#g/t curse

[spark-gt]

G/t idea/prompt

(First time ever doing this)

G/t Cursed Royal(s):

The idea for this G/t prompt is that basically that in a Kingdom (of your own creation), the King and Queen (or two kings or queens) both are celebrating the arrival of soon to be born heir or heirs of their kingdom. One day, a witch, wizard, or magical fairy (you can choose whatever you want) comes to give their blessings to the soon to be born heirs.

They begin to give some gifts to the parents for their child(ren), but the Royals begin to get even more greedy. They start asking for more and more magical gifts for their heir(s), and this causes the person giving said gifts to grow angry. They decided enough was enough and then cursed the heir. They said, "Your heir(s) will from now on reflect the height of your greedy hearts. Greed as tall as mountains and/or greed as miniscule as your lack of satisfaction."

This curse now affects the heir(s) height to now reflect what their parent or parents greed were when they were demanding gifts. The heir(s) would become as big as their parent(s) greed, making them giant and/or the heir(s) will as small as their parent(s) satisfaction for gifts resulting them in being tiny

How big or small the cursed royal or royals are all up to you. This idea is mostly for fluff or just wholesome g/t

[kittydoremi]

Oh no! Sonic's night giant cursed accidentally got revealed to Shadow! What will he do now?

Kind of a continuation from this

[sweetsmollthings]

I recently have read this comic called Hooky and there’s a character who gets shrunk a few times and stays small for a significant chunk of the story, and I love him soooooo much.

There’s even a time skip where he is mostly tiny for THREE YEARS. It drives me insane. Of course, he’s back to normal by the end of the comic, but I really wish there was some sort of lasting effect, where maybe he still shrinks under certain conditions or whatever.

[honey-and-lemon-gt]

hello g/t community.

giants with curses.

for example, an artifact that allows its wearer to gain magical abilities but it also amplifies their most negative traits but punishes its user for improper use of it by making the user just gradually grow,,,,,, but like the more they use it the faster they'll grow and so now after the misuse of said pendant, its wearer is now this giant just trying to fix their wrongs,,,,,, cursed giants.

also definitely not based on any particular conversation

[sanestkanadefan]

IF THIS APPEARS ON YOUR HOME PAGE YOU HAVE BEEN EFFECTED/CURSED BY CHAPPELL ROAN THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT

NOW DO THE HOT TO GO DANCE

[so-very-small]

and a moment of fucking silence for us tall bitches who identify as tinies but tower over everyone irl. do you know how hard it is to feel small when people have to actively tilt their head back to look at you? we should be compensated for this.

[pastelaspirations]

I’ll never forget you babes 😭💔😔🥺

I finally come back to tumblr and t h i s is what I see. That's it, I'm done, I'm uninstalling tumblr. Bye everyone, it's Honey's fault-

[tnteeth]

She talked him into it, don't worry about them

[muppenthings]

Thousands of feet below the surface, a benthic rover discovers something quite large. Everyone is in for a startle.

And that's how they drew him back to the surface. xD

[toast-tales]

Cursed Cravings: A retold, g/t story of Beauty and the Beast, with a sinister twist.

When he declines to help a beggar woman, wealthy aristocrat Christopher Penn was cursed to adopt a giant form with a terrible, monstrous burden, and the conditions to break the curse seem all but impossible. When a peasant girl, Danny, agrees to take her friend's place as Christopher's captive, he realizes that she may be the last hope of regaining his humanity and breaking the spell for good.

But who could ever care for a monster like him?

This will be an AU of ITWOM involving some familiar characters like Christopher, Danny, Sam, and Nathan - but you don't have to have read the main story to read this one. Lots of things will be changed around, so for all intents and purposes, these aren't the characters you know.

This story will contain g/t, angst, and soft/safe vore later down the road. It's still going to be a lighter read than ITWOM, but be warned nonetheless! This isn't the Beauty and the Beast story you know from Disney.

Read Chapter 1 below:

Chapter 1: Dark Night of the Soul

Contains: ~2k words | Chapter Index | Read this story on A03!

It was a night like many others, the night that Christopher Penn's life was changed forever.

A deluge had begun that evening, torrential rain bearing down upon the land with fierce strikes of lightning and thunder rattling the large windows of the mansion—but all this meant for Christopher and his guests was that they wouldn't be able to enjoy the garden out back, and their merriment was restricted to the large indoor space. The music still swelled and filled the air pleasantly, rising above the sounds of the storm outside and making it easy for the partygoers to forget how unpleasant it was outside the walls of Christopher's house.

The host in question flitted from person to person throughout the evening, engaging in the usual small talk and jokes, an easy and charming smile lighting up his face and those of the people he met with. He was a gracious and charismatic host, always making sure that his parties were the grandest, with his guests never wanting for anything. The people in attendance would speak highly of his events, of the balls and the dinner parties, that he was so keen to host. 

On the surface, Christopher seemed rather at ease, full of a charm and grace that would be befitting of someone from a wealthy family. But his actions were all surface level—each word and step he took was carefully choreographed and planned in advance. He was terrified, truly—each person he brought into his home was a potential ally, a potential for advancing his status, but they were also a potential seed to his own destruction.

Christopher had spent every day since his parents had passed rebuilding his family's reputation among the nobility. He could see past their charm—they despised his parents, and in turn, they despised him. His own reputation—the very thing that allowed him to live in such comforts still, to have any amount of power and social standing at all—was fragile and tenuous, and every interaction he had, no matter how seemingly insignificant it was, was an attempt to maintain its strength.

And so, while he seemed completely comfortable in this element, there was a latent anxiety in Christopher, hidden well beneath the surface. 

He almost didn’t hear the knock at the door at first, wrapped up as he was in conversation. But his manservant rushed to his side, rather insistently dragging him away.

“I’m sorry, Chris, she just won’t leave without speaking to you.” Sam’s stride was brisk, and they gave Christopher no choice but to follow. He offered a quick and profuse apology to the noblewoman he’d been entertaining before he caught up to Sam.

“You’re not able to send her away?” Christopher hissed, somewhat tersely. “I can’t be interrupted by every stranger that shows up here. I have guests to attend to.” 

“Hey, I tried!” Sam insisted. “I’m just one guy, and I also have guests of yours to attend to. She keeps coming back. All she wants is a quick word with you. Just humor her, and she’ll be out of your hair.” Sam ran their fingers somewhat anxiously through their own well-groomed locks. “We can just deal with it quietly, before she causes a scene. Some of the guests near the front door are getting a little antsy about it.” 

Christopher sighed wearily as he followed Sam to the main entrance. Perhaps if he had more staff, this wouldn’t be a problem. Most of the house’s staff had left in the fallout of his parents’ demise, with the sole exception being Sam—his personal servant who’d remained as doggedly loyal to him as they had the first day they’d been assigned to care for him. He’d never let on to his guests, but Christopher worked with Sam every day to keep the house in order, even helping cook the meals and clean. He had to keep up appearances as best he could. 

Sam pulled the grand front door open to reveal a woman on the other side—a pauper in beggar’s clothes, tattered and rain-soaked, hunched on his front stoop as she gazed up at Christopher. 

Christopher stood up straight and directed a cold, stern look towards the woman. He could feel several sets of eyes on him, and knew that there was a group of aristocrats watching the scene intently. He adjusted the cuffs of his sleeves idly as he spoke, as if he couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to the woman at all.

“I’m afraid you will have to leave. I have no room for beggars here.” 

The woman shivered slightly, tilting her head up further to meet Christopher’s face. Her eyes were wide and glassy, her face lined with creases from age and stress. “P-please, kind sir, I only need to come in from the storm for a short while. I won’t be any trouble. I…I haven’t eaten in days-”

The people nearby began to whisper, a touch of disgust coloring their tone. 

“This is an exclusive event,” Christopher interjected firmly. “There is a certain decorum that must be maintained. Please leave, or I will contact the authorities to escort you away.” 

If he had been at home alone that evening, he might have afforded some manner of small comfort towards the woman. But he couldn’t be seen sullying his hands with the poor here. 

A pleading, desperate look came to the woman’s face, her features falling into despair. “Sir, I will not survive the night!” Her voice was hoarse and rough, as if sandpaper scraped against the inside of her throat. “You would turn me away, to the mercy of the storm?”

Her cries had gotten louder—more of his guests had turned to look and whisper among themselves, casting uncertain and hesitant glances Christopher’s way. He didn’t need to hear them to know what they were all saying. 

What kind of place is this, where the host entertains beggars?

He is no better than his parents, mingling with such filth.

He doesn’t belong here.

He is not one of us.

He set his jaw and made his stance firm, his dark eyes fixed sharply down at the beggar. He couldn’t let this go on further. “Leave. Your welfare is not my concern.”

The woman’s face became suddenly sharper, each crease and wrinkle fading to a more youthful visage, and her muddy, round eyes transformed to piercing, golden ones. She no longer hunched, but stood straight up, rising to a height that forced even Christopher to look up in awestruck terror. 

“THEN YOU WILL HAVE BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS, CHRISTOPHER PENN.” 

Her tattered clothes transformed to flowing white robes upon her dark skin, her hair now falling in neat and lovely braids down her back, adorned with gold. 

She cast a scornful, acidic gaze towards Christopher as she looked down on him, each fiber of her being radiating with malice. 

His heart stopped beating—the entire world seemed to have gone silent, save for the strikes of thunder that almost seemed to accentuate every word this woman spoke. Her voice boomed with an unnatural volume throughout the entire hall. He didn’t need to turn around to know that every single person in attendance had heard.

He did his best to hide the quaking in his limbs. He couldn’t lose his composure, even now. “Who are you?” he asked, his voice escaping as nothing but a whisper.

The woman scowled at him, her expression one of pure poison. He could feel himself withering beneath it, despite all his efforts to keep calm. 

“You would not remember me, for the faces you entertain here are simply passing flights of fancy to you. I was your guest, Penn. And I saw past your charm. You use people for your own gain, grasping onto what little power you have like a pathetic child, desperate to rise above your place in the world.” 

She pointed an accusing finger towards him. “You have a vile, black heart, so cruel that you would send a woman away to her death when she asks for but a little kindness.”

“Hey!” Sam spoke up, a little timidly beside Christopher. “You can’t talk about him like-”

“SILENCE.” A loud strike of thunder shook the entire house, rattling the foundation and carrying the woman’s voice to the ears of every patron once again. A blistering wind tore through the open door, making the curtains tremble in its wake. 

Christopher thought that something seemed familiar about the woman—he felt as though he could recall a conversation with her, and she surely must have been at one of his parties. He searched for a name desperately, frantically wracking his brain for this woman’s identity.

“...Sybil?” he croaked, every ounce of confidence having long since left his body. His knees began to tremble, and he worried that they would soon give out completely. “Y-you may come in, I am so very sorry to have offended-”

“You have already failed, Penn. Now you repent, for you see my true form, and the power I wield.” Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “Your fate has already been sealed.”

The world was swallowed in darkness within only the span of a moment, and the screams of Christopher’s guests and Sam became drowned out by an all-encompassing blackness that surrounded him, choking the air from his lungs, squeezing his ribcage until he thought he would burst from the pressure. He could not speak, he could not move, he could not see. If not for the excruciating pain shooting through every fiber of his being, he would have thought he was dead.

“You will no longer hide behind your tawdry facade. A monster within, so a monster you shall become.” 

Sybil’s voice came from all around him, like a harsh winter wind that froze the blood in his veins as it passed over him. Her words had weight to them, laden with something powerful, and far beyond this world’s understanding. 

His body was changing, but in what manner, he had no way to tell. All he could feel was pain—pain and a clawing hunger, like an animal inside of his stomach ripping and tearing at the flesh within, desperate to break out. His head throbbed as sounds swirled in his mind, indistinguishable from each other as they rose into a crescendo of noise, and the silence turned to a deafening cacophony. Voices, screams, shouting, but no words he could make out. He thought that he could hear Sam, amidst all the chaos, but he couldn’t be sure.

And then, before the darkness of his vision cleared to reveal the full extent of the horror that awaited him, he was assaulted by the wave of a strong smell he couldn’t place, a scent that filled his lungs and made the desperate animal within his gut writhe and twist in agony. It was like the scent of the finest wine, the most tantalizing food in existence, in such a great amount that it was overwhelming—even though, in those few moments of blissful ignorance, he had no idea what it was that delighted his senses so, that made the pain almost forgotten, that made every bone of his ache with an almost feral hunger.

His eyes opened with frantic urgency, and the scene before him unfolded slowly into a horrifyingly clear depiction of the gruesome fate that had been thrust upon him. He could barely see the faces of the ones he’d invited here, but their frightened screams spoke loudly enough. No words came to his own mouth—he was frozen in horror, like an insect trapped in amber as the weight of what happened sunk in, pressing down upon him like a suffocating, terrible gravity.

Despite his transformation, Sybil’s words rang as clear in his head as they had before. 

“Ten years, Penn. Ten years to prove yourself, or this form will be your prison.”

* * * * * * * * * * 

Next Chapter ->

Thanks for reading! I hope to update this story semi-consistently, because boy do I have some things planned down the road. So stay tuned!

[kittydoremi]

Drew a cute moment from my Sonic The Night Giant fanfic.

Gently hold the tiny Shadow 🥰💙🖤

Drawn from this part of the fic:

[stardust948]

3 Inch AU

Prequel to this post

Zuko rubbed his aching eyes, praying what he thought just happened didn't. That a bright light did not flash in the middle of his and Azula's spar leaving his body sore and head aching.

He forced himself to open his eyes and found himself in the middle of a strange spirit forest. Great. First the body switch fiasco now this! Why were there so many spirits hanging around the palace?!

"Nice going dum-dum." Azula spat. "You angered the spirits again!"

"Again?! That was your fault! Both times!!!"

"As I recall, no one knows what angered the last one, but you pushed me onto this spirit and now we're 3 inches tall!!!"

"What?!" Zuko shot up.

Azula pushed the vegetation back revealing an oversized throwing star Mai gifted her. The very one Zuko knocked out of her hand when their spar turned into a messy free for all.

Zuko's heart sank.

"Like I said, 3 inches tall. Thanks a lot."

"None of this is my fa-"

A shadow fell over them seconds before a huge bird swooped down. The siblings barely had time to jump out of the way as the bird snatched up the throwing star. The two shared a frightened look. They had to get out of the garden or they'll surely be next.

A brief silent truce was formed as Zuko and Azula began the trek. Thankfully, they were relativity close to the walkway before they were shrunken. After scaling the huge steps, the ground trembled as a massive figure in deep red robes passed by. The siblings gasped.

"DAD! HELP US!"

"WAIT! DOWN HERE!"

They quickly chased after him, but it was no use. Ozai tuned out their now shrunken voices, assuming it was a chorus of summer insects. And there was no possible chance of the siblings catching up to him on foot.

Azula grabbed Zuko's wrist. "Agni's Arrow!"

Zuko skidded to a stop then spun his sister around. Azula produced fire jets from her feet to build momentum. After counting to three, Zuko released her. Azula shot through the air at breakneck speed straight towards her father.

This better work for they were both done for.

~*~

The palace was quiet. Too quiet.

That alone put Ozai on edge. He swore he heard his children out by the garden earlier. It was just another sibling spat but when he decided to check on them, the garden was empty.

A part of Ozai hoped the children settled things on their own and left without a big fuss. The rest of Ozai knew that was wishful thinking. So, he walked the perimeter just to be sure.

Ozai let out an annoyed sigh. The humming bees were a lot louder today. He'll have to talk to the groundskeeper about that least they overrun the whole garden.

Something landed on his shoulder. Ozai tsked and brushed it away. It seemed the infestation already began.

"Dad!!!"

Ozai stopped dead in his tracks.

"Azula?"

It was so faint. Maybe he was hearing things.

"Down here! Hurry!"

A small blue flame shot from his arm. Ozai glanced down and saw his daughter dangling from his sleeve.

"What the-"

Ozai quickly scooped her into his palm before she lost her grip.

"A-Azula?" Ozai gaped at his now tiny daughter trying to get her bearings. "What... how...?"

His eyes widened. If Azula was like this then...

"Where's Zuko?!"

Ozai lifted his feet as horror gripped him. Cool relief washed over him when he spotted a small figure running towards him.

"Dad!"

Ozai knelt down and lowered his hand for Zuko to climb onto. Now that his children were safe, Ozai calmed down enough for his mind to piece together what happened.

"Don't tell me-"

"Spirits." the siblings answered at the same time.

Ozai groaned. "Not again."

[im-just-a-little-freak]

when a pred pulls up to a random house in the woods with no one nearby and realises they’re going to terrorise a small family instead of just one person

[reborrowing]

a strange appearance, part five

this took what, a half a year? but it's here, with some worldbuilding hooks

Stranger Swap Masterpost | ao3 First | Prev | Next

Some regret and some research Word count: ~2800 cws: fear, reference to past abuse, death mention (distant, not specifically anyone the characters know), discussion of human-ish experimentation

Val

Val felt a little better about being in the kitchen now that she knew what they were and not just what they weren’t. They didn’t have to try to look competent and could defend themself by explaining they didn’t know how to cook because they very politely avoided starting fires in her walls. She laughed. And that was good, they figured, because it meant she was feeling better.

She was obviously less comfortable than she had been with Val touching her. When they had carried her into the kitchen, she had sat down and squeezed an arm around their finger to anchor herself. She refused to look down and rambled about her tea collection until they reached the counter, at which point she awkwardly slid off as soon as she could reach, no longer worried about the fresh mess Val had made of the counter a few minutes ago. 

They didn’t comment on it, didn’t want to make her think about how precarious her situation was, not any more than she had to. She was doing better than they had, the first dozen or so times they’d been held. Granted, Val had been a child being snatched up by a stranger, but still—they’d also spent their whole life knowing it was a possibility. If the rest of Phoebe’s life looked anything like her apartment, she had never had to even imagine something that large coming at her. They wished they could give her the space to process things without abandoning her. 

Her tea collection was…probably impressive? There was a good spread, more kinds than Val cared to care about. They’d walked by the display a thousand times and the smell had put them off from investigating. She offered them a few choices and they politely echoed the last thing that she said. None of them sounded more or less appealing than the last. Pretty, but not anything they’d choose to put in their mouth unless they were desperate.

And they were, of course, desperate to please.

Thankfully, it was well within their skill set to throw leaves in a vat—cup���of hot water and wait a few minutes. The leaves stained the water and that was it, much easier than the involved coffee-making process they’d watched the last tenants. They grabbed the carton cap from earlier and scooped out a few drops of tea for Phoebe. She eyed the plastic suspiciously when they held it out.

“You said you’ve been here, taking stuff, right? Is that yours? Did you leave it out earlier?” she asked.

“No? I just…you threw it out. Do you have a better idea for a cup?”

“What would you use? You’ve got my clothes, why not let me use your things?”

“I can’t…it’s not… I can’t get to it like this.”

“But I could, couldn’t I?”

“Not unless you want to do a lot of climbing,” they said. 

They crossed their fingers that that would be enough to discourage her. It was more than enough that she got to know that she had someone living in secret in her shadows, they didn’t want to wake up to a sledgehammer through the drywall when things went back to normal. Or not wake up, as the odds may be. They made themselves hold eye contact just to keep from letting their gaze wander to the space above the cupboards and give away where they lived. She shook her head and got up to retrieve the cap of tea.

They moved their hand to make it easier for her to reach, making her flinch. They felt bad at the relief it made them feel. She understood she was vulnerable. She wasn’t going to hurt herself and maybe, maybe, she would consider not hurting them when she got the chance. 

Phoebe

The tea was mostly a good idea. If nothing else, struggling through her directions had given Val something else to focus on. They did a decent enough job of visually masking their worries, but every time they picked her up to move her, she could feel their blood racing through their skin.

By the time the tea had brewed and Val was carrying her back into the living room, their heart rate was at the slowest yet, at least until she asked for her phone and their tendons tensed beneath her. She flinched again and craned her neck to see if that had pissed them off, or just made them nervous. She was pretty sure it was the latter, but it was a terrible angle to judge someone’s expression from. They nodded, at least.

She clutched her tea as Val lowered her to the coffee table, soaking in the soothing aroma wafting out of the mug in their other hand. The smell of her own was weak—just a few drops that she wasn’t quite sure she actually wanted to drink. It looked…gelatinous under the thin ribbon of steam and hot, herbal Jell-o was not particularly appetizing.

But the smell alone wasn’t enough to calm her own nerves and the quiet only made her mind race. She needed answers. Normally, she wouldn’t bother to care that Val didn’t want to talk, but they’d done such a good job demonstrating why someone so small should be afraid of someone human-sized that she bit her tongue for the time being. She wasn’t too eager to set off another freak-out while they were holding a cup of scalding tea deep enough for her to drown in.

It wasn’t like either of them had any ideas about how to go back to normal to speak of anyway. It seemed the plan was to sit in the apartment and wait. It was going to make her insane.

Val seemed at peace with it, but then, the change wasn’t so terrible for them, was it? 

No matter what they might say, they didn’t lose nearly as much as she did in this bizarre trade, just their secrecy, while she was a prisoner in her own home. Even as they let her down onto the coffee table, it only stranded her. She was completely reliant on this near-stranger who seemed almost as likely to kill her as continue to help her.

“And you’re fine on your own now? Or do you need to—”

“Just go get it. Please,” she said.

She felt all too vulnerable as they rose away to where she could no longer make eye contact. The whole landscape changed once they left, into something alien and empty. Her furniture made up impassible monuments around her, but all but the coffee table was far out of reach. She took a seat on a textbook she’d left out, now a perfect thickness to serve as a bench.

She itched at the idea of sitting here for the next who knows how long and playing card games instead of trying to fix this. She was terrified, and she didn’t know what to do with that. She needed to channel it into doing something.

The light cut out for a second as Val came back into the room and passed by a window. God, she knew they were coming, she knew what they looked like, but it still came as a shock to watch a building-sized person step into view. They knelt down and pushed her phone towards her.

“Please don’t call anyone, just music,” they said.

“I got it. Really. Why would I try to piss you off at this point?”

“I guess you wouldn’t.”

They helped Phoebe prop it up on its side when she realized it was too large for her to move on her own. She suppressed a shudder. It belonged in her pocket, easily forgotten. Now she was using it like it was some screen out of an old sci-fi flick. Here was the whimsy she had insisted on earlier this morning, but now she was too overwhelmed to have fun with it. She just wanted this to end. 

She forced herself to enjoy it anyway, and it did help, certainly more than the tea. Fumbling with the cards was horribly awkward, but it was fun. Impressively, the two were equally terrible at trying to shuffle the rug-sized cards. She slid around the table to set up a game and got maybe a minute and a half into an explanation of the rules before Val’s head slipped off their palm and onto the arm of the couch.

She snorted. She knew rules were boring to listen to, but she had hardly expected her explanation to put them to sleep, even with the tea and chill music. And then her eyes slid over to the phone, still propped up against the glass, right within reach. 

“Val?” she called, just to be sure they were really asleep.

Their ear twitched but they didn’t otherwise stir. Phoebe pushed the rest of the deck to the side and crossed back over to the theater screen that was her phone. The lockscreen clicked. She jumped at the sound, glancing over her shoulder again. Val didn’t move.

She felt a little thrill run through her chest, like a kid getting away with something. Phoebe focussed on that and let the fear of getting caught dissipate. She swiped through a half dozen junk notifications to get to the text from Chelsea. It was, as expected, just a line asking her to check in when she “wakes up for real.”

Her hands hovered over the keyboard for a long while. She couldn’t find the words she wanted. She couldn’t find any words that came close to what she wanted to say. She started to type something, then bashed the delete key to get rid of the nonsense. She frowned as she tried and failed to come up with a way to describe what was going on. The best descriptions she could come up with were so absurd that they weren’t even worth writing out.

It is absurd, she conceded. Maybe not something to send over text. She’d probably need to show them, but that would be so much more likely to wake Val. She could tell them to come over, they had her spare key but…Val was scary. To her, obviously, but they had claws and fangs and she suspected they came with a good deal more fighting instincts than Chelsea possessed. In the end, she shot off a short text that lol of course im fine, sorry! She’d give them a better explanation later.

For now, she’d use the time she had while Val was sleeping to find her answers online.

--

Val jerked back to fully alert as Phoebe muttered something to herself, immediately annoyed that they’d managed to doze off at all. She could’ve mentioned the tea was drugged, not caffeinated like the tea they’d had before. They leaned forward towards where she was perched on the coffee table, pushing aside the pillow that they’d been draped over. They had no idea how long they might have been asleep and before they could try to figure it out, they registered that she was perched in front of her phone.

“Hey! What are you doing?” Val cringed as Phoebe jumped, then softened their voice, “I told you—”

“I know, I know, don’t tell anyone. And I didn’t! I just did some research, and look at this,” Phoebe said. She ran a nervous hand through her hair and stepped away from the phone so they could take a look.

Val squinted at the screen—did people really read text this small? It was, like she said, some kind of academic text, not a phone call. Unlike most borrowers, they had been taught to read, but trying to pry apart the different lines made their head swim. Phoebe slapped her hand across the glass several times, speeding through the tight lines of jargon.

“Not everything on the internet is true,” Val wavered.

“Yeah, I’m a grad student, I have figured that out. And a lot of the easy results were nonsense, but these are from reputable journals. And I keep seeing references back to this one French author, and I have no idea how to get that translated, but there’s a few pictures thrown in with the rest of the figures.”

Val was suddenly lightheaded. If there was real, documented evidence of borrowers just floating around online for any curious human to find, how long until everyone knew? Until people started flushing out colonies or—was that already happening? They’d never heard borrower news from more than a few miles away, they had no idea what might be happening across the country, never mind France. Was it just a matter of time?

“And there are some really good medical diagrams someone sketched up in this vet journal, which are…,” Phoebe said, swiping through her tabs. “Oh, shit. I meant to skip that one, I’m sorry.”

Their thin fur stiffened as the screen flashed. Phoebe hastily swiped onto a different screen, but not so quickly that Val didn’t see it. A photo, black and white, of a body with a clean incision down their middle. Childhood stories about lab rats and cruel experiments flickered through their head. Had they been true after all? This had to be edited.

“G-go back to that,” Val said.

“No, you don’t need to look at that.”

“Is it real?”

Phoebe looked back at them hesitantly. they stiffened as her eyes landed on them, struck again by instinct warning them against any eye contact with a threat. They couldn’t quite read her expression without getting closer, and then she turned back to the phone to scroll to something else.

“Look, there’s other photos too, see?” Phoebe ducked out of the way to show off a brief slideshow of a young man leaning against a cup. Val bit their lip. He didn’t have a tail, but other than that the photos looked real. And lots of borrowers lost their tails, or maybe the man could have been shrunk, like Phoebe. She tapped the screen again. “And here, uh, studies on sprite anatomy. These are the sketches I was talking about.”

“I’m not a sprite?” Val said nervously.

But the diagram looked…well, it sure looked like a borrower skull. Almost human, with more threatening teeth and proportionately larger eye sockets. Phoebe scrolled too fast to pay much attention to the details, though. Were there other sorts of borrowers out there? Or something else altogether?

“So what are you, then? You didn’t really say, so I couldn’t get as specific as I wanted, and honestly none of them looked quite like you. I saw sprite a couple times, and the one about the girl in the photos was saying imp, and one of the others just said diminutive humanoids…”

She looked back at them expectantly and Val bit their lip. What did it matter if she knew that little bit more? She would only be able to use it to find more information if it had already been posted and it might be nice to know if borrowers had already been discovered elsewhere in the world, if the others should know.

“I’m a borrower, but—”

There was a loud crash, either from the storm outside or inside their own head, Val couldn’t tell. It cut them off, either way. Everything went dark, then everything went soft. They were standing on crumpled fleece, tucked into the vast sweater they’d just been wearing. They were back to their own, natural size. 

A loud thud, a heavy groan, and a tremor through the carpet. Val’s heart skipped a beat. Phoebe was back to her usual size too and they were sitting in the middle of her living room.

They had to get away.

The whole morning had been a disaster.

They’d hurt her.

They had to get away.

Val turned towards the light and started running. As they stepped into the light, they were faced with the sheer wall of the back of the couch. It sounded like she had tripped or fallen or something and they had to hope that would give them enough of a head start to get out of reach. They bit their lip and clawed their way to the top, thinking they could jump over and get under a bookshelf before, before, before—Phoebe shouted at them.

“Woah, woah, stop! Hey!”

They chirped in panic as fat white fingers curled around their chest. They scrambled to keep their hold, their freedom, but it was useless. Their claws tore through the threads Val clung to and Phoebe was free to pull them into the air.

They kicked twice then gave up, shivering as they fell into her palm. They'd been through this before. She had them, she’d do whatever she wanted with them and if she could harass a giant for answers, they were terrified of what she might do now that they were toy-sized again.

-

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[pain-is-too-tired]

One thing I don't think is talked enough about when it comes to a lot of the antagonist in the series, it's how a lot of them tend to dehumanize/see the demigods as much lesser than.

Not to say the gods don't, but not in the same way the antagonist do I feel like.

Khione(and her brothers) I think is one the most obvious examples to this, freezing and keeping the demigods as living statues is literally discussed hdgdg

Even with Midas, he literally keeps living golden statutes including his own daughter.

At least one of the Giants brings up keeping one of the demigods after they win iirc.

Being seen more like a possession or piece on a board is very common throughout the series. It's definitely obvious with Jason, who's seen as Juno's and Rome's. In a way both Jason and Leo are treated like attack dogs to both Hera and Gaea, it's just Jason's the one Hera could get to heel.

Yet Hera still let's them make connections and walk freely. And she cares enough to grieve when Jason dies. I mean the bar is in Tarturus at this point but hsgdg

Idk. Something is just a lot more unsettling with how the antagonist(like the giants and Khione) talk about the demigods. I think it because they pretty much are claiming demigods like war prises. Which goes back around to something I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before, but the comparison between old versus new. Because, yeah, the gods still stuck in many places, but there's certain aspects most of them had changed in.

For all the demigods that exist, most of them came from genuine connection between the god and mortal parent. There's multiple examples of gods even returning to have another kid with said mortal parent. Many gods seem to think fondly of the mortals they've been with(Aphrodite is outright concerned for Piper's father mental health if he found out about her. )

Not to say that didn't happen in the classics, but there seems to be more of that. Though could be because Rick didn't want to have anything too close to the other subjects in the books. But then he also has antagonist talk about keeping demigods in collections and literally human trafficking so gdgdg

But yeah, there seems to be less kids sired from less then healthy situations. And that also could be because Rick just didn't want to make modern versions of stuff like Achilles' orgins where Zeus had a guy wrestle Thetis down and marry her so her son wouldn't be too powerful. Or any of Zeus' children's origins really.

But the gods tend to have closer connections to mortals and demigods, both hades and Poseidon offer solace in their home to mortal lovers, and don't force it when they decline. Their interactions with mortals/ demigods are down to earth, they only appear to them in full form on Olympus with the other gods or in their realms.

The exception is probably Zeus, who hardly ever comes down from Olympus to talk to anyone.

But he's Zeus, so.

The antagonist however very much address the demigods in a way less down to earth. Making it much more known how powerful they are. Anytime they meet Khione outside her father's place? She's showing off her powers.

The Titans are always large, towering over the demigods. Kronos cares so little about demigods he doesn't even bat an eye when he knocks over his own off the bridge in tlo.

And as I mentioned, many times is idea of keeping demigods as war prises brought up. And that's not new in relation to Greek classics.

The Trojan War was a whole mess of taking women as war prises. Not just Helen being kidnapped but Chryseis,Briseis,Andromache-(honestly, any woman Agamemnon interacted with oh my gods-)

Even men were taken as slaves. It was a normality in war(at least Trojan War wise). If you weren't killed you were taken. Change is important point in each book, how much modern times views being a hero and finding yourself differ from before. How they can mend broken ties and be better then those before them. How they fight for others rather then themselves and pride.

Why the worst antagonist often fight for power, they manipulate and take. They want to be at the top of the world, to be noticed/worshipped. And they do anything to get there.

They see the war as gloryful and a way to reach the top. The demigods see it as trying to live another day. To protect those around them, even desperately trying to save others on the other side.

Idk why, just the whole thing interest me. I think it's also fun idea to explore in a sense.i mean I'm sure there's plenty of Kronos/Giants wins aus, but something about delving into the way that'll effect the survivors intriguing to me.

I think it kinda can be used as a metaphor? At least being looked down on. Feeling like you're being told to dance and entertain sometimes comes with being Neurodivergent. I mean heck, Jason is a walking example of learning to mask so hard you forget who you were underneath. Being dehumanized by those around you.

So something about the heroes fighting help others belong why the villains fight to possess and control everything to their liking feels about right for a series focused on those with disabilities

[tnteeth]

In continuation to this Cami's having fun, Fish is having a very anxiety inducing time I don't know the logistics of this, don't ask me questions