![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Blackwood Farm Ch 28
Jul. 13th, 2017 08:27 pmOkay, after this post I'm gonna make an account on Dreamwidth, I'll post a link there when I do.
This is meant to bring the Vampire Chronicles together with the Mayfair Witches. And it does do that...but very ham-handedly.
Quinn randomly meets Mona in the hospital cafe, is randomly besotted with her at first sight, and has sex with her the next day, and within said day is trying to get her away from her family and out of the country, and wants to marry her. Which could be done well. No, really, it could. The Gothic is a genre based on emotion and romance, so a whirlwind-but-sincere connection as lovers could be done well here if the work was put into building the proper chemistry and it integrated with the larger story.
But it does neither. There is zero chemistry building, it's really just Quinn being obsessed at random with Mona, and Mona only showing any signs of 'reciprocation' when it means escaping her family, and it bogs down the plot at length with really very little relevance to the larger story, which just goes on hold for chapters and chapters of this nonsense. It's basically the clumsiest most forced-coincidental shove-together of a witch and a will-be-vampire so that the books can merge storylines.
And it's like...a more organic way for them to meet would hardly be difficult to accomplish? Look, Quinn already knows Father Kevin. He's already told him about Goblin, and Father Kevin believes him. Father Kevin admits to believing a lot about the supernatural, and it's no surprise, given his family and that he knows the Talamasca. And Father Kevin, due to this personal connection, came to visit Quinn in the hospital after the stranger attacked him.
Why not say that despite Father Kevin's reservations regarding the Talamasca, he believed that they were the best people to help Quinn? That would be very easy and natural, much more so than his love-at-first-sight meeting with the girl who just happens to see ghosts and be the most important Mayfair witch ever. Father Kevin could bring Quinn to the Talamasca, and they would probably be most intrigued by his tale of Rebecca and the mysterious stranger he believes responsible for her death and others, and they would begin to look into with him, moving the plot along. If meeting Mona and having a romance with her is a must, that's easily done too---since she's with the Talamasca as well, he can meet her through them, and she can help solve the mystery with him, since she's clearly interested as well. They can forge a much more organic connection over time without derailing the plot, and introduce the Mayfairs and their skeevy mysteries in a much more natural, well-paced way so that it runs concurrently with the main plot, rather than pushing it to the side for chapters on end of awkward "romance" and I-just-met-you-but infodumping.
It might take a bit more effort, and I know Rice loves her insta-connections, but I really think this would work so much better for a number of reasons, and I'd probably enjoy it a lot more.
( Read more )
This is meant to bring the Vampire Chronicles together with the Mayfair Witches. And it does do that...but very ham-handedly.
Quinn randomly meets Mona in the hospital cafe, is randomly besotted with her at first sight, and has sex with her the next day, and within said day is trying to get her away from her family and out of the country, and wants to marry her. Which could be done well. No, really, it could. The Gothic is a genre based on emotion and romance, so a whirlwind-but-sincere connection as lovers could be done well here if the work was put into building the proper chemistry and it integrated with the larger story.
But it does neither. There is zero chemistry building, it's really just Quinn being obsessed at random with Mona, and Mona only showing any signs of 'reciprocation' when it means escaping her family, and it bogs down the plot at length with really very little relevance to the larger story, which just goes on hold for chapters and chapters of this nonsense. It's basically the clumsiest most forced-coincidental shove-together of a witch and a will-be-vampire so that the books can merge storylines.
And it's like...a more organic way for them to meet would hardly be difficult to accomplish? Look, Quinn already knows Father Kevin. He's already told him about Goblin, and Father Kevin believes him. Father Kevin admits to believing a lot about the supernatural, and it's no surprise, given his family and that he knows the Talamasca. And Father Kevin, due to this personal connection, came to visit Quinn in the hospital after the stranger attacked him.
Why not say that despite Father Kevin's reservations regarding the Talamasca, he believed that they were the best people to help Quinn? That would be very easy and natural, much more so than his love-at-first-sight meeting with the girl who just happens to see ghosts and be the most important Mayfair witch ever. Father Kevin could bring Quinn to the Talamasca, and they would probably be most intrigued by his tale of Rebecca and the mysterious stranger he believes responsible for her death and others, and they would begin to look into with him, moving the plot along. If meeting Mona and having a romance with her is a must, that's easily done too---since she's with the Talamasca as well, he can meet her through them, and she can help solve the mystery with him, since she's clearly interested as well. They can forge a much more organic connection over time without derailing the plot, and introduce the Mayfairs and their skeevy mysteries in a much more natural, well-paced way so that it runs concurrently with the main plot, rather than pushing it to the side for chapters on end of awkward "romance" and I-just-met-you-but infodumping.
It might take a bit more effort, and I know Rice loves her insta-connections, but I really think this would work so much better for a number of reasons, and I'd probably enjoy it a lot more.
( Read more )
