The Face of TG Storytime Part 9: "Suhara of Curses" by Ruexin Review

 The Face of TG Storytime

Part 9: "Suhara of Curses" by Ruexin Review

tw // death, blood, graphic violence

If you know anything about online fiction, then you know that sometimes not every story gets finished. Some stories get abandoned, and while I’m sure I’ve already said this in this series, I’ll say it again, I get it. 9 times out of 10, writing is not these people’s jobs. It’s a hobby, and one that can be very time consuming. Sometimes real life gets in the way. Now that I’m a writer myself I understand that way more than I ever did before. But, at the same time, it is still disappointing when a story doesn’t have its conclusion. And in this review, we’ll be looking at the first one of those stories on the most favorite list. So, let’s get started.

“Suhara of Curses” was first posted on February 22, 2014 by user “Ruexin” and was last posted on September 17, 2015. In total, it is 96K words long, with most of the chapters being posted in the three month time span of February to May of 2014. This story was also posted on BigCloset as well as TG Storytime, but the version on BigCloset is missing a few of the last chapters. The first 12 chapters were also posted on Fictionmania, but the story stopped being posted there after that due to the author not having access to a computer at the time. 

Now, if you want to be pedantic, this isn’t technically the first story I’ve covered in this series to be unfinished, as the old version of “Fangs” wasn’t finished either. However, I don’t really count that because the rewritten version of “Fangs” was finished. 

And I know, harping on this story being incomplete is annoying, and probably a little rude. “Suhara of Curses” definitely deserves more than to be known as “the one that wasn’t finished”. Especially because this story was really good!

I was very pleasantly surprised to see how well this one held up. And I’m also a bit surprised it doesn’t seem to be remembered as much as other stories. Whenever I hear people bring up the really good older TGST stories, I don’t see this one get mentioned much, which is a real shame because it definitely deserves it.

I mentioned in the “Hush” review that 2014 seemed to be the time when TGST became more of its own entity rather than just a continuation of Fictionmania, and “Suhara of Curses” is a prime example of this. It’s a TG story that doesn’t feel like it could’ve been written in the 2000s, and it does a lot that most other TG stories weren’t at the time. Really, seeing this and the “Of Heroes And Villains” duology being posted at the same time must have been insane to TGST regulars back in 2014.

And speaking of “Of Heroes And Villains”, Minikisa and Ruexin were apparently friends, at least to some degree. Ruexin has stated that they were largely inspired by Minikisa, and Minikisa’s comments under Ruexin’s stories on both TGST and BigCloset do suggest some degree of closeness, though if they were ever in any significant contact with each other I can’t say.

Regardless, Minikisa and Ruexin do have similar writing styles, as “Suhara of Curses” has the same kind of quick pacing and snappy action scenes that “Of Heroes And Villains” has. The dialogue in “Suhara of Curses” isn’t really quippy however, and while it does have a third person perspective, it’s much more limited to the main character, setting it apart. But I will make a minor criticism here and say the prose isn’t quite as good here as in “Of Heroes And Villains”.

Since I’ve gone on for way too long without actually talking about the story, let’s finally get on with the review.

“Suhara of Curses” is about a teenage boy named Jaux Ballad, who lives in the town of Welldrop in the world of Vanasia. He is obsessed with magic, and longs to become a magician, however he can’t afford any lessons or a wand. He decides to change that by making a plan to sneak into the Lyceum, a large building that serves as a magic research center and a school. Once inside, he’s able to get a wand from an old man called the “Demon Root” and later finds himself face to face with the statue of a woman in a dark room. The statue has purple gemstones for eyes and when they and everything else in the room starts glowing, Jaux passes out.

He then wakes up to find he has been placed into a cell and transformed into a girl. A girl who he later finds out has a very similar appearance to that of the statue. He is soon met with Hawkshire, a man in charge of admissions for the Lyceum, and he asks Jaux who he is and why he was in the research storage room. Jaux lies and says he’s a student there, and then lies about his name and place of origin, saying he’s “Suhara Ballad” from Western Beradina. He keeps his gender transformation a secret. 

After passing a test, Suhara is admitted as a student in the Lyceum and, to her dismay, is forced to live as one and take classes while she tries to find a way to change back.

Right from the start this story is very unique in that it’s a TGST story with a high fantasy setting. Most of the time when a TGST story features magic or characters with powers, it still takes place in our world. Even in cases like “Fangs”, where the story takes place in an alternate version of Earth where Pangaea still exists, it’s still Earth. People still have cars, phones, computers, and TVs, and they still live like we do.

“Suhara of Curses” stands out in this regard because the world it takes place in, Vanasia, is completely different and separate from Earth. It’s not some alternate world in a universe where Earth is still the main setting, it is the main setting.

The people of Vanasia commonly use magic for their needs and they have to protect themselves from the various demons and monsters of the night. They have multiple gods and goddesses whom they can communicate with (the characters also say “oh gods” in place of “oh god”). They travel around the world in wagons and magic carpets. Funnily enough, they do have indoor plumbing, but regardless, this is not Earth, nor is it anything like it.

I can’t think of many other TGST stories that take place in a high fantasy setting like this, so I will praise the creativity here. Especially since Vanasia is a pretty fleshed out world. 

And yeah, as a story meant to introduce this world, it does a good job. Vanasia is a very expansive place, and we see many different parts of it. Beyond the Lyceum, there’s a set piece where two of the characters: Frey and Tricks, two of Suhara’s roommates in her dorm room save another one of her roommates, Desyi, from a pirate ship that’s been submerged under the ocean and encased in a giant bubble. There’s another set piece where the students go on a trip to a city full of artisans crafting material like wood, metal, and stone (they even use a sound muffling spell to lower the volume of the crafting in the city). There’s a set piece where Suhara is teleported to an old temple by a goddess she has bonded with (it’s a big part of the story, will explain more later), and meets a vampire kept there by the goddess. There’s a set piece where Suhara goes on a research trip with another character in the Lyceum along with a few other characters, to castle ruins in a forest where they come across ancient doors with magically carved patterns, a sword that has the magic of a Dragon sealed into it for strength, and a pocket dimension that has a lake and a handful of old relics.

There are more set pieces beyond that, but they’re a topic for later. The point is that there are a lot of them. Maybe even too many, even. The characters do go to a lot of locations in this story. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing (I mean of course it’s not, I just got done praising how much of this world we get to see), I do wish some of the characters were more fleshed out. Because as it is, I think they could’ve used a bit more development. Particularly the side characters outside of Suhara and her roommates, a lot of them could have really used more attention.

Regarding the characters in this story, I want to point out how this story has a very female heavy cast. Now, most TG stories tend to have more female characters than male, but this particular story really stands out as the female characters vastly outnumber the male characters. 

While most of the worldbuilding is good, some of it fails. For instance, the magic system in this story could have been conveyed to the reader a bit better. It’s not explained or demonstrated that well. It’s not horrible, but there’s still quite a few aspects of it that I’m unclear on. One thing that really bothers me about it deals with a specific moment in the first chapter.

"Looking for a new stave, young one?" said the weary voice of the shopkeeper.

"Uh, yes. Lost mine." Jaux replied, trying to hide his complete cluelessness.

"You need one to store or cast?"

"Oh! Um, I would say..." for just a moment Jaux hesitated in thought, he wanted to cast spells, that was what that meant right? "Cast, please."

With how this scene plays out, you’d expect that later in the story, you’d learn what the shopkeeper meant by “store or cast”. However, that never happens. We never learn what the shopkeeper meant with that question, which is not only a big missed opportunity, but feels very weird.

As mentioned before, Suhara bonds with a goddess in this story. This bonding is what triggers the transformation and causes Suhara’s appearance to take on a likeness to the goddess, particularly with the black hair and violet eyes. She ends up looking like the goddess’s daughter (I like this much better than what “Fangs” did; say that the real Verona Tares always looked like a teenager).

That goddess’s name is Theema, and none of the characters really know anything about her. Even when Suhara confesses her existence to her roommates, they aren’t able to figure out who she is or where she comes from. Eventually, her existence is found out by the staff of the Lyceum, but they can’t find much on her either. 

Suhara attains certain powers from her relationship with Theema, the most noteworthy being her Winter Sight, which allows her to see all the magic around her.

Then he felt something change, like something in the very front of his eyes had shifted.

Everything was suddenly tinted purple, Jaux's whole perception had been affected. The whole world seemed to become a night sky, with little star-like lights in all the colors of the rainbow filling his vision. He was confused, and just a little scared. In a bit of a panic, he turned to the door of his room, and was about to open it and call for help.

Then through the door he could see the lights again, but a few of these were much closer. He could see what the glow was, because they outlined the shapes of the girls. A tall white light seemed to be Frey, while Desyi was a mix between indigo and magenta. The shortest girl, Tricks, glowed with green. The lights were people!

No, that wasn't quite right, he could see the lights elsewhere as well. He could see light from the shower heads and light from the sinks. In fact, if he concentrated, the air seemed to be filled with a mist of light that fogged his vision just a tiny bit.

Everything magical emits light, but she only emits darkness.

Then he raised her hand and looked deeply into it, to see if she glowed as well.

All he saw was darkness.

In Chapter 8, Suhara goes back to the room where she first saw the statue, the research storage room, in order to try and change back. It’s here where she first learns of Theema. She looks into the statue’s eyes again and is transported into her realm.

As it turns out, Theema bonding with Suhara was intended to be a contract, and Suhara needs to do something in return for the bonding, which involves her painfully getting magic tattoos, only visible with her Winter Sight, engraved onto her skin. 

The sharp tips of the black tendrils dug into Jaux's skin, burning on contact as they tattooed her entire body with a grand variety of patterns and runes. A warmth from Jaux's chest began to spread to where Jaux felt the tattoos, making them tingle.

The eerie quiet and numbing pain made Jaux lose track of time. Theema never stopped staring with her expressionless purple eyes.

Eventually, the tendrils withdrew back into the ground. Then a tornado of black fog began to whirl around Jaux's paralyzed body, while Theema finally started to walk away.

This gives her the ability to consume the energy of at least four spirits by plunging her arm into their body after defeating them. Said energy gives her certain powers that the original spirit had. For instance, when she consumes the energy of a vampire’s spirit, she gains a lesser version of a vampire’s fast healing powers. Doing this does not have any significant effect on the original body or spirit.

Where the contract comes in is that Theema wants Suhara to steal energy from two specific targets: the High Priest of the Bright Noon, and a ghost from the realm of Broken Space. She has exactly one year to do it.

"You must, child." Theema demanded. "As payment for my power, there are two specific targets that you must steal energy from. The first will be the current High Priest of the Bright Noon, while the second must be a ghost from the Realm of Broken Space.

The problem, of course, is how inexperienced Suhara is. And how she could not possibly defeat a ghost on her own.

The last of Suhara’s new powers is that she can directly talk to Theema while using her Winter Sight. In that state, Theema can see and hear through her, as well as speak to her.

"Yes, it is a part of our contract's new magics. I can see through your eyes, listen with your ears, and speak to your mind. However, I can only do so when you're using my gift of the Winter Sight. I am not one to intrude on privacy."

With Suhara able to do so much, alongside holding the very powerful “demon root” wand, it’s clear that this is another one of those fantasy stories where the MC is pretty overpowered. And in this story there isn’t much to hold back her powers.

I imagine some of my readers might think that I’m going to call Suhara a Mary Sue, but I’m not going to do that. For starters, I’ve started to become weary of the term “Mary Sue” in general. These days it feels like people will call any female character deemed good at too many things a Mary Sue, to the point where it feels like the term has lost its meaning.

Now, that’s not to say there isn’t a type of character who could definitely be called a Mary Sue. I’ve read a lot of anonymous online fiction, I’ve seen tons of perfect main characters who look amazing, are always right, are always the most important thing in the universe of the story, have a bunch of other characters crushing on them, and have very special backstories. I’ve even read stories that are otherwise good that have a lead character who checks off every single one of those boxes. Mary Sues are not good characters, they’re uninspired and boring.

But even if I don’t see Suhara as a Mary Sue, do I consider her being so strong to be a flaw? Not exactly, but I can’t blame anyone who would. To have a character who is so overpowered compared to everyone else can be a little frustrating, but I wouldn’t say “Suhara of Curses” is a particularly bad example of this. To compare it to another TGST story with a similar issue, “Fangs”, its handling of an overpowered MC is pretty good.

The problem with “Fangs” is that it didn’t feel like Verona had to accomplish anything, in either version. In the old version, she was automatically good at fighting without really having to try, and the new version rewarded her with absolute control of the non-human world way too quickly. It made it hard to be invested in her and her journey.

In Suhara’s case, she’s pretty bad at magic and fighting in the beginning of the story. And she’s also not really important to the world as a whole until around the second half. In the first half, she’s just another student, and she is treated as such by all the staff of the Lyceum.

Suhara actually accomplishes things with her powers, and that’s the big difference. We see tangible growth in her abilities, which is what really sets this story apart from something like “Fangs”.

To demonstrate this, let’s talk again about the set pieces in this story, starting with the fighting scenes.

The fighting scenes in “Suhara of Curses”, in terms of quality, are about in between “Of Heroes And Villains” and “Fangs”. The main problem with them is that they have a habit of going on too long. This is most apparent with the duels between students.

Throughout the story, the Lyceum hosts duels between students, which are held on the roof of the building. These duels are magical fights watched by a bunch of other students and are required for mages if they wish to take on dangerous jobs.

There are four of these in the story. The first is between Tricks and a one-off character in Chapter 11 (this chapter reveals to us Tricks’s real name, it’s Valcia). The second is between Desyi and Tricks in Chapter 19. The third is between Suhara and a boy named Roy Intone (who is a semi-important secondary character) in Chapter 22. And the fourth is a rematch between Suhara and Roy in Chapter 32. All of these duels take up basically the entire chapter. For the record, every chapter in this story is about 2K words long.

I will give the duels this, they do have more flavor text than the fights in “Fangs”, and there is much more variety in how the students attack each other. However, they still go on for too long. And the fact that there are four of them in the story feels like overkill. 

The duels do give a good indication of Suhara’s growth however. She loses her first match against Roy, a match she unknowingly brought herself into. Theema even brought her to her old forgotten temple and made her take powers from her own personal vampire for the duel, and she still lost. But she does win her rematch, which she willingly agreed to. Still, it’s not enough to save the duels entirely.

On the bright side, the other fighting scenes in the story fare better. One of these scenes takes place once Suhara, her roommates, and many other students take a trip to Orouna (the city where artisans are crafting materials like wood and metal). Once Suhara is alone, she goes to a soul shop and is told by Theema that a portal to Broken Space is there. Once Suhara tells the merchant this, they immediately go through a magic mirror. Theema then forces Suhara through that mirror, where she is greeted with a large and confusing maze.

Theema tells Suhara that if she does not defeat and take the powers of a ghost, she will not be able to teleport her out of that realm.

"I-I couldn't even beat a student. Let's just try again some other time." said Suhara.

"Even if you decide that, I have no power to bring you back from another immortal realm," said Theema. "If you do not defeat and claim the powers of a ghost here, you will not be able to open a way back to your mortal realm."

Suhara grumbled in frustration at the news. "Oh hurrah, be trapped forever or die. That's great, really."

The merchant is gone, having escaped back to the mortal realm of Vanasia, and Suhara eventually finds a ghost. This leads to what I think is the funniest moment in any story on TG Storytime, probably because my sense of humor is completely broken.

A low and stale voice began to radiate from the cone. "Individual trespassing upon the sector of the third, state your intent."

"Uh, are you a ghost of this realm?" said Suhara.

"Affirmative. I am Monitor Seventy-nine of the third sector. Known by mortal entities to be a spirit: class ghost." said the cone.

Suhara's stance relaxed as she listened to Seventy-nine speak. It didn't seem to be as threatening as she imagined. "Right... I am here to, uh... fight you... I guess"

"Request accepted." said Seventy-nine.

Suhara's browed arched up at the quick and emotionless acceptance. "Oh, okay."

And Suhara leaves the fight pretty broken and bloody. She loses her hand and almost bleeds to death before Theema wakes her up and makes her reattach her hand with her new vampire healing powers. She’s then able to defeat the ghost just as it’s waking up.

The strength-absorbing aura was still active. Suhara disabled it and felt her physical powers surge. She let out a feral roar, then leap over to the stone disk.

Seventy-nine glowed as it reactivated. "Unexpected trespasser recov-"

Suhara's staff crashed down on top of Seventy-nine, sending out a wide torrent of dust. A wave of vertigo hit her, causing her to hesitate for a few seconds after her attack. Using so much force after massive blood loss put her mind under duress.

But, if the ghost was allowed to fight back, there would be no way to live through this.

After Suhara is brought back to the mortal realm, the Lyceum staff learns about Theema. This is when the staff begins to take great interest in Suhara, and as such they try to learn all they can about her and the goddess she is a priest of.

The headmistress of the Lyceum, Helsfur, watches the second duel between Suhara and Roy, and even latches invisible cobwebs onto Suhara to feed information about the nature of her and Theema’s connection. The information is then relayed to Marlifa (who is described as looking similar to a spider), the goddess of knowledge and the deity which the Lyceum is under.

I mentioned earlier that Suhara goes on a research trip later in the story. Well, in an early chapter, a character named Rales asked Suhara if she wanted to go on a research trip with him. She declines, but after she gets back from Orouna, close to when the trip is supposed to start, she agrees. 

The Lyceum staff, who are currently trying to learn all they can about Theema, have Suhara wear a distress beacon necklace to alert them of her location at all times.

The research trip takes Suhara, Rales, and a number of other researchers to a forest containing castle ruins. As stated before, this set piece sees the characters pick up and learn about a bunch of magic artifacts. And again, they do travel into a pocket dimension where they meet another group of people, who leave to join their research group.

This pocket dimension also contains a relic known as the “Amber Heart”, which was meant to be more fleshed out in future stories taking place in the Vanasia universe but unfortunately, that never happened. Either way, in this story its purpose is for one of the characters from the research group, Joula, to sneak into the lake and take a look at it with her own eyes.

During all the excitement, Joula stayed in the pocket dimension. She snuck into the lake and turned invisible so that no one would notice her. When everyone was gone, she swam over to the small stone plateau. She had spotted a magical glow coming from inside. Curiosity overwhelmed her mind. She pushed against the top of the flat stone until it slid away.

There was a bundle of leather hidden inside. Runes and magical patterns were drawn all over the leather. Joula gaped with amazement. She took the tip of one of the coverings, and cautiously peeled it away. Underneath the wrapping was a yellow light, most likely from the Amber Heart.

Joula just wanted to see it for herself. Legendary beings like the Lich fascinated her more than any other type of history. The desire to steal the heart wrestled with her conscience. She ended up deciding against it. Although it would mean a lot to obtain an artifact of living legends, the magic leather coverings suggested that it would be too dangerous. Sneaking a peek like she did was already foolish and rash.

Joula covered the relic again with the leather. Then, she left the pocket dimension and rejoined her group.

Unfortunately this one peek was enough to alert a group of necromancers far away.

In a dark forest on the other side of the continent, an elder wizard's eyebrows arched up as he saw his dustiest crystal orb glow for a few seconds. He limped out of his cave and to the camp of necromancers outside.

"The Amber Heart, it shows itself."

This causes the necromancers to pilot dead bodies to attack the research group (and yes this story does call them zombies). Suhara sees the relentless attack and, against the wishes of the other researchers, asks Theema to teleport her into the battle so she can help the knights.

Suhara growled, ran back up to the window, and stared at the incoming army of undead. She called out to her goddess, "Theema!"

Theema's voice echoed into Suhara's head. "Yes, child?"

"Transport me, I wish to be standing right in front of that army!"

"Very well, it is done."

Suhara's body shifted into a gathering of smokey darkness, which extended forth through the castle wall and out into the forest.

Rales tried to grab Suhara, but his hand swiped uselessly through the blackness. "No! Come back!"

Walking in the wave of undead bodies and the mages controlling them, Theema tells Suhara that the High Priestess of Bright Noon is near. Not able to be killed by mortal means, she gets frozen by one of the necromancers and Suhara is about to take the opportunity to defrost her and take her power. Before she can though, an explosion throws her against a tree. The necromancers freeze the Priestess again, impale Suhara with stakes of wood, and move toward the castle ruins to kill the researchers.

Suhara’s life is temporarily saved by her vampiric regenerative abilities. It’s enough for her to take the power of the High Priestess as the Lyceum staff teleport there to find her and the others.

So yes, Suhara does accomplish a lot with her powers. And unlike “Fangs”, it feels earned. She almost dies multiple times, the story does not go easy on her. But because of that it feels really good when she does succeed.

The pacing of “Suhara of Curses” is, for the most part, pretty good. Aside from some fighting scenes going on for too long, it’s pretty tight and the story is good at slowly showing you more of the world.

I’m going to make another comparison to “Fangs”. It’s pretty easy to make these comparisons in this review because of the amount of similarities both stories have. Both of them have the “teenage boy gets sucked into a larger, more fantastical world and has to learn magic in a school after transforming into a girl with special powers” main plotline (they even have the same plotpoint of the MC taking on the image of a centuries old powerful figure). But “Suhara of Curses” handles pacing a lot better.

Even though the first ten or so chapters here are heavy on explanations of certain aspects of magic, there’s never an excessive amount of monotonous exposition dumping, and we get to see Suhara actually use some of this magic. For instance, in Chapter 6 there’s a set piece where the Lyceum is being overrun by thieves, and we see Suhara use her signature curse magic to teleport in order to save someone from being attacked by one of the thieves. So we’re not just being told about the world, we’re also being shown it.

Something that always bothered me about “Fangs” is how random the setup for Blake becoming the “most powerful vampire in the world” was. In that story, one of his friends throws a ball too high, and he encounters some muggers while trying to get it. The muggers then chase him into a maze, where Blake randomly falls into a secret room where there are a bunch of chalices. Miraculously, he drinks the one chalice out of like twenty that won’t kill him, through barely any effort. He just chooses the largest one and he’s right. The fact that it’s the most obvious one makes it strange how so many other people got it wrong.

I’m not saying I need a “chosen one” narrative, I do like the idea of some random person coming across this great power, but the setup just feels way TOO random. Blake didn’t have to earn anything in this process. So, in essence, what makes him more worthy of being Verona’s successor than any other random schmuck? Nothing.

There are a few ways to improve this. You could make Blake a fanatic of fantasy creatures like vampires and werewolves. At the start of “Fangs”, the larger world does not know about non-humans, so you could have him be one of the people who believes they are real before their existence is revealed. Have him constantly read up on some legend of “great power lying in the Maze”. Make him obsessed with finding this power, to the point where he goes to the Maze willingly and actively seeks it out himself.

Another option is to make Blake more resourceful. Keep the same idea of the chalices being a homage to the holy grail scene of “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”, but have there be some puzzle to finding the correct chalice. One that Blake would have to solve himself by being patient and clever. This approach would also make more sense from Verona and Kraven’s perspective, as I’m sure they’d want the person who takes on Verona’s image and power to be qualified. Someone who can get themselves out of bad situations by thinking outside the box. It’d make more sense than leaving it up entirely to random chance.

In Suhara’s case, she willingly went to the Lyceum herself because she was so obsessed with the idea of learning magic. She spent months devising a plan to sneak into it, and it was her curiosity that led her to the statue of Theema in the first place. It’s a much better setup for the main character because their journey is much more connected to the kind of person they were before.

The transformation does happen pretty early on, and some, I imagine, may have wanted a bit more time establishing the kind of life Suhara led before going to the Lyceum. As the story is, it starts with Suhara already being in the middle of her plan. Personally, I don’t mind it. I think we get enough context as to who Jaux is in the first chapter, and there’s certainly some good that can come out of starting a story by having a character in the middle of sneaking into a place. But I understand why some might be disappointed.

I really like that Suhara attains a lot of magic artifacts throughout the story, which all have a specific purpose and are put to good use at least once. Small touches like this help to make the world feel much more alive and real. 

For instance, in Chapter 13, Rales forcibly puts a black bracelet on Suhara’s arm which can not be taken off unless two people do it. As the story progresses, more is learned about this artifact. It has an enchantment which makes people forget about it when not looking at it, and also “has a mind of its own”, so to speak, meaning it can move on its own and sneak back onto the wrist of a person without them noticing, which does happen to Suhara.

It also has another power. When charged with magic, the bracelet will take the user back “home”, and since Suhara’s current home is her dorm room, that’s where it takes her.

In the first chapter the bracelet is in, Rales said it was used by the princess of an ancient, long gone kingdom. So even if it didn’t seem like it at first, the artifact was actually trying to help her. It goes undetected in the mind of its user until needed, and can automatically slide onto their arm. Then, presumably as a defense against kidnappers, it can easily take the wearer home. 

A second artifact Suhara encounters is called the “Gear of Miju”, which is given to Frey by one of her teachers, in a class Suhara is also in. It’s a glowing white cube with ancient runes to decipher, but no one can figure it out. It’s said to give “unstoppable force”.

And then later on, when Frey finally deciphers the runes, she can fly and move through solid objects, but can’t interact with them.

Another artifact Suhara receives is a silver anklet. Frey gives it to her in Chapter 7 and it’s meant to provide its user with a protective blessing when charged with enough magic. It’s very helpful during fights and duels.

The Grim Floret is the first artifact Suhara is given herself, by the same teacher who gave the Gear of Miju to Frey. It is shaped like a dark green metal flower that can easily fit in a person’s hand. It’s said to have a curse spell inside, if it can be opened.

When she is finally able to open it, it basically “turns off” all nearby magic.

Suhara puts the flower in her hair, which along with the bracelet and the anklet creates a nice image of her visibly becoming more powerful than she was at the start.

After Suhara meets Theema for the first time, Theema gives her a staff she gives to everyone she has bonded with, Sevla. Sevla is incredibly durable and is designed to take a lot of hard hits. It’s especially helpful as it has an enchantment to make it very heavy to anyone who isn’t herself. It furthers Suhara being more powerful.

“Suhara of Curses” has a pretty diverse cast of characters. I said earlier that I think they could’ve gotten some more development, which I still stand by, but regardless I liked most of the characters here.

Suhara herself is your typical TG protagonist, for the most part. She’s shy but very enthusiastic about learning magic. She operates as the audience surrogate to ease people into the world. 

As the story goes on it’s revealed that Suhara grew up a poor orphan, and never had any family. 

“Ah, Suhara... yes, that is the elder term for magic over in those parts,” Hawkshire noted, “would I be right to assume that your parents were mages then?”

“Oh. Well, I’m an orphan sir. I wouldn’t know.” Jaux explained, this time actually being truthful. He could not pretend to know what having parents would be like, but in this case it helped to keep personal questions to a minimum.

There are a couple details throughout the story that make clear how being an orphan has affected her. For instance, in Chapter 26 it’s revealed that Suhara skips a lot of meals as she isn’t used to them being scheduled.

Suhara still wasn't used to attending scheduled meals.

Back in Welldrop, she always ate whenever she had food on hand. That was how it worked when you were poor, parentless, and had to take what you could. She never bothered to eat at specific moments. Suhara had skipped breakfast quite a few times already. She might have also skipped it today, if her roommates didn't drag her down towards the cafeteria.

The old man who gave Suhara the demon root is later revealed to be named Raycern. He is the keeper of a wandshop and the only named character aside from Theema to know Suhara’s past as a boy. As such she is much more willing to be truthful about her life with him than anyone else.

Raycern ends up becoming a bit of a father figure to Suhara, a relationship made even stronger by the fact that Suhara never had any parents and Raycern never had any children.

Raycern also tells Suhara about his wife, who used to work at the Lyceum, and from the way he talks about her, it sounds like she’s dead.

The old man moved over to the Marlifa Lyceum after he had married. Although he never had any children, his wife had been a teacher at the Lyceum and they both enjoyed the company of students. Suhara morbidly considered the possibility that the shopkeeper’s wife was dead, and decided not to ask too many questions about her.

I wish Raycern was in the story a little more, as the idea of Suhara having an older, wiser mentor to guide her is a good one that should’ve been capitalized on more. Sure, Frey does kind of serve that role, but she’s more of a friend than a mentor. And also, Suhara isn’t really honest about her life to her. A mentor who she can talk to and be honest to would’ve been nice to see more of. I still like Raycern, but he’s underused.

I’ve noticed most TG stories have an outgoing supporting cis female character in contrast to the more reserved and shut in MC. The character in question usually pushes the MC to step outside her comfort zone and engage in more girly activities. Diane in “Of Heroes And Villains” and Megan in “Hush” both largely fulfill this role, and so do Suhara’s roommates in this story. 

Well, to an extent.

They don’t really push Suhara to do girly stuff, but they do encourage her to come out of her shell, primarily Frey. Suhara gets close to Tricks and Desyi too, but not as close as she gets to Frey.

This is where the romance of the story comes in. Though it’s a pretty minor element in the grand scheme of things.

In Chapter 4, while Suhara is asleep, her roommates lock a metal collar on her neck, which is apparently a tradition at that school. Higher level mages can “claim” a new novice mage, and act as their mentor. Suhara panics when she sees the collar. Her roommates didn’t even explain that to her until later. Poor girl just couldn’t catch a break.

Frey takes on the mentor role for the duration of the story, teaching Suhara all sorts of things about magic and all the different spells. They end up getting very close to each other, to the point where Frey kisses Suhara on her forehead.

Then Frey gave Jaux a little kiss on the forehead, before letting go and heading into the bathroom. The little sign of affection was new to Jaux, who wasn't sure if it was a thing that girls did or something else.

Even when Suhara first meets Frey, it’s hinted she has a crush on her.

The girl who dragged Jaux in was the tallest. She might also be the oldest, but it was hard to tell. Her wavy red hair was also a rare sight in these parts, and she was in fact the first red head Jaux had ever seen up close. She was also very...pretty. "So what's your name newbie?" She asked.

In Chapter 15, Frey and Suhara start making out for the first time, laying down on the floor together. It’s even the moment when the story starts referring to Suhara as Suhara.

Frey’s mouth split into a wide grin, then she drifted back into Jaux’s face for another tickling caress.

Jaux’s… Suhara’s lips parted just a tiny amount, and Frey took the invitation to swipe her tongue between the gap. The tongue moistened Suhara’s lips with a flimsy film of saliva, which only further aided in the idling emotional touches.

This make out session is, comically, put to an abrupt end as Tricks barges into the room in the middle of it.

Then the loud click and an open lock ruined the moment.

Suhara and Frey pulled away from each other as the gate into the dorm opened itself up. Tricks paraded in with an armful of boxed sweets, looking incredibly pleased with herself.

“Hey Frey, one of the girls we saved was the daughter of the sweets shop guy, I got all of these for free!” Tricks exclaimed.

Suhara and Frey just glared at Tricks with contempt and pursed lips.

“... What? Did I do something wrong?”

In the next chapter, they begin making out and caressing each other, but stop as they have to start practicing spells.

Frey wasn't one to rush. Suhara was disappointed that they didn't go further though, and tried to whine.

"Suhara, I was serious about not dating before. I really care about you, but we should understand each other better before we do anything else." Frey told her.

"Aw, but you started it." Complained Suhara.

"We were interrupted yesterday, just making up for it." Frey teased, before she started to dress in her robe. "Now hurry up, you have spells to practice."

Suhara pouted a bit, but went ahead to her wardrobe to change.

Their relationship is never fully cemented in the story, they never actually end up becoming a couple. But again, the fact that this story was unfinished makes it difficult to say what the end goal was. There is clearly attraction there, and Frey brings up the possibility of them dating.

Frey smiled faintly and sighed. She motioned for Desyi and Tricks to go in first. Then she walked up behind Suhara and hugged the shorter girl tightly by the waist. “You know, if we ever go out, I’d like it if you dressed up. Don’t you still want to try dating?”

Suhara bit the inside of her lips and didn’t answer.

After a minute of disappointing silence, Frey let go and walked into the store. “If you change your mind, we’ll be inside.”

Suhara looked back at Frey, but didn’t follow. She didn’t have a choice with her body, but she wasn’t comfortable wearing any feminine clothing outside of the dorm. She just wasn’t ready. It hadn’t even been two weeks since her body was transformed, she would rather keep to somewhat unisex robes.

After this, the story doesn’t develop their dynamic any further, which is a little disappointing. I think it would’ve been nice to have some more follow up on where their relationship was going. It makes sense, as around this time the story starts to build to its climax, with Suhara being separated from her roommates on her research trip. It makes sense that Suhara would be mostly concerned with other things. But I still think this could’ve been handled a little better.

Tricks is more “fun” with magic than Frey is, and definitely more mischievous. Desyi is a bit more reserved, and hates fighting. Despite this, she still wins against Tricks in their duel.

Going back to Frey though, the story has a bit of a love triangle, as at one point, Rales attempts to come onto Suhara.

She doesn’t take it very well.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” Jaux yelled as she backed away from Rales.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I thought I was getting a signal.” Rales hastily explained. “That was my bad, I guess I didn’t read the mood right.”

“Signal? What made you think that was a signal?!” Jaux complained.

“Well, your lips were kind of... look, I’m sorry.”

Jaux fumed at the audacity of Rales. A guy kissed her! Rales might not have known that Jaux was formerly a boy, but he had kissed her out of nowhere!

She doesn’t like it at first, but it’s made apparent later on that Suhara might have a crush on Rales.

The kiss wasn’t too bad. It was just a quick peck on the lips. Isn’t a first kiss kind of an exaggerated event anyway?

The teacher instructed Jaux to conjure up enough heat to create a small flame. Jaux completely lost focus on the lesson at this point, but she already knew a bit of temperature magic from practicing the heat explosion curse yesterday. Creating a small fire between her palms barely took any effort.

Jaux was sure she still liked girls. After all, her roommates were very pretty. Frey in particular. She was strong, tough, smart, and kind...

And later on Suhara gets the idea from Rales to kiss Frey, leading to their make out session.

The love triangle is never resolved, nor does Rales’s and Suhara’s relationship ever get fleshed out. Throughout the story, you get the impression that Rales likes her, and him asking her to go on the Research trip with him does come off a bit romantic, but that’s as far as it ever goes.

Taking everything into consideration, I think Suhara would’ve chosen Frey over Rales.

And I want to take some time to appreciate how this TGST story from 2014 gave us a mostly lesbian romance WITHOUT any forced het. TG fiction from 2014 to around 2018 or 2019 was still in the process of dropping old tropes, and that change didn’t come overnight. It took time, hell even the original version of “Hush” had forced het. But they were fading, and the especially bad tropes were pretty much gone.

Now, obviously, there is always going to be forced het, and forced gender ID change stories. There still are, today, and whenever I see them I kind of sigh. It’s a feeling of “come on we’re past this, this belongs in 2012”. But the point is that more and more stories are dropping it. And were dropping it in 2014.

If this story was written today, Suhara would probably just be trans. TGST wasn’t there yet, but you can see it getting there. Suhara is able to be a girl without any mental changes forcing her to like girly things or be attracted to men. And for 2014, that’s pretty good.

The rest of the characters have mostly minor roles in the story. Rales has a research room and primarily studies old artifacts. Norman and Deledy are two of Frey’s friends that are the same level magician as her (that being the highest level). Helsfur, Hawkshire, Rilane, and Wenlia are all high ranking Lyceum officials who we mainly see trying to piece together who Theema is. And Roy Intone is a stubborn, popular, and self-centered boy who is hinted to be a rich prince. He is very popular around the school and forms a sort of rivalry with Suhara, though much of that is one sided towards Roy.

There’s two characters in particular I want to discuss a bit more extensively. First, is Helanna, a girl who specializes in plant magic. She is a novice claimed by Deledy, and is the same rank as Suhara.

"Oh, Suhara, I'd like you to meet my own adorable little novi!" Deledy excitedly blurted out.

The emerald haired girl pulled the unfamiliar girl up to her feet, and then walked over to Suhara.

"This is Helanna, Helanna, this is Frey's novi Suhara." Deledy introduced.

At first, Helanna looked down at her feet, while her long locks of brown hair covered most of her face. At the mention of novi, she jerked her head up, staring at Suhara's collar. She looked relieved at the sight.

"Oh, hi Suhara." Helanna cheerfully greeted as she hugged her fellow novi.

She doesn’t appear much in the story, but whenever she does, it’s clear Suhara and her have a lot in common, and they get along very well.

Second is Joula, a nymph with goggles that allows her to see magic engraved in everything, just like Suhara’s winter sight. She joins Suhara and Rales during their research trip and seems to get along very well with Suhara.

The two girls walked up to the circle and observed it closely. They nodded once they saw the minuscule runes.

"I can decipher them." said Rales. "Could I borrow your goggles, Joula?"

"Ah... those goggles can only be used by her." said Celner. "She's a nymph, and they're just filled with water. It's to let her activate her priest powers."

"I see," said Rales. "Suhara's sight is also based on priest powers. This makes it difficult, then. Hm."

She also sneaks a look into the Amber Heart, inadvertently leading to the climax of the story. The story never calls her out on this, interestingly enough.

I bring these two characters up because they feel like they would’ve been the main characters of future stories in the Vanasia universe, if said universe ever continued.

With Helanna, she’s also a fish out of water underdog, much like Suhara, and shares her rather shy, reserved personality. She seems more like Suhara than any other character. I feel like, if a sequel to this story was ever written, the MC would be her.

With Joula, she shares Suhara’s trait of being connected to a priest, and getting powers from her. She can see magic all around her, much like Suhara. And of course, she briefly steals the Amber Heart in one chapter, showing she has an adventurous side to her. She’d probably be the MC of the third installment in the theoretical Vanasia series.

Joula and Helanna are a lot like Suhara in ways the other characters aren’t, and they have a lot of traits that make them feel like future main characters. Again, this is all speculation, but since the author was planning on a big Vanasia series, I feel I should talk about it.

As for the TG elements of the story, it’s another one where they’re a background element. There’s a little bit about Suhara adjusting as a girl, but in general it gets itself over within the first fifteen or so chapters, which is fine. There are a few moments that pop up here and there later on about Suhara’s adjustment, such as a scene where her roommates want to buy dresses for her and she adamantly shuts the idea down, and a scene detailing the aftermath of her freaking out upon having her first period, but those are both pretty minor.

The way Suhara’s acceptance is handled is a bit different than you’d expect it with a story like this. She doesn’t ever really accept it (though she’s never extremely distressed about it), she just kind of puts it out of her head as more important things happen. As the story goes, she just seems to become “neutral” about being a girl. Unlike with the previous two stories, there aren’t any strong implications that she was trans or wanted to be a girl all along. 

Though to be fair, this is a TG story, and as the sixth (or seventh) one I’m reviewing, I’m starting to feel like just referring to this meme whenever this question gets brought up.

I like the scene where Suhara is confused about a bunch of aspects of being a girl but can’t say anything about it without revealing she was a boy.

How exactly was a boy supposed to react when he starts feeling wedgies inside of his crotch?

Jaux couldn't really ask anyone for help in dealing with her issues. There wasn't any way to explain why she suddenly forgot how to be a girl, not without admitting to some really bad lies. Obviously, her roommates wouldn't be okay with the knowledge that they were sleeping with a former boy for the last week. There was no way she was going fix that lie, she'd have to carry it to the grave.

This gets into another huge aspect of Suhara’s transformation, which I’ve brought up before, that no other characters apart from Raycern and Theema know she was a boy. Her roommates never learn it, nor do they learn she was lying about her origin. Hell, when Suhara first snuck into the Lyceum, she assaulted a mage who looked like her (when she was a guy) and took his place. That mage isn’t mentioned again, by Suhara herself or any of the characters.

Of course, the story was unfinished, so that all very well may have been planned, and the story seemed to be going in the direction of the Lyceum finding out who Suhara truly is. There’s a scene in Chapter 35 where she’s talking about her hometown with another character, Joula, and she slips up when she says she’s from Welldrop. Rales catches this and asks her about it in the next chapter.

"Hey Suhara?" said Rales.

"Yeah?"

"I went through a few of the documents they gave to me about you, and I'm curious. Are you from Welldrop, or Western Beradina?"

Suhara froze, and realized the mistake she made back in the secret room. "Uh, well... I..."

"Don't worry, I'm not going to rat you out." Rales chucked.

Suhara sighed with relief, then continued with putting stuff away. "Yeah, I kind of lied during the admission. I'm from Welldrop."

The way the scene plays out, it seems like the start of Suhara finally being caught in her web of lies that she’s failed to keep up. And since this story was never finished, that may very well be the case.

I do like that this part of the story finally gives us some context as to what Welldrop was like. 

"Cool! I'm from Welldrop, over to the West." said Suhara.

"Oh, I've been there! That city is as colorful as triggerfish!"

"Totally, but it gets a bit dizzying sometimes. They always change the colors every month, and for a whole week I get all lost because I don't know where anything is anymore."

The one thing I don’t like about how the story handles Suhara’s transformation is that it takes too long for it to start referring to her as Suhara instead of Jaux. The switch to female pronouns happens in Chapter 4, but the switch to Suhara doesn’t happen until Chapter 15, when Frey and Suhara begin making out in their dorm room for the first time. It isn’t exactly random, but it still feels like it should have happened already. Chapter 8, when Suhara first meets Theema and is told she can’t change back, would have been a better choice.

“Listen, I really don't want to be rude or anything, and I'm thankful that you helped me learn magic, but could you please turn be back into a boy? Being a different gender is extremely awkward and uncomfortable."

"I am afraid that is not possible, child. My vessels always take my form when we reach an arrangement, but breaking that arrangement does not take away my form."

"Oh..."

Suhara does vow to learn transformative magic to try and change back, but she never ends up doing so. 

She got sidetracked, happens to the best of us.

Up until this point I’ve mostly avoided talking about the last chunk of the story. There is a good reason for that, but before I go further, I want to discuss the overall quality of the first thirty-nine chapters. 

“Suhara of Curses” is pretty good from Chapters 1 through 39, however I wouldn’t say it’s particularly great or one of the best stories on TGST. The fact that the story constantly moves from set piece to set piece without taking enough time to flesh out the characters and world can be disorientating, and has the effect of making a lot of the details of the story easy to forget. There were a lot of times in this story where I didn’t really remember what happened in a specific stretch of chapters beyond just the general ideas. A lot of the smaller plot details can go in one ear and out the other, or whatever similar phrase you’re supposed to use when talking about novels.

I briefly discussed the magic system but I want to go more in-depth here. Even though I’ve read this story two times, I still don’t entirely get the magic system. I don’t think it’s explained or demonstrated very well. There are some aspects that are pretty well communicated, like how everyone in this universe has raw magic naturally inside them, but other aspects like how genres work are a little confusing. 

Essentially, each mage has one specific genre they specialize in, and each genre has two opposite parts, a positive part and negative part. Suhara’s specialty is curse magic, which is the opposite of blessing magic, Frey’s specialty. Curses and blessings are two sides of the “power” genre. Curses take power away from something, and blessings give power.

The idea itself is interesting, but its implementation into the story feels overcomplicated for no reason. How do mages even know what type of magic they specialize in? Do they choose their specialty or is it given to them? Suhara never chose to cast curse magic, after all, so what was it like for other students?

Hell, one of the first things her roommates tell her when she says she casts curse magic is this:

"So what types of magic do you cast, Suhara?" Questioned Tricks out of nowhere. "I myself am a pretty spectacular illusionist!"

"Uh, I cast curse magic." Jaux answered, taking a quick glance towards her nightstand, where demon root rested inside.

"Curse? Really? I've never heard of a newbie using curses," Frey said in surprise, "you're my complete opposite then, because I use blessing magic."

So when are students usually able to begin casting curse magic? 

What’s even the point of only specializing in one genre at all? Does mastering one genre inherently make you worse at others? Most students seem pretty capable of casting any kind of magic, and most genre specific spells seem fairly straight forward anyway. For instance, in Chapter 14 Suhara creates a flame out of her hands accidentally, despite the fact that she’s a newbie and doesn’t specialize in temperature magic.

The flame in Jaux's hands began to steadily grow as more magic was unconsciously fed into the spell.

Rales' face danced through Jaux's imagination, his hair was dramatically blown by a constant breeze.

Then they kissed again.

"Ow!" Jaux yelled when the fire in her hands grew big enough to burn her fingers.

Most of this story seems to operate on a “it’s just magic, anyone can use any kind” principle, so the genre system becomes pointless. It’s easy to forget it’s in the story at all. 

This story should’ve either dropped the genre system entirely and kept it simple, or explain why there are genres in the first place as well as why they’re useful. Convey the system better to the reader. Because as it stands, there’s no reason why it needs to be like some video game that’s too complicated for its own good. 

And don’t even get me started on how soul magic works.

This is a minor point but I don’t like how some of the chapters handle naming. In the middle of the story, the author tries using ways to refer to characters other than just saying their name. One of the author notes states that they wanted to experiment with naming, which is fine, but I have to say the experiment failed. Reading “the young curse magician”, or “Frey’s former novi”, or “violet eyed girl”, or “black haired girl” in place of Suhara feels arbitrary (there are also a few times when the story goofs and says “violet haired girl”). That kind of naming convention can work in specific contexts, but since the story uses it at completely random times, it becomes awkward to read. It evokes the same feeling as an author trying to use words other than “said” and so they force in a bunch of similar terms that don’t fit. These naming conventions do stop later in the story. Definitely the right move, if you ask me.

There are some other problems I could discuss like how the first few chapters are a bit too heavy on exposition and long explanations but I think the big picture has gotten across. “Suhara of Curses” is a good story, but it isn’t a great one.

Not until the last few chapters.

Let’s go back to Theema. Reading this review, you’ve probably gotten the impression that Theema seems sketchy. She does a lot of pretty bad stuff to Suhara. The forced transformation, forced tattoos, keeping a thousand year old vampire as her slave, all around she sounds like bad news. This is something even the other characters discuss once Suhara first tells them about her.

"Girl, Suhara, that Theema sounds evil." Tricks stated with confidence. "Darkness, forced tattoos, magic stealing powers, and vampires. It all screams evil. You should ditch her."

"We shouldn't jump to conclusions!" Debated Desyi. "Darkness isn't guaranteed to be a bad thing. Plus it sounds like she's been out of touch with us for a while, maybe the tattoo thing was common when she was around? I've also heard of more gruesome priest powers from good spirits!"

"I don't know." Muttered Frey. "Using a vampire as a weapon doesn't sound like something a good deity would do. It's also kind of weird that no one has ever heard of her. How does a realm with only a single inhabitant even exist?"

For the first half of the story, the reader doesn’t know whether or not to trust her. And when she uses a harpy to imprint false memories in Suhara’s head and give her a fake, plagiarized book lying about her origins, most readers will only begin to grow more distrustful of her. Why wouldn’t she want Suhara and her friends to know much about her? It’s after this that Theema begins forcing Suhara into life threatening situations, knowing full well that she will probably die, furthering this feeling of distrust. The fact that the Lyceum staff doesn’t seem to trust her as they learn more about her makes this worse.

However, everything is still dialed back enough to the point where it’s understandable that the characters wouldn’t know that she is evil. 

And yes, in Chapter 39, it’s revealed that Theema was evil the entire time. The reason she wanted Suhara to obtain the spirits of the High Priest of Bright Noon and a ghost from the realm of Broken Space was so she could finally appear on Vanasia in physical form.

She’s a twist villain in a technical sense (not the first in one of these stories if you count Elaine in “Of Heroes And Villains”), but the story was already building on the idea that neither the characters nor the readers knew whether to trust her. Even if she was never explicitly evil, the story was certainly building up to her being evil. And it fits with her character. She still has the same personality after the reveal, plus her motivations make sense. I feel the need to mention this because of a few things. First, I’ve seen a lot of people complain about the idea of “twist villains”, probably because a few disney movies (Frozen, Big Hero 6, Zootopia, Incredibles 2) used the trope very badly. And also, TG stories in general are not very good with twists.

Yeah, I haven’t talked about this yet, but there are quite a few stories on TG Storytime’s most favorite list that have big plot twists. And most of them are terrible. I’ve already discussed how awful the twist of “the rapist character was secretly trans and tried to rape the MC because she wanted to be a woman” in “For a Girl” is, and there’s more awful ones coming along the way. The most I can say about them is that it feels like the author wanted there to be a big plot twist in order to shock the reader, which isn’t a bad thing by itself, but they wrote the twist before they asked themselves what it would actually add to the story. And so it ended up feeling bizarre and stupid, even ruining some parts of the story.

Theema being revealed to be evil isn’t exactly a big twist, but it still technically counts as a plot twist, and it’s one of only ones in a TG story that actually works. It doesn’t feel cheap and is paced well. And unlike in the disney movies I mentioned, Theema isn’t revealed to be evil at the very end of the story, we still get a slew of chapters where we see her as evil.

Theema’s plan is to get vengeance. Centuries ago she was attacked by a group of paladins who believed all spirits were a plague to be eradicated, and she appeared in the mortal world for just a brief moment of time, covering the entire planet in darkness. Theema’s power is so overwhelming it consumes entire areas in shadow. A select few deities on Vanasia determine that because of this, she should never be allowed to return, and so seal her in her home dimension such that leaving would kill her. Which is pretty horrible, and makes it hard not to feel a little sorry for her. But, by coming into Vanasia and shrouding the planet in darkness, she is killing it.

I do wish this backstory was given more weight, because it’s only briefly referenced. I think there is something to be said by characters in this story about how they see people with dangerous powers. No one even tried to talk to her about staying out of the mortal realm.

When Theema arrives in Vanasia in physical form and traps Suhara in her realm in eternal sleep, the planet is shrouded in darkness, no sun, clouds, moon or stars, allowing the monsters of the night, such as vampires, to roam free and attack people. This event becomes known as the “Time of Void Skies”. High level students and staff of the Lyceum are sent out to protect people. It’s made clear here that a lot of people are dying.

And we see this, as one of the main characters, Desyi, actually does die, in a pretty graphic way too.

The boy was the only child who didn't run away from the scene. "No!" he screamed.

Desyi hesitated when she saw the face of the horrified boy. In her moment of weakness, the vampire's hand pierced through and ripped past her heart.

In a twisted way, the sudden loss of so much blood helped cure all the pain.

Desyi pushed her hand forth one last time, so that her burning fingers beheaded the pale abomination.

Too late, Tricks charged through the cabin doors. There waited a paralyzed boy and a fallen companion.

When I read this scene for the first time, I was a bit taken aback. I can’t remember the last time I read a TGST story that actually killed off one of its main characters. Usually the characters that die are either antagonists, minor characters who you already expect to die, or unnamed extras. But a main character's death? That shocked me.

And I like that it did.

Desyi’s death isn’t grandiose or cinematic, it’s gruesome and quick. It’s already over by the time Tricks gets there. And I like stories that do this, it’s like a sign that the outside world will not seep into the story. Just because someone is a main character doesn’t mean they’re immune from dying quickly and easily.

I think another reason I liked it is because TG stories often don’t have high stakes, so killing off a main character is a good way to remind the reader that these stakes are real. The Time of Void Skies is supposed to be this incredibly devastating event where tons of people die, and that impact is lessened when all of our main characters come out alive and happy.

Of course, this death does come with a pretty big asterik, that being that the story was never finished. And because of that, we don’t know if the author intended to bring Desyi back to life. Why is that a possibility? Because in Chapter 48, Desyi comes back as a vampire.

At Theema's side, there was a lone vampire with long blonde hair in loosening braids. Its scarlet eyes met with Suhara, and there seemed to be recognition inside for a brief moment, before it became a feral glare.

The vampire, Desyi, glanced down at her pale hands. She looked unsure, like an animal confronting something new and foreign. Her hands were more than a match for ripping apart the imitation of vampire durability, but she had instantly forgotten the reason why she did so. The blood demon that powered her body regained control again, and her mind was clouded once more by savagery.

Theema's arm began to regenerate. She swiped her unharmed left fist at the vampire. Desyi howled in pain as she was sent flying, her body soared into the darkness, over the edge of the Lyceum roof.

The very last paragraphs of the story see light returning to Vanasia after Theema’s defeat. Suhara is unconscious, and Frey and Tricks run to her. But as the sun shines in the sky again, Frey looks out to the monsters retreating to the woods, and for a brief moment sees Desyi, who looks back.

Frey was the first to force herself back upright after Suhara fell into the Lyceum. She ran to the hole, but lulled to a stop as she caught something at the corner of her vision.

Far into the distance, where demonic priests were scrambling back into the shadows of a nearby forest, one of the vampires still looked back at the Lyceum roof. Frey was sure she had made eye contact, and was even more sure that she recognized the distant figure. Unfortunately, before coming up with any way to get a closer look, the distant vampire stalked away.

Tricks had regained her footing by now, and called out while passing the frozen Frey. "Come on, Frey, we gotta check on Suhara!"

Frey shook her head to dispel her lapse of concentration, then started following Tricks.

So this begs the question, if this story was completed, would Desyi have been brought back? The fact that this is a possibility does lessen the impact of her death, as there’s no way to verify it as final. Regardless, this plotline is still really good. I think TG stories could benefit from character deaths every once in a while, which isn’t me saying “writers should have to kill off one of their characters”. I just think a story where everything doesn’t turn out well in the end would be nice.

I didn’t mention this earlier, but shortly after Suhara and Roy’s second duel, Suhara suddenly gets trapped in a silver cubicle by a ghost on the roof. The ghost is the same one she fought in the Realm of Broken Space, who survived and has entered the mortal realm to search for her relentlessly.

A reflective portal opened up in the skies above Orouna.

Seventy-nine was the first ghost that came through the rippling portal. It was soon followed by several other stone ghosts: a pyramid, two spheres, a cube, and a pair of narrow cylinders.

"Begin active realm inspection for hostile trespasser five hundred forty-four." said Seventy-nine.

The ghosts are defeated by Helsfur launching Marlifa’s webs at them. They’re all defeated, even seventy-nine, who, right before their death, says: These hostilities will be reported to the Third. Suhara is able to escape from the cubicle by using her bracelet.

In Chapter 42, the Third actually approaches the Lyceum in search of Suhara, and Frey uses this opportunity to find her. Using the Gear of Miju, she gives the Third an estimate of Suhara’s location, and follows it through a portal to Theema’s realm. Suhara is spotted, and the Third attempts to kill her. It seems to succeed and the Third leaves.

And then it’s revealed Suhara survived it, thanks to Theema’s protective magic granted to her in her sleeping state.

Suhara took in a sharp breath as she saw Frey's face. "F-Frey? What are you doing here? I'm... we're... uh." she stopped talking and looked around with a bit of confusion.

Suhara recognized the landscape, it was where she met with Theema, but it was odd to be here alongside Frey. It felt real, but everything was so bizarre that being a dream was a more realistic possibility. Her robe was even shredded, although she could feel her demon root poking against her stomach.

Frey pulled out a large cloak from her satchel, and wrapped it around Suhara. "Here," she said, "best stay warm, it's really cold back home right now."

Suhara is told what happened, that Theema is evil, and the book they had on her was plagiarized. With help from the bracelet, Suhara and Frey are able to teleport back.

This is one part of the story I’m kind of torn on. I think the whole plotline with the ghosts looking for Suhara far overstays its welcome, especially when there are more immediately important things happening. Like, we’re at the finale, is this really the time for this?

I suppose this is a good way to have Suhara return to Vanasia after being trapped in Theema’s realm, but that could’ve been done in a number of ways. I don’t think it’s enough to justify this plotline still being relevant this far into the story.

Once Suhara learns of Desyi’s death, she immediately blames herself. If only she didn’t go to the Lyceum in the first place, she says, none of this would’ve happened.

"It is," said Suhara. "It's all because I came here. I tried taking what I didn't deserve. Now there's... all of this. I am to blame."

Raycern shook his heard. "This is all that goddess's fault. You were misguided, but these aren't the consequences of your actions."

"How can you say that?!" Suhara yelled, "None of this would have happened without me! Desyi would still be-"

Raycern has to give a harsh pep talk to lift her spirits enough to stop her crying. To get her to go out and try to stop Theema.

"Enough, young lady," said Raycern. "This is needless sorrow. Mourn those we have lost, but do not burden yourself with the guilt from crimes of another. Even if you never came along here, that deity still existed. If not you, then there would have been another. Simple as that. What you should be focusing on is helping to end this. Not because you are at fault, but because you may have the means to stop it."

"But I can't stop it."

"Then it's damn good you have friends to help you. Go now, lass. Do what you can, and you'll have done what was best."

So Suhara goes to a meeting in the Lyceum, full of members of the administration and high level mages, where everyone is trying to figure out what to do about Theema, with little to no progress. That is, until Raycern comes in with an idea.

Raycern chuckled before he explained, "The Curahge's Forest of Gallain, where the trees of demon root staves thrive. If you bring the lass there, the forests may be able to drain away the spiritual bond."

An idea that could very well get Suhara killed, as the Forest of Gallain’s magic draining field is very often fatal. Something that a lot of people seem to be fine with, as they blame Suhara for what happened. So much so that disorder erupts in the meeting, until another recent visitor, a high priestess known as the Muse, forces order back into the court. At the end of the chapter, Suhara says she will go.

I really like how the next chapter portrays Suhara’s emotions. She wants to save everyone, and do all that she can to stop Theema, but even still, she’s afraid of her own life. She blames herself a lot for what happened, and especially blames herself for Desyi’s death, but even when confronted with a way to end everything, to end all the deaths that will keep happening, she hesitates.

The one thing that keeps her going is the hope that maybe she can reunite with Desyi in the afterlife. Have that one last conversation they never did when alive.

If this really was the end, perhaps they could both meet again. The end of life was always an unknown realm.

With that thought in mind, Suhara walked forth. The darkness would always be uncertain.

I find this moment kind of beautiful, and I wish more stories really tapped into this fear of death many characters who go on heroic sacrifices will probably have. It’s a touch that makes the story feel all the more real. And it makes me more connected to the characters and what will happen to them. I feel the life or death situation here a lot better than I would otherwise.

Of course, Suhara doesn’t end up dying, but for a second, I really felt that she could, and that’s what makes this such a good chapter.

Suhara’s able to bring the demon root to the forest of Gallain, and because of the spirit magic she has gathered, the magic draining field has no effect on her. Nor the demon root for that matter. But just when all hope seems lost, the demon root flares up and she follows its pull, just as she did before the initial transformation, and it leads her back to its source, a tree in the forest.

It inserts itself back into it as a stem perfectly. And through it, Suhara gains new magic and power, hopefully enough to stop Theema. The tree that gives her this power is given a name.

Trees never named themselves, but there was still a way to address them. The identity of Suhara's demon statue, of her source, was like a giant bell resonating beneath the waves. A slow tone, but with a bright and cherry sound. Peaceful could be the word.

Doon.

Theema, meanwhile, almost loses her power to physically appear in the mortal realm, as well as her connection to Suhara, and as such she begins moving to the Lyceum, leading us to the final battle.

Again, this was a great chapter, and a great way to build up to the big climactic final battle. And how is the final battle?

It’s pretty good.

There’s a bit more build up in the following chapters, with Suhara, Frey, and Tricks traveling right up to the roof for the fight. While on the way up, Suhara contemplates the kind of person she’s become, and if she would’ve chosen this path if she knew all that would’ve happened at the beginning. The thing is, she was Jaux at the beginning, and she knew that if Jaux saw it all, he wouldn’t go down this route. As she says, he hated change. He wanted control of his life, not to lose it.

But she isn’t Jaux anymore, and she couldn’t bear to part with everything she’s gained since getting into the Lyceum. In a way, she did get everything she wanted. She entered the world of magic, learned magic, became good at casting and using it, and became more powerful than she could’ve ever hoped.

As cliché as it is to say it, “with great power comes great responsibility”. Jaux wanted to learn magic quickly, but he didn’t want any of the responsibilities that came with it. He was too headstrong, too hot headed, and too impatient to take the time to learn magic as an art. But now that Suhara’s learned it all and has worked for her knowledge, she’s much more humbled.

I do wish the story focused on this arc more, as well as given Suhara a more defined character arc. Because this could’ve been a good story to showcase why this character, out of all the others, should undergo this transformation. Why does Jaux get turned into a girl? Because he needed to learn to be patient and more respectful of what he wanted to learn. If the story made that a clear arc, I think it would’ve been a lot better.

But what we got isn’t bad, to be fair.

And obviously, there’s a huge trans sentiment to Suhara’s thoughts. She’s just not the person she was before. She’s changed so much, mentally and physically. She can't relate to her old self as if it’s her anymore. Jaux feels like someone else, that was someone else's life.

The final battle can be divided into two different parts. In the first, all the big, powerful characters in the story try to defeat Theema. All the other characters, mages, gods, and goddesses alike, fail. And Frey and Tricks end up getting knocked unconscious, which leads into the second part, where it’s Theema vs Suhara, one on one.

It’s here where we finally see Desyi as a vampire. As mentioned before, she and Suhara stare at each other for a bit after Desyi bites off one of Theema’s arms, which quickly regenerates. Desyi is then thrown off the Lyceum down below into the forest.

And then we’re at the final part of the story, where all hope is lost and Suhara is about to be killed. How does she win? Well, there’s still one empty circle on her arm, ready to be filled with spirit magic. So she plunges her arm into her own chest, and with the power granted by Doon, fills that last circle with the magic of Theema. This breaks their bond and Theema’s ability to stay in the mortal realm. She even yells Suhara’s name, which she still assumes to be Jaux. Theema tries to stop her, even attempts to kill her by piercing her arm through her chest. But the wound is able to heal just in time for Suhara to get one last hit on Theema, killing her, before she falls unconscious.

Honestly, as a conclusion to the final battle, this is pretty weak and feels pointlessly convoluted. I still don’t really understand how it works. I suppose Suhara using her ability to consume spirit energy made sense as a way to finish things off, but it feels so random. She doesn’t even need to plunge her hand into Theema’s chest, and there’s no moment where she realizes what she needs to do, which makes it very weak as it feels like she could’ve done this at any time. Maybe if however Suhara beat Theema was connected to something earlier in the story, or there was some clever and well placed “aha!” moment, it would’ve worked a lot better, but as it stands, it’s a bit thoughtless. 

I also think having Suhara yell “my name is Suhara!” after Theema yells “Jaux!” would’ve been a good move, even if it would be obvious.

In fact, this brings me to what I think is the biggest problem with this story, it is hard to follow at times. I don’t know what it is, whether it be the prose, or the way things are explained, but after reading this story I had a hard time remembering some of the specific details of the plot. I knew the big picture of course, it wasn’t to the point where I didn’t even understand the main conflict (like in the first two Star Wars prequels, for instance), but this story is occasionally quite bad at properly conveying its plot beats or its concepts to the reader. I think it would’ve greatly benefitted from some extra time to work out these kinks, and make it easier for the reader to follow what’s happening.

So the skies of Vanasia finally clear as the monsters of the night are forced back into the forest. And as I’ve already said, the last scene sees Tricks and Frey get up and run to Suhara to check up on her, but not before Frey gets a look at Desyi out in the forest. And I really like that as the ending to the story. It ends things on a wistful note, but not without any hope. It’s actually a pretty beautiful moment.

Overall, despite me not liking how it ended, this final battle was a pretty satisfying way to end things. It’s just the right length, and is paced pretty well. In fact, the entire ending segment of this story is amazing. It’s tense, it’s dramatic, it has a ton of climactic moments, and does an excellent job of going through multiple setpieces. You really feel what the characters are going through here, their despair, their desperation, their loss, and it’s just not the type of thing you usually find in a TG webnovel. Even in spite of some of its problems, it makes this story special, and elevates it to being one of the best TG stories out there.

However, this, of course, brings us right back to the fact that this story was unfinished. A fact that I have mentioned countless times already and will do again right here.

I think with this story it’s especially depressing because it was SO close to being finished. Literally all it was missing was the epilogue, which never came to be. It has been about nine years since the last chapter was posted, and at this point it’s safe to say the author is not coming back.

This would usually be the point where the review ends, and it kind of still is, but either way, the post isn’t ending here.

Because that wasn’t the end of “Suhara of Curses”.

In December 2017, a user named Jess123 wrote a continuation of the story on TG Storytime, which went on for four chapters, up until January 2018. It… also never got finished, and ended on a cliffhanger, just as the original story. I never read it, so I don’t know how it turned out.

But that wasn’t the last time a continuation of the story was written, because in May 2022, another user by the name of LeftyPosting posted a full epilogue of the story on TG Storytime and BigCloset, which finally gave the story an ending.

Oh hey, that’s me!

Yeah, after really liking this story as a teenager, and being disappointed for so many years never finding out how it ended, I realized the only way I was going to see the ending, is if I wrote it myself. So that’s what I did. I even updated it a bit a little over a year ago to fix some dumb continuity errors I made. The main point is, as far as I can tell, this is the closest to a true ending “Suhara of Curses” ever got.

Now, is it entirely ethical to write an ending for an unfinished story, especially without the original author’s permission? To be honest, probably not. I may have done something very wrong here. But it had been so many years since the story was discontinued, and it was so close to the end! So I thought it’d be nice to try to end the story myself. I only ever posted it on sites where the original story was posted, and I even called it a “Fanfiction Epilogue”. I made it clear this was MY interpretation of what the ending of the story should be, not what would’ve been the true ending. And if the original author, Ruexin, ever comes back and requests that I delete the story, I will. But I wanted people to have the option to read the story with an ending.

What I’m going to do now is not try and argue that my ending is good. In fact, I understand it has a lot of flaws, and since my fanfiction ending never got any reviews, I have no idea if it turned out well (I don’t want to self promote too much here, but I would really like some feedback on it, just to know if people are happy with it). What I want to do here is justify my choices, explain why I made them.

To summarize my ending, it’s a single chapter fanfiction epilogue consisting of roughly 9K words. It starts off with Suhara waking up in the Lyceum, seemingly days after defeating Theema, and being told by Rales that she won and that the Time of Void Skies is over. Suhara recalls Desyi being a vampire, still blaming herself for it, and learns that a collection of mages have gone out to search the forest for her. She tries to leave the Lyceum to help them but can’t, and cries on the floor. She meets up with Raycern, who tells her that he is actually planning on doing a “Life Conversion” spell on Desyi to turn her back into a human, the only known way to cure someone of vampirism. Doing it will kill him, but he is fine with that, as he believes he has lived a full life. He also mentions wanting to see his wife again, and it is confirmed here that she’s dead. Raycern and Suhara share one last moment togehter before the other mages arrive and bring Desyi’s unconscious body back to the Lyceum, where, in a dark room, Raycern performs the spell and brings her back as a human, before dying. Suhara visits his grave stone and mourns him, but appreciates what he was able to do for her and Desyi.

The next part of the epilogue sees the Lyceum classes starting up again. Desyi is back, and so is the mage Suhara assaulted in the first chapter. Here, every character now knows Suhara’s true past. They all know she was an orphan from Welldrop and was a guy before. They all know she lied about her origins, because this one mage recorded her memories and revealed all of it. But her friends still support her, and don’t care that she was a guy. They defend her from the mage and he leaves without much issue.

Suhara talks to Helanna during lunch, where she sees she is no longer collared and has ranked up from being a novice. Suhara also talks to Rales, where they discuss a possible relationship, before she decides she loves Frey more. She then talks to Joula, and they discuss the Amber Heart, and how Joula had it held in her hands.

While in the bathroom, Suhara contemplates where she is now, what she’s become, and if she’s okay with that. After a while, she decides that she is fine with it, and is fine with being a girl. Toward the end of the epilogue, she goes on a date with Frey, in a dress bought for her in Orouna. It’s there where the two finally become a couple. The story ends with Suhara and her roommates visiting Welldrop, where Suhara vows to travel around the world to show the beautiful world of magic to as many people as she can. That’s the basic rough summary, though the actual story is a lot more detailed.

I want to take time to explain my decisions, one by one. First, bringing back Desyi and killing off Raycern. Considering how the last chapter ended, I think the author was intending to bring Desyi back, so that’s what I did. But also, I didn’t want it to feel cheap. I still felt that someone needed to die in order for all the deaths from the Time of Void Skies to feel meaningful. So that’s why I came up with the idea of a “Life Conversion” spell to change her back. And Raycern seemed like the best candidate. It just felt right for him to die, especially since his wife was already hinted at to be dead earlier in the story. And it’s another person close to Suhara that dies, which makes the loss feel more meaningful. I also added some dialogue where Raycern said he wanted to do the spell on his wife when she was dying, but she declined and told him to save it for a time he really needed it, which he did.

Is it a little cheap? Maybe, but it felt like the best way to do things.

Second is my decision to have Suhara’s past be revealed. The story felt like it was already building up to this and I think it made sense for the mage she assaulted in the beginning to come back. It also strengthens the bond between Suhara and her friends. She was so worried that her friends wouldn’t like her if she told the truth but as it turns out, they don’t mind. In fact, Frey completely understands why she lied and doesn’t hold it against her.

Third, having Suhara get together with Frey instead of Rales. Throughout the story it seemed like Suhara just liked Frey more than him. The connection between them felt more organic, and I think Ruexin was going for a lesbian story here. It would make sense considering “Suhara of Curses” was inspired by “Of Heroes And Villains”. Suhara and Frey certainly had a lot more chemistry than Suhara and Rales.

Having a date scene between Suhara and Frey was a good way to initiate their relationship, I think. And it was already set up with Frey saying she’d like Suhara to dress up nice for a special occasion in Orouna, even when Suhara didn’t want to. I even had her wear the dress Frey bought for her there. With this, every TG story I’ve covered so far would have at least one scene where the MC wears a dress, and most other TG stories have this scene as well. It’s basically obligatory with the genre.

Fourth, my decision to have Suhara to be fine with staying a girl. I mean, it’s a TG story, how else could it have ended? It’s basically Rule 1 of TG fiction, the MC always stays female at the end. But, more than just following trends, I think the story was already leaning in that direction of Suhara not wanting to go back. In Chapter 46, she just seemed too into the idea of her being Suhara, a girl, and different from Jaux. She’s grown to love her new life too much, she can’t go back to being Jaux because she just isn’t him anymore.

And lastly, I think ending the story at Welldrop was a nice way to bookend things.

I also put in a little social commentary about how having this big school of magic only accessible to the rich was only going to guarantee something like this happening. If only the rich can access the world of magic, it will end in disaster. It’s not sustainable.

I’m sorry everyone, but the Lefty part of LeftyPosting was feeling particularly annoying that day.

There are definitely some shortcomings with my epilogue that even I can acknowledge. It might be a little rushed, it tries too hard to tie everything up in a neat bow, it ends with the narrator just saying all the ways their life is better, which isn’t really a subtle or effective way to end things. I think the change in tone from dark to light is a little too drastic, and doesn’t quite acknowledge the loss that occurred during the Time of Void Skies before immediately going into the happy endings for all the main characters.

But I think the biggest problem is that Desyi coming back is sort of glossed over. The big reunion scene between Suhara, Frey, Tricks, and Desyi is just… not there. And honestly? I sort of feel like adding a new chapter to the story, just to have that scene in there.

I’m not going to edit the epilogue further. Overall, I think it turned out… okay. But I do want to acknowledge its faults. I can’t really review my own work, but at the very least it is nice that, after all these years, “Suhara of Curses” has an ending, even if it’s not THE ending.

You know, it's weird. Before going into this review I wasn't expecting to have as many problems with this story as I did. That's not to say that I think the story is worse after doing this, it's just that it has more flaws than I initially thought. I felt the same way after I did my “Hush” review and to an extent my “Of Heroes And Villains” review. They're all great stories, but they have more flaws than I first realized. 

With all that being said, “Suhara of Curses” is still a great story, and one of the best that TG Storytime has to offer. While I was never quite as connected to this story as I was with “Hush”, I still have very fond memories of it. Yes, I wish Suhara got a more clear character arc. Yes, I wish the conclusion to the last fight was stronger. Yes, I wish the fight scenes in general weren’t so hit or miss. Yes, I wish the story was clearer on a lot more of its concepts and world building. And yes, I wish the story was given a true conclusion and the Vanasia universe actually happened. But the good here definitely outweighs the bad and makes this more than a worthwhile experience.

The world of Vanasia is so interesting and fun. The characters are likeable and it tops everything off with a tense and dramatic climax in the last 10 chapters. It goes through tragic events, grief, and loss in ways that most webnovels never do. Hell, a lot of this story made me think “this is what ‘Fangs’ SHOULD have been’.

It’s a TG story that had a lesbian romance in 2014. That alone makes it very special.

There are a few minor details that I really like here, such as the emphasis on the color purple (or violet). It’s a nice touch that gives this story its own unique feel. I’d still say “Of Heroes And Villains” is stronger overall, but “Suhara of Curses” is still the second best story I’ve covered so far. It’s close between this and “Hush”, but I think this just slightly edges out as the better story. It’s one I’d recommend to people even if they have no interest in TG fiction, I think everyone can read this story and have a good time.

The fact that the story was never given a true ending might be a roadblock for a lot of people, but you can rest assured that most of the story is finished. If you can get over that, you’ll likely be glad to have read this, and maybe even read my version of the ending if you want (shameless self promotion)?

I’m not sure why this story got forgotten, but maybe it’s because the author themselves got forgotten, after having no active online presence for roughly eight years. Wherever Ruexin may be now, I hope they’re doing well and making bigger and better things. It was stories like this that really helped propel TG fiction forward. It has too many flaws for me to justify giving it a perfect score, but I can settle for an almost perfect one.

Rating: 9/10

Join me next time where I’ll be reviewing “The Elementalist” by fantasygirl. See you all then!