#warning: inconsistent writing style and no plot

[sociallyrepressed]

season of the witch

Salem always glows this time of year. As soon as the first leaf departs from its tree, the residents line their lawns with plastic figures and blown-up monstrosities. The neighborhood children gather to bake Halloween cookies and carve pumpkins. Stores open for the flow of tourists hunting ghost stories- which is very lucky for Franco considering half of his business is guiding ghost tours during the busy season. The other half of his job is selling antiques while coming up with creative stories about how the previous owners still haunt them.

They’re not actually haunted- he checks them personally after he got in trouble with Lando for gifting him a potted plant that attempted to eat one of his students. Which is really Lando’s fault for not checking, because why did he put the plant in his classroom without even testing it for magical conformities? Anyways, it led to a traumatic series of events in which Lando had to wipe the child’s memory and tell her parents she got a concussion for misusing the monkey bars, and now Franco checks for traces of spell or curse residue before he sells them.

His thoughts are interrupted by the man himself.

“Are you going to help me put the lights up or not?” Lando’s leaning against the doorframe, hip cocked and eyebrow raised.

“If you tone down the sass I will think about it.” He ducks as his favorite mug is lobbed at his head- bright pink with black letters that read “witch, please”. It came in a matching set; Lando’s is dark gray with bright green letters that spell out “witch bitch” . Franco flicks his fingers to stop its momentum, protecting it from shattering on the floor. “Why do you not use magic to put them up? Clearly it is not above you.”

“Because we have to keep appearances for the neighbors. And also I thought it might be fun.” Lando pushes off the wall and disappears into the back hallway, returning with a bundle of lights and their cat darting around his heels, trying to get at the trailing ends. They are most definitely tangled, Franco sighs.

“You could not get them untangled.” 

“Nope. And also made it worse,” he looks entirely unapologetic as he dumps the lights onto the carpet in front of Franco, plopping onto his knees. He pulls Lucky Bastard (affectionately dubbed by Lando when they rescued him as a sopping pathetic little thing during a storm) into his lap, away from the lights, and pats the space next to him in invitation. And who is Franco to deny his- admittedly incompetent- witch. When Lando doesn't reach out and start tugging at the loose ends, Franco realizes his intended role. “But maybe you could work your magic.” Lando’s got this wide cheesy grin on his face, gap tooth on display. It’s the one Franco likes most because of how unguarded it is; it’s the one Lando weaponizes the most because he knows this.

“Ay, Lando, you are evil.” He still closes his eyes and reaches into his own soul, imagining a bright tangle of lights. He imagines it coming apart, pulling into organized pieces. The magic crackles in the air, and he knows in the silence Lando is watching, enraptured. 

He has his own talents and spells, but he always seems so captivated when Franco uses his magic- he’s been accused on more than one occasion of using some kind of enchantment, until Lando realized the reason for his interest was due moreso to his own feelings than any magical influence. 

It takes a few minutes to completely disentangle, if only for the reason Lando did, in fact, make the knot worse. By the time he opens his eyes, there are long strips in front of him and Lando is leaned forward on his knees, braced on his hands. His eyes are bright and excited, mouth curved into something happy. Lucky Bastard is already attempting to ruin the lights. Franco allows himself to tip forward just enough to press a light, fluttery kiss to the corner of Lando’s lips. He doesn't linger, instead pulling back and laughing as Lando tries to chase his lips and ends up faceplanting right into the lights. He’s scowling when he pushes himself back up, but Franco doesn't feel intimidated when there are imprints of bulbs across the side of his cheeks and temple.

“I thought you wanted to go put them up.” He stands and grabs one of the strings, making his way towards the front door.

“I hate you!” He hears it echo in the foyer, but he can also hear the hasty rustling of Lando getting up and grabbing a different strand. 

“Ah, if only that were true.”

--

“You are not funny, amor. It was not so funny the last four years, and it is not funny this year.” Honestly, Franco doesn't know how he puts up with so much. Lando thinks it's hysterical that he dresses up as a witch for the school’s celebration of All Hallow’s Eve. Witches are common costumes, but he’s still going to get in trouble with the local coven for some kind of appropriation. Last year, it was because “witches don't have ugly warts on their noses or cackle loudly”. (In Franco’s opinion, that describes the pompous witches in the coven perfectly.) Luckily, this year he’s toned it down to a dramatic black velvet robe, a scraggly wooden broom, and an offensively pointed hat that looks like it could genuinely hurt somebody. He’s put on a light layer of makeup to accentuate the shape of his eyes and make him more glow-y, which shouldn’t be doing it for Franco as much as it is.

“All the kids love it, plus I think it’s better than being a vampire.” He cocks his head to the side. “But that's probably because you’re pale enough to look like one already.” Lando reaches around and smacks Franco on the backside, and he can feel some heat rise to his face. “Oh, there’s your lively color!” 

“Do not start something we do not have time to finish,” Franco pushes Lando out of his face by convincing the car keys to collide with his cheek.

“Hey!” Franco is already turned out the front door and in the car before Lando can retaliate. “Cheater.” When he catches up he slinks into the passenger and drops the keys into the cupholder.

“Oh, baby, do not be such a sore loser. One day you will be fast enough to keep up,” he leans across the center console and kisses him. Contrary to what he said before, he’s the one to initiate their make-out session in the car. He has not always been so great with self-control, and Lando is looking at him with winged eyes and glossy lips pulled into a pout. He never actually stood a chance. They don't separate until Franco commits a transgression of the highest degree- he runs his hand through Lando’s hair and tugs a curl until it loosens. He squawks and jerks back, pulling down the passenger side visor just enough to see the top of his head so that he can fix his hair even though it's just going to get covered up by the witch’s hat anyway.

 Franco laughs and he keeps rustling different curls the whole drive (“Stop it! Focus on driving.” “Ah, my love, my eyes are on the road, I am not even thinking of you. I promise I am not doing anything.”). As they’re pulling into the parking lot, Lando is finally once again at peace with his hair. It’s a shame Franco’s one goal in life is to continually cause chaos.

He turns and reaches out again to grab Lando’s face, pulling it in. His pretty eyes are narrowed in suspicion as he leans his own face closer. Franco can feel him shiver when his breath ghosts over his ear, “your lipgloss is smudged, my love.” Lando shoves him away again and smacks his shoulder.

“I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.”

“You have said this already multiple times, yet I do not believe you anymore now than I did earlier.” Lando pauses his movement just long enough to send him a stink eye. He opens his mouth to say something but Franco cuts him off, “oh, look. The party has started, and we are now late.” The lights in the gymnasium are flashing greens and pinks, some type of loud music permeating the otherwise quiet night.

His witch snorts but gets out of the car, straightening his costume. When Franco moves to get out, his door locks. Everytime he unlocks it, it relocks.

“Lando.” He sends some leaves to flutter around Lando’s head. Suitably distracted trying to protect his hair from further assault, Franco gets out of the car. When they actually get inside of the gym, a group of middle schoolers all flock to Lando, chattering excitedly. He’s content to stand to the side and observe, but one of the kids sees him and points.

“Mr. L, is that your boyfriend?” Lando sputters for a few moments, both to the amusement of the kids and Franco. But when he looks at Franco with wide eyes, he decides to step in and introduce himself.

“Yes, I’m Franco. His boyfriend.” Witches don't usually do the whole dating and marriage thing. When they’re born, their souls are split into fragments, and one of the fragments is used as a courting gift that binds with a soul fragment of another witch. It’s far more intimate than the courting rituals of regular mortals. He does not explain this to the kids. One girl that looks vaguely familiar stares him down, a frown on her lips.

“He may be your boyfriend, but he’s our teacher. So we get to have him tonight since we’re at school, plus we want to win the pizza party.” Franco raises his eyebrows, but Lando’s got this glint in his eyes that can only spell mischief.

“Audrey, Franco is really good at games. He can help us win.” He’s not really listening to Lando because it clicks into place- this is the girl the plant tried to eat. Now he’s obligated to help them win the pizza party since he’s the reason she almost died, even if she doesn't remember.

“Yes. I will help you all win.” The kids cheer and storm through until they get to the side of the gym housing all the carnival games. Franco and Lando trail behind. “You are an evil, evil man.”

“I don't know what you're talking about. Come on, we have to win. I’ll be damned if I ever hear George talking about how superior his class is just because they got a pizza party again.” Franco rolls his eyes, but links their fingers together and they wander over to play games.

Later, they’re back in their house, in their bed, curled around each other. Lucky Bastard is on top of Lando’s chest, purring loudly. Lando presses feather soft kisses to the side of Franco’s face, and he can feel their soul fragment glow warm and soft.

[ksmline]

star [bang chan x reader]

you first catch sight of chan at an award show, and you just have to have him.

pairing: stray kids bang chan x female!reader

info/warnings: NSFW!!, reader is an actress but it kind of unintentionally ends up becoming irrelevant to the smut part. porn without plot, inconsistent writing style, kind of rushed, GENDERED TERMS (pretty girl, etc), unprotected sex

word count: 1.6k

it's my first time writing smut so if you're reading this you're just going to have to forgive me.

i only want ADULTS who are 18+ interacting with this post. any minors interacting with this post or following this blog WILL promptly be blocked.

never in your life have you drooled over a man like this. you’re used to people drooling over you— the super hot, super successful mega star actress with a face card so lethal it could kill a person. as such, you’ve never really had to do much of anything at all to get guys you’re interested in. they flock to you like moths to a flame.

this is why you’re in a dilemma now, standing next to this fucking hunk of a man at some award show you don’t even remember the purpose of. you’ve only been able to steal so many glances through your peripheral vision, at the risk of alerting your hyper vigilant fans, but it’s more than enough to send a heat rushing between your legs. the slope of his nose, his pretty pink lips, the expanse of his chest peeking through his loose silk shirt, the veins on his hands … he turns around to say something to his teammate (the blonde haired doe eyed pretty boy with the freckles), and you catch his accent. fucking hell. you want this man. you hunger for this man.

you hear the blonde guy say his name. chan. you don’t think you’ll get to use it tonight; as confident and extroverted as you usually are, chan has sent you into this helpless haze where even if somebody were to say hi to you it’d cause your entire system to malfunction and shut down. you want him to like you so bad. you want him to think you’re pretty and hot and sexy and tell you the things you hear all the time anyway but in a much more intimate way with that sexy accent of his. you want him to take you to bed and have you whichever way he pleases.

you can feel how red your ears are, and you couldn’t have been more glad that your hair is styled down right now. you don’t even know what’s more embarrassing, the fact that you are this horny for a stranger in public, or this girlish, childish crush on him that you developed in under the five minutes that you guys have been standing next to each other. at this point, all you really can do is wait for this whole thing to be over so you can go back home, search his name online, finger yourself to the first video of him you see, and then try to fall asleep and will him away from your thoughts. it’s not like you’ll see him again after tonight. right?

anywho, you somehow make it through the event. it’s mostly thanks to the management reseating the attendees for whatever reason, and chan being at a safer distance from you, but you give yourself a pat on the back regardless. for someone who’s only come to grapple with the concept of having a crush instead of being someone else’s for once just an hour ago, you’ve handled it quite well. as discreetly as you can with a million cameras flashing in your face, anyway.

the show’s over now, and nearly all the celebrities are gone. chan and his group fell back so they could say bye to their fans, but now security’s shooing the last of them out. your team makes to usher you out to your car, and you watch (more comfortably now that your fans are out of the picture) as the stray kids boys begin to file into their vans too. you stare at chan’s back as he hurries behind them, a regretful yearning oozing from your eyes.

your manager is quick to catch on, a devilish smile beginning to play on her lips. you turn around, about to disagree with whatever’s about to come out of her mouth, and— fuck, fuck, fuck.

chan’s coming back. he’s coming back and he’s headed towards you. you don’t even know if he’s going to approach you or walk past you, maybe to go get something he forgot, but you start panicking anyway, eyes darting all over the place to avoid meeting his. christ, you’ve never been such a mess before, especially for a guy. you don’t have time to ponder this now, because chan’s standing in front of you, leaving you to take him in in all his glory. 

you say a quick word to your manager, something about meeting up with her by the car later, and the team disperses. it then takes everything in you to pull yourself together and channel your collected, professional actress disposition before facing chan properly.

 “hi there.” you flash him your best smile. “can i help you?”

“fucking hell,” chan curses, pushing you against the hotel door as he holds your leg straddled around his waist. you keep your mouth on his, pulling your dress up and around your hips. your wet panties grind against his clothed bulge, and he lets out the horniest, most pornographic moan into your mouth. you take this as your cue to finally reach down between you and touch him, palming his bulge. you’re just about to unzip his fly, before he pulls away. 

you must look confused, hurt almost, because he reaches out to caress your cheek with a gentleness that contrasts literally everything you guys have been doing so far. “not like this, baby. properly.” and then he makes you straddle him tighter, carrying you to the bed and laying you down. then he kisses you again, all soft and wet. his hand disappears beneath your dress, stroking your pussy. you lean into him, mouth falling open in much awaited relief. he keeps talking. “need to make you feel good, too.”

and that he does. just as you feel like you could cum just from this, chan pulls his hand away, and proceeds to spread your legs out as much as he can. then he falls back over you, pulling your dress down just enough for your tits to pop out fully. his eyes glaze over. you look divine; baring your wet panties to him, breasts so round and soft and perfect. he licks his fingers before using them to play with your now hard nipple.

“you’re so fucking sexy, you know that?” chan fondles your boobs, patting them gently so they jiggle. you jerk, only being able to nod in your sex hungry state. “i tried so hard to keep from getting hard at the award show. could only think of you and these pretty, round tits.” 

you grab his wrist and shove it inside your panties, using it to get yourself off. “was so wet for you, chan.” your eyes roll back. “the entire award show. i was this wet for you. see? feel. i was— ah, fuck— so wet … almost— almost gave in and t-touched myself in front of everyone. i was— i was so embarrassed, channie.”

“oh my god. fucking hell, me too, baby.” he’s palming his bulge again, touching himself to your words. “kept thinking about what you were hiding under this slutty fucking dress. wanted to see all of you. wanted to see these big, fat tits, and this dripping wet pussy.”

you cum all over his hand, eyes glassy and mouth open. usually, you’d be embarrassed. but not with chan. you feel so naughty, this feels so wrong but you still feel more aroused than you’ve ever been with any man. you show him his hand, all wet with your slick. “look, channie.”

“i’m looking, honey.” he uses his wet hand, rubbing your cum onto your nipples. “can you show me more of you? if that’s okay?” you nod. “good girl.”

chan finally takes off your sopping wet panties, exposing your clit to him, shining with your juices. he pulls you to sit up, reaching over to rearrange you so you’re on all fours. “there we go, pretty girl.” he runs his index finger through your folds, marveling at how much you came. then he presses his tongue to your pussy, licking and sucking at it before adding his fingers to the mix.

“oh, fuck. chan, ah—” 

he brings you to your breaking point once more, before pulling away to unbuckle his pants. he uses the tip of cock and rubs it against your pussy as he strokes himself, both of you moaning like never before.

when he finally enters you, it feels like you’ve ascended. you’ve never taken a cock as big as chan’s before. fuck, you feel so full. he’s a fucking menace, reaching a hand in front to continue rubbing your clit throughout, the other hand fondling your bouncing breasts. this, plus the feeling of his balls slapping against your skin is more than enough to bring you over the edge. 

chan pulls out, pushing you back on to your back. he continues pumping himself with his hand, before cumming all over your pussy with a loud, relieved groan. then he collapses beside you, entire body flushed red as he pants audibly. 

he looks pretty like this, too, you think, and then marvel at how far gone you are. you lean into his warmth, and hesitate before finally reaching out to hold his hand. he’s still for a moment, and you’re about to shyly retract from him before he grabs your hand properly and kisses it with the biggest grin on his face. you’ll figure out your situation in the morning, but right now you’re more than happy to stay with him like this, even more so when he pulls you deeper into him and cradles you gently, letting you fall asleep as he rubs your back.

[folliesoftheforest]

The Follies of the Forest

What is Follies of the Forest?

Follies of the Forest is an original collection of stories and art by your's truly! It's really just alot of self indulgent storytelling that kinda grew into its own beast (pun ENTIRELY intended XD)

I've added some basic info and FAQs below!

Who are the characters in the icon?

Glad you asked! I'll give a basic rundown of the three main players in this little odyssey, as well as basic gist of the story 😌

The King (He/They/It): The King is an old forest fae that had long since died, and was laid to rest in the remains of their forest dwelling, that is, until a certain someone somehow stumbled onto their resting site...

Sebastian Damascus "SD" Braddock (He/Him): A mythology professor and long time friend/housemate to Shop. He stumbles onto an uncanny section of the woods one day while gathering data and samples for class, awakening something that would change his life forever...

Shop (She/Her/They): A freelancer and long time friend/housemate to SD. She's mostly along for the ride, easy going yet brash, she sticks to SD's side like glue as the two try to figure out just what in the world is going on...

Ok, so what's the setting? Why does it feel like there are some details missing?

So that's where things get a little interesting, in my opinion at least. My writing style focuses way more on character interactions, rather than world building, so there are bound to be inconsistencies or plot holes or just, missing pieces in general. That's not to say that there's no world building at all! But there is a level of suspension of disbelief that may be needed to enjoy what I write ^^' I'm always improving, so I hope you can enjoy this all the same!

Are there any content warnings I should be aware of before reading?

Well, as with anything, there will always be something or another that one person might like that another person might not, but I will try to give warnings prior to each story, but overall, there is alot of peril and fear in a bunch of the stories, but nothing too extreme (which again, is a subjective thing)

Can I send in asks/submissions?

Absolutely!! I love getting feedback on my little passion project! If anything, it would only help push me to continue to share more and more!

[literaryvein-reblogs]

A 3-Part Book Review Template

A guide to writing reviews for fiction books

PART 1: Brief Summary

Introduce the book to its future readers

I. The book's essential information

Mention the title and author

The edition you read

Necessary background information of the book/author

II. A compelling "hook"

To keep the readers reading your review.

III. Set the stage with a quick and dirty synopsis of the book

Concisely recap the plot points, characters, or themes that will give a "big picture" context

Is the book part of a series? Is it necessary to read the other books in the series before this one?

PART 2: Professional Evaluation

Present your personal take on the book and back it up with examples. Consider the...

I. Genre

How does this book compare with other books in the genre?

How does it match up to your expectations of that genre?

II. Characters

Did you care for the characters? Hate them?

Were the character arcs believable and satisfying?

III. Plot & Theme

Did the story grip you? Can you cite specific moments that resonated with you?

What is the theme? Was it effectively expressed throughout the story?

Was the ending satisfying? Were any questions left unanswered?

Were there any plot holes or inconsistencies within the story?

IV. Pacing

Was there any point were the story dragged?

Did it recover?

V. Prose

How would you describe the author's writing style?

Was the author's voice compelling? Why or why not?

VI. Impact the Story Made on You

What was your primary emotion upon finishing the book?

As a rule of thumb, try to avoid spoilers in your review. If you absolutely must discuss a plot point that may ruin another reader's enjoyment, give a spoiler warning or tag ahead of time.

PART 3: Recommendation

Giving your thumbs up or thumbs down

Deliver your verdict of the book.

Would you recommend this book to others? Why or why not?

Note:

Great book reviewers build devoted followings on account of their strong voices and well-put opinions

Don't be afraid to show your own personality in your review

Aim to develop your "reviewer's voice":

Make sure your reviews are consistent and back up your statements with examples from the book

Source ⚜ More: Writing Worksheets & Templates Plot ⚜ Character ⚜ Worldbuilding

[mai-atsumi]

Introduction/ Requests (Open)

I am Mai, a Jojo and One Piece fanfiction writer, and I'm here to tell you what to expect from my work:  1. Inconsistency- I don't usually have a defined post schedule 

2. I don't specialize in angst, and Im bad at it, but I am much better at writing fluff and smut

3. I have favourite characters, and I write about them more often

✖= Smut

❤= Fluff

★= Angst

☀= Platonic

✓=Family

☎=Sensitive content 

Warnings that apply will be in the beginning notes

Rules: 

When it comes to requesting your favourite character, you have to know what is and isn't okay

NSFW/SMUT: Only characters over 17 can be requested for NSFW. This is because if I were to write explicit content with characters under the age of 17 that would be counted as writing bout' children and I'm not cool with that

➨ Exceptions are kissing and making out for some characters (Characters that are 14 or younger obviously won't be making out with anyone) 

I also write character x character!!!

Things I refuse to write: 

Scat play (You are not 5) 

Pedophilia 

Zoophilia (And I mean a full-on ass animal like a squirrel, that's actually nasty) 

There's probably more, but I don't really want to know more than I already do

Examples of things I can and will write: 

Non-Con/Rape (Depends)

Stalking 

Human Experimentation

Ect.

Things I can do:

One Shots

Head Canons

Short stories

ect

Requests (Open): 

When giving me a request, I would appreciate it if you got specific

As the reader here's what you can request: 

Reader Pronouns: Gender Neutral Pronouns, Feminine Pronounds, Masculine Pronouns. (I do not use Neo or custom pronouns) 

Reader's Gender: Female, Male, TransFem, TransMasc, Gender Neutral/ Non-Binary

You can also ask for a gender-swapped character (Ex: Female Joseph Joestar, Male Nami) 

Relationship: You can request to have a history with your requested character. (Ex: Avdol's girlfriend, Smokey's best friend, Bruno's older sister, Luffy's sister, Smoker's rival, ect) 

Plot: If you have a specific prompt or idea, like the plot or storyline please say so. (Ex: Proscuttio and Pesci go out on a mission with Reader to kill a politician who is hosting a ball and Pesci and Proscuitto fight over who gets to dance with Reader) (Ex. Reader is sick and Lisa Lisa is taking care of her,) (Ex. Ace meets an old crewmember from the spade pirates and falls in love)

Writing style: Poetry, Novel, etc 

Multiple characters

Alternate Timeline/universe: The Twilight thing where everyone is either alpha, beta, or omega, Modern timeline, School Au, Ect. 

Example of a request: 

Cherryberrylady: Heyyy Mai! (>_<) Can you write an Annasui x Reader? Like, I really want it to be like, Annasui is stalking Reader a little, like putting cameras in her house type stalking, and in her car too maybe. and like Reader is going home and Anasui is watching them thru the cameras and Annasui like, watches them masturbate..? and he hears them moaning his name. (づ￣ ³￣)づ  Its okay if you don't want to tho!!! Also maybe end it where Annasui talks to Reader the next day and asks them out. ( ﾟヮﾟ) Also!! when it comes to the reader can you make their pronouns gender-neutral? 

Mai-Atsumi: Of course, and your request was so greatly written- Only the best of the best could've made such a perfect request... Or

Numberoneacecocksucker: Hey Mai, can I ask for a pre-timeskip Ace x reader where the reader is a member of the Whitebeard Pirates as Thatch's younger sister and Thatch doesn't want Ace to go after his sister but Marco also likes reader to? Make sure its Female gender/pronouns please! Mai-Atsumi: Sure thing! Ill get to it right now! Right after I finish my other request!

[brightbeautifulthings]

Those We Drown by Amy Goldsmith

"He made it sound so simple--a girl there one moment, gone the next. But if this trip had taught me anything, it was that people didn't disappear. Things happened to them. Usually bad things."

Year Read: 2023

Rating: 2/5

About: Liv is the only scholarship student aboard the cruise ship, Eos, for an educational program called SeaMester that could be her ticket into a good college. The first night, her best friend, Will, becomes sick enough to be quarantined. The more days pass without hearing from him, the more convinced Liv becomes that something terrible is happening on the ship-- and that Will may no longer be aboard at all. As her paranoia increases, she fears that even the staff and her cohort may be part of a conspiracy of human sacrifices and old gods. I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Delacorte Press. Trigger warnings: human sacrifice, abduction, injury, illness, gaslighting, classism, threats, bullying, underage drinking.

Thoughts: Everything about this, from the title and the description to the tentacles on the cover, said this book should have been for me. Watching The Beast (1996) as a kid with my dad instilled an early love in me for water monsters. Unfortunately, Those We Drown promises way more than it delivers. What little ocean horror we have is sadly underutilized, and the plot is much more focused on spiraling into paranoia and conspiracy than it is on diving into its world-building in any depth. By the time anything remotely full of teeth and tentacles appeared, not only did I no longer care, I had no idea what basis it even had for being there. Something something old gods and sacrifices. If you have a giant squid on the page and it doesn't attack anyone, what was even the point?

Instead, most of the page-time is devoted to Liv hating her rich cohort, obsessing about her ill-fated romance with Will, obsessing about yet another love/hate potential romance in Con, and chasing around increasingly ridiculous conspiracy theories. Does she have good reason for that? Yeah, absolutely. There is something nefarious aboard the Eos. But the reader came into the novel with that knowledge, and the whole is she being gaslit or is she genuinely unhinged cycle gets tired quick. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: paranoia is a difficult mood to sustain for any length of time, and it didn't endear me to Liv. Pull it together and have a little dignity, girl.

On a writing level, it reads like a first novel. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and the target YA audience probably won't be put off by it. Adult readers like myself might struggle a bit more. The descriptions are frequent and a bit forced, and there are some grammar and continuity errors. The first I can never help noticing (sentence fragments for days, and not as a style choice), but the second have to be glaringly obvious for me to pick up on them, since my general attitude is that time is more like a soup than a line. It makes Liv's character seem wildly inconsistent at times, though, when she walks into a glittering party going yes, this opulence suits me, to scorning it the next morning.

As I said, there's little coherent explanation of the supernatural elements, and the finale is left hugely open-ended, as if Goldsmith got so deep into her plot conspiracies that she couldn't write her way out of them. Given the complete lack of closure or explanation, I would say it reads more like the first book in a series than a standalone, but it's not billed or listed as such. Regardless, if books don't have plot closure, they should at least have thematic closure, or some general sense of why the readers and characters went through all of this. Those We Drown has none of those.

[measuringbliss]

Spider-Man Read-Through 007: Doc Ock Strikes Again! (P1)

MASTERPOST

Annual 4 + ASM 53-61 this time!

A very long post, but there's fun storylines!

So the Human Torch is running amok and unsurprisingly (comics writing), Spider-Man fights him for a bit without asking for an explanation (and the Torch doesn't give him one either) until a movie director intervenes - he was filming a movie! Spider-Man goes away, complaining that Johnny's too good of an actor - but I think the director could have hired him as well. The Torch and the Spider would sure bring people to the movies. And it's actually a plot point of the story (see next screenshots).

In the opening scene, the narrator challenges the readers to figure out who pencilled this issue, and I regret to inform that I'm utterly baffled. Peter has the pretty face of John Romita Sr, but the flat ass of... did Peter ever have a flat ass? I ranted about his inconsistent ass (literally) already, but sounds like it downright downgraded here! ...Still handsome as ever, though.

So yeah, Peter is called on a film set and two characters are conspiring in the shadows and I am intrigued! So they're shooting the movie and Peter's spider-sense keeps warning him and I'm even more intrigued!

I feel like the penciller is Steve Ditko (the previous one) trying to imitate John Romita Sr's style, but maybe it's a newcomer that's promoted through this issue. Through my quick Google Search, I learned (or rather, re-learned) that 1973 and 1974 were drawn by Ross Andru and not John Romita Sr, which does make sense considering how it *is* similar to what I remember, yet a bit different too.

The Torch has gone mad and at this point, I'm starting to wonder if he's actually the Chameleon. And it appears there is truly an impostor, as Johnny's resting in his trailer.

AND SUDDENLY...

It makes sense! The actor background!!!!! Aaaaaaah I'm so hyped, didn't expect to see him!!!!! And who's that other guy?

First, thank you for the fanservice, there's never enough men in tight undershirt and underwear. Legs!!!!

But who's this Wizard?

The helpful wikia indicates that prior to his first appearance in Spider-Man comics (this very one), he was in Strange Tales (later Dr Strange) which makes sense, and also in Fantastic Four. This crossover definitely makes sense! Meanwhile Mysterio has already appeared, but it's still very nice to see him again.

YES! Especially in a 40-pages issue. Let the art speak for itself.

Case in point! These comics had a tendency to be *too* talkative, and it's part of the pacing of the usual 20 pages issue, but still.

Overall, I think it's a great issue! Well-paced, entertaining, surprising, fun! There's a few more pages after that.

Notably this spread.

I don't think they exactly knew they were still gonna be read 60 years later, but it's fun to read this in 2023. Harry calls me out, Peter looks swell as always (VERY swell), Fu Manchu and Woody Allen are here (what a time piece!) and Anna and May are acting like their usual lesbian selves. Once again, good for them!

*swoons*

And they mention how much the artists have to deal with perspective! Nice.

AND...!!!!

YES, YESSSS, YEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!

Yes, close your closet, Peter. Wouldn't want Harry to barge right in, would ya? *snickers* Closet jokes are always fun when you're gay.

What a stellar final page. And we learn the penciller was Larry Lieber, who returns one year later for ~the truth about Peter's parents"! I've watched The Amazing Spider-Man movies, folks, I don't think I can be surprised, but stay tuned! Oh, by the way, about Larry Lieber...

Okay, that's what I figured. I thought it could be a family member.

Now then, onto the main course!

We see Octopus again, yay. Peter is notably angrier than he was in Annual 4, which makes sense if you ignore it happened, considering what happened in the previous issues.

Harry's also quite annoyed, unsurprisingly. He loves his roommate, but Peter does have a tendency to be absent... Harry's irritability is similar to earlier issues, where Peter never went out with him and everybody else and seemed quite aloof. Was Spider-Man No More a return to basics?

But Peter is much more interested in bringing Gwen to a science expo, and Warren is overjoyed to see her. Oh boy...

Now kiss.

At the science expo, Octopus intervenes and he still sports the worst haircut ever known to mankind. I wonder if he's stealing the nullifier to sell it to the highest bidder... Could it be Hammerhead? Or the Kingpin?

Stan Lee obviously had something against me, but we're on Tumblr, and modesty shall not prevail! Who could ever think Octopus retconning "If This Be My Destiny" is more important that ogling at Peter?

So yes, Octopus does want to sell the nullifier to another nation.

More importantly, everybody recreates the coffee bar double spread from Annual 4. May and Anna are looking for a third for some nice granny baking time.

PLOT TWIST!!! Look how goofy Octopus is. What a goofball.

This issue was fairly enjoyable, it had more soap than fights, which I'm all for. Dear readers, I am enthralled.

I'm thirsting and also showing the humorous situation. Marivaux would be proud!

Also: more Parksborn domestic love! Yeah Peter, don't let Harry see you mixing fluid... or the content of your closet!

MJ is still incredibly mean to Gwen and this is both outrageously funny but also a bit sad. Aside from this, two gays are jealous of Peter.

And this is iconic. Peter's shocked face, Octopus holding the tea cup like Queen Elizabeth, "I dabble a bit in science myself"...

So Aunt May dies and Peter's understandably angry and I'm HOOKED. Two great issues.

The right panel speaks for itself, Harry is a great comedic character.

The action takes place at Stark Industries, but Tony wasn't paid enough to do a cameo so he lets Spidey will with this mess. And the mess gets worse, as the nullifier makes Peter lose his memories...! My jaw dropped.

This is stupid, but I'm curious to see where this is going.

However, Harry keeps being annoyed at Peter and this is sad because I thought we were over this. But I wonder if it's leading to a big plot point, like Peter's friends giving up on him for a few issues.

But then.

Oh. Oh no. I know where this is going.

This arc highlights once more how full of silent rage Peter really is. He's frustrated. A much more compelling character than Insomniac's Peter.

And it ends with a Peter who's quite affected. I didn't expect Peter's amnesia to stick for this long though! This is very compelling stuff.

Aaaand I've gotta stop here because I can only put 30 pictures in posts. Next time: a relatable guy!

[re-readingcomics]

Comics Read 07/01-15/2023

A little over a year ago I did a post about reading two comic book biographies of Artemisia Gentileschi back-to-back. I wrote some lines about how the inclusion of them in my collection helps makes the act of collecting semi-autobiographical. Consider this a sequel to that post.

Over the two weeks I am writing about I read Glass Town written and drawn by Isabel Greenberg and The Brontës Infernal Angria written by Craig Hurd-McKenney and art by Rick Geary. Different takes on the same subject, how the Brontë children had a shared alternate universe which they all wrote stories about. I have owned a copy ofThe Juvenilia of Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë from when I was a child, but I never read it. I probably should. The names of Angria and Gondal were familiar from reading about the Brontës. But because of not actually reading the Juvenilia, I first encountered Glass Town by name in Die, where it was treated as a proto-multi-player role playing game. Which, seems fair enough. Die wasn’t much interested in the subject of their writings, so this is all new to me.

Greenberg’s art in Glass Town is crude in the same way ND Stevenson’s and Gus Allen art work is. If anything it’s more childlike and inconsistent. I don’t love it, but I like how the lines work the limited pallet with a lot of dark, cool reds. It hints at the early industrial feel of their time period as well as the harsh climate of their surroundings. 

The narrative starts in the aftermath of the the eldest Brontë sisters, Elizabeth and Maria, deaths. The creation of Glass Town is an escape from the trauma of their final illnesses at a poorly kept boarding school.

Charlotte narrates her tale of Glass Town, to a minor character from her stories who appears as her imaginary friend. They talk through the plot she worked on, which as presented here seems more related to Wuthering Heights than Charlotte’s actual novels. The story includes how while the children started sharing Glass Town, they split with Charlotte and Bramwell writing about Angria while Emily and Anne created Gondor. (Less of Emily and Anne’s writing on Gondal survives to the modern day than Charlotte’s work on Angria, hence why less of it is included in either of these accounts.) Probably because of this shared fantasy world with her brother, Charlotte is shocked by his decent into alcoholism while Emily catches early warning signs. It’s a rumination on the building of escapist fantasy in the face of tragedy and the creation of art. I don’t think it entirely works, but it makes me want to get back to reading the Brontë’s and writing about them. 

Infernal Angria takes the shared fantasy world and creates an actual portal fantasy. The Brontës literally go between worlds and get used in political machinations in an alternate world’s monarchy. I hated it. The text is something of an apologia for Bramwell for being such a failure. He didn’t really fail, he was manipulated by much more mature people from a world he loved. Also it takes the “artists don’t die, they live through their art” to the extreme of the Brontës didn’t all die at shockingly young ages, they relocated to the other side of a portal. It’s silly and also unclear. It shouldn’t be both. The end had the author talking about his long love of the Brontës as well as a suggested reading list. Everyone in a while you find someone who has some shared enthusiasms but seem to take it in a direction that rubs you wrong.

At first glance, I would think that Geary’s art style is more my type than Greenberg's. But eventually I hated it because the shading was made with a crosshatching that got too easily confused with paterns used for fabrics or wood grains. It’s the shorter of these two books and the one that felt more like a chore to read. 

The contrasting treatments of the the worlds of Angria/Glass Town is pretty interesting. The character in both have essentially the same back story, but as presented in Infernal Angria I didn’t feel like the narrative came off as a rough draft of Wuthering Heights. Glass Town treats the alternate world as a reflection on contemporary colonialism, while Infernal Angria approaches it as a pastiche of Medieval fantasy. It makes me wish I had read the source material even more. 

Despite finding these books lacking, there will be more comic book takes on the Brontës in my reading future. 

[soul-dwelling]

you mentioned in another answer that you find a lot of flaws in soul eater. could you expand on what you dislike about it?

Spoiler warning for the entire series:

How it handles fanservice, often relying on fetishizing underage characters (Chapter 113 and its treatment of the girl characters in particular; Meme's handling in NOT)

Some plot drags after Crona leaves the DWMA and even into the final arc on the Moon. It felt like the story was spinning its wheels (some parts of the Baba Yaga Castle arc, some of the Moon arc, the stupid shower scene with Kim and Kid, whatever that sky whale chapter was doing).

Soul Eater NOT struggled to locate a plot and didn't seem to know whether it wanted a series-wide plot or just to be episodic for worldbuilding and gag chapters

Lack of back story and worldbuilding (culture and origins of witches; Immortal Clan and why Free is the last one we've seen outside of supplemental content; what were Vajra, Pushka, and others like before they died)...until [SPOILER] came along and gave a lackluster, ham-fisted back story that potentially contradicts what was already defined in canon and does so for the sake of forcing a connection between [SPOILER] and Soul Eater that does disservice to both series. (This only gets worse when you re-read older chapters of Soul Eater and look at older supplemental supposedly "canon" content, all of which got contradicted so badly by [SPOILER] that it opened more questions that will lead to disappointing answers. When fans are coming up with more engaging back story and worldbuilding for witches, souls, Lord Death, etc, there is a problem with the original work...)

Speaking of [SPOILER]: no, Kid does not look like [SPOILER]. I don't see it, not any more than any of Ohkubo's characters suffer from a "same face" problem as any other character. This isn't helped by how inconsistent Ohkubo's overall oeuvre is--which is not a flaw: his style changed, that's fine, but stop acting like you could compare how [SPOILER] looks at the end of [SPOILER] to how Kid looks at any point in any manga and say they look similar. (That also opens up questions about Asura, but any more discussion about how bad a manga [SPOILER] was and I will be at this all night.)

Speaking of the supplemental content: it felt like it was repeating the same gags or were cliche or really should've taken what worked in them and used them better in the manga to progress characters. An audio drama with Tsubaki acting like Black Star to try to jog back his memory when he has amnesia? I wish that had been a chapter. Some Soul x Maka hints? Why weren't those in the manga? Then again, you have a plot like Maka drinking a love potion, and an underdeveloped fight involving Poseidon's lance, that are problematic in the former and underdeveloped in the latter.

In retrospect, some stakes felt low. (I appreciate that so few of the main and supporting characters are killed off. But I wonder whether, in a re-write, having more deaths would reinforce that this is still a series about Lord Death, the concept of dying, and what happens to the dead. And what deaths we did get come so late in the story that, while they hurt, also feel like a last-minute instance rather than a logical conclusion, or were of characters we barely knew at all and whose personalities and relationships with other characters were so underdeveloped that, while they hurt as much as the deaths of anyone else, aren't as effective as suits the story.)

Personally, for me, I don't think Ohkubo's manga style (B Ichi era/beginning of Soul Eater, later Soul Eater, end of Soul Eater/all of Soul Eater NOT) is as memorable, appealing, or outstanding as what BONES did with the first anime.

Speaking of the anime: The original arc that wrapped up the first anime (when it diverged from the manga's plot) could not keep focus on any one character very long (we keep following Maka running for episodes, the Kid versus clowns story is a fine fighting episode but leads to an anticlimactic conclusion for Lord Death and Eibon). And that's not getting into the good and bad parts of the "punch of courage" ending. And, while this is not the fault of the series, it has opened up the interminable "I want a Soul Eater reboot!" demand from people who do not realize how bad of a monkey's paw wish that is, not only considering adapting Chapter 113 but also having to acknowledge the prequel material.

And Soul Eater NOT, as an anime, is enjoyable for me--but in addition to the aforementioned fanservice problems and lack of consistent plot progression, the series suffered from disappointing visuals and animation.

(This isn't a flaw, but since I'm mentioning the anime: I can't speak to many problems with the acting or casting in the Japanese and English versions--minus, of course, Mignogna--or the music. Just about all the acting and casting is phenomenal, just about all the music is phenomenal and doesn't come off as repetitive or overstaying its welcome.)

With more and more time, the Book of Eibon "you look like what you find attractive in the opposite gender" conceit gets more and more problematic.

And Ragnarok's annoying gags regarding Crona's gender and pulling up their outfit were distasteful and infuriating.

There's next-to-nothing I could criticize as a flaw or something I dislike with the fandom in general. Granted, there have been individuals in the fandom whom I find abhorrent (when you see some clown putting hate symbols onto anime characters, like those fucking red hats, I don't understand how you can't have anything but contempt for such inhuman people).

I wish there had been more Tom and Jerry-esque shenanigans with Blair in her cat form, like how she tricked the Flying Dutchman in the monster factory arc. Hell, I've seen enough fan works do more with Blair as a "mother figure" role or just giving her more to do than "cat who tricks people" and "fanservice checklist," and she felt under-utilized in the manga.

The Death Scythes who aren't named Spirit and maybe Marie, Justin, and Tezca felt under-developed.

(I haven't played through enough of the video games to give a fair assessment as to their flaws.)

Team B (Kilik, Harvar, the Pots, etc) were underutilized and underdeveloped. Ox got off better--but it required a forced relationship with Kim, and that's all the more bothersome when NOT had a more engaging relationship between Kim and Jackie.

SquareEnix should've made more merch and other productions. But that's less of a flaw and more me being petty when it comes to promoting your product.

[branwendaughterofllyr]

After a certain point, this really just is a skill issue. If Condal cannot think of engaging ways to write around budget issues (which he doesn’t even seem to have this season, considering the sheer amount of money spent on really random things in the House that Dragons Built show) maybe he’s bad at his job??? Adapting can be tricky but it’s not the same as writing a story from scratch, and while F&B is the weakest of George’s books, the Dance is a self contained narrative that gave the chance for the show to plan out a tightly written show from the get go, unlike GoT. And the show isn’t just inconsistent with the book, which is one issue because despite what people say, the show is going to be beholden to certain plot points (hence why B&C happened despite Condal clearly wanting to cut it) the show isn’t even consistent with it’s own timeline or first season! I have sympathy for the writer’s strike but honestly? All it seemed to do was leave Condal unable to rewrite after HBO took away the last two episodes and be unable to refine clunky dialogue. The bones of this season would have been the same, strike or no.

And George has always been remarkably sympathetic to production issues, having worked in TV himself, unlike some other authors who have always loudly complained about adaptions, as is their right tbh. Andrzej Sapkowski has hated loudly on pretty much every Witcher adaptation, especially the well-loved video games. Truman Capote hated Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Anne Rice loathed the Queen of the Damned movie, and Diana Wynn Jones while liked the Miyazaki movies, she said they were far from faithful adaptions and it slightly annoyed her sometimes.

And it is fine and reasonable for George to be upset at changes being made for no apparent reason and then being lied to about it.

He tackled Maelor because that is pretty set in stone and an easy issue to take apart, while Condal gave himself an out with Nettles and can still add her in last minute Daeron style with enough backlash. If George called out Nettles being cut, Condal can easily say “nuh uh” and hastily write her in bc Rhaena hasn’t actually claimed Sheepstealer. As Xiran Jay Zhao has said, this was a warning shot tackling an obvious issue, he likely has other complaints he’s held back on.

the thing is i don't care about how hard it must be for the hotd writers to adapt from book to screen with budget and time limitations (even though i am historically sympathetic enough to these difficulties and i do understand the need to make changes to fit the story in a different medium)

but what i see as understandable excuses would be shoddy cgi or costumes and less impactful action scenes or even fewer action scenes/battles. which we already got anyway, the only battle (rook's rest) is humdrum and rather spiritless. to a certain extent, i can even excuse cutting out characters or merging them or simplifying storylines.

be that as it may, the fact of the matter is that, even the scenes which should have cost the least amount of money in this whole production, i.e. the sitting-around-in-rooms-talking genre of scenes for which GoT became famous, SUCK. the politics in this show are non-existent. the characters' motivations are so wishy-washy to the point of parody. the character arcs look like they were settled via a game of russian roulette. the S2 version of characters doesn't make sense as a progression of their own S1 canon.

and this has nothing to do with money OR time constraints. it plainly only has to do with bad writing. a talented writer can absolutely have a canon-divergent vision and an understandable desire to adapt their own vision. but they have to recognise if they have the TIME or the BUDGET to bring that canon-divergent vision to life, if they can sufficiently commit to integrating those changes in a way that feels organic to the characters. IF NOT, THEN DON'T DO IT.

i get it if they're big rhaenicent stans or if they really, really like this version of alicent that lives in their heards, the one that would ditch her kids in favour of rhaenyra or if they're so enamoured by the idea of heroic rhaenyra (and that's just scratching the surface when it comes to all the points the show fumbled). but if they don't and can't fit those changes in a way that doesn't destroy the logic of the narrative, in a way that doesn't leave other characters hanging dry with no motivation left to carry out the plot points they have to hit, they should have had the maturity to drop those ideas and settle on something else that could have been easier to film with the resources available.

i said it before and i'll say it again: 1) whether fans are satisfied with the changes made to the source material and 2) whether those changes make sense in the context of the show are two separate issues that apologists sometimes try to merge in other to muddle what the actual problem is. "oh you're just mad because it's not book canon" or "you're mad because your headcanons diverge" or "we had logistics limitations" are not pertinent responses to critiquing the integrity of the show's storyline!

so i hope the writers and executives see all these criticisms and choke because they did a piss-poor job of everything and turned S2 into a goddamn hack operation

[regarding-stories]

Shows I've recently watched (and it's all anime...)

I guess I'm getting some use out of that Crunchroll subscription... though this phase started on Netflix. Shows with links I wrote more about elsewhere. Presented in no particular order.

Uncle From Another World: I love this show. Quirky characters, subverted expectations, lots of laughs. 17 year old obsessed with video games lives in a fantasy world while in a coma, wakes up 17 years later. The show plays the issues of all characters in a satisfying way. If the manga is anything to go by, will get more serious and heartfelt.

Re: Zero - Starting Life in Another World: Extremely good show, highly recommended. Plenty of gore, you're warned. But resolutions in this show are ever so rewarding. Great Isekai world building - with a time loop twist.

Handyman Saito: Funny in a cute way, rather inconsistent. Rather gimmicky and tends to make too many crude jokes.

Romantic Killer: Oh, that one really got me. This show made me laugh so hard! It has a unique style that it plays very well. Girl resists being forced into romance-sim plot. Lots of character development all around. When you're not laughing it gives you the feels. Definitely deserves another season.

The Quintessential Quintuplets: I liked it so much, I watched the two seasons twice in a row. Seeing the movie conclusion in the cinema soon. Funny that I pick it up right before the release of that movie. Great characters, tears, laughs, heartbreak. Whatever the conclusion will be, I will be sad. And probably mad.

Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash: It's a good Isekai story with a slower pace. The anime will not continue, though, and the books are an annoying disappointment. Who on Earth can stand Ranta?

In/Spectre: An unexpected show. Lots of talking - in fact, weaving of narratives, alibis, and coverups is the main theme of the show. If you like smartasses, you won't be able to resist the main character - a goddess of wisdom with a mouth and some issues. All stories feel like they have depth and logic to them, plus you get to meet some of Japan's outlandish spirits and monsters. If you make it through the Steel Lady Nanase arc that takes up so much space. Can be gory.

Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation: An extremely good fantasy story, but the show's depiction of an adult reborn as a child in another world can be sometimes very cringy to watch. Why? Because as adult he lived as shut-in (hikikomori) without human relations and developed some kinks he obsesses with. If you can see past that, you will find an actually extremely decent protagonist who grows a lot during the show - and away from that. Mostly. We also learn what traumatized him. His depiction is very honest in many ways, so the uncomfortable and weird is there for a reason. For the same reason, the humor can really hit home. Very detailed world that feels alive. Sudden dramatic reversals. I will write an article about the character arc of Eris (female love interest) soon because I think it is amazing, especially in the way it concludes. Started reading the books to continue, and it's definitely readable material.

SPY x FAMILY: This show is extremely funny, but it's also heart-warming. Telepathic child, woman with side job as assassin, and undercover spy form a fake family of convenience - and neither of the adults knows about the hidden side of the other, nor of the power of the child. And the family of course grows to be more liek the real thing. This show requires some suspension of disbelief, but it is just extremely enjoyable.

BOFURI: I Don't Want to Get Hurt, so I'll Max Out My Defense: A light-hearted show which can be fun. The humor worked quite well for 2-3 episodes, pretty harmless, then I started losing interest for lack of stakes. Still, might revisit it.

Cautious Hero: In many ways a good show and parody of the Isekai genre. Unfortunately full of boob jokes and really has a problem with depicting women. At least the behavior of the protagonist gets an explanation in the end - it recontextualizes a few things. That doesn't vindicate the rest, but it was... watchable. I definitely wanted to see it to end.

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime: It's fun, but somehow I lost interest within 2-3 episodes. It seemed predictable at that point, but maybe that would change...?

The Way of the House Husband: Well, I continued it. (I think they uploaded new episodes.) The show is fun and funny. Former Yakuza member turns into house husband, displays same intensity when it comes to chores. At times surreal, the art style is very interesting.

I wish another season of Dorohedoro were to be announced. Netflix will never become a mainstay for anime (most of the aforementioned stuff was on Crunchyroll) if it remains so inconsistent in releasing new seasons.

[jadeglas]

Heya! I did a thing!!!

So, yesterday I posted a thing on my writing side blog, @GlasScribbles!!

It's called Sanguine, because I'm a language nerd, and it started off as a self indulgent fanfic years ago, but now it's somehow part of my paranormal romance universe? I'm not sure how, yet, though.

If you're curious about my writing style and don't mind an undetermined amount of spice, then please feel free to check it out here!

Warning: I have not plotted this one out. I'm literally using it to get back into the habit of writing more often, so there may be small inconsistencies as the story progresses and I'll be swapping POVs between the male and female characters. There will be instant lust, smut/spice (but i can't promise it will be well written), and there's potential for violence later, but I don't have any concrete ideas for that yet.

Anyway, if you do check it out, would you let me know what you think? Thank you!

[thecraftyfoxthewriterscorner]

On Consistency and Beginnings

Some more thoughts on self-editing.

Hey Story Crafters,

I’ve touched on consistency in character as a self-editing tip in an earlier post, but it’s important to make sure all aspects of your story are consistent when you’re editing.

Regardless of where you fall on the plotter or pantser spectrum (if you identify the type of writer you are at all), there’s a good chance you end up discovering new, unexpected pieces of your story during the writing process. (This is part of what makes the writing process fun for me, as a writer. 😊)

The consequence of discovery-while-writing is that, usually, the last half of your story doesn’t match the first half. For example, there could be character development or a plot twist that happens partway through the story that isn’t set up (or foreshadowed) properly at the beginning, because you hadn’t thought of that character development or plot twist when you first started writing.

Inconsistencies like these are ones you’ll be able to pick out, once you’ve gotten some emotional and mental distance from your story. Editing can feel a lot like writing—rewarding and enjoyable at times, and incredibly frustrating at others. Since you were able to finish writing your story in the first place, approach self-editing with trust in the knowledge that no one knows your story better than you. This should help you work through the more frustrating moments of editing.

When you read through your story with fresh eyes—as a reader—I encourage you to make notes on your manuscript. Leave comments where you think “something” might be missing or could be improved (this could be detail-wise or storytelling-wise). You might find those details or storytelling elements are explored later in the story, and simply need to be established in earlier chapters; or they might need to be added to throughout the story to give it more depth.

One part of your story that will likely need to be reworked the most is the beginning. This is true even if you wrote based on an outline. The act of writing is different from planning out a story, because there are factors like voice and writing style to consider—factors that you usually can’t plan for, and don’t discover until you start writing. So the beginning of your story might sound and/or feel different from its ending.

It's important to polish the beginning of your story, because a good opening is what hooks a reader into buying and reading your story. For a resource, I recommend Paula Munier’s The Writer’s Guide to Beginnings: How to Craft Story Openings that Sell. She breaks down and analyzes what makes up an effective story opening, and gives several examples. She also goes into how an effective opening resonates through the rest of the story—in other words, how to plant seeds for subplots in the opening chapters that grow over the course of the story.

It's also important to consider reader expectation when finetuning the opening of your story. For example, a romance story will have a very different beginning from a mystery. And the expectations set at the beginning should remain consistent to the end (i.e., the expectations need to be executed and followed through).

Below are a few examples of opening paragraph(s) from books I’ve read recently:

Caption:  Book covers for Near the Bone by Christina Henry, Shady Hollow: A Murder Mystery by Juneau Black, and A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas.

Near the Bone by Christina Henry

(**Warning: Somewhat graphic description of an animal carcass. Skip to after the block quote if needed.)

There was a dead fox in her path.

At first Mattie only saw it as a streak of scarlet across the fresh snowfall. Her initial thought was that some predator had gotten a rabbit from the traps she’d come to check.

Then she saw the orange fur matted with blood, and the place where something sharp had torn through the fox’s middle. Viscera were strewn over the snow, the scent fresh and strong despite the cold air.

There weren’t many creatures that would eat a fox—a bear would, of course, a bear would eat anything. Maybe a mountain lion, sometimes an eagle, but almost no creature would take the trouble of killing an animal and then not bother to eat it at all. None, as a matter of fact, except people, but there were no people at the top of the mountain except for Mattie and William.

Right off the bat, there’s a clear sign of danger: there’s something in the woods that’s killing for sport. Maggie (the protagonist) provides the setting—the top of the mountain—and that she and William are the only humans on the mountain.

The reader expectation is clearly “horror,” here. Not only because of the somewhat graphic description of the dead fox, but also because there is a “hunter vs. hunted” relationship that’s being established. There’s an expectation that the humans might go from “hunter” to “hunted.”

Shady Hollow: A Murder Mystery by Juneau Black

Up in the far north, away from everything you know and dream about, lies a small village called Shady Hollow. There are many settlements in the woods, far from the cities and the bustling world. Shady Hollow is only one such community, where woodland creatures of all types and temperaments, from the tiny mouse to the mighty moose, live together in a successful and mostly peaceful society.

This is the first paragraph of the prologue for this story. Shady Hollow is a cozy mystery, and the “coziness” factor is established in the prologue by focusing on the setting of Shady Hollow. Community is the focus of this story.

While this opening doesn’t necessarily set up the expectation for a mystery, it does set the expectation that how the events of the story affect the community of Shady Hollow is what’s important, more so than an individual character. (There is, of course, a protagonist that serves as the focus point for the story.) Also, based on the prologue, the reader can expect the pacing and narrative to be relatively slow and steady, not the frantic rush of a fast-paced thriller.

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

The forest had become a labyrinth of snow and ice.

I’d been monitoring the parameters of the thicket for an hour, and my vantage point in the crook of a tree branch had turned useless. The gusting wind blew thick flurries to sweep away my tracks, but buried along with them any signs of potential quarry.

Hunger had brought me farther from home than I usually risked, but winter was the hard time. The animals had pulled in, going deeper into the woods than I could follow, leaving me to pick off stragglers one by one, praying they’d last until spring.

They hadn’t.

There’s a sense of grim determination and desperation established in this opening. The protagonist is clearly a skilled hunter, fueled by the need to survive. This opening sets up the expectation that the protagonist will do whatever she believes is necessary to survive (in other words, she’s scrappy and resourceful).

Munier goes through the openings of several books in various genres as examples. You can do an exercise following her examples, or one similar to what I did above. You can choose books you’ve recently read, but I recommend evaluating the openings of books similar to your current work-in-progress, especially recently published books. This will let you see what openings are currently popular and effective with readers in your genre, and find inspiration for your own opening pages.

If you’re planning to pursue a traditional publishing path, polishing your opening is critical for getting an agent’s attention. If you’re self-publishing, the opening is just as important, because it’s one of the deciding factors readers use to decide whether or not to buy your book. Once you’ve polished the beginning of your story, it’s important to make sure the details and story elements added to the beginning are consistent with the story, all the way to the end.

Self-editing can get frustrating when you’re trying to make sure all the story elements and details are consistent from beginning to end, and then polish the language until it shines. I believe the journey ultimately helps you have a deeper understanding and appreciation for your story, and your writing ability.

But if you get too frustrated or if you’re uncertain at any point of the self-editing process, or if you’ve done all you can but still feel you need additional help, don’t hesitate to seek out professional editing help! I offer developmental, line, and copyediting services to independent and querying authors of fantasy, dark fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Learn more about my services, or get in touch!

Send me an email!

Best,

Leah

Substack Post: https://thecraftyfoxwriterscorner.substack.com/p/on-consistency-and-beginnings

Interested in learning more about me, and the kind of energy I’ll bring to a writer-editor relationship? If you're a writer, consider subscribing to my free Substack newsletter (you can check out the archives, too). You'll get a free writing resource on relationship mapping, and a special offer when you subscribe!

[bluessideblog]

Hello!!! I might as well leave my opinion here since I both draw and code (currently taking a degree in AI)

As you wrote before these machines need to train on enormous amounts of data. Do you remember when, a couple years ago, the images you'd get were totally wrong in shapes and colors? Well, Those AIs still had huge amounts of images to copy from. So imagine how many images they have now that inexperienced people can't recognize a true photo from an AI image. Privacy is at risk.

You might not know the amount of professors at uni that warned the students about the use of AI. They all stated that humans must always be present and have the major roles, in all the fields. Take, for example, IT. All the neural networks I've tried committed huge mistakes in their codes or, if the code they generated was ok, it didn’t have any optimization (also some were wrong in logic) Why? Because the AI doesn't KNOW what it writes, the generation of a letter after another is based purely on statistics and since it can go to the internet and learn from anything (I don't think there's any restriction on code) it also learns from codes with mistakes posted on stack overflow or other forums. Now some programmers think they can ask an AI to write the code for them and copy-paste it without reviewing it first (source: some classmates), the code isn't good at all, and since it's reposted on the internet the AI will use that too. In a future, if every programmer stops writing code, we'll have apps/programs full of inconsistencies and mistakes, that might use like 10 lines of code that could be done with one single function, because the AI has learned from its own badly generated code.

In art, we have even more issues. First of all, ethics and work. Yes I can generate a picture of Skyward Sword Zelda (spoiler: I can't, they all look like botw Zelda or botw Link with longer hair), but that generated image is made of pieces of other drawings made by someone else, and the AI doesn't give credit. That picture look soulless too, always because the AI doesn't know experssions or what it is actually drawing. The poses are always the same, the colors are always the same. Have you noticed how all the AI drawings look so similar? Saturated colors, the character standing in the center of the image, no textures (it all looks like plastic?) etc. That's because it mixes the styles and (still) can't recognize a texture. If all the companies were to use AI for all their logos or posters or ADs, they’d all look the same. AI is not creative.

AI is a useful tool for brainstorming, to make researches faster, and to get a sketch. I mean, people can download an image from google and print it, as long as they don't claim it's theirs it's fine. So AI can do that too, and the generated image might be an inspiration for a drawing (that the artist will draw). But it's totally wrong to post it online, because it's a stolen image and (like code) it has mistakes the AI won't see as such, and it will use it as a basis for another drawing and so on.

So, from a programmer's side, I say stop feeding the aI with its own code/images/generated content because it's often wrong and it will lead to even worse mistakes. We need people who think to create something new! We need progress!

From an artist's side, the AI "art" is a bunch of stolen pictures plotted together. It's not yours, random user. Stop posting it as it damages real artists. Companies, hire real artists or your pictures will look soulles and all the same. Yes, use it to get inspiration, if the image you generated is cool for you download it, frame it, but keep it for yourself :)

Hello- I need opinions.

So, as some might know of find it obvious from an artist, I am against AI generative images. I think it harms artists in more than one way. for me, it makes me feel like my art doesn't have value enough to be protected.

My art teacher supports ai. She doesn't want to do her own research on the way it's harmful and showed the class how "it's a tool" and I'm highly disappointed and annoyed that she doesn't bother explaining the dangers for artists.

So here comes my question.

My teacher left me the option to make my own presentation with research on the subject to show the class. Should I do it? And if yes, could I get some of your opinions on it? Have any of the artists had experience that their art was stolen to train AI? How does it affect your creativity and the worth you put in yourselves and your art?

Write as much as you need to. You can reblog with your opinion. It would help me put light to the problem.

If I don't do it, nobody's gonna bathe an eye about the problem and I feel like it's gonna get worse and worse. with Twitter and instagram being to train their inginges off of artists work without permission, I feel like we lose our value and it saddens me a lot.

[wildflowers-of-trolberg]

The Hilda Novels, Revisited

I didn't plan on making this. Anyone who's read my previous post on this subject will know that I didn't have a good time with the first three of the Hilda tie-in novels, and they put me off reading the Season 2 tie-ins. But, eventually, I couldn't help myself; I have now read all 6 books, and I wanted to go back in light of that and put all of my thoughts in one place.

So, I'm going to re-cover my thoughts on the first three books, and go over my opinions on the second set and what changed between them. I still have plenty I want to say, and a lot of it is still very negative, so a warning in advance; I am still not a big fan of this series.

Just to recap, Hilda as a franchise has three separate canons. The series started with the Graphic Novels, written by Luke Pearson, which were then adapted into the Netflix show; Nobrow/Flying Eye Books (the publishing company behind Hilda) then released a series of chapter books written by Stephen Davies, which re-adapt the events of the show. Each one takes a few episodes and combines them into a single plotline, moving things around and changing them as necessary, and these books form their own canon.

If I had to give my thoughts in a single word, after the Season 1 tie-ins, it would have been "mean-spirited". Now, though, it's "inconsistent". I'm going to break my thoughts on them down by topic, just to make this more coherent. So, to start with:

The Art:

I'm starting with this because it's the easiest thing to talk about. In a word, the art in this series is inconsistent; the quality varies from book-to-book, and the illustrations often don't match up well with the text. It feels almost like the artists were given a brief description of the plot, rather than the final thing, to work from.

The Season 1 books are illustrated by Seaerra Miller (the artist behind Mason Mooney), and while I don't want to knock her in general, when I'd finished them I really hated her work for this series. In hindsight, though, I've softened on the art in Hilda and the Hidden People. It has a distinct style that reminds me a little of the cover art to The Wilderness Stories, and I actually think it works; my favourite piece of art in the entire tie-in series is in this book:

That being said, her art for The Great Parade and The Nowhere Space really suffers in comparison (part of me wonders if she was asked to stick closer to the show's style); this is where we got Trev and the Boys (my least favourite illustration in the whole series) and the infamous image of Twig:

The art in these two doesn't help the general weirdness of the tie-in series; it's just not great, unfortunately, and it further suffers in the paperbacks I think. Miller's art was definitely done with the yellow colours of the hardback books in mind, while the paperbacks, which are pure greyscale, tend to look even worse. Thankfully, this is something the second set actually fixed - the art for the S2 books is done by Sapo Lendário (who are apparently a duo and not one person), and is much closer to the show, although it still suffers from inconsistency with the text (Johanna falls off a cliff at one point in the narrative but doesn't in the art) it does look quite a bit better:

EDIT: @remked pointed out to me that actually, Sapo Lendário only did Books 5 and 6; Book 4 (including the illustration above) was illustrated by Victoria Evans, who is a character designer on the show. I honestly didn't notice; either way the art for the Season 2 set is consistently good if not always consistent with the text.

The Story

Technically the writing in the series is fine; it's a little clunky in places, and definitely meant for kids, but it's fine to read. But the tie-in series in general just feels a lot stranger than the series. There are a lot of moments that just come out of nowhere, and bits of weird writing that just jar with each other or with the show.

The biggest example for me is still the three trials Hilda has to go through to see the Elf Prime Minister in Hilda and the Hidden People; he lives in a magical 'headquarters', guarded by three magical trials of which the rabbit cavalry charge is one. This is despite the fact that he's a bureaucrat who runs a country and presumably has to get to work with his staff every morning (and needs his army for things other than just testing the courage of anyone who wants to see him).

There's moments like this throughout the series; the forest giant who keeps Hilda captive tries to rap at the Woodman, Victoria van Gale's assistant gets named Moss Head Fred, the Bellkeeper is just, weirdly verbose at all times, and Tildy and the woman who Mr Ostenfield danced with have been split into two separate characters (both still named Matilda):

(for reference, this is Matilda Pilqvist, while the Tildy we know is Mr Ostenfeld's partner).

The first season books are worse for this kind of stuff than the second, which do feel more Hilda; I know both are almost certainly based on early show scripts (this is normal for tie-ins like this, to make sure they're released on time, and there are a few hints like Kaisa having green hair in Hilda and the Great Parade, which is a thing in her original concept art), so it's possible the S2 scripts were more complete when Davies got them, or it's possible he was just kept on a tighter leash this time by the publishers, but there is an additional point on that that I want to come back to.

The thing is, the weird moments and inconsistencies weren't really what got to me about the first set of books; I could have stomached all of that and the janky artwork if it wasn't for just how mean-spirited the first three novels are towards Hilda. Some of this is character related, and I'll come back to that when we get to that section, but fundamentally it just felt like this series was written by someone who didn't like or understand Hilda as a character.

The whole world feels like it's against her in these novels, and it's at its worst in Hilda and the Nowhere Space and especially Hilda and the Great Parade. Trevor isn't just a kinda-mean kid, he's explicitly the class bully and tries to drown the Raven purely out of spite; David and Frida actively cut Hilda out of their lives after their first adventure (which in this timeline is The Lost Clan); and her entire class at school and every authority figure she comes across seems to just hate or want to make fun of her.

Raven Leader is a pretty big example of this, but by far the worst is Ms. Hallgrim and the entire adaptation of The Troll Rock in Great Parade. Ms. Hallgrim is introduced sending Hilda out of her class for not listening, and for making a noise while she's talking, while the entire rest of the class is openly laughing at Hilda and she is visibly hurt. Ms. Hallgrim makes no attempt to stop them from mocking her, and she doesn't get angry with them for being disruptive, but she outright shouts at Hilda.

But the moment it really crosses a line is the 'Wonderful Trolberg Exhibition', which is what the novels call the parents evening where David brings in a troll rock. Due to the reshuffled plotline, Hilda is in the middle of trying to rescue Raven (Trevor has him caged as his exhibit) when the projector gets knocked over, and like in the show Ms. Hallgrim blames her. But in this version, Hilda tries to explain that she got up free the Great Raven, and this causes the entire room including the parents, to start openly mocking her.

For her part, Ms. Hallgrim's response is to scream at Hilda about how wrong she is. She doesn't ask to speak with Hilda and her mother afterwards, or take them aside to discuss her behaviour while the mess is cleaned up; she has a legitimate reason to think Hilda knocked the projector over, but it in no way justifies her screaming at a ten-year-old child who is already visibly crying by this point because grown adults with kids of their own are jeering and laughing at her.

It's genuinely upsetting to read, and it's not the only moment like this, but the other big ones will be talked about in the characters section, because they concern Johanna.

Thankfully, the Season 2 books largely tone this down. Partially, I think it's just that Hilda has fewer conflicts with other humans and especially authority figures in Season 2, but it also comes back to how I think Stephen Davies might have been kept on a tighter leash this time; Erik Ahlberg, an authority figure who is meant to be awful and who Hilda is meant to butt up against, is pretty much his show self and thus somehow significantly more likeable than Hilda's teacher and scout leader.

This new, lighter tone is more in line with the show, but unfortunately the Season 2 books also have a new, major issue in my opinion, and that's that the pacing is just bad a lot of the time. This is kind-of present in Hilda and the Nowhere Space, which adapts the most episodes of any book in the series at six (The Sparrow Scouts, The Nightmare Spirit, The House in the Woods, The Nisse, and The Black Hound), but that mostly gets away with it just by cutting out a lot from the subplots and turning The Sparrow Scouts into a brief flashback. Hilda still has a very eventful couple of days, but it just about works for me.

The same can't be said for Hilda and the Time Worm and especially Hilda and the Ghost Ship. They have fewer episodes to adapt, at five (including a fairly clumsy flashback-explanation of The Storm) and four respectively, but The Ghost Ship especially just tries to cover far too much ground from those four episodes. The result is everything happens at a breakneck pace, and none of the plotlines have enough room to breathe.

The Witch is reduced to one scene where Hilda and Frida wander into the Witches Tower, and meet Kaisa at the door to Tildy's maze, where she hastily explains everything; they rush in and fight the Triffid (the plant), and Frida realising the sword is a key is enough for Kaisa to decide she's witch material and promise to get Tildy to train her. The entire rest of the episode, completely ignoring Kaisa's arc, is dumped later as a brief explanation to David.

And The Draugen, the episode the book is supposed to be about, gets two. Abigail just gives up after she loses the race back to shore, and the entire thing becomes a pointless detour that gets breezed through without amounting to anything. The actual load-bearing episode of the book is The Windmill, which is handled alright despite some weirdness surrounding Moss Head Fred and the nuance of Victoria's character being completely absent.

This is actually the additional factor I wanted to mention about why the Season 2 books might be less weird; according to an interview I read with Stephen Davies, the bizarre elf trials were added to Hilda and the Hidden People to fill a story that otherwise wasn't novel-length. I suspect as a result that these newer books have fewer strange moments because there was so much story already crammed-in that Davies didn't need to expand on things in his signature way.

The pacing is better in Hilda and the White Woff, which has less ground to cover and also blends things more organically (and guts The Deerfox to fit it in in a way that loses all of its emotional meaning but does actually make it fit the narrative - the flashbacks from it are now the story that scares David in The Eternal Warriors). The White Woff also does something else that I really like, more than the show even, but I'll explain that in the character section because again it relates to Johanna.

And it's not the only time this happens in the Season 2 novels; Hilda and the Time Worm suffers from the same awful pacing as The Ghost Ship, and nothing is really given the emotional weight it needs, but it also handles the plot of The Fifty Year Night in a way that doesn't stretch too far outside of the show's tone, which I think the episode does.

I've explained my issues with The Fifty Year Night before, but fundamentally it comes down to two things. I don't think Johanna's nearly as sympathetic as the show wants her to be (she's fundamentally the one at-fault in the whole Season 2 change to her and Hilda's relationship, and as much as they do show it hurts her too, in this very episode, it doesn't work as well as it should for me and it doesn't justify her mistakes), and I knew the novels were never going to fix that. But I also think the episode just goes to places that are too dark and distressing for Hilda, specifically with how the Time Worm is revealed and the deaths it causes.

And it's here that the novels are actually, genuinely better. The plotline doesn't carry the same emotional weight about the could-have-been of Ostenfeld and Tildy's relationship, and it doesn't really explain how the magazines work or that destroying them fixes things. But it does make two big changes that I like.

There are no child deaths in the book; by the time the Time Worm arrives, Hilda prime is the only Hilda still in the past (she waits and watches the dancing while the other Hildas from her previous trips - she makes one more than in the episode - go back to the present, and there is no "bad future Hilda" to sacrifice herself). And while the Worm does try and delete the various Mr Ostenfelds, they aren't alive when it does.

Changing the past causes all of the alternate versions of him, except the most recent, to just break as their timeline is erased. They just all freeze, stuck repeating the last thing they said like a skipping DVD, because they aren't real anymore; they're just shades left in time. And it's a moment that manages to be creepy and make it clear that changing the past was wrong, without forcing the reader to see Mr Ostenfeld screaming in blind terror as he's lifted up, still struggling while being devoured. It's just far less awful than the episode.

And finally, when Hilda makes it back to the present and meets the version of Mr Ostenfeld that married Tildy, Mr Ostenfeld prime is there too. He also escapes the Time Worm like Hilda does, and stays with her while his alternate self sacrifices his life.

Instead of just being cast aside for Hilda's development, he gets his own arc where he actually gets to move on from the past and accept that he missed his chance. It's a surprisingly heartfelt moment for a novel series where such things often ring hollow, and it ends with him genuinely comforting Hilda too. I would actually argue that he's closer to Hilda than the Bellkeeper is in this version.

But it doesn't make up for everything else; I wish some bits of that plot had been merged into the show's version, but I still can't call the book good, and I haven't even got into my real biggest problem with the tie-ins yet.

The Characters

Fundamentally, the characters are what ruined the first three books for me. That mean-spirited tone carried over directly to them, and I still really hate a significant chunk of the novels' recurring cast as a result. But the Season 2 books did make some big changes, and it would be remiss of me not to mention them.

I will briefly mention Alfur and Tontu, but only to say neither of them really get that much depth in the novels. Tontu invites himself into Johanna and Hilda's life at the end of Hilda and the Nowhere Space, but otherwise he's pretty much the same as in the show just, a little flatter. Alfur suffers more from flanderisation, and we don't get The Replacement or anything similar, or honestly that much of a sense of his bond with Hilda, even in the S2 books. So, with them out of the way:

I know some people think Novel Hilda acts out more and is less nice than her show counterpart, and I have mixed opinions on that. The only time I really think that rings true is during one moment when she gets upset with Alfur in Hilda and the Hidden People; her relationship with her mum is worse, and that affects a lot, but that's absolutely on Johanna in the novels. There is also the beginning of Hilda and the White Woff, where she is a little more like her comic self in that she lies to her mum to go camping in the wilderness alone, but it's actually handled pretty well and it's something I could see Show Hilda doing (more on that later).

The biggest difference for me is actually that Novel Hilda is more emotional; she's very avoidant of confrontation, and she's brought to tears by things that would make her counterparts angry. She has a lot stacked against her, and it gets to her in ways that it doesn't in the show or the Graphic Novels.

Which brings us on nicely to David and Frida. In the Season 1 novels, they are absolutely bad friends; the first adventure they share in this canon is The Hidden People, and, far from enjoying it, both Frida and David hate Hilda for dragging them into it and cut her out of their lives. The thing is, it's not wrong that Hilda convinced them to go near the wall when they didn't want to, but it doesn't really read as her being pushy or manipulative; they really don't take much convincing. And besides, she had no idea about the Bragga Clan (most of the reason Frida and David don't want to go is it's a long way away), so it all just reads as them being far too harsh on her.

There is ultimately a reconciliation, and David does apologise, but Frida never does. And this attitude continues into the next book, where David and especially Frida just get upset with Hilda for ruining their badge attempts, even when it's not her fault. David does eventually get one good moment, where he stands up to the marra giving him and Hilda nightmares, but it's offset by everything else, and by him being given Johanna's lines about how nisse can't be trusted. Since he never welcomes a nisse into his life, he never has any development about that.

Frida, meanwhile, is just consistently cold with Hilda; it feels like she wants Hilda to be her friend, but isn't really willing to be Hilda's friend in turn. Her last real moment of characterisation in the Season 1 tie-ins is her giving Hilda the cold shoulder for keeping her awake at night (to catch the marra), and that's it. Genuinely, Novel Hilda deserved better friends, which is why I'm glad to say the Season 2 novels actually fixed this.

It's not really done with any development (which is weird, because there's a way it could have been if the order of events was changed - David's standing up to the marra does give some continuity for him becoming a better friend), but Hilda and the Time Worm adapts Operation Deerfox Thunder Team straight and pretty drastically rerails the characters in the process, complete with Frida and David immediately jumping to help Hilda.

In fact, there's a moment in that book that doesn't happen in the show (and genuinely couldn't exist in the show), where Novel Johanna is talking about how Hilda is a bad daughter in her usual way, and David immediately jumps to her defence. It's a moment that I really love; it doesn't address things on any serious level, but I think it's the only time Johanna's awfulness doesn't go ignored and it's very much David at his full show self.

Frida is also better in this book; I was worried at the start of Hilda and the Ghost Ship that that hadn't stuck, because she is pretty mean to David behind his back at the beginning in a way that reminded me a lot of how she was with Hilda in the first season novels. But since this novel adapts The Windmill, it is sort-of addressed. Hilda is the one that apologises at the end, but she does earnestly apologise for both of them, so I'm iffy on it but it's not the worst thing.

It's also helped by The Eternal Warriors happening at the start of Hilda and the White Woff, immediately afterwards; the whole thing is again a bit brief, but the reassurance from both Hilda and Frida that they like David the way he is does get given, so all in all it's fine. By the end of the Season 2 books I like David a lot, even if I feel like his growth could've been handled better, and I think Frida's okay.

And that just leaves one more major character, the one I know a lot of people will have been waiting for me to discuss:

(I both love and hate this image because it just perfectly sums up their relationship in the majority of the novels)

Novel Johanna is still my least favourite character in the whole franchise; more than Show Erik, or the Committee of Three, or Trylla, or the Time Worm, I genuinely hate her. But there is a "but" there now, because the Season 2 books did something I never expected them to do.

I've said before that I don't think Stephen Davies went into this to write Johanna as an awful person; I think the intention is that she's the struggling mother of an often-difficult child. But that just isn't what's portrayed; in every book except Hilda and the White Woff, Novel Johanna is genuinely emotionally abusive.

The first time I read Hilda and the Hidden People, the one thing that stuck with me more than anything else was how Johanna handles the move. I went into the book aware that Johanna was a worse parent in the novels; I'd seen bits of Hilda and the Nowhere Space, and we will come back to that, but that first book got to me in a way I wasn't quite expecting.

Because the only word I have for the way Novel Johanna handles it is insidious. Hilda accuses her of wanting to move, of just using the elves as an excuse for existing plans, and the way it's handled makes me think that she's right. Novel Johanna is committed to it from the start, and instead of being honest with Hilda, she lies to her daughter's face about it.

When they first visit the city, Johanna tells Hilda it's just to look around, in a way that's blatantly a lie; she actually wants to choose their new home and get Hilda ready for school and everything. It's not like in the show, where she's transparent about what she's considering and doesn't commit to anything for Hilda's sake. And when Hilda calls her out on this, and is understandably upset as a young child having her life ripped out from under her, her mum doesn't try and comfort her or get her to see that the city isn't so bad. Show Johanna deeply understands that the move is going to hurt Hilda; Novel Johanna makes it about herself.

And that's the lynchpin that pushes Johanna into abusive in these novels for me. She has a daughter who she didn't talk to about this (the first time it comes up, she immediately shuts down any discussion), who is upset because she might be about to lose everything she's ever known, and all she says is "please don't be difficult". It genuinely reads as manipulative and it's awful, and what gets me is Hilda ultimately accepts it.

In the moment when she falls off Illus (Jorgen's partner), she's momentarily sure she's going to die, and all she can think about is how bad of a daughter, how mean she's been to her mum, when really Johanna is the one who hurt her. There's even a moment in Trolberg that I'd forgotten until I reread this for this, where Hilda's reaction to the bells of the city genuinely seems uncomfortably close to a sensory overload, and Johanna doesn't even notice (it's right before more of her being determined to move).

And Johanna not caring is the theme in Hilda and the Great Parade. She doesn't even try and help Hilda adjust (there's one fond moment where Hilda complains over-dramatically about the city and her mum just hugs her and goes "oh you poor thing" sarcastically - it's a genuinely fond moment, but as the only moment where this is addressed, it rankled me), but the real problems emerge once Hilda gets rejected by David and Frida.

Novel Johanna hugs her when she cries about that, and about how much she hates the city and everything, but all she says to comfort her is that Frida and David's exhibit for the Wonderful Trolberg Exhibition probably sucks; it's not abuse here, but it's just not enough to make up for everything so far.

And then it comes out that Johanna put the Raven out; in this version, she's tricked into giving him to Trevor, who then tries to use him as his exhibit. And obviously Johanna didn't know that the raven was the Great Raven, or that Trevor is a bully, but she just doesn't care even after she finds out those things. In the show, Johanna apologises for putting the Raven out and does everything to help Hilda get him back, even though it's not fully her fault, but in the books she just sits there; there's even a moment where Hilda actually is upset with her for this, and the implicit message of the narrative in that moment is that Hilda is the one being unfair.

This leads straight into that scene I mentioned already from The Troll Rock. Johanna could have prevented it in the first place, just by telling Ms. Hallgrim that Trevor stole the Raven from her, but she doesn't; and when Hilda tries to get him back herself, and the projector is destroyed and the entire room of adults starts mocking Hilda, Johanna just glares at her, and then asks if she's feeling sick because of how she's acting. She's completely okay with her child being screamed at to the point of tears (and in the 3rd book, we see why), she has no moment of talking to Hilda's teacher, and the most Hilda is able to get her to do is to pass a note to Frida, which she does reluctantly.

She does get a bonding moment with Hilda on the wall at the end, overlooking the parade, but it's not earned and with the bad taste everything else leaves in my mouth it is unfortunately easy to read in a negative light too. Because there's still no moment of Johanna being sorry that they had to move or accepting that Hilda misses the wilderness, but there is a moment where Johanna hugs her close, after Hilda finally admits the city is nice. On its own, it would be a fine little moment, and even in the worst interpretation I don't think Johanna could be seen as malicious here, but with what we've seen of her it just gets to me that they don't get the bonding moment until Hilda caves.

And then comes Hilda and the Nowhere Space, and it all gets so much worse again. Because in this version, the reason Hilda even joined the Sparrow Scouts is because Johanna "loved the idea of Hilda following in her footsteps." Not because she thought it was good for Hilda, but because she wanted Hilda to be like her, and it's clear in this novel that Hilda doesn't actually enjoy it; she struggles with organised activity and Raven Leader doesn't like her, but she doesn't have a choice.

And all Johanna asks her is about badges; never about how fun it was, or how she's feeling, just if she's gotten any badges yet. The pressure she puts on her daughter is far worse than in the show, and feels uncomfortably deliberate, all while Hilda ends up tying her own sense of self-worth to scouting badges.

And when it all comes out, when Hilda sits there at the badge ceremony and gets nothing, Johanna comes and sits next to her, and berates her to the point of tears. It's another genuinely, deeply upsetting moment, and again the whole thing from start to finish reads as emotional abuse. Johanna does love Hilda, I don't doubt that, but she wants a Hilda who's just like her, and isn't willing to accept her daughter is her own person.

She does apologise for this, but it's just not good enough; because it's not an apology. It's "please forgive me. I was horrible to you" - it puts the onus on Hilda to forgive, not on her mum, and it doesn't even mention the months of pressure that came before. Show Johanna apologised just because her excitement made Hilda feel bad, but Novel Johanna doesn't care.

So I wasn't looking forwards to seeing how the novels handled The Fifty Year Night, where I think Johanna is already unreasonably harsh and not listening when she should be. And, unfortunately, I was right to be worried; in this version of the plotline, Johanna actually has more legitimate reason to be upset (she grounds Hilda for the sabotage from The Old Bells, which is an actual crime, even if it was justified). But the phrasing she uses is just as awful and manipulative as it was in Hilda and the Hidden People. Specifically, she accuses Hilda of lying specifically, knowingly to hurt her mum.

The reconciliation for this really doesn't work, either, because there kind-of isn't one; The Fifty Year Night leads straight into The Yule Lads, and the next time Hilda and her mum interact is Sonstansil (the gift-giving happens in the flat because Hilda is still grounded), and the whole book ends with Hilda being grounded for two more weeks.

In Hilda and the Ghost Ship, Johanna barely appears, but her only real moment isn't a great one. The climaxes of The Beast of Cauldron Island and The Windmill happen on the same day, and Hilda and Frida stop by Hilda's flat on their way to the windmill to save David, so that they can grab Tontu; Hilda lies to her mum to get away, but before she does, Johanna says that if she behaved like Hilda (specifically, explicitly, running off on adventures), her parents would have done something else.

She gets cut off at "would have", which suggests to me that it's more than just grounding her or being harsh; I genuinely think the implication is that Johanna's parents were abusive towards her. And I think that's already loosely implied in all canons, that she's at least somehow estranged from them, but it is a sad detail to me that if it is what the creators want to imply, then the thing that separates Novel Johanna from her counterparts is that she fell into the same pattern of abuse that her parents taught her.

And that's the thing; this whole thing is a pattern, where Johanna so often wants a perfect little copy of her and is willing to resort to genuine abuse to try and keep Hilda in that box. She loves her daughter, I don't deny that, but that's the thing; abusers do care about their victims.

I know it's not what Stephen Davies or Nobrow/Flying Eye Books intended, and it does rely on reading some neutral moments (like the end of the Great Parade) in a very negative light, but when there's so many moments that are just legitimately awful without needing to be specifically interpreted negatively, and that go almost completely unaddressed, I can't escape the conclusion. Novel Johanna is an abusive parent, and it's genuinely upsetting.

But there is that one "but" I mentioned, and that's the final book so far, Hilda and the White Woff. I genuinely don't know what happened here, but somehow it went the exact opposite way to the rest of the series. I was fully expecting the argument at the start of The Stone Forest to be so much more awful in a canon where Johanna is consistently harsh and likes to guilt-trip her own child, but that's not what we get.

I'm not going to go into too much detail here, because I think I've mentioned it enough times already, but I don't like the way Season 2 of the show handles Hilda and Johanna's relationship. And fundamentally, that's because it's Johanna's fault that Hilda stops telling her things. Hilda doesn't like hiding things, but she feels like she has to, because her mum has started getting upset with her adventures. She's become overprotective, and lost her daughter's trust, but the show wants her to be the one in the right anway.

So I'm really not a fan of how The Stone Forest goes in the show; I don't think it adapted well from the comics (where Johanna is consistently not great but not abusive), I don't like the parallels it tries to draw, and I don't think the reconciliation at the end was good enough because Johanna makes no apologies (besides for losing the guide, which is a great moment on its own but doesn't resolve things) or promises to be different herself. It's all on Hilda.

So I was very pleasantly surprised when the novels somehow fixed a lot of my problems with this arc. Because Novel Johanna in Hilda and the White Woff isn't the same as the Novel Johanna we've seen so far; the argument that kicks things off is worse (it's about on the level with the argument from the end of Cauldron Island) but here Johanna feels more justified because Hilda went camping out in the wilderness overnight without telling her (this actually leads to The Eternal Warriors in this version).

Now, that feels a little far for Hilda normally (outside of the comics), but I could see her doing it to help a friend (in this case, Frida) so I don't begrudge it. It also makes it feel less like Hilda's hiding what she normally does because she now has to, and more like a moment where she genuinely goes too far. It also does help that this series didn't start off with the relationship between Hilda and Johanna amazing, and then awkwardly retcon it to be worse; in the grand scheme of things, Johanna's actions in this book absolutely do not make up for how awful she is in the rest of them, but the inconsistency makes it feel less like the unsatisfying ending to a season-long plotline and more like its own isolated thing where the conflict starts and ends within this book. And in that way, it's nice to have a book where Johanna is actually a good parent.

And then the ending comes, and we get the conversation in Hilda's bedroom. And it's genuinely what I wish this interaction had been in the show; there isn't too much added, but Johanna does more than just say she doesn't wish Hilda was different, she also explicitly tells her she doesn't need to be better, and that she's not bad; she's proud of her daughter for being the way she is. If this had been the way the Hilda and Johanna falling-out arc ended in canon, I still wouldn't have been a massive fan (because of how it starts) but I might not have been so desperate to fix it myself.

Above all else, that just leaves me reeling; my only guess is that the major mother/daugher interactions in this book are lifted directly from earlier scripts (because they do contain a lot of the final lines too), because somehow, in the last tie-in, Johanna feels more like herself than she felt in half of Season 2. And I'm sorry, because it does feel bad to knock him, but I really doubt that's Stephen Davies' doing.

Either way, that leaves me with a weird conclusion, which is if you're going to read any of the novels, read Hilda and the White Woff and then ignore all the others; it's better standing alone. It does miss some of the strongest emotional beats that the show puts in The Stone Forest and The Eternal Warriors, but it makes up for it in my eyes by making the emotional moments it does keep genuinely better. I don't think any of the others are worth reading, and overall I still hate Novel Johanna as she's normally written, but somehow, out of all of that awfulness, there was one good thing that came of it

And of course, this is all my opinion, so please don't feel bad if you feel differently.

[poliodeuces]

HELLOOOOO I ABSOLUTELY ADORE YOUR ART it's sooo beautiful and I stare at your work so much!! do you have any art inspirations? like any artists or specific pieces that just. scratch your brain?? hope you're having a good one ^o^

first of all: thank you so much! don't get lost in it now! and secondly: i have put off answering this ask for so long bc i find that question pretty difficult to answer. i love way, way too much art. but still it's an opportunity to showcase some that i love. under the cut :) im sorry if this off from what you're expecting (crying emoji)

these are a small fraction of art that tickle my brain, only visual, sometimes inspiration just springs from a non-fiction like an essay, or in the repetition of furniture music, a strange movie with a story but with no discernible plot (the best kind of movie), when you cook a meal etc etc ....they exist where you least expect it........

i mainly do two art styles that, despite me whining abt inconsistency, are deliberate bc they give different moods, and i dont really care if my art doesnt look the same, esp since im not really interested in the industry where style consistency is part of branding yada yada. it’s more fun this way. i'll start with the inks.

one of my favourite mangaka ever is nishioka kyoudai. they're a brother-sister duo that writes these surreal poem-like stories without a plot. once you see it, it's a Very obvious inspiration. when i first got into hypmic, one of the comments i even made then was gentaro feels like a character from their work which lead to no longer human comic later for inktober www thats why i draw him a lot in the style inspired from their art...

below is the front and back cover of their most popular manga: kami no kodomo (just a warning if anyone checks this out: it's violent and disgusting. dont be like me who read them @ age 12, i was an edgy problem child)

another one of my favourites is taiyo matsumoto. art below is from their manga titled tekkon kinkreet, which has a movie ! and one of their manga got an anime adaptation as well....please watch ping pong the animation it's really good (shameless promo)

theres more, but these two mangaka really got me loving inks and not caring abt my art looking all social media pretty. weird is great!!! i embrace manga that looks unconventional

now for paintings, it's a different world ww most of them are contemporary. i like paintings that depict smth mundane or private. i love tenderness.......i like it when bodies feel like they merge into one, and where the figures' edges become imperceptible unless you look closely. intimism is where it’s at babey!!

(artists in order from left to right: egon schiele; toulouse-lautrec; ron hicks; doron langberg)

but non-representational art is really cool too...

(lindy chambers, julia soboleva, melissa santamaria, mark rothko)

im inspired by whatever this page called "1995 was an ok year" on facebook does. smth i want to get across w my art (although im aware i dont post my personal art here, maybe it happens w my fanart too who knows), when i really really try, is to recall memory that maybe didnt even happen, but the mood is there and it's felt. im terrible at storytelling but im obsessed with atmosphere, i hope it works lol

have a good day too anon !! sorry for the long reply