I recently read Arcanum by Coeur Al'Aran. It was good, probably in my top 5 of RWBY fanfics I've read. Though I haven't read a ton or anything.
I definitely had some pet peeves with it, mostly the politics the fic tackles being really cliche and lacking depth. It's very, very, "nobles/rich/elites bad" and not a lot of nuance. That said I didn't feel like I was ever being preached to, unlike when I read Let Us Be Your Poison, I'm just disappointed at how one-sided things were and the lack of nuance and how cartoonish of villains the White Arcana ended up being. It never gave enough of an argument for the other side and thus made me a little annoyed because of how unfair and biased things ended up being. Ruby in the story has reason to believe the way she does, she's a great character and I don't feel like she's being used as a mouthpiece, but there's not really a "walk a mile in someone else's shoes" arc for her. Not really. Also, while I don't think the author was making a real political point or raging about real world politics, I can't help but think there's a reason for Adam and Cinder being innocent victims while characters like Glynda and Ironwood are evil. And Vale being the corrupt classist place it is. I feel like there some times where the story doesn't let them be right even when they kind of are (like with the Shadow Arcana being dangerous and worthy of being forbidden).
I was really glad when Glynda called out Merlot for his utterly selfish hypocrisy and bullshit but then the very next chapter after that kind of ruins everything. And Glynda is just a terrible person and idiot along with most of the White Arcana, for no reason.
Weiss (as she seems to always be) was probably the best and most interesting character in the story. But unfortunately something I was looking forward to never happened with her because of the direction the story takes at the end. There's no huge dramatic reveal where she learns all of Ruby's secrets and lies. This is something the story was building to and was a huge dramatic point for a long time and it just doesn't happen because other stuff gets in the way. I feel like the story really badly drops the ball on her character arc at the very end and it really makes me not like Maria in the story either. But Weiss is still a really great character in the story, I love her.
There are also a decent amount of minor spelling errors each chapter, and sometimes it feels like he forgot that a character should already know something or lost track of some plot points.
This fanfic is also an example of pseudo-fiction. If you changed the names of the characters, you would have what's essentially an original fiction fantasy novel. Coeur created his own world and system of magic and society and after reading it I'm kind of left wondering why this isn't just its own original novel instead of a RWBY fanfic. It completely stands on its own.
Also is Jaune his self-insert or something? He seems obsessed with Jaune. Most characters also retain their original personalities or something about them to a degree but Jaune doesn't at all.