The Queens of Remnant - Commentary - Ch. 41-42 (Patreon)

Welcome back, everyone!

For a while this past week, I seriously questioned whether I’d be able to write this commentary at all.  I worried that I wouldn't even get to proofread the chapter to post on Saturday!  It was just one of those weeks where everything goes wrong and you get slammed from seemingly every direction at once.  I was traveling for work, interviewing candidates to replace our assistant who is leaving, lost a pet in the family, and then our assistant pulled the whole, “I know my last day is mid-December, but I’m just going to take PTO until then so bye!”  Fun stuff all around.

Needless to say…writing has fallen by the wayside again, unfortunately.  I only have 5 chapters of Click, Click, Boom left, but those chapters have never felt so far away.  I’ve totally lost my grasp on that story by now, so I’ll have to go back through the whole thing later and fix up any inconsistencies with emotions.

While I was traveling though, I came up with an idea for another smutty Bumbleby story.  Just what I needed!  It could be shorter though…like Dirty Little Secret, which was like a full-length novel if I remember correctly.  Which isn’t actually short, but in comparison to other stories it is!

In a nutshell, I wanted to write a Bumbleby enemies to lovers type of story.  They aren’t really enemies though - they’re competing with each other, and Blake happens to be uber competitive.  I don’t have a ton of other details at this point, but my mind’s going to try to provide them.  This is the difficult part where I don’t want to lose the ideas, but I also don’t want to get into writing it without finishing Click, Click, Boom.

What I typically do is let my mind go wild for a week or two, long enough that a clearer vision of the full story comes into view.  Then I have to cap it off and force myself back to the story that needs finishing.  Five chapters.  That’s all I need before I can go wild with something else.  That being said, let’s get into this commentary!  I have so much else that I still need to do :(

Chapter 41 is one of my favorite chapters, and I’m sure you know why.  It’s Weiss’ coming out moment!  All of those chapters of her being uncertain, timid, and reluctant have led her here, where she finally shows a little bit of who she can and will be.

The Queen has officially arrived.

During proofreading, I actually added the new part where Weiss goes to see Councilor Hill before the rest of the Council.  That didn’t exist prior to a couple weeks ago.  Instead, Weiss went directly to the Council and did her whole thing.  I wanted to add the Councilor Hill part so that we know that Robyn’s alive and recovering, but also to sneak in that little part about Winter, which will become clearer later.

If I could redo this story, I would rewrite it with more clues as to what Robyn and Ironwood were doing.  Because they were originally OCs though, I had left their actions and motivations super murky (and also didn’t care as much, personally).  I switched them after the first draft but didn’t quite add enough to explain Robyn very well, I don’t think.

Maybe her actions on a second read would show that she’s not really a hindrance, but she’s not exactly helpful either.  Even if she had offered help like Ironwood did, would Weiss have eventually come to mistrust her in the same way?

I like to think that Robyn didn’t have bad intentions and genuinely wanted the best for Atlas, but also didn’t know how much she could trust or believe in Weiss.  If she was close to Winter, then she might also believe Weiss to be incapable, in which case she should do everything she could without Weiss’ assistance.

Newsflash, but Weiss is more than capable of holding her own, especially after spending so much time with Ruby.  I love her newfound confidence more than anything.  Just because she can hold her own doesn’t mean she should have to though.  Enter James!

Poor James got put into a difficult situation.  On the one hand, he wants to follow Ruby to the Badlands to make sure she’s safe.  On the other hand, he knows that Ruby will be worried about Weiss and would tell him to stay in Atlas.

Remember the conversation James and Ruby had earlier in the story where Ruby asked him what he would do if she told him to save Yang’s life instead of hers?  He didn’t have an answer then, but we have an answer now!  He would do what Ruby wanted and trust that Ruby knew what she was getting herself into.

James also stays behind because he’s the last person who Weiss has to win over, and she does.  Earning his respect is the cherry on top of her already great progress - essentially, remaking Atlas in a single day by finally putting her foot down and standing up for what she thinks is right.

Originally, the scene with the Council was going to be much more combative.  She was going to use her spark to, basically, threaten them into submission.  It would be a “Don’t mess with me” type of moment that cemented her as their leader.  As I wrote Weiss’ arc though, a recurring theme kept popping up - her inner character is what makes her so strong.  Who she is, not what she can do.  Strength over power.

If I had gone with my original thought, she would have turned into her father, using the threat of harm to get her way.  That’s not who I wanted her to be!  The point is that she doesn’t need her spark at all.  She can do everything without it, including putting some stuffy politicians in line.

They still respect her title, and she can just dissolve the Council - all she needs to do is stand up to them.  Well, and get Ironwood out of there so he’s not causing trouble.

I wonder how they’re locking Ironwood up…since he’s powerful, there probably needs to be quite a few guards watching him at all times.  I never dove into those details, but I’ll just imagine that they know how to secure someone like that because sparks aren’t unusual to them.  Freeze-proof bars?  Who knows.

I love so many moments in this chapter…one of them being when Weiss makes all of the Councilors raise their hands to admit that they’re guilty of being selfish jerks (basically).  I can just see it so clearly…the way they all glance at each other like, ‘uh…are we doing this…?’ before eventually conceding.

I considered having Weiss throw a few out - like, maybe there would be some who refused to stop arguing their way - but ultimately didn’t want to go that route.  My thought is that these are all the cowards.  That’s why Ironwood was able to operate so freely and basically unchecked - they’re just minnows following whoever they think will make them richer or more powerful.  Ironwood is gone, Robyn is also out, and they have no one left to turn to but Weiss.

Also, I love the moment where James calls Weiss his queen.  I waited an entire story to write that!  He’s a man of few words, but those two words speak volumes.  Internally, he’s thinking, ‘Alright, maybe I can see what Ruby sees in her.’

Weiss, like a true leader should, handles the worst matter personally - dismantling the chapel.  Storming in and ordering everyone to stop seems like the quickest way to do it.  Tearing the building down might be another, more destructive way.

You’ll realize that I put her in another situation that she doesn’t love but has grown to accept - public speaking!  First, she has to speak to the Council, and now she has to address all the people wondering what she’s doing breaking a sick man out of their ‘secret’...whatever they call it.  Crematorium, I guess.

After Weiss delivers her speech to the onlookers, she was also going to reveal her spark to the general population.  Like, everyone would then know that their queen wasn’t sparkless after all!  But, again, that flies in the face of the lessons that Weiss has learned over the story.  People respect her for her, spark or not.  For someone who has been broken down more than a few times, that must be an incredible realization.

I’m so proud of her!  She started this story at one of the worst points in her life, but she’s built herself back up and learned to stand on her own.  Not without a little help from some others along the way, of course, but we all need to rely on others from time to time.

As we leave Atlas for the Badlands, we prepare for the final battle!

Who picked Cecelia as the final boss?  I guess there were really only three options to choose from - Ironwood/the Council, the Phage, and Cecelia.  Cecelia outlasted them all.

I mentioned before that I considered Cecelia’s backstory far more than I do for a typical OC.  I imagine her upbringing was kind of like Weiss and Blake’s (in this AU) combined, only worse.  She tells Blake once that the Badlands reminds her of home, so she grew up scratching and clawing for every day.  She learned that the best way to survive was to kick the crap out of the other person before they even thought to start a fight.

I like having Ruby’s perspective on Cecelia because Ruby’s a bit more of a third party.  She still knows Cecelia well through secondhand experience, but she definitely isn’t as close to Cecelia as Yang is.

It’s that perspective that makes her conclusions about Blake all the sweeter.  Ruby knows Cecelia - how she leads, how she operates - and now she watches Blake leading an ‘army’ of her own.  To say that they have different leadership styles is in understatement.

Ruby’s chapter is the calm before the storm.  The setup before the showdown.  It’s also a chance for Ruby to finally pause and reflect on everything that’s been going on.  She flew out of Atlas, then had to deal with her sister kind of dying, and now gets the chance to process before being thrown back into the fray.  Just what the fray will look like…we’ll see soon!

I think Sun might be the most underutilized side character in this story.  He played some pivotal roles, but there just wasn’t much opportunity to get him involved when Blake was in Vale.  It wouldn't have made much sense for him to be staying in Vale too.  He has some great moments though, and I love that he instantly picked up on Ruby and Weiss being a couple.  That’s his superpower - knowing who’s into who.

I also would’ve liked to see more of Winter, but she was also gone for much of the story…being chased by Knights.  She’s another key player though, and her being in the Badlands to meet Ruby was just icing on the cake.

Ruby finally gets an answer to a question we’ve probably all had since chapter 1 - why did Winter run?  Why didn’t she stay in Atlas and try to smooth things over with the Council?  Why didn’t she stay to protect Weiss?

Well, she thought that she was protecting Weiss.  She also admits to a bit of panic, which is understandable considering the circumstances.  And the Council did go after her for Jacques’ death, so Winter’s concern was legitimate.

Winter staying in Atlas would have blown up the entire story though, so I can’t even imagine what would have happened if she hadn’t run.  Basically, none of the other events happen and Weiss probably never meets Ruby and never blossoms into the person she is now.

Imagine Winter’s surprise when she learns that Ruby knows about Weiss’ spark - the one secret that she made Weiss swear never to tell anyone.  Realistically, she knew that Weiss would eventually tell someone, and that someone would probably be told because Weiss trusted them with her life.  And here Ruby is…who Winter has personally known for only a matter of days, but knows tangentially as the Queen of Vale and one of their ‘enemies’ for so long…and who Weiss deemed worthy of sharing that secret with.

It would be funny if Winter’s mind quickly jumped to, ‘Oh, you slept with my sister.’  I’m going to say that she probably didn’t leap to that conclusion…yet.  Weiss is still her sheltered little sister, after all!  She doesn’t know how much Weiss has grown up since they saw each other last.  That will be a surprise for her!

There are two changes I wanted to point out in this chapter - one from Ruby and one from Yang.  Ruby has spent the entire story trying to find that fabled cure, traveling everywhere with only James by her side, but now she’s accepting help from all of these people who she hardly knows.  Not only that, but she’s letting Blake run the whole show and is willingly only playing her assigned role.  This is a departure from her ‘I’m going to find a cure’ philosophy that drove her pretty much throughout the story.

Yang’s not a huge part of this chapter, but we get some uncharacteristic remarks from her, too.  First, of course she wants to go out and fight, but she’s still a bit of an ice cube.  Unlike earlier though, when she let Ruby leave for Atlas knowing that they might never see each other again, she’s being very vocal about what she wants.  She doesn’t want Ruby to fight.  She doesn’t want Blake to fight either.  She wants both of them to stay with her, where it’s safe.

Selfish Yang on deck?  Probably not, but she’s learned that she should speak up, at least.  Don’t let your loved ones go without letting them know how you feel.  In a similar vein, don’t rush into battle without making sure someone can deliver a message to the one you love!

I just thought the dual confessions at the end of the chapter were pretty hilarious, and then Sun adding some pristine comedic timing.  Lighten the mood a bit before marching off to war.

If this was Game of Thrones, we should probably be a little worried right about now.  But this is the furthest thing from Game of Thrones.  This is the conclusion of a long journey, and we’re all going to feel good about it!

Oh boy though…Ruby and Winter finally going to war.  Who’s excited?  I’m excited.

There aren’t many chapters left though, and that makes me sad.  I know we all want the conclusion, but we’ll never get to experience this for the first time ever again.  Unless we get some targeted amnesia that wipes only this story from our memories…

Ok, instead of being sad, I should be excited for what comes next - White Rose!  White Rose though…god, we need to get back to Weiss.  I love that girl so much.  That’s something to get excited about.

Until next time,

Miko