Chapter 10 (Professor Arc)

### Characters

Jaune Arc, Neopolitan, Blake Belladonna, Yang Xiao Long, Sun Wukong, Ruby Rose, Penny Polendina, Glynda Goodwitch, Roman Torchwick

**Chapter 10** is the tenth chapter of *Professor Arc* published on 2015 July 27 after *Facing the music* and before Chapter 11. This is the first chapter of PA to not have a title.

## Background

### Financial Situation

After almost one month since the publication of chapter 9, Coeur's work situation had not improved, and he speculated it would become busier. Coeur was worried that the company may go bankrupt between September to November 2015. Coeur also needed surgery on his left wrist due to a previous injury, which he noted would be a problem if he tried to attain future employment in writing. While Coeur received recommendations to start a Patreon account "a few months back", he never considered this since he thought he could sustain himself without external support. Around July 19, Coeur created his Patreon account, which he shared both on *One Good Turn Deserves Another* and *Professor Arc*. He was hesitant to do this, but decided to do so with the prospect of losing his job. He also included a direct link on his profile, indicating he updating his profile around late-July 2015, but noted there were problems with the link redirection. Thanks to generous support he received by July 20, he was in the clear for the most part, and even able to release quicker and more consistent updates. Coeur's new plan was to release updates every 28 days, but decided to release updates every 21 days for August 2015 in appreciation for the support. To provide further incentives for people to provide funding, Coeur decided to offer rewards to patrons including access to non-*RWBY* fiction works, general lessons on writing, beta-writer services, and one-on-one guidance. Coeur speculates that, with enough support, he could retire to being an exclusive content creator, similar to a YouTuber or Twitch streamer. While concerned about the legality of profiting from FanFiction, Coeur speculated that it should not be illegal, since several users make money from derivative works such as art, cosplay, and abridged works.

Coeur also announced the release of a new work, *Professor Arc: Staffroom Chronicles*, which had been published earlier on July 2. He detailed that they were side-stories for the PA continuity, but established that while they were more comedic, they still fell within the realm of the PA canon unlike the end-of-chapter omakes. Finally, Coeur advertised that fan art for PA was produced by Exvnir on DeviantArt, praising his works for cheering him in an emotional rut.

## Synposis

Professor Jaune Arc was in an uncomfortable situation, as Neopolitan was arranged in such a way that caused unwanted stimulation. Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long continued their conversation, with Yang raving about the volume of homework that Doctor Bartholomew Oobleck gave. Neo attempted to course-correct in a less awkward position, but only resulted in stimulating Jaune further. Jaune told to Neo to stop, much to Neo's dissatisfaction, until she finally stopped realizing the futility of the situation. As Jaune reflected on his situation, he conjoured further images, which did not alleviate his situation as Neo attempted to kick him. All this time, Blake and Yang were discussing their classes with Bart and Professor Peter Port. Jaune, looking for an out, decided to end the detention by asking that Blake and Yang not sneak in his room again. Blake and Yang agreed and left, leaving Jaune and Neo by themselves.

The next day, on Saturday, Jaune decided to venture to Vale while Neo was still in bed. Jaune was planning to spend his day doing nothing, isolated from the craziness of Beacon. However, he was rudely interrupted by Sun Wukong and Blake, much to his despair. Sun apologized as Jaune observed the interactions between them. Jaune commented that he did not want to act as a third wheel and attempted to leave them to their date, although Blake insisted it was not a date, much to Sun's depression and Jaune's empathy. Blake then revealed to Jaune that sh was withdrawing from Beacon, much to Jaune's shock given her behavior 14 hours earlier. Jaune asked for the reason, to which Blake responded it would be better for the whole team, much to Jaune's disbelief. Blake then revealed that she was a Faunus, which Jaune found surprising, but was not sure what the problem was. Blake pondered whether her disguise was so poor, to which Jaune agreed, keeping the facade that he was a perceptive huntsman. Blake elaborated that there was conflict between the human and faunus, particularly with the Schnee family, and that Weiss did not accept the revelation well. Jaune noted that the Schnee family had conflicts with the White Fang, and not faunus in general, but soon realized that Blake was an active agent in the White Fang. Jaune then asked if Ozpin knew, to which Blake affirmed, and Jaune told Blake that Ozpin likely had faith in her. Blake thanked Jaune for his help, and soon left with Sun, leaving Jaune to pay for the meal.

At around the same time, Ruby Rose made friends with Penny Polendina after being abandoned by Yang. Ruby tried and failed to explain the concept of friendship to Penny and explained why she was frustrated with Blake. Penny pointed to Jaune as he was leaving the diner, asking if he could help. Ruby initially dismissed this, until she realized Penny was pointing at Jaune. Ruby rushed over and greeted Jaune, who despaired at his luck, but decided to help Ruby regardless. Ruby elaborated that her concern was with Blake, to which Jaune summarized his meeting details, much to Ruby's awe about his deductive capacity. Penny asked whether Jaune was Ruby's boyfriend, which Ruby denied, much to Penny's confusion. Ruby introduced Jaune and Penny, and the three started discussing the situation between Weiss and Blake. Penny was specifically confused about why Blake would keep her faunus heritage a secret if it would be revealed, to which Jaune elaborated with his experiences of lies compounding over lies. Eventually, Penny asked if she and Jaune were friends, to which Jaune agreed, and Penny was excited at the prospect of making two friends in one day.

As the trio continued their search, Ruby increasingly wished for her scroll to alert her than Yang found Blake, and that things would return to normal even if Yang and Blake were homosexuals. Jaune informed Ruby that they may need to call off the search, much to Ruby's denial, as she was concerned about Blake's accomodations. Ruby said they needed a sign, to which Jaune informed her that shey would not receive a signal event, until they were interrupted by an explosion near the Docks. Ruby immediately assumed it was Blake and attempted to rush over to help as a hunter, but Jaune informed her she was not a hunter. Despite this fact, Ruby apologized to Jaune and barrelled him with her semblance with Penny in pursuit.

Jaune attempted to call for Ruby to return, but could not do anything to stop her. Jaune recognized that simple weapons could not cause a large explosion at the Docks, and called Glynda Goodwitch to inform her of the developing situation. Glynda assured Jaune she would be there within ten minutes and Jaune decided to advance ahead. Glynda wished him good luck before ending the call.

Ruby was climbing a ladder, attempting to collect intelligence on the surroundings, and frustrated with the idea that others recognized her as incapable due to her youth. Ruby could see Blake fighting Roman Torchwick, recognizing he had an easier time fighting her despite Blake using his semblance. Ruby caught the attention of Roman to give Blake an opportunity to escape, but was distracted by Penny, and nearly shot with an exploding dust round. Ruby, caught in a freeze response, could only watch the round approach and hope that she could tank it before being knocked aside by Jaune. Jaune, despite his newly-acquired injuries, reprimanded Ruby for her lack of intelligence. Ruby responded that she had to save Blake and apologized for the situation. Roman started approaching to directly interact with Jaune, making fun of Ruby in the process. Ruby attempted to convince Jaune to let her help, but he ordered her to help Blake and to trust him to handle Torchwick, much to Ruby's apprehension.

## Reflection

Coeur noted that he had to mess with the timeline a little to make sure the Docks battle happened before the Forever Fall or Jaunedice episodes, and did not want to stretch the Blake search for two days. Coeur speculated that PA would have another 20-25 chapters at its current rate and how it was growing more difficult to follow-up on popular chapters. Coeur also notes that Jaune is changing his mental style due to his harsher environment, becoming more perceptive of his surroundings, such as recognizing specific dangers that students are unable to detect. Coeur also notes that people were approaching him for writing advice and requests to beta works, but he was unable to do that for the time being due to his schedule, which consisted of waking up at 6 AM, working from 8 AM to 5 PM, then sleeping at 10 PM leaving little room for much else. Coeur has ambitions of independent content creation of original materials and animation, and that while the pay was comparitively lower, he would prefer it to his current work in journalism.

Coeur also recommended a literary work titled *Redemption* featuring Russel Thrush, which Coeur found to be a good work, and taught the idea that there is nuance in characters and that they should not exclusively serve as plot catalysts. Coeur elaborates that his favourites list is specific, and that he does not add a work unless he approves of it.

## References

1. ↑ **My work situation has not improved as of yet, and in fact might (will) become even worse in the coming weeks.**
2. ↑ **I'm not sure I will have a job in 2-4 months' time basically, and at the same time my workload has been more than doubled.**
3. ↑ **I'll be honest, the company is going to go bust probably in the next two months, and I'll be out of work.**
4. ↑ **My left wrist was badly injured a long time ago, and the increased work has caused it to flare up. I now need wrist surgery (covered by NHS here, don't worry…).**
5. ↑ **Beyond that I'm also now needing surgery on my left wrist due to an old injury not healing properly… Which is obviously going to really mess up my chances at a new job in writing (or a lot of jobs really, but my career in writing is obviously a little borked).**
6. ↑ **As a result of all this however… it disappoints me to admit this, but I have opened a page for myself at the suggestion of a few reviewers. This was suggested to me a few months back but I never considered it because I could sustain myself easily enough with my job, but obviously now I'm feeling a little more nervous about that.**
7. ↑ **As a result of all this however… it disappoints me to admit this, but I have opened a page for myself at the suggestion of a few reviewers. This was suggested to me a few months back but I never considered it because I could sustain myself easily enough with my job, but obviously now I'm feeling a little more nervous about that.**
8. ↑ **I'm sure some may suggest greed is my motivator for this, but I can assure you it is much worse. Fear is my motivator, along with a tiny nugget of hope.**
9. ↑ Thank you all for your support so far! The first milestone has been reached and as thanks for that I will go a step further and for one round of updates use the next milestone model!
10. ↑ **Before there were worries that my fairly imminent job loss would cause my work to go on a hiatus – perhaps permanently. However, thanks to the support of my patrons that will no longer be the case, and in fact it will be getting FASTER updates.**
11. ↑ **The new rule is updates every 28 days, but I've promised for the first month to go a step further in thanks, and do it within 21 days.**
12. ↑ **Advice articles and lessons on writing fiction (or fanfiction), BETA services and critique, 1-1 lessons and more.**
13. ↑ **At the end of the day, writing is no less difficult than illustration or gaming on youtube, and people often can make careers out of those.**
14. ↑ **Eventually to a dream point where I could retire to be a pure content creator for the full week.**
15. ↑ **Although considering most of the people on there make fanart and get money for it… I'm not even convinced it would be illegal.**
16. ↑  **It's a weird industry… like if you consider copyright then anyone who even sells cosplay clothing is doing so illegally, as is any abridged series of anime, fanfics, fanart… even Rooster Teeth would be breaching laws when they made RvB… but again, the creators tend to allow it because it certainly didn't HURT Halo as a brand, that RT made so many vids using them… in fact it probably sold loads of Halo games just from that!**
17. ↑ **Some of you might have noticed, but others not so. That I have released a new story however. Professor Arc: Staffroom Chronicles, which you can find on my profile. It's a collection of side-stories for the Professor Arc world, focusing on humorous interactions between the staff of Beacon.**
18. ↑ **Chapters are shorter, a little more slap-stick, but still canon in a sense. The omakes are reserved for the truly out-of-canon slapstick.**
19. ↑ **Exvnir over on Deviant Art has drawn a picture based on this fic, which cheered me up immensely in my rough situation. It's also a really good pic, and to be honest a lot of his work is fantastic –pretty damn funny too.**
20. ↑ **A few astute readers/viewers may notice inconsistencies! Blake was missing for two days, it didn't all happen this quickly. Forever fall was before this episode!**
21. ↑ **Yeah I'm messing with the timeline a little bit, hopefully not too much though. It's just that for some things to work I needed this to be before the Jaundice episodes, no biggie. And I didn't want to drag Blake's disappearance out over two days – because Jaune would have been alerted, and I didn't want chapters of him doing nothing but looking for her. So it all got rushed into a single day.**
22. ↑ **I wonder how many of you will wonder if we're nearing the end of this? Lol, we're totally not, it has like at least another 20-25 chapters left, good Lord!**
23. ↑ **It really is hard to follow after very popular chapters like the last one, but this one really progresses the plot more than the previous ones did.**
24. ↑ **You can already see the first major conflict shown here. Jaune has to do dangerous stuff due to his duties, and his reality becoming warped. He is starting to genuinely THINK like a teacher, even unconsciously.**
25. ↑ **I've had quite a few people ask me for writing advice recently, or for me to beta their work or whatnot. I'll say right here that with work as it is for me, and also me trying to make work on the side as a way of having my own business… I really don't have time to help anyone. Let me tell you what an average workday for me is like as an idea.**
26. ↑ **But anyway, that amount is less than HALF of what I currently earn. And yet I would take it at the drop of a hat.**
27. ↑ **Where it comes to lessons though, one I'll offer for free here is to check my profile, and look for a fic on my favourites called "Redemption" – it has very few follows and faves, because it's about Russel Thrush, but it's a damn good fic – and teaches one lesson I've tried to give to SO many, without avail.**
28. ↑ **All characters have lives, as well as good points and bad points. Too many people label Cardin and his team as nothing but evil. Yes they are racists, but that doesn't mean they murder puppies on their off-time, or that they don't have some small reason to BE racist. Check out that fic, look at the author actually show some of the GOOD sides of their team. And write your characters like that… write every character as though when they're not on screen they are off doing something else. Like they have lives outside of being nothing but convenient plot pieces for your fic!**
29. ↑ **Check it out, my favourites list is actually well maintained and specific. I don't fave a fic unless it REALLY impresses me, so there might be some real gems in there for you. 75% of them are RWBY.**