After a long slumber and a bit of fatigue from writing Ascendancy, I'm here with a new idea!

This time, we're going to be a little more chill than before... thankfully. I think we all need a bit of a light-hearted read from time to time.

MegaVale

(Inspired by MegaTokyo)

The story is set in an alternative Remnant that is more reminiscent of the modern world than the original canon, with our two main characters, Sun and Jaune, a pair of tourists from across the continent, visiting Vale for a video game expo in the middle of the city.

However, they soon find that after visiting the expo and buying as much as they could physically carry, they have maxed out their credit and debit cards and are now stuck in Vale with no way back home, their phones out of charge and their money all spent. Thankfully, they are able to find Jaune's old online friend Lie Ren, and are able to crash at his and his girlfriend Nora's place for the time being.

Unfortunately, even Ren's patience begins to run thin with the duo as they hang around for too long, and soon enough Jaune has to get a job at a low level modelling shop in downtown Vale owned by a crotchety old Shopkeeper and his assistant, a straight-faced deadpan Blake Belladonna. Meanwhile, Sun wanders around the city doing wacky odd jobs here and there, before getting roped into a teaching assistant role by Glynda Goodwitch for Beacon Primary School as a speaker of Mistralian languages, though those only come up as game phrases he learnt from online FPSs.

From there, the story would diverge into a combination of comedy and drama, where two main plotlines would emerge and run along each other, occasionally intersecting and building off one another.

Sun's story would be the main source of the story's comedy, as he would grow closer to Blake Belladonna, with his zany optimistic attitude playing off her straight-laced pessimism, and together they would rope the likes of Coco Adel, Glynda Goodwitch, Cardin Winchester, Ruby Rose, and Yang Xiao Long into their wacky adventures. What's more, much of Sun's story would be focused on parodying a lot of common RWBY FNDM tropes and story threads, such as the darker edgier protagonist, time travel fics, harem fics, react fics, gamer fics, mafia AUs, 'Secretly a Faunus' fics, betrayal fics and even character archetypes within the FNDM itself, such as Glynda being a dominatrix or Blake being a walking cat stereotype.

All in all, Sun's story would focus on parodying a lot of the RWBY FNDM and the common fics seen in the fandom.

However, whereas Sun's story would be focused on comedy and parodying those common threads, Jaune's story would be focused on drama and deconstructing those threads.

Jaune's story would be primarily a deconstruction of the harem genre of fics, with other deconstructions pushed in as well. Jaune would be initially presented as his common fanon archetype: that being a butt-monkey that is completely oblivious to the affections of those around him, and even somewhat idiotic. However, this is soon picked apart and revealed to be a lie, as Jaune is unaware of the feelings of those who love him because he is a well of insecurity and self-loathing, unwilling to form romantic attachments to other people because of his clumsiness and seeming inadequacies, viewing himself as inferior to everyone else around him, as well as past trauma from a previous relationship that was remarkably unhealthy and did not end well for him or the girl he broke up with.

All in all, his obliviousness is born from his self-loathing and insecurities, and his status as a butt-monkey and slight idiot, as well as previous trauma from an unhealthy relationship, only serves to feed them.

However, it should also be noted that his self-loathing and self-deprecation is deconstructed in of itself, as it is portrayed to be just as harmful to others as it is to himself, and by insulting himself so regularly he is also hurting the feelings of those around him who do care about him.

It is also stated at the beginning that Jaune ends up developing a crush on Blake, but it is not reciprocated as she feels more for Sun than him. Just because he is attracted to her does not mean that she has to reciprocate them.

Blake herself would be a deconstruction of the Kuudere archetype, as her seemingly emotionless exterior hides a very emotionally sensitive woman beneath it, as she is still raw from her previously relationship with Adam Taurus, and the only way that she knows how to protect herself is through putting up a stoic demeanour around herself. Much of her arc with Sun is focused on chipping away that protective exterior around her and allowing herself to express her feelings freely.

Jaune's story also deconstructs how stressful a harem story would be in real life, as Jaune doesn't have the emotional maturity to juggle all those kinds of relationships, nor does he want to, as he only wants to be with one girl and not a dozen. Not to mention that there would be a lot of jealousy involved between the love interests, and a lot of broken feelings and needless drama between them all as well.

His love interests in this deconstruction, Pyrrha, Weiss, Ruby, and Yang, also deconstruct specific aspects of their fanon archetypes, as well as certain character archetypes found within harem anime themselves:

First of all, Pyrrha would deconstruct the perfect girl, as she first shows Jaune a lot of unconditional kindness and politeness, and is incredibly talented and excels in everything that she does. However, underneath this she is actually a well of insecurities and self-loathing, much like Jaune, as well as being unable to make many real friends as all the ones around her only care about her talent, body, and fame. Eventually, it is Pyrrha who lands the relationship with Jaune, but even then their relationship has complications, as an entire arc of their story consists of a deconstruction of the double standard of female-on-male abuse in harem anime, with both of them getting into a fight and Pyrrha slapping Jaune in the end. The both of them end up spending much of that arc wallowing in their own misery about the fight and wondering wherever or not their relationship is even stable or healthy, especially with a lot of people excusing Pyrrha slapping Jaune, but not affording any concessions towards Jaune if he did the same thing, something that Pyrrha calls them all out for. Eventually, the both of them realise that neither of them are emotionally ready for a relationship, and decide to break it off for a while and allow themselves to work on their own flaws before getting back together.

Weiss, meanwhile, deconstructs the Tsundere archetype, as she is the one that Jaune used to be in a relationship with before arriving in Vale, with Weiss being very abrasive and unable to really express her feelings to him. However, because of her abrasiveness, her words to him come out as harsh and cruel, with Jaune unable to understand the hidden meaning behind them, and once she begins to deal in the double standard of female on male, their relationship becomes incredibly toxic and he leaves her, thereby spawning most of his problems. Eventually, she mellows out from her previous personality and tracks Jaune down to apologise to him, but he does not accept and makes it clear that he has no desire to entertain the notion of another relationship with her.

Ruby, meanwhile, deconstructs the Genki Girl, as she is incredibly energetic and happy-go-lucky, though this is presented as tiring and hard to keep up with. She also deconstructs the jailbait - as Jaune is uncomfortable with the age gap between them - the big eater - as she has an increased metabolism and hates this aspect about herself - and the naïve innocent little girl - as she is a lot smarter than people give her credit for, but hides this away because she feels like people won't like that aspect of herself, though the reverse is actually true. Eventually, Ruby falls out of love with Jaune and, with his encouragement, ends up pursuing a relationship with Oscar, a boy of her age in her class at Beacon High.

Yang, finally, deconstructs the party girl and roughhouse that the FNDM seems to think of her as, as her constant partying lifestyle is both a financial drain on her life as well as a constant source of stress for her, as she always wakes up with a hangover and fatigue. Additionally, she now has a criminal record for being involved in illegal fights with gangs, meaning that she finds it incredibly difficult to get a job, and any that she does find doesn't hold because of her party girl lifestyle (which is implied to be a holdover from her Uncle Qrow). All of this comes from her previous life as a promoted parent of Ruby, which itself is deconstructed by the fact that she had to give up much of her childhood to look after Ruby after Summer and Raven walked out on them, and now desperately wants to reclaim her sense of freedom. Much of her and Jaune's story is focused around getting her to understand the effects that she has on people and how this lifestyle of hers is destructive and unhealthy, and how she needs to find a healthy balance between the two instead of just abandoning one or the other.

In the end, Pyrrha and Jaune emotionally mature as people through their experiences, both together and apart, and they end up as the final couple, completing the story and ending it on a happy note.

It might not seem like it, but just because Jaune's story is focused more on drama than comedy doesn't mean that there aren't positive elements and threads to it as well.

Also, Sun's adventures can be as wacky as can be in juxtaposition to Jaune's, so that's always fun.

I've been needing to write something fun in order to get my mind out of the negative loop that I've dug out for myself, so hopefully this'll do.

Please let me know if you want to do something like this or any of the other ideas that I have posted beforehand via PM, or leave a review about what you think. I've been in a bit of a rut recently and have been rather fatigued from writing, so anything that you say will be a good boost for me.

Thank you a lot, and as always, see you next time!