#words into potions

[mysticstarlightduck]

My Words Into Potions Intro!

The Event (@moon-and-seraph)

I'll be working on two WIPs this March - my goal will be to attempt to finish Enchanted Illusion's first draft and give Of Starlight and Beasts a good headstart!

Title: OF STARLIGHT AND BEASTS

Genre - High Fantasy (medieval) Adventure/Dark Fairy Tale (with a tad of romance, that's a subplot)

Summary - In an ancient enchanted kingdom, Corah, the daughter of their land's most renowned adventurer, seeks to become the best knight that has ever lived. However, after meeting a young man with strange magic and no memories lost in the woods, Corah finds herself thrust into an unexpected quest when the once-thought-dead Queen returns to enact her revenge on their peaceful kingdom - and now it falls to Corah and her mysterious new friend to prevent destruction from reaching their land, if she wants to achieve her dream to be knighted. But are things quite what they seem?

POV - Dual POV (for now?), with some occasional POVs from important side characters.

Lenght - Novel/Book

Tags/Hashtag - #wip: of starlight and beasts, #wip of starlight and beasts

WIP Soundtrack - Of Starlight and Beasts Playlist

Snippet/Excerpt -

[...] Corah climbed the sandy stone wall, expertly weaving her way up towards the broken ramparts despite the weight of her armor straining her arms. Her hands reached the ledge, and she was able to fling her leg onto the walkway, pulling the rest of her body upwards.

Taking a moment to catch her breath, she wiped the dust off of her hands onto her trousers, waiting for her friends to reach her. Arammys' sunny locks were the first to peek through the ramparts, though, in his struggle to get a grip on the stone, his hands nearly slipped - she lunged, grabbing hold of his wrist just in time, and helping him heave himself the rest of the way up.

Behind him, Eidan followed suit, pulling himself over the wall nearly effortlessly. Arammys stared at him, impressed and annoyed at the same time.

Turning around as the duo started to bicker, Corah rolled her eyes, looking down to the city below, the sprawling sea just barely visible through the white stone buildings was filled with trading ships from near and far, the sky seemingly filled with colorful flags and banners. But she knew better than to trust the city's apparent normalcy - the Crimson Queen's soldiers were already here, just waiting to catch them on the streets down below.

"We'll need to figure out another plan, it seems" She winced, sighting a suspiciously familiar hooded figure just out of the rampart's gate ahead. Her hand instinctively went to the hilt of her sword.

Just as she was about to back away, Arammys popped up beside her, not noticing the enemy just below. Corah pulled Arammys behind a pillar just in time before the person looked up, nearly spotting him. She whispered through gritted teeth, exasperated. "Do you seriously have a death wish?"

"I didn't notice that the guy was there!" Arammys replied, an indignant remark spoken through a whisper as he pulled the hood of his cloak meticulously over his head, obscuring his hair and face. He peered over the pillar, this time more carefully, onto the street below, noticing more and more of the Queen's men. "Gods, the city is really crawling with them. How are we supposed to reach the docks? They'll kill us!"

"No, they won't." Eidan broke his silence, motioning with his metallic arm for the duo to follow him, "I know a way in. But you're really not gonna like it." [...]

Title: ENCHANTED ILLUSIONS

Genre - Victorian-inspired Dark Fantasy/Mystery

Summary - The brutal war between humans and mythical creatures came to an end 100 years ago, with a peace treaty being achieved and the rival nations finally coexisting peacefully in the capital city of Ansburke. Now, however, a crooked secret organization - dubbed the Hemlock Society - seeks to plunge the city into civil war, preying on the prejudices left over from the previous centuries of warfare to feed the uneasiness between humans and Myths once more. Now, as tensions reach a boiling point, a group of misfits and outcasts must work together to thwart the Hemlock Society's dreadful plans before civil war erupts, in a race against time to save both the people of Ansburke and their own lives, as they dive deep into the world of intrigues and secrets that lay just beneath the city's perfect surface.

POV - 5 Main POVS, with occasional POVs from important side characters.

Lenght - Novel/Book Series

Tags/Hashtag - #wip: enchanted illusions, #wip enchanted illusions

WIP Soundtrack - Enchanted Illusions Playlist

Snippet/Excerpt -

Augustus and Harriet walked down the cramped alleyway, following their unexpected guide. Whilst the necromancer maintained his usual unphased composure - hands behind his back, chin held up high, relaxed smile - Harriet could not help but look over her shoulder once every few seconds. Every shadow seemed to be someone ready to jump at them, to drag them to the deepest bowels of this town and never return.

She pushed the intrusive thoughts down, scoffing at the outlandish notion. Still, the sky was unnaturally covered by smog - smoke continuously billowing from the foundries' skyscraping chimneys, mixing with the cloudy mist - and the lamplit streets were a cramped maze of shops, tents and intricate buildings, metal being the most prevalent sight. Nothing like Ansburke, she thought.

The quicker they find what they're looking for, the sooner they'll return home. And hopefully, stop this madness from unfolding. There was an unwelcome, fiery chill in the air and people bustled through the street around them. She inched closer to Augustus, their shoulders brushing - and tried to convince herself it was simply so she wouldn't get lost in this industrial maze, not to sate the pit of uneasiness that had taken hold of her chest since they reached the gates of the city. Ahead, the eccentric young man leading them whirled around.

"Alright, if ya guys wanna blend in and find out more about that scumbag of a Mayor, you'll need to get some local clothes - not that there's nothing wrong with," He gestured to their dapper attires, now slightly torn and dusty after their ordeal at the train ride, which stood out like a sore thumb when compared to the crowds around them "that, but you two scream 'Ansburke' just by existing." [...]

[heymacareyna]

Holly's Words into Potions WIP Intros

This March I plan to work on two projects! Count 'em, two!

Title: Sword's End — Genre: fantasy FF romance — Summary: In the kingdom of Avicia, elf princess Ravenna and human knight Elspeth pretend to be engaged to get Ravenna out of a bad political marriage and to get Elspeth out of her knighthood so she can become a poetic bard. — Length: ~25k novella — Current Status: barely-there outline — March Plans: write the synopsis, and maybe start drafting?? — WIP Hashtag: WIP: Sword's End — Fun Fact: this piece started life as a short story, and then I couldn't help myself. I needed to make a longer version.

Title: The Plus-One Contract — Genre: contemporary FF romance — Summary: Maryland woman hires a professional companion to be her date to a cousin's destination wedding where her ex is the maid of honor — Length: ~60k novel — Current Status: finishing the detailed synopsis — March Plans: start drafting! — WIP Hashtag: WIP: The Plus-One Contract — Blurb:

Gabrielle O’Keefe needs a wedding date, but that’s a tall order for a painfully introverted tech writer who grew up in a loveless evangelical cult. The only way she’ll survive her cousin’s destination wedding where her ex-girlfriend is the maid of honor is to hire Lady Sabrina, a professional companion. It should be simple: fork over some cash, fake a relationship for a week, and finally win her ex back. Except Sabrina Saunders is actually adorable, bubbles over with good humor, and makes the charade look effortless. In fact, unexpectedly, her extroverted presence helps Gabrielle mingle in crowds in a way she never could before.

Sabrina isn’t in this business for love. All she wants is the down payment for a house. After a childhood in poverty, she relies only on herself for her welfare; the last thing she needs is another person in her life, much less a client. As Gabrielle opens up to her, though, Sabrina struggles to maintain the distance she needs to keep herself safe. It turns out Gabrielle is loyal and even-keeled with an unexpected sense of humor, and she becomes a haven where Sabrina doesn’t have to entertain people or concoct complicated lies.

The mutual affection feels less and less false as the days pass. But Sabrina’s got a business to run, and Gabrielle’s ex wants to meet up. They’ll have to walk away from each other forever to maintain the safety of the lives they know…unless they can both mend the open wounds of their pasts in order to reach for something real in the future.

Interested in learning more about this writing challenge and maybe even joining?

Here's the Words into Potions introduction by @moon-and-seraph!

[forthesanityofstorytellers]

March Challenge WIP intro post!

So I'm participating in @moon-and-seraph's march challenge Words Into Potions (I love it so much, highly recommend you check it out if you're not already a part of it!) and I have a minute+brainpower to introduce the piece I'll be working on during the month, so here we go!

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Title: Midnight Madness (working title)

Genre: Fantasy (other-world/non-human)

WIP summary: The best I have is the badly summarized one: "Mentor is losing his mind because MC wants to go feral and it is A Problem" and really that's all I got so far. Lyra wants to run away, her mentor wants her to stay safe, constantly chases her to try and keep her in one piece while she wildly tries to buck the system, and whatever I had written as a summary before has kinda dismantled itself so...we'll see where it goes, lol

Learn more links: A more centralized glance at what I've got so far Spotify Playlist

Tags: rn I use either/both #Midnight Madness and/or #Lyra (most of them are tagged for Lyra really)

More under the cut!

Lyra Picrews (Feels like I should make an attempt to actually draw her out one of these days, lol)!

And have a bit of the opening as a snippet:

Lyra stared up at the open sky, watching the clouds drift on by. She wanted to be like those clouds. Free to soar in the open spaces. Not held down by rules or regalia or circumstance. Free to be whoever and whatever they wanted. Only tugged by the winds. “Princess!!” She grunted at the voice below, flicking a pointed ear as she tried to ignore the callings of her tutor. “Princess!” The calls were getting louder as they got closer, Lyra rolling over and grabbing at a blanket to try and cover herself so she wouldn’t be seen. “Ah, princess!!” “Aimoupon,” she shouted, to which her tutor let out a gasp. “Princess!” he chided. “Language!!” She pushed the blanket off herself and sat up, crossing her legs and looking down. “Don’t fret at me Qwkas. It’s just a word.” He frowned, rubbing at one of his ears as it quivered. “And where did you happen to hear this, ‘just a word’?” She flitted her wings as she waved a dismissive hand. “Just…around.” He raised an eyebrow. “Would it happen to be down by the waterfront?” Her wings flitted again. “Conversing with the workers?” Her ear twitched and she flicked it. “Where you’re not supposed to be?” She frowned and folded her arms. “My family rules these islands. Doesn’t that give me the right to be wherever I want to be?” He sighed. Rubbed at his ear again. “Of course it does. But the way of the outlanders is not our way and they must be held to station…which doesn’t include talking with–” He stopped talking, Lyra twitching her ears as she realized she was making faces again, mouthing the words with him. She smiled as the tips of her ears flickered up and down. “Sorry Qwkas.” She said it a bit forcefully, knowing that she would get in trouble if she kept it up much longer. It’s just that she’d heard the same speech a hundred times before and it never changed. Her tutor crossed his arms and stared at her for a moment. Motioned for her to come down, her wings fluttering as she lifted herself from the soft top of springy perch and flew down gracefully to land next to him. He sighed and brushed a bit of hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ear.

Looking forward to it!

[sunny-knight]

very shotty comic I made in the Forgettable AU because I needed visuals to explain how adorable this concept is to me-

I thought about Wingdings asking Sans to ask questions for him because he literally couldn’t for the longest time 😭 then it just became habit in middle/high school

Then I also thought about Sans asking wingdings questions himself, cause asking the teacher was “embarrassing” but for some reason asking for Wingdings and never implying wingdings was the one that wanted the answer was completely fine

…I just love these 2 ill never get over it-

[spookysalem13]

[the-meme-monarch]

i think my only real complaint abt gravity falls is i don’t feel like i was made to Care about the the people on the cipher wheel and therefore wasn’t really. made to care about Whatever the ‘stand on the cipher wheel and hold hands’ plan was. like yeah they don’t even end up defeating bill with that anyway and that’s fine to me ! it’s really interesting to me that The Prophecy doesn’t come to pass. but i feel like they just didn’t set up those stakes. they showed the cipher wheel like Every episode for a flash after the intro. i feel like i was Supposed to care. they’re Telling us these characters are important but then they kinda just Weren’t. i just think it would’ve been nice to have had episodes centering each of the other people on it to solidify what their place on the wheel Means. these were supposed to be the people destined to see bill’s defeat. i’m not certain most of them even know his name. we could have had a wendy centric episode

[moeblob]

Anyway I think they should date.

[sakialumei]

Lilith didn't even bother to hear his explanation, she was just ready to square up with that lady.

[ea-paperbits]

Women in STEM are just witches in white lab coats instead of black robes

art source: abigaillarson-Poisonous Plants irenhorrors-Drawlloween Laboratory

[whoopseydaisy]

An addition to the cocktail chapter of the @worldsbeyondpod Unofficial Cookbook:

Honey With A Note Of Song

an absinthe wash (the green fairy, for your roots)

2 oz. rye (your liquor of choice, strong and spicy)

1/4 oz. pine and rosemary honey syrup (you cannot go home again)

1 barspoon of saline solution (for your first divine smite, where you found your breath once more)

1-2 dashes of peychauds bitters (because this is a play on a sazerac)

a grapefruit twist (a touch of the bitterness age has brought you)

serve in a glass reminiscent of a chalice

[screamingwiththewolves]

HYDE IS GONNA USE THE TEMPORARY DEATH POTION SO HE CAN TALK TO JEKYLL IN THE MINDSPACE!

[pepeshiagent]

Feat. some of @strangegrapefruit's fabulous creations. Loving the new top! * · 。ﾟ*

Thank you all CC creators. 🕸

[elminx]

French Onion Soup: A Look Into Single Ingredient* Kitchen Witch Spells

*There are actually eight ingredients in my recipe, but I am only using one (onions) for the purpose of my witching

Last weekend, when my partner announced they were taking the short ribs out of the freezer to dethaw, I knew my dark moon banishment had been decided for me: it was time to make my yearly batch of French Onion Soup. I always make this soup with a combination of the au jus from the short ribs and broth made from the leftover bones; it is part of our goal to use as much of the animal as we can. But French onion soup does more than fill our bellies: it fills the entire house with the essence of onions.

This, as a kitchen witch, I can USE.

Some background on what I call Single Ingredient Kitchen Witch Spells

One of the things that I have found when pursuing Kitchen Witch spells is that the writers often try to attribute a magical intention to every ingredient they put into their food. Although this is well intended, if one is actually enchanting their meals (rather than just "asking" the ingredients to impart some magic - which is valid), it becomes - in my opinion - very energy-intensive and cumbersome. That's not what I am all about when I'm witching in the kitchen.

My idea of a good kitchen witch spell is one where you spend a hot minute cooking your food (stirring and returning to your meal is a LOT of where I impart magic into food) but where the actual magic is fairly simple. In this way, I am drawn to a spell where one type of magical intention is highlighted by using only one ingredient or a (small) combination of ingredients that all work towards a common goal.

I find this approach easier for witches who are to kitchen magic and low-energy witches like me. This doesn't mean that you need to stick to very simple recipe to enchant kitchen magic, instead, we are focusing on one or a handful of ingredients for the material of our spellwork. Sometimes flavoring (everything else) can just be flavoring.

I will point out here that by my thinking, whatever primary ingredient you are enchanting for your kitchen magic SHOULD be a primary ingredient/flavor in the dish that you are making. While a pinch of salt can and will cleanse, I wouldn't call your dish a cleansing spell just because you added a pinch of salt. In this way, this type of magic works best with ingredient-forward dishes like pesto (basil), pies (fruit), or - in this case - French Onion Soup which calls for multiple cups of Sweet Onion.

The Magic of Onion

In my opinion as a witch and amateur herbalist, the magic of onion lies in its organosulfur compounds. It is unmistakable if you have ever cut or eaten an onion (or other members of the allium family) that they carry a distinctive smell and taste of sulfur. Sulfur, also known as brimstone, has long been associated with banishment or dispelling magics of all kinds.

Notably, here this association carries over to onion both in the metaphysical realm where it is believed to banish or keep away evil and ill will, but also in its physical properties as onion is antiseptic and antibacterial. Perhaps, in this way, we can imagine that onion chases away the bad by removing it from our bodies.

That's something that I can get behind.

French Onion Soup: a Banishment for the Body and the Home

If the magic of onions is found in its organosulfur compounds (as I believe), this is activated thrice in the making of French onion soup.

Firstly, when you cut the onions. Secondly, when you caramelize the onions (fumigating your home), and thirdly when you eat the onions. We've been talking a lot lately about the magic of the number 3 - a number that can naturally increase or decrease depending on how it is used. This a decreasing 3-spell, and could be used as an adjunct to a more traditional decreasing spell. For example, I might start a banishment or decreasing candle spell and then make and eat the soup while the spell was burning.

Note here that I think that the PRIMARY banishment stage comes during the caramelization process, this is where I focus the energy of my banishment.

You will need:

6 cups thin sliced Sweet Onions

8 cups beef broth, homemade preferred, but boxed is okay

A small bundle of Thyme, fresh preferred

1/2 Stick of Butter or comparable oil substitute (EVOO)

1/2 cup dry wine, optional

Baguette or other crusty bread, sliced into 1/2-inch pieces

Gruyere cheese, grated

Salt and Pepper to taste

Prepare your kitchen Do this in any way you prefer before starting a kitchen witch spell. I like to have a hearth candle that I light when doing kitchen magic to help create the proper mood.

Thin Slice Your Onions We want the onions in the soup to have a thin ribbon-like texture. It helps with caramelization to have all your onion slices be the same size, but this may not be possible if you start with very differently-sized onions. This is your chance to connect with the spirit or powers of the onion. Very quickly, you will begin to physically experience the effects of onion's sulfuric nature as the syn-propanethial-S-oxide gas released by cutting the onions mixes with the water content in our eyes, creating sulfuric acid. This is part of the banishment properties of onion; although it might not be pleasant, thank the onion for doing what it is doing. Depending on your magical traditions, you may choose to interact with onion in any manner of ways. Remember here that this is the first of three banishment steps in this process - whoever cuts the onions will get the direct and most focused banishment of the entire spell. If the intended recipient of the spell is you, cut the onions yourself. If it is someone else, consider asking them to cut the onions for you. I wanted to work this spell for both myself and my partner, and I knew that they would still be out of the house when I caramelized the onions, so I asked them to cut the onion for me. You can choose to talk to the onions, pray over the onion, carve sigils into them before you cut them, or do anything that feels appropriate to your path during this time. This step will take a while, especially if you need to take breaks to cry your eyes out over onions. This can be done up to a day ahead of time - store your cut onions in the fridge until you are ready to use them.

Camarmelize Your Onions I thought about giving you the basics on caramelizing onions here, but this is a kitchen witch blog. I assume you have some proficiency in the kitchen if you are attempting a spell like this. Besides, the process of doing this will change drastically depending on how wet your onions are, the general humidity, and how your stove manages heat. The butter, onions, thyme, and salt go into the pot in this step. Start on medium heat and adjust up or down as you need to so that your onions cook until they are golden brown. Expect this to take at least an hour, and be happy if it takes less. The secret to caramelizing onions is that you need to consistently stir the pot so they do not stick to the bottom and burn. This is where I put the majority of my magic into this spell - each time that I return to the pot, I draw a banishing sigil over my onions. I also stir in the anti-clockwise direction of removal. You should adapt this to how you perform kitchen magic, of course. I will note here that my apartment has a relatively open floor plan and I intentionally do not turn on the kitchen fans so that the oniony goodness vents into my house, not out of it. This is the step that I use to banish unwanted energy from my physical space - I speak words over the steam rising from my onions and ask it to assist me in this process. If I lived in a place with a less open floor plan, I would open any doors and windows needed to get the steam/smell into as many parts of the place as I could. If you just want to focus on your physical body, you can skip this step but I find that if my energy has gotten off enough to require a banishment, my place needs cleansing, too.

Heat Your Broth You want your broth to be at a similar temperature to your onions. This doesn't need to get done at the beginning of your caramelization process as you might evaporate more than necessary, but you will want your broth up to temperature by the time your onions are at their desired doneness.

Construct the Soup When the onions are ready, deglaze the pot with wine or beef broth. Scrape the bottle to reincorporate any stuck residue back into your base. Add 1/2 cup of flour and mix to form a weak roux. Slowly add beef broth by the ladle full into the base, stirring as you go. Cook on a simmer for 10 minutes. This is the time for any last intention setting,. You can adjust for salt and add pepper as a final pop of banishing if you are so inclined.

Serve and Eat All of our magic has already been accomplished, so now it is time to plate (bowl?) our meal. French Onion Soup is traditionally served in individual ramekins with a slice of bread and melted Gruyere on top. This is accomplished by putting the soup into the ramekins, topping with the bread and cheese, and then popping those suckers under the broiler. I don't do this. I just grill the bread and top with thinly grated cheese. There isn't enough difference here to wait the extra few minutes after I've already been standing over the stove for an hour. You can say a few words over your meal if that's you thing, but you don't need to here. The rest of the magic will be fueled by your own digestive system. It is done French onion soup keeps for a couple of days in the fridge and freezes nicely so long as you omit the bread and cheese.

If I could choose one thing for you to take away from this writing, it is that kitchen witchery does not have to be complicated. You don't need to know the magical associations for every ingredient you put into your meal. You only need to know one and use it well.

Do you like my work? You can support me over on Kofi.

[total-drama-brainrot]

TD World Tour AU, where Noah doesn't tell Owen that Alejandro is an eel in London... In Area 51, Noah is accidentally splashed with an alien truth potion (which wears off after a few days) and he talks to Owen... Owen asks Noah what he truly thinks about Alejandro, and Truth-Potion Affected Noah says this: "I have mixed feelings for Alejandro. He's a brilliant, interesting guy and I like him, but I don't trust him. He's like a slippery eel dipped in grease, swimming in motor oil. Basically, Heather with social skills. Wait a minute, why am I telling you this?!"... What if Alejandro secretly heard Noah call him all those conflicting things + Alejandro also learns that Noah is affected with an alien truth potion? 👽

Alright, you got me. I'm an absolute sucker for truth potion plots, especially when the character(s) effected by them are usually either pathological liars or incredibly secretive- of which Noah absolutely falls into the second category, given he shares so little personal information.

I'll gloss over why Noah declined to shit-talk Alejandro in London (though there's so many ways this change in behaviour could be justified) since the focal point of this hypothetical centred around their time in Nevada, so let's start from the beginning of the Area 51 challenge.

Area 51:

Before we start, it'll have to be established that no one was eliminated in London. Let's say that the majority vote went towards Duncan (team CIRRRRH voted him out immediately because they found his re-admission to the competition unfair, I guess. I imagine he'd also vote himself, if not as a plan to escape the competition he'd been actively skiving from, then just as an act of spite) but Chris instead claimed it was a rewards challenge- much like he does in Greece- because he doesn't want to let Duncan slip away again so soon.

I see no reason to alter the first part of the challenge- the sneaking into Area 51 portion- since team CIRRRRH's course of entry is fairly straightforward. Noah's presence doesn't make much of a difference to how it would play out; the majority of them throw their rocks and run, Owen gets lasered over the fence and Owen-napped, ect ect.

When both teams have managed to make their way into the Black Box Warehouse, Noah immediately suggests they should prioritise rescuing Owen. Tyler's quick to agree, since he's a firm believer in the "no man left behind" mentality (and he probably makes a not-so-subtle jab towards Noah for his chance of tune compared to London, where both he and Owen did leave Tyler behind) leaving Duncan and Alejandro to split from the group- Duncan in search of Gwen, and Alejandro just takes the opportunity to finally be free from his 'incompetent teammates' and prioritises finding an artifact.

Noah and Tyler come across the contraption Owen's trapped in, Tyler punches it in a futile effort to break it open, and the face hugger cube drops into Noah's hands. This is where the point of divergence comes into play; Tyler has his E.T. moment with one of the face huggers, but Noah- who's a tad bit more observant than Alejandro, and used to dodging surprise attacks from his various older siblings (and Izzy)- anticipates his own face hugger attack and promptly starts a game of cat-and-mouse with a taser alien hot on his heels.

The commotion of which attracts the rest of his team. Alejandro and Duncan arrive on the scene to see Tyler being electrocuted by an alien and Noah running in circles evading another.

Duncan attempts to rip the face hugger from Tyler's face, finding success at the cost of sending Tyler trampling into Owen's captive contraption (essentially taking Alejandro's canonical place in this scene) and inadvertently freeing Owen.

Meanwhile, Alejandro swipes up the nearest box he can find and snags the alien chasing Noah, who's still very loudly panicking as he flees, and succeeds! The alien is swiftly captured into the box, netting team CIRRRRH their artifact, and Noah promptly goes careening into the nearest tower of junk in his face hugger-fuelled hysteria. This causes another box to topple from the peak of the tower, landing directly on Noah's head and spilling its contents onto the bookworm- glass vials filled with a mysterious, luminescent cobalt blue liquid shatter into pieces drenching Noah in whatever they contained. (i.e. truth potion.)

Owen has his false-amnesia moment, characterised by his Joker makeover, and Alejandro enacts his revenge post-hypnotic suggestion after being addressed as "Al" one too many times.

Noah, understandably, swiftly objects to Owen's treatment and demands that Alejandro snap him out of it. Alejandro concedes, and Owen's brought back to himself. At least, for a moment, before the fatigue of having his mind messed with sends Owen into near-catatonia (the same as canon), meaning he has to be ferried through the Warehouse and back to the Jet by Alejandro and Duncan.

Things carry on canonically from there; Noah's just sort of there for the most part, though there'd be a minor hint to his newfound proclivity for honesty. Something along the lines of him giving an uncharacteristically honest answer to Owen as to who he's voting- Tyler, of course, since he was the one who ultimately threw the challenge for them... and also because Tyler still holds some resentment towards Noah for what happened in London, and Noah feels guilty about it every time he looks at the jock. Wait, why did he say that?

Sometime between this and the elimination scene, Noah wipes the truth-goop off of himself, but not before the effects have already started.

Tyler's voted out, yada yada yada.

The Jet:

Thus begins the start of "Picnic at Hanging Dork". Team CIRRRRH, consisting of just Alejandro, Duncan, Owen and Noah, are slumming it up in the Economy Cabin. Alejandro tries to rally his team by asking how to break apart Courtney and Heather's tentative co-operation. Owen suggests having Alejandro seduce Heather, since it worked for both Bridgette and Leshawna. Duncan makes his "Babe Olympics" comment. Noah pipes up that playing with someone's feelings is pretty scummy, even for someone competing for a million dollars.

Alejandro takes Noah's reluctance towards his methodology poorly; he hadn't spoken up before, when Alejandro had utilized the same strategy against other girls- and even Owen noticed that, so surely Noah did too- so why was he to outwardly against him using the same tricks? Duncan agrees, and offers ''his'' idea of having Alejandro flirt with Courtney to throw both her and Heather off their games (since Heather has an obvious crush on Alejandro), and things follow canon.

Then, the scene between Alejandro and Courtney happens. Noah scoffs at the display from the side lines, prompting Owen to ask him why he's so against Alejandro's plan.

"I mean, you never said anything before, when he flirted with Bridgette and Leshawna." Owen comments, light-hearted in nature but with an underlying questioning tone.

Noah's eyes flicker with a cobalt glow, easily mistaken for a trick of the light, and he speaks without even thinking.

"Yeah, because I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. Bridgette was happenstance, and Leshawna's whole deal could've been a coincidence, or some massive misunderstanding. But this?" Noah extends an accusing hand out towards a smug looking Alejandro, then pans it over to a flattered Courtney, "He's outright toying with Courtney's feelings after she was cheated on in front of an international audience. It's scummy."

Owen nods in understanding, momentary contemplation evident in the pouted curve of his lips, and he chimes in.

"Does that mean you don't like Al?"

"I never said that."

"Well, how do you feel about him, then?"

Again, a flash of blue light against the hickory backdrop of Noah's eyes, and he responds thoughtlessly.

"I guess I have mixed feelings about him. On the one hand, he's slippery, like an eel dipped in grease, swimming in motor oil. He's like if you took all of the worst aspects of Heather, wrapped them up in a pretty package, and gave them social skills..." He holds his hands out before him in a scale-like manner, with the left tipped downwards and tie right raised by his chin. Then, the two hands swap positions.

"And on the other hand, he's brilliant. I've never met anyone as talented as Alejandro; he's smart, he's athletic, he's funny. It's almost unfair just how perfect everything about him is- even his face is perfect. It's ridiculous! Infuriating, even. It's so hard to dislike him, even when I know he's bad news, but that doesn't mean I trust him."

Owen stands slack jawed beside his best friend, both impressed and stunned at the raw honesty of Noah's tirade. Noah, now a little more aware of himself, realises that he's said more than he intended to- more than he thinks he's ever spoken in one go throughout the entirety of Total Drama. He's not usually one for speeches, after all, let alone honest ones.

He's always been the type to play his cards close to his chest, so why...?

"I, uh, didn't mean to go off like that."

And he also didn't mean to admit it, either. What was going on?

The look Owen gives him is, in a word, vivid. The blonde has a shit-eating grin stretching across his face, a sort of elated smugness practically glowing from his features.

"Sounds like someone has a cruuuush!~"

What? No? No! Not at all, where would Owen even get that idea?!

Noah splutters to correct Owen's assumption (to disastrous results, because he does sort-of has a crush on Alejandro, so the truth potion doesn't allow him to outright deny it), and in his preoccupied state he misses how a calculating pair of sage green eyes never seems to stray from him.

Alejandro has a lot to think about in regards to a certain cynic, it seems.

[drlinguo]

Etymological doublets

Source

[gennsoup]

You are trouble, double trouble, triple trouble, the wrecker of peace, but you make my cauldron boil.

Erica Jong, The Demon Lover