My publishers are going to reveal that in a burst of glitter and glory sometime soon…. The story is written. The words are all there. And sometimes my assumptions are wrong. One of the five main characters in this adventure is a toad. So I was checking whether toads inflate their throats when croaking they do when I noticed a tiny little line on a toad website about toads walking rather hopping.
Which was a shock, because when I started writing this book, I assumed toads were basically warty frogs, and because I know frogs hop, I assumed toads hopped too. So in this book, my toad hops, leaps and jumps quite a lot. But at the time I noticed this awkward little line, I was dealing with croaks and throats. So I made a wee note to myself: The next day, I saw the note and I thought, right, this will either take me 30 seconds or all day.
If I find out that toads hop, there will be no changes required.
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And also possibly the whole page. Changing one word can unbalance or undermine a whole sentence, or a whole paragraph, or a whole scene. Writing a novel is like weaving a piece of fabric. If you pull on one thread, it can warp the pattern and create holes right across the loom.
And you can guess what happened. On several reputable wildlife and amphibian websites, I discovered that, even though frogs hop, toads walk. Go and look it up. They sort of crawl, in a sprawly fashion. In a wonderful cave made of purple crystals. Do hares make a noise when they are scared? Do pike eat eels? How long are the October school holidays in various council areas?
When were the prime witch-burning years in Scotland? None of them resulted in nearly so many changes as the Toad Gait Scandal, because most of my assumptions were correct…. It turns out that hares can see almost the whole degrees around them, with just small blindspots to the front and back. Which makes them very hard to sneak up on, and meant I had to rewrite almost all my chase scenes. Perhaps I have a blindspot about wildlife research? Perhaps I should leave the puns alone?
Now I just need to have one more readthrough for silly typos, then the book will be ready for my editor next week. Which is very exciting. But even more exciting is that in a few months, the book will be ready for YOU! So yes, writing a book is exactly like telling a big lie! Because, in my heart, I believe I tell the truth in my books. I set up a system of magic, and I stick to it rigorously. I create characters, and I let them do what is right for them which is often extremely inconvenient. I sometimes have discussions arguments!
So there is truth, in that long, extended, totally made up lie. For example, at the very end of First Aid for Fairies, one of my characters does something extremely brave, essentially sacrificing himself to save his friends from a monster. I set that scene up. I sent the monster after them, I locked the door to block their exit. I created the entirely fictional! That could only happen, and could only feel true within the huge lie of the novel, because he was a character whose loyalty and bravery we already believed in.
Look at these chapter headings! This is a story! But we still need our stories to feel real, to feel true. I need the lie to feel true, so that you the reader care about the story, care about the characters, and keep reading to find out what happens next. Because while you are reading, it feels real. If stories are big lies, then they are big lies that we as writers make as true as we can, and big lies that we as readers seem to need….
Fabled Beast Chronicles , Heroines and heroes , Monsters defeating! Rona, the selkie in the Fabled Beast Chronicles, regularly shifts from girl to seal and back again.
Toad (comics) - Wikipedia
And Rona was the first character, apart from Helen, who got her own point of view chapters and heroic action, in Storm Singing. Also thinking about why and when Rona would choose to shift from one shape to another was fascinating. It usually came down to the use of hands …. Most of my shapeshifting knowledge and lore comes from old stories, and a remarkably high percentage of my favourite traditional tales are about shapeshifters. When I collected my favourite Scottish folktales and legends in Breaking the Spell , four out of the ten tales were about shapeshifting of some kind or another.
In Girls, Goddesses and Giants , my collection of heroine stories, my favourite baddie who is defeated by my favourite heroine is a shapeshifting demon. And The Tale of Tam Linn , a retelling of my favourite Scottish fairy tale, illustrated by the magically talented Philip Longson, is also about shapeshifting — a boy who is stolen by the fairies, and then turned into lots of different Scottish animals stag, wolf, wildcat… to try to prevent a girl from rescuing him.
There are several werewolves: There are escaping fish and diving birds and tricky foxes, a very large serpent and a very tiny caterpillar, and all of them change shape as the story goes on…. But some of them are new discoveries for me, as I researched shapeshifting tales, looking for stories that I wanted to get to know, from lots of different places, about lots of different animals. And I found, as always, that researching and writing a book threw up more questions than answers:.
Why does almost every culture in the world have stories about people changing into animals, and animals changing into people? At a logical level because I like my magic logical… if you shift into something much bigger or much smaller than your human self, where does the extra bulk come from, or go to? And if you want a wee taste of the stories in Serpents and Werewolves, here is a sample put online by my publishers…. Subscribe to my blog Get updates by email.
- The Call of the Toad - Wikipedia.
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Recent Comments Wanted — local monsters! There are so many exciting things about being a writer: And all of them are why I do this job. And here it is! Or if you are very keen, you can pre-order it … Because of course the entire point of a story becoming a book is so that other people can read it! I can now also show you the covers for the other two books in the trilogy: A few keen readers will get a chance to see a very early copy of the book so early, it might not even be wearing its jacket… And you could be one of those readers!
For example, at the start of this week I found myself embroiled in: The Toad Gait Scandal One of the five main characters in this adventure is a toad. Or, at least, made him go away looking thoughtful… But was my answer correct? I LOVE stories about shapeshifters. It usually came down to the use of hands … Most of my shapeshifting knowledge and lore comes from old stories, and a remarkably high percentage of my favourite traditional tales are about shapeshifters. And I found, as always, that researching and writing a book threw up more questions than answers: Why do we want or need to imagine something human in animals, and something animal in humans?
Why do we like to imagine ourselves with the strengths and weaknesses of animals? Is it shapeshifting a superpower or a curse?
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And what animal or bird what would I like to turn into…? So, there are more shapeshifters to come! The group hid in what they believed was an abandoned nuclear bunker in the Nevada desert. The group of mutants discovered this as Outlaw , being controlled by Johnny, pointed her gun at Domino. Domino's powers caused a misfire, giving Toad a chance to bring Outlaw down. It was then revealed that the bunker was actually a blast-containment chamber for experimental weapons. As the auto-destruct sequence was initiated, Toad was trapped inside the chamber with the rest of the Marvel , quickly found a way to rescue the trapped mutants and the walked away unharmed.
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- HAT CREEK STATION.
- Lord of the Rings toad on brink of extinction.
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- Honorable faith that leads farther?
- Billionaire Bodyguard (Billionaire Bodyguard Series Book 1).
Toad is later seen rioting in San Francisco, angry about the fact that mutants have been forbidden to mate with each other to prevent new mutant births. Toad is faced by Cyclops and is defeated. After Cyclops deputizes the population of Utopia to help fight an invasion of Nimrod Sentinels from an unknown future, Toad advises a group of mutants including Sack to remain behind on the island, where they could remain safe. In the middle of arguing with Sack, a Nimrod Sentinel fires on them, decapitating Sack and blowing off Toad's right index finger.
Toad decided to go to Westchester with Wolverine who accepts him as the school's janitor. In the miniseries "Magneto: Not a Hero", Joseph is resurrected under unknown circumstances and forms a new Brotherhood of Mutants with Astra and mutated deformed versions of Blob , Mastermind , Quicksilver , Scarlet Witch , and Toad. During the events of AvX , Toad and Husk have developed a sentimental relationship. In the Hellfire Academy he found himself disillusioned with their attempts to teach the children how to be villains, feeling they should actually try educating them and tell them how unfortunate the life of a villain could be, which ended up with Husk shoving him out of the room and claiming he had embarrassed her.
When he witness Quentin Quire - whom he had brought to the Hellfire Academy along with him - being tortured by Sauron he finally took action and turned on the Hellfire Academy choosing to help Quentin escape. As they were escaping they are attacked by Husk and the All-New Hellions. Husk's increasingly slipping sanity causes her to attempt to kill Toad during the fight. Despite his reluctance to hurt her Toad begins to rip off layers of her flesh until she is left in her human form, confused about where she is and why she is not still in the Grey Academy, having apparently lost most of her memory.
Toad is seen sitting beside Husk's hospital bed. Later, it transpires Husk's unhinged personality was caused by a secondary mutation that caused her powers to affect her mind along with her body. Due to his earlier betrayal Toad is fired by Wolverine as janitor of the Grey Academy.
As he leaves the school, Husk arrives to apologize to him. Toad accepts her apology and tells her he always knew things between them were too good to last. Before he can go, Husk asks him to visit her in a nearby coffee shop so she can try to get to know him and remember what she liked about him before she lost her memory.
But, Frankenstein creates self-replicating energy robots to attack the city and distract the staff so he and Endque can escape the Grey Academy. Toad tracks them down and tells them how he was given a second chance and intends to take it. Frankenstein tells him to show him to prove his commitment, Toad does this by attacking and hospitalizing Endque. Husk sits alone in the destroyed coffee shop and Toad never shows up, later she gives Endque counselling and finds Toad left her a message saying he had to leave or else someday she would wake up and see him for what he really was.
Toad is seen crying silently as he now works for Maximilian Frankenstein and recommends they go someplace nobody can hurt them. The Toad's intellect and physical abilities have gone through some changes over the years. In the character's inception, he possessed superhuman leg strength and endurance, agility, reflexes, coordination, balance, a superhuman ability to leap great distances.
However, over the years, the Toad's original powers have increased and he has gained additional powers through further mutation, including adhesive saliva and an elongated prehensile tongue. As a result of further mutation, he now has mottled green skin and pointed-tip ears. Toad's primary mutant ability is a superhuman leaping ability that allows him to leap many times higher and farther than an ordinary human. He possesses some degree of superhuman strength and endurance, primarily concentrated in his lower torso and legs, which grants him his superior leaping abilities.
His vertebral column and skeletal structure are unusually flexible, enabling him to remain in a constant crouching position and contort his body into unusual position without injury or strain. Recently, he has demonstrated a better sense of combat and a leaner physique, using both his leaping ability and his elongated prehensile tongue to his advantage. As a result of having his genetic structure restored thus stabilizing and augmenting his mutation Toad has the ability to extend his elastic tongue up to 25 feet in length to ensnare objects and people.
His tongue is superhumanly strong and tough to the extent that he once killed a magistrate of Genosha by ensnaring him within his tongue and squeezing, causing the magistrate to be crushed to death almost immediately. He can also secrete a highly adhesive resin from his pores that paralyzes the nervous system of anybody that touches it. Toad's intellect has increased beyond his original levels and he has considerable knowledge of advanced technology and access to vast technological and scientific knowledge, which he gained as a lackey to Magneto and while he was held captive by the Stranger , as well as his studies of machinery in the possession of Arcade and Arkon.
He once possessed alien technology that he stole from the Stranger's world, and could utilize it to create synthezoid robots, among other uses. He has demonstrated the ability to apply this advanced technology, but lacks the creativity to make progress beyond his existing knowledge.
For example, while he could construct and utilize a powerful exoskeletal armor, he would be unable to improve on its base design. Although Toad's amphibian-like traits extend to his physical appearance, this was revealed to be contingent upon his mutation during the events in which the High Evolutionary deprived the world's mutant population of their extraordinary abilities. Following the events, Toad was revealed to be an extremely handsome young man. This is as he would look had he not been born a mutant. Toad appears in the Marvel series working as a spy for Enrique Magneto in the Vatican.
As Enrique's plot was to recruit the "witchbreed" who could conceal their abilities in the unfriendly world, it is unclear why Toad was included, as he is shown with a long tongue constantly coming out of his mouth. He also has the ability to move around on walls and ceilings. When his deception is discovered by the Papacy, he betrays Enrique and his allies in exchange for his life. However, when Enrique's group breaks free, they capture Toad. This version of Toad was a highly articulate Shakespearean actor , and a master swordsman. When the Outcasts were attacked by Domino , Toad killed her henchman Caliban but dies immediately afterward at the hands of Grizzly.
When a mentally unstable Scarlet Witch warped reality into the mutant-dominant House of M , Toad appeared as a member of Wolverine 's Red Guard, and wrote a best-selling book about his time in Magneto's service. Toad is seen as a zombie, along with several other members of the zombie Freedom Force chasing after the still living Blob.
In the limited series Powerless where the characters of the Marvel Universe are ordinary humans, Toad, referred to simply as Mortimer or Mort, appears as member of the shadowy organization headed by Erik Lensherr. He briefly aids Victor Creed as they search for Weapon X, but they are attacked by their target and their car runs off the road.
Mortimer's fate is unseen but Creed assumes Weapon X kills him. He does not appear again. In the limited series X-Men Ronin , Toad is an elderly teacher that several of the X-Men turn to for help when the entire Prefecture are made to believe they are monsters. Toad works to help heal Wolverine, who had been laid low by a telepathic blast. In this version, he is not the sycophantic Toad from the mainstream universe , but rather is ruthless and vicious.
This Toad is also British like the mainstream version but has four fingers, green skin and can walk on walls and ceilings like Spider-Man. He became good friends with Ultimate Cyclops , when they were in the Brotherhood together. This friendship carried on even after Cyclops returned to the X-Men.
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After the supposed death of Professor Xavier and the consequent passing of control of the school to Cyclops and Jean Grey , Toad works as an instructor at the school, something with which Jean feels mildly uncomfortable. Cyclops asks Toad to visit the Morlocks and tell them of the new school regime that he is trying to create.
Sunder , the Morlock leader had taken in Nightcrawler and believes the two to be working against him. After the Apocalypse debacle, Professor X returns to the Institute. The world outside has returned to how it was before Apocalypse appeared, but the mansion has both Cyclops' group who remained behind and Bishop 's team of New X-Men together as a much larger team.
Toad officially joins the team and, like Iceman, wears a bandana with the "X" symbol on it. He is a part of Xavier's X-Men during the storyline, but is not shown. Toad is killed defending Firestar in the resulting massacre. Ultimate Toad's personality and appearance is more snarky British punk than subservient yes-man, and he has been shown as a relatively competent fighter in his few appearances. In the first story arc "The Tomorrow People" , Toad successfully disables both Cyclops and Storm by leaping on them, but is defeated by Iceman , who freezes his legs.
Storm then strikes him with a kick across the face.