#hope you enjoy ascendance of a bookworm! the anime...exists (i don't really recommend starting with it)

[bbnibini]

apothecary diaries anon here again! yeeees, the amount of times i've thought 'this would make a great icon/meme' while reading the manga is amazing! pretty sure most of them are of maomao too haha. (very tempted to edit her and jinshi into the 'woman screaming at cat in restaurant' meme lol) aaaa, don't get me started on how female friendships are treated in fiction; a story app i play keeps on having so many 'rivalries' or 'pretended to be your friend but isn't' plots, but it's almost always with women! like, no, can't i just befriend the characters??? have lovely friendship scenes??? i cry

unfortunately, i haven't had a chance to watch the anime of apothecary yet, i've just seen gifs and screencaps of it. instead, i binged over 10 chapters of the manga when i first messaged you, then another 10 the day after lol. i think i know the triggering plot point you're talking about though; like you say, it's amazing how they put all these dark details in the story, but handle the topic well and sprinkle it into the world building/character backstories. i'm at chap 26 rn, and i'm super interested in a certain character who just showed up + their motivations. (ooh, i'll check out ascendance of a bookworm too; sounds like my cup of tea!)

ah, as for the light novels, i looked it up on amazon (the only place i know where to buy light novels in the uk) and there's a physical release date for next year! i understand what you mean abt LN vs manga collecting; i like having a physical book in my hand for novels, but having digital copies for manga.

thank you for your reply before; it was fun to read!

🐱🍃 - (emojis that remind me of maomao)

Aniwkwkdkdk I REALLY NEED TO READ THE MANGAAAA maybe I should go the same route as you and just buy manga digitally and novels physically cause there were some manga I bought that I kinda regret buying physicals of. 🥲 (By that I mean I don't reread them as much and it feels awkward to read manga physically? Is it just me?? Maybe I got used to longscrolling in manhwa lol)

Right?? I can't judge the manga cause I haven't read it but in the anime, the tone is wonderfully executed and it's the right balance of exposition and pacing. WAIT WHAT REALLY?? OMG next year fr?!?!? if that's the case I'm gonna continue gatekeeping my digital copies and wait for the physicals! 😭 Thank you for this info!! (I only use my digital copies for annotating and for reading in bed. Idk ik I'm weird. If I really like the series I buy the soft copy and hardcopy wkjdkdkdkdk).

Honestly it's why I got tired of shoujo isekai. They always pit women against each other over some guy. It's so hard to find good series in that genre anymore cause they almost all have the same formula. I want my female MCs but I don't want any of the unnecessary catfighting. I just really hate how that side of the community has blatant misogyny cause you know fr they won't treat a morally ambiguous and handsome male character in that way. :/

Let 👏 women. Support women! 👏 (The emojis are really cute! ;v; <3 I just realised her name sounds like a cat's meow! That's so cute omg)