The Face of TG Storytime Part 7: "Hush" by Clarity Review

The Face of TG Storytime

Part 7: "Hush" by Clarity Review

tw // attempted murder, assault

While all the authors whose stories I’ve gone through so far certainly have notoriety in the world of online TG fiction, this next author surpasses them all. She’s one of the most well known authors on TG Storytime, with three of her stories on the most favorite list as well as four on the most reviewed list. She is also the third most favorite author overall on TG Storytime as of the time I’m writing this. Without further ado, this is Clarity.

Named after a “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” episode (one of my favorite episodes of the show, by the way), “Hush” is arguably Clarity’s most famous story. It was first posted in February 2017 and was finished in July 2017. Much like “Fangs”, it is a TG Storytime exclusive story as it has not been posted anywhere else. In total, it is 102K words long.

“Hush” has had a few rather extensive rewrites since its first posting. Nothing near as extensive as “Fangs”, which was completely rewritten from front to back, but certain plot elements have either been added or changed significantly in the years following its initial release. What exactly changed I’ll get into later on, but just know that the version I’m looking at for this review is the one currently on TG Storytime as of 2023.

When discussing “Hush”, and by extension most of Clarity’s work, it’s important to keep in mind the state of TG Storytime at the time of its posting. In its first few years, mainly 2011-2013, TG Storytime was basically just Fictionmania 2.0, and the stories on it at the time reflected that. In fact, half the stories on TGST in 2011 were literally just reposts of FM stories. 

It was around 2014 when stories started coming up that felt like they couldn’t have been 2000s FM stories. “Of Heroes And Villains” did a lot to form a unique identity for TGST, and a few other noteworthy stories such as “Suhara of Curses” and “Diary of the Suspicious” feel like they really influenced how online TG stories were written in the coming years.

By 2017, trans stories on TGST still weren’t really a common thing, but they were getting there, if slowly. Mainly by dropping some of the more contentious and ill-conceived tropes old FM stories had. In this regard, I see 2014-2018 TGST as mostly a transitional period that may be a bit awkward looking at in retrospect. And when looking at “Hush”, and by extension a lot of Clarity’s work, this is important to keep in mind.

As for my thoughts on “Hush”, overall I think it’s very good. Clarity’s work is pretty highly regarded in the writing sphere I’m a part of, and for good reason. Compared to some of their contemporaries, her stories have held up well and have very solid writing. They’re well “put together”, so to speak.

Now, with all that out of the way, let’s finally take a look at “Hush” and what it has to offer.

“Hush” starts off with a teenage boy named Joseph Larsen, a perpetually angry friendless loner who hates his own life. He regards other people as a nuisance, and usually writes them all off as idiots who never have anything of value to say. He sees his family as a nuisance too, and his older sister Megan despises him, a sentiment which he returns. He never takes the time to listen to other people, and he has a huge ego.

During a locker room fight, his life permanently changes when a former victim of his bullying accidentally uses a wishing stone to transform him into a girl and take away his voice. In this new state, Joseph, now Johanna, is forced to re-evaluate her life, herself, and the kind of person she wants to become.

For starters, the setup of the story is very good. A story about a boy transforming into a mute girl is a good enough idea for a TG story on its own, but the fact that this story takes this idea and connects it to a wider character arc that makes total sense for the character is very commendable.

Looking at Joseph's character, just turning him into a girl wouldn't have been enough for his arc to work. His big flaw was that he never took time to listen to other people, and now he’s forced to do that. To read about how someone who has frequently used their voice as a weapon be forced to live on without it is very interesting, and the story executes it well. 

This all becomes even better when the story incorporates this concept into its wider theming. Themes about how we can connect with other people and how taking on your life by yourself isn’t a good idea. Joseph spent almost all his time by himself. He shut himself off from the world, other people, and his family. And he ended up being completely miserable because of it. It probably wasn’t the sole reason for his mental state in the beginning, but it was definitely a major contributing factor. 

When Joseph loses his voice and becomes Johanna, she’s forced to listen to people, and as she does she realizes just how many of her old judgments and preconceptions were wrong. She can’t write them all off as idiots anymore, because she knows they aren’t. They all each have their own insights that she never realized because she refused to give them a chance.

She becomes more connected with her family, she gets real friends, and she no longer feels the need to take on life and her problems by herself. And you can tell the effect it's had on her just by how much happier she is at the end of the story. The future ahead of her as Johanna is much brighter than the one that was ahead of her as Joseph.

I know some people might respond to this by saying it's unrealistic to expect a 15 year old to be a model citizen or even an entirely good person. I doubt most people are proud of the person they were when they were 15, but Joseph's behavior at the beginning of this story is definitely abnormal and even a bit concerning for his age. It goes beyond just normal teen angst, it’s as if he doesn’t even consider other people to be human. I’ll get into the details of this more later, but for now just know that he’s a pretty bad kid.

That kind of behavior can definitely translate into adult life, and it can lead to someone growing up to be miserable and alone, with no strong connections to anyone. That was the track Joseph was on, and that’s why it’s important he changed.

Johanna has a much better mindset about other people, and much stronger connections to the people in her life. She’s actually happy, and enjoying her life. When you read the end of this story, you get the feeling Johanna is going to grow up to have a good life, which wasn’t the impression I got with Joseph.

I first read this story when I was 15, and at that time the ending felt good just because of how much happier of a person Johanna was, but reading it now as a 21 year old, the ending actually feels even better because of that prospect of a better life. I know this is all incredibly subjective, but I still love it. It’s great when media can be good in new ways as you get older.

Another very important theme of this story revolves around coping with a disability. As the story explains, being mute means Johanna is disabled. There are many things in her life that will be much harder for her to do because of her inability to speak. And there are many examples in the story showing this.

For instance, things as simple as saying you need to go to the bathroom can be made much more tedious.

As we headed out the door, Caroline had told me that she always ate lunch with her brother and offered me a spot at their table, which I accepted with a wary nod. Truthfully, I was surprised that she still wanted to hang out with me. Before we went to the cafeteria, though, I had to stop off in the bathroom. I did my best to mime my intentions to Caroline, and I think she understood.

She can no longer participate in class discussions or answer questions, which does force her to listen to her classmates, but nevertheless makes it much harder for her to engage with the class and its material. 

Math was okay, but my mind kept wandering to thoughts of myself, my life, and what the future held for me. I wasn’t able to contribute to class discussions or answer questions anymore, which sort’ve peeved me. I used to my raise my hand for every question in every class - even if I wasn’t positive that my answer was correct. I used to figure that my educated guesses were probably better than most students’ answers, and I felt a compulsion to outcompete them. It’d never occurred to me before, but I was beginning to realize that I did those things out of insecurity. I was so concerned with reaffirming my intelligence - to both myself and others - that I gave off the vibe of a self-centered asshole. I’d hurt people, in the past, both emotionally and physically. That wasn’t my true self, though...was it?

After sitting through a handful of classes without the ability to speak, I was starting to realize that the other students weren’t quite as stupid as I thought. I’d just never taken the opportunity to actually listen to them. Instead, I had chosen to bury my head in the sand like an...ostrich, and I’d treated other people like shit. Shaking my head, I made a silent oath to never let myself act like that again.

She can’t read aloud in class either, which does lead to one certain scene that I’ll save for later.

She can’t hold any conversations. When others talk, she can’t join them and can only listen. One specific moment regarding this I like is when her friends try to work around this to accommodate her, with as much tact as they can.

I longed to join the conversation but, of course, that wasn’t possible. To their credit, both of them tried to make me feel more included by asking me yes/no questions every now and then, which I could respond to with a nod or a shake of the head. They weren’t much, but those tiny gestures made me feel much more included.

She can’t communicate organically and easily with other people, and while she definitely struggles with it, she comes to accept her limits. When it’s revealed to her that her inability to talk can not be solved through any practical, non-magic means, she begins to consider her limitations part of who she is as a person.

For some reason, Doctor Johnson’s analysis had brought me a sense of relief. It was difficult to explain, but her verdict created a sense of stability, which had been missing from my life for the entire previous week. I was Johanna and I couldn’t talk. That was my identity, and it wasn’t changing any time soon. Doctor Johnson’s words had forced me to accept that fact. Her assessment forced me to discard all hope for regaining my voice. The war was over, and I’d lost. That knowledge brought me a weird sense of serenity, as if a weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

I’d love to explain that dichotomy to Dad, but I certainly couldn’t mouth the words and it was a difficult notion to share via pen and paper.

She takes to primarily being a listener pretty well as the story goes on. She takes solace in being able to make people feel better by just being there to listen to what they need to say. 

For the next hour, we sat on my bed talking. Well, Dad talked and I mostly listened. From time to time, I’d add something by mouthing or writing it out on my whiteboard, but those moments were few and far between. For the most part, I just opened my ears. Dad seemed to enjoy talking to me, and it wasn’t long before we were both laughing. I guess that there was a demand for people who just sat and listened. As he talked and opened up to me, I felt valuable for the first time in a long time.

This dynamic is especially strong with her mother. They start cooking together a lot toward the end of the story, and Johanna is often told long stories about her mother’s past and present life. Again, Johanna comes to enjoy how just being there to listen to people can help them, even if she can’t actually say anything to them.

The aroma of delicious food filled the whole kitchen, while Mom told me all about her upcoming week at work.

She managed a nursing home, but had seldom discussed her work with me. That had changed, recently. There was drama at her nursing home and she suspected that one of her employees was consistently high during work hours. She walked me through all of the evidence, even wrinkling her nose as she recalled the employee’s damning scent. As she continued talking, she eventually reached the conclusion that she should have a heart-to-heart with the employee. Had I helped her reach that conclusion? Maybe, maybe not...but I was always there to listen, and people seemed to appreciate that.

There’s another angle to Johanna being a listener that the story touches upon, and it has to do with nonverbal communication. After losing her voice, Johanna starts having to rely on nonverbal communication a lot more, usually through facial expressions, body language, and writing.

Whether people understand what she’s trying to communicate is, as the story shows, kind of a crapshoot. Two examples of it working come one after another in Chapter 3. Johanna uses her eyes to communicate that she doesn’t want to change with her mother in the room, then glares at her in anger when she asks a semi-invasive question.

Mom seemed too eager about the prospect of dressing me up, as if I was a doll or something. Come to think of it, she didn’t seem to be too disappointed about me becoming a girl, she was more worried about the fact I could no longer speak. Maybe this was what she wanted, though: a quiet daughter who she could control.

I gulped past a lump in my throat and pleaded with her, using only my eyes. If I had to change, I wouldn’t be doing it in front of my goddamn mother.

“Okay, let me...let me give you some privacy.” Mom flashed a reassuring smile, then headed for my bedroom door. Halfway out, she paused. “And if you have any questions about any of your new equipment…”

Seeing my death-glare, she winced, and finally left me in peace.

On a side note, this is the first of the revisions I’d like to mention. When this story was first posted, this scene saw Johanna take off all her clothes while her mother was in the room with basically no hesitation (it was so the mother could gauge her cup size). The whole interaction went by without any real issues. This is a change that was 100% for the better. It wasn’t at all believable that Johanna would be fine with being naked in front of anyone, and also be fine with having a bunch of female clothing forced on her only a few hours after becoming a girl. The small fight Johanna and her mother get in during this chapter makes this whole situation feel all the more real.

Getting back on topic, glaring is the one expression that works well for her almost all the time. People can usually tell when she’s upset or frustrated.

Sometimes though, her expressions can be misinterpreted.

“Pouting like that isn’t going to help your case.”

I quickly wiped the frown from my face. I wasn’t ‘pouting’, was I? I was trying to frown, not pout like some petulant child.

People often confuse her expressions that are close to other expressions or are more ambiguous.

She starts having to use her body language more and more. For instance, she stomps her foot onto the ground to express anger.

“Absolutely not, young lady.” Mom said sternly. She wasn’t a fun lady to argue with, especially when I couldn’t talk.

I stamped an angry foot on my carpeted floor.

And she starts hugging people a lot more, which the story itself points out. 

I loved hugging Megan. She was the perfect hugging height, and my head fit right under her chin when we embraced. I was hugging people a lot these days, and I had a few explanations for that.

First, I wore my emotions on my sleeve more than I did before. I suspected that the wish changed me mentally, although my new body chemistry may have played a natural role. I wasn’t sure why my expression of emotions had changed, but I was certain of one fact: this was the new me. I was Johanna, and I wasn’t afraid of displaying affection.

Alternatively, the frequent hugging could have a different origin. Since I could no longer vocalize my communications, body language had become infinitely more important to me. From the faintest smile to the slight movement of someone’s hand, I was more sensitive to people's’ movements than ever before. Physical contact was the most extreme form of body language, and I found it intoxicating and exhilarating. It was as if my body was overdosing on happiness every time I made contact with another person...like I was connecting with them on some universal, mystical level.

To add onto what is said here, Johanna’s hugging could also be seen as a representation of her opening up to people. Remember, Joseph shut himself off from the world and tackled everything alone. He hardly received any affection at all, or at the very least he didn’t let himself enjoy it. After becoming Johanna, she starts opening up to people. She starts letting them help her and care about her. This would all obviously be extremely thrilling to someone who had been so alone for so long. It’s why hugging is so important and means so much to her.

This idea of her opening up more even expands into her other emotions. For instance, Johanna cries a lot in this story. With herself and with other people. She’s not afraid of showing vulnerability.

TG stories have used crying a lot, and sometimes it’s used as a way to show how being a woman has changed them. This is common with old TG stories especially. The MC will comment on how they rarely ever cried as a man, but as a woman, it’s a far more common occurrence.

My watery eyes produced true tears, which raced down my cheek and ruined my makeup. Damnit, I should’ve anticipated this. I cried easily and often these days, although I no longer considered it a negative trait. I was more honest with my emotions, if anything. 

This story doesn’t really depict crying as “reinforcing the MC’s new womanhood”, but it does make a point that her more frequent crying could, in part, be due to becoming a girl. But it’s mostly probably because she’s going through such a hard time.

She doesn’t start out being okay with her increased crying though. In Chapter 14, after an encounter with a certain other character, Johanna becomes ashamed of how much she has cried recently, considering it a trait that, in her mind, makes her weak and pathetic.

I wasn’t even emotionally stable enough to get through the day without bawling my eyes out. I was a burden.

This encounter will be discussed later (don’t worry I do put every topic I say I’ll discuss later in a list), but regardless, she thinks she’s weak for crying so much.

But, as the story goes on, and as she makes closer connections with people, she learns to not be ashamed of crying when she needs to. 

For the umpteenth time that day, slick tears channeled their way down my face like fresh streaks of thin paint. I’d stopped all attempts to bottle up my emotions, and just let the tears flow.

She becomes okay with letting her emotions out every once in a while, and that speaks to how much she’s grown as a person. How much she doesn’t keep her emotions bottled up anymore. And how much she shares her problems and feelings with other people.

Getting back to body language, a previously shown quote from the story includes a paragraph where Johanna describes being able to better read someone’s body language and movements. 

During conversations, a lot is communicated without being spoken. When people exchange faces and subtleties in movement, they are communicating and relaying information to one another. Also, how people say certain words can change the meaning of them or steer a conversation in an entirely different direction.

There’s a part in the story where one of Johanna’s friends recommends her an app that does a text to speech voice, which touches upon what I just said.

I occasionally used the app to communicate. Although it was somewhat fun, it was also extremely gimmicky. I still couldn’t contribute to conversations organically. There were crucial elements and quirks to regular human conversation that go far beyond the exchange of words. People interrupted each other all the time, and bounced between ideas quickly. Tone of voice and the slightest bit of stress on certain words could change the meaning of sentences. Those were some of the many subtleties that I’d never be able to recapture, no matter how many apps I used.

Another reason I didn’t like the app was that it forced me to look down at my phone and type in the middle of conversations, when I’d rather be making eye contact or analyzing facial expressions. Although she had good intentions, Olivia suggesting the app only made me more acutely aware of frustrating shortcoming.

Without being able to speak, Johanna has become hyper aware of what is communicated without being spoken or said directly, and also hyper aware of all the subtleties she has lost.

Her skills in gauging people’s body language are demonstrated when she watches her principal during detention. 

Beyond bored, I began to study Principal Morris as he scribbled away on some document with admirably precise pen-strokes. I’d practiced writing so much recently that I could close my eyes and accurately imagine the curve of each one of his letters, just based on his grip and movement. On his hands, he still wore those tight gloves. Was it difficult for him to grip a pen while wearing those? I’d never given his gloves much thought in the past. I’d always been wrapped up in my own nonsense, and had barely even noticed. One of the benefits of losing my voice was my newfound ability to listen and observe, and I found myself studying his mannerisms and questioning the rumors.

During detention, Principal Morris coughed precisely two times, and each time he took great care to anticipate the coughs and bury his face snugly in the nook of his elbow. Each time a student coughed, Morris visibly winced, breaking his pen-stroke while he was writing. As he did, his eyes were filled with a particular kind of sadness that ran deep to his core. Studying him, a realization dawned upon me: his obsession with gloves might not be a neurosis or idiosyncrasy.

He could have some sort of immune deficiency issue, and the gloves were his attempt to stave off illness. He constantly wiped down his desk with disinfectant not because he enjoyed it, or because of irrational fear. He was only a sneeze away from death. I saw it in his eyes, and a wave of sympathy and guilt rushed through me. I hadn’t made fun of him too often, but I distinctly recall saying some nasty things about him a year ago. I’d been trying to fit in with some upper-classmen and figured that they would be impressed if I insulted the Principal behind his back. At the time, my efforts were successful and I almost made a few new friends, but now I was overwhelmed with regret. What the fuck was wrong with me?

I like how it’s never explicitly confirmed if the principal really does have an immune deficiency disorder, it’s just something Johanna infers from watching him. I’ve seen far too many stories force explicit answers on things where they’re just not needed, and I’m glad this story avoids that. Furthermore, this scene shows not just how observant Johanna has become, but how empathetic she’s become as well. Joseph probably wouldn’t have given the well being of anyone but himself any thought at all, but here it’s shown Johanna can actually sympathize with other people, and see them as human.

Probably the most significant way that Johanna communicates after losing her voice is through writing. She has to rely much more heavily on written text in order to get her words across to people, and the implementation of this in the story is absolutely superb.

For starters, this is the start of a mini-arc that Johanna goes through revolving around her handwriting. At the start of the story, her handwriting is incredibly sloppy, possibly even near unreadable.

My name is Joseph Larsen. I was a man before Jarvis Duncan used a wishing stone to take away my dick and my voice. If it wasn’t crystal clear before: I can’t speak. I tried to write as neatly as I could, which wasn’t all too neat. I never spent much time practicing my handwriting, since many of my essay assignments required typing. As a result, it hadn’t progressed much since 3rd or 4th grade. I handed her the paper, hoping she’d be able to read it.

She never had any reason to focus on it much before, but with her newly mute status, she realizes she will have to use it a lot more.

So she starts practicing, even going as far as to watch handwriting tutorials on YouTube. As the story progresses, her handwriting improves, to the point where it even starts to look nice.

“Your handwriting is much neater than I remember.” Mom remarked with raised eyebrows.

I’ve been practicing.

I like this. For starters, having these kinds of mini arcs can help give a character a little more depth. And a little more depth can go a long way to strengthening a character overall. Also, I've read a lot of TG stories where a character suddenly gets nice handwriting after becoming a girl, and it always feels forced and lazy. It makes much more sense to have a character work to get better handwriting. In Johanna’s case, this all works perfectly because she has a real reason to want to improve her handwriting that’s not just “well I’m a girl now and girls have nice handwriting”. It’s a good arc and very well implemented in the story.

In Chapter 6, Johanna sees her mother bought a whiteboard for her.

After a few minutes, I gathered myself and headed toward my desk. On the way, I noticed an object on my bed.

It was a plain, compact white board with a neat note written in dry-erase marker on its pristine surface.

Johanna, I saw this at the store today. I hope you like it. Love, Mom

I cracked a weak smile and sniffled. There was no way she just happened to stumble across this in the store and bought it on a whim. She went out of her way to help me, and didn’t want me to think I’d caused such a bother. I didn’t deserve her.

It's a pretty sweet moment, which this story has a lot of.

In later chapters, Johanna starts using the whiteboard to communicate with people. It helps, but she also finds it isn’t the best thing for conversations.

Needless to say, I wished that I could communicate more freely. After having lunch with Megan’s friends, I’d found that trying to write everything down on a whiteboard broke the flow of conversation and wasn’t an ideal method of communication. As a result, I’d tried to use the small rectangular board as little as possible, which resulted in me nodding more than I’d like.

She runs into the same problems she later does with the text to speech app, it breaks the flow of conversation by forcing her to look down and write stuff out. It’s best used sparingly, only when absolutely necessary.

The time it takes for her to write stuff out is what the biggest problem with using it a lot is.

“How are you doing?” She sounded nervous as she spoke to me. I wondered if she thought I was dangerous or something. I silently giggled at the thought. It was nigh impossible to be afraid of me...I couldn’t weigh much more than 110 pounds, soaking wet. I didn’t know my weight for sure, though...we didn’t have any scales in the house and I hadn’t visited the doctor yet. Apparently, that was going to be a weekend adventure, and I wasn’t looking forward to it.

No P.E. today, so I’m good. I wrote to her on my whiteboard.

“I don’t really like P.E. either,” she said with a small smile. “I don’t think Coach Tiller likes me.”

That sucks. I’m just not very good at sports. As I wrote, she peered over my shoulder impatiently and I felt a pang of guilt. She had to go so far out of her way to hold a conversation with me...it must have felt like a chore to her.

I really like the paragraph about her feeling guilty for needing a longer time to get her words across. It adds yet another layer of sympathy and understanding for how difficult her condition has made her life.

This goes even further in the next few paragraphs.

I returned her smile. Such is life, I wrote, then I added a small note as the bell rang. Thanks for talking to me.

As she read my note, her face showed a glimpse of condolence as her eyebrows furrowed. I didn’t want to throw a pity party and make her uncomfortable, but I suppose I’d already done that. Crap. Why did I always do shit like that? Rubbing my temple with one hand, I wrapped the other around my eraser and began lazily dragging it across my desk.

Obviously it’s easy to feel sympathy for Johanna in this story. Being mute is debilitating, and makes life much more difficult. And this story shows her in a sympathetic light too. But it’s never too overbearing to the point where it’s distracting. That can be a difficult balance to strike, but this story does it pretty well.

Johanna also runs into other problems when using her whiteboard, such as not having enough space to write stuff down.

Sarah glanced over my shoulder to see what I’d written. “Sorry to hear that.” She blushed, realizing that she hadn’t actually ‘heard’ anything. “You know what I mean...just...sorry. What’s it like? Changing teams and all?” She asked the question rapidly, as if she had been preparing to ask me for a while.

It’s different. I like some parts of it. Not all, thoug- I was frustrated to find that I’d run out of space on my whiteboard before I was able to finish the sentence. I’d have to work on that.

Sarah must have thought it was cute, because she gave a shrill laugh full of rich energy, which caused me to crack a genuine smile. 

It’s another obstacle for her to overcome, but like most obstacles in the story, she overcomes it.

In tiny letters, I wrote: They’re going to try to bring up all sorts of gruesome killings and cite horrible statistics. We’ll have to find stats of our own on technological progress to counter. Fortunately, the whole note fit nice and tidy on the whiteboard, without an inch of space remaining. I failed to hold back a small, proud smile.

Adapting to no longer having a voice is difficult for her. And trying to adapt to other forms of communication is, many times, awkward and challenging. But she gets by the best she can by using the forms of communication she has at the best times. Writing for long, complex responses when necessary. Facial expressions for short responses. And body language for emotions she needs to get across.

There’s another layer to Johanna’s mutism, and it’s how it causes other people to view and see her. How other people talk to her and treat her.

A common occurrence that happens frequently throughout the story is people thinking Johanna is deaf.

“Why aren’t you on the team?” Wendt asked, visibly puzzled.

I chuckled nervously and shook my head, gesturing toward my mouth. I can’t cheer, I said.

“What?” Coach turned to Megan, perplexed. “Is she deaf?” she asked. I guess tact wasn’t in her playbook.

At least, very late in the story, Johanna eventually comes across someone who tries to ask her if she’s deaf in a tactful way.

Frustratingly, I’d forgotten to bring backpack, and thus my whiteboard. They were both still in Principal Morris’ office, so communication was going to be quite difficult.

“Can you hear me?” She said, briefly turning her head so that I wouldn’t be able to read her lips.

As she turned back to face me, I nodded in reply. I suppose this was her way of checking whether or not I was deaf without outright asking me. How tactful of her.

It makes sense why this is so common. Even in a world where magical wishing stones exist and are a normal thing, someone in public who doesn’t speak would initially be assumed to be deaf.

Johanna’s first encounter with people treating her differently because of her disability comes only an hour or so after first becoming a mute girl, when her mother talks very slowly and loudly to her, even though she knows she isn’t deaf.

“Do you understand me?” Mom said the words painstakingly slowly and loudly, as if she was speaking to a deaf centenarian.

I nodded in affirmation, with a frustrated scowl on my face. Needless to say, I wasn’t in the mood for any of this.

“And are you Joseph?” Once again, the words came slowly and loudly.

I nodded once more and wrinkled my nose.

It’s not until Johanna writes to her mother that she can understand her fine, and that she doesn’t need to talk so slowly and loudly, that she finally stops.

Dear Mom, thank you for believing me. Thanks for trying to help me out, too. I’m not deaf, by the way, so you don’t need to talk so slowly or loudly. I can hear you fine, I just can’t talk. I know you’d probably suggest that I take a stupid name like Josephine, but I’d rather try something slightly different.

Johanna

I swear there was a little tear of happiness in her eye as she read the last part...almost like she was relieved that I chose an overtly feminine name. The name Johanna didn’t have any special significance for me...well, that wasn’t entirely true. A few years back, I’d had a conversation with my California friends during a long game queue. We talked about what our names would have been if we were girls and I’d settled on Johanna, mostly out of disdain for the name ‘Josephine’.

“Josephine’s a perfectly good name, though.” A devilish grin spread across Mom’s face.

I glared daggers at her.

“Sorry, sorry. Johanna. You’re Johanna.” To my approval, she’d stopped saying everything so slowly. “I’ll let your father know, so he can start filling out the paperwork.”

I have to agree with her. Josephine is a pretty awful name. Johanna is much better.

As you can see, this is also the scene where Johanna picks out her name. It's a pretty good scene, and I do like how the name “Johanna” already holds some level of significance for her even before choosing it.

This is also the first of these stories where the TG’d character’s name is a feminine version or approximation of their old name. And to be honest, I really relate to these kinds of stories because my name is a feminine approximation of my deadname. I guess I’m not very original, but I was just a little too attached to my old name to completely throw it away.

Anyway, one other thing I want to bring up regarding this scene is how it shows a problem that’s kind of pervasive throughout the whole story, which makes me think the author didn’t exactly think through some of the more minor details of her writing.

So, Johanna is 15 in this story, possibly 16 at the end. This means that “a few years ago” would probably be when she was around 12 or 13. With this in mind, when she was talking to her friends about what their female names would be, she would’ve been about 12.

Now I know, this story presumably takes place in 2017, the same year it was posted. In the 2010s children playing online games and talking during them was definitely not an uncommon occurrence. Hell, the story itself even confirms that Johanna has been playing online games since she was at least 10.

“Oh, hey Badger.” Shadow greeted me as I entered our TeamSpeak server. Badger was the name I used because, well...I liked badgers. They were cool. I chose the name when I was 10 years old and stuck with it ever since.

But what really makes me raise my eyebrow is the fact that Johanna has been playing online games with the same group of people for, as she says, about 5 years.

He was one of the four people who I’d been playing video games with for the last 5 or 6 years. We met through a different game and have just hopped from game to game ever since: FPSes, MMORPGs, etc. You name it, we played it.

This creates a very strange scenario where Johanna would have to have met these people when she was 10, which means one of two things. If all of these people are around the same age, then she and her online friends would’ve had to have gotten together as friends as 10-12 year olds, and I just don’t buy that at all. Children don’t form groups together with other children online, at least not with children they don’t already personally know.

If they aren’t the same age and Johanna is younger, then that means her friends all brought a 10 year old into their friend group. Again, I just don’t buy it, and that would make her friends a little weird for including someone so young as part of their group.

It would also make this scene come off as a little creepy.

My friends were silent for a minute or two, and I sat nervously. My hands were cold with sweat, and I fidgeted with them, over my keyboard.

Shadow was the first to break the silence. “Dude, is this for real? If it is...you’re hot.”

Nope. Stream over. I didn’t want this to get creepy, and I’d proven that I wasn’t lying. For some reason, from the moment the red light on my webcam had turned on, I’d felt tremendously uncomfortable. Only my four friends were watching the stream, but something about it made me uneasy. Something about the guys watching me while I couldn’t see them just made me shudder.

Again, how old are they? Because if they’re all in their 20s, then it’s a little creepy for them to say a teenager is hot. Furthermore, does Johanna know how old they are? Did she know when they first met up?

This could all have been solved if “5 or 6 years” was changed to 1 year. That way Johanna would’ve met these people when she was about 14. I can believe that a group of 14-16 year olds would get together to play online games, and I wouldn’t have thought anything about how old her friends are when one of them says she’s hot when seeing her as a girl for the first time.

Anyway, back on topic. Johanna’s mutism also causes other people to infantilize her. To treat her as someone who’s more like a pet than a real person, and to talk at her rather than to her.

In Chapter 7, we see an instance of this as Johanna is sitting at her sister Megan’s table. Here, we see that Megan’s friends have a bit of a habit of displaying the exact kind of behavior explained above.

The cheerleaders started giggling. “You never told us she was such a cutie,” one of them said to my sister, as if I couldn’t hear her. “She’s like a kitten!” I didn’t know how to feel about that comment, so I just tried to ignore it.

They almost seem to find her disability amusing. Or, at the very least, they find it makes her amusing.

I was the focal point of most of the conversation among Megan’s friend group for the rest of lunch. I felt like I was a zoo animal, and they all watched me out of amusement. It was almost as if because I wasn’t able to speak, they didn’t consider me entirely human. Although, it was nice that they thought I was cute and didn’t consider me to be some sort of freak, like that Tina bitch.

This kind of dehumanization is furthered in Chapter 13, when Johanna goes with Megan and her friend Sarah to the mall to shop for clothes. Earlier in the story, Johanna was stuck with all Megan’s hand-me-downs, and Megan has taken her on this shopping trip so she can have her own clothes. She has enough money to afford all of these clothes for her because she works as a model part time.

I guess money didn’t mean quite as much to her, since she did modeling work on the side and got paid decently well for it. For a hermit like me, though, money was a luxury earned from birthday cards and parental begging. Regardless, I often ended up spending most of my money on gaming hardware and Steam sales.

Johanna notices that during the shopping trip, Megan and Sarah have a tendency to not treat her as fully human, instead dressing her up and gawking at her like she’s a doll. 

I was kind’ve enjoying the experience and the trying-on of clothing. However, Megan and Sarah were still treating me as an object or an animal, to be looked at and observed. I didn’t care for that.

Side note, “kind’ve” isn’t a real contraction. “Kind have” is an incoherent phrase. This is a fairly common mistake within the story.

Later on in the chapter, Johanna goes to get her ears pierced, and this kind of dehumanization starts to push her limits when the woman at the counter looks sympathetically toward her when Megan tells her she can’t talk. Megan pushes this further by saying she wants extra piercings, making her cross her limit and storm away.

“She can’t talk,” Megan explained as I bit my lip. The woman’s eyebrow returned to its normal position and she sent me a look of sympathy. I’d grown used to that reaction after people found out I couldn’t talk. Sympathy. As if they thought I was incapable and permanently handicapped. I gritted my teeth in anger.

“Oh, she also wants an upper ear piercing, a nose piercing, and a belly piercing, too,” Megan suggested with a devious glance at Sarah, causing my eyes to go wide. I definitely hadn’t agreed to anything like that. I wasn’t even certain that I’d be getting pierced at all today.

No, I crossed my arms beneath my breasts, shaking my head and glaring at Megan. She wasn’t going to be bullying me around and making decisions for me. I wouldn’t let her treat me like I was some sort of subhuman.

“She really wants all of those piercings,” Megan reaffirmed, foraging through her purse and disregarding my protests entirely. “How much is that going to cost?”

“Megan…” Sarah began to interject on my behalf, glancing at me with concern as she read my emotions.

Before the lady behind the counter could answer, I stormed past Megan and I ran out the parlor door. I was furious, my anger stemming from Megan’s treatment of me, the lady at the parlor’s treatment of me, the stress from Jarvis’ pending threats, and...well...everything. I just couldn’t take it anymore, and my infamous temper resurfaced.

Johanna storms into the bathroom, the anger of everything that happened the past week getting to her. More than anything else, she’s tired of her dehumanization. A lot of people don’t treat her like a fully autonomous human being. They assume she can’t make her own decisions. To many people, she isn’t a full person, but a “cute little thing” to fawn over and feel sorry for. 

“I guess I’ll start it off, though. I don’t really know what you’re angry about specifically. If you’re mad about the piercings, then I’m sorry. I didn’t think you’d react like that, and it was stupid of me. Okay? There’s my apology. I’m sorry. You know…” her voice grew even more shaky. “You know how much I care about you, and how much I love you. You’re such a precious little thing, I would never want to be cruel to you.”

A precious little thing. Was that what I was? A thing? Not even human?

Seeing this treatment from her own sister really pushed her over the edge.

Looking around for something to write on, I threw my hands into the air in frustration and pulled out my phone. Although I was standing directly in front of Megan, I’d have to text her my thoughts. As soon as I started to hit the touchscreen keyboard, tears resurfaced on my face. My fingers working rapidly, I funneled all of my emotion into the text.

Stop treating me like I’m a fucking toy, I wrote, as a tear trickled down my cheek. I’m a real person with real feelings. I’m not some barbie doll that you can dress up and giggle about. The words spilled out of my fingers like a river, and I could do little to stop them. And you were forcing me to get piercings because you wanted to manipulate me, and you didn’t pick me up after detention because you don’t care about me, and I could have died. Would anyone have even cared if I died? Would you?

“Oh my God,” Megan whispered as she read my text. “You kept all of that all of you the whole week? Why do you do that to yourself? Why didn’t you...why didn’t you tell me?” She shook her head, and put a hand on my shoulder. Seeing me recoil ever-so-slightly, she withdrew her hand and chose a different approach.

“Look, I think you’re really cute, and everything you do is really funny and quirky, but I don’t think you’re a toy. You’re my little sister. My smart, charming, funny little sister. I know you’re a ‘real person’, and I’m sorry if you thought I was treating you like a ‘toy’. I’ll never treat you like a toy. Ever.” She stared down at me, and I held her gaze unflinchingly, ignoring the tears on my cheek. “I promise.”

They make up afterward and Johanna does get her ears pierced. Afterward the woman who did the piercing informs her how to check the piercings for infections, and then repeats the same information to Megan. The same kind of dehumanization happens, as the woman assumes Johanna isn’t capable of taking care of herself and needs constant help from other people. Johanna forces herself to not get angry about it, knowing that if she does, the anger will fester inside her until it all shoots out at once. That was the kind of person Joseph was, and she doesn’t want to be that person anymore. She tries to think more positively.

There are quite a few reasons why I really like this chapter and think it’s important. For starters, it can be seen as a subversion of a common TG trope, the obligatory “shopping trip”. A lot of these stories have a tendency to have the female characters be very eager to dress the TG’d character in female clothing, pushing her to do so and fawning over her when she does. I like how this chapter plays into that. Megan and Sarah gush over Johanna like a doll when she puts on female clothing, and it’s another source of dehumanization for her.

I’ve mentioned dehumanization a lot and that’s because it’s really important to this story. It’s a common kind of treatment Johanna sees given to her a lot. In real life, people with disabilities are often dehumanized like this. They can be treated as nothing more than someone to feel sympathy for. When Johanna gets treated like this, and understandably gets angry, it feels very real.

It’s also a good chapter for Megan. One of Megan’s character flaws is that she can be selfish and egotistical, and in earlier chapters she does treat Johanna pretty poorly. In this chapter she sees firsthand how her behavior affects Johanna. It’s a major source of character growth for her, and this chapter handles her growth in a very real and interesting way.

I wasn’t expecting to take this much time just talking about Johanna’s mutism, but I think that’s a testament to just how well it was utilized. It would’ve been easy to simply write a story where a boy gets turned into a mute girl, but the fact that this story examines all the different dynamics that arise from becoming mute is extremely commendable.

Johanna’s mutism is inextricably connected to her growth as a character. It forces her to listen to other people, to consider their thoughts and feelings, to pay attention to them, and to rely on them more. By doing this, she changes her entire perspective on life, becoming more open to her new friends and her family. She becomes a much happier person as a result.

Johanna’s mutism is tied into the theming of the story. The story examines the ways in which she’s forced to navigate the world with it. It shows all the new challenges it brings into her life, as well as how much harder her life becomes. It examines the ways in which she needs to communicate with it. It examines the ways in which people treat her because of it.

Even as I’m writing this review I’m kind of shocked by just how much the story does with the mutism concept. It’s admirable to see how many layers there are to it here. It really speaks to just how much thought Clarity put into writing for it.

However, this story isn’t completely perfect with its handling of mutism. It does come with a few faults.

I find the amount of times that Johanna’s family can understand her lipreading to be a bit unbelievable. If someone were to mouth even just one word responses in real time, I doubt that most people would be able to understand what they’re trying to say. Especially not on a consistent basis by most people the first time. Maybe the context of the conversation would help people figure it out, but still, this story should’ve cut back on the number of times people understand her lip reading.

The next problem is more of a minor plot hole that doesn’t really matter too much. But regardless, I’m not sure why Johanna doesn’t just use her phone to communicate more often. She does it sometimes, but there are still more than a few circumstances in this story where she could use a notes app on her phone to communicate with people, and she just doesn’t do it. And I kind of have a hard time believing that.

The biggest problem with the way the mutism is handled is sort of connected to the structure of the story itself. It’s not a bad structure, but as I’m writing this review and thinking about it, I question if the story would’ve been better if it had been structured in a different way.

This story takes place within the time span of about two weeks, with a six month time skip before the last chapter. Each of the chapters detail Johanna’s life experiences from a day to day basis. There isn’t any ambiguity as to how much time is passing in the story, it’s very clearly just two weeks.

I suppose a lot of character arcs have occurred in-universe over a questionable timespan, but Johanna having an entirely different perspective on life, and being a very different person within like 10 days of losing her voice is definitely pushing it. 

In spite of that, it’s hard for me to say this story should’ve been altered to have taken place over the span of say, six months. Firstly, because this story manages to pace Johanna’s character progression pretty well. It’s believable and satisfying to read, and it never feels far-fetched, even if the in-universe time span is questionable. And secondly, because, at that point, I’d basically be asking the author to have written an entirely different story, which I don’t want to do. 

Still, it comes with two big problems. First, along with the mini-arc of Johanna becoming better at handwriting, she starts learning sign language. And at the end of the story, she becomes pretty good at speaking in sign language.

After a long pause, I nodded. My sign language was far from perfect. Although I was a rapid learner, I’d only begun practicing the language a couple weeks ago. Was she planning to bring in an interpreter for me? I didn’t want her to phone in some sign language expert. That’d be such a hassle for everyone, and it wasn’t necessary.

It’s pushing it to say she started learning sign language “a couple weeks ago”, considering this scene takes place not even two weeks after her transformation. 

It was difficult to explain exactly what happened using sign language, but I managed. Despite the troubling circumstances, I was happy to find someone who knew sign language. It was almost as if my hours of practice were finally validated.

Handwriting, I can believe. But sign language is much more complicated and takes a lot more practice. I could buy her being able to carry a real time conversation in sign language maybe two months after her transformation, but two weeks? Absolutely not.

The bigger problem that this structure creates though, is that Johanna seems to accept her mutism far too quickly. Again, she’s only 15 in this story, and there’s not really a moment when the realization hits her that she will never talk again. For her whole life, she will remain silent, until her death. One could argue the full realization hadn’t exactly hit her yet, or that she’s trying not to think about it, but still, that’s a pretty important moment that this story never really has.

That’s not to say it doesn’t try. There’s a moment in Chapter 7 where Johanna is with Megan and her mother, and she gets upset as a bunch of thoughts of what her mutism means for her suddenly hit her all at once.

Across the table, Megan failed to contain a giggle. “Aww. You’re so cute when you’re pouty. You poor thing.”

With that, she earned herself a death glare. Unfortunately, that only made her laugh harder. I wasn’t used to being teased without being able to retort. Hell, I’d never be able to fight back again in my whole life, physically or otherwise. I was weak and defenceless, by almost every definition. I’d never be able to hold a casual conversation ever again. I couldn’t even participate in class. How was I going to get through college? How was I ever going to get a job? Live a normal life? That train of thought caused a few tears to well in my eyes, which I tried to wipe away as quickly as I could. Instead, I ended up burying my face into the elbow of my coat and bawling. As I did, I realized that my sniffles were still faintly audible. Great, the one actual noise I could make with my mouth or nose was only able to be heard when I was crying. That realization only made me cry harder.

I like this scene. It makes sense for Johanna to not immediately be aware of the full consequences of becoming mute for life. For it to hit her a while after the fact. She begins to panic here, and it feels real. 

It’s also a good scene for Megan, as it shows she doesn’t really take Johanna’s problems seriously, at least not yet, and continues to tease her when she’s in distress.

“Hey, hey, hey. Cheer up. Being cute isn’t a bad thing.” Megan said. Her tone was that of a vocalized eyeroll. Did she even really care about me, or was I just a plaything to her? As she spoke, I felt a pair of hands - Mom’s, probably - rest on my shoulders protectively.

“What did we just talk about?” Mom hissed at Megan, in a stern tone that demanded obedience. “Your his...her...her big sister. At least try to make her feel comfortable.”

“Sorry,” Megan muttered. “How was I supposed to know she’d take it like that? Most people would be flattered…”

Later in the scene, Johanna gets frustrated with how difficult it is for her to get her words across. Soon she becomes exhausted with her attempts and gives up.

I let out an exhausted sigh, then looked up toward both of them, my nose still running and my eyes probably a bit puffy.

It’s not because of that, I mouthed at them, shaking my head.

“Where?” Mom asked. She misunderstood my words so profoundly that I couldn’t even guide her in the correct direction.

It’s not because of that!

“There’s a...cat?” Megan tried, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear.

IT’S. NOT. BECAUSE. OF. THAT! I shouted soundlessly. My jaw trembled, and I had to take a few deep breaths to harness my anger. Nothing in my life was going to be easy ever again.

“It’s not about...that?” Mom finally asked.

I nodded, defeated. Close enough. At least Mom finally understood the general point that I was trying to make.

“What is it, then? What’s on your mind, hun?” Mom asked.

Everything, I replied with exasperation. Shaking my head, I fought back the urge to snarl.

It’s frustrating for her how hard and tedious communication has become. But, in spite of that, she gets some reassurance from her mother, and in that moment, it’s enough for her to give her the motivation to get through the day.

Again, this is a good scene, but I really think there should’ve been more like it. Part of Johanna’s arc in the story deals with her feeling like her mutism makes her useless, a complete burden to other people. And while she overcomes that feeling well and realistically, she seems to accept her permanent mutism far too quickly. I don’t believe someone would be accepting of getting a lifelong disability in about two weeks. The story should’ve put more emphasis on how she copes with not being able to talk for the rest of her life. I feel she needs a lot more introspection here.

But, despite its few shortcomings, this story handles the concept of a mute character extremely well. And thankfully, it manages to do all of this while sparing us of having to read a character making a shitty “women should be silent” joke. I don’t know, sometimes an idea is so groan-worthy that having it in the story at all, even when it’s framed as bad, would just be a bad move.

I’ve already touched upon this, but Johanna does not give her voice back at the end of the story. Reading the story, you pretty much expect that, but even if it’s predictable, it’s still a very good ending, and the best choice this story could’ve gone with.

It mirrors how disabilities work in real life. Once someone gets a disability, they have it for the rest of their life. In this regard, Johanna not getting her voice back is the more respectful ending. Also, considering how exactly wishing stones work in this story, it would’ve been very cheap for Johanna to have gotten her voice back.

The stone made me a better person. My family always loved me...I just didn’t love them back, and I ignored their emotions. People had offered me love and friendship in the past, but I had shut them down. I had been too caught up in my own life to even care. Now, I was more observant about everything, and more caring toward everyone. It wasn’t an easy path, and it certainly wasn’t over. However, at the end of the day, I was glad I fell through that locker-room wall and landed beside a wishing stone.

It’s a very strong ending, even if I’m becoming more critical of endings where the character just lists all the ways they’ve changed. I can’t help but wonder though what Johanna’s perspective of this would be as she gets older.

Okay, now I promise I’m done talking about the mutism. And as I’m writing this, I realize I may not even be halfway done.

Oh boy.

Let’s finally start talking about the rest of the story, starting from the beginning. Now, so far in this series, I’ve had some criticisms with how some of these stories start. “For a Girl” and especially “Fangs” have problems with how they start. “For a Girl” starts the transformation a little too early and “Fangs” is, well, its own can of worms entirely. “Of Heroes And Villains” is the only story so far that has had a really strong beginning.

“Hush” is going to be added to that list, because this story has a very strong beginning. The first two chapters do a fantastic job setting up exactly the kind of person Joseph is. We know how he interacts and deals with other people, how he gets along with his family, and his views on others, all before his transformation. His narration here is extremely effective at communicating who he is, and unlike a certain other story I’ve reviewed, character motivations and personalities are shown and demonstrated to the reader rather than just being told to them.

Take for instance, the first two paragraphs of the story.

“For fuck’s sake, Shadow. Revive me!” I slammed my gaming mouse down onto my mousepad in frustration as our team lost Objective Apples. The poor mouse had taken abuse over the years, but it still got the job done. Shaking my head, I ran a hand through my unkempt black hair. I didn’t always get so angry with games, but we’d been playing for several hours and were on a serious losing streak.

“Shut up, dude. They were firing mortars above your body. You always do this, man.” Shadow’s peeved voice traveled 1,500 miles in an instant, arriving through my headset.

What kind of psychopath plays a shooter with a keyboard and mouse? Anyway, immediately, we see that Joseph has some anger issues, is quick to point fingers at other people when things go wrong, and brings down other people’s moods.

I’ve mentioned this a lot already, but Joseph really thinks lowly of other people, which is very apparent from the way he describes them. 

In Chapter 2, he immediately jumps to calling some random jock an idiot who will never have to try to accomplish anything in their life, simply because they asked the teacher a question.

“Why?” The jock asked once more. I felt tempted to shout out the answer, but I did my best to exhibit a bit of self-control. God damn, he was so stupid but it wouldn’t even matter for him. He was so good-looking and fit, with that tight hockey jacket, he’d just get to coast through life without ever producing an original thought.

By the way, Chapter 2 has been altered quite significantly from its original release. The way Joseph describes the jock here makes it clear he might have some repressed attraction to him, which wasn’t the case for the original version. This mainly relates to another change in the story but I don’t want to get ahead of myself.

Joseph is also a pretty big hypocrite. He holds other people to standards he can’t even meet himself.

Taking a glance around the room, it didn’t take a genius to realize that none of these braindead imbeciles actually read it. I didn’t read it entirely, but at least I skimmed it a bit.

Going back to Chapter 1, it features Joseph and his family going to his grandmother’s house for a “Sunday dinner”, which is a weekly tradition for his extended family. Here, we get to see that Joseph is an outcast among his family, as he doesn’t like them, and they don’t like him back.

Something that strikes me as a bit odd is that the only real conversation that we get to read between Joseph and his extended family is one between himself and his uncle. The reason I find it odd is because it plays out like this.

“So Joey, you got yourself a girlfriend yet?” Uncle Steve asked me with a gaping smile, despite the fact that he was missing 3 or 4 teeth thanks to his failed hockey career. Almost every family dinner - after a certain number of beers - he would remind all of us: ‘If that shot hadn’t hit the post, I would’ve landed a contract. No doubt in my mind. No doubt.’

Uncle Steve already knew the answer to the question he’d asked me. It was the same question he asked last week and the week before…almost every week, in fact. The asshole. No, I didn’t have a fucking girlfriend, and I had no intention of getting one.

“You got a new wife yet?” I shot back without glancing up from my phone, my voice dripping with venom. His wife had left him a couple years before. I didn’t know the whole story, but their kid Jake still came to family dinner every other week.

Steve snorted disapprovingly before turning away. “I don’t even know why I try to talk to you,” he muttered under his breath. Well, I didn’t know why I tried to talk to him, either, so that made two of us.

It feels like the intention here is that Joseph is at least a little in the wrong for shutting people down rudely. But honestly, his response here is pretty justified. I know that, as a teenager, it’s extremely annoying and unfortunately common for extended relatives to constantly ask you if you have a boyfriend or girlfriend. And Joseph describes that his uncle has asked him this question basically every week. It’s completely understandable that Joseph would just tell him to fuck off. I find it strange that this is the only conversation between Joseph and one of his extended family members that we read in real time.

That’s really the only problem with this opening though. It gets everything right otherwise. Even the foreshadowing is done well. 

In Chapter 1, Joseph’s grandmother is said to have two dogs. He says the dogs used to be very loud with their barks, to the point where the grandmother’s neighbors got in conflict with her. She was forced to remove their voice boxes, and Joseph sees this as a good thing because they’re not annoying him anymore.

The dogs were sad, helpless things as well. They used to bark constantly, day and night, until all of Grandma’s neighbors complained. Some of them even threatened to get the police involved, so Grandma decided to go ahead and have the dogs’ voice boxes removed. These days, the only barking sound they could make was a pathetic, barely-audible ‘yip’. After having to put up with their annoying barks for a number of years, I found their voice box removal to be a godsend. Family dinners became so much more bearable when all their could do was ‘yip’.

It’s not in your face or obnoxious. It’s just a subtle nod to what will happen to him later on.

There’s a nice connection made with the dogs throughout the story, and Johanna begins to feel differently about them. She later feels sympathy toward them, and has a deeper understanding of their struggles.

I used to hate those pesky, furry shits. Not anymore, though. Like them, my voice had been taken away against my will...I suppose I sympathized with them now. Sure, they yipped and barked too much back in the day, but I had abused my vocal ability just as much as them. I’d been a massive jerk to people, and never listened to their words. I had never realized that people actually loved me. That my family actually cared about me.

The first half of Chapter 2 gives the reader a run down on how wishing stones work in-universe through the characters learning about them in a class lecture. I have to say, it’s pretty neat that in this world, wishing stones are such a normal, accepted thing that teenagers are actually bored by being taught about them in school. Magic stones that can grant almost any wish ever are mundane enough to not be an interesting topic. 

The wishing stones in general are implemented very well here. They’re comparable to GB in “For a Girl”, in that they’re not really a big part of the story aside from being the initiator of the transformation, but they’re also not brushed aside like they’re meaningless. Like GB, wishing stones are integrated into the world here, and the effects and ramifications of this are examined.

No one in this world knows who or what created the stones. It’s a mystery, and I like that.

To know why, we’d have to know the origin of the stones. Some theologians say that a God crafted them long ago and we’ve found all of the easy pickings, others say that a God continues to craft them and releases them periodically. Some people claim that deities have nothing to do with this, and that the stones were created by some sort of cosmic anomaly which we cannot yet explain. In the end, we may never know. 

Wishing stones grant their user three wishes. They can grant their user almost anything, though they do come with limitations. Wishing stones can change reality, but not too significantly or deeply. A wish that would change the memories of too many people or impact the lives of too many people will be rendered invalid, and not be granted.

The sheer power of wishing stones has caused a number of people to dedicate their entire lives to finding one.

I always used to pity the hunters, the people who spent their whole lives scouring the world for wishing stones. The people who ended up as skeletons inside of locker room walls, or died while sleuthing through caves. They were often disheveled and easily mistaken for homeless people, but maybe they were the smart ones. Perhaps wishing stones were so brutally powerful that it was worthwhile to spend an entire lifetime searching for one.

I like this detail. If wishing stones were real, there probably would be a lot of people who do this.

As stated, wishing stones can change reality, even if there are limitations to this. An aspect about this story I really like is how there are a few details showing how history has changed. The story explains that wishing stones have existed since at least Ancient Greece, and people have been making wishes with them for centuries. These wishes have caused a sort of snowball effect that creates changes in history in the long run.

Mr. Bradley’s voice followed the bell with fervor, capturing everyone’s attention and momentarily pausing my eraser’s journey: “Okay, class! Today we’re going to be discussing the Moon and - principally - its rocks and geological formations. As you all know, the first person to set foot on the Moon was Britain’s Benjamin Aster in 1966…”

There are other examples of this too. For instance, Norway being the most powerful country on Earth in the 21st century instead of the U.S. 

Norway was, of course, the strongest country on Earth. Every big technology company seemed to come from the Scandinavian country, and their GDP dwarfed that of every other country. Norwegian pop stars seemed to headline almost every major global event, and losers like Tina wore t-shirts that sported Norway’s flag.

Details like this help make this world feel truly different. It’s not just magic wishing stones existing, the history and dynamics of the world have been impacted by them. It’s fantastic worldbuilding.

The story even makes it a point that with wishing stones, there is no way to tell which historical events, and which people’s careers and fame, were caused or aided by a wishing stone.

The whole situation made me wonder: how many billionaires had only gotten to their level because they used a wishing stone? How many athletes? How many countries, even? Had the King of Saudi Arabia wished for oil? There were also a handful of international laws banning the malevolent use of wishing stones, but how were those justly enforced? If a wish was sufficiently well-designed, subtle, or altered enough memories, it would be impossible to know. Either nobody would ever find out, or nobody would be able to enact justice. 

An important part of wishing stones is that they can not undo wishes with other wishing stones. Instead, one needs an even rarer stone called a loras stone, which can undo only one wish. The wish must be stated in its negative, and it needs to be fairly precise to work.

Now, I understand why this system was chosen, but it’s also really weird. A loras stone can only undo one wish from a wishing stone, however it’s very unlikely that loras stones would ever even be useful, as I imagine someone would only wish things that would directly benefit themselves. The only times a loras stone would actually be useful would be when your wish turns out to be really bad or when someone wishes to harm you. These situations are probably not very common, so loras stones are essentially worthless to most people who have encountered wishing stones, which is already a pretty low number of people. They’re in a weird position where they are extremely rare, but also mostly worthless.

Wishing stones could’ve just been used as a simple transformation macguffin, and I like that they’re not. They’re integrated into the world naturally and believably. The world of this story is just like our world, except magical wishing stones exist. And in spite of that, they never feel out of place, they fit in perfectly. They feel like they’re part of this world, instead of being awkwardly tacked on.

As I mentioned, Joseph’s transformation occurs when he gets into a locker room fight, which is shown in the second half of Chapter 2. He goes into the boy’s locker room and is confronted by a former victim of his bullying, Jarvis.

Jarvis is an interesting character, and one who has gone through some significant changes since the first version of this story. In this chapter, he mocks Joseph, then Joseph tells him to fuck off, and the fight begins. 

The fight soon gets to the point where Joseph is backed up against a wall and is tackled through it, breaking the wall and throwing both of them into a secret room. The room holds a human skeleton as well as a wishing stone. Jarvis takes the stone, not fully realizing what it is. Joseph tries to take it away from him, and in turn, Jarvis mindlessly wishes for Joseph to be a girl. He then wishes for him to “shut up”, and after that, wishes for his family to have “always owned this town”, changing reality so that Jarvis’s family literally owns the entire city Joseph lives in. Jarvis’s family in this reality had always owned the city, and everyone has memories of this being the case, except for Joseph.

And thus, the main plot of the story is set in motion.

As I’ve mentioned before, Jarvis is a character that’s gone through numerous changes. Both in-universe and out of universe.

He’s described as a huge, menacing, imitating figure who is immensely strong and has a ton of muscle mass. And he’s not a gentle giant, he’s very aggressive. He even got kicked off the football team for starting fights in the locker room.

You really feel Joseph’s fear when Jarvis is trying to fight him. He knows he doesn’t stand a chance and his only option is to get away as soon as possible.

I gulped. I usually tried to act tough around Jarvis, but the truth was that I was scared shitless of him. I was tall, but he was taller, and built like a truck. As stupid as Jarvis Duncan was, a fight with him would still leave me broken and bloody. A close-quarters fight would be a death sentence.

But, as mentioned before, Jarvis is a former victim of Joseph’s bullying. Before the start of high school, Jarvis was quite different. He was one of the smallest kids in Joseph’s class, and Joseph often bullied him because of it.

Jarvis hadn’t always been such a lumbering ogre, though. He’d been one of the smallest kids in the class, back when we were both in Junior High. I’d tease him about his ballerina physique whenever I could, but it was all in good fun, and it never got physical. Just some old-fashioned entertainment, and he would even chirp back at me every now and then with dim insults. He never used to talk much, though. Whenever he did, I’d just give him shit for his squeaky voice, and that would shut him up.

However, in the summer between eighth and ninth grade, Jarvis hit a huge growth spurt and packed on a ton of muscle. The story never explicitly reveals how such an insane change happened, but Joseph speculates it was due to steroid use, a speculation supported by just how angry and aggressive Jarvis has become toward other people.

Once he dwarfed me in size, he never let me forget it. He shoved me around whenever possible, and constantly called me an ‘annoying pussy’, as if those were the only two words in his lexicon. They likely were.

However, I wasn’t the only target for his roid rage. He’d gotten himself kicked off the football team at the end of last year, for starting fights in the locker room. Kicked off a football team...I couldn’t even fathom how he managed that. Football players were supposed to fight, weren’t they? He probably got kicked for being too stupid to play football...if such a thing was even possible.

While I was re-reading this story for the review, I actually came to a different theory; Jarvis’s transformation was due to a wishing stone. For one, it would make thematic sense. Jarvis’s life was changed due to a wishing stone altering his body, and then the same happened to Joseph. Through wishing stones, the roles of Joseph and Jarvis had completely flipped. Joseph went from being the stronger aggressor to the weaker victim. And Jarvis went from being the weaker victim to the stronger aggressor.

But also, it just seems to be the best explanation for how someone’s body can change so drastically in such a short amount of time. I don’t know exactly how steroids work, but I don’t think they could do near what happened to Jarvis.

Of course, this theory doesn’t make much sense when you consider how Jarvis doesn’t even seem to recognize he’s holding a wishing stone when he gets one. But then again, the theory could still work, so long as it wasn’t Jarvis himself that made the wish, but rather, his parents.

That’s my final theory, one of Jarvis’s parents found a wishing stone and wished for their son to be stronger. It just makes sense. 

Okay, now I’m basically writing “Hush” fanfiction, so I better get back on track.

This whole idea of Joseph having bullied Jarvis before the events of the story is perhaps the biggest change made to the plot since the original version. In the original, Jarvis was just some guy at the school, with pretty much no prior connection to Johanna before the wishing stone incident. 

Considering how vindictive Jarvis is toward Johanna as the story goes on, even going so far as to physically harm her, the original setup of the story felt forced. Jarvis never seemed like the kind of person to hold any kind of grudge, much less on some random person he has almost no connection with. In fact, Jarvis is described as being very dumb throughout the story, with a low attention span. It doesn't make sense for him to have cared at all about Johanna after the incident.

It is possible he got mad because he realized he wasted two of his three wishes just fucking with some random kid, but that was never brought up. It was just, Jarvis kept going out of his way to harass and attack Johanna, even though there was nothing in it for him and he had no reason or motivation to do so. It was really forced.

This change definitely helps to add more depth to the story. With Joseph having bullied Jarvis in junior high, Jarvis actually has a reason to go out of his way to torment Johanna. It makes the events of the story make more sense and feel more connected to each other, rather than just a bunch of random occurrences.

It also aids Johanna’s character arc. In the original version, Joseph was still definitely a pretty shitty and unlikable character in the beginning, but he hadn’t really hurt anyone or done anything too bad aside from just being rude to people. In this new version, we see that Joseph is a bully, and not just that, but even at 15, he sees nothing wrong with being a bully, and denies what he did was bullying at all. It adds a whole new layer to the “making amends” part of the story, and I really like it. In a story about redemption, it’s better to have a character have to make up for the harm they caused other people.

This change was one hundred percent for the better, and it fits so well within the story that it makes thinking about the original version very weird.

Something about the whole locker room fight leading up to Johanna’s transformation is that Joseph, in a way, indirectly caused his own transformation. As stated in a later chapter, if Joseph had just kept his mouth shut in the boy’s locker room that day and not provoked Jarvis, the whole story wouldn’t have happened.

This was all my fault. If I hadn’t tried to fight Jarvis a couple weeks ago, and if I hadn’t been a loud-mouth, he wouldn’t have pushed me through that wall. He wouldn’t have found that stone. If he hadn’t found that stone, my life wouldn’t be in danger...nor would Clark’s.

Jarvis is not the only person that Joseph bullied as a junior high scholar. He also had a habit of picking on a girl named Tina, Jarvis’s girlfriend.

Her name was Tina, and - like Jarvis - she’d gone to Junior High with me. She’d had one of those terrible ‘braces with headgear’ setups, which made all of her words come out in a slurring lisp. She’d been fun to mess with, and I made a funny image by juxtaposing her school picture with the definition of ‘nerd’, taken from the dictionary. The other students loved that. However, things had changed a lot, since then. Tina’s teeth no longer required headgear, and she’d grown into her big ears. She’d become one of the relatively popular girls, and led a small clique. Gah...how had people like her risen so high, while I lost so many old friends?

Just like Jarvis, Tina holds quite a bit of animosity toward Johanna for her actions toward her, and wants to take revenge.

“Look girls, we’ve found a whiny little bitch. Does those words sound familiar? Whiny. Little. Bitch?” They did sound familiar. That was my nickname for Tina, after she ratted on me back in Junior High for making fun of her headgear.

It should go without saying that this is a change from the original as well.

Throughout the story, Jarvis and Tina constantly torment Johanna. And, like I’ve mentioned, it often veers into physical territory. Tina pins her to a locker, both Jarvis and Tina get their team to pelt her with dodgeballs, and later on, they pin her to the ground, punch her stomach, and forcefully cut her hair. 

“Looks like you’re due for a makeover,” she laughed.

Snip, snip, snip. Tina worked the scissors, slicing and dicing through my hair like a scythe. Tears curved down my face. Every second or two, another lock of my raven hair drifted down into a growing pile, framing my head like a halo. I closed my eyes and continued whimpering. Why was she doing this to me? Why me? Why me?

At one point, Jarvis tracks down and tackles Johanna outside in the snow, specifically as revenge for cornering him for lunch money in junior high.

“Remember when you told me that I’d lost my lunch money privileges?” he snarled. “Well, you just lost your coat privileges. Who’s the retard now?”

I parted my lips, and only small clouds of breath escaped. The incident, though it had occurred over three years prior, flashed before my eyes. Pre-pubescent Jarvis had been backed into the corner of the bathroom, his back against the tiles. He cowered in fear as I stood over him. He was too dim to outsmart me, and too small to fight back, but that hadn’t stopped me. I’d been too bitter to consider the mark that my intimidation would have on his life, too foolish to see the mark that a profoundly unclever insult would have on him, and too self-absorbed to understand the pain I caused, the fear I wrought.

I understood it, now, though. I knew that fear all too well, as the mammoth boy towered above me, his lips curled into a vengeful grin. This was true powerlessness.

In the original version, Jarvis simply attacked Johanna here because he felt like it. This is definitely a change for the better. We see the dynamics between them flipped so incredibly. And it is very devastating for Johanna, who used her strength in the past to intimidate and scare Jarvis. She is now almost entirely at his mercy.

I’m sorry, I mouthed, but Jarvis didn’t even seem to notice that I’d been forming words. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I’m sorry!

Though my words were desperate, they weren’t false. I wasn’t sure how I’d missed it beforehand, but this apology was long overdue. The apology should have come days ago, when Jarvis confronted me in the locker room. Years ago, even. I had bullied him. I’d never admitted it to myself in such plain words, before. I’d bullied him. I was a shitty, selfish brat, and I’d siphoned pleasure from his pain.

I’m sorry I repeated, still hyperventilating.

It suddenly clicks with Johanna that she bullied Jarvis. She went out of her way to harm and hurt him, and now, in a twisted change of fate, she is getting her comeuppance.

Realizing one’s past misdoings is again, a very important part of redemption.

Now obviously, tackling someone in the freezing cold and forcing them out of their jacket is never a justified attack, and is going WAY overboard for revenge for bullying, but the general point still stands.

And yeah, Jarvis forces her out of her jacket and makes her walk back to her house without it. In turn, she almost dies of hypothermia, and realizes her problem with Jarvis is getting really dire.

Mom, Dad, and I sat in silence around the fireplace, and I stared emptily into its flames. Empty. That was exactly how I felt. How far was Jarvis willing to go, to get his vengeance? Would he keep ruining me, until my life was totally destroyed? Would he kill me?

She decides to buy a camera to hopefully capture video footage of Jarvis acting violent toward her. And also, she decides she needs to apologize.

I had to at least attempt to resolve things between me and Jarvis. It couldn’t hurt, could it? Plus, talking to him could help with the sinking sensation that vexed me whenever I tried to recall...Junior High.

When she does apologize, Jarvis and Tina don’t take it very well. They find it funny, and basically just laugh her off.

I tried to flag down Jarvis after entering the gym. However, I wasn’t quick enough. When I spotted him, Tina was already reading him the letter that I’d written for her, and they were both stifling laughter. I balled my hands into fists and fought back tears. The two letters were quite similar, and Jarvis would undoubtedly have the same reaction to my personalized letter for him. I clenched my teeth so hard that my jaw hurt, then went to the nearest trash can and ripped Jarvis’s letter into shreds.

What I like about Jarvis and Tina’s rejection is that it shows how people are not obligated to forgive you if you treated them like trash. And part of growing and changing as a person is accepting that.

As stated before, Jarvis’s third wish granted his family control over the entire city of St. Paul, a very interesting and well executed plotline. For one thing, it works to make Johanna feel more alone and isolated. She’s not just in an unfamiliar body with an unfamiliar disability, she’s in an unfamiliar reality. Everything she had known about the people and world around her has been turned upside down.

Throughout the story there are a few demonstrations of Jarvis’s control over St. Paul, such as his family’s name being plastered all over signs and St. Paul’s wikipedia page, but the biggest demonstration of his power is how he and Tina are able to get away with basically anything. No one can give them any kind of punishment for their actions for fear of losing their job or having their life destroyed. 

Essentially, Johanna is literally living in a corrupt fascist dystopia. She can’t call the police on Jarvis, as they wouldn’t arrest him. The law enforcement serves to protect his family’s interests and influence. It gives you a lot to- okay no, the “Lefty” part of “LeftyPosting” is not going to be annoying this time.

This influence is finally put to an end when Johanna finds out a spoon given to her by her late grandmother is an active Loras Stone. She can only undo one of Jarvis’s wishes, and so she gives up the chance to get her voice back in order to stop Jarvis.

“I wish that Jarvis Duncan’s family did not always own this town.” It was an odd phrase, but I trusted Megan well enough to execute it flawlessly. As it turned out, my trust was well-placed. The words came out swiftly and easily, and I immediately felt their impact. It was hard to describe, as if somewhere in the confines of my mind, a voice announced that the counter-wish had been successful.

Something I like about the reality changing in this story is that canceling a wish changing reality makes people not remember the previous reality. After the counterwish was made, no one remembers Jarvis’s family ever owning the city, aside from Johanna. 

With Johanna having captured footage of Jarvis and Tina attacking her, their past actions start catching up to them, and are finally given a comeuppance as Johanna can finally rest, free of their wrath

At least, not until one last encounter.

Chapter 22 seems to be a bit controversial, at least according to the on-site reviews of “Hush”. In this chapter, Jarvis and Tina track down Johanna at her house with baseball bats and try to kill her and her father. At one point, Tina actually comes very close to killing Johanna.

Suddenly, all of the recent events came rushing back to me. It was Tina. She was kneeling on top of my lungs, strangling me to death with her hands. How long had I been unconscious? It couldn’t have been more than a matter of seconds, but it had seemed like forever. One thing was certain: if I didn’t act soon, I’d be dead. I brought my small fingers to my neck, desperately trying to claw her hands from my throat. I needed to breathe. I needed air...more than anything else on Earth. I could feel myself slipping away. I scratched at her wrists, hoping that I dug deep enough to cut an artery.

Yeah, the chapter’s pretty extreme. I’ve seen quite a few reviews say this chapter was forced or out of place, but as for me, I’m mostly fine with it. Considering how Jarvis’s and Tina’s behavior had been shown to escalate throughout the story, I find it completely believable that by the end, when their power and influence had been abruptly stripped away, that they would legitimately try to kill Johanna. Also, as Clarity herself has stated, it would feel a bit anticlimactic if Jarvis and Tina had just taken their loss of influence without any retaliation. It’s already been shown that they do not go down without a fight, so if they didn’t do anything after the Loras Stone, it just wouldn’t feel right, especially with all the build up from the previous chapters.

I will admit the framing of the fight is a bit off. After all, how do Jarvis and Tina even know where Johanna lives? I suppose Jarvis’s family having control of the whole city would give him the addresses of everyone living there, but if that’s the case it should’ve been established in some way beforehand. 

Perhaps it would’ve been better if after a cheerleading practice, Jarvis and Tina kidnapped Johanna and tried to kill her outside in the snow. Of course, at that point it’d be an entirely different chapter so I’d hesitate to say it’d be better. 

Overall, just looking at how things were handled within the story, it’s good. And Johanna’s father being there does give him more development and depth, so maybe this was the best way to handle things. 

I knew that I often underestimated the intelligence of others. It was a weakness of mine. Even earlier today, I’d underestimated both Tina and Jarvis. I didn’t believe that they were capable of creating a plan and setting off a deceptive fire, to draw the police presence away from my house. Despite what I often told myself, Jarvis and Tina weren’t complete idiots. Both of them were capable of deep thought. They could change. Would they, though?

If they both survived, it was possible.

The chapter ends with Johanna being taken to the hospital to recover from her attack, with Jarvis and Tina being officially arrested. In the epilogue, both of them are revealed to be in Youth Detention Centers indefinitely. And while Johanna needs therapy to help with her trauma related to them, she does hold out hope they can be redeemed.

Jarvis and Tina in this version are handled pretty well, all things considered, and much better than in the original version of the story. However, their status as former victims of Johanna’s bullying does have an unfortunate effect. The only two victims of Johanna’s bullying are attempted murderers, which will make them beyond redemption to a lot of readers. This sort of negates and lessens the harm caused by Johanna’s past actions. Admittedly, the only way to really solve this is to add another character who Johanna used to bully. Someone who just holds animosity toward her and doesn’t try to assault or kill her. Of course, this would take a lot of time and might also make the story feel too cluttered. It’s tough to say if the addition would be worth it.

One last thing I have to mention about Chapter 22 is how Johanna gets hit in the head with a baseball bat and only comes away with a mild concussion. She must have a head of steel or something. In fact, she sustains a lot of head injuries in this story. Her head gets shoved into a locker by him, she gets tackled head first onto the hard ground by Jarvis, and again, gets hit by a baseball bat by Tina. And yet she doesn’t seem to sustain many injuries from any of this. I’m not complaining here, by the way, I just thought it was funny.

Moving on, one strong theme consistent throughout this story is the idea of family. As I’ve already said (probably too many times), Johanna learns to become closer with her family members after shutting them out for so long.

I think to some extent, it makes sense why she’d hold animosity toward her family members at first. Her older sister Megan is the clear favorite child of their parents, and she seems better than Johanna at just about everything. Her father is borderline neglectful of her and barely seems to care about her.

When it comes to Megan, repairing relations with her is a gradual process, but it’s able to happen. It’s not just Johanna who learns to appreciate the people in her life, but Megan who learns to let go of some of her ego and respect her. They form a sisterly bond that’s nice to see.

Johanna’s father is an interesting case, because in the first few chapters of the story, his presence seems like an afterthought. Looking at the reviews of “Hush” as it was first coming out, some criticized the story for Johanna’s father being a blank slate. In response, Clarity addressed these criticisms and was able to use the father’s light presence in the beginning to her advantage. 

As said, Johanna’s father is borderline neglectful, barely giving her the time of day or showing that he cares. A conversation in Chapter 9 addresses this and has her father say he’s going to make an effort to be in her life more. 

He even tells her the story of how he met her mother. 

“Alright, alright. I’ll tell you. When your Mom and I met, she was the quietest person I’d ever met. She was so nervous all the time, she just didn’t trust herself to talk. For our first date…” Dad began, before taking note of my doubtful expression. “Seriously! I’m not kidding!”

Mom? I mouthed, at which Dad nodded fervently. Wow. Mom was the most confident woman I’d ever known. She was bold and talkative, the life of every party. If someone pissed her off, she’d let them know all about it. I’d heard her badger countless vendors over the phone about unfulfilled orders for her small ecommerce business. Plus, she sure never had any reservations about yelling at me…

“Seriously,” he repeated, before continuing his story. “For our first date, she was too nervous to tell her parents about it beforehand. When I came to the front door, her dad was standing there with a shotgun aimed at my head. Told me I had ten seconds to tell him why I was there or he’d shoot.”

Johanna’s mother wasn’t always the confident woman she knows her as. She was once very quiet and reserved. And it was through pushing herself and getting herself out there that she overcame it.

I looked up at him with confusion, and scrawled some words down onto my whiteboard. How did Mom get over her nervousness?

“Well,” he said, giving me a comforting grin. “People change over time. She wanted to conquer her fears and become a stronger person, so she did. It didn’t happen overnight, but she made it work. I think one of the things that helped her was keeping a journal. Not a normal journal, though...she’d just write down one thing that she could have done better that day. Usually, it was only a few words. Stuff like: “Ask the cashier how his day was,” and that sort of thing. She kept it to herself at first, and I think that she was embarrassed about it. One day, I caught her writing and she showed me what she was doing.” His face lit up with a bright smile, his mind recalling the overwhelming love he felt for Mom. “I think she still keeps the journal, too. I found it by the bedstand the other night.” He gave me a reassuring pat on the head. “I bet half the entries in there are about you, to be honest.”

Taking notes for herself on what she should do to better herself is a tactic she utilizes later on.

She forms a real bond with her father that wasn’t there before, and he shows that he cares for her. The father ends up having a strong role in the story, and I applaud Clarity for what she did to his character here.

Johanna’s mother plays the role of the supportive mother, and she’s the first family member who Johanna really becomes close to after her transformation. When Johanna sees firsthand just how much she’s doing to help her, she becomes surprisingly touched. She never realized her mother cared about her so much.

Mom really was going out of her way to help me get through this. I guess I never really realized how lucky I was to have a Mom like her. Despite my condition, she was trying not to treat me like a freak or an invalid. She didn’t seem to be angry with me or ashamed of me...she loved me.

She also, as stated earlier, starts cooking with her mother, which is an aspect of the plot I really like. For one thing, it’s another way for her to bond with people, in this case specifically with the bond of a mother and daughter. But also, she finds that she actually likes cooking. She tries something out she never did before, and she finds she likes it. It’s not a big thing, but I like it.

Johanna’s grandfather is someone who was very close to her as a kid, and she spent a lot of time with him before his death. His death is one of the big things that caused her to spiral into the state she’s in as a teenager. 

I really loved my Grandfather, probably more than anyone else on this planet. He was a brilliant guy, a theoretical physicist, and he taught me amazing things. He’d take me ice fishing every winter, explaining string theory with creative metaphors and telling me all kinds of whacky stories about his life. My Dad always insisted that the stories were made-up, but some of them seemed like they had kernels of truth. Unfortunately, Grandpa got burnt by the sun too often when he was young. I still remember the anguish in my Mom’s face when she told us that the cancer had spread to his blood. I didn’t really understand what that meant at the time, but I knew it wasn’t good. Sure enough, he died a few weeks after that and I retreated into my room for the next four years.

Even if the grandfather never appears in the story, his presence is certainly felt, and you get the impression that this bond shared between them was a real bond.

Johanna points out certain things they used to do together. For instance, they often ice fished with each other, and the grandfather would even give specific life lessons to Johanna, including advice that I myself found helpful.

Most people wanted to help me? Why had he told me that? Was that supposed to make me feel better about everything? Was he trying to restore my faith in humanity? My grandfather had once told me something similar, back when we were sitting over a fishing hole in a cozy ice shack. ‘Most folks are on your side’, he’d told me. How could that possibly be true, though, when there were assholes like Jarvis in the world?

Sadly, as I grow older, I’m not sure that’s so true anymore. However, I can understand the sentiment, and it can definitely help someone in Johanna’s position.

‘Winter is for learning,’ my grandfather had often told me while we sat in the safety of my grandparents’ house, watching the winter storms pass. His rationale was that there weren’t many other productive activities to do in winter, other than staying inside and exploring the world from behind window-glass. Would he be proud of me if he could see me now? I suppose he would...I was learning all sorts of new facts, tasks, and skills, all at a lightning pace.

This touches on the same idea of learning new things and skills, which is something one should be proud of.

Johanna’s grandmother is, at the beginning of the story, an old woman who doesn’t have much to do with her time other than hold family dinners. The death of her husband, the grandfather, was particularly hard on her and it’s made very clear she is sick, not in a good shape. She also has had trouble remembering certain things, made evident by how Johanna says she didn’t remember to pick her up from a summer camp a few years before the story’s events. She’s struggling, but she doesn’t want to show it to the rest of her family, lest she feel guilty for bothering them.

I don’t have any first-hand experience, but I have a feeling a lot of people can become like this at an old age. 

Johanna never thinks much of her at the beginning, but when she comes to her house the week after her transformation, she learns to appreciate what she does a lot more, and love her more as a person. 

Johanna’s grandmother, when she sees her for the first time, does not seem to recognize her as being the same person as Joseph, and instead views her as an entirely new person.

She adjusted her glasses as she studied my face. “Megan?” She asked in puzzlement, before turning around and confirming that she’d just greeted my sister. I guess I couldn’t blame her. Megan and I looked similar with our long black hair and blue eyes, although she was both older and taller. “You’re not Megan,” she let out yet another concerning cough. “Who may you be, young lady?”

“That’s Johanna. She’s my new sister.” Megan answered for me with a reassuring grin. “She doesn’t talk.”

“Is that right?” Grandma’s face lit up with joy. “Another granddaughter? Wonderful!”

To my surprise, she pulled me in and gave me a kiss of the cheek. Did she not care that I wasn’t Joseph anymore? Did she fail to realize that I was the same person as Joseph had been? Either way, she didn’t even seem to care. She simply accepted that I was Johanna...her new granddaughter who didn’t talk. It almost made me cry, on the spot.

How exactly Johanna is seen by her grandmother is kept vague, which is something I like.

Johanna helps her grandmother make a dessert, and she bonds with her grandmother as she does so. This act of helping and making connections with people, something she never would’ve done before, ends up really helping her in the long run.

Johanna’s grandmother dies in the second half of the story, and during her funeral Johanna is given her wedding dress as well as her old prized spoon. The one the grandmother had kept for so long, refusing to throw away. The one Johanna helped her grandmother make dessert with.

My dear Granddaughter,

This is a spoon. I’m leaving it to you because of the way that your smile lights up the kitchen. Thank you very much for helping with the dessert. You remind me of the sunshine, which is just delightful. I could use some more sunshine, the weather has been awfully cold these days. I always used to tell your Grandfather that we should move South, but every time I did, he convinced me to stay. Anyways, back to the spoon. That spoon is one of my earliest childhood memories. My parents took it with them on their way out of Lithuania after the Soviets came into power. I still remember how they made me hide it inside of my teddy bear when we took the boat toward Sweden. They were afraid that the regime would catch us and seize the spoon. How silly. They treated it like it was gold, so I did the same. I hung onto that spoon for the next...I don’t know how many years. A long time, that’s for certain. Since Eisenhower was President, at least.

With love,

Claudia

A small rock in the spoon turns out to be a loras stone, the exact thing needed to reverse Jarvis’s wish. Helping her grandmother may have inadvertently saved Johanna’s life.

The theming and emphasis of family in this story is incredible, and I don’t think there’s a single story on TGST that has captured the feeling of family better than this one. Clarity did a wonderful job here.

The Larsen family in this story is very traditional, and when it comes to cooking, they see it primarily as the woman’s job. All of their Sunday dinners see the men lounge around and do nothing while the women do all the cooking and dishes. In this sense, Johanna being forced to do this could be seen as a form of karma, as, when she was Joseph, she gloated when Megan was forced to do it in the first chapter.

Yeah, it’s sexist and bad. And this story never tries to say it isn’t.

My family was pretty old school, and I had a feeling that I’d be expected to help cook for family dinner now that I was a girl. It was stupid and infuriating, but I’d found that sometimes it’s better to just go with the flow. If I knew more about cooking, it would definitely make things easier on Sunday nights.

At first I thought this was an example of the kind of “well meaning sexism” that TG stories often have a habit of doing. However, I later realized that wasn’t a fair assessment. There are plenty of families out there with extremely traditional and sexist values. There are a lot of families out there that operate like this. It’s just not reasonable to expect a teenager, much less one who isn’t able to talk, to fix the problem on their own. It’s never said to be good, and it’s not a major plot point. Johanna is able to successfully make the best of this pretty bad situation, and gain approval from her family, albeit within a flawed system. Overall, I’d say this was handled well.

Still, I would've liked to see Johanna’s asshole uncle be forced to cook.

The first half of this story is, by and large, the awkward adjustment period for Johanna. People stare at her, she’s not really treated well, she needs to use a new locker room and people don’t really come to her to praise her for being brave or anything like that. I feel like a lot of high school TG stories sort of brush this idea of an adjustment period off and I really like that “Hush” doesn’t. It really captures just how awkward and uncomfortable this whole situation is for her, in a very real way. Navigating a familiar location in an unfamiliar form under unfamiliar circumstances was done very well. This is a high school TG story that captures what high school actually feels like very well, and I applaud Clarity for it.

The two chapters where Johanna comes back to school the day after her transformation are particularly brutal for her. In her history class, the first class of the day, she’s called upon to read something by her teacher, who temporarily forgets about her disability.

“Okay, Johanna.” She nodded toward me, pointing at my textbook. “Page 262, bottom of the page.” She said the words impatiently, as if she assumed I hadn’t been paying attention.

My cheeks burned bright red and I looked at her with pleading eyes, but she just didn’t understand. A few students were already starting to crack up laughing as I gestured toward my throat and lips, mouthing the words I can’t. By that point, most of the other students in the class were laughing raucously, like a pack of hyenas. I tried to keep composure, and it took a concerted effort to fight back my tears. First day and I was already some sort of laughing stalk. The freak who used a wishing stone to give himself a vagina and a disability. Excellent.

Everyone laughs at her in response, and even after the teacher realizes her mistake, the damage has already been done.

I think this scene can be seen as a bit of bitter irony. Here, the students are showing Johanna just as much empathy as she showed to other people when she was Joseph, that being none at all. While a bit much, it does let her know what being on the receiving end of that cruelty feels like.

I do have to say though, Johanna’s history teacher is pretty awful, all things considered. From her perspective, these students are just laughing at a disabled girl for not being able to do something because of her disability. To not intervene here is pretty awful.

Also, later on, when randomly assigning roles for people in a mock trial (going to be discussing that later on), she ends up giving Johanna a defense lawyer position. Despite knowing that Johanna is mute, and that a role like this would be extremely difficult for her, she does not reassign Johanna’s role. To never take into consideration a student’s disability is a pretty awful thing to do as a teacher. 

I may not have noticed it as a teenager, but as an adult I can say she’s a really awful teacher.

At the start of Chapter 6, Johanna’s geology teacher gives her the news she had been dreading, but expecting to hear. The wishes done to her are permanent.

He looked grave. “Well that’s unfortunate, if you were planning on changing back.”

I shut my eyes and breathed in through my nose. That was not at all what I wanted to hear, although it was what I expected.

“These aren’t temporary wishes. The first wish, though multifaceted, is acceptably simple and undoubtedly permanent. While the ‘shut up’ wish may seem to indicate temporality, that isn’t so. If you want a temporary wish, you need to be very specific. If this mystery person had said, ‘I wish you would shut up for the rest of the day,’ for instance, you would have been fine.” His eyebrows furrowed and he sent me a look of sympathy. “If you need anything, just let me know. I’m here to help.”

Even being alone can’t escape her from the awfulness of the day. In the cafeteria, while she’s sitting at her signature spot alone from everyone else, people can’t stop staring at her.

As soon as I sat down, I noticed that everyone was staring at me. People were even turning around to look at me, before whispering amongst themselves. Aside from History, I’d gone through most of the day like a ghost. I suppose that the freedom of lunch allowed other students ample opportunity to gossip and stare, and I was possibly the most interesting disaster in the history of Cheran High. The stares only got worse as the cafeteria filled up with students. Usually, people sat relatively close to me, but that was no longer the case. Everyone avoided me like I was a third rail, choosing to peer at me from a distance. 

She can’t take it anymore and soon cries. It’s a horrible adjustment period for her, and it demonstrates how often, success comes after our lowest points.

The second half of the story is when it feels like Johanna is at the top of the world. She has friends, a boyfriend, people like being around her, and she’s even a cheerleader. The best part is that everything here was earned. None of this was simply given to her, she worked for all of it and it took real effort for her to leave her bubble and get herself out there. It’s admirable. Johanna didn’t choose to become a mute girl, but she did choose to become Johanna, the kind of person we should all strive to be. That was all her.

The cheerleading is something I really want to touch upon here because I love how it’s handled. While you could argue she was pushed a little into becoming one by others, it was mostly her decision. And it’s a decision she comes to really love.

Cheerleading is a pretty common trope in high school TG fiction (what better way to demonstrate how the MC has become a girl than having her partake in the most stereotypical “girly” sport), and in general its handling is pretty mixed. Sometimes it feels tacked on like in “For a Girl”, where the MC doesn’t even become a cheerleader, and other times the stories mostly just portray being a cheerleader as solely a status symbol. Something that popular girls partake in just because, neglecting to show the passion and work that gets put into the sport. In fact, Johanna originally saw cheerleaders as vapid and shallow when she was Joseph, and this is another instance where her preconceptions are proven wrong.

“Hush” is probably the best example of cheerleading being implemented into a TG story I’ve seen yet. Because it actually portrays cheerleading as a sport with a team of people who care about each other. Johanna’s teammates and coach aren’t just blank slates or bland archetypes, they feel real.

As we met for our final huddle, many of the other girls shared caring smiles and reassuring pats with me. I’d only been a cheerleader for a couple days, but I already felt like I was part of the team. They didn’t seem to be too bothered by the fact that I didn’t actually contribute on the whole ‘cheering’ front. Perhaps even more importantly, none of them treated me with pity. They encouraged me. They never hesitated to correct me. Expectations for me were high. I had a feeling that Megan had told them to go hard on me, and I was beyond thankful for that. I didn’t want to be treated like a freak or pitied like a charity case. I just wanted others to treat me like a normal person. And that’s exactly what the cheer team did. I loved them for it.

They push each other, they have each other’s backs, and they support one another. They’re a team, and I love reading about how Johanna becomes accepted as a part of them.

There are a few more major characters here I need to mention. For instance, Caroline. She’s introduced in Chapter 2, and in the beginning Johanna writes her off as an “annoying, prissy girl”. Caroline always chooses to sit next to Johanna, no matter how many other seats are open, and she glances her way a lot.

Caroline is the first student to strike up a conversation with Johanna after her transformation, and early on she appears only fascinated with her, as if she’s something to gawk over than a real person.

“It’s just so amazing…” She continued smiling, studying me closely.

I raised an eyebrow, unsure what she was getting at.

“We were learning all about wishing stones in class and reading these old texts and then *bam*! You actually found one. That’s so cool! School is always about theory and abstract nonsense. They try to make it more real with stupid math problems like ‘How many napkins would you need for a party if blah blah blah…’ But you actually lived it. When you found the wishing stone, you touched something real. It must have felt amazing.” Her eyes glossed over in wonder. “What are the chances?”

Understandably, it doesn’t go well with Johanna.

Johanna and Caroline talk a few more times after that though, and later on, they actually become friends. Caroline becomes Johanna’s first real friend, and soon, her best friend. Another preconception of hers is proven wrong as the girl she initially wrote off as annoying and vapid turns out to be a really great person, and someone she’d have a strong connection with.

It’s also revealed in Chapter 12 that Caroline did have a crush on Joseph.

I studied Caroline’s face carefully as she read about my discoveries. Her eyebrows rose and she parted her lips ever-so-slightly, erasing any doubt from my mind: I’d guessed correctly. With my pen, Caroline’s shaky, gloved hand wrote back: I did find you attractive when you were a guy, and I was sad at first when I heard about what happened. I’m straight so I don’t really have feelings like that for you anymore, but now you’re my friend.

Caroline’s twin brother in the story is Clark, a very gifted and talented football player. He is also the love interest of this story (weird to think that Caroline was attracted to Joseph as a guy and Clark was attracted to Johanna as a girl).

Introduced in Chapter 5, Clark is first seen by Johanna as just another “dumb jock”, someone who will peak in high school and then go on to accomplish nothing afterward.

Clark was one of the good-looking football jocks who I often did my best to ignore. He struck me as one of those kids who was going to peak Senior year, and then spend the rest of his life attempting to relive his glory days. I sat in the row behind him and had - in the past - spent a good deal of time zoning out while staring at the back of his wavy blond haired head. For that reason, I felt like I knew him. We’d never talked before, though.

When she gets assigned to work with Clark in the mock trial project, she becomes surprised at Clark’s insightfulness. She underestimated him, very unfairly. He’s a very capable person, and isn’t just a “dumb jock”. In a way, Clark can be seen as the anti-Joseph. He’s compassionate and respectful to other people, and has close connections with the people in his life. It makes Johanna feel a little inadequate about herself. But, like always, she pushes on.

It’s soon apparent that Clark and Johanna both have feelings for each other. And, in a scene I still find kind of funny, Johanna “checks” Clark out and gushes on about how he’s “so much more manly than I ever was”.

Clark continued to speak, but I didn’t pay much attention to his words. Instead, I stared at his strong jawline and his light green eyes. They were very handsome...and he was sitting so close to me. The light hairs on his muscled arm barely brushed against my own arm, and I could feel my goosebumps begin to sprout. My eyes drifted to his chest. He was probably ripped...I wondered if he had a six-pack. How it would feel to run my hands over his abs, his chest? My eyes traveled further south until I was staring at his bulge. He looked decently big...definitely bigger than I’d ever been, but it was hard to tell exactly how large he was underneath his slacks…

It’s not long before they finally kiss, and their relationship kicks off.

Then, he moved his lips toward mine. Thank God I’d thought to bring that tube of chapstick, because my lips were moisturized, and well-prepared. When our lips touched, it was like a firework had just gone off. He pressed me against a white column and worked his lips against mine. Despite the cold, his lips were still soft and pleasant. Turning my head slightly to the side with his strong hands, his tongue started to dance with mine inside of my mouth. 

In Chapter 18, Clark and Johanna go on a date, which is where the story does the almost universal TG trope of having a scene where the MC gets put in a dress. In this case, a sapphire blue dress. 

Exhaling a calming breath, I eyed the pretty blue dress that clung to my figure. Megan hadn’t been lying, I did look damned good. I wasn’t quite as worried about that anymore, though. I couldn’t place a finger on why my heart pounded with such urgency...I knew Clark loved me and I knew I was gorgeous. Maybe I was excited about the possibilities...the official-ness of all of this.

The atmosphere of this chapter is perfect, and to be honest, it feels quite ethereal. Clark plays the role of the “charming boyfriend” perfectly and how Johanna is enthralled by him and the night is almost magical. Since I’m an adult now this chapter obviously doesn’t hit the same way as it did when I was a teenager, but still, it’s very good.

This is also when the grandmother dies. Johanna realizes that her family had been texting her about the grandmother’s death for hours since she silenced her phone. She feels not just immense grief, but also guilt, as she did not spend time with her in the hospital during her death, and instead was on a date with a boy.

At the end of the chapter, a brief interaction occurs between Clark and Johanna’s father, and it’s shown that her father does approve of him.

My heart sunk with worry as Dad walked over to Clark and gave him a once-over. He was protective of his daughters, after all.

“Thank you for taking care of her,” Dad gave him a slight nod, and a wave of relief passed over me.

“Absolutely. I’m so sorry for your loss.” Clark replied, taking that as his queue to leave. He gave me a quick hug before hurrying out the door.

Now, overall, I like Clark. When it comes to charming male love interests, he serves his role perfectly. He’s just about everything you could ask for from this kind of character. He’s described as strong, caring, and protective. Someone who's always there to lift Johanna’s spirits, always there to compliment her beauty. He’s a very good male figure in the story, and moreover, he’s a very good “manly” male figure.

At the same time though, I get the impression he’s a little shallow.

Now, yes, this isn’t Clark’s story. He’s more of a means to an end, someone who exists so Johanna can have a boyfriend and get her “happily ever after”. But, in a way, the fact that it’s really obvious Clark’s main purpose is just to be the boyfriend kind of nullifies his full impact.

That’s not to say he has no impact, he certainly does, but there’s never a point where Clark truly escapes his character archetype of “the boyfriend”. He isn’t given enough of his own traits. He’s said to like video games, just like Johanna, but it’s a minor trait only presented briefly a few times. He needs more.

What kind of person is Clark aside from a football playing, charming jock? What does he do other than be Johanna’s boyfriend? Hell, why does he even like her? In Johanna’s case, it’s easy to see why she’s so infatuated with Clark. She was a bitter, miserable, angry, and lonely person for years. When she feels love for the first time, she’s going to become obsessed and enthralled. But with Clark, since he has very few traits of his own, the fact that his motivations and feelings for Johanna seem to just be there is distracting. 

He’s just a little too perfect to be believable. He doesn’t really have any flaws, and for that reason he feels less real. The story also kind of overplays how strong and manly Clark is in comparison to Johanna, and at times it feels like a substitute for actual depth.

I’m not saying Clark is a bad inclusion or that he makes the story worse. He doesn’t bring it down at all. But I would’ve liked to see more depth in him. I can buy him and Johanna becoming a couple after only a few days. Teenagers are known to fall in love very quickly. And to be fair, the story does a really good job of putting you into Johanna’s shoes and making you feel her infatuation with this charming, handsome guy. But I can’t accept his overall shallowness. He isn’t the most vapid TG love interest I’ve ever seen, let alone the most vapid male love interest I’ve ever seen in all of media. But he could’ve been handled a lot better.

Some might say that, in-universe, Clark would act differently around Johanna, his girlfriend, than he does with his friends. And since this story is told entirely from Johanna’s perspective, and she sees Clark as perfect, we’re getting a distorted picture of what’s really going on here. However, Clark still could’ve gotten more depth even within these parameters.

One last aspect of Clark’s character I’d like to bring up is that he seems to just understand what Johanna is trying to communicate, without having to hear her say it. Eventually she doesn’t even need to use her whiteboard with him.

“Why don’t you use your whiteboard as much anymore?” Clark continued the conversation as the light turned green and we continued toward the restaurant.

I answered him by reaching over and pressing a small hand against his chest. With a loving smile, I turned to stare at his profile.

“Because I understand you?” He asked with a chuckle.

I nodded one time, still staring at his handsome face. He knew. I had no idea how he did it, but he knew exactly what I meant. The whiteboard was a hassle, and it was far easier to communicate nonverbally with someone like Clark.

Charming? Yes. Believable? Not really. I think the story was kind of overplaying its hand here, but ultimately it’s just a symptom of the bigger issue I just mentioned.

Clark’s father only makes a single appearance in the story, but he leaves a pretty big impact. In Chapter 14, when he meets Johanna for the first time, he is very much not impressed with her. His first conversation with her at Clark’s dining room table goes terribly. He asks her about what extracurriculars she does, what she’s good at, and some of her talents. The implicit view made of Johanna by Clark’s father here is that she’s lazy and unmotivated. She can’t verbally communicate with anyone, making her disabled, so she sees that in their mind, he sees her as useless, inadequate, a burden. It hits her so hard that her old feelings of seeing herself in that way come back and hit her hard.

I nodded and let loose another stream of tears. I was worthless. I was mute. I wasn’t particularly good at anything. I wasn’t even emotionally stable enough to get through the day without bawling my eyes out. I was a burden. The only way my conversation with Mr. Nordquist could have gone worse is if he had asked me about the fact that I used to be a guy. Maybe his father was right to think that Clark could do better...he certainly could. Anyone on the cheerleading squad would be more worthy of a relationship with him. He was way out of my league.

I actually think it would’ve been a good idea for Clark’s father to have brought Johanna’s past as a guy up in his conversation with her (by the way did anyone else notice how Clark never once brings up that Johanna was a guy in this story). He clearly isn’t one who cares for being tactful or considerate, and realistically I think he would’ve mentioned it to imply to Clark that Johanna isn’t worth his love and he should choose someone “better”. I think that’s part of what he was trying to do by drilling her.

It also would’ve broken Johanna’s spirit even more, which would add to her motivation to prove Clark’s father wrong. That she is capable and motivated. That she isn’t lazy. A big reason why she joins cheerleading is to prove herself worth to Clark’s father, and at the end of the story, Johanna mentions getting his acceptance is a constant, but ever developing effort.

On the parental front, his dad was still skeptical about me. I think he had a hard time swallowing the fact that his son was dating a girl who couldn’t talk. I understood where he was coming from, and I was determined to convince him of my worthiness.

The mock trial here is not a big part of the story, but I still think it’s worth discussing.

The mock trial itself is about Genghis Khan, specifically if his impact on history was positive or negative. Now, just to satisfy the “Lefty” part of LeftyPosting here, I’ll say that mock trials like this are usually a front to promote American nationalism and try to create a “debate” around human rights and liberation movements.

Genghis Khan was a complete barbaric psychopath whose military forced a bunch of different states to become subservient to his empire. He conquered and murdered millions of people, not much to “debate” here. It becomes obvious that this is about American nationalism when you consider that there are never any “debates” or “mock trials” in schools about if 9/11 was justified or if the U.S. government is complicit in the murders of foreigners.

Alright, now that you’re all rightfully annoyed at me let’s get back to the story. The trial itself ends with Johanna and Clark being largely successful. Since Johanna can’t talk, Clark needs to do most of the heavy lifting in the trial in real-time. And really, it’s a way to show just how smart and good at thinking on his feet Clark is. It’s another way for the story to show how good he is at everything, which honestly, is perfectly fine for me.

One of the smaller touches I like in this story are all the descriptions of snow and cold. It does a fantastic job of capturing the feel of winter, and it compliments the story well. It’s a great story to read in the winter too. You don’t often get really good, atmospheric descriptions like this on TG Storytime, so this is a very welcome addition.

I have to ask though,

It was fairly warm outside - just shy of ten degrees Fahrenheit

Was that supposed to be a joke or a typo?

I’ve already discussed most of the changes and revisions the story has gone through, but there’s a few other minor ones I’d like to discuss.

In the original version of Chapter 2, the series of events leading up to Joseph’s transformation did feel a little too far-fetched and forced, and the revisions here definitely help that by first, giving a bit more exposition from Joseph’s geology teacher to bring a more explicit connection to the high school and wishing stones, and second, by having Jarvis become distracted with a picture of a woman he finds attractive before making the “hot chick” wish.

I lifted the booklet, and the binding left small flakes on my hands. Surprisingly, the entire front cover was still in decent condition, displaying a picture of a woman in a ridiculous Crocodile Hunter outfit, along with a title: The Hunter’s Guidebook: A Comprehensive Guide to Wishing Stones.

“Woah!” Jarvis blinked, and laughed like a hippopotamus. “A porn mag!”

“A porn mag?” I blinked, struggling to fathom his stupidity. “She’s fully clothed, you fucking idiot. It’s a field guide for stone hunters.”

“Huh…” Jarvis knelt beside me and rummaged through the rest of the pockets, as I thumbed through the ruined pages. People like Jarvis were easily distracted, thankfully, and he’d probably already forgotten about the fact that he intended to beat me up. That was for the best, I decided.

In the original version Jarvis just kind of wished for Joseph to become a “hot chick” without any prompting, and it felt a little off. Sometimes when we write, and I know this is a problem I run into, we can occasionally overlook tiny setups and payoffs like this. Little things that make the world of the story feel more natural and real. 

Probably the second biggest change made to the story, behind what was done with the antagonists, deals with Johanna’s sexuality. The original version of “Hush” was fully a forced het story, with the wishing stone having changed Johanna’s sexuality from liking women to liking men.

A lot of Clarity’s older work was forced het, and I believe she even admitted herself she had a problem with it. She stopped doing forced het in her later works, a good move on her part definitely.

Clarity did go back and rewrite “Hush” to make Johanna always have been attracted to men. To have repressed it. She does a pretty good job with the change.

Half of the time, at least.

A huge problem with how Clarity implemented this change is that she didn’t implement it into the entire story. So, as a result, Johanna’s past sexuality keeps changing abruptly from chapter to chapter.

For instance, this line in Chapter 7 shows that Johanna’s sexuality was changed and that she was attracted to women before.

I had better things to do with my day than watch girls dance around in skimpy outfits, especially when those girls didn’t seem to turn me on anymore. That felt like adding insult to injury.

And then later on, it’s shown that no, she was always attracted to men.

I was into dudes. I’d...I’d always been into dudes, and it was pointless to pretend otherwise. I’d been through too much bullshit to care. As far as brutal developments in my life went, this was far from the worst. Attraction to men wasn’t great, but, as much as I’d tried to deny it, it had always been a part of me. I’d kept it down, suppressed beneath a layer of anger, but now it seemed so inconsequential. It was far from the largest burden I’d have to bear. Hell, I’d probably never be in a relationship, so my orientation was a moot point. Why would anyone - man or woman - even want to date someone who couldn’t speak?

This flip flopping is constant throughout the story. For instance, Chapter 12 has a scene where Megan tells Johanna she always knew she was attracted to men, and then the very next chapter sees Johanna say in her narration that the stone changed her sexuality.

When you change a part of the story, you need to make sure the story was changed entirely, because the end result here is that this story is very inconsistent and incoherent on this front. It’s hard to appreciate the forced het being removed when it’s not even fully removed.

There are a few other weird inconsistencies and continuity errors like this as well. I think this story should’ve been proofread a bit more.

Another change made to the 2nd chapter was an additional conversation between Joseph and Caroline not in the original. It’s nice, but again, it was not fully implemented into the story. 

With a pang of remorse and guilt, a sad thought entered my mind: If she had talked to me when I was a guy, she probably would’ve realized that I wasn’t interested, and that I was an asshole. I wasn’t the same person anymore, though. At least, I was trying not to be the same person.

But… they did talk before. I don’t think Johanna would have just forgotten that interaction they had. A change of word choice here, something like “if she had really gotten to know me when I was a guy”, would’ve worked.

A huge glaring inconsistency that occurs in the story deals with Johanna’s grandfather. For the vast majority of the story, it is said that this grandfather Johanna was so close to as a child was her maternal grandfather. And that all of her father’s relatives lived in Florida.

I nodded eagerly. Grandpa - my mother's father - and I used to play Twenty Questions while we were ice fishing together. It’d been his favorite game, and he was phenomenal at it.

However, in Chapter 9, suddenly this grandfather is her paternal grandfather, and it’s said her maternal grandfather died in a skiing accident.

I’d never had a chance to meet Mom’s dad, and this was the first story I’d ever heard about him. Unlike Dad’s father, my maternal grandfather had died relatively young in some sort of skiing accident. I never learned the full details, though.

This is a pretty huge continuity error that’s very jarring when reading the story. I think authors should have lists of who all the characters in their story are to prevent from making mistakes like this.

There are a few other smaller continuity errors as well. For instance, in Chapter 5, Johanna’s mother is said to leave the house right when Johanna is eating breakfast.

“Your food is on the table. Your sister left early for cheerleading, so you’ll have to walk today. You don’t have to go if you don’t feel up to it, but all of your teachers should know about your situation.” She blurted the words out rapidly before making her way out the door. From the two seconds the door was open, I could already tell it was frigid outside.

But then, later on in the chapter, she’s still in the house.

Mom called from downstairs, and I struggled to refocus on my initial task. I pulled on the black turtleneck and accidentally screwed up my hair in the process. To be fair, my hair was a mess in the first place, but now it was just embarrassing. I didn’t want to show up at school looking homeless. With that, I began to panic outright.

I might be overthinking things here but to be honest, this moment kind of gives me a creepy vibe. There’s a short horror story out there involving a child coming home and hearing their mother’s voice in a far off room. They travel to it, and just before they open the door to the room, their mother comes home and they run to her. Whatever was calling them simply stares at them from that room.

Another side tangent I know, but still, the scene gives me the creeps. It reminds me of that story.

Here’s another one, in Chapter 11, when Jarvis is after Johanna, he’s charging at her from behind. However, when he actually tackles her, Johanna somehow hits the ground face-up.

Out of options, I turned and ran. My boots pounded on the icy sidewalk and I sprinted as fast as I could. Although I was fueled by desperation and survival instincts, I was neither as coordinated nor as athletic as the hooded assailant. It took only a couple seconds for the anonymous stalker to tackle me to the ground. I slammed into the sidewalk face-up with a thud, the back of my head bouncing off the icy ground. 

In Chapter 7, in the locker room, Tina pins Johanna to a locker by pressing her elbow against her lower back, meaning Johanna is facing away from Tina. However, a sentence later, she is suddenly facing toward her.

As I feared, she didn’t let me pass by to my gym locker, and instead pinned me up against one of the lockers. I let out a tiny gasp, as her elbow pressed into my lower back. I tried to struggle out of her grasp, but it was hopeless. I wanted to cry out for help as she pressed two fingers against my stomach and started to push in with all of her strength, but of course I couldn’t.

Chapter 16 has a pretty big one, and this time the problem lies with a paragraph that just doesn’t make sense when thinking about it in real time.

How’s the situation with the Duncan boy?” Mom asked, sitting beside me on my bed. She rested a comforting hand on my shoulder, beaming down at me with a loving smile. She came in unannounced while I was playing Battlefield, and I had to ditch my friends in the middle of the game. I still felt a bit guilty about it, since the score was pretty tight, but I figured that Mom was more important than a video game. We’d shared some information about our day, and I’d written her a nice description of my trial, but her expression betrayed the true reason for her visit: she was worried about me.

In response to her question, I stared at my carpet and shrugged.

What’s the point of having Johanna say she and her mother shared information about her day and the trial? Why would they talk about a bunch of unrelated stuff after her mother specifically asked her about her situation with Jarvis? Why would Johanna’s response to that question be so delayed?

These are all minor issues, yes, but they’re issues regardless, and they make the story more incoherent to read. Again, this story should have been proofread more.

Something else I want to bring up regarding this story is how I think it misses a few tiny set ups. Remember when I mentioned how Chapter 2 was changed to add a bit more set up to the actual wishing stone incident? Well, the rest of the story is lacking in these kinds of setups that could really help.

Some are simply small missed opportunities that aren’t too big of a deal. For instance, in Chapter 12, when Johanna says Caroline has texted her, it was never established that Johanna had gotten Caroline’s number beforehand. This isn’t really a problem, but I feel it’s a missed opportunity. I think it could’ve been nice to read about Johanna realizing she never had a single person’s number aside from her family’s before. Her getting the number of her first friend could’ve been a big moment for her.

Some other examples are very pedantic, I admit. There are a few other moments in Chapter 12 like this, such as how Clark just knows where Johanna lives without her relying that information to him, or how she just so happens to have chapstick with her during the game (wouldn’t it make sense for her to anticipate Clark kissing her before going and then have her bring the chapstick?). There’s a moment like this in Chapter 13 where Johanna just has a purse despite not being mentioned to have one before.

One that really bugs me however is yet another moment in Chapter 12 where Johanna and Clark realize they both have a passion for gaming and they have a conversation that’s kind of brushed off in narration. I kind of wanted to read about how Johanna exactly carries on that conversation with Clark. It could've been interesting and nice.

I think the biggest missed set up like this comes in Chapter 14, during the sleepover. Johanna brings nail polish with her, and she just… knows how to apply it.

Since Olivia’s polish had just finished, I ended up painting delicate designs on Caroline’s fingernails while Olivia gave mine a nice coat of sparkling light blue. 

How does she know how to apply it? It wasn’t like Megan or anyone else had taught her before this. This is her first time applying nail polish, right? If nail polish was something Joseph was into as a guy, that should’ve been established earlier on. Considering how early on in the story Johanna was completely averse to anything really “girly”, it’s reasonable to assume she wasn’t into it. 

She didn’t have to sift through my trash, but the outfit she chose was still unreasonable: tight jeans, winter boots, a black turtleneck, a thick faux-fur coat, and a scarf. It was such a girly outfit that I cringed at the mere thought of wearing it to school.

Then again, she did seem to know a weird amount about women’s fashion and what to call certain items of clothing. A lot more than I did as a 15 year old r̶e̶p̶r̶e̶s̶s̶o̶r̶  very normal cis boy, anyway.

Either way, I think it would’ve worked to have this scene be where the other girls teach Johanna how to apply nail polish. I’d consider this another missed opportunity.

So, yes, a lot of the issues I went through there were mostly pedantic nitpicking, but still, tiny missed setups and inconsistencies like that add up, and can make a story feel more sloppy as a result. A few minor revisions can go a long way.

The idea of an unpopular social outcast boy becoming one of the most popular girls in school is a pretty common one among high school TG stories, but “Hush” is the best example of this plotline I’ve seen on the internet. A big reason for that is how well Johanna’s arc is handled.

Joseph was the cause of a lot of his own problems. People hated him because of how he pushed people away, brought them down, and insulted them. He was rude, egotistical, arrogant, and selfish. People reacted to him the way he reacted to everyone else. 

I’ve sort of beat around the bush on this point but I feel I have to say this. Joseph at the beginning of this story is a huge insufferable twat. Even when I first read this story at 15 I knew he was an asshole. Maybe I just feel this way because in my life I’ve encountered a lot of people who act like Joseph. I’ve probably acted like Joseph myself sometimes. And that’s a big reason why Johanna’s character progression is so impactful.

“Asshole who learns not to be an asshole” is a pretty basic plotline that’s been done a lot, but the way this story does it is so unique and compelling. Joseph at the beginning of the story isn’t just a generic asshole, he’s a miserable asshole. An asshole with baggage. Hell, considering how lonely and angry he is all the time, he’s probably depressed. He’s clearly hurting, and he needs help.

When he becomes Johanna, she’s forced to take a step back and examine herself. Her disability forces her inside her own mind, and she soon sees firsthand just how much her behavior was affecting other people.

When Johanna comes back home for the first time after her transformation, she plays an online game with some of her friends. When she isn’t able to talk during the game, she notices how different the experience is. 

In this most recent game, we were losing badly...but there wasn’t any stress in the group, just uncharacteristic cheerfulness. In the past, we used to take the game a lot more seriously and bicker much more. What had changed?

That’s when a dark thought crossed my mind: were things usually like this when I wasn’t playing? Was I really that much of an asshole and a downer, that I brought everyone else down with me? Were my friends better off without me? Was the world better off without me?

I remember this scene in Chapter 4 being a lot shorter in the first version. I’m glad it was lengthened. It’s a really important scene for Johanna’s character arc that needs a lot of attention.

The road to redemption isn’t an easy one. It’s often painful, and in some cases, traumatic. Dealing with the trauma takes time, and forgiveness can’t always be reached. And that’s okay. People aren’t always obligated to forgive you. Sometimes, you just need to accept that, and keep pushing forward.

Johanna slowly realizes all of her flaws, and starts working to overcome and fix them. It’s a constant effort, and it’s never really over.

I think the best indication in this story of Johanna’s growth is a comparison between the first and last chapters. The first chapter starts with Joseph playing an online game with his friends. They lose, and immediately he gets mad at everyone, jumping to blame everyone else for the loss.

The last chapter, Chapter 23, starts with Johanna taking part in a cheer competition. She, and all the other girls on the cheer team make their absolute best effort, and they lose. 

They get second place specifically, but they don’t win. And Johanna reacts to this in a way Joseph never would.

In my time as Johanna, I learned not to worry about things that I couldn’t control. It led to anxiety, and prevented people from taking meaningful action. Plus, we’d lost a cheerleading tournament. It wasn’t the end of the world. At the end of the day, I was happy with our performance and a second place wasn’t a terrible finish.

She’s satisfied with her performance. She knew everyone on the team gave it their all. It’s not worth getting angry and blaming others. It only brings everyone down.

“Hush” is the best “bad boy to good girl” TG story I’ve read. To read about such a huge asshole becoming a very sweet and understanding person just feels so good here in a way other media with this plotline just doesn’t.

As previously mentioned, Johanna is the kind of person we should all strive to be. Patient, compassionate, and always seeing the best in people. And to see her come to this after being so unpleasant and rude is, if I’m being honest, kind of inspiring.

As this is a TG story, I should devote some time to discuss the actual TG elements of it. This story is sort of in the same camp as “Of Heroes And Villains” where the TG elements are an important part of the plot, but not really the focus. They’re definitely not as important here as they are in “For a Girl”.

The story gives enough TG content to satisfy anyone mainly on TGST for TG stuff. There’s not much in the story about accepting one’s new body and status as a girl, especially compared to other stories, but there are a few moments where Johanna gains more perspective on certain things by becoming a girl, like when one of her online friends reveals she’s a girl and she gets a bunch of crass sexual comments directed at her. Overall though the TG transformation feels more like an aesthetic choice here. 

From a narrative perspective, Johanna’s transformation into a girl is, in the first half, used mostly to make her more uncomfortable, and to make her situation seem more foreign to her. She hasn’t just lost her voice, she’s in an entirely new unfamiliar body. It’s also used as a way to make her seem more helpless. I mean, an outspoken, rude boy becoming a mute girl is a pretty drastic change. She’s lost physical strength along with her voice.

Admittedly, it could be argued the story gets a little carried away on that front.

Unsurprisingly, I played like shit. The ball seemed so much bigger than it was before and my hand-eye coordination had taken a bit of a hit. I struggled to even dribble. I had to use all of my strength just to get a weak shot off, and I felt a bit guilty when our team got eviscerated in consecutive games. My stomach dropped with dread every time I received the ball, but quickly found that the people on the opposing teams tried to be gentle while guarding me.

But I guess making her very weak works to make her feel especially defenseless.

By the second half of the story, Johanna being a former guy is barely brought up at all, and I think that’s for the best. The first half had enough TG to satisfy anyone specifically looking for that before it moved onto the rest of the plot, where it’s not as relevant.

Johanna is fine with considering herself a girl pretty quickly, and goes through the typical tropes of wearing female clothing, being taught how to put on makeup, becoming a cheerleader, and overall becoming quite girly. Hell, by the end of “Hush” it feels like the story itself even forgets that Johanna was ever a guy. Reminds me of how in “For a Girl”, it was said that eventually the characters would seem to forget the MC was ever a guy, but that was never demonstrated well because Stephanie having transformed into a girl continues to be a main talking point the entire time. Here, that’s never said and we actually see it happen. Another reason to follow “show, don’t tell”.

There are a few moments where it's pretty much stated that Johanna’s mind was changed by the stone, but the story is never overly obnoxious about them.

In Chapter 20, when Johanna first finds out she has a Loras Stone and she says she doesn’t want to be a guy again, it doesn’t feel forced or unearned. It’s a good stopping point for her acceptance of herself as a girl.

As seen from all the quotes, this story is told in first person point of view. This story, more than any other I’ll discuss in this series, needed to be told in first person because, with a protagonist who isn’t able to talk, it’s best to be directly in their head and read their struggles. 

Johanna has pretty strong and compelling narration throughout. And there are things that are even unclear to her, and by extension the reader, because she never saw them happen. For instance, it’s implied Megan is helping Johanna pick out a new wardrobe because her mother got mad at her, but it’s never explicitly stated. This story utilizes the limitations and strengths of first person narration just as well as “Of Heroes And Villains” did with third person narration.

Actually, now that I think about it, there are quite a few similarities between Kara and Johanna’s character arcs, as well as their characters in general. They even have the same hair and eye color. Bit of an odd coincidence.

I guess the biggest way Johanna and Kara are similar is something I’ve only noticed recently when thinking of “Hush”. It deals with a feeling I got while reading it as an adult. A bunch of little things I didn’t notice as a teenager.

Is Johanna trans?

The technical answer here, at least to me, is “yes”. As I’ve said before, if an AMAB character is transformed into a girl, and then is fine with staying a girl, they’re just trans. So yes, I would consider Johanna to be trans.

But that’s not really what I’m trying to ask here. No, I’m trying to ask if Johanna was trans the whole time and never realized it. Essentially, was Joseph an egg?

Well, whether it was intentional or not (and it looks like it wasn’t), it is heavily implied throughout the story that Johanna is trans. For starters, the whole plot of a miserable, angry, depressed boy turning into a nice, happy girl who loves her life definitely points in this direction. There’s really no indication Joseph liked his life at all, and then when she becomes Johanna, she starts really liking her life pretty quickly. She takes to being a girl very well too, and again, it’s all done pretty quickly. That can’t just be a coincidence, right?

I think dysphoria may have, in part, been fueling Joseph’s rage and loneliness. Joseph even says he started acting the way he does around middle school, which would also be around the start of puberty. With this in mind, him using video games as escapism, avoiding his family, and having a hard time making connections with other people, make a lot more sense. He might have been coping with hatred of himself and his body.

In fact, I wonder if Johanna might be autistic. Video games could be seen as a special interest for her, and she might genuinely struggle with connecting with other people because they don’t communicate the way she does.

Her habit of dragging erasers across her desk could be seen as stimming.

I took a deep breath to slow my racing heart and started to rub my eraser against my desk with a shaky hand, eliminating a dark smudge on the light wooden surface. Ever since I was a kid, I found solace in erasers when facing difficulties at school. Erasers were oddly therapeutic, and my rhythmically rubbing of this particular eraser took my mind off of yet another frustration in my life. After the dark smudge disappeared, I continued moving the eraser back and forth against the wood, my eyes closed tightly.

But I’m getting off-topic. Anyway, there are multiple points in the story that seem to really point to Johanna being trans. The first point is her feeling inadequate when compared to her sister Megan. The way she explains it makes it sound like she’s jealous of her.

My sister Megan was a senior, two years older than me, and we avoided each other like the plague. Like me, she had black hair and bright blue eyes. Unlike me, she actually had a pretty big group of friends at school. She was pretty open about her hatred for me, and I returned the sentiment. I’d made her life hell when she was younger, and I noticed the flare of annoyance in her eyes every time I spoke. I didn’t go too far out of my way to annoy her anymore, but her mere existence still frustrated me. Everything Megan said or did made me feel like a complete loser. Although my grades were always great, hers were immaculate. With straight As, she was a valedictorian candidate and her early applications had already been accepted to a handful of Ivy League colleges. She was the perfect child, and I was...well...I was Joseph.

In fact, later in the story, she explicitly says she was jealous of one of her older female cousins.

At family dinners, April was an ideal grand-daughter for Grandma, attentive and perfect in every way. Beneath that veneer, though, I suspected that the blue-eyed brunette was far more adventurous. Back when I was Joseph, I inspected her social media pages every now and again, and found ample evidence to back up my suspicions. She attended a variety of wild parties, and was tagged in a few rave photos. On the other hand, she also did tons of charity work and was an excellent student. Everyone in my family seemed to love her, and she had more friends than she knew what to do with.

I had looked down on her for being two-faced. I even made a few mean comments directly to her about her partying, and threatened to tell her parents. Standing before her, as she presented the platter of appetizers, I began to realize the true motivation for my hostility: I was jealous. April gave me a glimpse at the kind of woman that my sister could become.

She was living a life of fulfilment and still having fun. Meanwhile, I had been wallowing in self-loathing, isolated from the world. ‘Misery loves company’, the age-old saying went. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was absolutely in misery. Not anymore, though. I was a new person.

Right after she says she was jealous, she says looking at April gave her “a glimpse of the kind of woman that my sister could become”. But that’s a bit of a strange reaction right? I have to wonder if it’s projection. Was the case rather that April gave Joseph a glimpse of the woman he wanted to become?

Moving on, there’s a part in Chapter 14 where Johanna says in 8th grade, she was given the choice between Cheran High School or an all boys private school.

Back when I was in 8th grade, I had the choice of either attending Cheran or an all-boys private school. Thank God I’d chosen Cheran...I could scarcely imagine being the only girl in a school full of boys. They probably would have made me switch schools, and I’d be dealing with yet another major change in my life.

This obviously could be a simple oversight on her part, but if she had chosen to go to that school, then she wouldn’t have encountered the wishing stone in the first place. She likely wouldn’t have encountered a wishing stone at all. So she’d never have become Johanna, right?

I find it interesting that Johanna sees her being a girl as inevitable. Something that couldn’t have been avoided. Or maybe I’m just looking too much into this. I probably am. Don’t worry, I have better evidence. Like this moment in Chapter 17, when Johanna is in the shower in the girl’s locker room for the first time.

I never realized it before, but I really enjoyed my body. The way my smooth skin felt when water ran over it, the sensation of my long hair cascading over my shoulders, even down below...the current situation between my legs was a bit more comfortable than before. Of course, I hadn’t yet had a period, so that judgement could change in the future. All in all, however, my body was nice. I was lucky.

She never realized it before? Never realized it before at all? She really likes her body here, in a way she just didn’t as Joseph.

In Chapter 18, Caroline even brings direct attention to the idea that Johanna may have always wanted to be a girl, deep down. 

“You’re incredible. Has anyone ever told you that before? Absolutely fricken incredible. You turn into a girl and a couple weeks later you’re a cheerleader and you’re dating my brother?” She shook her head in disbelief and giggled. “I know you told me that the wish was an accident...but was it? Are you sure you didn’t want all of this?”

I shrugged. To be honest, I wasn’t certain anymore. All I knew was that I was enjoying my life for the first time ever. With a happy sigh, I took out my whiteboard and wrote Thanks for being my best friend ever, with a little heart over each of the i’s. It was cheesy, but it was the truth. I’d never felt so close to anyone before, as a friend. We had only really known each other for a short time, but I felt like I could tell her anything.

Johanna says she isn’t certain of what she wanted before, but nonetheless is enjoying her life, for the first time ever. This is the first time she could ever say she enjoys her life. And it’s right after becoming a girl.

It’s never explicitly confirmed if Johanna is trans and again, I don’t think the intention was to make her trans. However, if you ask me, I choose to believe she is trans. The general plot of the story and Johanna’s character arc on their own are enough for me to think that. And there are just a few too many little moments throughout the story that point to her being trans. Johanna may indeed be very lucky. Jarvis’s wish may have given her what she subconsciously wanted all along.

Either way, whether or not Johanna is trans, she certainly feels trans. Just like “Hush” in general feels like a trans story. And now that I’m not a repressed teenager, I can finally see that.

Wow… that was long. Very long. I’m not sure if any of these reviews after this will be this long. Well regardless, I think I did a pretty thorough analysis.

There are a few things about this story that, in retrospect, let me down a little. Like, it’s weird that the secret room Joseph and Jarvis were thrown into during the second chapter is just never brought up again. There’s a huge hole in the boy’s locker room leading to a secret room with a skeleton, and it’s never relevant after the third chapter. It’s weird. 

It also kind of sucks how the possibility of a “wishing stone universe” never actually came to be, much like how the “GB universe” never came to be either.

There are also a few other things annoying me at the moment that have nothing to do with the story itself. Like how TG Storytime’s stupid rating system means “Hush” is now at an average of 4.5/5 instead of 5/5. Or how the explanation of why Hunter doesn’t hunt all the non-humans to extinction in “Fangs” doesn’t make sense because no genocidal organization in history has ever been concerned with keeping some of their victims alive to “stay in business” god dammit I’m talking about “Fangs” again.

But, I’m not really mad about any of that. “Hush” was still an impactful story at the end of the day.

In fact, I feel like I need to go on a tangent here. You can consider this my afterword, but I need to talk about this.

“Hush” was… very important to me growing up. This story means a lot to me. More so than any other story on TGST.

This is going to get very personal, so please be aware of that.

I guess I’ll start off at the beginning. I’ve said many times in this post that I first read “Hush” as a teenager. I remember the first night I found “Hush” on TG Storytime, actually. The year was 2017. I was 15 years old, the same age Johanna is in this story, and it was the summer between the ninth and tenth grades. I was still in my repressing phase. I knew, at the back of my mind, that I was trans, but I didn’t want to admit it to anyone, not even myself. Those feelings got stored in my subconscious. I didn’t want to actively think about or even acknowledge them.

Reading TG fiction during high school was one of the ways I coped. It served as an outlet for me, and “Hush” turned out to be a major outlet, one of the best I’d ever come across, in fact.

It feels like this story came at the right place at the right time for me. I wasn’t doing well when I was 15. Dysphoria was kicking my ass, making me very depressed, and I was too ashamed to admit that. I had frequent suicidal thoughts. I was miserable, had anger issues, and coped by playing video games a lot, avoiding my family.

To put it bluntly, I was Joseph.

When I first read “Hush”, it had already been completed, so I read the whole thing in one summer night over about five hours. I was that hooked. And immediately, I was obsessed and enthralled. It was basically my favorite story ever, and after reading it that first time, I frequently came back to skim my favorite parts.

I think the reason why “Hush” connected with me so much at the time, and served as such good escapism is because I saw myself in Joseph. 

I’d read other TG stories before, but none of them really connected with me the way “Hush” did. Like with “For a Girl”, I wasn’t an extremely popular, talented athlete, I was the outcast. The person who had trouble making friends and forming connections with people. I wasn’t out there with a girlfriend, I had no hope of being in any romantic relationship at all.

Again, I was Joseph. I saw Joseph in this story, and I saw myself. When I read this story for the first time, I don’t think I saw Joseph, or Johanna, as the only one going through this journey. I saw myself going through it with her.

Joseph wasn’t an overtly feminine person. There didn’t seem to be anything about him remotely feminine. And then, when he becomes a girl, she loves it and embraces that femininity that wasn’t there before. 

That spoke to me, because I wasn’t overtly feminine as a teenager at all either. And for that reason, reading stories about a feminine guy becoming a girl didn’t do nearly as much for me as reading this.

When she goes through her life as Johanna, forming connections with other people, and loving her life, that’s exactly what I wanted to happen to me. I wanted to form those kinds of bonds with my family members, I wanted to have a lot of friends I felt like I could really open up to, I wanted my female family members to give advice to me on womanhood, I wanted to be a cheerleader, and I wanted to date one of the strong football jocks. I wanted it all.

I wanted to be a girl.

But I’d never admit that to anyone, not even myself.

Johanna, in this story, gets the exact kind of perfect high school experience that I wanted. To read about a boy so miserable, alone, and angry being “forced” to live life as a girl, “against her will”, and becoming so happy just spoke to me on a very deep level. I’m not sure if I was fully mentally prepared for it.

At the time when I was obsessed with this story, I imagined many scenarios in which I would be forcibly changed into a girl and “forced” to live a life like that. It was so appealing to think and fantasize about. To be honest, if such a thing really did happen to me, I probably would’ve still convinced myself that I didn’t always want it. I would’ve convinced myself that it was “forced” on me. Hell, I think I would’ve convinced myself that the transformation “changed” my mind and made me like being a girl and be attracted to men.

TG stories often have a habit of making their TG’d MCs especially attractive and beautiful. This is the case in “Hush”, and the “hot chick” wish is an easy way to justify it. I can’t say it doesn’t do a good job of presenting Johanna’s life as extremely desirable. She’s beautiful, smart, and a fantastic person all around. She was the exact kind of person I wanted to be.

Honestly, I think “Hush” helped me accept my bisexuality back in my sophomore year. When I first read Clark as a 15 year old, it didn't take long for me to realize I had a legitimate crush on him. I 100% wanted to date that guy and I was in love with him. Embarrassing? Yeah, I know. But still, it helped me accept that I was attracted to men, and I even told my friends about my sexuality later that year. They accepted me, and it felt really good.

And when it comes to Johanna’s mutism, I actually envied it at the time. When I was a teenager, I often said really stupid, rude things without realizing it. I had a lot of trouble just going up and talking to people. It was a lot, and honestly, when I read about Johanna being mute, I wanted to be mute too. I know it sounds awful to say you want a disability, but at times I really wanted an excuse to not have to carry conversations with other people, to not feel guilty for not stepping up and talking to people. To never say anything rude accidentally. It was a pretty desirable thing for me, at the time.

And to be honest, sometimes it still is. 

“Hush” is 6 years old at this point, almost 7 even, and rereading it has been a wonderful experience. It has aged amazingly, and returning to it feels almost nostalgic. It brings me back to a time when Johanna’s grandfather saying “most folks on your side” was enough to give me a more positive view of the world, and give me the motivation to get through the day. Back when a story about a guy turning into a girl was enough to lift my spirits. I think my experience as someone who first read this story when I was the same age as Johanna, and now coming back years later to read it as an adult, has been very enlightening. I’ve discovered things about this story I didn’t notice as a teenager, and it’s been interesting.

For as long as I live, “Hush” will always have a special place in my heart. It will always stand as one of my absolute favorite TG stories, not just for my personal emotions and history attached to it, but also its incredible narration, story-telling, and development of the MC. I don’t think any TG story has captured the feel of high school better than this, along with how awkward a gender transformation would actually be in that scenario. Unlike in “For a Girl”, the characters actually talk like real people and don’t suddenly launch into monologues explaining the themes unprompted. The story feels very real, and that’s something I will always connect with.

Clarity hasn’t been active online for about 3 years at this point. But, on the very, very low chance that she’s reading this, I have to say, thank you. Thank you for taking the time to write and put out your wonderful stories. They were immensely helpful to me, and I’m sure they were helpful to a lot of other people as well.

If you ever end up publishing a novel, I’d love to read it. You are an incredible writer and I’m sure you’re doing amazing things right now. You're an inspiration, Again, this is going to be really cheesy, but I can’t say it enough. Thank you.

Rating: 8/10 

The next story I will be reviewing is “The Summer Holiday” by Adam Cooper. See you all then!