Everything Will Be Okay in End: The Value of Comfort Media in Tough Times, a guest post by Kayla Cottingham

Four years ago, I found myself in an unpleasant situation. The world was in COVID lockdown, I’d lost my job, and while I had managed to graduate from library school despite moving to Zoom classes, jobs were few and far between with the pandemic throwing everything into disarray. Days felt long and sleep didn’t come at night. Dishes piled up, laundry went undone for weeks at a time, and I was, to put it mildly, quite sad.

It was sadness that stemmed from a feeling of uncertainty. I missed knowing when I’d get to see my family again. I missed laughing with my coworkers over the current library drama. I missed splitting a bottle of wine with friends at our favorite restaurant. The only thing that really brought me comfort in those days was returning to familiar territory. For me, that meant consuming a lot of comfort media.

Comfort media is a relatively new term, but it’s also self-explanatory. It encapsulates the movies, books, TV shows, podcasts, etc. that we find ourselves going back to when we crave the reassurance of the familiar.  A few common examples include TV shows like Gilmore Girls and Schitt’s Creek or movies like Practical Magic and Mamma Mia! For me, comfort media tends to lean towards the romantic and magical.

Back in the darkest part of lockdown in 2020, I decided to rewatch the 2001 anime adaptation of my favorite manga, Fruits Basket. For those unfamiliar with the shoujo smash hit, the story follows an orphaned teenage girl named Tohru who is taken in by the mysterious and wealthy Sohma family. The twist? The Sohmas are cursed to transform into the animals of the zodiac when hugged by the opposite sex. While the actual plot sounds relatively cozy at first, the series takes a dark turn, dealing with all kinds of familial trauma. Nonetheless, the characters, for all their flaws, find love and ways to heal.

It was something that really resonated with me when I first watched and read the series in the seventh grade. I’m of the belief that there’s something inherently depressing about being thirteen years old. I was certainly not doing well. Thirteen marks the death of childhood and the beginning of the teen phase, which creates an incredible amount of cognitive dissonance. In a way, what I was going through the first time I encountered Fruits Basket wasn’t that different from the second time a decade later. I was at a pivotal time in my life, feeling stuck in the past while being terrified of the future. I needed a story that would tell me everything would be okay in the end, no matter how terrible it got. Fruits Basket provided that.

In 2020, as I sat in my bed listening to the show’s two main love interests brawling for the umpteenth time, I found myself thinking about how I would write a story like this.  I wanted to create something that would have the same comforting effect on readers. Slowly, I started to think of all the other comfort media I always go back to. Howl’s Moving Castle, for the journey to finding self-love. Stardust, for the bickering-to-lovers romance. The Princess Bride, for a blend of humor and fantasy. All of them had elements in common: magic, a sense of whimsy, and a lasting message that love conquers all. I took on a role akin to Dr. Frankenstein, cutting up all my favorite pieces of comfort media and stitching them back together as my own creation.

Thus, Practical Rules for Cursed Witches was born. From the moment I started working on it, I felt a profound sense of relief. Getting to write about a witty and charming main character like Delilah finding love with her prickly, mysterious love interest, Briar, was such a breath of fresh air. For the first time in months, I woke up excited because I had Practical Rules to return to. I stayed up late researching all the desserts I could have Delilah bake, then moved to researching towns in the Cotswolds to base fantastical locations on. I didn’t have to worry about the pandemic, or my job situation, or student debt when I was in that world. It gave me an escape I desperately needed. While I did have to put it in a drawer to work on my debut novel, I always found myself coming back to it. As soon as my first book contract was complete, our very first move was taking Practical Rules out to publishers. It sold almost immediately, and since then, it’s been an absolute dream to work on.

Ultimately, it was an extremely healing book to write. Looking back on it, I’m grateful that something as simple as rewatching my favorite childhood anime could change my life as much as it has. It’s been a whirlwind four years since I wrote that first draft, and the fact that I get to see this book in readers’ hands is an experience that’s hard to put into words. It’s my most personal project to date, so there’s a bit of extra fear associated with it. I take comfort, though, knowing that if a story could help me as much as Practical Rules did, there’s a good chance it’ll do the same for readers.

Comfort media, at its core, tells its consumers that they’re not alone. All things end eventually, good and bad. But one thing that remains is the memories of those stories that stick with us early in life and provide comfort for years to come. It’s my hope that Practical Rules can do just that.

Meet the author

Kayla Cottingham (they/she) is a former teen librarian and New York Times bestselling author of sapphic horror and fantasy novels. Originally from Salt Lake City, Utah, Kayla lives in Boston where they love to go hiking in the woods, play RPGs, and snuggle on the couch with their ridiculously large black cat, Squid. Find Kayla online at kaylacottingham.com and follow them on X/Twitter at @peculiaritea, and on Instagram at @kcottcan.

Preorder/buy PRACTICAL RULES FOR CURSED WITCHES

About Practical Rules for Cursed Witches

From the New York Times bestselling author of My Dearest Darkest comes a cozy fantasy romance about a teen witch who must complete her magical training by breaking a powerful family’s curse. But her own affliction—to never find true love—gets in the way when she falls for the girl she’s trying to save.

Magic is in Delilah Bea’s blood. Her absentee father is the world’s most famous cursebreaker, while all the women in her family are fated to never find true love. So when Delilah sets out to complete her magical Calling and gain her full powers as a witch, she has the perfect task in mind—breaking the Bea family curse.

But Delilah’s Calling is hijacked by Kieran Pelumbra, the spoiled son of the most powerful family in the country, and breaking his curse suddenly becomes her official assignment. Every generation, a pair of Pelumbra twins is doomed, with one twin draining the other of their life and magic. Kieran grows weaker while his sister, Briar, becomes…something monstrous.

As Delilah and the twins set out on their quest, they quickly realize that breaking the Pelumbra curse isn’t going to be simple. For one thing, the rest of the Pelumbra family doesn’t actually want their curse broken—and they’ve sent hunters after the trio to ensure they fail. For another, something about Briar gets under Delilah’s skin, distracting her and making her want to kiss the perpetually grumpy look off her face. But with time running out for the twins and Delilah’s own true love curse getting in the way, they may not stand a chance of finding their happily ever after.

ISBN-13: 9780593813973
Publisher: Random House Children’s Books
Publication date: 08/27/2024
Age Range: 12 – 17 Years

Filed under: Guest Post