Conflict of Interest - Commentary - Ch. 7-8 (Patreon)

Can you believe mid-April is already upon us?  It seems like just yesterday that we celebrated the end of 2020, now we’re 1/4th of the way through 2021!  Just thinking about that makes me feel like I haven’t made enough progress towards my goals...then I realize that I didn’t set any yearly goals for myself.

I should start doing that!  I guess I could set some goals now...no rules against that, are there?  I think my singular writing goal will be finishing Queens of Remnant before the year ends.  If I can finish that story and permanently wipe it from my mind, I’ll be a very happy camper.  (Of course, I can never completely erase anything from my mind, but I can move it from ‘active’ to ‘inactive’ storage space!)

Just last commentary, I mentioned how I was hesitant/nervous/afraid to pick up that goliath story again.  Well, as suspected, I proceeded to somewhat overwork myself trying to make a dent in the mountain of work left to do.

All of the chapters are partially written by now, but in various stages of completion.  I feel like I’ve made a lot of progress because I spent the last two weeks charging through chapters that were already nearly complete.  But...those chapters were almost done already, and I’m still only halfway through the story - 24 chapters to go.

I’m trying not to dwell on it too much because it’s a little demoralizing!  After all the hard work I’ve put in...there’s still 24 chapters left?  That’s a lot of agonizing over little details and sentences that ‘just don’t sound right.’

Of course, if I wasn’t writing this story, I’d be writing something else.  In that case...I’d be doing the same thing regardless!  Might as well accept it.  Or, in this case, dig in and keep working hard!

One of the challenges with Queens of Remnant is that I already did the fun part.  The idea creation part.  Without that mental stimulation, my mind is coming up with endless oneshot ideas while I struggle to keep myself on track.

I’ll tell you just one of those ideas.  I mean, it’s really more of an AU that could have multiple oneshots (and would be better as multiple oneshots…), but basically, I want to write a “Summer’s Still Alive” AU.  Then I want to show Summer getting to meet her daughters’ significant others, and the hijinks those moments entail.

I think it would be cathartic to write some happy family oneshots!  But that idea will live in my brain for now...maybe if I take a Queens of Remnant break, I can crank those out.  Because obviously I would want to write Summer meeting Blake and Summer meeting Weiss.

In the meantime, we have plenty of Conflict of Interest to read!  Although I bet most of you would say you’ll read as much of this AU as I can possibly write.  In that sense, there’s not enough of this story left.  (I would still love to write like...two more stories in this universe.  I need Ruby to invent a time replicator that I can use first.)

But let’s get into our two most recent chapters, shall we?  As a refresher (for you and me), we begin Chapter 7 with Ruby being utterly disappointed that Weiss didn’t ask any questions during that trial.  It was the ultimate power move on Weiss’ part.  “You want me to grill you with questions?  Well ha.  I’m just going to flip my hair over my shoulder and walk away.”

I really love that this version of Ruby is such a subtle overachiever.  She’s not obnoxious about it, but she likes having people critique her work so that she can learn and become even more of an overachiever.  Right now, she likes having Weiss critique her work.  Meanwhile, she’s clueless that Jez is trying so hard to hit on her.

Poor Jez.  I’m sorry I cast you for this role, but...someone had to do it.  It will become more important later on in the story.  You’ll see!

You might not have noticed, but I’ve been hinting that Ruby’s coworkers might be just as bad as Weiss’.  They’re not egotistical or the scum of the earth, but they might be even worse - they’re lazy.

But we don’t feel as bothered by them because Ruby isn’t as bothered by them.  She only makes little comments wishing they would try harder or be a little more organized, but mostly they rely on her for help.  At what point do they go from ‘relying on’ to ‘dumping work on’ though?

I guess if you work with a literal genius, you’d try to use their expertise as much as possible.  For Ruby though, it must suck.  She’s getting stuck with all this stuff the detectives and officers could do on their own but let fall to her instead.  Just because she can do it faster and better doesn’t mean she should do it!  (Obviously, I agree with Weiss that the police are wasting Ruby’s talent.)

Of course, Ruby still has time for personal projects...such as finding as much information on Weiss as possible.

I made sure to get this scene in the story because I wrote about it in Dream Theory and thought it was perfect for Ruby’s character.  She loves figuring things out, and uses knowledge to do so.  I imagine her to be almost obsessive in this way - when her mind latches onto a new topic, she’ll devote all of her time and energy to learning everything about it.

I’m not saying she’s obsessed with Weiss, but...she can’t get Weiss out of her thoughts and has obsessive tendencies.  Take that as you will!

Funny side note about Weiss’ near-perfect score on the attorney’s licensing exam - this is where I feel like Weiss and I are similar.  A while ago, I took this difficult licensing exam and only missed like five questions out of several hundred.  Everyone was impressed and all, but my overall response was, “What did I get wrong???”  Unfortunately, the testing center figures that no one cares about incorrect answers, so there was no way of finding out.  I’ll just never know what I didn’t know - how am I supposed to learn from that?

Weiss is cooler than me though.  She goes to the licensing board and shows them the error of their ways.  Even if her answers were wrong, I bet she wore them down so much that they eventually gave in rather than keep putting up a fight.

Then the main moment from Dream Theory happens - Ruby ‘accidentally’ hacks into a bank and sees how much money Weiss has.  In Dream Theory, I think Ruby commented that this is when she knew she had it bad for Weiss.  She doesn’t make that connection here, but...it’s pretty obvious to everyone that she’s got it bad.

Yang makes an unintentional reference to Dream Theory in this chapter too:

“Ok, well, it feels like everyone’s hiding something, you know?”

Yang’s talking about the murder case she’s investigating, but we’re all thinking about Blake.  Blake Belladonna...the one currently hiding something of her own.  Something that eventually tears apart the happy life she’s building with Yang.

Getting back to that murder case though…

When I started planning this story, it was actually going to be more of a mystery revolving around that case.  Similar to how Dream Theory is about solving what trouble Blake got into, Conflict of Interest was going to be about solving this murder while Weiss and Ruby interact outside of work.

Ruby and Yang would be collecting evidence and discussing suspects/theories, then Weiss would be trying to discredit their work.  I thought it’d be cool to see both sides of the case and really cool if I could hide the ‘whodunit’ until the very end.

Well, 8 chapters in, I think you can tell that’s no longer the case.  The murder has become a background plot; Weiss and Ruby’s relationship is the priority.  I ended up scraping that idea because it just didn’t interest me as much.  To write a murder mystery, I would have to come up with a compelling murder mystery.  It would be complicated, convoluted, and take time away from Weiss and Ruby.

Since I adore these versions of Weiss and Ruby, I wanted more of them!  It already doesn’t feel like we’re getting enough of them.  Can you imagine if their relationship wasn’t even the primary focus?

Long-story short - I’m happy with the way it worked out.  (Thank you, past me, for making good decisions.)  But I wanted you to know that Yang’s case was supposed to be a much larger part of the story.

I also dropped an itty bitty nod to Star-Crossed in this chapter!  I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone missed it, but it was this thought of Ruby’s:

Sometimes bad people seemed good, and sometimes good people seemed bad.  That was part of what made their jobs so difficult.

This was basically the theme of Star-Crossed.  Blake grappled with it as her feelings for Yang grew, because Yang was one of the bad guys, and therefore bad.  As Blake learned, and as Ruby in COI already knows, it’s not always that simple.

What is simple?  Well, to Ruby, anything related to technology.  And don’t even bother encrypting or password protecting something around her.

My original plan was for her to receive Weiss’ message and have to figure out the password.  In that scenario, Weiss would have sent along some clues that Ruby would have to solve.  Then I realized...it’s Ruby.  She’s a computer genius.  Why would she figure out the password when she can just go around it?

Also, I’ve found that scenes with repeatable actions can bog down a chapter.  Even if the clues/answers are different, it’s still the same task of ‘solving clues.’  And if we spend too long reading about the same task, things start to drag a little.  (Caveat being that there are certain types of stories that dive into the granular details and it works because the entire story is that way.  But I don’t write that way, so it doesn’t work as well.)

So, it might sound super cool to have Ruby solve complex riddles, but when you get into describing those riddles and her accompanying thought process...it could very easily get out of hand or feel clunky.

This is why I cringe when I think of the cake-tasting chapter in Rush.  It’s exactly this situation!  I think (or hope) it works better in Rush because the chapter was longer and almost solely focused on the cake tasting, but it’s still a repeatable action described over and over again with small variations.

I try to avoid writing these types of scenes nowadays.  (Admittedly, I still love the cake-tasting chapter because I had so much fun coming up with the different ratings Ruby would use.  My personal favorite was the wink, of course.)

Anyway, that’s why we don’t get a ‘Ruby cracks Weiss’ complicated riddles’ montage here.

What I find so funny about Ruby hacking her way into the message is that Weiss probably spent so much time coming up with the perfect twenty-digit passcode.  We didn’t see it, but she must’ve spent hours deliberating over what Ruby could reasonably guess with no hints whatsoever.

Or...maybe Weiss left it as the default password because the message was so innocuous that it wouldn’t raise suspicion if it fell into the wrong hands.  We don’t actually know what the message said - Ruby only tells us it’s an ‘invitation,’ but she knows it’s from Weiss because she traced the message back to Weiss - which Weiss thought was impossible.

My guess is that the message was something vague but with a super subtle hint as to who it was from.  Something like “Lunch, noon, E’Clara’s?  I hope no one loses their shoe again.”  (Get it?  Because of Ruby’s footprint scanner?)  Or maybe “Meet me at noon at E’Clara’s?  I can’t wait to stare into your dreamy silver eyes again.”

I’m sure Ruby would immediately know who sent the second one.

I just realized Weiss is probably one of those people who can solve an entire crossword puzzle in a few minutes.  Her intelligence is more of a ‘traditional’ intelligence, I would say.  So it makes sense that she would use her version of intelligence to send Ruby a crafty message, while Ruby uses her version of intelligence to figure out who it’s from.

What I love is that even though their minds work in very different ways, they get each other in a way no one else does.  Like how Ruby knows that a near-perfect score probably drove Weiss batty.  And how Weiss knows that Ruby craves mental stimulation and legitimate challenges.  They’re so different yet similar at the same time, and I love it.

Something that’s a little awkward to think about too hard is that if we were observing their interaction in the café, we wouldn’t be watching Weiss talking to Ruby.  We’d be watching Weiss talking to some beautiful brunette.  I hope people don’t overthink it, but it kind of had to be this way.  Obviously, Weiss and Ruby meeting up for lunch would be big news if anyone from either of their workplaces saw them.

Although, I don’t think either of them would get in trouble for being caught.  Like Weiss says - it’s not forbidden to be friends, it just looks bad.

Weiss’ opening line, “I don’t bite,” is a nod to one of my favorite parts of Dream Theory - where she reminds Ruby that she works with sharks (something she’s already reiterated in previous chapters).  When Ruby points out that Weiss isn’t a shark though, she playfully snaps her teeth in response.

I just adore that little moment between them.  I think it shows how playful and sweet they can be with each other, but also how Weiss has a bit of a sassy edge.  I really wanted to reference that moment again, so here it is - at their very first meeting, no less.

Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly, considering there’s still a story left to unfold), Weiss is oblivious to Ruby’s fascination with her.  Again, they’re so different yet so similar...both exceptionally smart yet clueless at the same time.  If they weren’t, this would’ve been a really short story.

Ruby:  “Wow, Weiss is beautiful and I love how she challenges me.  I must have a giant crush on her because I totally wouldn’t mind spending the rest of my life with her.”

Weiss:  “Ruby’s the only person I’ve ever respected and now she’s paying extra attention to me.  I’m going to pretend to hate it while secretly loving it.  Also if she wanted to spend the rest of her life with me, that would probably be ok.”

Instead, they’re both like, “I don’t get it.  What does she want from me?”

Another funny note - most of Ruby’s ‘hi-tech’ stuff I made up without doing any research (I do this often).  Well, I actually recently saw an article about an AI program that’s supposed to do exactly what Ruby says she created - interpret facial expressions.  In real life, apparently it doesn’t work so great yet...so Ruby’s still way ahead of the curve!

I’m so happy that we’re getting into their interactions now, because obviously I’m happier when they’re interacting than when they’re not.  In particular, I loved showing that Ruby can hold her own against Weiss.  We know Weiss can hold her own in a conversation, but Ruby’s so damn smart that she can match Weiss’ wits.  Look forward to more of their little ‘arguments’ in the future!

Also, is Ruby a superhero?  She could be, couldn’t she?  Protector of data.  She saves lives by saving online identities.  She flies around the interwebs at night, securing random websites like any good superhero would do.  She’s computer Batman!

Does that make Weiss her Robin?  Or Catwoman?  Or...who was Batman’s love interest?  I really don’t know enough about superheroes...please forgive me!

I hope I’m not the only one who’s amused that Weiss thinks she has the upper hand in this relationship.  Just because Ruby’s nervous and blushing, Weiss thinks she’s in charge?  She has no idea what’s headed her way.

I guess no one really does (except me!).  Now that the story setup has ended, I’m getting more excited.  Now we’re getting to the ‘good’ stuff.

I hope you really enjoy the upcoming chapters, especially as we witness some of my favorite scenes and favorite bits of dialogue.  Don’t worry, you’ll see soon enough!

Until next time,

Miko