Literature / Willow Falls

"What have I told you about tormenting Midori, you burnt slice of whole-wheat bread?"

— Adair

Willow Falls is a story about a boy named Edward Allens, but people call him Poe. It's not like people think of Edgar Allan Poe when they think of his name or anything. This town is full of mythological creatures or things you didn't even know existed before reading this. It's known to be inspired somewhat by Gunnerkrigg Court and is very obscure, being only available on Archive of Our Own as of now.

The author is going to try to rewrite the story soon so the plot and flow is improved, as of now the plot is a "train wreck" as she calls it.

There are currently only twenty-three short chapters. The names of the chapters in order are...

1. The New Kid In Town
2. A Day in the Limelight
3. Nevermore
4. A Guide on Fantastical Creatures and Dark Matter
5. Lost and Found
6. Nightmares
7. Freedom
8. Light and Darkness
9. Into the Void
10. Serenity
11. The Widow
12. Urban Legends
13. Face-Heel Turn
14. Revenge
15. A Not-So Tearful Reunion
16. The Willow By the Falls
17. Memories
18. Seven Sins
19. What's On the Menu?
20. In Memoriam
21. What Walks On Two Legs
22. The Rescue: Part 1
23. The Rescue: Part 2

---

Tropes:

• Abstract Apotheosis: Bean could be considered one for the sin of gluttony. He's a reincarnation of Beelzebub, who was the personification of gluttony. However, this is mentioned solely in Urban Legends (chapter twelve) and never again, so it may as well have been retconned.
• Amnesiac Dissonance: This happens to Poe in chapter sixteen, Beforehand, everyone else has known about his evil side as early as A Day in the Limelight (chapter two) or Nevermore (chapter three). In The Rescue: Part 2 (chapter twenty-three), it's revealed that the evil side wasn't Poe at all, but a demon.

• Animal Jingoism: Wata, who is associated with wolves by the author, tends to make Midori, a Nekomata, a common target of his harrassment. This is also shown when Fenrir immediately targets Midori after involuntarily going into his wolf form in Into the Void.
• Backstory of the Day: It almost seems like this in "In Memoriam" (chapter twenty) for Drake, since a majority of the somewhat short chapter compared to the ones before and after it was spent with him talking about how he died and got to Willow Falls to Wata.
• Bait the Dog: Depending on how you see it, this applies to Drake either in Revenge or as early as Into the Void. For the work in a whole this kicks in in Nightmares.
• Benched Hero: Poe can be seen as this after the first nine chapters are done with. Mostly because from A Day In the Limelight to some time between A Not-So Tearful Reunion and The Willow By the Falls he was temporarily taken over by a Superpowered Evil Side.
• Beneath the Mask: Several characters show this.
  • Poe is a huge example of this. Beneath his mask is a Superpowered Evil Side that turns out to be a demon.
  • On the outside, Adair is all serious and stoic, but on the inside he's very caring of close ones, especially Midori.
  • On the outside, Drake is a jerk who's Wata's partner in crime, but on the inside he's lonely and kind of insecure. Also extremely arsonphobic thanks to dying in a fire in the late 1800s.
• Berserk Button: Lots.
  • Don't hurt Midori or do anything to her that could negatively affect her, especially if Adair is around.
  • Don't fuck with Poe or do something to smudge his reputation if Milo is near.
  • Don't put Adair's life in danger when he's with Midori. You'll severely regret it.
  • Don't say 'ru'.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Also lots.
  • Milo starts out as the nicest guy in the story. After Poe becomes 'Enoch' and crosses the Moral Event Horizon in Into the Void, he becomes more bitter, even snapping at Poe at times. This climaxes in The Rescue: Part 2, where he beats Watson up after he reveals himself as the Big Bad behind most of the chaos in the story.
  • Midori is an innocent little girl with an ambiguous age, who, despite lots of timeskips, still never hits puberty and seems to be under the age of thirteen the entire time. In "The Rescue: Part 2", she changes not only into the form of a cat, but a panther-sized one and ''rips the tongue of Bean's second mouth off' after Bean tries to strangle Adair with it.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Bean. Definitely Bean.
• Big Ego, Hidden Depths: Drake at first seems like a bit of a douchebag, but as shown in In Memoriam, he's really lonely after dying alone in a fire and being unaware of his own death and just assuming his family has been ignoring him for so long.
• Bonding over Missing Parents: Adair and Midori after Midori is adopted into the family and Maxwell is turned into stone.
• Break the Cutie: In Revenge, Midori gets broken. Bad. Also literally.
• Break the Haughty: By the time What's On The Menu? rolls around, Adair gets this bad.
• Cats Are Mean: Inverted with Midori.
• Character Development: There are many cases of this.
  • Midori starts out as naive and unable to speak anything but Japanese and Engrish, but eventually can speak English pretty well (besides 'ru' instead of 'l' and 'r'...) and by The Rescue: Part 2, can fend for herself.
  • In the beginning, Poe is a very dull and sophisticated character, but as Characterization Marches On, he gains an actual personality and some feelings to boot.

---