The Winter Challenge - Commentary - Ch. 13-14 (Patreon)

Welcome to the last commentary for The Winter Challenge!  We’ve finally reached the point in the story where Weiss realizes how oblivious - i.e. unobservant - she’s been this entire time.  This is the moment we’ve all been waiting for, right? 

But first!  She begins Chapter 13 just as oblivious as we’ve come to know and love.  At least, I love oblivious Weiss.  I think what’s best about making her somewhat clueless is that it goes against her whole ‘smart-girl’ vibe.  In a way, it’s basically just me punking her.  Wait - this reminds me of the story idea I didn’t want to think about too much - tripping-over-herself Weiss.  That’s so funny.  I actually managed to forget about it until right now.

Incoming tangent - I was thinking more about tripping-over-herself Weiss today, and I thought it would be even funnier if she uses Blake to distract ‘the sister.’  So Weiss and Blake walk into wherever Yang and Ruby work, and it’s Blake’s job to lure Yang away while Weiss strikes up a conversation with Ruby.  I could tell you the rest, but I might end up writing this sometime.  Just a short story!  (How many times have you heard me say that already?)

Anyway, I think the pinnacle of Weiss’ obliviousness comes when she’s disappointed that Ruby didn’t fall asleep in her bed again.  I mean...come on, Weiss!  Several chapters ago you were making such a big deal about Yang falling asleep in Blake’s bed, and now you’re thinking that you should make sure Ruby knows that what’s yours is hers.  Platonically, of course.

But if Ruby wanted to cuddle a bit, I’m sure that would be acceptable.

Now I’m imagining that Weiss is a really big cuddle-bug who can’t sleep without Ruby there to keep her warm.  Kind of like how Blake feels about Yang!

I wonder what Team RWBY uses the top bunks for when they inevitably start using only the bottom bunks for sleeping...

Actually...moving on.

Wait, did I accidentally switch Blake and Yang’s beds in the story?  For some reason, I just thought that Yang slept on bottom, so maybe I wrote it wrong?  If so, my apologies for messing up bed ownership!

But back to Chapter 13, which is my personal favorite.  I’m pretty sure I say this about every resolution chapter, but it’s true!  I love when the drama is resolved and the characters get to be happy, make jokes, and love each other.  And, in this case, they get to exchange gifts too!

What’s somewhat ironic is that I don’t like Christmas-themed stories for that exact reason - exchanging gifts.  There are four characters.  If four characters get one gift for each other, how many gifts is that?  Put another way, how many gifts do I have to come up with off the top of my head?

Technically this is all off the top of my head, but random sentences is different from coming up with presents.  Basically, I spent the holidays thinking of perfect gifts for my family, friends, and these guys.  Thankfully, I only had to buy gifts for my friends and family, otherwise I’d be super broke from buying concert tickets and autographed books.

Blake’s gift was the easiest to come up with, since Blake and books go together like bread and butter.  Beyond that...I feel fortunate to have come up with what I did.  My personal favorites were Yang’s ‘shut up’ cards, and Ruby’s ‘fake inscription’ gift to Yang.

That gift was actually something of a fluke.  A fortunate fluke, but a fluke all the same.  When I was struggling to think of Ruby’s gift for Weiss, I decided to just write the scene and see what came out.  I do this every so often when I feel stuck or lacking in ideas.  Surprisingly, it seems to work.

So, with no idea where I’m going, I write that Ruby’s giving her gift to Weiss.  She pulls out...something she baked, something she made, or something she wrote.  She’s good with weapons, so something she made for a weapon, for Weiss.  So she...fixed, upgraded, in some way altered...Myrtenaster.  Maybe she fixed something small that’s been bothering Weiss for a long time?  Maybe she created some type of upgrade?  If so, then I would have to come up with what this upgrade does (my brain gets tired, so no).  Or she alters it in some way - paints it or inscribes it.

And there’s my gift!  Ruby inscribes Weiss’ name onto Myrtenaster for her.

But wait a second, you say.  That’s Ruby’s real gift for Weiss in the last chapter.  And you’re correct!  Before I congratulated myself and moved on, I had another idea.  A better idea.  What if Ruby put her name on Myrtenaster instead?  What would happen then?  And, most importantly, how funny would it be?

And that’s how I came up with Ruby’s gift for Yang.  

As you can see, I ended up using both ideas in the end.  I don’t like to let ideas go to waste, although I’m learning to let go every so often.  Sometimes there isn’t room for everything in one story, and it’s best not to force it.  That’s when you take that poor, abandoned idea and separate it from the rest of the story, then write a new story for it.  

See?  This is why I’ll never run out of stories to write.  Well, that and I can hardly listen to a song or watch a movie without having more ideas.  I try to keep those to a minimum but, you know, stories happen.

Back on subject here - as for the other gifts, the old knife that Yang gives Ruby is supposed to be a little nod to What Defines Us, since one of Yang’s things in WDU is that she brings back random weapons for Ruby to take apart and re-purpose.  That’s the best way to learn, right?  

But the award for most-thoughtful gift probably goes to Ruby for creating a binder filled with combat moves for Weiss.

Sometimes, I think of Weiss a little bit like Monica from Friends.  That’s especially true when she thinks this:

She couldn’t wait to go through every page and add notes of her own.  And, since it was a binder, they could add and remove pages as necessary.  Although, realistically, they would never remove anything.  Even if they permanently retired certain moves, she would keep the pages as a reminder of what once was.  In time, she could start a second binder just to keep those organized…

By the time they graduate, Ruby’s old bed has been converted into binder storage.

...actually, I just remembered how haphazard those bunk beds are.  Adding a couple dozen binders probably isn’t going to help.

The last gift I came up with was actually Weiss’ song for Ruby, which is funny considering I thought that one would be easiest to think of.  But when did Weiss have time to go shopping in the story?  And I don’t think they have same-day delivery at school, so how could she buy something and get it to Beacon in time?  That left me with one choice - the homemade gift route - and I’ll admit that it took far too long to remember that Weiss can sing.

I have no idea what the song is about other than Ruby, since I’ve never tried to write a song in my life.  With how oblivious Weiss is to her feelings at that point, I imagine it’s basically a love song very thinly wrapped in friendship.  

Whatever it ends up being, Ruby’s guaranteed to love it!  She’ll probably sing it to herself all the time, which will be a little weird considering it’s about her, but that won’t stop her.  And then the song gets stuck in Yang’s head, so she’s humming it to herself all the time.  That gets it stuck in Blake’s head too, and eventually the entire team is singing about Ruby’s silver eyesssss.

I just realized that most of this chapter is about their gifts, but the end - the end is what we’ve been waiting for.  And who better to point out the obvious than the most observant member of Team RWBY - Blake?  

How much do you want to bet that while Weiss is going on and on about how much Blake and Yang like each other, Blake is doing the exact same thing with Weiss and Ruby?  The only thing that keeps Blake from getting involved in their relationship is probably that she’s too busy trying to figure out what to do about Yang.

If you’ve ever watched How I Met Your Mother, I imagined Blake’s bombshell to be like the plate shattering episode.  This is when someone points out a habit or preference that you’ve never noticed before, and as soon as you learn about it, it’s like a plate shattering sound in your mind.  Suddenly, you can’t not see it.

I’m thinking this is what happened to Weiss.  She’s in denial for so long, then Blake points out the obvious and suddenly - plate shattering noise!  The cat’s out of the bag.  The rabbit’s out of the hat.  Now she can’t unsee it.

I’m curious to hear your reactions to the final chapter though!  And to the story overall!  It was always a Bumblebee story, but I tried to put in enough White Rose to make it a worthy White Rose story as well.  I knew that I wouldn’t be able to fully flesh out Weiss’ struggles at the end though, because that essentially starts another story, and that story would be a near repeat of what Blake and Yang went through.  Instead, I thought it was good enough to use the epilogue to show how Weiss is dealing with her newfound knowledge.

The answer is...she’s suffering.  As she puts it, Ruby’s just so cute all the freaking time.  

I love that in the epilogue the roles are reversed.  Weiss is playing Blake or Yang’s part as lovestruck idiot who can hardly be around Ruby without stumbling over her words.  Blake and Yang, meanwhile, get to play matchmakers.

How’s that for a new-couple bonding activity?  Some people go on cute dates, some talk on the phone all the time, and some try to get their teammates together.  At least they’re happy, right?  They kind of had a rough go of it for a while there…

I just realized that maybe Blake and Yang aren’t playing matchmaker after all.  Maybe they’re actually seeking revenge on Weiss for her meddling.  But her meddling had a positive outcome, so probably not!  They just think it’s funny to watch Weiss go through what they did.

I especially liked Blake’s “Maybe you should just kiss” comment.  Weiss was so smug when she used that on Blake and Yang, but she feels a little differently this time around, doesn’t she?  

And then Yang refers to Weiss as Ruby’s girlfriend...which nearly gave Weiss a heart attack.  I like to think this is actually Yang getting Ruby used to the thought of having a girlfriend.  Maybe when she’s spending time alone with Ruby, she’s bringing up stuff about relationships in general and feeling out the waters.  At least, that’s what I’d like to imagine.  Protective Yang still being protective!  

So, if Yang is protective, one would assume that because she has no qualms with Weiss’ feelings for Ruby, she already knows that Ruby’s ready for that next step.  If she wasn’t ready, Yang would probably step in and say something.  But she doesn’t, so the coast is clear.

Clear-ish.  Weiss hasn’t yet found the courage to tell Ruby, which is ironic considering her earlier determination to never let this happen to her.  I quote, from Chapter 9, her determination to be the anti-Blake and Yang:

This entire situation was ridiculous.  Rather than play this never-ending game of ‘will they, won’t they,’ they should just kiss and get on with it.  If Weiss was ever in this situation, that’s what she would do.  

Well Weiss, welcome to the situation!

Probably the only thing she didn’t have Yang and Blake do was role play a confession with her, so it was great to see her role play with Blake as Ruby.  Mostly because it’s so funny to imagine Blake trying to act like Ruby.  Although she didn’t even really attempt to act like Ruby.  Surprisingly though, she had some good advice to offer:

“I think you need to go simpler.  Just come right out and say it, then explain why.”

In my mind, this is her speaking from experience, and that experience would be from when she finally confessed her feelings to Yang on the rooftop of that building.  So, if we take her words at face value, she did something like, “Yang, I like you” then followed up with her reasons why.

One of the things I wanted to show in this epilogue, besides Ruby and Weiss getting together, was that Blake had changed after the events of the main story.  We all saw her shut off her emotions at certain points, and we saw her run from them, or flatout deny them.  So here, in the last chapter, I thought it would be nice to see that she has changed for the better.  As Weiss puts it, she’s “more open and honest about her feelings than she was before.”

I’m curious though - when they were practicing the confessions, did you worry that Ruby would walk in on them and overhear?  Because that’s what I kept thinking would happen.  That’s what usually happens, right?  And then Ruby thinks that Weiss is confessing to Blake so runs out of the room in tears, and Weiss tries to catch her to explain but of course Ruby’s too fast.

Woah there - slow the angst!  This is the end of the story, so of course nothing like that can happen.  Well, it could, but I don’t write those types of stories.  

Speaking of stories...did you catch the line Weiss uses that’s eerily familiar to one in What Defines Us?  

“Ruby, I like you - more than friends, more than partners.  I like you...like how Yang likes Blake.”

Ok, so I’ll be honest and admit that I guessed that was a WDU reference.  Because I wasn’t entirely sure, I actually just went back through the story and tried to find the scene.  Surprisingly, I found it!  In WDU, this is almost exactly how Ruby tells Weiss that she likes - actually, loves - her.

Also, why is that story so long??  I shouldn’t have looked through it either because I saw about a bazillion mistakes while only scrolling through a few chapters.  It could really use a retool, but it’s so long...going through it again would probably take a few months.  In a few months, I could finish a new story, so that’s what I’d rather put my effort towards.

In a way, the old stories are like benchmarks of where I’ve been.  If you read them from oldest to newest (with the exception of Rush, since I went through that one recently), I hope you see some progression in my writing.  Red Carpet Romance is probably another good example since I’ve written the chapters as I go rather than finishing the entire story in advance.  Now we have another story to add to that timeline.  

On to the next one!  It will be a Bumblebee story through and through.  Weiss and Ruby play pretty minimal roles (sorry!), but have no fear - I’m working on White Rose stuff for the future.  I think that since I spent so long working on What Defines Us, plus all of those White Rose oneshots, I kind of burnt out.  Then I wrote a bunch of Bumblebee, which we need to work our way through before getting back to White Rose.

Anyway, that’s all for the future!  Red Carpet Romance next week, then a new story after that!

Until next time, 

Miko