these reviews, I read the chapter again to cheer myself up.

What many of these people don’t seem to get is that the reason Jaune’s friends reacted poorly to the revelation was because he had lied to them. Combined with the harrowing experience and emotions running high, this sudden, unexpected reveal results in anger, more so than if he had come forth with the secret himself. Not to mention that I’m sure at least some of them are thinking, “If Jaune lied about being a knight, what else has he been lying about?”

Another thing many forget is the nature of Jaune’s lie. To the readers, we’re 100% behind Jaune the Blacksmith becoming a Hero because of how wrong a caste system is. But to the rest of the Guild who live in a culture where the caste system is ingrained in their minds, Jaune has done something foolhardy that endangers his friends. The closest real life analogy I can think of for this situation is that from his friends’ perspective, Jaune is an untrained civilian impersonating a trained soldier.
Many have decried Blake’s hypocrisy for being angry at Jaune for keeping secrets from her while not revealing her own to him, and they are right to an extent. Blake has told very little of her past before Beacon, and Jaune did not push for answers, so she should be more understanding of his situation. But there is a distinction between the nature of the two secrets: while whatever Blake did to earn the name “kinslayer” from Salem is a huge secret to keep from someone you love, it does not necessarily affect the lives of her Guildmates, as Jaune’s secret did.

I do agree that for the same reason Jaune should have revealed his Class as a Blacksmith, Ruby should also be forthright on the exact strengths and limitations of her Reaper Class. While I think the entire Guild has picked up on Ruby’s low Constitution by now, they should be aware of how much of a Glass Cannons he really is.
And actually, the entire Guild should have a meeting and lay out what exactly everyone’s strengths and weaknesses are. I know Heroes don’t usually do this to avoid revealing weaknesses to potential rivals, but within the Guild, where they are comrades expected to fight together, I think it warranted that they put their trust in each other.

I am also baffled on why so many reviewers think it so OoC that Jaune did not defend himself at all during this chapter, citing how he talked sense into them back in their first Dungeon together. Well, for starters, all that anger and resentment wasn’t directed solely at him.
More generally speaking, it comes down to Jaune’s low self-esteem and the guilt he had been feeling all along for lying to his friends. Throughout the story, Jaune has always thought himself as the weak link of the Guild for being a fake Hero, and as one other reviewer noted, while he had been quick to defend his friends, he has never stood up for himself. So, between his guilt and self-depreciation, he believes he deserves all the words that were thrown at him.

I do believe a time of separation between Jaune and the Guild is necessary. This will give time for the Guild to cool off, and come to realize that while they are rightly angry for being lied to, they will also remember all the good Jaune has done for them, and that some of their words spoken in the heat of the moment were too harsh.

I really hope that before Jaune leaves Beacon, someone (most likely Ruby, Ellayne, or maybe Velvet) will remind Jaune of all the good things he has done in the Guild. It would end the Book on a good feeling of being at your lowest point, but now able to see the ray of light.

This still stands as my favorite of your ongoing stories, so keep up the good work!

Horrible execution of the concept to be honest.

Why is there no confusion at first when his class is revealed. They were all just in a life or death battle and are injured, the first thing they do though is rage at Jaune basically.

Their bonds of friendship mean nothing? How is Weiss able to remember the fact she used up that elixir and compute it with the other fact that maybe she wouldn't have had to immediately.

This felt like a severely unorganic dissolution of the guild. It should have been slower and more rational on an emotional level, even if it took longer.

Well. I want to be wrong about this, especially if it turn out that the pairing would be ruby and jaune, but I think Blakes gonna die.

Decided to reread the entire story after this week's big extravaganza... and notice that Lancaster is specifically stated to be the end game...

Did we all forget?

Did plans change?

Who knows, but it casts the fic in a completely different light of hindsight.

I for one really appreciate this chapter. I had to read it in 10 minute increments over the day, so the entire thing felt very weighty. I think some people are missing the point of how *huge* a deal the caste issue is here. not only did he put them at risk in a fight, he lied to them, and most importantly to him being expelled, he broke the only law that was keeping this war from blowing it's top. If Mistral brass hears about this then there is no way this war ends without more heroes being involved, and that will be a massacre that Salem will have a hay day with.

Damn that was hard hitting. Feel bad for Jaune obviously.
Only just realising the theme of this story is consequence. For some reason I always though things would be alright and he would continue being a hero.

Amazing reveal. In a weird way this was probably one of my favourite chapters.

FINALLY! Wow better than I could've imagined honestly!
So glad I accidentally missed the last update because I don't think I would've been able to survive the wait!

This was only a prologue, now the real story begins, where Jaune will unite the working class against bourgeoisie, (emm I meant to say the noble caste) and overthrow the rotten monarchy. Firing cannon from a vessel will signal brave workers to storm the palace and bring the ruling class to their knees. Once the forces of revolution annihilate any resistance, power will be given to the people. King will be replaced by council of people commissars with Jaune as a chairman. He will immediately seize the means of production (if there are any) and declare centrally planned economy. All who oppose the glorious leader will be hunted down as enemies of the revolution. Team RWBY? More like team GULAG. The Peoples republic of Vale will spread revolution to other nations, creating world where proletariat will rule supreme.
Cant wait for next chapter comrade, now excuse me becouse I have some strike actions to organize.

In the forums he said he wasn't doing Lancaster like he originally planned.

The majority of the problem with this is that he has plenty of knightshade stories but something new and interesting in this story(Lancaster) was shafted for the same old same old.

I know it's only a few stories but when it's a handful of incredibly lengthy Jaune x Blake content it becomes tiresome to be getting it again right after we were promised something new.

It's alright though. He seems to be open to changing it back. And even called for a poll in the forums.

Honestly this chapter needs a rewrite. 5 times wasn’t enough. Couer wanted to make this the big bad black moment of the entire story and have the chapter feel empty, and it really did. He did a good job of that. This chapter feels empty because he threw away 2 years worth of character building, turning the cast into mindless puppets that only exist to drive a bad narrative. Characters are supposed to have their own individual personalities and experiences, but all of a sudden Jaune’s closest friends are treating him worse than they treated Tyrian.

And the narrative being told here is that Jaune is incapable, he put the guild at risk, and he’s selfish for risking their lives for his own pride. Except, well, none of this is true... at all.
The only reason this illogical argument is even in the story is because Coeur keeps trying to beat it into our heads and hope we’ll eventually believe that Jaune is as incapable as everyone says, because it’s the only reason he would be forced to retire from being a hero.
Looking at the story though, Jaune made the plan that got everyone through initiation by collapsing the roof onto the elder Grimm. He made Ruby’s reinforced scythe so she would stop getting herself killed. Jaune was the only one to resist torchwick’s charisma, he saved Blake from the snowstorm in Atlas, weakened merlot by dropping the pyre on him, saved Oscar’s village, started/finished the guild wars, held the wall during the siege of that one Mistralian town, sacrificed himself so the party could kill Tyrian, held Magnis and even stopped the Graycloak conspiracy there.
How is any of that “putting the party at risk” and “being selfish”?
Dumb.

Kinda hoping for a time skip where Jaune stays home and years later they need him back for his anti Salem blacksmithing

*sees comments*

Good grief.

Anyway, don't worry about the salt. These type of reveal chapters, scenes, etc in stories always garner such...volatile reactions. Comes with the territory. Do you, and see this story to the conclusion it naturally wants to go.

I don't give a damn about whatever ship you're planning as endgame. Whatever goes naturally for your story is where you should go.

Anyway, always darkest before the dawn. Let's see how our boy gets back up to continue fighting his own fight against destiny. His friends will come around, they are understandably upset because his decision to roleplay a knight placed them all in danger when they needed him for "Knight roles" however, as they all have pointed out in one form or another, it's because Jaune never thought or truly fought like a knight in the first place that allowed them to survive the situations they've faced time and time again. A real knight would've hated them all and gotten them all killed.

I'm guessing we'll be seeing Ruby point that out to them in time. As for Jaune, that's a truth he'll have to realize on his own. Jaune the Knight didn't get as far as he did. He never existed. Jaune the Blacksmith did. He said, fuck this I can be so much more. And he has and is still doing so.

I'm looking forward to seeing how you bring this to life.

Now go for it!

Let's review the whole "Coeur writes the same thing" really. I mean, 3 fics have been Knightshade, 1 White Knight, 1 Arc Furnace, 1 Dragonslayer, 2 arguably Silent Knight, 1 Arcwitch, and the rest is definitely not Blake. That is 1/6 of his stories being Knightshade. If you discount one shots and spinoffs that is 3/14. Shipping wise it does not hold up.

If it comes to Jaune having a secret and self esteem issues, well to get rid of that you either have to be at the end of a character arc and really explore it or put an OC in with his name. The continuous reuse of Blake kind of has to be there as well...she has a large effect on the plot and the White Fang so she is unavoidable really.

I mean you might get the impression if you sorted from oldest to newest but..no it only holds up if you only read Forged Destiny, From Beyond (which I found meh) and OGT.

In addition to that, the implication is that it doesn't matter "how" the writer uses those concepts but rather the "what" which is ludicrously reductive and shows that you might be skimming and not reading. (btw did anyone notice that there is no health pool? I hope that is deliberate as it makes rogue classes much scarier and means that CON might be as much of a panic factor as characters believe).

You're okay not to like his stuff stylistically or his favoured tropes (misunderstanding as comedy) or feel his writing is bloated etc. But at least make sure you can be factually right on things that are checkable and not just parroting memes.