#I really do think it’s the right medium for me

[gadriezmannsgirl]

Hello!✨ I'm kind of back to writing, truth is I've been wanting to write some things these past weeks however it's been impossible for me to be able to come up with something, I'm having serious writers block😭it's a bit frustrating because I love writing😭😭😭 but I'll try my best to end all the requests and hopefully fully come back!🫶🏻

This is a kind of small reaction with Barça Boys (Pedri, Gavi, Fermín and Ferran) , let me know what you guys think!✨

Slam Car Door

Pedri:

He jumped in his seat, his eyes wide as he saw you slam the door of his car

"Madre mía" (Dear god) He whispered, you opened the door to his car

"I'm so sorry" You say with your hand covering your mouth "I didn't meant to, I couldn't grab the door properly and the wind knocked it out of my hands"

"No te preocupes, amor. Ten cuidado, ¿Sí?" (Don't worry, love. Be careful, yeah?) You nod smiling

"¿Compro un kilo o dos de plátano?" (Should I buy one or two kilos of bananas?) You ask

"Dos. Uno pa' ti y el otro pa'mi" (Two. One for you and the other for me) You laugh nodding

"Got it" You went to close the door and Pedri once again jumped when you slammed the door. His mouth opened and one of his hands moved in question

"Amor" You could read his lips from the window

"It's the wind! It's the wind!" You hurriedly say opening the door once again

"Be careful, bonita. The door can break and-"

"I know, I know. I'm sorry, I'll be careful" You say blowing him a kiss, closing the door.

"Y/N!" He yells when he sees you slamming the door "¡Preciosa!"

"What?" You ask giggling

"Stop doing that!"

"What am I doing?!"

"When we get home I swear I'll slam the door of our bathroom!"

"Don't you dare, Pedro González!"

Gavi:

"Any other thing you want me to buy?" You ask lifting your head up from the notes on your phone to look at your two years boyfriend

"I think that would be it"

"You sure? I don't want to forget anything"

"You can add the things we might need to do burguers"

"You want to eat burguers?" He nods smiling softly, you smile before writing down the items you'll need for the dinner "And that's it?" You look down at his hand in your thigh and played with his fingers.

"Yes I think that would be it, unless you'd like to add something at last minute"

"Probably I will" He laughs "I'll be going then" You undo the seatbelt "Hopefully in fifteen minutes, I'm back" You lean over to kiss his cheek.

"Take your time, preciosa"

He grabs his bottle of water from the cupholder and drinks from it. Only to get choked up by it when he hears the slam, his pouty face turns into his famous frown, eyes full of confusion.

"Are your parents coming tomorrow, right? Or is it next week? I'll be cooking your mom's favorite, so should I buy the ingredients now or wait until we're on a closer date?"

"They're coming next week" He confirms what you already know

"So, should I buy them later?" He nods

"Yes, tomatoes can get bad really quick so it's better that way" He nods his eyebrows furrowed. He looked so cute, you wanted to laugh.

"Perfecto, gracias" (Perfect, thanks) You close the door once again, before almost leaving you saw his eyes wide open, trying to figure out how to call you out on this. "Also, do you want me to buy the big jar of nuts?" You ask "or maybe the medium"

"Any of them it's fine" He nods "Something's wrong?"

"No, why?"

"It seems like you're mad"

"I'm not, baby. Why do you say that?" He gets quiet for a minute before shaking his head "Nothing" He whispers "Try not close the door so hard, bebé"

You look at the door before letting a small -oh- acting as if you didn't knew what was bothering him "Did I close it too hard?" He nods instantly

"Joder, si" (Fuck yeah)

"Ay, lo siento" (Sush, I'm sorry) You nod "I'll be careful" You say blowing him a kiss, he winks back at you, you smile and stopped for a few seconds before slamming the door shut.

You could only see his eyes wide open and the "Me cago en la-" he let out before you ran away while laughing, soon you heard the sound of the honk of your boyfriend's car and his yell of your name. You made sure to buy his favorite chocolate cake that day.

Fermín:

"Want me to go with you, amor?"

"Don't worry, Fer. You can stay here, I'll be back in a few minutes" You lean over to kiss his cheek twice before he moved his head and crashed his lips into yours

"Be careful" He said before giving you another kiss, you giggle

"I'll re-stock my girly things and be back in a few minutes"

"I know but still" You smile

"Te quiero mucho más" You say "Want me to bring something for you?"

"I'm so in love with you, you're too cute"

"Te quiero"

"A muffin would do"

"Got it" You got out of the car and without looking back you slammed the door, you started walking but the honk of your boyfriend's car interrupted you "What's up?"

"I think the door wasn't closed"

"Oh! Let me do it again" You slammed the door once again, a bit stronger than before "Better?" You asked and he shook his head

"Not yet" You opened it and closed it again "More" You did it once again putting all of your strenght, you winced a bit in this last one

"Now?"

"Nope"

"Fermín!"

"You were the one starting it, mi amor!"

Ferran:

"¡Ostras!" (Fuck!) "Cuidado, un poco mas y se te devuelve la puerta, preciosa" (Careful, a little more and the door will be returned to you, precious)

"I'm so sorry, Fer! I didn't meant to!"

"That you pay for my door insurance, nena"

"Ferran, stop. It wasn't that bad!"

"Que no fue tan mal? Casi me tiras la puerta en la cara!" (It wasn't that bad? You almost threw the door in my face)

"Exagerado" (Exaggerated)

"Not exaggerated, I'm just taking precautions" You roll your eyes

"Whatever helps you sleep at night, Torres. I'll go" He nods

"I'll be waiting for you, beautiful" You smile and close the door once again. You looked at Ferran who simply looked at you, you tried your best to hold your laughter

"What?"

"I know what you're doing and you won't get any reaction from me!"

"What do you think I'm doing?!"

"You dislike this car and want me to buy another one, right?"

"That's not-"

"Save it. I'll do it"

"No! If you want a new car you don't have to say I influenced you"

"But you did" He said "My mind's already setting everything up"

"But I didn't! All I was doing was slamming your car door to see your reac-" You cut yourself off and Ferran's eyebrows went up lightly. You fell in his trap.

"¿Estabas tirando la puerta de mi coche?" (Were you slamming my cars door?)

"In my defense... I was trying to see your reaction and I didn't do it that hard!"

"No, ¡Un poco más y la puerta llega a mi cara!" (No, a bit more and the door gets to my face!)

"¡Mentira!" (Liar!)

"Venga, vamos" (C'mon, let's go) "I'll go with you"

°°° °°° °°° °°°

Taglist: @gaviymarcsbride @stuckinaf4nfiction @elijahslover @azzpenswrld @http-isabela

[unoislazy]

School Time Crush

(College Au)

Vi x Fem!Reader

Basically under her tough and flirty exterior Vi is a dork.

This is my most UNSERIOUS fanfic to date so please for the love of god don’t take this seriously. I just wanted something silly goofy to cope with what is to come😔

Warnings:Cursing.

“So… midterms… crazy right?” Vi said awkwardly as she walked alongside you, her hands in the pocket of her favorite jacket. You smiled with a slight exhale from your nose before glancing at her from the side.

“Very.” You responded as you shifted your bag to a bit of a more comfortable position. You and VI haven't always been friends, you met in a math class that you both had to take and happened to sit together. From then on you’ve gradually hung out more and more outside of classes, and outside of the context of school in general.

“So I was thinking.” She began, tilting her head to the side a bit as she looked at you. She used to have such a tough extortion around you but as you got closer you watched as it practically melted away. Sure she could hold her own in a fight but on the inside she was such a softie, whether she wanted to be or not.

“That’s dangerous.” You joked as you stole another glance at her before looking back to focus on where you were walking.

“We haven’t hung out together in a while.”

“Vi, we’re literally hanging out right now.”

“I know but, I mean really hanging out. Like go somewhere with a purpose of doing something.” She said, her hands remaining in her pockets as she gestured with them.

“Wow you have such a way with words.” You said playfully.

“Shut up, you know what I mean.”

“Maybe I do, maybe I don't.” You teased with a shrug which earned a sarcastic yet lighthearted eye roll from your friend. Before you could continue your conversation a different voice came into the conversation,

“Vi!” You heard someone call out from not too far away. You hung around Vi enough to be able to recognize that voice without a second thought, powder, Vi’s sister. She ran over to you two, her hair in her usual semi-long braids, her clothing covered in paint and dust from other artistic mediums.

“Didn’t mean to interrupt your date with your girlfriend, I just got a call from-“ She spoke as she finally got closer.

“She’s not my girlfriend.” Vi quickly interrupted to which Powder replied even faster,

“Yeah whatever, long story short I need you to come with me, right now, let’s go.” She said hastily as she grabbed her sister's hand.

“I’ll bring her back in one piece for you I promise.” She said as she turned to you with a salute. You couldn’t help but laugh at her antics. You watched as Vi was dragged away, with a small wave you then turned to other things.

As Powder dragged Vi away, she turned to her sister.

“You still haven’t asked her out?” She stopped short, placing her hands on her hips as she looked at her older sister.

“No but I was getting to that…” Vi argued slightly, crossing her arms in front of

herself before Powder shook her head.

“Yeah okay.” She huffed, clearly not believing Vi in the slightest.

“I was-“ She cut herself off with a sigh, realizing it wasn’t worth arguing with her sister before continuing, “What did you even drag me away for?” Vi asked, looking down at her sister a bit.

“Right so crazy story, your friend Jayce, he lost his phone so he asked Viktor to ask Ekko to ask me to ask you to help him with his math. He said it was super urgent.”

Vi simply stared at her sister with the blankest of blank stares.

“That’s it?”

“Yup.”

“Seriously?”

“Mhm.”

“Nothing else?”

“Nothing else.”

“Viktor was right there and he decided to ask for me…” She said, almost as if she was disappointed in his critical thinking skills. She sighed, leaning her head back a bit before looking back at her sister. She then quickly looked back to where she had been standing with you just moments before, without this interruption she would have already asked you out, or tried to at least.

“Whatever, fine I’ll help him.” She sighed and begrudgingly made her way to the library where she knew Jayce stayed from open to close when he needed to finish work. He was a very academically bright man, books were his strong suit and so was troubleshooting projects. Anything else though? Not a singular clue in the world. Vi was very much the opposite, she didn’t care much for books unless she had to, and even then they were her favorite. So the two of them together created one averagely intelligent person.

Which is why she was so shocked he asked for her help and not his boyf- his friend Viktors help.

When she finally met up with him, they got right to work, and almost just as soon as they started they quickly realized they weren’t going to actually be able to get any of this done. Vi couldn’t focus, she was more focused on being able to ask you out. Her mind raced with possible ways to go about it and none of them seemed just right. In a momentary lapse of judgment, Vi turned to Jayce and without a single ounce of hesitation asked,

“How do you ask a girl out?”

Silence. Complete silence fell over the two.

“You’re asking… me?” Jayce asked while pointing at himself before looking behind him as if there could’ve been anyone else she was asking.

“Duh Talis. You asked Mel, didnt you? How did you do it?” She asked, completely disregarding the work she had in front of her. Figuring out a solution to her dilemma was much more important.

“Well I wouldn't say I asked her out, it was more of a ‘what are we?’ Kind of a situation.” He explained, avoiding eye contact with Vi the whole time as she exasperatedly put her head down on the table, her hands clasped together in a plea of desperation.

“Any words of wisdom, any at all, just give me something here pretty boy and I’ll ACTUALLY try to help you with your work.” She pleaded, which was a fairly rare sight.

Jayce knew this which made it too tempting to not say no. So he agreed, albeit reluctantly as he knew there was fuck all he could actually help with but god damn it he was going to try.

“Okay, so have you ever heard of the shoulder touch?” He asked, his hands clasped together in front of his mouth as he looked towards Vi like some evil mastermind.

Vi raised an eyebrow at him, immediately regretting her decision to ask him.

“No. No I haven’t.”

It was fairly straight forward, all she had to do was put her hand on your shoulder and say ‘hey’. An immediate guaranteed swoon, as Jayce put it. Vi decided that was enough evidence for her and made her exact plan to try and ask you out.

Luckily it wasn’t long before she got to see you again and she immediately attempted to put the plan into action.

“Remember what he said, gotta go slow, can’t rush or it’ll be awkward.” Vi thought to herself as she walked up to you, trying to look as casual as possible.

“Wait why the fuck am I taking advice from Jayce of all people he can’t even-“

“Hey Vi.” You said which quickly snapped her out of her thoughts. She hadn’t realized she practically made her way right in front of you as you stayed leaning on the wall behind you.

Perfect opportunity.

You looked at her confused as she suddenly took her hand out of her pocket and reached towards your shoulder and leaned forward just the slightest bit. What she didn’t account for was how much farther away you were than she thought, she was so focused on not fucking up that she managed to mess up the simplest part.

Standing close to you.

She quickly stopped herself from falling forward as her hand slammed against the wall behind you, saving herself from a fall as well as managing to repurpose her shoulder touch to something that looked equally purposeful.

“Hey.” She greeted calmly as if she meant to do that the whole time. In your eyes, it went incredibly smoothly except for that split second where she looked terrified that she was falling forward.

It was then that Vi realized.

What does she say now?

Immediately all the confidence she held on her face disappeared as she simply looked at you, then the wall then back at you as if some answers would just appear.

“Are you okay?” You asked, a little concerned by her sudden change in demeanor.

“Would you maybe wanna go on a date with me, at some point, some time.”

“Such a way with words.” You laughed before nodding with a smile.

“Shut up you know what I meant.” She rolled her eyes.

[emloafs]

a binary boyfriends au where the house fight on December 19th never happened, demetri and eli never make up in high school, and the universe keeps pushing them back together (Boston college au)

aka I wanna gage if anyone would read this fic..... (it's already almost entirely written)

Demetri is having a shitty morning, so he can’t catch a break. 

Maybe he was moving too fast. Maybe he was in a rush to get back to his apartment and finally attempt the other nine pages of the ten-page essay he should’ve already finished. Maybe the whole thing could be blamed on his long limbs or his natural clumsiness, but Demetri is fully convinced that this guy ran into him. Not the other way around. 

And there goes his second coffee of the day–all over his sneakers, the cafe floor, and the guy who shoulder-checked him at full force. 

“Shit!”

“C’mon, man!” the guy barks at the same time. 

The guy has the hood of his green sweatshirt pulled up over his head, likely doing very little against the weather outside. He’s got wired earbuds in–like all pretentious douchebags do–and Demetri bitterly thinks he must have his music too loud to be aware of his surroundings, hence the collision. His worn utility jacket may have saved the hoodie from the spill but it looks completely ruined now.

Arguably, Demetri is much better off, notably not covered in hot coffee. But, this is his second spilled coffee in a single morning, and the universe is out to get him, so this guy isn't going to hear the end of it.

“You ran into me!” Demetri protests, fuming. 

The guy flicks both his arms a few times, trying to wring out any dripping coffee from his coat sleeves.

Demetri’s never been good at biting his tongue and right now he’s too pissed to hold back. “Maybe if you were actually paying attention to the world around you, and not just plowing in here without a care for other customers or your surroundings, you wouldn’t have ran me over! You know, that’s my second spilled coffee today. I have half a mind to demand you get me a new one-”

The guy finally looks up seemingly to find who is responsible for dumping a medium-sized hot latte all over him. His face is half covered by his hoodie and Demetri can only see an intense side-eye of annoyance as a response to his lecture on the important or personal space. Then, he straightens quickly and narrows his eyes, leaning slightly in to the limited space occupied by a puddle of cooling steamed milk and espresso between them.

“And truly it’s blatantly a matter of safety–”

They lock eye contact and the guy’s eyes widen comically and his eyebrows shoot up so high they disappear above the overhang of his hood.

His voice cracks a little as he interrupts Demetri’s rambling.

“Dem?”

Demetri’s words die halfway through his sentence. Does he know this guy?

The stranger shakes his head roughly and clears his throat. “Sorry, it's just- I…” He looks Demetri up and down and narrows his eyes again. “Is your name Demetri?”

And that's… odd. Demetri inspects the guy’s face as best he can under the sweatshirt hood. He seems sort of familiar, but Demetri can't place it. 

Demetri shifts from one foot to the other, suddenly unsure of how to hold his weight under this guy’s intense gaze. “Um. Yes?”

“Oh my- holy shit!” The guy lets out a laugh of disbelief and pulls out his earbuds, letting them hang out of the top of his hoodie. “This is crazy.” 

He roughly shoves his hood off of his head, and Demetri’s heart drops into the bottom of his stomach. 

He rakes his hand through a thick mop of shaggy light brown hair. Hiding under the hood was a pair of startling blue eyes that Demetri really should’ve recognized. As the not-so-stranger pats the hoodie down behind his neck, Demetri has a clear picture of his entire face. And just before Demetri can come up with a plausible theory on doplegängers, his eyes land on the faint scar rippling from the guy’s upper lip to his nose.

There's just no goddamn way.

So, since Demetri really can’t catch a break this morning, his childhood best friend, Eli Moskowitz, is standing in front of him, covered in his second latte of the morning. 

And Demetri wants to say fuck off or what are you doing here or get out of my city or honestly just walk away, but he’s rendered completely frozen. Demetri feels a little like a cartoon character when their jaw completely unhinges and hits the floor with a comical clang. He’s left buffering like a YouTube video being played with a shitty wifi connection.

He hasn’t seen Eli since high school. Hasn’t talked to him in even longer. It’s probably been four years since they last spoke. Not that Demetri is counting. What the hell is he doing in Boston? What the hell is he doing this close to MIT? Just… what the hell?

Eli’s excited expression falters when Demetri doesn’t respond. He scratches the back of his neck sheepishly. 

“It’s uh- It’s Eli. Moskowitz?”

Demetri notes first that he introduces himself as Eli, not that ridiculous nickname he coined in school.

He says it as if Demetri doesn’t know. He says it as if Demetri wouldn’t recognize him faster than the back of his own hand even all these years later. His hair is long, too long. It’s curling over his ears and nearly touching his shoulders, and Demetri is pissed because it still looks good. He looks older, he looks better, and all Demetri can see is the tiny Eli he met in first grade who was missing both his front teeth. 

Demetri doesn’t know what to make of any of it. This feels like some cosmic joke. 

“Uh, no, yeah. Yeah. What- What are you doing here?” Demetri finally manages. His voice sounds a little strangled, but the question comes out bluntly and a bit harsh. 

“Uh,” Eli starts, glancing around, and letting out a confused laugh. He raises an eyebrow and shoves his hands in his pockets, gesturing with his coat around the cafe. “Getting coffee? What are you doing here?” he teases.

Demetri really doesn’t have time for this. He rolls his eyes. “Not here. What are you doing in Boston?” he demands. 

Eli’s playful expression falls. He furrows his eyebrows. “I live here.”

And that’s- that can’t be right. Demetri lives here. Demetri just started his second semester of his junior year at MIT a month ago. He certainly would’ve noticed if Eli Moskowitz lived in Boston. Right?

“You live… in Boston?”

“Yeah,” Eli shrugs, looking much too nonchalant for Demetri’s liking. “I go to BU.” He cocks his head slightly to the side and earnestly says, “I thought you knew that.” 

Demetri did not know that. That’s the thing about no contact. Demetri’s had Eli blocked in all forms of communication since their junior of high school. It’s sort of hard to keep tabs on someone when they’re pretty strictly out-of-sight, out-of-mind. 

[alexanderwales]

My web serial, Worth the Candle, has been adapted into a webcomic. This was thanks to my agent, who I have a great fondness for, since without him I would have to spend time trying to make connections and call people and do a bunch of work that I don't know how to do and am not good at.

I was offered the chance to write the webcomic, but declined, mostly because writing Worth the Candle had taken four years and was pretty draining, and was a story that I feel like I'm done with, minus some editorial stuff, answering fan questions, and the odd bit of promotion. So my level of involvement is that I get the pages as they come in, make some comments on them, and generally just give feedback which they are free to ignore.

So let's talk about some of the adaptational changes! You can read the first three issues on Webtoon here, or the first eight issues if you're willing to pay, and the books start here, but I'll assume that you haven't read either, and there won't be substantial spoilers because I'm talking about stuff from the very beginning. Actually, I guess there will be some spoilers, but later on, and I'll mark them, mostly having to do with some foreshadowing that the webcomic does which I didn't do.

(I licensed the rights to make the webcomic to WebToon and took my money upfront, they didn't ask me to write this post, I have not actually asked the artist/writer why they made these changes, it's just me guessing and commenting, for fun. Edit: My agent has informed me that I'm mistaken, I do get a cut. So apologies for the misinformation, and hooray for me, I guess I signed the contract ages ago and just forgot the details.)

Character Design

Here's how Juniper Smith is described in the books, ch 2:

I won’t belabor my physical description. My friend Greg had once said that I looked like someone had chosen ‘default’ for every option in the character creator, which I’d tried to laugh at but cut kind of deep. I wasn’t handsome, I wasn’t ugly, none of my features were very prominent, my eyes were blue, my hair was brown, average build, average height … After Greg had made his comment at one of our D&D games, my nickname had been ‘default’ for a while, at least until I stopped pretending to find it funny, and even after that my friends would use similar lines to trash talk me, saying that I was “the most generic man alive”, “a white bread with skim milk motherfucker”, or “the human equivalent of vanilla ice cream”. Not that I was any less of an asshole to them.

This is how he looks in the comic:

I would more or less give this full marks.

In terms of other aspects of character design, Juniper is here given a black shirt with a red symbol on it rather than the stock white t-shirt he's wearing in the opening chapters of the first book, probably in the interests of adding in some visual variety. On the page, it's perfectly fine that every person in the first 50k words is wearing basically the same stock outfit. In a visual medium, I do think that you need that pop. I do think it's interesting that Juniper is wearing the same clothes in the classroom as he is on the plane, implying that when he transmigrated his clothes ... came with him? I don't know.

The other major character of the first section is Amaryllis, who is a major character in the entire work. Here's her description in the book:

Standing by a workbench, among various car parts, tools, and cans of unidentified fluids, was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.

I’m not really sure what protocol is here, in terms of prose. I mean, I don’t want to sound like a creep, so maybe I should stay as generic as possible and tell you about her dark red hair pulled back in a braid, the glacial blue of her eyes, how starkly alert she looked as she peered over the parts in front of her, or her grease-smeared clothes. Save for her eyes, I wasn’t really focused on any of that. My mind was consumed by tracing her curves, the shape of her chest in her blood-stained t-shirt, the fullness of her lips and the delicate way she had them parted -- and yeah, it was pretty fucked up that the splatter of blood on her shirt wasn’t worth rating much of a mention. I was consumed with staring at her and thinking how gorgeous she was, until I noticed that she was having a powerful effect on me, at which point different parts of my mind were given over to marveling at the sensation of being so attracted to a girl, and others were still focused on her.

Imagine that someone spent a few years studying your likes and dislikes, running through video of your every private moment, somehow surreptitiously hooking up EKGs to measure your physiological responses without you knowing. Then imagine that they sat down with that data and the best photo manipulation artists in the world and made the absolute perfect picture to cause your heart rate to spike, a jolt to run up your spine, butterflies in your stomach, and a cold sweat on your palms. Then imagine that they did this again, over and over in slight variations, until they had a full 4K 60fps 3D movie to show you. That was what it was like watching her.

And here she is (as she's introduced) in the comic:

Aside from the change in clothes, which in the book are the same white t-shirt and blue jeans that everyone else is wearing, Amaryllis has a scar on her face, of unknown provenance. This was probably added for visual variety, but I do find scars to be very fetching, and in one of the early versions of Worth the Candle she did have one (patterned off a woman with an extremely attractive facial scar I had met, the kind of facial scar that looked like it was applied by a Hollywood makeup artist specifically to give a touch of the exotic and mysterious, except she was a just a Midwestern mom).

And of course Amaryllis was always going to be an adaptational challenge, because the books are told through Juniper's eyes, and she's The Most Beautiful Girl in the World to him, and conventionally attractive to everyone else. Juniper tries to be normal about this. But if you're in the visual medium, you have to show both how Juniper feels and how she actually looks, and attractiveness is just so incredibly personal. My wife and I get in these kinds of discussions a lot, where she'll think someone is good-looking and I'll say "him?" or vice versa.

I think the above panel in particular is a good middle ground, a glamour shot that snaps back to the reality of their first meeting:

(The void gun she's holding there is much different from the one described in the book, not something cobbled together from spare parts and void equipment, but this is another very minor change that I would assume is meant for communicating immediately that this is a lethal weapon, and there's probably not a place for explaining how and from what it was cobbled together, which is also under-explained in the book for reasons of pacing.)

Story

I've read the first nine episodes, and overall, it's hewing very closely. There are a few bits in particular that stand out to me in how they're handled.

Spoilers for later in the series follow, I guess.

These are the opening lines of the webcomic. This is much stronger foreshadowing than I used, and I like it. Part of Juniper's backstory is that he's been deeply depressed and self-destructive, and he's slow to open up about this with other characters or the reader. The "it" that he couldn't go through with is, then, suicide. In the books? This comes very very late. Juniper being depressed after Arthur's death is brought up after the first major arc, halfway through what's now Book 1, and gets more explicit as the books go on, eventually getting to Juniper talking about his attempted suicide with people and grappling with it like ... almost halfway through?

I don't know what the plans for the webcomic are, but my guess is that they're setting up for much, much later on in a way that I didn't. This was always a background element, something that informed Juniper's character, not so much the suicide attempt as the feeling that came after, this understanding that yes, he did want to live, a heady, energizing kind of "I guess I don't have the way out that I thought I did" sort of thing.

So I take it as a good sign that this is the opening line. It points toward them understanding where they're going.

One of the other major adaptational changes is that they signpost Arthur's death with a memorial on his desk:

When I was getting pages, this was one of the first moments where I was like "yes, this is a good change, visual storytelling to replace my walls of text, flows and offers indirect information". I am very happy with the adaptation thus far, and stuff like this is what I love about adaptation in general, the need to grapple with the strengths and weaknesses of the medium.

Content Rating

Worth the Candle gets grim and dark in places. It at least attempts to grapple with serious things. The webcomic is rated Young Adult, and I'm not sure how they're going to handle the later stuff, but I can talk about how they're handling the stuff now, and what I think it means overall.

First, there's a lot less swearing. Worth the Candle in its entirety uses the word "fuck" ~1200 times. Granted, this is over the course of 1.6 million words, so a fuck density of one every 1.3k words, and some of those are in the verb "soulfuck" rather used descriptively, as exclamations, etc. My personal feeling is that this doesn't matter basically at all. I don't think I notice when someone isn't swearing unless they're using corny substitutions or trying to get cute with it.

Second, the violence is toned down in that YA way, where they're still showing much of the same things, just not with the same level of visceral detail. When a Marvel comic has someone thrown into a wall, they're no blood or snapping of bones or mangling of bodies, at least if it's a comic at a certain rating (I have definitely read some edgy 90s comics that do go hard on the violence). I think, overall, that this isn't my preference, which might be obvious from the way that I try to write fight scenes and such. But I'm also sort of inured to this toning down of violence, since it's omnipresent.

Third, there's the sex stuff, and ... well, it hasn't come up in the webcomic yet. I think I laid out my reasoning for why I think sex scenes should be written/included in Why to Write a Sex Scene, but the brief version is that sometimes you're showing how characters relate to each other, what they think of each other, and the sex scene shouldn't always just be something that's skipped over and left to the reader's imagination, because things happen, there are moments of communication, it can and does develop a relationship in the moment rather than after the fact. Plus a little titillation is, in my opinion, usually good.

The great thing about writing webfic is that no one can stop you from just including three solid chapters of hardcore pornography in the middle of your story. I have never done that, but I could is the point, and I would only get complaints from people who have no power over me. That same freedom doesn't exist here, and ... yeah, it makes my heart sink a little bit.

Fourth, there's some of the more mature content stuff, the topics that might not be broached. I don't know how they're handling that, so I reserve judgment, but I think my opinion is probably going to be "well, you do what you have to do", and if my version of the story is superior because there are no brakes, then I can be smugly superior about that.

Conclusion

This is already a fairly long post, and there are a few other things that I could have remarked on, but I think this is all the most interesting stuff.

Alright, just one real quick: Arthur is adaptationally more attractive, though this is also how Juniper sees Arthur and I think by the standards of webcomics, this is actually sort of necessary. Most of the flashback cast is not described until much later on, and by then you kind of know and understand them from the things they've said, if you can keep track of them. Many of the flashbacks are nearly disembodied. But if you're showing Arthur early, then the first impression he's going to make is in his appearance, and that really anchors people.

So overall, I am happy with the adaptation. There are challenges ahead, and I'm thankful that I'm not the one who needs to tackle those challenges.

[jam3sacaster]

“Miss Baddingham, you are bad news.” PT1

(Rivals) Declan O’Hara x Reader

Suggestion by a sweet anon 🫶🏽 / You, Lord Baddingham’s daughter, encounter Mr Declan O’Hara on your first day at Corinium… 💋

18+ FANFIC / SMUT. Medium length? Reader character aged at 21.

Alone in your father’s office at Corinium, you take the opportunity to snoop around his personal belongings. As a father, he was much less than devoted, but your mother had somehow managed to persuade him to let you uptake a small office job — faxing documents, organising fathers diary but most importantly, shadowing Declan O’Hara for journalistic experience. “What are you doing?” Tony Baddingham asked, tightly suited and lips pressed together in common anger. “Sorry, Dad. Just… having a look.” You sigh, taking a seat at the other side of his desk. Tony reclined in his seat ahead of you, leather brogues resting in front of your face and arms clasped behind his head. “So… no fuck ups today. Don’t speak to Declan unless you’re spoken to, don’t fax anything that you’re not told to, don’t leave until I’ve told you to.” Your father instructs you, and keeps a close eye on you, rolling your eyes. “Yes, Dad.” You drone, rising from your seat and taking a step towards the door. “I mean it. I’ll be watching.” He ominously informs you once again. Exasperated with his tedious words, you swing open his office door and slam it shut.

“That’s about the right reaction for leaving his office.” Declan chimes as he hurriedly sped past the office, clicking his fingers at you to follow him. How brilliant — a whole day with two chauvinistic pigs instead of one. “You shouldn’t click at me. I would’ve followed you anyway.” You tut, slouching after him to his personal office. Declan didn’t respond, but pushed his office door open for you to sit down. “Right, much to do today. Did ya’ check the notes ‘ya dad gave to ‘ya?” He grunts, lighting a cigarette and taking a seat in front of you. Avoiding eye contact the best you could, you exhaled and lit a cigarette of your own. “I don’t read anything that Dad tells me to. Cunt.” You spit, rolling your eyes. Declan couldn’t help but laugh — there wasn’t a truer sentence said, in his opinion.

“Ya’ not too keen on him then?” He asks, glancing up at you from his mounds of paperwork. “No. He’s a pig, rude, and cheats on my mum all the time with this Cameron girl.” You utter, eyes scanning the windows of the office, willing the universe to allow a glimpse of the woman that ruined your parents marriage. “I think we’re going to get along,” Declan begins, before clearing his throat, “Cameron’s good at what she does, but I don’t see why Tony’s so interested. She’s twenty years younger than him, fa’ fucks sake.” His words feel like a twisting knife in your stomach. It took a lot to come to terms with your fathers infidelity — your mum handled it so well, but seeing her sitting alone in the lounge every night was simply too much for you to bare.

“Are you married?” You question the Irishman through an elongated puff of your cigarette. He visibly takes a moment to carefully consider his response, placing his paperwork back down on the desk and looking up at you. “I was. Not really anymore.” He states. Furrowing your brow, you can’t help but speak with an upturned nose. “Not really? How can you not really be married?” You ask.

“The same way ya’ father is not really married anymore.” Declan snaps, his harsh tone unwavering. Ouch. But, being the self-assured Baddingham that you are, you continue to probe him. “So you’re a cheat?” You snidely remark. “Not me.” He replies, tapping ash from his cigarette and maintaining intense eye contact with you. For once, you were left speechless. If there was one thing you had inherited from your father, it was most definitely your self-important, highly confident personality. Lifting your foot up underneath the desk, you raised it up Declan’s leg, stroking down the length of it gently.

•

“What are ya’ doing?” He quizzes, fighting the urge to smirk at your boldness. “I’ve watched your show. I love the way you pick apart your guests. It’s always been a dream of mine to have you bend me over that chair and fuck me senseless.” You wink, simpering at your own comment. Coughing in a flurry of both sheer shock and exhilaration, Declan’s gaze widened. “Listen, Miss Baddingham, you are bad news.” He mutters softly. In all honestly, there was nothing more than Declan would love to do than your suggestion. But the hypocrisy of being intimate with you after chastising Tony so heavily for sleeping with Cameron was too much for him to swallow.

Scraping your chair across the floor, you clambered onto your knees and crawled under Declan’s desk. Screwing up his face in confusion, Declan kept a close eye on the happenings outside his office. Briskly unzipping his trousers and pulling his erect cock from his boxers, you awaited for his gruff moan as you swirled your tongue around the reddening tip. “Fuck, ya’ such a naughty girl.” He grunts, scrambling for a pen from his drawer in order to feign busyness. Desperate to draw out this pleasurable experience for him, you sucked at the tip for a few moments, smirking through a full mouth as you watched his squirming legs from the corner of your eye.

Placing a gentle hand on your head, Declan stroked his brutish fingers through your hazelnut hair, his spine shivering from intimacy. Taking a deep inhale, you take as much of his 9 inch girth into your mouth as possible, saliva escaping from your lips as your head bobs slowly. Glancing up at him with sparkling eyes, Declan allowed himself a profound moan — the risk of it all heightening his senses. Chronically in need of Declan’s release, you maintain your tempo, the tip of his cock repeatedly hitting the back of your throat.

“Look at me whilst I’m in your throat.” He orders, pushing your chin up with his finger and moaning as he gets to see your wide, pure eyes. Raising your hands up to grab a hold of his thighs, you pushed your limits even deeper, speeding up and keeping him towards the back of your throat. “Fuckin’ hell. If ya’ keep going like that, ya’ gonna make me cum.” He spat out, but his words only spurred you on even further. Eyes watering and nose sniffling, you continued your passionate assault on his cock — lust taking ahold of common sense. Your incessant deepthroating became all too much for Declan, and his thighs seized furiously as he shot his sweet load down the back of your throat, coating the soft palate of your mouth. Swallowing it without a second thought, you scooted yourself out from under the desk as Declan hurried to zip his trousers up. Staring at him longingly as you wiped your mouth with the back of your hand, you winked at him with fluttering eyelashes. “I can’t believe we just did that. Ya’ fuckin’ minx.” Declan beamed with pride.

The door of Declan’s office was prized open, and it took Declan a few moments to fully grasp the mischievousness of the situation he found himself in this afternoon. Tony Baddingham, eyes ablaze with fury, bellowed as deafeningly as his lungs could manage, “What the fuck is going on?” Truly, it baffled you for a moment how someone would be in the know of your sexual escapade. That was until you turned to your side, and three quarters of the office looked on, twiddling their thumbs and pretending in futile that they hadn’t witnessed you on your knees for Declan O’Hara. It’s very possible that you may both be in a slight bit of trouble.

[honeyxwildfire]

// Wolf & Scarlet WIP //

[moe-broey]

One thing they don't tell you about the Senshi tulpa that WILL inevitably manifest in your mind to tell you to eat better is that. Every time I make myself a coffee via kuerig instantly, I can hear him. Lamenting the fact that I have become so accustomed to convenience and ease that even a standard coffee machine has become foreign to me. I am thinking about how to make coffee without use of a machine in the first place, I am wondering where my french press went, I can see him. In my mind. Showing me how to make coffee in The Dungeon. Dungeon Coffee.

[giantkillerjack]

One of the things I love about Glass Onion is the way that the camera and music work together to tell nonverbal jokes.

Like when Benoit basically has to hold Miles' hand to get him to the conclusion that someone reset the puzzle box Benoit lies about receiving:

Benoit asks if it's possible that someone reset the box, and Miles then declares that someone must have reset the box like it is this huge reveal - and the camera zooms out while the music subtly swells as though he really has figured out something smart, when actually he literally restated what Benoit just said.

[babykittenteach]

2023 in review! I made an effort to try more things and it worked mostly (at least for TV and movies). New things, new-to-me things, and new installments of old things all had characters to love even if I didn't necessarily feel fannish about them, and I'm hoping 2024 does, too.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

Full Tech Day One pic today from kiko laureano (denizen of skid row / ensemble) & video (that's four seconds of "ya never know" playing over the static image) from & ft. marcia milgrom dodge (director / choreographer) double captioning "there might be puppets in this musical ;)" & "Well Shake my hand! Come see LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS @guthrietheater featuring @actually_will_roland's hand!"

[bacchuschucklefuck]

Do you write fh (jy) fan fiction? If so is there a way I can read it? Thanks :>

I'll say I am writing fh fanfics! but its currently in my computer and nowhere else. maybe one day I'll get what I'm writing done and somewhere not my computer and I'll let folks know!

[myonmukyuu]

marker practice ayumu

[rawliverandgoronspice]

nothing is funnier than seeing huge masses of gamers having One Major Complain about a game that's about to come out and repeat it over and over as THE deal-breaking thing, meanwhile you (gamedev) are like "buddy that's not even in the top 3 of things that are wrong with this game you're all gonna forget it was even a thing that bothered you by the time you actually have the controller in your hands"

[desperatecheesecubes]

Man the thing about comics is that it’s SO hard to find the parts of fandom that aren’t like, policed. There is a truly absurd amount of people who decided that other people are enjoying the fandom wrong and that they should be really loud and sometimes aggressive about it.

[keeps-ache]

[staring out the window but it's just a sticker on the wall] i actually need to make something right now or i'll espode

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

hang on are cougars like panthers