The Vale Voice - Commentary - Ch. 11-12 (Patreon)
Content
Welcome back! After another two...interesting...weeks, we again find ourselves at an impasse. I mean commentary. If you’re anything like me, you find it hard to keep track of what day it is anymore, and you think fondly about ‘the old days’ when things like toilet paper were piled high on the shelves. ‘Should I get some?’ you think before laughing to yourself and walking right on by. ‘Naw. It will always be there tomorrow…’
I will admit that I’m pretty happy about all the toilet paper jokes I can make now. I probably use at least one per day, I swear. (Ok, maybe one per week.) I’m also happy to say that I managed to be fairly productive the past two weeks in terms of writing, and finished two small projects I was working on! The first was the White Rose version of Pages, which is only four chapters and just over twelve thousand words (a baby story!). The other is a story for White Rose Week, which is coming up in June.
Having tasted the success of completing stories, I’m determined to wrap up another idea that’s lingered in my Google Docs for some time now - Super Zombie Slayers. I don’t know why I wrote 3/4ths of it and abruptly stopped, but I’m determined to finish it and add it to my list of “waiting to post” stories. After that...I’m not sure where the writing winds will take me.
In the meantime, the writing winds have me right here! We have Chapter 11 and 12 to discuss today, which take place on a Thursday and Friday, respectively. How do we know that? Well, because Blake thinks as much at the beginning of Chapter 11. That reminder was as much for readers as it was for me, as I had difficulty remembering story days even before my real days started blending together. So whenever you see a specific day mentioned in a chapter, you know that - one, I wish timeline consistency didn’t matter to me. And B, I added it as a reminder to everyone (myself included).
We’re just past the middle of the story now, and we’re seeing so much more progress on the Blake-Yang front! They’re so subtly adorable with each other, I almost can’t take it. In the background (or foreground maybe), The Vale Voice is going through a transformation of its own.
I wish I could say that I planned having The Voice’s transformation occurring while Blake’s feelings are changing, but I literally just realized the parallel right now. Maybe I self-consciously figured it out without thinking about it? Either way, I’m very happy with how that turned out! The Voice is changing, and Blake is changing. The remaining chapters are going to show us how that transformation process goes and what the end result looks like.
It’s actually such a nice metaphor! Wow, how did I not think of it before? Blake is The Voice. The company’s struggles in the beginning reflect her own struggles with her identity and how she feels about society. It makes sense considering that she’s in charge of this little newspaper, but still. Now, both her and the company are going through a change together.
That’s actually probably a good thing though, because it allows her to focus on how The Voice is changing instead of how she’s changing. Like she thinks to herself in Chapter 12:
Change could be a good thing, even if it was frightening at the same time.
By focusing on an external change, she’s actually avoiding the change happening within herself. Therefore, she’s not fighting it as much. She’s too distracted to keep it from happening.
Ok, I just jumped way ahead of myself, but I think that’s pretty cool! Let’s rewind a little bit though.
In Chapter 11, the decision to change everything about The Voice is about to be made. Keep an eye out for the little ways in which Blake has started turning to Yang for support, and how Yang is ready and willing to offer that support for her. Like how Blake asks Yang to bring up a distraction so she doesn’t worry about the impending vote, and Yang immediately has a subject change for her.
The meeting they have to discuss changing The Voice is by far my favorite ‘all-office’ moment in the story. I love that everyone gets a say, and the points they bring up, and I especially loved having Brand say exactly what Blake didn’t expect him to say. He’s supposed to be the stick-in-the-mud. Instead, he’s all for change.
And I’m sure you noticed that Blake even asked for Yang’s opinion, something she never would have done at the beginning of the story. Even Yang’s surprised by that!
In this moment, Blake also tells us exactly why I chose the title ‘The Vale Voice’ to begin with. When I was trying to think of newspaper names, I came up with all the normal ones. Gazette, Journal, Tribune, Times - but then I thought about what I wanted this paper to be about and thought that The Vale Voice would fit the theme perfectly. And it’s exactly for the reason Blake spells out here:
“We would become, essentially, the voice of the Faunus community.”
I just remembered something! (I wrote this story so long ago that bits and pieces come back at random times). Originally, The Voice was already going to be focusing only on Faunus articles. They were Faunus only in staff and content, and still struggling. It wasn’t until later that I realized it would work better for them to be a ‘regular’ newspaper first, then make this shift due to Yang’s idea. A shift to writing more about Faunus - a shift to becoming the voice for their community.
So things got changed around, and The Voice started as a normal paper before evolving into something a little more niche. They’re such a small crew anyway, they should have been niche to begin with! Better late than never, I suppose.
Now the change is upon them, and Blake isn’t the only one who throws herself into making it work. I can practically hear the office buzzing with energy while they try to make this new idea stick. And I really love Blake’s realization here that if Weiss had seen them like this when she visited the first time, she probably wouldn’t have sent Yang to work with them. But if Yang had never worked with them, they’d never have made the change.
What’s that called again? Catch-22! That’s right. It’s a catch-22 that Blake thankfully notices and understands. She’s actually pretty perceptive most of the time! She’s just really blind when it comes to her own feelings. (A very convenient character for a story…)
But just think about how much she’s grown already! Not only does she apologize for so quickly shutting down the idea the day before, but then she does the unthinkable: she asks Yang to contribute an article.
This is a huge moment, but I hid just how huge it was at first. You probably felt it, but I didn’t want Blake to freak Yang out! Imagine that request - “I understand you’ve never written a professional news article before, but I’d like you to try one out for next week. Oh, and by the way, we’ve never published work by a human before, so please try to make it good.”
Yang has enough hesitation as it is. Which is fair. For her, working at The Voice is probably very similar to shadowing or interning. She helps how she can but with projects that don’t have a big impact, or in ways she’s already skilled at (such as talking). What Blake’s asking of her is kind of like a fire department asking an intern to run into a burning building to save an old lady’s cat.
Ok, maybe not that extreme, but you get the idea. Most importantly though...Blake offers to help. But notice that she wins Yang over when she says, “It would mean a lot to me.”
Yang is so see-through. She’s clearly thinking ‘It would mean a lot to her? And she means a lot to me. Therefore...this means a lot to me too.’
Go get her, Yang!
But not yet, because there’s still work to do. The groundwork has been laid though, as Blake’s finally opening her eyes to Yang’s more positive qualities, and is dealing with some small bouts of jealousy in the process.
Someone who’s already wise to everything that’s going on? Velvet.
Let’s be honest - Velvet’s had this figured out since like Chapter 3. Her side of this story would be interesting to read. It would probably be like a less sarcastic version of Weiss in Welcome to Vale High. I could see Velvet being a pretty big romantic though, so she’s desperately hoping that Blake and Yang end up together. A romance in very, very slow motion!
But also...Velvet knows Blake probably better than anyone, so she would be one of the first to see the changes that are happening. She’s also the only one Blake seems to take advice or critiques from, which puts her in a unique position to gently guide Blake towards a tall, blonde soulmate.
Take this little interaction, for example:
“You’ve just seemed a lot...happier...recently.”
“So the stress has finally cracked me and now I’m delirious?” Blake retorted. Laughing at the joke, Velvet shook her head.
“I don’t think that’s happened yet, but there’s been a positive change.”
Thinking about Velvet’s observation, Blake finally smiled. She had felt better recently. Less...buried under it all. “I think it’s because there’s an end in sight,” she admitted. “Success or failure...we’ll know how to move forward. The uncertainty was really getting to me.”
Nodding, Velvet finally stood up and gave Blake a big smile.
“I’m happy for you. If anyone deserves this, it’s you.”
(What do you think Velvet’s referring to in this last line? Might it be relationship bliss?)
She probably means both, actually - relationship bliss and work success.
When we get to Chapter 12, the emphasis becomes wrapping up the old version of The Voice before fully diving into the new one. If we continue with our “Blake = The Voice” idea, this is the beginning of a big transformation in Blake’s life.
One noticeable difference is that the world seems to have changed around her. But the secret is...the world hasn’t changed at all. It’s just the way she’s seeing the world that’s changed.
The coffeeshop is just a tiny view into how this is happening. It’s the one location outside of the office that she visits frequently, and the one where she doesn’t control who does/does not enter. Remember how annoyed she was at the beginning of the story that there weren’t any human customers supporting this Faunus business? Well, what do you know...there’s a human there today!
Or have the humans always been there...and she just never saw them…
(Now I’m imagining invisible humans everywhere.)
One little thing I wanted to point out was how Blake thought it was funny how obvious Sam was about sneaking glances at his crush, only to go to work and...sneak glances at her crush. What do you want to bet she’s just as obvious as Sam is?
I like using similar situations, like this one, as a way to point out something that can’t be pointed out from the character’s POV. Like...Blake can’t tell us that she’s being obvious sneaking glances because clearly she wouldn’t think that about herself (she wouldn’t even agree to the crush right now, but that’s besides the point). But she can tell us how obvious someone else is in the same situation, which leads us to believe that she’s likely the same.
But why sneak glances when you can just invite them into your office under the pretenses of showing them something new?
Ok, Blake actually wanted to show Yang how to organize The Voice, but some one-on-one time doesn’t hurt either, right? In my book, that’s always a good thing.
This might be the first chapter where Blake actually starts pining for Yang, in a way. Her thoughts can’t seem to get off of Yang, at least, and she clearly wants to spend time together. So she comes up with an excuse - walking back to the printer! Because clearly Yang really wanted to, and Blake needed a break, so...mutually beneficial.
Also in this chapter, Yang shows just how much she cares about Blake. She cares, and she often shows it by...taking care of Blake. First, she brings lunch when Blake clearly forgot. Then she admits that she was worried that Blake wouldn’t leave her office all day - another way of saying “I was worried you’d work yourself ragged because of the dumb idea I had.” And then, of course, she willingly forgoes her jacket so that Blake will be warm.
The best part is that Blake’s responding to all of the affection, sometimes in ways she doesn’t even realize. For instance, she admits that she already knows/is familiar with what Yang smells like. Then she’s smelling Yang’s jacket and her heart’s getting all fluttery. And she’s blushing when Yang smiles at her.
Her body’s totally giving her away, but her thoughts aren’t much better! She’s noticing every touch they share now, and she even wonders what it would be like to hug Yang (i.e. she wants to hug Yang).
Also, I’m pretty sure sunflowers don’t smell like anything, but they’re often associated with Yang so...sunflower citrus is the next big shampoo scent!
One of my favorite all-around moments in the story is when Yang asks Blake to sign a copy of The Vale Voice for her. It’s so cute and sweet that Yang wants Blake’s autograph! But I just loved how playful Blake was in return. She even winked at Yang after leaving her to fend off Vincent alone.
I like to think this is the real Blake shining through - the one trapped beneath a mountain of work stress and life disappointments. She just needs someone to show her the way, and maybe one day this version of her will stay.
But first, Yang gets sweet, sweet revenge (I can’t let Blake be the only playful one), and Blake gets jealous. That doesn’t last for long though, because she gets that hug she was wondering about (and promptly blushes).
Jeez, they actually touched a lot in this chapter. So many little elbow or arm touches! And a hug. And Blake borrowing Yang’s jacket. We’re on the fast track to romance now. Of course, who else would interrupt this moment but Ruby?
If you remember from Weiss’ brief appearance in Chapter 2, she said that she would be out of town for a few weeks. Considering Ruby and Yang are still hanging out, Weiss must have gone on a business trip while Ruby stayed behind. That means Ruby is unsupervised...and Yang’s in charge of keeping her sister alive. (Easier said than done!)
That was a really easy way to end a chapter though. “Ah! My sister needs me! See you later!” Exit scene.
The very end of this chapter touches on what I was talking about earlier, but Blake’s approaching it from her own point of view. She’s using Yang as a distraction so that she doesn’t freak out about work. But, by doing so, is also ignoring the changes happening in her thoughts and feelings. She has a feeling that something’s up, and even thinks that at any other time she’d wonder why Yang held her thoughts so easily. Right now, however, she’s just...enjoying those happy, fluttery feelings of a new crush. She just doesn’t know/won’t admit it’s a crush.
Eventually something’s got to give, right? Well...you’ll see!
There are nine chapters left, so something had better give before then. And holy crap. I didn’t realize there were only nine chapters left. I feel woefully unprepared to post anything after this ends!
Alright, that’s about two months...I should get back to work. But thank you again for reading my rambling thoughts and rambling stories! I hope they bring some measure of joy to your day, as they do to mine.
Until next time,
Miko