Art by Rachel Marks
"In a world where your allies can be just as dangerous as your enemies, sometimes it can be difficult for a criminal mastermind to find a little stress relief. That blonde idiot, Jaune, was just unimportant enough, just malleable enough, to be a viable option. It was meant to be a one time thing, an easy lay. Emotions were never supposed to get involved."
— Fanfiction Dot Net summary.
Stress Relief is a RWBY fanfic written by Coeur Al'Aran. Taking things in a different direction than his previous stories, this fic focuses on Cinder Fall, taking a deep look into her mind and thought processes. It begins when, thanks to a comment from Mercury, Cinder decides to relieve some stress with a one night stand - and thanks to some chance encounters, she decides that Jaune Arc will be her best bet. Of course, things don't go according to plan once emotions begin entering the fray.
Can be read here
at Fanfiction.net.
Tropes are:
- Adaptational Context Change: By virtue of being published before volume 4 began, Arthur Watts didn't yet exist to create the Black Queen virus; instead, Cinder had Roman outsource the job to a hacker who created it for them.
- Alas, Poor Villain: In spite of Cinder's crimes, Jaune still can't bring himself to let go of his feelings for her. He hates her for the things that she did, yet also loves her for what they had together. He and Pyrrha mourn her death.
- Alternate Universe Fic: During the events of Volume 2-3, Mercury making a comment that Cinder should get laid sets off an alternate chain of events which ultimately culminates in Cinder dying and Pyrrha surviving the events of the latter volume.
- Ambiguous Situation: The fact that Cinder can't even be honest with herself in the information she presents to the reader means that much of the story is shrouded in subtext and uncertainty.
- Bait-and-Switch: During the Breach, Cinder sees Jaune fighting and points out in her narration that his death would be the best-case scenario for her, especially because his lack of skills means all she has to do to ensure it is just not save him. The very next line reveals that she couldn't let it happen and killed the Ursa about to attack him.
- Becoming the Mask: Cinder's original interactions with Jaune were based around no-strings-attached stress relief, and later on it becomes keeping up an appearance when she accidentally dances with him in public. To her growing horror, however, she soon finds herself genuinely falling for him, saving his life during the Breach and even genuinely considering trying to find a way to ensure his survival in the inevitable battle.
- Bittersweet Ending: Cinder commits Suicide by Cop through Pyrrha, leaving both of them but especially Jaune emotionally devastated, and Salem's machinations are still at work, so the world isn't safe quite yet. However, Pyrrha being spared means that Team JNPR is still together, and they and Ruby are trekking to Haven to stop Salem, so all hope is not yet lost.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Poor Pyrrha, whose already lost her chance with Jaune but still hasn't expressed her feelings, becomes very possessive of Jaune and clearly hates Cinder from the get-go. It causes a lot of problems for everyone involved, especially once it actually starts putting a wedge in her relationship with him.
- Combat Breakdown: Cinder and Jaune's final battle begins with Jaune disarming her of her weapon, but in the process he loses his own in the grapple. As a result, the fight consists of both of them simply trying to beat each other as senseless as they can, with no sense of skill or elegance to it - just two people trying to hurt each other until one of them decides they'd rather die than keep living.
- Crazy-Prepared: Cinder notes just before the Breach that should Adam and the Fang consider betraying her, she has ways of destroying all of the Atlesian Paladins as well as the various Dust warehouses. Basically, she could destroy the entire Fang in a single moment if she wanted to.
- Cruel to Be Kind: Cinder goes out of her way to act as callous and despicable as she can towards Jaune after she reveals her true colors, and brutally fights him atop Beacon's tower. She's trying to make it easier for him to move on once her plan for Suicide by Cop is finished, and trying to stop suspicion from falling on him for associating with her by making it clear he was not complicit in her crimes.
- Darker and Edgier: As is standard for Coeur fics. People's deaths are described in horrific detail, there are multiple sex scenes, and the various horrors seen along the way are milked for much more
Nightmare Fuel than in canon. - Deader than Dead: After Pyrrha gets the Fall Maiden powers from Cinder, she talks to "her" at her grave and tells her that she'll look after Jaune. Throughout the conversation, the last vestiges of Cinder's soul are active enough to feel her emotions from what Pyrrha says, but once she promises to keep him safe until she dies, the emotions show relief... and then disappear entirely.
- Death Equals Redemption: It does precious little to erase her crimes, but the fact that Cinder allowed herself to be killed out of love for Jaune lets him and Pyrrha realize that she was a broken person trapped in her circumstances instead of a worthless monster. Pyrrha chooses to posthumously keep her earlier promise to consider Cinder a friend.
- Dramatic Irony:
- As is often the case with Coeur, the very premise is lathered in it, as poor Jaune has no idea that he's dating the most dangerous terrorist Vale has ever seen.
- After the Breach, Cinder tells Emerald and Mercury not to underestimate Ruby's team because they managed to get past Roman and Neo, especially worrying due to Neo's combat prowess. Unknown to her, assuming that the fight went the same as canon, Neo wiped the floor with Yang with no effort whatsoever and only fled due to Raven's intervention.
- The Volume 3 finale was released during the fic's production, leading Coeur to note with some relish how awkward it quickly became to be writing a Jaune/Cinder fic after Cinder killed Pyrrha in cold blood in the show.
- Dying Declaration of Love: Cinder honestly tries to tell Jaune she loves him as she's dying, but ultimately, she can't quite get the words out before she goes. Her only comfort comes in the fact that even if she never got to say what she felt, it doesn't change that she felt it.
- Evil Is Petty:
- The reason why Cinder ends up going all-in on her relationship to Jaune, making things infinitely more complicated than they needed to be? He accidentally left her high and dry one time and she had to take care of herself instead, so she feels the need to remind him who's in charge.
- Cinder enjoys rubbing her relationship with Jaune in Pyrrha's face once they meet, for no other reason than sadism. Part of it may have also been normal romantic possessiveness, not that Cinder herself could realize that.
- Exact Words: When Cinder reveals to the group that she's barren, she tells them that it was a "Grimm-related" incident. She notes that it's technically true, since it happened because of the power Salem gave her.
- For Want Of A Nail: The story kicks off (and thus diverts from canon) because Mercury makes an offhand comment that Cinder should get herself laid to release some stress and she happens to pick Jaune.
- From the Mouths of Babes: Ruby is the first of the group to confirm out loud that Jaune and Cinder had sex, leading Yang to grab her and beg to say that she hasn't lost her innocence. Ruby confirms that she's not seven, of course she knows about sex.
- Gone Horribly Right: In a burst of petty spite, Cinder starts making moves to split apart Team JNPR, particularly by manipulating Pyrrha's feelings for Jaune to her advantage and concluding by "breaking up" with him. The result is that JNPR is so distracted that they almost lose the first round of the Vytal tournament, almost putting Cinder's entire plan for Beacon at risk.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Pyrrha does not take Jaune's relationship with Cinder well, to the point of antagonizing her when the two finally meet and lecturing her about how reckless they're being in having sex so soon. She even ends up taking it out on Mercury after a spar, though she's self-aware enough to realize this and feel guilty. In return, Cinder also begins acting territorial towards him just to rub it in, even making moves to split JNPR apart in the process.
- Hotter and Sexier: A Lemon it ain't, and sexuality is in general a much bigger part of Coeur's fics than it's ever been in canon, but here a much-closer-to-explicit depiction of sexual activity is the main foundation of the story.
- Innocently Insensitive: In contrast to canon, here Jaune is too worried about his own issues to notice Pyrrha's discomfort during the dance, and he ends up accidentally making a very public scene when he dances with Cinder instead.
- In Spite of a Nail: Even though she doesn't have Pyrrha's murder as a trigger, Ruby apparently still activated her silver eye powers and froze the Grimm dragon.
- Kick the Morality Pet: Once Cinder shows her true colors, she spends her entire time with Jaune emotionally breaking him in every possible way she can think of, first by telling him that she killed Pyrrha and then by brutally informing him that he was nothing but a quick fuck to her.
- Kill the Ones You Love: After accepting her feelings for Jaune but not stopping her plans, Cinder decides that she owes it to Jaune to be the one to kill him instead and denies Mercury the chance to do so. Ultimately, however, she can't bring herself to do it and lets Pyrrha kill her instead.
- Making Love in All the Wrong Places: Among the various places Jaune and Cinder end up having sex include an empty hallway in Beacon and a public bathroom stall.
- Murder by Inaction: When Cinder is forced to participate in the Breach for the sake of her cover, she can't bloody her sword without causing problems, so she instead satisfies her rage by watching the civilians around her die rather than try to save them. The fact that she then saves Jaune's life is one of the most crucial signs that she's beginning to genuinely care about him.
- No Body Left Behind: Jaune has Pyrrha use the power of the Fall Maiden to incinerate Cinder's body, because he's afraid that the public will desecrate it in anger. Her grave marker is a simple memorial with no actual burial.
- Oblivious to Love: Jaune, as always, has no idea that Pyrrha is madly in love with him and simply can't bring herself to say anything. Except it's actually subverted, as he reveals to Cinder that he figured it out from how she reacted to his relationship with her and felt that simply not acknowledging it would hurt her less than rejecting her.
- Plausible Deniability: Mercury's role during the Dance is to wait for Cinder to arrive so they can publicly dance and make sure she's accounted for during the CCT robbery. The problem is that when she can't find him, she ends up dancing with Jaune instead, causing a whole different kind of incident than what she was hoping for.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Cinder is rather disappointed to find out that the crack team that's demolished her plans at every turn acts so childish off the clock - she says this as Yang is shaking Ruby and begging her to say she still has her innocence when Ruby reveals she knows about sex.If Roman could see this he would commit suicide out of principle.
- Smug Snake: Cinder may be able to back up her boasts about her own skills, but she translates that into believing that she's an unstoppable genius who is ten steps ahead of everyone else. It not only means that she's got a Goddess complex a mile wide, but even the slightest deviation from the plans, such as Jaune's unexpected connection to her, creates major obstacles.
- Spanner in the Works: Jaune proves to be far more of an inconvenience to Cinder's plans than she expected, as once their "relationship" begins, ending it would attract too much attention, forcing her to go along with it.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Pyrrha makes it out of the Fall of Beacon alive.
- Suicide by Cop: In the end, Cinder can't bring herself to kill Jaune to matter how much she tries, and believing that she has no other options, she lets Pyrrha kill her, even using her last thoughts to ensure she gets the Fall Maiden powers.
- Tiger by the Tail: By the end, Cinder can't bear to destroy what she's come to care about, but she's done too much damage for the heroes to accept her and Salem will kill her if she defects. Ultimately, she lets go of the tiger's tail and accepts the consequences of standing down on her own terms.
- Unreliable Narrator: The story could well be called "Unreliable Narrator: A Novel". The entire story takes place from Cinder's perspective and is filtered through her biases, experiences, and beliefs, meaning that nothing we read can be taken as outright fact until we see it from somewhere else. Just to complicate things further, as she continues to fall for Jaune, she continues to desperately believe her own lies, presenting herself as someone entirely different than who she actually is.
- Willfully Weak: Cinder has more physical trouble fighting Jaune than she did Ozpin, or Pyrrha in canon, because she fights him almost entirely in melee with barely a thought of her more deadly powers that could murder him with ease. She's holding them back on purpose to let Jaune survive long enough for her suicide plan to pay off, but can't admit that to herself.
- You Need to Get Laid: The story begins when Mercury suggests to Cinder that finding someone to hook up with for a night might help her relieve some of her stress. It does indeed release her stress, but it kicks off a series of events she couldn't have anticipated.
