On my world, it means hope.

When I was originally querying to try to get an agent, I often heard, "A bad agent is worse than no agent." And I often scoffed. "It's easy to say that when you already have an agent," I thought. "You don't understand how desperate querying authors are."

Well, now that I'm on the other side, I have to agree. A bad agent is worse than no agent.

I've started spiraling today because I'm increasingly getting the sense that my agent isn't aggressive enough in her submission strategy and that might have wasted a lot of my time. I've been on submission with Novel #4 since January of this year, and I have to be honest: I've been very mentally unwell for most of the year. I've talked a bit about it in previous blog posts, but to reiterate: I was so sure Novel #4 was commercial. Except it just fell flat for editors, for some reason. But no one has really identified a problem with the execution; it's all just vague form rejections or "I wasn't as invested in the story as I wanted."

The toll that took on my mental health was...really bad. I honestly feel like I've wasted this entire year stuck in a pit of severe, constant anxiety that prevented me from doing other things.

Because I still BELIEVE this book is good enough and hooky enough for a publisher to pick it up. I read traditionally published Adult Fantasy aggressively; I know this book is commercial.

So...since there are only two editors still considering my book, I asked my agent if we could go on submission in the UK. I've noticed that many agents for US-based Adult SFF authors regularly go on submission in the US and UK simultaneously, I think because the market is so small. I assumed my agent had strategic reasons for not wanting to do so and respected that. She even told me she was willing to consider UK publishers during the second round of submission (...and then proceeded not to do so and not explain to me why she'd changed her mind).

But...apparently my agent's reason for not going on submission to the UK was essentially "I've never done it before and the agency doesn't like the idea."

I've spoken to other authors who told me that going on submission to the UK actually helped them get a US deal/get a better US deal. Especially because UK editors read much more quickly than US editors, for some reason.

And now I can't help thinking that, if I had gone on submission on the UK and US simultaneously for this book, I might have already sold the book by now.

That's the part that kills me the most. I can't handle feeling like I've wasted so much time, that I've spent so much time stewing in anxiety and stress that could have been avoided.

And yes, this is one thing, but I'm starting to feel like there are a bunch of little things about my agent that have made me uncomfortable that are adding up to my desire to seek new representation. It's difficult, though, because there aren't any major red flags; she's supportive of whatever I want to write, and I think her pitch letters and submission lists are fine, and she is collaborative and welcomes my input on strategy. But here are the things that have made me uncomfortable over the years:

- With the novel I signed with her (Novel #3), I had the sense that she was giving up on the novel when it didn't sell after the first round. I remember being shocked on that phone call when she asked if I wanted to shelve it, even though when I pressed her, she said she had more editors she could go out to. Ultimately, I had to reach out to my mentor, who proposed a new submission strategy that I proposed to my agent. That strategy didn't end up working and the novel died on submission, and I think we should have persisted in submitting it as a romance instead of trying a new genre. But I felt forced into a corner because I got the sense that my agent was giving up.

- With Novel #3, there was a period in which an editor wanted to make an offer, but a month later, the answer we got back was a rejection. During that entire month, I never heard back from my agent, so I assumed the publisher still hadn't said anything and I was going out of my mind with the silence. I later learned that my agent had been corresponding with the publisher during that month, and she just...never told me. She implied I should have asked her if I wanted updates. But WHY would I assume she had been hiding things from me about a potential offer situation??? Especially since I had said on my offer call that I wanted full transparency regarding my career???

- In general, I said multiple times over our nearly 3-year relationship that knowing as much as possible was the only thing that assuaged my anxiety about submission, and she continually failed to inform me of things, including: her communications with the publisher who initially wanted to buy Novel #3, her decision to start a second round of submission for Novel #4 (even though I said I wanted to have a discussion before starting a new round), and she never followed up when I suggested a particular imprint to submit Novel #4 to.

- For the next novel, the one still on submission (Novel #4), I was impatient to get on submission ASAP, partly because I hated experiencing the death of my first novel on submission, partly because I was afraid publishers would decide to no longer prioritize diverse submissions (which ended up becoming true). My agent took a long time getting edit notes to me each time, which I didn't want to press her about because I didn't want to sound like a dick (her timelines also weren't overly long compared to other agents). But she also wanted to go through many rounds of edits and "take our time" editing, even though she had no developmental edits to suggest and only had clarifying questions/line edits. She also never brought up submission strategy until I brought up my own pitch proposal and argument for why now was a good time to go on submission based on other recent acquisitions. Which, again, I do like collaborating on submission strategy...but at the same time, I was worried that if she didn't have a vision for how to pitch my book and was only following my lead, she wasn't truly passionate about the book. And if she's unaware of market trends until I told her about them...? On top of all of that, she was very hesitant to provide a submission timeline, even when I asked.

- In April of this year, after we went on submission in January, I was beginning to spiral. I knew many people regularly received reassurances from their agent while dealing with anxiety, and while I had never done that before, I decided to give it a shot. Ultimately, the email she sent to me wasn't helpful. Instead of saying "I still love and believe in your book and will do everything I can to sell it," she told me I should reevaluate my career and what I really wanted to write. Which was not only useless advice, but also condescending, considering I've been trying to break into the traditional publishing industry since 2016. I've become more thick-skinned over the years, but I was still in a vulnerable mindset at the time; if I had been younger, her words probably would've made me break down.

- We had a phone call when we were down to two editors still considering Novel #4. She suggested my book was too "put-downable." I was honestly a bit annoyed and argued that that seemed completely subjective and wasn't feedback I could meaningfully incorporate into either this book or my future work, to which she had no response. I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt since I knew from my own personal experience that some people try to frame failure as something you could have done differently even if it was completely out of your control, but I don't really appreciate being told I should have done something differently when we weren't given any concrete feedback as to something being poorly done in the manuscript and we have no control over industry trends.

- My two latest books, Novel #4 and Novel #5 (which is not yet finished), are deeply rooted in Chinese folklore and culture. My agent never asked me how to pronounce the characters' names or explain the Chinese cultural references that I said were foundational to my books after she admitted she had never heard of them. At the time, these seemed like small things, but in combination with everything else...

- I pitched Novel #5 to her. She was supportive, but objected to the level of violence in the book (which, by the way, is not even as bad as the violence in Game of Thrones). And I was like, (1) the level of violence is literally a major issue that the characters grapple with! It's not there gratuitously! And (2) this is an ADULT FANTASY? Since when am I not allowed to include violence in an ADULT fantasy novel???

- I sent her a pitch document I made for Novel #5, I think because I was subconsciously and preemptively wary after I had to present her a pitch strategy for Novel #4. She asked if I envisioned Novel #5 as a trilogy because of two of the comp titles I used. Except...NEITHER of those comp titles sold as trilogies. They both sold as duologies (and one of them read as a standalone, just like what I envisioned for Novel #5). This really didn't help my impression that she is less familiar with fantasy releases than the other genres she represents.

- Her explaining that the agency doesn't like submitting to the UK, as I explained above, really made me uncomfortable. To be fair, this seems to be an issue with the agency, not necessarily her decision, but the reasons they provided either made no sense or seemed way overblown, including:

• "If you don't sell well in the UK, you might not get another book deal" - Oh, you mean like exactly the same thing that would happen with a US publisher if I don't sell well in the US???
• "UK publishers don't pay much" - I have literally seen six-figure preempts from UK publishers this year. That's just blatantly not true.
• "You might not see your books in US bookstores if you have a UK deal" - I mentioned that several UK SFF publishers seemed to have obtained US distribution rights recently (because I see their books in my local bookstore and I'm able to buy their ebooks in the US). She did not address that point at all.
• "UK publishers might get world rights" - (a) Isn't it literally her job to negotiate and try to retain world rights for me? (b) US publishers have already rejected my book, so why does that matter at this point?
• "UK publishers may not do much marketing in the US" - (a) Wouldn't it be logical that they would do most of their marketing in the UK? (b) US publishers don't always guarantee marketing efforts either???
• "You would have to pay more taxes and fees" - (a) Double taxation agreements exist, so...this sounds like fake news; (b) the exchange rate between US dollars and pounds is favorable...

And again, I don't understand why we shouldn't be aggressive now that it seems likely the book will die in the US. Not wanting to go on submission in the UK at the start of submission for strategic reasons is something I can consider, but why is no deal considered better than a UK deal???

- I told her I wanted to proceed with UK sub. She then asked me AGAIN to confirm that I was okay with all the negative reasons not to sell to the UK. That was when I realized that even though she said twice that she was willing to support me, for some reason, she was now actively trying to talk me out of pursuing this course of action. She wasn't treating me like a business partner; if she had, we would've had a discussion about the pros and cons, the risks and what we can do to mitigate the risks, and how we can strategize if my career isn't ideal. Instead, she didn't even reassure me that she would try to negotiate to hold onto North American rights until I specifically asked her, and even then, she framed it as "I'll try but it might not be possible." Like...I negotiate contracts for a living. I know there are always things you have to give up on, but also that you should fight like hell to get your client the best possible contract. The fact that she wouldn't even say that she would do her best to fight for my interests left me both not reassured and also wondering how much she planned on negotiating at all.

So...yeah.

Right now, I'm thinking that if Novel #4 dies after the UK submission round, I will do some serious reflection on whether to leave my agent before going on submission with Novel #5, since I'll at least have something fresh to query other agents with.

The only thing I know is that I want to read more. And I hope to be able to absorb enough to write my own Chinese fantasy novel(s) one day.

I'm back from a family vacation, which was wonderful and relaxing, but now that I'm back home I'm once again drowning in stress and remembering the 754918 things I'm behind on and stressing over being on submission...again.

Like most other writers, I've been following the developments regarding AI for generating stories. It's kind of ironic that right now, attempting to write any new story brings me so much pain that I can't bring myself to do it.

But it's not because I hate writing. It's because submission and the publishing industry have ground me down so much, my soul feels like glass dust and I can't remember what it feels like to write for joy.

I don't understand why anyone who either doesn't have story ideas or hates the act of writing would want to produce a book. As I writer, I find so much joy in thinking and talking about writing process, narrative devices, structure, tropes. Why would someone want to use AI to skip all of that? What is the point of producing a book, then?

I'm honestly too tired to go on a rant regarding all the problems with AI, the devaluing of writers' labor, the attitude of tech bros that getting a computer to write a book feels like a game to win instead of an issue that impacts real humans and will incentivize corporations to pay writers even less than they already make.

I'm just...tired.

I'm on week 10 of being on submission, and the last update I heard was from a month ago. I've reached the stage of being on submission at which I'm beginning to think my book no longer exists.

Kind of like how if a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, did it really fall? Except if you write a book, but no one buys it--or even has anything to say about it--does it actually exist?

Failures in traditional publishing have really messed with my ability to write anything new. Any time I start, my brain can't help but think "this is a stupid idea" "these characters are two-dimensional" "traditional publishers won't want this, so what's the point". Like I could force myself to write a novella/murder mystery/sequel, but all I can think is...what's the point? I clearly don't know what traditional publishers want.

I think my anxiety over submission has dulled, but at the same time, the physical symptoms are still there--trouble sleeping, tinnitus, fatigue and inability to focus.

Sigh.

Ever since I read Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and the sci-fi horror novels Salvation Day by Kali Wallace and Dead Silence by SA Barnes, I've fallen into a fascination with reading horror books. In fact, my TBR list for 2023 has the most horror novels ever. Though, as I'm starting to read more horror novels, I'm slowly figuring out what works and doesn't work for me in the genre.

For one, so far, I find sci-fi horror and psychological horror to be scarier to me than ghosts, spirits, or gore. Sci-fi horror, because nothing frightens me more than the idea of an alien virus or parasite causing people to go berserk; psychological horror, because I'm addicted to the slow build-up of dread, unsettling feelings, and questioning "wait, is something weird going on or am I seeing/hearing things?"

Spirits? Killer ghosts? Monstrous man-eating creatures? Meh.

Hell, I was surprised when a friend told me they couldn't read The Hacienda by Isabal Cañas at night because of how scary it was. I blew through that book thinking it wasn't all that frightening. Demonic possession in a house? Okay, sure.

Maybe it's partly because monsters in a verbal medium are inherently less scary than in a visual medium. I've started reading horror books, but I'm still reluctant to watch horror movies. I enjoyed watching YouTube playthroughs of the video game The Medium—the main monster there definitely freaks me out every time in a way that I wouldn't feel if I just read about it in a book.

I think maybe it's also because, as someone who struggles with anxiety, I find the scariest books ones that focus on the fear of the unknown. Hence why I love psychological horror/thriller. If a monster has a shape and a physical form, well, it's something that I've seen or heard of before, even if it's a new take on it. (Also, maybe my history of reading fantasy plays into this? I've read enough books, watched enough shows, and played enough games with monsters that end up killed by the protagonist, no matter how scary they are.)

But a story in which the protagonist has no idea what they're dealing with? Or one in which a protagonist is wondering if their own mind is betraying them? Terrifying.

Also, what I love about stories like Mexican Gothic and The Medium is that, while there are Scary Things (TM) at play, ultimately, the story is about how humans are the most frightening monsters of all. And that resonates with me so deeply. I have never read that much horror, but it still strikes me as impossible to invent some new scary monster that no one has ever seen or heard of before. So basing the reveal of the horrific thing on the "what" rather than the "why" never really freaks me out.

(Hell, I still haven't quite given up on my own haunted house horror idea I came up with last year but put on the back burner, which is all about the monstrousness of humans.)

Anyway, this rant was brought to you by Episode Thirteen by Craig DiLouie, which was well-written and engaging but gave me more feelings of "these main characters are idiots" rather than terrified fascination. Here's the rest of my horror TBR for 2023, and here's hoping I'll find more books that scratch my particular itch:

- She Is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran (Mexican Gothic was used as a comp for this, so I'm excited)
- Delicious Monsters by Liselle Sambury (if I can find it on audio, since I already had a rough time trying to read this)
- The Scourge Between Stars by Ness Brown (sci-fi horror!)
- Paradise-1 by David Wellington (more sci-fi horror, though the advance reviews have made me wary of this)
- Those We Drown by Amy Goldsmith (oceanic horror on a cruise ship!)
- Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (another SMG horror book!)
- Where the Dead Wait by Ally Wilkes (no idea about this but the summary sounded vaguely interesting?)

I should probably do a wrap-up of how many books I've read per year at the end of each year, but I guess I'll just start keeping a record now for the past couple of years.

2018: 33 books read + 8 DNF
2022: 33 audio / 23 print/ebook

So...yep, I generally read at least 50% of books per year on audio. Some of them, I'd read physically if audio weren't available, but some of them I wouldn't.

What have I been up to lately? Well, I'm working on what is, hopefully, the last round of edits for Novel #4, which I'm aiming to complete by the end of Thanksgiving weekend and turn in to my agent so I can see what our submission strategy is for next January.

I've recently realized that, while I'm generally an underwriter, I sometimes overwrite character motivations/internal monologue. It's because the process of drafting is, for me, a process of thinking; I'm literally thinking out loud to myself as I draft why characters are acting the way they are. But sometimes, those explanations are overly long and unnecessary, and it takes me a while to be in the mindset to be able to cut them.

I'm also haunted by the fact that, when I do get negative reviews for my writing, they tend to dislike how much "telling" I do, even though I've seen plenty of books that have far more telling than I do. But that criticism has gotten stuck in my head and haunts me every time I take another look at my manuscript.

Outside of my book, I've been meaning to write another book review round-up post (including a review for Bloodmarked and DNF explanations for Dark Matter, Recursion, and Strike the Zither).

I think I mentioned this previously, but I plan on taking a break from writing once Novel #4 is finalized for submission. I'm just starting to feel like I've devoted years of my life to this fickle dream that relies mostly on luck and appealing to (allocishet, white, abled) publishing gatekeepers to get a book deal, and that doesn't even pay a living wage unless you become a bestseller, and it's killing my desire to write anything else, especially another "commercial" book.

Case in point: I thought of a way recently to rewrite Novel #1 to make it more "commercial" and possibly breathe new life into it for a shot at a traditional book deal, but I'm not sure if I really want to pursue it. In this case, making it "commercial" would also remove the aspect of it that was written to address and encapsulate my experiences with depression at the time. And, to be honest, I'm a different person now than I was when I wrote that book; there's a very real possibility that the core of the story would no longer resonate with me.

In general, though, this whole idea of "I have to write something hooky/commercial in order to get a traditional publishing deal" has been screwing with my relationship with writing. On top of my previous submission disappointments, this is yet another reason I'm having trouble throwing myself into new projects. Even when I tell myself "I'm going to write something fun, not geared toward traditional publishing, something that would possibly fit in the indie space, just to remember what it's like to love writing," I find myself unable to pursue it. it's hard to feel motivated to write books for an indie/self-publishing audience when my first two indie novels flopped (one badly, one less badly) and got negative reviews such as "this is the worst writer ever." (Hell, I always wanted my second novel to be the first in a duology, but the sales didn't support the time it would take for me to write a sequel.)And yet, I'm also unable to pursue other "commercial" ideas because they feel emotionally dead to me, so my brain is like "what's the point in working on this?"

What I'm most excited/motivated to work on at this moment would be a series of murder mysteries that would be sequels to Novel #4. But I can't count on doing any of that unless/until Novel #4 sells. Most of the books I'm looking forward to next year are either mysteries, thrillers, or horror, which probably speaks to my current interests; there are some fantasy books that are mostly there because they're non-Western fantasy, the odd sci-fi, and the rare romance novel.

So...yeah, that's where I'm at right now.

It's been a minute since my last blog entry. I finally got my agent's feedback on Novel #4 back at the end of last month and have been working on revisions - although she didn't have huge developmental edits to suggest, I've been doing a line editing pass to tighten up the prose, because I've reached that level of paranoia regarding submission to traditional publishers. My original goal was to finish by today, but though I've hit all of the points she made, I think I'll wait for next weekend to finish my line editing pass.

Also...I learned that my Novel #3 has died on sub (a.k.a. no publishers were interested in publishing it). Which, I am still sad about. I'm okay with the idea of focusing all my revision/sub efforts on Novel #4 for the time being, but maybe next year I might think about what to do about Novel #3. Whether my agent might agree to let me indie/self-publish the book...but either way, I'd have to market it myself, and I definitely don't have the bandwidth to do that right now.

The weird thing about traditional publishing is that there's anxiety at all stages of the process; anxiety never goes away. When I was waiting to hear back from my agent, I was afraid she wouldn't like Novel #4. Now, I've heard back from her, she likes it, and didn't have major edits to suggest...but now I'm paranoid that her lack of suggestions might not be a good thing??? Like, what if she's not experienced enough with selling Adult SFF to be able to suggest the developmental edits that will help sell this book???

Basically, having seen the book of my heart die on submission, and knowing that Adult SFF is the most competitive genre to break into, I'm just...paranoid about everything right now. Because I want this book to sell. It's the first book I've written that I've purposely tried to make very commercial. And I have such cool ideas for a series. If it doesn't sell, I will feel like the past 10 months of my life working on this book will have been a waste (and in some sense, I feel like I've put my life on pause for the past 3 years to try to break into traditional publishing). I'll probably have an existential crisis and take a break from writing.

...Not forever. I know myself well enough to know that I always come back to writing. But I will probably admit that traditional publishing has defeated me and not think about writing another book for at least several months, if not a year or two.

Having said that, I'm already planning on taking at least a short break from writing once Novel #4 goes on submission. I have some personal issues that I've neglected due to the stress of my day job + working on this book that I want to take care of this year—namely, solving some health issues and resuming my dating attempts.

I'm also bracing myself for submission to be excruciating again. For those not in the know, the submission process has drastically slowed down this year—agents used to reliably hear back from editors about submissions within 2-6 months, but it's now taking way longer. And I'm sure it will be worse once I'm on sub with an Adult SFF; the high level of competition (due to great supply and tiny demand from only a handful of imprints) will definitely mean slow submission times. Which is all the more reason to take a break from writing instead of driving myself crazy about editor responses to Novel #4.

So...yeah. That's where I'm at. Publishing is definitely not glamorous and I wonder why I put myself through this torture every day.

I've been reading—or trying to read—mystery books because that's where I see my writing career going in the future (since I've run out of the ability to emotionally invest in enough characters to ever be a career romance writer). And I've learned a couple of things about myself.

Mostly, I've learned that when I read a mystery, I want a fast-paced mystery. I've had a hard time enjoying Agatha Christie's Miss Marple mysteries (gasp, yes, I know) because I just don't have patience for a hundred pages describing all these random townspeople living their lives before the murder happens, even if the information turns out to be important later. I don't know if this is because I used to watch a lot of police procedural TV shows (like Elementary and Lucifer) and am used to a dead body turning up right away, or if I'm more suited to reading thrillers. All I know is that if there's going to be a murder in this book, I want to see the dead body and the investigation begin ASAP.

On a related note: I might have mentioned this in previous entries, but I've tried to read some fantasy murder mysteries—since Novel #4 is my attempt at writing a fantasy murder mystery—and I find that they're often paced more like fantasy novels than like mysteries. In other words, their pacing is often quite slow. Slow enough that I usually DNF those books. I might hate the Dresden Files for being misogynistic dumpster fires, but at least they have mystery pacing nailed down correctly. Again, if I'm reading a murder mystery, I expect murder mystery pacing. I don't want very slow, drawn-out sequences explaining the fantasy elements or recruiting the protagonist to a fantasy agency; at least, not at the very beginning of the book. I want a murder investigation as soon as possible.

I don't know; maybe when it comes to books, unlike movies or TV, authors feel like they have to spend time getting the reader to like the protagonist before the murder happens? But I've always been of the opinion that getting the reader to like the protagonist should be something that can be accomplished quickly, in less than a chapter. I don't need to know everything about a character to like them; I don't need to know about their complicated family situation or relationship issues or whatever. I just need to find them intriguing and someone I can root for.

All of this is to say that I've had an awkwardly difficult time finding mystery books I like outside of Agatha Christie's Poirot books. Excluding thrillers (which are crime fiction but aren't always murder mysteries), the only other recent books I've enjoyed that are structured like mysteries have been Michael Mammay's Planetside series. (I guess technically they aren't murder mysteries, but they are investigations, at least.)

Sigh.

...I may regret this post title later, since I don't actually like CinemaSins on YouTube. But I wanted to compile a list of everything about the TV show that bothers me and that I'm still thinking about weeks later because IT MAKES NO SENSE.

(Okay, I said that, but I realized this post turned into a list of my general grievances with the show, so...whoops.)

Also, I want to get this out of the way: I'm criticizing the show for not providing enough information/consistency in its writing. Most fans seem eager to come up with their own explanations for a lot of what happens, but the thing is, an outsider can always make up their own explanations. Hell, I can and have come up with my own explanations as well, for fanfic purposes. That does not excuse the source material for not being written well.


Episode 1

• Most people—including the writer, Jeremy Slater—have assumed that Jake was the one who set up the date for Steven. However, Slater also admitted that that was not part of his script and was improvised on set. That makes me a bit nervous that this was a decision made "because it would be cool" but without taking into account whether this was consistent with Jake's character (especially given the post-credits scene). Because if true, this would have to mean that Jake (1) is, or can be, a charismatic person, and (2) can mimic at least Steven's accent. But the MCU already has a spotty record with character consistency, which doesn't make me confident about how they'll handle Jake in his next appearance...

• Many people interpreted Khonshu's dialogue when Steven wakes up in the Alps (?)—"Go back to sleep, worm. You're not supposed to be here. Surrender the body to Marc. Oh, the idiot's in control"—as indicating that Khonshu actually thinks he's talking to Jake at first. Because he doesn't seem to realize Steven, "the idiot," is in control until the end. I think this interpretation is logical. However, the problem is that Khonshu's tone suggests that he doesn't actually respect Jake—or any alter other than Marc—all that much, which then leads to the question: When did Khonshu get so chummy with Jake before the post-credits scene in episode 6?

• When I first watched this episode, I thought the show kept Khonshu's ability to resurrect Marc because Steven clearly gets crushed by a bunch of logs before he wakes up in bed. I suppose we're meant to infer that Marc was seriously injured, maybe on the brink of death, and Khonshu healed his injuries before he was able to go home, but...come on, isn't it more likely that someone crushed by logs would straight-up die?

• On the topic of giving Moon Knight supernatural powers—I feel like this permanently excludes him from the kind of street-level stories Moon Knight has always been associated with, because now only supernatural creatures/supervillains can pose a physical threat to him, if he has magical healing abilities and super strength. If the show had kept it at Moon Knight being unable to die (because Khonshu resurrects him), he can at least still be seriously injured and knocked out of a fight. Le sigh.

Episode 2

• When Steven meets Layla, she says, "Is this 'Steven' the latest fake identity for you?" This seemed to be a pretty damn obvious red flag to indicate that Layla has met at least one of Marc's alters before—which, by process of elimination, would have to be Jake. However, there is nothing else in the show that supports this idea, or Layla ever bringing up to Marc the question of his "fake identities" before...?

• Why does Marc decide to divorce Layla after Steven starts fronting more? He mentions something about disappearing at the end of this episode after he does this last job for Khonshu, except that's not how DID works... Did he become suicidal after his mother's death? It's all so unclear.

• Marc seems to know that he has Dissociative Identity Disorder, given his dialogue with Steven. However, this leads to problems with consistency in the show that I'll discuss later.

Episode 3

Ah, episode 3, also known as THE BANE OF MY ENTIRE EXISTENCE.

• I was convinced that Jake was the one who actually fought the three guys on the roof, for multiple reasons:

(1) Because his fighting style was completely different from Marc's style later against Anton Mogart's men and did not resemble a military fighting style. This just completely baffles me, because every time I've seen a behind the scenes video about fight choreography in movies, fight choreographers always mention that they take care when developing a fighting style for a particular character. Marc Spector was a Marine; the way he fights should reflect military training. There is no explanation I can think of for why "Marc" would have such an inconsistent and non-military fighting style in this scene.

(2) "Marc"'s attitude while fighting. In other scenes in the season, Marc is depicted as someone who will take down the bad guys by any means necessary but who doesn't appear to take any joy from fighting. He's also depicted as someone who loses emotional control during a fight, e.g. his brutality when fighting is a result of his emotions getting away from him, possibly due to anger issues that lead back to his childhood trauma. However, in this scene, "Marc" is a less refined fighter but seems to have a lot more emotional control. He never loses himself emotionally. When he and the knife-licking guy are trying to psych each other out, "Marc" even smiles, like he enjoys the back-and-forth dance of a street brawl.

(3) "Marc"'s dialogue. Based on how Marc acts in episode 2 and other scenes where it's definitely him, the way he talks in this opening scene really doesn't seem consistent. In the previous episode, Marc is shown to have a temper issue, and in the next two scenes when Marc is trying to interrogate the Harrow cultists, he sounds extremely pissed off, impatient, and determined when interrogating them about Harrow's location. However, here, he sounds super chill and almost disappointed when he's told he won't be able to find Harrow. Almost like he's ready to give up.

After that, "Marc" says, "Oh. What, are we dancin'? What, are we fightin'? What are we gonna do?" At no other point in the show is Marc shown to taunt his opponents before fighting. Again, Marc is generally shown to be a somewhat grim and somber person in other scenes/episodes, so this taunt appears wildly out of character for him.

(4) The way "Marc" speaks in this scene (also in the scene where he runs into Layla in the square) is different from how he talks in other scenes. He has a slight New York accent, and his voice is pitched differently from how it normally is, a bit higher.

(5) There's an odd visual detail of "Marc" initially wearing a baseball cap, only to lose it as he's running. I thought that was supposed to indicate that he was actually Jake, since Jake is well known for wearing a cap in the comics. If the baseball cap isn't important, why was Marc wearing it in the first place?

(6) When Marc wakes up in the taxi and then sees the cultists again, his dialogue always struck me as odd. This is the exchange:

MARC: Let me talk to you.
CULTIST: Just let us go, man.
MARC: (angrily) That wasn't me!

One: Does it really make sense for Marc to beat up the guys on the roof and then insist on talking calmly to them? Two: When Marc says "That wasn't me," at first blush, it seems like he's talking about Steven running away from the cultists. However, if that's what he's talking about, why does he sound so angry? Wouldn't it make more sense if he's angry because he thinks Steven/another alter was the one who beat up the cultists, and that's also why the cultists are asking for him to "let [them] go"?

• The scene where Marc wakes up to find that two of the cultists have been stabbed, a.k.a. the first real hint of Jake's existence. I'll get into this later, but it's weird that if Marc knows he has DID, he doesn't immediately think he might have another alter in the system besides Steven. (Especially because Steven is literally the least likely candidate as the person who stabbed two guys to death.) I could have let it slide for this one scene, given that Marc and Steven are supposed to be at odds with each other and emotions are running high, but not when the show pulls this off again later. This ties into a running problem with the show, which is that they tried really hard to hide Jake's existence so they could save it for a shock factor post-credits scene, even when it leads to plot holes in how the characters act.

• The car scene with Layla: Another scene in which I was convinced it was Jake, because the dialogue makes no sense for Marc.

(1) "Marc" is generally pretty chatty in this scene, which is not consistent with the fact that he's mostly pretty reserved and tends to be precise with his words in other scenes.

(2) The subtitles have "Marc" saying: "Ay. I really liked that jacket." "Ay" is a Spanish interjection. Since they portrayed Jake as fluent in Spanish in the post-credits scene, was this supposed to be a hint (that never got confirmed)?

(3) When Layla is asking about what Harrow said, here is the exchange:

LAYLA: What was Harrow talking about?
"MARC": What do you mean?
LAYLA: He said I had a right to know.
"MARC": I have no idea.
LAYLA: I never told anyone why I really moved. But he knew, he just saw right through me.
"MARC": I don't know, I don't know, he's just tryin' to mess wit'cha, you know? He's tryin' to get in your mind. No, don't let him do that. He's, you know, he’s got this idea that he can see the true nature of people, or some baloney like that. If that were true, I don’t think he’d have a bunch'a homicidal maniacs as his disciples, would he?

One, the word choice—"baloney," "homicidal maniacs"—is quite specific and doesn't align with the way Marc talks in other scenes.

Two, the way "Marc" flatly denies answering Layla's questions until she references the death of her father—at first glance, you could just interpret this as Marc being an asshole. However, he has no emotional reaction to Layla's questions, not really like someone who feels guilty and is trying to deflect. And we know for sure from the previous scene that Marc knew exactly what Harrow was talking about. It would make far more sense if "Marc" were actually Jake in this scene, and he genuinely does not know what Layla is talking about until she mentions her father, and then he puts two and two together. There's even a camera close-up of his face at that point, and the shift in his expression makes him look like someone who's just realized what's going on.

(4) When Layla says "it’s like I’ve not known you at all" and "Marc"'s response is "Yeah, you haven't. You don't." Except Marc is used to hiding things from Layla—his DID, his role in her father's death—so why would he answer in a way to purposefully make her suspicious of him? I've always thought this made more sense as a Jake thing to say, e.g. he's letting the truth slip that she doesn't know him because he's not Marc.


Episode 5

• I don't really have an issue with the explanation for why Marc developed DID, except...how the hell does Marc live in the middle of Chicago and yet have access to woods and a deep cave capable of flooding in his backyard??? (I suppose, if someone wants to retcon this so that it makes more sense, you'd have to change it so that the Spectors were on a camping trip or something.)

• People more qualified than I have discussed the fact that Marc's Jewish background is mostly erased. (In the comics, Marc was raised Orthodox and his father was a rabbi, and his difficult relationship with his father and by extension, his faith, have always been a core aspect of his background.)

• When Taweret asks if Marc and Steven are twins and Steven answers, "Yeah, sort of" - Marc has never explained to Steven that they have DID. What does Steven actually think they are, and why has he never questioned Marc more about it? I assume Steven's written that way because their DID is kind of the big reveal of this episode...even though Marc still never technically tells Steven they have Dissociative Identity Disorder...but it doesn't make sense for Steven to behave this way. Even if this is the MCU and regular people are used the idea of wacky things happening, most people would be (at least initially) alarmed at the idea that they're sharing a body with a completely different person.

• Has Marc ever been in a psychiatric hospital and actually diagnosed with DID before? Some people have criticized the show for never explicitly stating he has Dissociative Identity Disorder, and I agree that's a failing. Marc acts as though he knows he has DID, but if that's the case, he should have been diagnosed at some point (because people experiencing the symptoms of DID don't simply assume they have DID). It also seems unlikely that Marc would mentally construct a psychiatric hospital if he's never been in one before.

• I would call this season a half-assed attempt at a Lemire comic run adaptation, because there are clear influences from Lemire while a lot of aspects of that run are disregarded. For example, Marc's backstory in terms of how he was discharged from the Marines sort of follows what happened in the Lemire run, but the details are changed for no reason. In the Lemire run, Marc is dishonorably discharged because his erratic behavior (he's depicted as having both DID and some sort of schizophrenic disorder, FYI) leads the Marines to discover he was previously hospitalized for psychiatric problems. Yet in the show, they reduce it to "Marc went AWOL while in a fugue state and was discharged because of that." Which...is not actually realistic, because the military does not discharge people for going AWOL unless they've been AWOL for at least thirty days (a.k.a. they basically tried to desert the army). And if Marc had been in a fugue state for thirty whole days, I have to think he would think he seriously needs medical help at that point.

• (It's possible that they changed his backstory because they were trying to avoid any references to his DID. Except...why? Why build your entire narrative around the protagonist having Dissociative Identity Disorder and then refuse to even name it?)

• I very much dislike the idea that Khonshu forced Marc into becoming his avatar. Like...way to remove Marc's agency and his motivation for becoming Moon Knight as a way to make up for his bad actions in the past, a.k.a. becoming Moon Knight was a good thing for him. I know the idea of Khonshu being abusive comes from the comics, but the critical distinction is that comics!Marc (and, in one instance, Jake) is able to reject Khonshu while still embracing being Moon Knight. However, the show turns this into the system rejecting both Khonshu and Moon Knight, which is...awkward. And takes the "hero" out of "superhero."

• So it seems that whenever Steven "called" his mom, he didn't actually call her, he just put the home screen of his phone to his ear. This is...very confusing. So many fans had the headcanon that Marc set up a fake number for Steven to call, and honestly that would have made so much more sense, because...are we supposed to accept that Steven is operating under such a powerful delusion that he forgets how to properly use his phone—and carries on a complete one-sided conversation without realizing it—but only when he's calling his mom? (He clearly knows how to use his phone properly, as shown when he called Dylan in episode 1.) THIS MAKES NO SENSE.

• I do not understand, at all, how the Moon Knight system's scales can balance if Jake isn't there. Also why it balanced as soon as Steven died—that creates the very bad inference that Marc doesn't need Steven and/or Steven is an extraneous part of him. None of this is ever explained in the show.

Episode 6

• I'm just going to say it: The writing in this show is very unclear and ambiguous regarding Marc's attitude toward Steven and his DID in general. Maybe it's because they had to cram too much into six episodes, or maybe the writing is just bad. To me, Marc's behavior in episodes 2 through 4 very strongly indicate that he has a lot of internalized ableism and complicated feelings about Steven—on one hand, he does seem to want to protect Steven from the darkness in his (Marc's) life, but on the other, he seems to view Steven as an annoyance and an obstacle. However, what Marc says in episode 6—while meant to be heartwarming—is almost a retcon of his earlier behavior, because he claims that he valued Steven all along. My guess is that they were, again, going for a half-assed Lemire adaptation, which has as its central emotional core Marc first rejecting his alters before he learns to accept his alters as his strength rather than his weakness, except the MCU show botched the writing so that Marc's character arc and his feelings about himself/Steven are vague instead. (This could have been so easily fixed by changing Marc's monologue just slightly to have him acknowledge that he didn't realize how important Steven was to him for so long, but clearly the MCU will never tackle a topic as important as internalized ableism!)

• I can't get over the show just skipping over the climactic battle against Harrow by turning it into a Jake black-out moment. Here's where it really makes no sense that Marc still doesn't have a clue that there's another alter in the system. (We might be able to excuse Steven if we're charitable since he technically doesn't know much about DID.) If it's inconvenient to have Marc/Steven freaking out about a third alter in the middle of the season climax, you could just...not have Jake appear.

• Look, I know people were happy about Mr. Knight finally being a badass, but I hate that Steven suddenly knows how to fight out of nowhere. Where did he learn how to fight from? From DYING???

• I really, really hate Marc sparing Harrow's life. Like you could really feel the influence of Disney here. One: Harrow already murdered a lot of people!! It's like Marc and Steven conveniently forget that fact so they could paint Khonshu as Ammit 2.0. Two: I loathe it when protagonists are happy to murder the villain's grunts, but they can't bring themselves to murder the actual villain. What are you actually saying about morality, here?

• The change to Moon Knight's character from the comics in calling being Moon Knight being "enslaved" by Khonshu both is problematic and causes a lot of unexplained plot holes. First of all, this leads to all sorts of problematic associations when you have a Jewish protagonist. Second of all, how can the show come back from this? How can Marc/Steven return to being Moon Knight (which they have to, because this is a comic book superhero) after they called it slavery? Hell, why is being the avatar of Khonshu slavery and being the avatar of Taweret...isn't? (How am I supposed to celebrate Layla being a superhero if I'm questioning whether or not she, too, is enslaved??)

• On the topic of Layla, I hate how all of Marvel's social media is now calling her Scarlet Scarab when she (1) wasn't called that in the show, and (2) is given no reason to be called that in the show. There's nothing red OR scarab-themed about her Taweret avatar outfit. And why does becoming the avatar of a hippo fertility goddess grant Layla wings??? (On a broader note, I'm not against Layla becoming a superhero but I felt like the focus on her took away from the already very limited time spent on Marc, and I wish her superhero arc had been saved for another season.)

• When Steven tells Dr. Harrow in the psychiatric hospital reality that "We'd rather go save the world"—Bro. How are you gonna save the world when you just renounced being Moon Knight???

• The post-credits scene with Jake Lockley. Look, I've been mad about this for an entire month now. For anyone who wants to argue that the show did not want to make the audience think Jake was hyper-violent and evil: (1) Literally tons of fans, including fanfic writers and fan artists, now portray Jake as a bloodthirsty sociopath. (2) There were plenty of different choices the show could have made to not portray Jake as a sociopath. He didn't have to smile maniacally while shooting Harrow/Ammit. He could have said "This is for Marc and Steven" instead of "Today is your day to lose." He could have showed emotions other than glee over shooting a defenseless person, like anger or pain. It's unquestionable that the show made the choices it did because it wanted to go with the most "shocking" interpretation of Jake. I'm not going to argue about this. And I maintain the show could have done something so much more interesting with Jake Lockley's character.