- 73: Runed PillarJun 19, 2021
- 72: Round TwoJun 15, 2021
- 71: Fist First Into the FrayJun 11, 2021
- 70: SignatureJun 7, 2021
- 69: RavenessJun 3, 2021
- 68: Finally, Some AnswersMay 30, 2021
- 67: BeautifulApr 27, 2021
- 66: TrustMar 30, 2021
- 65: PillarfortMar 28, 2021
- 64: Beautiful ViewsMar 26, 2021
- 63: Star RisingMar 24, 2021
- 62: HybridMar 22, 2021
- 61: Intruder AlertMar 20, 2021
- 60: A New OpportunityMar 18, 2021
- 59: Newly PhysicalSep 22, 2020
Table of Contents
A wonderful story with extremely lovable and entertaining characters! Trouble With Horns was essential to helping me figuring out my own identity, and even after that I'm enthralled by the world that QuietValerie has created.
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As everything Trouble is here in this one entry in Scribble, I’m going to split the review into a part for each section. Major spoilers ahead, so be aware of that if you haven’t yet read this.
Book 1 (Complete. Chapters 1-33)
Book 1 is pretty great. If I had found this at a bookstore and bought a copy, I’d be largely satisfied. It’s fun to ride along as Tami finds herself inside of Cora. You feel her highs as she interacts with people and crushes spiders with her thighs. You feel crushed when she returns to the real world and has to deal with what this all means for her life.
Because the story only partly takes place in VR, the story feels much more grounded. We make some discoveries that have actual repercussions for the actual people involved, and then have some flashy VR fighting scenes to spice it up.
It’s interesting how the world, or at least UNC, is basically a utopia but there’s still future bigots and no accessible healthcare for trans people. Makes me wonder what else is wrong with the place.
I only have a few minor criticisms of book 1, most of which are the Aurora PoV scenes.
First is in chapter 26, which spoils Aurora’s identity. After all this time in Tami’s head, we’re ripped away to give us that one piece of information and for Tami to Do A Thing. Feels bad.
Next is in chapter 27 with the cannon scene where again Tami Does A Thing and then we’re back. It’s very jarring to me to be in one viewpoint for so long and then blip out of it for just a few seconds.
Kristina isn’t exactly a strong antagonist for Tami. She shows up every once in a while to shout or be shown up and that’s about it. It’s not a huge deal because the main conflict in the story is Tami’s identity. There’s a line in chapter 1 about how Kristina would hang out with Tami in VR while they were dating. I do wonder what Kristina even does in VR. Maybe the line is there to make it possible that Aurora would turn out to be her?
It would’ve been interesting if she played Cora with Tami and actually got to interact with her without the knowledge of who she was. Let her see that Tami is just a normal person before being confronted with that in the real world.
Book 1.5 (The Taylor Interlude. Chapters 34-38)
Cute fluff. Not much to say, really. It’s fine.
Book 2 (Chapters 39-73 at time of writing)
Book 2 is still in progress, so I can’t exactly give a full review of it. That said, book 2 really doesn’t hit me the same way that book 1 does. We start off with Tami being attacked after someone ordered a hit on her character in Cora. I could maybe understand this if the game featured permadeath, but all that happens is item loss (But even that is frequently ignored.)
This is followed by a quest in Cora that takes around 18 chapters where not much happens. Turns out she somehow kept the egg from chapter 12 and it’s a mighty morphin’ SAI deletin’ cutie pie dragon that the Future Bigots really want to get their hands on for some reason. The whole party gets some titles and land for their efforts.
There’s some stuff about how the Future Bigots are sponsoring gamers for propaganda reasons? And we’re going to fight that with the power of brand association and lawsuits? And how are we going to do that? By beating up Future Bigots in Cora.
Cora was never the thing that made Trouble actually good. It was finding out how Tami would deal with these things that she was discovering about herself. It was trying to figure out who Aurora is in reality. Tami no longer needs to change. Everything is already solved. She’s in her ideal body. She’s in a relationship with the love of her life. She stumbled into a job that demands nothing of her. She doesn’t need to stop being reckless because she’ll just respawn. Or May will give her a resurrection ability. There’s no stakes. There’s no longer any consequences to deal with.
Like Tami says in chapter 43, “It isn’t real [], none of this is real, there’s no need to be afraid.”
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I think this story marks a real development of Valerie's writing style. We have a well crafted world pottering along in the background with greater meaning teased throughout the story while the heavy character focus drives each chapter. Each chapter is long, well written, and covers a great deal of events. Characters are well realised, believable, and really engaging.
This is the dream for transgender fiction. While the story is still in early stages it's so promising and I can't wait for each chapter release, as soon as I'm done reading I'm back to wishing there was another.
Well done on this story Vale!
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Ah what can be said about the marvelous misadventures of Tami?
That she is one of my favorite characters from an amazing lineup of main characters written by Vale? That the world feels so fleshed out and interesting, much larger than one thinks on first glance? That the fight scenes feel visceral and raw, but in a way that just pumps you the f**k up? That the s*xy bits are... Well fantastic.
Vale's done it again folx. Get ready to get horn... Horny? No... Horned? Sure. Horned.
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this story hit me like a truck. It stripped me of my ace identity, and I woke up in a new, beautiful, demi world
(read this story you'll like it I promise)
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The Trans Lesbian story you need to read!
QuietValerie is back with yet another amazing story! With "Trouble with Horns" Valerie once again skillfully weaves together multiple genres, themes and tropes to create an engaging story that grabs you and holds on.
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Thank you for the nice egg in this trying time.
Each chapter leaves me looking forward to where the story will head next.
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Has potential but falls into several cliches and hazards stories like this often fall into. I honestly believe this could be great and maybe further along it does get better, but from what I've read it hasn't gotten that far. The character could be interesting, but they aren't, the main problem is the author seems to try and shove the s*xuality and beliefs of each and every character to the forefront of their personality traits even when it doesn't make narrative sense or is jarring for the reader. Introduced to a new character? The first thing that comes from them is them questioning the main character's preferences or them making some commentary on it. I understand the story's focus is on the s*xuality and the restraints the main characters feel with it, but again the way the character interact and bring it up is like trying to use a jackhammer to drive in a nail. I believe introductions like this can be done well and flow with the story but from what I've read so far the author hasn't gotten to that point yet.
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So goooooood! I can't wait to see how things turn out for Tami.
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I found this and thought, "Huh, another gender bender. Might be fun to read."
But it was so much more than that. I loved the emotion she put into the serious, contemplative chapters, the dumb quips and lines between Tami and Dawn, the side characters with so much individuality in their weird world of s*xual identities, the enemies and world building of both the VR and the real world, the game mechanics, and how we see Tami's scarily realistic thoughts and reactions to all of what's happened. I legitimately cried a total of three times and I haven't cried like that in a good year.
Overall, f**king great. Read this if you want a romcom/psychological sad story/action. It especially helps to enjoy if you have great imagining skills.
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