Welcome to Vale High - Commentary - Ch. 7-8 (Patreon)
Content
Welcome to this commentary for Welcome to Vale High, where I normally find things that I’d like to talk about, and I hope my luck continues this week!
Before getting into that, however, I wanted to mention one of the hazards of writing. What’s that? You didn’t know there were hazards?? There are! Papercuts, of course, but I don’t write on paper (usually). I do, however, type a lot. And I’ve been typing so much recently that my hands are actually sore from it!
I might be a candidate for some daily hand stretches or something. Or one of those speech-to-text softwares, which I always thought were cool but...it might be a little awkward to dictate a story out loud. Especially when there are people around to overhear me…
So hand stretches it is! After writing this commentary, of course. And a oneshot. And maybe another chapter of that new story I’ve been working on…(Really, it would be perfect if I could just attach my brain to the computer and think the story - that would be awesome.)
Starting this commentary though, I think I mentioned last time how much I liked having Tai in the story. He’s not really in the story, but he’s in it, you know? A subtle, guiding presence while his daughters steal the show. One of my favorite things about him is his sense of humor, which I would expect to be similar to Yang’s. Except I bet he has a ton of awesome Dad jokes. That’s right - I said awesome Dad jokes. The ones you groan at, but only because you know they’re actually pretty dang funny!
Enough about him though - that’s not why we’re here. We’re here for Bumblebee!
On the topic of Bumblebee, I have friends who keep me informed on their relationship status in the show, so I am excited. Could this be the volume that means I can finally catch up on the show? We have a few more weeks to find out! If/when that happens, you can bet my poor writing brain will explode with Bumblebee ideas. I probably won’t be able to type fast enough! I’ll have to type one story while dictating another (can you imagine how many stories I could post if this was actually possible?).
One story at a time though - one story at a time. So back to this story.
Since WtVH is from Yang’s point-of-view, we know exactly how big of a crush she has on Blake. She even admits that it’s a crush now, and somewhat acknowledges that it’s the reason behind her wanting to go to school early instead of dragging her heels like normal.
Yang’s an open book to us, but we have to figure out Blake’s feelings through her words and actions. In the beginning of Chapter 7, we get another glimpse into how Blake feels through an action she’s repeated several days in a row now:
“Good morning, Yang,” Blake replied, again closing her book and setting it on the side of her desk. “You’re here early.”
To us, this might as well be a big, flashing, neon sign saying ‘Hey Yang, dummy, this girl might kinda like you! Because whenever you’re around, she puts her book away - the books she’s always reading because she loves to read, but you’re more interesting to her.’
In Yang’s defense, sometimes it’s hard to believe that someone might actually like you, like that. If you don’t want to risk being wrong and making things super awkward, you probably assume that they’re just being friendly. Well...we’ll see where Blake goes with that. (I just got really excited for you to see where Blake goes with it!)
*Side note - I love Pyrrha Nikos. She’s a blessing to humankind, and I need to write her into more stories. How is possible for a character to be so sweet and pure? I love her banter with Yang - also, I love Yang’s joke in the next chapter that Pyrrha’s only capable of ‘lighthearted teasing’ - which is so true!
That side note brings me to Neptune, who I don’t think I’ve used in a story before. Mostly because what I saw of him in the first few volumes of RWBY was a little...chauvinistic and douche-y?
Well, I wanted a womanizer-type character for this story, so he seemed the obvious choice. However, I wanted him to be less douche-y, so I tried to make him as unoffensive as possible. He’s persistent, which is the point of his role, but he’s not persistent in an overly-aggressive way. Plus, he needs to keep asking Yang out so that Blake sees him ask her out, right? If Yang said ‘no’ and he never asked again, we wouldn’t get to see Blake’s reaction. And we wouldn’t get to see how Blake spun it into an only slightly obvious question about the number of people who might be after Yang’s heart now.
Yang, you poor, gay, oblivious soul…
I just realized that I also rarely use Penny in stories, but she’s another blessing to this world. (Side note - why the heck were all our blessings removed from the show??) I imagine she’s an extremely helpful person, which would make her a bit of a teacher’s pet. That’s why when Mr. Oobleck drops his papers on the ground, she’s the first one out of her seat to help.
Yang, on the other hand, isn’t a teacher’s pet. Yet she still gets up to help - because she’s helping Penny. Isn’t that kind of sweet? She’s like, “I don’t really care about helping spazzy Mr. Oobleck, but Penny’s picking up papers and I should help her.”
Ideally, Yang should help everyone who needs help, but she’s a teenager - cut her a break!
(Also, if you’re wondering, the only reason Pyrrha didn’t help Mr. Oobleck is because Yang picked seats at the back of the class. For all we know, Pyrrha did jump out of her seat to help, but was still trying to get to the front by the time Penny and Yang picked everything up.)
As you’ve probably noticed, we’ve heard exactly zero of the ‘important announcements’ Mr. Oobleck has for the beginning of the day. This is, of course, because Yang spends her time thinking about Blake instead of paying attention. A secondary reason for this, however, is that I had no interest in making up morning announcements - for a few reasons.
One - I can’t imagine many announcements that would have much relevance to the story.
Two - having Yang drift off and focus on less concrete matters allows time to pass faster. Whereas if we’re listening to the morning announcements in dialogue form, time passes at a more normal rate. And I prefer to minimize the amount of time the main characters aren’t interacting.
Three - I’d rather daydream about Blake too. This allows us to dive deeper into Yang’s thoughts on her newest classmates.
So when you notice characters getting sidetracked and lapsing into this ‘think-space,’ keep an eye on how time passes. I don’t think I’m very good at it, but it’s the only thing I know to do to get time passing faster in the background. Then the bell can unexpectedly ring, and Yang’s suddenly running into the hall to catch up with Blake.
A pseudo-villain was introduced in this chapter in the form of Cardin Winchester. He’s kind of a typical bully, isn’t he? He’s not like evil or anything, but he likes to make other people feel insignificant in order to build his own ego.
Well, we know how Yang feels about bullies...and we get to see a little bit of her in action when she calmly tells Cardin to leave Blake alone. This is one of the first moments we get to compare the two girls to who they were in Chapter 1.
Yang is more mature and wiser, but still somewhat the same person. Even though Cardin’s bigger than her, she’s not afraid of him - just like she wasn’t afraid of the four bullies in the beginning of the story. However, unlike that first fight she got into, she shows no hesitation now. There isn’t a moment where she thinks ‘should I get involved in this?’ - she saw what happened and addressed it immediately.
The more noticeable change is with Blake - and here’s her reaction to the slight bit of bullying Cardin threw her way:
Straightening her shoulders and hugging her books to her chest, Blake looked into Yang’s eyes and smiled.
Compare this image to the little girl from Chapter 1, who hugged her knees to her chest while sitting in the principal’s office. Blake stands tall this time, and hugs her books closer - not her knees, which we could interpret as drawing in and protecting herself. That’s not her at all this time. She doesn’t care if Cardin thinks she’s a nerd for reading - she knows who she is, and no one will convince her that she needs to change.
And then she gives us this doozy of a line:
“Have you ever thought about how you could have changed someone’s life? By sticking up for them?”
Like I mentioned, we’re only getting Blake’s side of the story through her words and actions, and this line gives us a huge clue about how she feels about Yang’s actions and their effect. She is, essentially, saying that she believes that Yang sticking up for her changed her life - allowing her to grow from the little girl in Chapter 1 to the person who doesn’t care one bit about Cardin Winchester in Chapter 7.
Now, obviously life is far more complicated than that. But that’s what Blake’s suggesting with those words, so we have to assume that that’s what she believes.
The working title for this story was actually Stand Up, which is why you’ll notice several uses of the phrase (especially in this chapter).
“You like standing up for people, don’t you?”
It was supposed to be a reference to how Yang stands up for people, but also how Blake stands up on her own. I love dual purpose titles, but I ended up changing it because I like how Welcome to Vale High sounds. It has a nice ring to it, I think.
Speaking of titles with a nice ring...
“And this just in - another public service announcement courtesy of Yang’s massive crush,” Pyrrha teased.
“What was that, Mrs. Arc?”
(I just really wanted to point out Pyrrha’s lighthearted tease and how she immediately got her comeuppance for it.) (Also, I’m pretty proud of Yang’s response - that’s quick wit!)
A small note for the White Rose shippers - did you notice how Weiss acted after Ruby gave her all those compliments at lunch?
“Thank you, Ruby,” Weiss whispered. And Yang expected to see a self-satisfied smile, but instead Weiss smiled at Ruby with genuine gratitude before turning back to Blake.
“Have you chosen a topic for our physics project?”
“I was thinking about exploring skyscrapers and their resistance to wind and earthquakes.”
“That sounds interesting,” Weiss replied, glancing away and tapping two fingers on the tabletop as if the opposite was true. “If you haven’t already chosen a partner, maybe I can work with you on that?”
Just...ya know...wanted to point that out…
Also wanted to point out the convenient wedding Blake has to go to over the weekend, which was created simply so I didn’t have to write another full chapter covering a single boxing practice for Friday afternoon. I have no idea whose wedding it is, but if it’s a friend of her family’s...I still don’t know because I haven’t seen that far in the show!
And I just realized that if this commentary ended after Chapter 7, I could’ve used the signoff - ‘we’ll see what happens next week...next week.’ Dammit. Missed opportunities…
Oh well, on to Chapter 8, which is the start of a new week. I don’t know why school started on a Wednesday, but that made everything a heck of a lot easier for me in terms of maintaining a timeline.
I have something for you to keep in mind for later on - Tai’s choice of movies (a super corny romantic comedy). In a future chapter, we’ll see Yang’s taste in movies, so we’ll get to compare and contrast the two ‘Dad joke’ characters.
This chapter also gives us a couple more head-smacking, ‘please Yang for the love of god remember’ moments.
The first is when Blake comes right out and tells Yang her nickname from elementary school - comes right out and says it! And we see how she watches Yang, waiting to see if the name jogs any memories. When nothing happens, Blake ups the ante - she flat out calls Yang her hero.
“Are you calling me a hero?” Blake teased.
“Heck yeah! You can be mine any day.”
Stopping outside the door to her classroom, Blake turned towards Yang with an earnest expression.
“Then you’re mine.”
Ok, now what assumptions can we make from this? One is that Blake seems to be increasing the level of hints she’s giving, right? Whereas her comments in the first chapters were obvious to us because we already knew who she was, the hints in this chapter could very well cause Yang to remember.
But why is Blake giving more hints? Does she want Yang to figure out who she is? Or is she confident that Yang won’t pick up on these? These are questions we’ll find answers to later!
In the meantime, we continue to smack ourselves on the forehead when Yang doesn’t get it. Two smacks this time, for two clues in a row that went right over her head.
I do think Yang still deserves some slack for not picking up on this right away, for reasons I’ve pointed out before. It was a long time ago, and Blake is different. Here’s how Yang thinks of her now:
Blake was just about the last person who needed a hero.
Independent, strong, and not someone who needed protection - how would Yang ever draw a connection between that and the little girl hugging her knees to her chest in the principal’s office? Then there’s this:
In a lot of ways, Blake could be considered a hero. Super intelligent. Self-assured. Independent. Calm, collected, poised, unphasable. She had a lot of qualities that people would love to have themselves. Plus, she was super gorgeous.
Yeah, Yang’s probably not making that connection on her own anytime soon. Unless Blake keeps increasing the intensity of her hints, that is…
Moving on, I think the library scene is one of my favorites in the story -
Scratch that. As soon as I start talking about ‘favorite scenes,’ about a dozen others come to mind as well. Let’s just say...I like the library scene a lot. I like how it starts out kind of funny - with Yang being a total creeper and following Blake just because. I love how Blake sees right through Yang’s lie about the history paper, but plays along with it anyway - showing off some of her intelligence in the process. And I adore how it becomes a moment between them - a sweet, heartfelt, enlightening moment where they got to know each other that much better.
The book that Blake shows Yang features a name you might remember - Lilianna comes from one of the books Blake’s character wrote in Red Carpet Romance. Although the name is recycled, the story isn’t the same - because Lilianna was in Sunflower, which was another high school story, I think. This is the same name but a completely different story!
Anyway, I digress - can you guess the importance of the book Blake shows to Yang though? Hint: it might be another hint!
“What makes this one of your favorites?” she asked instead, curious to know more.
“Books are often attached to memories,” Blake explained while searching. “And I have a particularly fond one attached to this…”
This answer doesn’t provide any illumination to Yang, but it does to us. We can at least suspect that Blake just handed Yang a copy of the book featured in Chapter 1.
The quote that Yang reads, by the way, was just something I made up that sounded very book-y but connected to the theme of this story - that anyone can make a difference, that small actions can have an outsized impact on someone’s life. This goes right along with what Blake said earlier, about how Yang could’ve changed someone’s life by standing up for them.
Blake then nerds out about reading a little bit, which was really just me nerding out about reading through Blake.
“It can be difficult to understand, but that’s one of the things I love about it. Most people read it and just barely scratch the surface, but the people who really dive in will have a completely different experience. And the words are the same for everyone - isn’t that amazing? This is the same,” Blake tapped one finger on the book before raising her hand and tapping her temple. “But this is always different.”
Isn’t it amazing though?? A hundred different people can read the same story and walk away with different interpretations and feelings, and the words are the same for each of them! Everything I write is colored by my memories, my likes, my dislikes, my experiences - but when I hand it over to you, you draw from your own memories and experiences to bring it to life. Pass it along to a friend, and they’ll feel even differently.
And the words never change!
This is also affected by how fast or deeply people read. I do my best to create a story that rewards those who are reading closely - or reading these commentaries, at least. I like layering in as much complexity as possible. If readers fly through, they probably still enjoy it - but the fun is in the nuances. At least, to me that’s where the fun lies. When you realize that the ground is wet because a single sentence mentioned rain in the forecast several chapters ago, or that a throwaway joke in an early chapter was recycled and reused later on.
These are small things that don’t make the story, but I like to think they enrich it, creating intricacy that gives live to what happens outside of the words written on the page.
On that note...there was a conversation about make-out spots at the end of this chapter...
“The library is probably one of them,” Blake commented nonchalantly, coming to Yang’s aid. “There aren’t many people around and lots of empty corners. Especially if you’re there before school starts.”
All I’m going to say is...remember this one! That’s all I’m going to say - I really want to say more, but that’s for you to find out in the future.
I just looked at the outline for Chapter 9 and immediately thought ‘this is my favorite chapter!’ I then saw the chapter below it and thought, ‘no this one’s my favorite.’ ‘And the next one is also good.’ ‘Oh and that one is also cute.’
Basically, we have some good stuff coming up. Do you hear that buzzing? That’s the sound of the Bumblebee intensifying. (If you actually hear buzzing, please see a medical professional.)
Until next time,
Miko