#wicked willow

[ornitharts]

I finished the second wicked willow book. It was a lot better than the first, but still towards the bottom of my Buffy novel ranking. Lots of thoughts below.

Likes:

-Riley golem is actually an interesting and cool concept. A totally unhinged and evil as hell thing for Willow to do, so props to her. Also really interesting that Giles immediately thinks Willow chose Riley because it would be worse for the Buffy when she really chose him because he would be less likely to kill Buffy.

-ghost Tara is still a highlight for me. I love her cryptic warnings and super formal “I told you so”s, and love her calling out Willow’s bullshit. I love that she literally haunts the narrative.

- I love Anya doing everything she can to help Giles. She’s so sweet. She’d do anything for him. I love their relationship and am glad to see more of it.

-The scoobies stealing Tara. I can’t believe they stole Willow’s ghost girlfriend. I know Willow is evil and all but damn. She’s gonna be pissed. It’s not going to end well, and I’m so excited about it . My poor ghost girl is really going through it. She dies, Willow won’t listen to her, and now she’s been kidnapped. ghostnapped? Poor Tara.

-It was also very nice to see Amy again. I just wish she played a bit of a bigger role.

-I think the way Willow’s wiccans, Flo and Anan, are paralleling Willow and Tara and Willow’s loss of Tara is pretty interesting so far. I’m interested to see where that goes in the next book. Hoping it goes somewhere

Dislikes:

-Annoyed that we’ve had Spike and werewolf Oz for 2 books and they’ve had literally nothing to do at all. It’s getting old.

-I can’t believe I’m complaining about this, but Xander still doesn’t do much. He’s just there. And he’s only just there in a group setting to occasionally crack a joke and get his ass kicked. He’s still not an actual character. He was instrumental in the season 6 finale, Willow’s been his best friend for like his entire life, but there’s like nothing about how he feels watching his best friend spiral out of control in the book and its driving me crazy. His best friend is lashing out at him and the people he cares about and we get nothing?!?

-not a fan of the fact that the climax is literally the same as the last novel. The scoobies once again break into Willow’s loft to do a spell, willow made a creature but now it doesn’t listen to her, Willow is forced to kill the creature, Willow loses some of her wiccans, Buffy gets her ass kicked, the scoobies still can’t save spike or Oz, and the scoobies retreat. The only difference is that they’ve ghostnapped Tara.

-Willow’s power level feels super inconsistent and it’s super obvious it’s for plot convenience.

-it also feels like the author is trying so hard to make Willow a more sympathetic antagonist, but the way she writes her just makes Willow feel very whiny and kind of annoying. I feel like it has to be really bad if I, as someone who really likes Willow was a character, to be this put off by it.

Final thoughts:

So much better, much better than the first but still not my favorite Buffy books. I still feel like they could have been cut down into a single book or maybe two.

[keii]

Anyway you’ll get everything you’ve asked for when you’re with Willow... it’s worth the wait.

[rhythmicpirate]

Something is coming

‘Now what is that damn bear up to this time?”

[yurimother]

Fantasy Yuri Game ‘Wicked Willow’ Available on Steam

Wicked Willow, a fantasy Yuri visual novel from T.F. Wright is available now on Steam. The game was released on June 2, 2020 for PC and Mac.

The developer describes the game:

"If they call me wicked for following my heart, then so be it." You're Willow, a wicked witch, trying to make her way in the world in 1993. Who is Willow?

She's a judgy vegan. An Atheist who says she wears a cross "ironically." A sad soul with a tragic past. A brush with death has awakened Willow's powers, but don't expect her attitude to improve.

Along for the journey is Avery, Willow's environmentalist best friend, Xarsi, a nun-turned-succubus, Tanya, a self-appointed mentor with a secret past, and Lydia, an Evangelical Christian whose cheery attitude puts her on Willow's bad side.

Also, there's a talking cat named Shadow. He never shuts up.

Although Wicked Willow is an all ages visual novel with no adult content, it works to thoughtfully tackle important LGBTQ topics including sexual repression and conversion therapy. The choice based gameplay clocks eight unique paths, each of which is fully voiced with animated cutscenes and an original soundtrack.

Wicked Willow is out now on Steam for $19.99. The game’s soundtrack and art book are also available for purchase.

[sunflowerpaladin]

Willow and Lydia from Wicked Willow are soulmates and I love them 🤠 🏳️‍🌈

[gloriousspaceridersworld]

Mos Generator - Wicked Willow [Official Video]

[ornitharts]

Working my way through the Wicked Willow Trilogy. I finished the first one and it’s definitely my least favorite BTVS spin off novel so far. A lot of text below because I have a so many thoughts.

I was so excited too. Conceptually I like it. What if Willow was evil longer au sounds super fun. I love Darth Rosenberg and Willow’s struggle with magic sorry line, but I just don’t care much for the execution. I think it’s mostly the author’s style that I don’t vibe with.

The things I liked:

-The concept. I love a good au, and I enjoyed the dark willow storyline in the show. I was really excited to read an au where it went on longer.

-Ghost Tara! Ghost Tara is probably the highlight of the book for me. I love the idea of Tara coming back to be a conscience and guiding figure for Willow and calling her on her bullshit. Trying to save the woman she loves from her self. It’s so bittersweet. It’s so good.

-Buffy getting a bouncer gig at a sleazy bar to get info. So much better than the double meat palace.

Things I didn’t like:

-Some of the characters feel out of character? So far Anya is making way too many pop culture references as a 1,000 year old vengeance demon who’s been characterized as having a lack of pop culture knowledge to the point where she’s self conscious about it. For Xander being Willow’s best friend and the person to talk her down in the show, he doesn’t really do a ton of anything. And I feel like Willow is way too downright cruel and mean to Tara’s ghost. I understand it’s supposed to be super hard for Willow, she lost Tara and now she kind of has her but it’s not tangible and real, but it still feels way too mean for Tara.

-A lot of the plot stuff is just kinda goofy.

-The first couple chapters are almost a word for word rehash of stuff that happened in the show. It was boring and I just wanted to turn the actual episode on instead.

-Willows is basically the most powerful witch in the world and she still can’t find Jonathan and Andrew because they aren’t in Sunnydale anymore?

-Oz is just back in Sunnydale? For some reason? It’s just too convenient.

-I also think as a whole it’s a just a little bit too focused on Willow (not a criticism I was expecting to make before starting as a Willow girly). So much of her pov it feels like it’s just rehashing her motives and feelings instead of actually moving the plot along. I feel there could be a little more focus on the other Scoobies and they could be given more to do. I would love to know how Xander’s feeling about his best friend being evil snd all but he’s barely even a character. So far it, it honestly feels like a lot could have been cut to make it into a single book.

Overall it’s my least favorite Buffy book so far, but still fun in a so bad it’s good. It’s very silly, and it has its moment so it’s not all bad. I started the second one and so far it seems a lot better than the first.

[ornitharts]

I’ve finally finished the Wicked Willow Trilogy! The last book had some fun moments, but was still one of my least favorite Buffy novels. I have a lot of thoughts about it and the series as a whole.

Likes:

-I like that the author actually acknowledged how childish Willow had been acting. She literally throws a tantrum and sets loose a werewolf on her ex friends and lets spike almost burn to death because she didn’t get her way. She literally thinks “why won’t they think about my feelings?” after she’s tried to kill the scoobies multiple times. I feel like the author really acknowledges and leans into it a lot more in this book so it works a lot better than in the previous ones.

-Gnarl! I love Gnarl! One of my favorite Buffyverse demons, he’s horrifying. I really love the nod to same time same place and Willow’s feeling of dejavu. Letting the Gnarl eat Xander and Dawn alive is the most evil thing she could do. And the fact that she made a completely separate Gnarl just for Giles? unforgivable. Yes, she heals them later but only because Tara asks her to. Sure, she felt a little bad in the moment but she just let them get eaten anyway. The one thing I disliked about the Gnarl of it all is that I still legitimately don’t see a resolution in terms of her relationship with the scoobies that will feel earned after all of this.

-I really enjoyed Willow getting her “request” for resurrecting Tara denied because of all of the awful shit she has done to the people she cares about before getting her ass completely and utterly handed to her by a god. Tara finally getting to move on was great, and Willow finally realizing how much she’s fucked up was nice.

Dislikes:

-Flo and Anan didn’t really go anywhere which sucks. They were such an interesting parallel to Willow’s loss of Tara in the last book and I would have loved to see that brought up and have Willow realize that she was basically someone else’s Warren and her actions took away someone else’s Tara.

-yet another conjured monster. This is the third one. Literally happened in every single book. Part of the bigger issue of repetition in the book. I guess it’s not all bad since we got Gnarl out of it, but it’s still annoying how the same plot point get recycled and used again in each book.

-I hate that the end is just how the dark willow plot ends in the show. It is pretty much beat for beat. It’s way too close to what happened in the show with Buffy and Dawn fighting and Willow trying to end the world and Xander talking her down with the yellow crayon speech. Xander talking her down still feels an unearned because of how little he’s actually mattered in the series leading up to this point. I love the yellow crayon speech in the show, it’s my favorite Xander moment, but in the book it just doesn’t pack the same punch. Same with Buffy’s “I don’t want to protect you from the world… I want to show it to you” and finally letting Dawn fight along side her. Dawn has spent the entire trilogy fighting and getting her ass kicked alongside the other scoobies, Buffy has not being overbearing and sheltering her, so it’s just jarring and doesn’t make sense in the context of the book.

-Oz just… skips town like 3/4s of the way through the book while Willow is still wreaking havoc and being evil??? Bullshit. I get the author wanted the ending to align with what we saw in the show, but she could have found something for Oz to do rather than just up and abandoning the scoobies. He could have just hung around the Magic Box with Anya and Giles. The only reason he (and spike) had to leave was because it wasn’t in line with how season 6 actually ended, which is a part of my bigger gripe with the trilogy the same exact way the dark willow plot ends.

-Hate that the epilogue is about Johnathan and Andrew. I would have preferred a little more resolution about Willow and the scoobies and where they go from here instead. I get the implication is that things play out as they would in season 7, but the things Willow did in this series were so much worse than what happened in the show and I don’t know how they would even try to begin to rebuild any sort of relationship.

Final thoughts:

Too close to the show: I hate how much of the series was just word for word things that happened in the show. The second book wasn’t as bad, but the first and the last were awful about it. It just feels cheap and lazy. It’s an alternate universe. There is no reason it has to end in a way that aligns with the show’s canon and sets up the events of season 7.

Repetition: There was too much repetition of certain plot beats and conversations throughout the series. The fact that Willow conjured a monster, sent it after the scoobies, lost control of it, and had to kill it happened in every single book was boring. Same with a lot of Willow and Ghost Tara’s conversations. They were practically the same thing over and over.

Potential: it makes me sad how much potential the concept has. It has some really great moments, but there’s a lot of not so great choices that really bring it down. I love evil Willow, Ghost Tara coming back to be Will’s conscious is a really cool idea, and I thought the Riley Golem was so fun, but the repetition and goofy plot stuff made them all a bit of a slog to get through.

Overall these have been my least favorite spin of novels. They aren’t all bad, but they are definitely not something I am itching to pick back up and read again in the future.