The "whiny" witch?

​So, a lot of people are worked up about Bay.
I didn’t foresee an issue, but apparently I was wrong.
Here’s the thing, Murder Most Witchy was a “transition” book. What do I mean about that? I mean it was setting things up for what is to come next.
I don’t always like the television season analogy, but I think that’s the easiest one to go with. When you break it down, the first three books were the first season. It was your introduction to Bay and the other Winchesters but you were in learning mode more than growing mode.
The next block of books were as much about Landon adjusting to a magical world as Bay adjusting to having him in her life. She grew up thinking no one would want to put up with the magic and ghosts – let alone Aunt Tillie – but slowly learned maybe that wasn’t true. She was still insecure, though, because she believed one thing her entire life and wasn’t sure she could ever break from that belief.
I spent a lot of time building the witch relationships how I wanted them, and now it’s time for another shift. Bay and Landon have to take the next step – moving in together – before they can take more steps after that. To make that happen, I needed Bay’s worst-case scenario to come to fruition. I needed Landon to go undercover and things to go badly.
It wasn’t just about Bay being “whiny,” which she fully admitted herself. It was Bay coming to grips with the fact that even when things change, that doesn’t mean she’s going to lose everything. There was a lesson in there that she needed to learn.
Going forward, I want to set up four different households. The Overlook is one, the guesthouse is another, Marcus’ stable and funky house project is the third and the Dandridge is the fourth. Now the witches, who are extremely codependent, need to learn to live in new environments. Even though Bay isn’t moving, it will be a new environment because the old pieces are being replaced with the new.
All that being said, November’s mystery and December’s fantasy (and even some of the book following that) will involve Bay, Landon and Thistle (and Marcus by extension) living together. Landon and Thistle being on top of each other is too much fun to ignore. After that, though, there’s new avenues to stroll down and they’re bound to be exciting.
How will Bay, Clove and Thistle deal with not being under the same roof? Sure, Clove is already out but with Thistle and Bay left behind it wasn’t that different. When Thistle leaves, though, we really are in a brave new witch world. That witch world will be different for Landon, too. He will go from spending half his time there to all of his time there, and it will still be an adjustment.
For those upset with Bay’s reaction, I’m sorry. Bay needed for the absolute worst to happen to prove that it wasn’t the end of the world. Did she act in a mature fashion? No. I never even considered that. I wouldn’t have been happy in her position and I didn’t ever think that was the way to go when writing it.
Moving forward, though, the witches will be braving new things and new scenarios. Will they always be mature when they respond? Absolutely not. That’s not the way they (or I, for that matter) roll.
They learned from Aunt Tillie, after all.