#but if i had to say which are the most similar

[hannieehaee]

HOW SWEET (teaser)

18+ / mdi

summary: after years of an unspoken fight between you and your self-proclaimed enemy, you find yourself forced to work with your life-long rival, kim mingyu, as your father offers him a position at the family bakery. with such forced proximity and endless arguments, how are you supposed to cater to your duties when mingyu's presence brings so much tension to the kitchen?

content: baker!mingyu, enemies to lovers, pining, one sided crush that becomes two sided!, afab reader, smut, teasing, semi public sex (its done in a public establishment but no one is there), breast play, food play (frosting on tits basically), fingering, handjob, penetrative sex, etc.

(^ no actual content warnings in the teaser)

wc: 1.2k (teaser); 8.4k (full fic)

RELEASE DATE: december 20th

or you can check it out on my patreon today by subscribing!

a/n: i dont think ive ever actually done enemies to lovers so i hope i did the trope justice!!

masterlist | patreon

Twelve years.

Twelve years dedicating yourself to your craft, attending summer camps, taking elective classes, paying for extracurricular classes, working summers at your dad's place, making all effort known to man, yet this is how it all ended.

Maybe claiming this to be the end was slightly dramatic, but that's how it felt at the moment. As you stared up at your dad and the excuse of a man standing next to him, far too cocky for you to allow your anger yo subside.

Today had been an average day. Throughout your life, you were content to admit that most of your days could be categorized as good, especially after years of having found comfortable employment at your father's renown bakery soon after high school (thank you nepotism). Attending culinary school whilst managing a part-time job at your dad's place had been anything but difficult. It was quite an easy and enjoyable job, one in which you could proudly say you'd had the chance to grow up in.

Your father had owned the place since before you could even walk, building it up to become a favorite in your city. Business was always booming, and it just so happened to fulfill your passion for baking — one which your dad had obviously passed down to you, but you weren't complaining. You occasionally took up shifts during high school, only becoming a full-fledged part-time employee during university, recently graduating and upgrading to full time. Life was good and steady.

So, it was fair to say that most of your days were good.

However, there was the occasional day that was ruined by the mere presence of a particular individual.

You hadn't meant to dislike him as much as you did. Anyone who knew you could vow for your likable personality and charismatic demeanor, meaning it was difficult for you to bump heads with people (at least most of the time). But there was just one particular person who made your blood boil from the day you met him. It had been so long ago, you couldn't date back the moment — nor the instance — in which your dislike had begun brewing. Fortunately, the dislike was completely mutual. You didn't have to feel like an asshole for scowling at the man any time you saw him, because you were usually met by a mirror of your expression or an annoyingly frustrating smirk — similar to in this moment.

The frustrating man in question was none other than Kim Mingyu, the resident heartthrob and well known for his passion and talent for baking. Hatred for the insufferable man aside, his abilities as a baker, and chef in general, could not be denied. The mere implication of praise made you gag, but you liked to think you were mature enough to admit talent when you saw it. This was something you'd never verbalize, however, knowing the man to also be one of the cockiest people you'd ever met.

There were a myriad of reasons as to why your current predicament ruined not only your day, but likely many upcoming ones. The main reason could be boiled down to the smile on Mingyu's face as he stood to your father's side. The cockiness emitting from him was enough to get your blood boiling and to create a carnal desire within you to beat him to a pulp.

The reason for his smile, however, was what truly took the cake.

Within the past moments in which you'd been processing your father's words, you remained silent and stagnant before them, leading your father to repeat the cursed sentence once more.

"Mingyu's going to be working with us from now on," he'd said with an innocent smile on his face, unknowing of your feud with the man in question.

Everything had come crashing down in that moment, but any more silence from you would mean Mingyu won this round, which was something you simply could not have — even under these circumstances.

Shaking all the anger and hateful memories from your head, you straightened your back and morphed a smile onto your face, one good enough for your dad to buy and for Mingyu to be unable to judge. Your hand extended as a courtesy, offering itself to Mingyu as a form of welcome, something which your father likely expected from you.

"In that case, welcome to the team," you spoke for the first time, sweetly enough to grant you a satisfied smile from your father. The poor man was blissfully unaware of your dislike for Mingyu, so no blame really fell on him for his blind decision.

Grasping your hand in his larger one, Mingyu shook hands with you, satisfied smile still on his face, "Looking forward to working with you," he said, far too content for you to not want to take him out back and-

"I know you kids already know each other from back when you were in school, so it should be easy for you to show him the ropes, right, kid?", asked your dad, interrupting your violent thoughts.

Your head whipped to him, "Show him the ropes?"

"Yeah. I was thinking you could train him? He's already an amazing baker, but maybe he should shadow you for a few weeks. You know, just in case," your father clarified.

Mingyu's close-lipped grin grew wider somehow, almost as if the knowledge of your discomfort at being around him overpowered his own dislike of your presence.

"Uh, yeah. Sure, dad," you found yourself agreeing against your will.

Your dad clapped his hands once in satisfaction, then proceeding to patting your back in encouragement as he tended to do.

"Thanks, kid. Well, I'll leave you two to it," he then turned to Mingyu, "Welcome to the team, son. Y/N here will show you where you can get your apron and give you a general overview of the place before your first day tomorrow," and with that, he made his exit.

Behind, he left a fuming you and an overly pleased Mingyu. Silence filled the room for a few moments until you found it vital to curse out the infuriating boy in front of you.

But, as per usual, he beat you to it.

"Happy to see me, cupcake?"

God damnit. You forgot about the annoying nicknames he'd insisted on calling you by since meeting back in high school.

Cupcake, baby, sweetheart, sweetiepie, babe, honey, darling. And these were the more tame ones. You did not want to think about the instances in which he'd called you hot stuff or sexy in public. They'd led to public displays of aggression you weren't exactly proud of.

"I thought you were studying culinary abroad. What happened? Got yourself kicked out?," you grumbled, walking over to the back of the restaurant with him following close by.

"Nope. Just decided my expertise could be used back home. And clearly since you seem to be the best they got around here."

It was as if he was allergic to not bugging the shit out of you.

You turned to face him, blinking harshly at the unexpected proximity before taking a step back and responding to his smirk with a frown, "Listen, Mingyu. You heard my dad. I'm in charge of you. If you disregard my authority, I won't hesitate to send your ass running. Do you understand?"

This made his grin grow bigger for some reason. Knowing he was getting under your skin was great for his entertainment.

"Yes, ma'am," he bit his lip in amusement.

...

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[rosewood-multifandom-writer]

My long, nuanced answer to this poll about shipping:

I like to think about different possibilities of a ship regardless on if it’s canon or not canon, and the majority of my ships are not canon. Which I’m okay with because corpos sometimes tend to mess up canon couples anyway ESPECIALLY most LGBT+ couples, so that is why I am 100% content with say, Destiel not being canon. Don’t worry, I’m not using that Destiel meme that has been used very distastefully nor am I swearing with my whole chest until I run out of oxygen that Dean is bisexual in canon. You can take a breather. Specified ships aside, I like romance, and I love it even better when it’s well written and the couple has the best chemistry.

When it comes to others that love toxic ships, that is a whole different discussion for those particular shippers to have, and I prefer ships that have a lot of chemistry or potential chemistry over toxic ships, so I’m not the right person to discuss the nuances of toxic ships. So the toxic ship lovers can throw their opinions onto this reblog if they want.

I’ve also had ships where they were off-screen, and I was like, “but what if they actually did interact?” I always think about the personality traits that would make the characters compatible with each other. This is NOT a romantic ship, this is purely a familial relationship possibility that I have not seen anyone do yet: Jason Todd and Terry McGinnis. Think about it, people. Jason has a few similar traits to Terry and Jason would definitely find himself relating to Terry more than some of the other Batfamily members. Plus, it would be refreshing to see those two interact and have Jason not be constantly fighting with the Batfamily, specifically Bruce Wayne. I get that his opinions and views are very different from everyone else in the Batfamily, but it gets old fast. Like an old and hardened Jason Todd will probably incorporate some cool non-lethal wrist guns on Terry’s suit after testing it out and even sparring with Terry while (playfully) teasing him because that’s what older siblings do: annoy and taunt their younger siblings. With love. Seriously though, I think Jason and Terry would have the best brotherly relationship out of the Batfam. Or maybe I’m just alone in that teeny tiny minority lol. Call it a rare BROTP.

Fanon in shipping is a mixed bag, because on one hand, I go, “yeah, I can definitely see this happening with Character A,” but on the other, there is like OP said, mischaracterization. I like most ships even if it involves a character who is canonically spoken for or has explicitly shown attraction to only the opposite gender with another character with ZERO cheating, because I don’t need ships to follow canon. And when cheating gets involved I’m thinking, “yeah no, given the loyalty this character gave in canon, this is out of their character, so skipping!” That is where fanon comes into play. But if I dislike the fanon, then I create my own.

Shipping has no rules, except just respect other people’s boundaries, so I’m not gonna tell people “ew gross, why you following canon,” or “Blegh, why do you like this fanon, it’s so blah blah blah!” My opinions on canon vs fandom are nuanced. Canon can sometimes give us some cute pairings (like Kiara and Kovu from Lion King 2, my GOATED OTP) but canon also gives us icky ones or messes up a fairly nice couple (like Gambit and Rogue from the latest X-Men cartoon from what I heard and saw clips of). There are also non-canon ships that have made me scratch my head, made me feel indifferent, or I’m just like “I don’t get why anyone would ship this, but whatever.” And again, shipping has no rules, except just respect the boundaries of other people. Canon or not, have some fun with your ships. Let’s not start wars over ships and making non-shippers think that ALL of us act that way.

Hey, I wanna talk about how we do fandom! I've come to realize that I, personally, tend to differ from many others in that I highly prefer to only engage with a text as it's written, so I don't tend to really like fanon/extremely ooc characterizations and I find it hard to get invested in ships that aren't canon. My way of doing fandom isn't better or worse than anyone else's, but I am curious about how much of a minority I'm in! So:

*We've all seen ships of characters not from the same media and stuff like shipping the concept of ennui with the color blue, okay, I'm asking what you, personally, find compelling!

[demonic0angel]

"If you give me a prompt I'll write it 😈" - Aight Bet.

Danny didn't expect his sister to have a pen pal, she said it's someone from nanda Parbat?? Danny doesn't know where the Fuck that is but everytime he sees the letter that was sent(those are some fancy lookin envelopes) he could feel rancid Ectoplasm lingering around them.

Jazz has already noticed but took no caution about it, Jazz said that she had a son, her name was Talia (No Mentioned Last name) and she was a very odd woman.

Danny listened to Jazz ramble on about her new "friend", Her son Damian which her pen pal had talked about and even sent a drawing of(how fancy). Danny WOULD investigate and dig deep into it since he's the ghost king and all but jazz explicitly told him not to.

....

Meanwhile, Jazz plans to meet her 'Penpal Friend' soon. She's very excited but still cautious, The way her friend talked about her situations was... Concerning to say the least and jazz shall use her psychiatrical expertise to help her!

[Danny is very concerned, Dan is Very Concerned 2.0, Dani says "Yuri."]

-A.E. 👻

(I’m gonna change the context of your ask a little so Jazz already knows Talia’s identity before she meets her again in person. Also, this got really long lmaooo)

Talia gave her a small nod when she saw her. She lifted her head to meet Jazz’s gaze as Jazz gave her a dazzling smile.

“Hello, Talia,” Jazz said, pushing her hair behind her ears. “You look lovely.”

Talia avoided her gaze and just hummed. She cleared her throat lightly and then said, gesturing to the hallway, “This way.”

Jazz followed her at a set pace and said, “It’s good seeing you again. How are you? Did you enjoy the candy I shipped over?”

Talia nodded. “Yes. I gave them to my son and he enjoyed them. Thank you very much.”

Jazz beamed. She did not ask the burning question in her heart. Was Talia alright? Her letters to her had become less and less frequent in the past year before the most recent message to her had been a barely disguised begging for Jazz to come see her.

Jazz didn’t mind; she loved seeing Talia, who was startlingly dangerous and hauntingly beautiful, but it still worried her. Talia was a strong woman, but she wasn’t invincible, even with that pool of rancid ectoplasmic bath water. (She shuddered just thinking about it. She needed to ask Danny to wipe them out before Talia could hurt herself again using them.)

“Where are we going?” Jazz asked, glancing around. They were inside of a nice, expensive looking condo in Spain.

Talia paused in front of a door. She hesitated before she said slowly, “Jazz… I have valued your friendship greatly. In the last few years, you have become someone very dear to me. However, as you are already aware, I am in a dangerous position in my home. I do not wish to endanger you, especially since you are a civilian. If you do not wish to take this journey with me, then… you should turn around now.”

Jazz chuckled. How cute that Talia thought that Jazz was a helpless civilian. However, it had been Jazz who had accidentally enforced that idea within Talia’s mind. It was a little too late to correct that notion though, so Jazz just shook her head softly and tried to look reassuring for Talia.

“It’s too late for that.” She reached out to hold Talia’s hand, scarred and weathered from fighting, squeezing slightly. “I will accompany you and help you however I can.”

Talia nodded again, looking away. “Thank you… beloved.”

Jazz tilted her head curiously at the title, but did not say a word. Talia then opened the door and Jazz’s eyebrows rose as she stared at a young boy with similar features to the woman beside her. He scowled at her, but it just looked cute with his round cheeks.

Jazz turned to Talia. She already had an inkling, but she wanted to confirm. “This is…?”

“My son,” Talia said, “His name is Damian. And I earnestly beg you to take him in for me.”

“What! But mother!” Damian stood up and shouted, while Jazz’s eyebrows shot up again.

Talia gave him a light glare. She turned back to Jazz and it was cute how she had to look up at her. “My father is increasing pressure on us, and he is training Damian even harder. If this continues, Damian’s life could be in danger. I would’ve left him with his father, but Bruce’s lifestyle is… not what I want for Damian. Please, could you take him in, beloved?”

Damian shut his mouth with a click and both Al Ghuls stared at Jazz with wide eyes, one beseeching and one shocked.

Jazz smiled and reached out to hold Talia’s hand again. It was really nice to hold, and warm too. “Of course. You don’t have to worry, Talia. Like I’ve said, you can depend on me.”

Talia beamed. “Thank you, beloved.” She flipped Jazz’s hand and kissed the back of it softly. Jazz blushed. It felt strangely… intimate? But who was Jazz to judge? Maybe it was a League of Assassins custom! Or something! She didn’t get to meet Talia often, usually just exchanging weekly letters, so how would she know?

Talia turned back to Damian, still holding Jazz’s hand and said, “She will be your new caretaker. She is very important to me and you can trust her with your life. Call her… mom.”

Jazz side eyed Talia, but did not dispute it. Maybe it was some sort of spy plan? Like a code name? It would make more sense when a woman and a young boy were together for them to be mother and son.

Jazz also turned to Damian and let go of Talia’s hand to walk over to him slowly, keeping an open posture and friendly smile on her face.

Damian eyed Jazz as she approached and then knelt down respectfully before him. She smiled. “Hello, Damian. I’m Jazz, and I hope we can get along.”

Damian looked at his mother. They had some sort of silent conversation that Jazz did not understand, before Damian turned back to her. “Yes… it’s nice to meet you too… mom.”

Jazz smiled. “I’ll take care of you.”

Damian sniffed. “I certainly hope so.” He tried to look haughty, but he was so short compared to Jazz that it once again looked adorable and pouty.

Yep. It was official. Her siblings were going to eat him alive.

Jazz looked back at Talia, who was staring at them both with a soft expression. Strangely, the gentle look made Jazz’s stomach flutter.

Weird. Was she growing sick?

Talia blinked, noticing her gaze. “Is there something wrong, beloved?”

Jazz coughed at the nickname again. Damian eyed her like she was a walking disease and Talia just looked more and more worried. “Nope! So, uh, what’s the official plan?”

She stared at Talia, who just blinked and hummed, pursing her red, kissable lips.

Yep. Definitely sick.

(Talia: Heh! Cool, calm, and collected, with a dash of vulnerability! I’m definitely showing my best side to my beloved, Jazz! She’s so much better than that emotionally constipated Bruce!

Jazz: *completely and utterly oblivious to any advances made by another woman* Wow, Talia is so pretty today too. Surely, it is normal to want to hold hands and kiss another girl because she’s so pretty 😃 I wonder why she wants her kid to call me mom? 😃

Damian: …. Two moms? Is this my birthday?)

[meanbossart]

im so curious-- how well does DUDrow get on with the other companions? I've only seen your art and going off that I feel like: he gets along with Shadowheart, Gale I think he borderline cant stand, and Wyll/Lae'zel/Karlach I have no idea how he'd feel about them but id love to know!

So, funfact, because I was not familiar with these kinds of games at the time I played BG3, I practically stuck with the same exact party the entire playthrough. I distinctly remember swapping Wyll in for Astarion once at the end of act 2 because I thought he NEEDED to be there to find Mizora, and I replaced Gale with Karlach when I went to kill Gortash. Otherwise... It was pretty much always just DU drow, Shadowheart, Astarion and Gale. I did this because they were the characters I liked most, so I wanted to see all they had to offer.

Anyways, I mention this because it reflects how DU drow related to everyone - which is to say that he didn't. He picked his favorites (two because he liked them, one because he has fireball) and didn't get particularly close to anyone else.

BUT, there were definitely notable dynamics!

Lae'zel: She's dead. He killed her night 3 or something. Before that he thought her annoyingly demanding and over the top. I don't think DU drow even remembers her by the end of the game.

Gale: Just to add to your original observation, Gale and DU drow have a little bit of history. Gale tries, for about half of the campaign, to pursue him romantically. DU drow keeps turning him down and is either misinterpreted or ignored, and by the time Gale does give up on him their relationship has completely soured to the point where they are constantly shooting daggers at each other. (this reflects a romance bug I got in my first run, except I didn't realize it was a bug. Either way I think its more interesting storytelling than the intended experience.)

Wyll: DU drow was profoundly frustrated by Wyll every step of the way. He found him to be incredibly naive and a bit delusional in his pursuit for heroism, and could never relate to Wyll's perspective or choices - the few he made for himself, at least. They definitely had the least in common and DU drow avoided interacting with him most of the time.

Halsin: He didn't care for Halsin much. He was vaguely helpful but by the time they got to the shadow-cursed lands DU drow had the impression he'd only been dragged here to help him clear his conscience, which he didn't appreciate. Also, he couldn't bear to have someone in camp be taller than himself. Halsin was left behind in Act 2.

Jaheira: DU drow fucking loves Jaheira. They bickered and borderline insulted each other and had a great time doing it. He can respect anyone who will call him a monster, threaten to murder him in his sleep, and make light fun at him the next day. It helps that she's hot, also.

Minsc: Weird hamster man. Ocasionally rendered him speechless. Puzzling human being.

Karlach: He didn't get Karlach, but he was often amused by her and curious enough to want to hear what she had to say. There was a similar issue here as Wyll's where he just couldn't relate to her enough to have much to discuss, but Karlach at least had an edge to her that made her far better company. They got along pretty well when the topic wasn't serious, but when it came to the problems she actually faced their perspectives shifted significantly. DU drow thought everything could be fixed, that accepting her own demise was a cowardly thing to do - and as they approached the end, and she asked him if he would stay with her when she died, he thought she was weak. I don't know if he ever discusses it with anyone, but he feels guilty about her death to this day and sees it as personal failure.

[heaven4lostgirls]

hello luv! Could you possibly do a poly! marauders with reader who has issues sleeping like some times she can’t sleep for three nights straight and the next day she’ll fall asleep in the middle of class and can’t keep her eyes open? xxx

pairing: poly!marauders x fem!reader

summary: request above!

warnings: mentions of not sleeping well, insomnia? not sure. mentions of regulus also not sleeping well.

word count: 2.1K

a/n: really enjoyed writing this, hope you enjoy it! thanks for the request!

✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰

The emptiness on your side of James’ bed is what wakes him up. He blinks blearily as he stretches to reach over to your side of the bed. He’s greeted by an untouched duvet and perfectly stacked pillows.

As if you had never come to bed at all.

Worry gnaws at his heart as he turns over to look at Remus and Sirius’ beds to check if maybe you snuck off to them instead.

Instead, all he sees is Pete’s snoring figure underneath his covers and Remus and Sirius cuddled up together on the latter’s bed as the former’s bed looks unfortunately similar to the right side of his bed.

He rubs the sleep out of his eyes and thinks better than waking up Remus and Sirius to find you. He grasps his glasses off of his nightstand and tiptoes to his trunk to grab the map.

With a quick glance he’s surprised to find you in the Gryffindor common room, not far at all.

He stuffs the map  back into his trunk as he grabs a jumper that he tugs on as he walks sleepily out of the dorm and down the stairs.

He’s greeted by the sight of you curled up on the long sleeper couch in front of the fire as you have one of Remus’ novels in your hands.

He can see the tiredness wearing you down and the frustration that you can’t seem to give into it.

His feet shuffle against the marble floor which alerts you to his presence, you take a quick glance and frown worriedly as you catch a sleep befuddled James shuffling towards you.

He collapses on top of you with an uncoordinated movement and you let out a small whoosh of air.

“You didn’t come to bed” he murmurs into your neck before he sighs out blissfully as your hands cascade into his curls.

“I couldn’t sleep, didn’t want to worry you” you murmur back, and he frowns softly before pulling away to look into your eyes.

“I would have helped” he frowns and you smile before pulling your hand out of his hair and smoothing out the frown lines on his face.

“S’okay, I’m used to it” you shrug offhandedly and James lips tug down again.

“I’m sorry love” James says and his big brown eyes blink lovingly and morosely at you.

You only shake your head and push him to lay back down on your shoulder.

“Not your fault Jamie, s’just how it is” you say and go back to running your hands through his hair..

He lets out small puffs  of breath against your collarbone as you feel his form start to melt into you.

You’re unjustifiably jealous as you realise he’s fallen back to sleep, his breathing evening out to notify you enough that he’s no longer conscious

You feel your frustration rising and your form tensing enough that it has James whining in his sleep and snuggling into you harder.

You relax, helpless against your boyfriend as you try to keep your tears at bay.

You just wanted to sleep. It wasn’t fair that you had to work twenty times harder than the average person just to do something your body should do naturally.

It had been days since you had last gotten a proper nights sleep, you’d been relying on naps that lasted anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours at most.

It was enough to have you functioning but too little that people had started noticing, Sirius had tried to spray some of his lavender oil onto your pillow which had only assaulted your nostrils.

Remus had offered to give you a massage to help ease the tension in your muscles and relax you but that had only worked until he had stopped.

James had volunteered to do some quidditch practice together but that had only resulted in sore muscles in which Remus had to massage.

In conclusion, you were fucked.

Truly, you had tried everything, and you knew the only way to really go through this process was to wait it out.

Your boyfriends were less than willing to let you wait it out, they hated the idea of knowing you were struggling without being able to help.

You turn your gaze to the fire as you watch the flames crackle in the darkness of the semi-lit common room.

Time continues to pass and soon the sun is taking the place of the moon in the window behind you. As the sun rises, you shuffle carefully out from under James as you leave him with a pillow to cuddle.

You make your way to your dorm and a quick casting of tempus tells you that it’s 5 minutes past 6AM.

Early enough for none of your roommates to be awake but late enough for it to be acceptable for you to be getting ready.

You understand this is your reality, something you have to deal with. Some things come easier for you than it does for others and vice versa. It’s just unfortunate yours had to be a healthy sleep schedule.

As you go through your morning routine you cycle through explanations you can give to people about why you weren’t in bed and why you were up so early.

Fortunately, there was an astronomy assignment you could use as a scapegoat for your sleepless endeavours.

Less fortunately, the only people who wouldn’t believe your lies were the only people  you really wished would.

Remus, Sirius and James were all too aware of the fact that you struggled with sleeping, and you harboured some resentment towards yourself for stressing them out over such a trivial matter.

At least that was how you saw it.

By the time you had finished your morning routine, taken a shower and dressed into your uniform, it was 7AM. Breakfast would only start at half past, so you had time to wonder around the castle a bit and get some studying done.

Considering your lack of sleep, you were already quite ahead in assignments, nearly as ahead as Remus and Lily.

Those two really were the swots they swore they weren’t.

You make your way out of your dorm quietly as you grab your bag, as you pass through the common room you take a second to take in James’ sleeping form as you press a sweet kiss on his forehead.

He smiles in his sleep  which brings a soft one to your face as you walk out of the portrait hole.

The castle is lovely early in the morning, quiet and undisturbed by the bustling crowds of Hogwarts students that will soon plague the halls.

Now you can admire how the sun warms the walls of the outer barriers and how some of the portrait’s chatter to themselves in a quiet symphony.

The library is open, so you make your way there, slipping into a familiar alcove as you open the book you had been reading the night before.

The unfortunate side effects of reading whilst running on no sleep catches up to you as you feel your eyelids start to flutter.

You wish this would’ve happened last night, or really any of the other nights you had tried to get some rest.

Since  you can’t afford to miss your classes for the day, you shake yourself awake and make your way to breakfast as soon as possible.

As you reach the doors of the great hall, you’re met with the scrutinizing gazes of your boyfriends as they sleepily look over all the students who have also decided to have an early breakfast.

You’re shocked, truly.

It’s one thing for Remus to be out of bed and at breakfast early, he’s only grouchy until he has a cup of coffee, James basically lives for early mornings but what really takes the cake is whoever let Sirius get up before 8AM.

He looks like he’s taken a shower and done his usual morning routine,  but you can see him complaining as he stabs his eggs, his sleep really is important to him.

As you make your way to the Gryffindor table, you catch the sight of Regulus and Barty at the Slytherin table.

You know he also has trouble sleeping, many nights of meeting and bonding in the astronomy tower had told you that much. Before you two had gotten into relationships, those nights had been your crutch.

You both share a small smile before you pass them, James nudges Sirius harshly in the side at the sight of you,  which in turn causes a chain reaction of Sirius yelping and pushing Remus which causes him to spill his coffee and let out a string of curses.

The chaos stops when you reach the bench in front of them and take a seat, there’s only silence. Which surprises you, silence has never been synonymous with the marauders.

“You lot are awake early” you remark softly as you smile and take your seat. They  all exchange a glass before Remus clears his throat and looks at you.

“Where were you?” he asks, not confrontationally, just curious

Your shoulders migrate to your ears as you offer them all a soft shrug, “I was in my dorm, why?” you ask

You see Remus hesitate before James jumps in, “I woke up alone in the common room” he says sadly and you frown in sympathy.

“I’m sorry Jamie, I just couldn’t-” you start

“Sleep, we know” the three of them chorus together and your cheeks warm.

“Sorry” you mumble as you push your breakfast around on your plate.

“Nothing to be sorry for angel, we just wish you’d come to us” Sirius offers placatingly, and you nod numbly

“It’s just, hard y’know?” you say

“We know, but we want to take care of you” he replies, and you can only nod as you munch on your breakfast.

You can feel the tiredness catching up to you so instead of your usual glass of water or juice in the morning, you grab a cup of coffee to chug down before your first class.

The boys watch you with a nervous energy, three days of not sleeping is not good for anyone. You’re bound to crash out at some point.

You walk sluggishly alongside the boys to your DADA class and as you take a seat next to Remus, Sirius and James take their seats in front of the two of you.

You try and listen as the class continues, but the words start to blur as you glance at your textbook and black spots dart around your vision.

You allow yourself a few seconds to lay your head on the desk to rest, the soft scraping of Remus’ quill against the parchment and Sirius and James’ soft whispering lulls you to sleep.

Your breathing evens out as you fall asleep, cheek pressed against your textbook and hair framing your face.

Remus pauses in his note taking as he takes a quick glance to you. He huffs a small laugh as he catches your sleeping figure.

He turns backwards to catch the eyes of his boyfriends as he tilts his head to your sleeping form in amusement.

Although Sirius shares some of his amusement, James’ worry betrays itself in his eyes.

Sirius offers him a comforting smile before learning towards his boyfriend and whispering the word ‘cloak’ which has James’ smile shifting from worry to excitement.

Always one to skip class, James makes quick work of throwing the cloak over himself as Remus and Sirius try to act inconspicuous.

Remus shakes you awake softly as Sirius quickly levitates all of your belongings back into your bag which he slings over his shoulder.

You blink drowsily and look at Remus, who helps shift you towards James outstretched arms in the back corner on the class.

All you can do is sleepily walk into his arms as he wraps the cloak around the both of you as he carries you out of the class.

He waits outside to see Remus walk out the classroom confidently before a crash and a curse is heard before Sirius runs out of the class.

Remus looks at him with a baffled expression. “The fuck did you do?!” Remus asks incredulously.

Sirius gives him a glare, “hex Carrow, what’d you do?!”

“…Ask to go to the bathroom” Remus replies, and Sirius’ mouth drops open.

James huffs a laugh which has you jostling in his hold, he mutters a small apology as he adjusts you comfortably in his arms with your legs wrapped around his waist and his arms around his neck.

“Dorm?” Sirius offers with a fond look to your face peaking out and Remus nods as they make the walk back to the dorm.

[ladoddsy]

i think this post also underplays how many times we worked out what caused scurvy and then just didn't do that now, it is obviously important to note that everytime someone worked out citrus fruits help scurvy they genuinely have no understanding why. so basically the experiments were never actually all that good, and when they were they still did it in a completely ludacris way that made it even more confusing. only focusing on European history because I am not well informed on other parts of the world, and also because the story is about how a group of people kept forgetting we solved this problem by 1500 the Portugese had observed cirtus solved scurvy, but frequently added it alongside 'fresh food and meat' which were also considered a part of the cure. in the mid 1500s French colonists in America learnt from the Iriquois that boiling a certain pine needle solved scurvy, but it was not super scalable and they didn't realise it was vitamin C in the late 1500s the Spanish Navy commented on citrus fruits as if it was a solved problem, but a generation later they had moved to wine with certain herbs. they had literally solved it, and unsolved it. further, they even commented that Dutch sailors were drinking lime juice to solve the problem. in 1600 a British naval captain specifically stopped by Madagascar to get citrus fruits to solve scurvy, and also did an experiment where a quarter of the crew were given lemon juice, and the rest not. only the quarter given lemon juice didn't get scurvy. this experiment killed people. not good.

10 years later another British ship doctor did the same experiment, came to the same conclusion. and basically no one listened to him

100 years later ANOTHER British ship doctor did what many people consider the first controlled experiment on scurvy. he fed people whack shit and basically determined that fresh food and citrus cured scurvy. BUT, he didn't think scurvy had a single cause, and also blamed hard work and eating meat stored in areas damp with saltwater. so even after finding the solution, in a more rigid experiment, he made basically a single line note of this.

BUT, he fucked it up. Again, no one here knew what Vitamin C was, just that citrus seemed to solve it. So, he suggested producing a lemon concentrate by boiling lemons. this destroys the vitamin C. basically underdid his own work by boiling it, and being weird and British about why sailors got sick.

at this point, Britain is now basically a fucking roaming band of warcrime sailors, and like two-thirds are dying from scurvy whenever they do anything. like, the Brits would go to war and come home with like a tenth of the people and most would have died to scurvy.

and while this was going on, ship doctors, naval captains, and sailors were basically all saying "limes cure scurvy" but the doctors in Britain had a model of disease that scurvy was a sort of internal putrification based on the diet and lifestyle of living at sea, and based just constantly dismissed citrus as a solution. and if these doctors would not change their position, the policies wouldn't change and therefore widespread use of citrus fruits wouldn't be adopted

then a new thoery came about that scurvy was a lack of 'fixed air', so the suggestion was to eat something that would ferment in the stomach to fix this. malt and wort was the solution proposed. capn Cook want off to fuck up Australia, and brought this as the solution to scurvy. no sailor on his voyage fell to scurvy. greater evidence for the malt and wort solution, right? no, he brought a bollock load of sauerkraut too which happens to have a good amount of Vitamin C. but as far as the doctors were concerned, malt and wort was now the solution

at the same time, the Spanish were having a similar refusal to acknowledge that citrus solved the problem, but due to the span of their empire and the way many voyages worked, they stopped frequently enough for fresh fruit and food that scurvy was often reduced on many voyages.

by the late 1700s things were getting more frought for British leadership. basically the doctors were losing faith in the fixed air and going back to the putrification, but the sailors actually out at sea were basically just like 'fuck off it is lemons'. at this point is basically existed as an established truth among those actually sailing, and the promotion of naval leadership from within the ranks of sailors (due to the immense scale of the British Navy) meant that people who had served as sailors and seen citrus work were now in charge of ships and crews.

at this point the Brits were also getting ready to go to war with France (again, it is a thing we do) and the top brass of the navy were basically in the mind of 'we need to fucking solve scurvy immediately'. a British crew to India had a admiral that demanded fresh lemon juice (and sugar) to prevent scurvy. the crew arrived in India not only free of scurvy but also pretty healthy.

at this point the news spread like wildfire and the British were mandating lemon consumption among its sailors. alongside quinine, it is one of the plants and discoveries that can be tied to how effective a monster the British empire was.

Brits were called limeys because at a later point, West Indian Limes took over from Spanish Lemons as the source of vitman C, and there was a whole goddamn law that British sailors had to drink a portion of lime juice every single day. but guess what, this makes it stop working

i'm not even joking, lime juice is just not as good at solving the problem. as it was more acidic they thought it was better, but they made a juice, that was exposed to the air, and ran through copper pipes, all of which damaged the Vitamin C content.

we solved scurvy, and then FUCKING UNSOLVED IT

but, people didn't realise that we had fucked it up. basically because of two things, it had some Vitamin C, people still supplemented with fresh food, and we got faster at moving around the world, so the time at sea was reduced meaning less time for scurvy to occur.

And then we went to the arctic. And while the whalers and explorers kept the old lore about how to hold off scurvy, the Royal Navy didn't, and basically people got scurvy again.

when we got to the arctic, we basically unlearnt everything we thought we knew about how to prevent scurvy. the explorers that embedded with the indegenous populations realised that despite no citrus in their diets, they didn't have scurvy. they began to guess it related to the seal meat they ate, but basically had no idea why.

a whole bunch of British Navy people thought scurvy was related to boat hygiene, exercise, and crew morale, and often prevented sailors from eating seal meat.

in the 1920s Hungarian chemists isolated vitamin C, and basically discovered how to create a pill that solved scurvy no matter what, and to an extent ended the widespread prevelance of scurvy.

but it took us a long fucking time to work out what the fuck was going when being away from land made your body start emitting a demon that wanted to hollow you out

scurvy has got to have one of the biggest disease/treatment coolness gaps of all time. like yeah too much time at sea will afflict you with a curse where your body starts unraveling and old wounds come back to haunt you like vengeful ghosts. unless☝️you eat a lemon

[taylorswiftstyle]

Out and about | New York City, NY | November 19, 2024

Carolina Herrera ‘Check Pattern Coat’ - $3,290.00 Carolina Herrera ‘Plaid Mini Skirt’ - $990.00 Effy Jewelry ‘Signature 14K Yellow Gold Sapphire and Diamond Panther Necklace’ - $10.995.00 Louis Vuitton ‘Tambour Watch’ - $54,000.00 Fendi ‘Peekaboo ISeeU Petite Bag’ - $4,400.00 Gucci ‘Horsebit Platform Loafer Slingback’ - $1,500.00

When I tell you how delighted I was to see Taylor in yet another copy + paste (mostly) outfit (Spoiler: It’s the shoes for me). This week, Taylor was spotted out to dinner with friends in NYC, just ahead of her second round of dates in Toronto, ON - her penultimate city stop on the Eras Tour.

This outfit drew my eye for a number of reasons.

The first of course is because I would absolutely employ this outfit into my own fall/winter fashion. An outfit that’s black and white and plaid all over? Yes, sign me up.

The second is because of the fantastic way it slots in neatly in her fashion timeline from her previous ‘candid’ outing at the Chiefs vs Broncos game on November 10. Building a recognizable style and brand takes consistency and repetition! Note the matching patterned outerwear + skirt as the major “moment” which are then grounded by black accessories (top, bag, shoes). The extra kiss is the repeat watch which Taylor notably debuted at the game (watches are an accessory vertical she’s never explored previous).

But mostly, I was so happy to see Carolina Herrera pop up as a designer in Taylor’s rotation again. She’s previously worn CH only sparingly. The most notable times were her at the 2014 Golden Globes and a handful of appearances in CH outerwear in 2014 and 2019. I’ve always been a fan of their elegant, timeless designs so I’m thrilled to see her getting rotation here.

Taylor has had a few statement chains on rotation in the last year or so that often feature similar characteristics. Typically gold with diamond embellishments and a central, front attachment. This particular one is conjoined by two panther heads which kind of remind me of the big cat emblem that are featured on the colourful 1989 2.0 sets by Roberto Cavalli she wears on the Eras Tour.

Over the last year, Taylor has upped her jewelry game and has explored the art of the stack in various categories (necklaces, earrings, bracelets). But one category that is entirely new to her? Watches. In my memory, the only time I can recall Taylor coming close to watches is when they were formatted into different settings like, say, a vintage watch face restrung onto a necklace pendant.

You might remember that Taylor first debuted this particular watch at the Chiefs vs Broncos game on November 10, 2024. That particular outfit feels notably similar to this one for the way it employs a coordinating patterned “set” of outerwear and skirt grounded by black accessories. A very signature / slideshow moment that immediately calls back to one of her recent appearances.

As a personal copy + paste, my preferences would stop at the ankle. While I typically like a more minimal shoe, the chunky loafer style is very recognizably Taylor. It’s a silhouette that is staple for her and is no surprise to me that it’s what she’d opt to style the outfit with here.

Typically, we’ve most seen this style of shoe in the form of a fully enclosed loafer. Perhaps I should see this ‘slingback’ style as a meeting in the middle 😉 I do +1 and appreciate the “sandwich styling” with consistent black accessories that keeps the entire outfit cohesive.

Illustration by Amelia Noyes

[ceratedfish24]

Your takes on c!Scott and flower husbands have honestly been so refreshing that its reignited my old Hot Takes on c!Jimmy bc I detest the way people characterize him.

I feel like so many people portray Jimmy as this dejected downtrodden victim of bullying, which feeds into a narrative that Scott was cruel and abusive and awful or whatever, and tends to act like Jimmy doesn't have any agency ever. But IN REALITY??? Jimmy is not downtrodden and dejected and sad!!!!! In my opinion, Jimmy's defining character trait is his unshakable TENACITY! Ppl never want to admit that Jimmy is a little shit! That he acts out of spite, that his friends' teasing only tends to motivate him!! He *thrives* in environments that challenge him! AND to be so for real, he is a grown man with agency and decision-making skills and I'm tired of people acting like he isn't.

In general I feel like people just have the wrong outlook on him as a character. Maybe they've just collectively misunderstood him, or a Helpless Miserable Victim is easier to write about in fic, or they just want to project their own bullying-related trauma onto him or whatever. (People do similar things to Scar when talking about desert duo, which I understand even less). IDK. These are just my thoughtssssss sorry for rambling :P

No because you’re literally so real for this. Jimmy is SUCH a little shit. His response to Joel being mad at Jimmy for trying to kill him was to SHAKE HIS ASS AT JOEL. He taunted Joel because Jimmy successfully used Lizzie to bait Joel out. He tried to guilt trip Scott into giving him time. These aren’t negative qualities. This is a guy being silly with his friends. Embrace them when writing c!Jimmy. These are wonderful and realistic qualities.

Jimmy’s tenacity is so remarkable. He gets knocked down and all of his friends tease him about it, and he stands right back up with pep in his step. A lot of people treat Pearl the same way. Like, guys, these people are adults who make their own choices, and, often times, people who are given free will are not going to make the responsible choice most of the time when there are no real world consequences to their actions other than maybe “I might not get to be in the finale of this Minecraft series”.

There is SO much favoritism in the Life Series. Jimmy and Pearl are always reduced to their greatest tragedies, while Scott and Cleo are reduced to their most selfish moments, even though everyone else is equally selfish because IT IS A DEATH GAME. IT IS A COMPETITION. THAT IS THE POINT.

A lot of Jimmy’s deaths tend to be his own doing. Whether he unnecessarily made an enemy or just wasn’t being careful, a lot of Jimmy’s deaths are his fault, and that’s fine. He likes to play into bits. He’s not that serious about winning as opposed to making fun content. Pearl has made her fair share of mistakes and enemies, and that adds plot and drama to her content. That’s how she plays it, and it’s fine! Don’t infantilize them for dealing with the consequences of their actions just like everybody else!

Scott was widowed, and he had to watch his allies die before he did for seasons. Nobody ever comforts him about it. Nobody says “oh this man is so sad he’s just doing his best but he can’t keep his friends alive and it’s eating him up and everyone should baby him”.

Nobody even calls Joel toxic for constantly targeting Scott, but somehow Scott is toxic for teasing Jimmy now and then? (Which is not to say that Joel is toxic. He just finds it fun to target his good friend and knows where Scott’s limits are. It’s actually a sign of how close they are in real life). Nobody calls Etho and Bdubs toxic for being so mean to each other. Nobody calls Impulse manipulative when his whole thing in Third Life was betraying people. Nobody says Ren is controlling for taking the lead in Dogwarts or calling the Renwood Mound the Ren Mound. Scar is a liar and a scammer and no one thinks less of him for it.

Do you wanna know why? Because they’re friends having fun. Scott and Scott’s character should be treated with that same respect given to everyone else. Also, people need to keep in mind that Scott is not actively playing a character. Scott is just playing the game the way that cc!Scott wants to play the game, so any in depth analysis of Scott’s “character”? That’s an over analysis of cc!Scott in a competitive environment, and that man is literally on this site, people. He knows about Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss, Girldad. I’ve seen him reply to analysis posts on why Scott is manipulative. He’s literally just a guy playing a game for fun.

Imagine if someone accused you of playing an evil and selfish character because you asked your friend to give you the monopoly money they owe you. Or, worse imagine if someone accused you of playing a manipulative character because you let your friend land on your monopoly property without paying you????? Because you love your friend??????? Like, excuse me????????

Thank you for the ask!!!!!! 🩵🩵🩵 It’s always flattering when someone calls my posts “refreshing”💕💕💕(also I see you all the time and I love seeing your additions to my posts💖)

[blueberri-blu]

Learning You...

Raph ♡

[Bayverse] Slowly getting to know Raph ♡

Leo ♡⁠˖ Donnie ♡⁠˖ Mikey ♡⁠˖

Meeting him...

He rescues you from some foot soldiers wanting to get some extra cash

At first, he's angry, thinking you'll run off

He's already on the defense, immediately saying "What! Yer not gonna thank the monster that saved ya?"

You just look up at him in surprise and say "well I was going to until you got all passive aggressive"

And he tries to suppress his shock that

1, you're talking to him,

2 you weren't scared of him and

3, that you talked back to him

Raph just sorta half laughs at you and says "Well shit, ya got me there doll"

He "begrudgingly" walks you home

And after that you ask for his number, which he gives

Befriending Him

You two are sass and sass

Always going at one another, you are much calmer however

He'll invite you to train with him (lifting weight, etc.)

Whenever he gets mad, he'll go to you to vent

You may even get a punching bag for your apartment so he can vent and punch

You put him in his place whenever goes overboard with the insults

Or you give him a genuine hurr look and he'll stop

I personally think Raph cooks very well

So he'll try out recipes with you

Not around his brothers tho, so they don't see him all soft

He might teach you how to knit

As one of his only friends, he wants you safe even if he won't admit it

So, he'll teach you some basic self defense skills, and let you use them on him

All in all, as a friend, it takes time for Raph to trust you, but once he does, he is an absolute sweetheart (most of the time)

First Date

These sessions of self defense usually include

Lingering stares

Bashfully looking away

and Blushing at the smallest of touch

These drive Raph absolutely insane

His confession probably takes place when you two are blowing off steam sparring together

You walked into the layer a bit upset, having had a bad day

And when you got the, Raph was already pissed

(he has been trying to think of ways to ask you out, and his brothers ideas aren't good enough)

So, you two are sparring and you start getting up close and personal

Finally, Raph ends up pinning you down

And you see just how mad he is, so you ask him about it

And in the heat of the moment he just yells

"Can't find a good fucking date to take you on!"

You both freeze

Raph is shitting bricks, having gone pale and has a face of utter horror

You are just as shocked and staring at him, overwhelmed

You finally move to close the space

And give him a kiss on the cheek with, "Well, I recently took a trip to Joanna, so we could hang at my place, watch movies and knit"

Raph feels as though the weight of the world was just lifted off of him, he is in complete disbelief, but accepts

He comes to your home 15 minutes early with his needles

He greets you a little awkwardly and asks to borrow your kitchen, you let him

And he makes the absolute best dish ever

As you eat you pick a series to watch (hells kitchen)

And as you two eat, you and Raph yell at the TV and criticize along with Gordon Ramsey

Once your done eating you each start knitting

Or you watch him knit

At the end of the night, he's done with his little project

It's a little tapestry knitted to look like his mask framed

He helps you hang it up

And gives you a goodnight kiss good bye

After this, he is all but floating back to the lair, just content that you share his feelings

Dating Him

As long as you've been able to cultivate a proper and close friendship with him before you start dating, he isn't as rough around the edges as you'd think

There are somethings he still hasn't told you

But those will come with time and patience

Dating Raph means Actions > Words

Although he'll call you things like Doll, Doll face, Babe, and even Sweetheart (in private)

He mainly shows his love through trying to solve your problems, similar to donnie

And really appreciates quality time

And from you, he'd really appreciate words of affirmation

Raph wants you to not only tell him, but show him you really love him

Private cuddles and sweet nothing's are his favorite

You laying on his chest while he knits

Him cooking your favorite meal to take for lunch

If you ever need help with heavy lifting, he near teleports to you

Can't open a jar? He's there Can't seem to lift the couch to mop? He's there Wanna rearrange your furniture? He's there

Even though Raph acts like he is bothered, he takes pride in taking care of you

He wants you to know just how meaningful you are to him

And if you stay up late enough while you two cuddle

You'll hear him express just how much you mean to him

"I know I don't say this often but, to me yer irreplaceable. Nobody makes me feel the way you make me feel. It's like ya have some sort of calming spell around ya. I really appreciate ya sweetheart"

[gunpowder-gemini]

Hi I have many many thoughts on Dandadan and where specific characters are going in the story, so incoming ramble posts lol. I've got thoughts on Okarun, Turbo Granny and Kinta specifically.

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR THE MANGA THROUGH CH. 175

First up: Okarun!

So obviously he's lost his turbo granny powers bc he's a good boy who keeps promises, but him having yokai curse powers is like, half the concept of the manga right? (The other half being Momo getting powers due to alien abduction). So clearly, he's gonna get them back because we can't just have one of our two main characters permanently sidelined. The question is just HOW.

I'm pretty sure Turbo Granny is gonna come back, she's a major supporting character and she had a whole little montage panel of Reasons To Stay despite her saying she has none but I'll get into that in a different post lol. HOWEVER! I don't think she's gonna give Okarun her powers again. I mean, they're HERS. And she just spent all that time getting them back why would she give them away again? So Okarun can fight? She can use her powers way better than he can, so if they're needed SHE'LL use them.

I think Okarun is gonna develop his own spiritual powers like Momo's.

In the recent chapters it's gone out of the way to highlight how ridiculously fit Okarun is now. Like, SUPER fit. Most obviously in the fitness tests, where he blew everyone out of the water:

But also in the fight against the pygmies he easily kept up with Aira, who was in her yokai form at the time.

Which I mean, it makes sense that he got fit - he's been fighting for his life as an after-school hobby lol. Obviously continually training to handle Turbo Granny's powers AND fighting things would result in him getting incredibly fit. But they've like REALLY emphasized it these past few chapters. It feels like they're really calling attention to it, you know?

But that in and of itself isn't the real reason I suspect he's got his own spiritual powers. It's actually because he can enter Empty Space.

So per the Serpoians, Empty Space is something aliens create that only pulls in humans with high spiritual power so the aliens can capture and study them. It's why once Aira got her acro silky powers she could enter Empty Space.

Okarun's high spiritual power wasn't his, it was Turbo Granny's. He was able to enter Empty Space because he had her power, but without it he's just a normal kid. So once he gave it back he should be unable to enter Empty Space. And yet:

He's gets pulled into Empty Space to fight the pygmies. He himself calls that out as strange! He shouldn't be able to! He doesn't have Granny's power! But there he is! So he must still have high spiritual power!

I think he spent such a long time with Turbo Granny's full power inside him, utilizing it so frequently, that it changed him. Either it awakened latent spiritual power within him or left behind an imprint of itself, I'm not sure lol. But I think he's developed his own version of Turbo Granny's power. I think it'll be a bit different from her, but still similar (I don't think they're gonna give him a completely different power ya know?). I suspect it'll come with a cool form change to his yokai form, like a costume upgrade lmao.

Furthermore, I think this happened because of the Danmanra arc. During that arc, in the final fight against the Fairy-Tale card, Okarun went all out three times.

He's never been able to do that - it's been kinda implied it would kill him. But through the ~power of love~ he managed to pull it off, and I think it is going to have an effect/consequences. I think this moment here changed him in some way, and it might be the catalyst for him developing his own version of Turbo Granny's powers.

Further to that point is Count Saint-Germain. He cornered Okarun, got him to yield and clearly intended to take his powers, but didn't.

I suspect it's because he wanted Turbo Granny's powers, but Okarun no longer has them. I think he either doesn't know Okarun has his own powers, or he does know and is waiting for Okarun to properly awaken them before he takes them. I'm like 90% sure the Empty Space in the pygmy fight was caused by him. Empty Space is pretty clearly outlined to be an Alien Thing and while the pygmies are spirits/yokai/whatever, Count Saint-Germain is probably an alien given his affiliation with the Kur. AND he was the one who gave Keiko the knife and the mission to steal Momo's power. Since Okarun got pulled into that Empty Space, if pretty boy here didn't know Okarun has some hidden spiritual power, he sure does now.

Either way, Okarun yielding to him here is definitely a Chekov's gun that's gotta fire at some point, and I've got theories on that but I'm gonna save them for my post on Turbo Granny lol.

Anyway TLDR; I think Okarun has his own superpowers like Momo now and we're gonna see them awaken in this arc.

Thanks for reading!

[dearmyloveleys]

;-; i just wanted to say ty for all your posts in the fof tag. now i'm thinking about ying lei and his yeye ying zhao... and now there is no one left to guard the mountain, but ying lei died in the same way as ying zhao, saving people he cares about

Don’t mention it! I blorb too much about things I really like it embarrasses me at times. I’m just glad you like my takes!! Anyway:

😭😭😭😭 this drama exists to hurt us,, I think more than dying for people he cares about (because nearly everyone who died did that), Ying Lei's characterisation and death provides a unique but tragic pov within the main cast

Ying Lei my poor Ying Lei. We don’t really talk too much about him don’t we. So let’s just talk all about him. CHARACTER ANALYSIS TIME YAY

Ying Lei is unadulterated sunshine and has a good heart. Morally, he is on the same page as the rest of the team. Yet, it absolutely breaks my heart that his fate is to be an outsider within the thematic concern of choice in FoF and resultingly, in the narrative.

His place in the overarching thematic concerns of FoF is unclear when we first meet him - he is simply a wandering half mountain god half demon with a bright disposition. But as with many characters in FoF, their appearances aren't just for naught. Ying Lei's representative theme - the freedom of choice and the ability to choose one's identity - finally shows itself in one of the most beautifully written (am biased) episodes of the series, Episode 17, which is all about choice.

In this episode, Ying Lei vents his displeasure of the Wilderness towards grandpa Ying Zhao

"I hate this place. I hate the Wilderness. It's so bleak and desolate. (…) If I have to stay here forever, I'd rather die. (…) I like the mortal world. I like everything that is vibrant and lively."

To which grandpa Ying Zhao gives him his blessing to head to the Mortal Realm,

"…as your grandfather, I respect your decision. You can be a Mountain God or an ordinary person."

His next sentence cements the plight of many demons (and humans) we encounter in the story,

"For many demons in the Wilderness, their lifelong dream is just three simple words… Have a choice."

These three words all the more juxtaposes Ying Lei's freedom to choose his identity, against every other character who faces this fate of not having a choice.

The Lie Demon, unable to say her true feelings until her moment of death, and Fei, who shares similar sentiments as Ying Lei about the mortal world,

"I'm a beast of calamity, I don't deserve to live in the mortal world. But I really like the bright lights, the liveliness and happiness, and the prosperity here." (Ep 13)

And Zhao Yuanzhou, where even in the same Episode 17, echoes Ying Lei's words,

"If this world gave me life to be manipulated by malicious energy, then I'd rather die."

Same words, but a different way out. Or there isn't one at all.

Ying Lei is the only one whose fate hasn't been carved out in stone for him. Even after Ying Zhao's death, he is still able to leave Kunlun Mountain and rejoin the team because he has the support of other Mountain Gods watching over the temple. He is by no means a pampered and spoiled person but he swims in a wealth of freedom. His bubbly, charming and affectionate personality is a physical manifestation of his unburdened self, unbeholden to any ending, except for the one that he wants.

And yet, he chooses a life with the group of people who never have had the option to choose what and who they want to be. Wen Xiao, the Baize Goddess; Zhao Yuanzhao, the vessel of malicious energy; Bai Jiu, determined to bring his mother back; Pei Sijing, the forced breadwinner of her family's martial heritage. To show his determination to be with this group, he never again dons the mature get-up (full sleeved robes and long hair) - his representation of maturing and accepting his responsibility as a Mountain God - after returning back to the Mortal Realm. Rather, he dons the get-up he first roamed the Mortal Realm with (or similar), metaphorically putting aside all that celestial burden in exchange for the friends that he desires. Just who in the group can as easily shed their very roots and history? His precious freedom to choose ironically makes him the outsider in a group whose only wishes are to be able to choose.

He gets along with the team, but no matter how many times he ties the knot of fate around them, these people were never his fate to begin with. Fate found the rest of them and demanded they be bound. Ying Lei wrestles that rope of fate, trying to get in, albeit with rejection. The narrative demonstrates this:

The team was initially formed without him, and he joined later them of his own accord - his own choice - while the others literally were forced to sign a death contract to be together. In the later episodes, his affection for Bai Jiu is often overshadowed by Bai Jiu's respect for Zhuo Yichen. He also continually tries to get both Bai Jiu and Zhuo Yichen's approval - head pats, anyone? Zhao Yuanzhou doesn't trust him to look after the dragon scale. In their conversation with Bing Yi, their team count is five, instead of six. His closest companions within the team are each other's confidants.

Even at his very end, the narrative still denies him a fate with them. He dies for Bai Jiu who is the only person he loves wholly, and fades away before Bai Jiu wakes from his coma. Neither gets to say goodbye. Bai Jiu who genuinely mourns his death, dies for Yichen. In a story where the cyclical nature of fate runs deep, there is no thread of fate that leads back to him. There is no resolution or reciprocation for Ying Lei's soul and sacrifice. Every thread is cut and never retied, no matter how he tries. Siheng has Sijing left to remember him. Yichen keeps Baijiu close to his heart. Wen Xiao and Yichen wait for Zhao Yuanzhou to return. But no one truly reminisces Ying Lei. The only people to do that are dead.

Ying Lei's tragedy lies in his freedom to choose. In a world where most fate is predetermined and choice is a scarcity, his death is all the more painful as every act is a conscious choice toward an unknown end. He carries a burden after all - the burden of writing his own story. And he braved each step with that brilliant smile of his.

我爱这个世界更多 又如何 So what if I love this world even more? 越平凡越长久 The more ordinary it is, the longer it lasts 月亮跟着我点头 The moon nods along with me 简简单单入梦的人最温柔 Those who step into dreams simply are the gentlest 分不清眼泪和酒 真让人挠头 This inability to distinguish between tears and wine, really makes one scratch their head 月亮和小狗默默跟我走 The moon and a puppy walk with me in silence 岁月从不停留 Time never stops once 少年也不回头 This youth also never turns back 他把故乡和爱留在身后 He leaves behind both his hometown and love

- 英雄不磊落 (Heroes Are Not Upright) | Ying Lei's Theme

[spinchip]

Will any of the fights be different than in canon? ESPECIALLY since Zane and Nya are now competing,,,, do you have any ideas for that? Is the Jay-Cole fight still gonna be a thing, and if so, how will it manifest? (I imagine it would be similar to canon except w/o all the initial fighting. But the lack of Zane in the dungeon completely removes the core of Cole's subplot while he's down there, even if it does eventually become a general "ok lets figure out how to free everyone" thing. I could also see them BOTH being sent down there,, Chen WAS trying to do that when he saw that neither of them were willing to win ("so both of you will lose" etc. etc.)... And the Jay and Cole here are different from canon in that they're much more ride-or-die w/ eachother, so to speak, given that they have no one else.)

Pixal is sort of filling in for Nya's role this season, right? How does everyone react to.. yknow... android (THE WORD NINDROID DOESN'T EXIST IN THIS UNIVERSE EITHER.... our whimsy.... gone....) or does she stay out of sight entirely (or never get her cover blown? Does she even do the disguise thing that Nya does?),,, My main question is, does Zane see her as an android and if so, how does he react...

Karlof is out on the Jade blade section of the tournament so Nya essentially takes his spot on the bracket. i thiiink that makes it evenly balanced since Zane doesn't participate. the Jay-Cole fight still happens (they're both really upset they're fighting each other) but they give it their all and Cole eventually throws the match because of Zane lol. Lloyd wins all his fights 1) because he's genuinely a fantastic ninja and he knows spinjitzu and 2) because most of them will hold back because they're fighting a literal child lol.

Zane never officially competes in the tournament!

SO the boatride to chens island in a day and a half long and then, when the arrive, there's at least three days of downtime before the actual tournament begins. this is where we get a lot of character interactions. Cole and Zane form a fast friendship then, Chen gathers all of the contestants for dinner where Zane openly challenges him and hints he knows more than Chen expects. Chen, threatened by this, makes zane... disappear.

but not before Zane catches on to the fact he's in hot water and literally says to Cole, "Come find me." the morning after that dinner, Chen regretfully announces that Zane has a family emergency and had to take their only boat back to land late last night... so everyone is effectively stranded for at least three days on the island... and zane is no longer competing. Cole realizes something fishy is going on and when he loses to Jay, he looks for Zane down in the dungeon.

Pixal IS filling in for Nyas role and she absolutely does not hide her nature. she monitors chens palace for a while, gathering intel. She ends up being pestered by a falcon that just wont leave her alone >:[ finally, She sneaks into clouses room and steals the spell page during a time when he shouldn't be there fort a while. Clouse catches her in the act and she tries to run but she's caught. Falcon swoops down and tries to grab the spell page but she tries to hide it, suspicious of the bird being under clouses control before Falcon reveals his robotic nature and attacks the members of chens cult surrounding her. reassured he's not clouse or chens pet, she gives him the page before she's captured and he disappears out into the forest around the island.

pixal is brought to the dungeon and thrown in a cell. she breaks out because she's awesome. eventually she finds cole and the others and agrees to help him hunt down Zane which they do!!

i would say everyone is visibly weirded out and freaked out by her android nature, but she doesn't let it bother her. she sees her existence as a point of major pride. Zane doesn't outwardly react to her appearance, seemingly neutral on it.

Pixal, with pride: i am the worlds first android. i am the most advanced technological being on ninjago!

zane, thinking: oh she is going to be very mad

[annawayne]

Hi, Ann! Hope you're having a good day. I wanted to ask—why do you think some people refuse to acknowledge that the sins of other characters in Attack on Titan are no better or worse than Annie's? Why does she seem to get more hate compared to characters like Bertholdt, Reiner, or even Eren? Annie is one of the most hated characters, along with Gabi. Do you think this could be because she's a woman? Her personality is similar to Levi's in different circumstances, yet she gets criticized heavily. People even accuse her of manipulating or bullying Mikasa. What are your thoughts?

Hello!

Oh, thank you a lot for asking! (and sorry it took me a few days to answer it)

There are a lot of wonderful metas on this topic, but I would be glad to contribute a bit with my thoughts on it as well, and thank you for the ask!

Here, a small disclaimer at the beginning: I'll talk only about my personal thoughts, focusing primarily on my reflections on why this intense hate comes from that are not related to the basic "I just don't like her" - it's all valid, and it's absolutely fine not to like a particular character just because, and it's nothing to do with plain hate.

I think that one of the main issues of Annie's hatred is not even about Annie as a character, but, unfortunately, by the way her character arc is built. We see her at the very beginning, and she is still the second-line character, even if she's EXTREMELY important to the plot. So, back then, we had her screen time, and let's be honest, not as much as I personally would love to have, primarily because she's an incredibly beautiful, interesting character with her unique points of view on the world and, as turns out later, one of the most prominent roles in the story as a whole. Still, till her reveal as Female Titan, we have some scenes with her, we have some impacts on other characters (also significant, like for Eren and Armin, for example), and then, the Female Titan arc happens and... she disappears for a VERY long period of time from the show, appearing much, much later, firstly, in flashback like a glimpse, and only then, with her whole come back during the literal apocalypse. So when the time comes to give us her backstory - I won't lie, it feels rushed, and I think, Isayma has a very great sense of self-irony when he articulates it through Hitch's mouth: "Wait, what is it a sudden sharing of your story?", all while on the background the Colossals take a march. I honestly think that Isayma also understood that it's definitely not telling enough to sympathize with Annie's character when it's presented like this (for me, personally, it was enough and I just simply would love to have more, since Annie's past in Liberio is one of the most interesting topics for me), but on the other hand, he couldn't reveal her story earlier because it would hint at her comeback FAR too obviously.

So, one of the main points is this large gap in her presence and a bit rushed exploration of her character due to the lack of time because of the situation around the characters. For example, we have a very detailed dive into Reiner's character, and still, I also feel like there's much more to explore with his character and his psycho, and what we can even say about Annie, who doesn't have such detailed exploration but has the same difficult and complex past which is undeniably important to understand not only her as a character but also more about the universe of AoT?

The next thing that plays the role here is linked to the previous one - due to the massive gap in Annie's presence in the story, many people forget many things about her. Primarily, her emotions. I think it's one of the most overlooked things regarding her character and in AoT in general. The way we see her tears IN HER TITAN FORM when she fails to capture Eren? Her tears when she was crystallizing herself? Her eyes, full of fear, when she woke up before the whole Stohess thing? Her genuine surprise, which she tried immediately to dismiss when Armin called her a good person? Her smile when Eren complimented her on her skills, which was also deleted from the anime but remains in the manga?

Here, I need to highlight an essential thing: Annie's Titan is the only Titan that is capable of showing emotions.

If we look closely, everyone else has their emotions relatively very firm, like, for example, Bert's and Armin's Colossals, caged and restricted by bones; Reiner, it looks to me, is not only the shield for others, but he's a shield from himself, completely forced to be armored in everything he feels; Lara's Titan also seems like covered in pristine white chains, and it's also interesting since she was, let's say, the shifter with a twist; Pieck's Titan also has a very permanent expression, which is compensated by her incredible endurance, just like Porco's or Ymir's Jaws lack of emotions are compensated by their mobility; Eren's Titan has always this emotion of rage as if it's the only feeling he could have going into attack. Zeke's monkey is the only other Titan with emotions, which is also intriguing.

So, back to Annie, her Titan is emotional: her tears from the failed attempt to catch Eren; like she was genuinely shocked to see people under the rubble when she fought Eren, and he threw her towards the church, leading to its crashing; like she smiled when she saw Armin under the hood; how she returned to the last battle, and how she screams in her Titan form - I genuinely here a lot of "human" in this tune, something, she doesn't allow herself in her human form. And yet, people focus a lot on the infamous "yo-yo" thing, on her battle with Levi's squad and other people, where, ironically, she attacks only when she has a direct threat to her identity or capture. If we look closely, Annie avoids fighting humans as much as possible till she's attacked directly - she runs, she screams, she tries to show off people not to touch her, and when it comes to the "fight or to lose" (which is also a remarkable parallel to Eren's character), she attacks, not to mention the obvious question - how else you act at war? Yes, back then, it wasn't something we could call like that specifically, yet she had a military mission, which, by the way, she was failing for several reasons, primarily because she's not so cold-blooded as her character is often reduced to. So, how else was she supposed to act? We don't see a lot of the same questions, for example, for Armin, who came to her hometown and blew up the port with many more casualties among civilians.

In AoT, everyone has sins. Everyone, with no exception, but Annie sometimes seems to carry the hate as if she's the typical antagonist that is supposed to be hated just because the genre demands (she's not even an antagonist either).

To sum up, Annie's character is simply very misunderstood. She's one of the most interesting characters in AoT, and I say it not because she's my fav, but primarily - she's my fav because she's much more complex than some people see her, starting from her mindset and views of the world to her development, which shows how unlovable, unwanted flower that was denied to bloom, grows through the cement and concrete, firstly, with the spikes not to let anyone close because she knows how it's to be hurt, and then, that uses these spikes, this strength to protect others and eventually leaving them be on the cold floor, and she - growing more and more into buyoant garden.

Her hands aren't without blood, and so are the others who have the same invisible tint on their skin, and yet, the same hands that only knew destruction and cold touch could also be soft and build something new, something much more powerful than her Titans kicks.

When Hitch asks her if she would do all the same, Annie says - yes, but I see it as only the mirror of Levi's "living with no regrets." Objectively speaking, Annie understands that it's impossible to turn the time back, and living among these endless what-ifs doesn't give any change - it's gone and cemented in history as it is. All these potential questions of "what would you do" are more of a mental trick to whitewash the ego. Annie doesn't do it - she understands that nothing of it was something to be proud of, and she never was, and at the same time, she doesn't know anything else. To do something differently from what point exactly? From her crystallization? Not to reveal herself earlier? Not to give Armin a chance to live twice? Not to go into the mission? Force Reiner to return? Not to listen to her father? Not to be born?

Where exactly could this point change something?

Annie doesn't lie to herself, and she doesn't look back with abstract thoughts of "How would it be," but when the time comes to actually take another action, she does it; she returns to the final battle before it becomes another "what if."

And it says more than anything else.

Annie is an honest character, primarily with herself, and she doesn't want to pretend to be better than she is. This makes her character much more human than some people try to make her look.

So, that's it!

It was quite a long read, and thank you everyone who reached this point, I appreciate your time on this!

Thank you a lot for asking, and have a good *timezone*!

[sugusoneandonly]

IKIGAI - stsg x reader (1)

CURSE !! Geto x Satoru Gojo x Reader

cw :: pure fluff ; angst ?? semi-canon compliant // does not follow logic tm. imagined as fem!reader but gender neutral pronouns. swearing. infidelity (everyone ends up loving each other). ass writing. poly. inspired by various artists works and comics revolving curse!sorcerers and reformed geto!! i will try and hunt the main sources down when i find time :)

Gojo stares at the entity before him, unsure how to react anymore. His ex-…ex-….best friend, love? The lines of their relationship were blurred but, what was clear as day was the burning passion between him and Suguru Geto. He’d witnessed his soul shine, dim, deflect, and even die twice by his own hands. Now, he reappears before him, distorted in all the dark and twisted ways that he could be, yet still so beautiful.

His inky black hair, now a void of any warmth or love., spills like a broken pen. His skin…while most curses had a tattered, greened, molded, whatever physical manifestations of hurt could exist, tinge to them, Suguru didn’t. No, Suguru’s skin was ghastly pale, like porcelain so fragile like it could shatter with even the slightest breath. Similar to how he was once, and shatter he did.

The eyes of Geto are concealed by a blindfold just like Gojo’s, his mouth tinged like the blood dripping from his head during his final moments and somehow… normal compared to most curses. As if humanity been spared to him some.

Gojo parted his mouth, still wondering what to say, and if Geto would even understand it if he did. But Geto cut him to the chase.

A garbled “Satoru” had escaped the curses makeshift mouth. Gojo stumbled back, the strongest set back by the simple strangled utter of his name. Geto hovered closer, to him. “Suguru…you..” Gojo still rendered speechless. Gojo tried to walk away, testing his limits. To most sorcerers guesses, Suguru simply followed, growling at the tree branch poking out and barely grazing Gojo.

Gojo’s head was spinning, running at the speed of light, flashes of ifs and whats gripping onto him one after another. Somehow, a year after the defeat of Sukuna, and 2 after Kenjaku’s, Gojo had found the closest thing to peace he could. He had gotten married, to you. Sweet you with the warm eyes and shining smile. Sweet you who had held the weight of the strongest when he no longer could. Sweet you who….he somehow felt the brighter side of Suguru in. But now, Suguru’s back…one way or another, however one saw it, suguru was back. Perhaps not Suguru Geto the sorcerer, or Suguru Geto the “traitor”, but Suguru Geto his best friend and worldlessly more.

You only ever caught rare glimpses of Suguru at first, back in your high-school days. you were year below the trio. You’d admired him, maybe even found him pretty. But he didn’t know you. Until a few months in when you’d grown close to Shoko, getting occasional head pats and a soft smile from him. His warm hand resting a little longer than ones normally would, gliding down the round of your head and smoothing the stray hairs down and simultaneously doing the same to your heart. But, he’d never know that, and honestly, stupid you hardly did either.

After his defection, you and Gojo grew close with the common ground of broken hearts, the torn strings of them bonding together with the others.

Gojo didn’t know what to do. For the first time, he didn’t know what to do. For the first time, he could choose what to do without telling anyone yet. No elders to order him, no Yaga to lecture him.

You weren’t supposed to be home yet, for the next hour or so which gave him barely enough time to try and figure out what to do. But, when he opened the door to your shared house, a whiff of cozy aromatic scents smacked him in the face. You were home.

Hearing the door click, you skipped over to Gojo with a grin on your face, still unaware to the entity looming behind him. Just as you were about to jump into his arms, you were forced back with a repulsing shove followed by a garbled hiss.

From your sat position on the floor, you look up dazed. You see him, the new version of Geto. Your mouth parts, fear, shock, and curiosity conjuring in your eyes. Gojo could only shakily bend down to lift you up.

© sugusoneandonly 2024

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a/n :: trying and failing; will edit ☺️

[incorrectfatui]

okay, more HCs. This one is only Scara, so things might get a lil dark- I'm not normal about him. anywho: Scaramouche: -autistic. I am going to say this about every Harbinger, bc it's the truth. -most traumatized mfer in all of Teyvat. Seriously. someone give this guy a licensed therapist. -as Kabukimono, he's tried to eat several non edible items. This one is inspired by that one researcher who made up a story about him eating a humans arm. The image of little Scara munching on various dangerous items is so cute -related to the above: he still does it sometimes, to fuck with people. Dottore thinks its great. Pierro had to stop him from getting Kuni to eat a delusion. -Eyes (& markings) always glow at least slightly, even if he's not using his powers. Its not really noticeable in the day, but at night you can see it pretty well -hates Pantalone. Not bc he's jealous of him hanging out with Dottore or something (if anything, Pantalone gets jealous), but just because he is an ass. -Went to the Abyss again for a long time, just after Arlecchino became a Harbinger, and kind of forgot that Crucy was replaced. Came back and was like "who the FUCK- oh right". Why? because I think its funny -In general, has a better relationship with most of the female Harbingers than the male ones. -a little self indulgent, but I like to think that he was able to float a lil with electro as well. We see Raiden and Ei do it, and I think it'd be cute if he was able to as well, if to a lesser degree. -has used almost every element at some point, testing delusions with Dotty. Mostly bc I can't really imagine all those researchers just throwing 4 extra elements at shouki no kami and being like "figure it out" -speaking of delusions: I think he didn't use one. His electro is inert and I dont think he used another element. I see people headcanoning his delusion as Anemo, and I get it, but I don't like it all that much -SPEAKING of his electro being inert to his body- I refuse to believe he lost electro completely. The whole "oh he used up his divinity" is lazy. He can still connect to Irminsul, which he only learned while ascending, but he cant use electro anymore, something that he's had since birth? Bullshit. I understand him not using it, but I think it'd be more impactful if that was a voluntary choice. I'd really like to see him recover it over the course of the story -I think Youkai like him. Obviously this excludes Yae Miko, but I think as Kabukimono it wouldn't be strange to see him being followed by some Tanuki or the lesser Kitsune. I would really like to see him interact with the Youkai Children from that one Inazuma event, I think it'd be really cute. -I like seeing people write about him and Kujou Sara, both romantic, platonic and as enemies. The two of them are very similar in some aspects, and then radically different in others. I think it'd be really interesting to see Kujou Sara confronted with her own trauma being reflected onto Ei. I guess this is mostly because I just really like Sara and I want my favs to interact xD -more of a theory, but I think Pierro and Dottore, (will) remember him. He has a lot of foreshadowing in his voiceline about Pierro & Dotty, and other things. He's very clearly endgame/lore relevant, with his story not even being finished. -not a HC, but I wanted to mention it: I'm still stuck in Inversion of Genesis on my main account. I never played past it. I did the Fontaine and Natlan quests for friends/watched them online, but I'm still in IoG on my main, because I never fully decided on a name -last one bc character limit: I really like to imagine him interacting with Neuvilette. I think there could be a lot of interesting discussions had here- Neuvi would absolutely dissaprove of his attempt to overthrow Nahida, but at the same time I think he would, to some degree, understand his obsession with the gnosis. No, the gnosis/authority doesn't belong to Scara (or Ei, for that matter), but I think if you told Neuvi that Scara was quite literally created to hold it, he'd understand, to a degree.

[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.