Wicked Girls Reprise

I haven’t posted anything for a while because all my writing energy at the moment (and probably for a little while yet) is going into writing a novel that I’m pretty excited about. I still wanted to do SOMETHING for the Holiday exchange this year though, so I decided to finish up some of the drawings that didn’t make it into my Wicked Girls story from last year. If you have not yet read Wicked Girls, I’ve added all these drawings into the relevant places, so you may want to check it out in that format instead. Also if you DID read Wicked Girls last year when I posted it, and thought it kind of didn’t make sense, you were completely right: I accidentally cut a page of text, so if you feel like giving it another go, that might answer some questions.

I wrote Wicked Girls at around the same time I was reading through a book of classic fairy tails with my daughter, and I tried to write it in a similar style.

The Krampus myth shows up in a few places, but it seems to be most popular in Austria. I added in a bunch of OOOOLD Catholic/Austrian holiday/feast days to make it feel more like a recycled folk tale.

Being a brat I wanted to give my story a bit more dimension and spirit than “naughty girl gets punished by Krampus.”

I created the character of Liesl as a kind of trickster and even though I knew she’d need to be punished within the story, I wanted to figure out a way to give her a bit of a win.

Part of what inspired Liesl’s character arc is that even though as an adult spank-o I can enjoy the darker elements of Christmas demons (or just a St. Nicholas that gives switches in stockings along with coal), looking at it dispassionately, the whole “Santa knows if you’ve been bad or good” as a threat to inspire good behavior in children strikes me as pretty unsavory and rather creepy.

I was a bit down on this story when I first published it here because it felt rushed and unfinished (and… it literally was since, as I mentioned, it was missing a full page partway through). Having re-read it a few times since, I’m actually pretty happy with it, and though it’s not at all my usual style, I really enjoyed writing in the surreal formal voice that really only works for fairy tales.

Check it out here if you haven’t already.

Or if you’ve had enough of this, go read some newer stories on Alyx’s Story Exchange.

2 thoughts on “Wicked Girls Reprise”

  1. Hey Xen, thank you for participating this year, even though you were very busy (did I read somewhere that you are working on a book?! Like a graphic novel? Is it a kinky book?? *hopeful* 😃 Even if it’s not, I’m sure it will be awesome!). Reading the Wicked Girl story again gave me a renewed appreciation for your talent! The drawings are incredible and you really did capture the dark tone of those old fairy tales. Thanks again for your gift in the 2020 holiday exchange! 🎄

    1. Thank you Alyx!

      Yes, I’m writing a spanking sci-fi novel. Or rather… it’s turned into two books because it got too long for one and if I’d cut enough to make it a reasonable length, I don’t think it would have worked as a story. It’s not a graphic novel but I may do some illustrations for it. I’m not sure what I’ll do with it once it’s finished because it’s not really “sexy” enough to fit in the erotica genre, but I’m having fun writing it anyway!

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