The Queens of Remnant - Commentary - Ch. 7-8 (Patreon)
Content
Another two weeks knocked out of the park! And what a two weeks they were. Remember in the last commentary how I said that I had 7 chapters left of that White Rose story? Well, I had last week off of work, and I used it to spend 6-8 hours a day writing instead. The result? The story is finished!
Honestly, I can’t believe I cranked it out so fast. I can’t believe I didn’t burn out. I nearly did. There was a point with about 10 chapters to go where I stopped and thought, “Ugh. This sucks. I never want to write again.” Then, three hours later, I was diving back in.
Does anyone remember what I guessed the final word count would be? I don’t remember, but I’m sure that I was wrong. It ended up being just about 125,000 words spread across 17 chapters. If you’re doing the math in your head (or on your phone lol), then you’re realizing that that’s over 7000 words per chapter. Which, for me, is above average.
I typically aim for ~5000 words per chapter, so I’m not sure what happened. Weiss happened. I also think I also added one more ‘event’ per chapter than I usually do. Either way, we got some chonky chapters to look forward to.
So 17 chapters, 125k words, and it took me exactly 7 weeks. Don’t let the short time frame fool you though…by my calculation, I actually spent over 200 hours working on it. And that’s just the ‘sitting at my computer typing’ hours. That doesn’t include the daydreaming or waking up in the middle of the night to take notes on my phone.
Also, I think I’ll be changing the title. Surprise, right? This always happens at the end of the story and then I don’t remember the ‘real’ title!
But, I think I’m going to use the title ‘Flashing Lights.’
Does it sound familiar?
I’ll give you another second to think about it.
It should sound familiar!
Because I’ve actually used it before for a oneshot! Do you remember the oneshot? It’s the one where cop!Ruby pulls Weiss over for speeding and…
Ok, I won’t ruin it if you haven’t read it. Here’s a link to it if you want to read it for the first time or reread it though: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30148941
Oh my god, it’s under 2000 words. How did I even do that…?
Anyway, I like that title better AND it actually ties this oneshot in with the story. And the oneshot is…kind of appropriate for the story.
Of course, now that I’ve finished writing, I don’t like it. So I’m worried that everyone else will hate it too. It’s a more extreme version of Weiss - the most extreme version I’ve written so far. She uses some foul and vulgar language, and she’s very thirsty for Ruby. I thought that was incredibly fun to write, but some people might not like it.
I go through this weird phase right after I finish the story. Like…you just spent hundreds of hours working on this one thing. It was all you thought about. You loved it, so you devoted the time to it, and now it’s just…done? And when that connection gets cut, you feel so lost and adrift - and in that separation you kind of hate it a little bit. It stole all that time from you. It sucked away your life for weeks on end, and for what? Just to leave you?
This has happened enough times that I know it’s just a thing I go through. The story probably doesn’t suck and people might enjoy it. It’s just…hard for me to feel that way about it right now. Don’t worry though! This usually only lasts until I latch onto a new story, and then I feel much better.
What’s next, you ask? Well, I’m thinking I might finally write that Harlivy oneshot that I started. Then I’ll proofread the smutty bees story so I can start posting that. Then I might try to write, like, a short 30k word story? I want to write more nugget-sized stories. After that though, I need to bang out the Bumbleby companion piece to Flashing Lights. You know, the companion piece that I was supposed to write first but got distracted by Weiss so wrote the prequel first.
Enough about all that though. Let’s talk about the Bumbleby side of QoR now!
Ironically, I just realized that Sun is to Blake what Ruby is to Yang when discussing the war/the Badlands - i.e. the optimistic one. Unfortunately, the optimistic ones get shut down in subsequent chapters. They’re on the right page that Vale is ready to stop fighting and wants to make peace, but Blake and Yang are acting more pragmatically at the moment. That probably makes sense considering how long the war has dragged on.
Do you like the setup though? Blake thinks that the Queens are all high and mighty and view the Badlands as nothing more than a nuisance. Yang thinks, correctly, that the Badlands aren’t big fans so wouldn't want to talk to her even if she tried to smooth things over.
One way that I tried to keep the story connected despite having 4 POVs was by posing a question in one that gets answered in the next. For example: in chapter 7, Sun wonders why the Queens of Vale don’t fight in the battles. Blake gets the answer partially correct - because the entire Atlesian army would come after them and they don’t want to lose a queen. In Chapter 8, however, we learn that the solution has been very seriously considered - Ruby even wants to do it - but Vale is already on the cusp of losing one queen and can’t afford to lose both.
Meanwhile, poor naïve Weiss is just tutting along on her trip without a care in the world (not really, as we’ll catch up with her next week).
I have to say how much I love how Blake, Ruby, and Yang are reacting to the news of Weiss taking over. They have no idea what to expect, so they’re hoping for the best but expecting the worst. Poor Weiss is still trapped in her dad’s shadow even though he’s dead. Soon though, she’ll have to step out into the light all on her own.
One thing I found interesting as I started proofreading this story is how Ruby and Blake contrast in their views of people. Ruby believes that, for the most part, people are good. Blake, on the other hand, would probably say that she thinks most people can be good, but her life has taught her the opposite. Adam certainly didn’t help matters…and now she’s questioning her moral compass. Which…we know Blake. The one thing she’s pretty certain about is her moral high ground. Now…she doesn’t know where she stands. That’s only going to get worse for her pretty soon!
Just like the last half of this chapter got pretty bad.
The first version of this chapter wasn’t quite as bad, actually, so I had to make it more…brutal. I needed something that would convince Blake to make a decision that she would only make if she felt truly desperate. If she felt backed into a corner with no other solutions. Just like in her first chapter, I needed her to feel like she has to take matters, or life, into her own hands.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, right? I think we can all say that the situation in the Badlands has grown desperate.
At the end of the chapter, they see the distant village go up in flames, and in the next chapter we learn that Vale’s army got into another fight with the Atlesians, suffered heavy losses, and started the fires during their retreat. How happy do you think Blake will be with Vale when she learns that? (If she learns that?)
Maybe they shouldn’t be waging battles in the villages at all! Just my two cents. Of course, maybe they prefer that type of warfare so there are buildings and stuff to hide behind. It’s not exactly great for the residents though!
So Blake sets off on a mission that she doesn’t explain to us or Sun, probably because she knows that Sun wouldn't let her do it - or worse, he would come with her. No one wants their moral conscience coming with them when they’re at their lowest low!
Meanwhile, we return to Vale where Yang is…well, she’s having a rough go of it. She nearly goes up in flames at the beginning of her second chapter!
Now I’m wondering…would she have died if Ruby hadn’t been there? The only reason she’s able to calm back down is because she’s worried about accidentally hurting Ruby (she’s going to literally go up in flames, after all), and because she wants to hang out with Ruby now that Ruby’s back.
I don’t think this would have been her end, actually, even if Ruby wasn’t there. Yang clearly still has the strength left to fight the Phage, and her strength would have come from not wanting to die while Ruby was away. She would’ve been thinking, “This can’t happen before Ruby gets home. I need to see her one last time.”
Yang is basically surviving for Ruby at this point.
I’ve thought about this a lot - well, not a lot, but a fair amount - but would you tell your loved ones what was happening if you were in Yang’s position? I go back and forth for the same reason Yang has kept it a secret. I wouldn't want all that sympathy and pity and to be treated like I was dying, you know? But, at a certain point, I think you have to tell people because - like Ruby right now - they’re starting to notice. Yang might be taking it down to the wire in that respect. Squeezing every drop of normalcy out of her remaining health while people are starting to worry about her.
You’ve probably noticed that Ruby’s giving Yang plenty of opportunities to fess up, too. Yang’s just too stuck in her big sister role to take them. She can’t be weak, she needs to be the strong one for Ruby’s sake! She seems to be forgetting that her little sister isn’t so little anymore and is more than capable of taking care of herself (and a lot of other people, too!).
In Yang’s defense (though her defense is wearing quite thin), a lot of important things are going on. Like a war, and the Badlands hating them…and now Weiss coming to Vale, which is causing issues of its own.
Do you remember Lola? I actually forgot she was in this story until I proofread this chapter. (Which kind of suggests she’s not super integral to the story…) She’s one of Blake’s co-workers from The Vale Voice! I believe she was a gazelle Faunus in that story, which is why she’s tall and blonde in this one.
And she loves Vale. While everyone else is all war and rations and sadness, she’s like, “I get to decorate to host the Queen of Atlas!” I thought it was sweet though. Despite dire straits, she wants to make Vale look good.
I can’t believe we met Lola before Cecelia though. Actually, I guess I can. We will meet Cecelia eventually though! Obviously, I’ve mentioned her in both of Yang’s chapters so far and one of Ruby’s just so we don't forget about her. I did enjoy creating her character, so I’m excited for her to finally show up.
The wheels have already been set in motion though! Which is good because we’ve already finished 8 chapters and need to get this show on the road. I’m sure I could have dragged out this stage of the story for a good long while, but how much longer do we want to read about the four of them guessing what the others are like and hypothesizing about what the other group is aiming for?
I want to get to the part where they know each other and are still wondering what each other is truly like! You know…the ‘she said this but did she mean this?’ phase.
I thought it was interesting that Adam was kind of right about something. I know, gasp, what could he be right about? Well, he was right that the Badlands/Resistance should try to align with one of the armies. Think about it. Wouldn't Vale or Atlas want a group of essentially guerilla fighters in the settlements that could help find caches or supplies or lay traps for the opposing forces?
He was going to go about it in the wrong way, of course, but it’s something Blake should have considered a little more seriously. Her blind spot, however, seems to be dismissing the rulers as selfish and greedy, and refusing to see them as options. Or, I guess more specifically, she assumes that they view the Resistance as a trivial matter unworthy of their time or attention.
I’m excited for everyone to get together and start clearing the air! Or at least start learning who these mystical figures really are. Weiss and Blake are the biggest wildcards at the moment, I think. Yang and Ruby have no idea what to expect from them. Yang’s being pragmatic, Ruby’s optimistic, and we’re excited because we know the type of people that Weiss and Blake are.
Also, we’ve read the tags so we know there will be some romance involved. The romance is my favorite part, obviously. Just let them fall in love already! Let them be cute and happy and not sad anymore! If they can fix the world too, that’s just a bonus.
But we’ll see more progress in the coming weeks! Back to the White Rose side of things we go. Might they actually have an interaction soon? I honestly don’t remember yet, but I hope so!
Until next time,
Miko