#i am not great at math

[perilegs]

i have 18 inches arriving in the mail tomorrow 🥴

[koszmarnybudyn]

Here is the slut.

[asleepinawell]

appreciation post for two of my favorite ivalice bosses

[touchlikethesun]

honestly of all the mxtx leads, i think lan wangji is the worst at math. why? i just think it's funny if he's bad at math.

[mirror-ralsei]

THEORY: Deeeltaaruuuneeee

You know, despite all the intense speculation about Deltarune - its dialogue, its music, its merchandise... - there's one obvious piece of foreshadowing that no one seems to think about. A critical piece. One that's been under our nose the whole time.

The title.

Today we're going to deep dive into the title drop of Deltarune, its connections to Undertale and Deltarune, and speculate about what it could be foreshadowing in the future.

VISUALS

Deltarune's title appears with a notable wavering, almost interlacing effect. We've seen this effect before.

Asriel causes this when using HYPER GONER.

And though the Memoryheads have more scan lines and desync than the Deltarune title, it's still an incredibly similar visual that stands out in the game.

A similar wavering sort of effect also appears during Undyne the Undying's deformation and reformation.

I wonder if this effect might represent holding on through determination.

At her true death, Undyne the Undying begins to visibly melt, which we're told by Alphys is what's supposed to happen to monsters who contain high amounts of determination. So, it would follow that when she's wavering as she's clinging to life through determination, that's also an intended visual.

And if that's true of Undyne, it could be true of the Memoryheads, who have the same kind of effect. It would make sense, as they are amalgamates, whose very premise is based on the presence of determination.

So, the logo fading in with a wavering interlacing effect might mean that it represents something - or someone - returning to life through determination.

Of course, that's just my best guess. Maybe it represents something completely different - or nothing at all. But both the Memoryheads and Undyne the Undying hold a lot of apparent Deltarune references, and I wouldn't be surprised if their wavering effects were one of them, tying them into the same phenomenon that's happening to the logo.

There's something interesting happening during the logo's disappearance. Keep your eye on the SOUL at the center to observe it more easily.

The logo is not just fading out - its parts seem to be undergoing some kind of mathematical transformation, causing them to multiply, and fade out as they do so.

If any math fans know what specific formula or transformation is being used here, that would be great to know, but as far as I can figure, whatever is happening to the parts are being reflected across multiple axes.

This concept of reflection as division appears several times in Deltarune. I've delved into it here.

Basically, we have this recurring idea that in order to multiply something, you have to divide it in half. Once divided, both halves are no longer the same as the original, resembling it though they may. You could say they're both "reflections" of the original.

That seems reminiscent of what's happening here.

The SOUL, and all the other parts of the logo, appear to be divided again and again, gradually fading with each division until there's nothing left of them.

This may have concerning implications for the plot.

I'm not sure what, exactly, this whole reflection-division concept is building up to, but it's definitely setting up something. And watching this soul and the rest of the title being reflected and divided so many times that it fades out of existence... well, you can't help but worry. There's a lot of wild conjecture we could launch from here, but I'll leave that to you.

There's one more thing here worth noticing. Deltarune is a parallel story to Undertale. If we compare their logos, they look fairly similar. Both are white text on a black background with a red heart in the center letter. But there are a couple of interesting differences.

First, Undertale's logo is comprised of detailed pixels, while Deltarune's is made of blocky letters.

This gives Deltarune's logo the impression of a game with old-school, scan-line-looking graphics (if someone knows what this is called please lmk lol), while Undertale's logo looks like that of a more modern game by comparison.

Interestingly, this is kind of inverse to the presentations of the games themselves. The pixel count in Deltarune is notably higher than that of Undertale. But here, it's the opposite.

(Side note: It also might be worth noting that as of the Sweepstakes, the Ice Palace also appears to be in this old-school style.)

Second, and most importantly, UNDERTALE is depicted in all caps. The visual logo for DELTARUNE is actually presented in all lowercase: "deltarune."

This is important in a series that has consistently used uppercase and lowercase as some kind of recurring element.

One quick example is when Sans explains the Level of Violence acronym: "you never gained LOVE, but you gained love. does that make sense?"

But it's not all acronyms. There's many other interesting usages throughout the series, such as Asgore's name being alternately presented normally or in all-caps, or the presence of certain titles in the soundtracks being in all-caps for no discernible reason.

We still don't really know what this element is meant to represent. But we do know that whatever it means, it is present between the "deltarune" and "UNDERTALE" logos.

Like with so many things here, we do have to wait on more information to truly understand the meaning. But once we know more about the reflection-division and uppercase-lowercase elements, then the multiplying, differently cased logos should also fall into place.

SOUND

The Deltarune title audio seems comprised of three parts: a sound reminiscent of a collective inhale or gasp, followed by a robotic voice saying "DELTARUNE," followed by a mixture of two types of sounds - one reminiscent of a collective exhale, the other a series of discordant chimes - that gradually fade out.

As many have pointed out, the opening sound in the Deltarune title is just an echoey version of the sound that plays when transitioning up from the Dark World to the Light World in Castle Town: snd_dtrans_lw.

Awesome! We have a confirmed connection for the beginning part of the audio. Surely this will provide some insight?

Well... not really...?

While we know a little bit more about the Light vs Dark World concept than we do about, say, the reflection-division concept, I feel we're still not much closer to understanding the meaning behind this sound effect.

I mean, the information we have here is pretty limited. The sound is used when Kris and Susie rise back up to the Light World, which could tell us that the title audio relates to something (whatever the title is representing here) rising up a level, too. If you want to stretch, taking the allegorical into account, maybe it represents some "fictional" or "escapist" elements becoming more "real." This has kind of been alluded to already, with Susie wanting to bring the Darkners into the Light World because it's just "better" than real life, and Berdly and Noelle agreeing and wanting to create Dark Fountains.

Beyond that...there's not much here, that I can think of. If anything, the usage of this audio in the title drop is more important for telling us the in-game usage is important than the other way around. We kind of have to know what the title represents to be able to know the significance of it "rising up"/transitioning between worlds would be.

There's also the sound effect that plays when Noelle or the others "get stronger," which kind of resembles an altered version of dtrans_lw, and would provide some more context if true... but I can't be certain.

Anyway, let's continue onward.

Next up is the robotic-sounding voice saying "DELTARUNE."

This appears to be a text-to-speech voice. Moreover, the TTS voice appears to be one of the same ones from abc_123_a.ogg.

This is notable because that TTS is also used for Gaster's text noise in "room_gaster" (Entry 17).

In other words, it's very possible that the voice saying "Deltarune" is supposed to be Gaster's.

This isn't really as shocking as it seems. Gaster very much appears to be the framing device around Deltarune as an entire game - he gives it to us as SURVEY_PROGRAM, and communicates to us during Game Overs and save file screens. The title being another part of the game's framing, it wouldn't really be a surprise that he'd be here too.

If we do assume the voice belongs to Gaster, the more interesting questions become why he's able to speak a fully voiced word, and why the voice sounds so...strained. One can almost imagine someone desperately leaving a final message, or barely managing to contact someone, before subsequently fading out. All subjective, but interesting to think about.

The final part might be the most mysterious.

There are two main overlapping kinds of sounds playing here: a collective sigh or moan that gradually fades out, and a variety of discordant notes.

Regarding the sigh, I don't know for sure. The most simple guess would be that, if the inhale-sounding sound represents transitioning upwards from Dark to Light World, then perhaps the exhale-sounding sound represents the inverse - transitioning downwards from Light to Dark World.

The only problem with this assumption is that Kris and Susie do transition downwards from the Light World to the Dark World, and the different sound effects that have played so far don't really sound exhale-y at all. So that part's a mystery.

The other overlapping sound jumps out instantly, though.

An immediate association, to me, is Snowgrave.

Although these notes in the Snowgrave sound effect are much clearer than the distorted ones in the Deltarune title, they both are seemingly random- and discordant-sounding, and the sound itself is reminiscent of chimes.

But there is another instance of this kind of sound.

During the Chapter 1 livestream, many tiny differences were added to the game's build for the purposes of the stream. One such difference was the forest room containing the ballerina-type enemies.

In this room, visuals were added resembling the gray star-like sparkles that also seem present during Snowgrave's animation.

And a feature was added where interacting with the ballerinas would cause them to play a bunch of discordant, glass-like sounds.

Toby Fox was unusually cryptic about this change. He describes the sounds only as "a horrible noise," and when asked what they're saying, replies, "Secret. Never ask a dog that question."

So, it seems likely there's some intended mystery surrounding this difference, and it is unusual to me that the ballerinas' chimes are so similarly chaotic as Snowgrave and the title audio.

Personally, my best guess is that it has something to do with the silvery sparkles. "snd_snowgrave" notably does NOT include the preceding chimes - which play while the sparkles are floating out of Noelle's hands. The livestream ballerina enemy area seems to once again associate these chimes with the presence of sparkles.

If that's the case, then maybe the chimes at the end of the title audio have something to do with the sparkles.

Of course, to those without a music theory background like most of us, sound perception seems pretty subjective. Three sounds that all sound like a bunch of glassy, discordant notes to my ears could actually be completely unrelated.

So take this with a grain of salt. The only truly solid information we have is that the Deltarune logo voice seems to use the same TTS as abc_123 and Gaster. The rest is speculation.

But if these similarities are intentional, and those chiming sounds in the title audio are supposed to represent something to do with Snowgrave, that's obviously not a good sign.

CONCLUSION

While I don't think we have all the puzzle pieces just yet, we do have a variety of clues that give off a strong tone about what's going on. This is my suspicion:

The Deltarune title is depicting a tragedy.

Something bad is happening here.

The strained and desperate voice, the inhaled gasp, the collective sigh as a discordant collection of sounds and reflections fade out into nothingness... it's not looking good.

We know Gaster met with an unfortunate fate, and it's his voice that's speaking to us. We know dividing something causes the original to be forever altered and lost, and the SOUL and everything else that makes up the title seems to be undergoing that until it's reduced to nothingness. We know Undyne reformed herself through determination with a similar visual to the logo's appearance, but like Undyne, the logo ends up fading out anyway.

And let's be honest. We know something bad has happened to Deltarune before.

Gaster wants us to make "a new future" with him. One that shines with hope. ("Unlike the old future" perhaps implied.) He specifically made his appearance known in Undertale to players with low levels of violence.

By contrast, this implies something dark and terrible happened to Deltarune's universe in the past. It's in all the little things. Alphys sets the stage with Mew Mew 2's darker storyline. Kris' birdcage has "seen a lot of crashes," and they certainly act like this isn't their first time being possessed. Sans has seen his share of bad timelines, and in the casino dialogue, talks about back when he was less experienced, when one time he witnessed an especially bad snow. Spamton knows exactly what will happen to Kris on a Weird Route, as if he's already seen it - almost as if he's been frozen for years inside rings and behind mysterious locked doors. Noelle claims she doesn't know what Snowgrave is, but also stares off into the freezer, and can't remember what she's done. There's characters preparing for a particularly bad winter. And then there's the perpetual threat of the Roaring, and Ralsei's haunted expression when he describes it, like he's seen it before. There's the fact that we fall down into an evacuated town within a barren landscape of darkness and eyes. The title screen, after all this, plays a mournful piano song over an image of the three heroes at Worlds' Edge. Before the Story.

So, is it really any surprise?

There's so much writing on the walls about Deltarune having repeating, tragic elements, and the title drop seems no exception.

Will we be the ones to break the cycle, and change Deltarune's future? Or is the fate depicted in the title the only possible outcome?

(Screenshot credit: 1)

[ajdrawshq]

i can almost guarantee ive said it before but. he would thrive in a zero escape game

[pepi-nillo]

i think i've literally exhausted every possible thought to have about beyond evil, because i was just thinking about the man juwon's mom left behind to marry han kihwan. literally someone only mentioned once in passing. is this too far.

i mean, he prolly knows who she married right? do you think he recognizes lee suyeon in han juwon? do you think he changed the channel if the hans popped up in that little tv struggle they had about the case, because it only reminded him of a dead lover from the past? do you think he felt vindicated while seeing the news of hkh's arrest?

maybe this is too much thinking

[svtskneecaps]

feel like the global tasks sweep strat should probably be nerfed somehow. my thought would be, give each team an individual ten minute overall cooldown on global task claims. that is to say, a certain team can only claim one global task per ten minutes. say, deliver gas masks, and then in ten minutes you're allowed to deliver tea, and then after another ten minutes you can claim hot chocolate.

another teams would be able to claim a global task for bananas during this time, and their own ten minute cooldown would start.

(the global tasks can either keep their individual ten minute cooldown [i.e. after tea is claimed no one else can claim tea for ten minutes] or a slightly shorter cooldown, say 5-7 minutes)

when a global task is claimed, everyone is notified, right? if not, in my hypothetical, they will be.

then, a team trying to sweep six tasks at once would actually take sixty minutes to do, allowing another team to swoop in and have a chance to stop it in cinematic, entertaining fashion rather than tubbo having to grind resources and then log out in front of the merchant to counter this, which is boring for everyone (including the person delivering). plus, if a team cuts it down to the last second and ends up getting delayed, they physically wouldn't have time to make a delivery, meaning even being a BIT of a nuisance could be a viable strategy, even if you can't manage to kill; if you can STALL you could still wreck their plans.

that's my dream anyway idk i'm not a game designer. just think it would be interesting for most players

(i elaborate under)

red team would have to shake up their strategies, which is fun since they're a team that kinda has to rely more on strategy than outright brawn (overall the team's pvp can't be relied on unless they have carre or phil, as seen today when pierre, bad, and etoiles attacked phil cellbit foolish and baghera, and cellbit and foolish both died to etoiles in the attack, despite it being a 4 on 1 at the time. baghera was killed by bad soon after. phil was the one to get the kills. the first day, when blue attacked [niki, tubbo, and bad as i recall] carre got both kills)

the other teams would then still have a way to stop a global sweep since a sweep would have to start earlier, allowing not only more time to arrive at global to pvp about it, but ALSO allowing another team to swoop in and steal the goal out from under the team again

i'm gonna use it in a scenario bc i'm badboyhalo and i can't stop myself from making examples:

so, tonight, if the proposed cooldown was in place, bad and tubbo would both still had roughly 17 minutes when red team would have HAD to start the sweep process if they wanted all six global tasks: 1 hour until the server closed at absolute MINIMUM. more for safety's sake.

therefore, in this scenario, there's a lot to happen

blue team could wait at globals, knowing red will probably try this strategy, and attempt or perhaps SUCCEED in killing red. if they kill red entirely, the operation is a wash; red doesn't have to gear to come back from scratch and take out blue team, and even if they could, the travel time to return to globals alone would mean they wouldn't get all the global tasks, potentially meaning they don't take the lead. if blue team is unable to kill red and dies themselves or has to retreat, but succeeds in delaying red, red would face the same problem.

if red sends in all of the task items on one person, and that person dies, even if the rest survived, blue could loot the items from that person and would be able to either use the items themselves, if green is currently the owner, or could run away with the items, effectively wasting red's time and again, meaning they wouldn't get all tasks claimed even if they were able to overtake the runner and reclaim their items.

i'm unclear what would happen if red divided the task items between them since it seems like the person claiming the task doesn't have to have all (or any? again, unclear) the items in THEIR inventory in order to claim so long as a teammate is nearby with the items in their inv (evidence: pac's vod "voltei... o que tá acontecendo no QSMP?!" at roughly 3:00:00; tubbo claims tea and tea is taken out of pac's inventory. i don't know the limits of this strategy)

blue team also has time to swoop in and steal a global task out from under red during this time. say, if red team had claimed the task for 10 tea leaves, upping the price to 15 tea leaves, and then blue team snuck in and claimed the task and set the price up to 20 tea leaves, (since the proposed 10 minute cooldown on claims would be TEAM LIMITED; red's cooldown applying to red only and so on). if red waited until the last second, they wouldn't have the time to reclaim this task even if they did have the resources, possibly forcing them to start their sweep earlier to counter this possibility, at which point team members who had logged on earlier and are out of time by the end of the night, OR members who live in time zones that don't allow them to stay up until server close, may have an easier shot at participating in defending against a global sweep.

all of this DIRECT CONFLICT would make for good audience entertainment and heighten the stakes of an attempted global sweep, since it would practically have to be one team defending globals for an hour while they pipe all their resources into it, knowing that if they die another team could easily swipe their task resources and use it themselves (along with the rest of their gear). it makes it more interesting, while still mostly viable.

plus it would force more strategizing for red team which is maybe just a personal plus, i just really like seeing people planning both in advance and in spur of the moment. it's really satisfying to see how a plan comes together and succeeds or fails; plus, since red team is the main team using this strategy at the moment and their main draw and strength as a team is cohesion and communication this would be completely fucking riveting for me as a viewer so maybe this is just a personal thing. but i really really think it would be fun

but again, i'm not a game designer, or a qsmp player, or a qsmp admin, or honestly even really a gamer? so maybe i'm off my rocker and out of my gourd and this isn't viable or balanced in any way shape or form but YKNOW what is this blog except putting stupid thoughts into the void and seeing if this time the void spits back hate mail so. i'm folding this into a paper airplane and throwing it into the abyss. hopefully it made sense.

k love you appreciate you getting this far, have a good week!!

(i hope your team gets a win in dramatic fashion and celebrates together!!! i hope they come together and unleash a plan so spectacular it takes the server by storm!!! i hope it's so good it becomes a vod you go back to even years in the future!!!! i hope you have a good week!!!!!)

[mossyflowers]

I'm regretting the trig post. People stop getting on my ass about not liking trig challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)

[theautumnaldemon]

*me and other boys in the classroom*

My teacher: good morning, lady and gentlemen

Me: *leans over to the annoying kid* he’s talking about you

[notelectrictigerart]

chicken.... and crow?

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[musicalsiphonophore]

be me

walk into biology

it is a cover lesson

this room has a seating plan

sit in my assigned seat

everybody else comes in

everybody else goes omg it is a cover lesson we can sit where we want

everybody else sits on the farthest possible tables from me

it is like grouped tables

red is me purples everybody else

they are all talking

i am not. obviously

uh

fun.

and also last lesson

different room entirely

no seating plan here

one of the first in

sit down at the front bc i like being able to interact properly

and what fucking happened.

ok so my biology classmates hate me

that is fine i don’t like my biology classmates either

guess what fucking happened in french later today. no seating plan. sat down. everyone else clusters around the far side of the room

by this point i refused to do it again

i just did a shameful little scurry so i was sat next to a person

which is kind of necessary in french anyway because you talk

this is quite painful actually. i do not enjoy being entirely alone actually.

fuck teachers who don’t set seating plans. please set seating plans. even if you think the kids are mature enough to not have a seating plan. just. please set one

[other-peoples-coats]

staring down the next three weeks to a month at work has me desperate for a little coma, so uh. either I will be around So Much or No Much, maybe after this crisis life will slow down, please.

please.

[sweetsmollthings]

So I saw the shrinking twister idea by @tfnonsense and I couldn’t help but want to write something for it. I’ve seen shrinking games as a concept before, but it’s always tricky to balance the game aspect with the story aspect, particularly since most of the time people go with board games, which have like…dice rolls and cards that dictate the effects, which you tend to want to be different every time so you end up describing every turn, and everybody has to reach the end, amongst other issues…but twister gets around a lot of that because the effect is constant so you don’t have to describe every turn because nobody is missing anything if you do a time skip. And since the game is about elimination, losers can just go off and do other things while the rest of the players continue in the background. It’s a very elegant solution. Though, it’s still hard to really maintain the balance……..

Anyways, sorry for rambling, here’s the story, hope it's enjoyable...

“Shrinking Twister?”

Marge continued brandishing the box proudly, seemingly ignorant of the three doubtful looks sent her way. “It’s great. Saw it at a frat party, but I didn’t get to play—too many people. So I figure, why not get it myself and play it with you guys?”

The box cover was pretty standard, depicting a few figures in various positions on the game mat; the only difference was that the figures were also in various sizes. Jennifer peered at it from behind her glasses. “‘The classic game that ties you up in knots—with a shrinking twist!’ Cute.”

Lana twirled the end of her ponytail around her finger, frowning. “How does that even work?”

Marge blinked, then looked at the box herself. “I dunno.”

“You go back to normal afterwards, right?” Katie asked.

“Of course!” Marge scoffed, easing the box open. “It’s just a game, guys. You grow back like an hour after it’s over. Anyways,” she continued, taking out a clunky device, “we need to input our names and height into the spinner.”

The “spinner” reminded Katie of a Speak and Spell with the old-style LCD screen and the touch keyboard; the major difference being, of course, the round spinner in the center, and a large, gaudy button in the corner that excitedly encouraged you to Spin!!!

As Marge finished typing her information and handed it to Katie, Jennifer started skimming the rule booklet. “Ah. So once you spin, you shrink one percent of your height for every second it takes to complete your move.”

“This is unfair,” Lana grumbled as she accepted the spinner next.

“Whaddya mean?”

“Katie’s so much taller than me! She has more reach, and even if she goes slow, she still has so many inches to spare—meanwhile, I’ll be a speck before you know it!” Despite her griping, she also began to type.

“I’m not that tall,” Katie mumbled.

“And we’re working off percentages, not inches per second,” Jennifer pointed out.

“Yup!” Marge pulled out the mat and laid it on the floor. Besides the normal rows of dots, it also had much smaller ones crowding around the circumference of each dot. “Since Katie’s six feet, she’ll be losing 0.72 inches every second. You’re five foot two, so you’re shrinking 0.62 inches. Right now, you’ve got a ten-inch difference. After twenty seconds, Katie would have lost 14.4 inches, bringing her down to 57.6, and you’ll have lost 12.4, so 49.6, making the difference eight inches instead of ten, which is a decrease of—“

“Okay okay, enough with the math,” Lana sighed, passing the spinner to Jennifer, who quietly typed her information in. “So I’m guessing standard rules, except you shrink?”

Marge shook her head. “Actually, instead of everybody going at once, we all take turns to spin. Otherwise the game can’t differentiate between who’s already put their foot down and who hasn’t.” Taking the spinner from Jennifer, she pulled out a wire from it that Katie hadn’t noticed before and plugged it into the mat. Then she held up the spinner and pointed to the display at the top. “It’s got all our names up here and the percentage height we have left. When we punched in our information just now, it…well I dunno exactly how it does it, but it like, recorded our bodies so it knows which ones to shrink? But it’s not smart enough to tell the players apart, so it just bases it on whose turn it is.” She set the spinner carefully on the floor, then paused in thought. “Oh, by the way, you can’t use the smaller dots until you’re small enough that your entire hand can fit in them.”

When Marge made the first spin (“Left foot, blue!”), Katie stared intently at her—out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lana and Jennifer leaning forward too—but Marge didn’t seem terribly different as she stepped onto the mat. It was a little disappointing; but then again, one percent wasn’t really much of a difference.

Katie pressed the button, and as soon as the spinner landed…

“Oh—!” she gasped, unconsciously stiffening as a strange sensation ran up her spine, as though some sort of ethereal hand was trailing—

“Katie!” Marge snapped.

Katie shook her head. “Huh?”

“You may want to keep an eye on the time,” Jennifer told her with a wry smirk.

“What?” Katie blinked, then realized with a start that the world around her was noticeably edging ever upwards. “Agh!!” she yelped, practically lunging for a red dot. The sensation ceased once her hand touched it.

“Damn, I really wanted to measure myself against her,” Lana said with a laugh, crouching next to Katie. “You just stood there for like, three seconds.”

“C’mon, stop wasting time!” Marge complained, shooing Lana towards the spinner.

“You were really looking forward to this, huh?”

When Jennifer joined everyone else on the mat, she commented, “It’s a little crowded.”

“Pretty sure that’ll change,” Lana drawled as everybody continued cycling through the turn order quietly while they conversed.

“Well, the rate is still slow, so not for a while—‘scuse me, scootch that spinner over here.”

“In that case, stop being so quick.”

“You’re one to talk, you’re flinging your feet around like bullets.”

“I gotta keep what size I can!”

Katie squeezed an arm past someone’s leg to start the spinner, but right before it stopped, the leg suddenly leaned in front of it. “Lana!” Katie wailed, trying to see around the leg and ignore the tingling that spread through her body. The arrow had slowed down at the right foot section, but what color was it?! She aimed at a yellow dot and groaned in aggravation when her appendages still slid against the mat as they contracted. “That’s cheating!”

“All’s fair,” Lana replied smugly, finally moving her leg back.

Katie course-corrected to blue. “Funny way to love someone.”

“I was talking about war!”

Marge, the only other one bent low like Katie so far, rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to take games so seriously all the time.”

“That’s what losers say.”

“So,” Jennifer cut in, joining Marge and Katie on the floor. Her glasses were askew from having to squeeze between Lana’s legs. She tried to straighten them, but they continued to slide off her nose. “What are we going to do when none of us can spin the spinner?”

Silence.

“I can spin for you guys if both your hands get full,” Lana said from above. “It’s not gonna shrink me if I’m the one spinning, right?”

“No, like I said, it’s based on turn order.” Marge scrunched her face in thought. “Maybe one of us will get eliminated before it comes to that?”

“Or someone could forfeit for the good of the game,” Jennifer suggested.

“That’s dumb,” Lana scoffed.

Katie squinted up at Lana. “How have you not spun any of your hands yet, anyways?”

“Skill.”

“You better not be cheating.”

“It’s a digital spinner?? How the hell can I cheat???”

“I dunno, maybe you—mmfph?!?!” Katie mmfph’ed as Marge pressed her pudgy stomach up against her face.

“Sorry,” Marge grunted, not sounding particularly sorry. “Just trying to reach the spinner.”

They were starting to reach sizes where the shrinking was visibly noticeable, even in the few seconds that it took to end their turns. Katie stared as Marge seemed to sink towards the floor. In their contorted positions, it was difficult to gauge how their new sizes compared to each other, but Marge’s hand was nearby and Katie was pretty sure that if she set hers over it, it would completely disappear from view. The thought filled her with a strange sense of wonder.

Jennifer squirmed somewhere behind Katie’s shoulder with a strained groan. “Alright, looks like I’m handless now.” There was a sudden clattering sound. “…Can someone get my glasses off the mat, please?”

“No prob,” Marge said, this time swinging her arm so her loose sleeve whapped Katie’s ear.

Actually, was Marge’s sleeve supposed to be that loose?

“Hey, Marge?” said Katie, suddenly aware of how her sweatpants seemed to sag more than usual. “Quick question. Do our clothes shrink with us…?”

“No,” Marge replied in a tone that suggested Katie was being obtuse.

“Huh,” Lana said. “No wonder I’ve been having to re-tie my hair.

Katie stared at the ceiling for a few seconds. “Alright. I’m done,” she declared, letting herself fall to the floor so she could crawl out of the tangle of bodies.

“Boooooo, wimp,” Lana jeered.

Katie tried not to blush as she pulled her sweatpants taut. “You realize I can see your underwear, right?”

It was true. Although Lana’s jeans were still standing by virtue of its stiffer material, the waist gaped open around her, allowing anybody to just look into it. Lana, her stance wide, just shrugged. “We’ve changed in locker rooms together.”

“Hey,” Marge called out, craning her neck up at Katie. “Since you’re free, tell us how we’re doing?”

Katie tried to roll her sleeves up and crouched by the spinner. Her own name was now crossed out (seemed like the game could tell when someone had left the mat). “I’m at 69 percent,” she announced.

“Nice,” said Lana with a grin.

“And?” Jennifer prompted.

“Umm…Marge is at 76, Lana’s at 80, and Jennifer’s at 78.”

“Haha, damn, Katie! You suck at this!”

Katie rolled her eyes, standing up again. “Well, if someone hadn’t—“

Lana stared at Katie oddly. “What? Why’re you looking at me like…” She blinked. Then, grinned widely. “Well, well, well.”

Katie tried to say something as they stood facing each other, eye-to-eye(!), but inconveniently, she seemed to have forgotten the concept of language. She could only watch in silence, heart pounding in her ears, as Lana rested a hand on the top of her head, slowly comparing their heights.

“Damn, still a tiny bit shorter,” Lana said, though the glee in her voice didn’t vanish. “But I bet if I was actually standing straight…”

Both of them looked down at Lana’s legs. How tall would she be if they weren’t spread across the mat? Would she be level with Katie? Or perhaps…actually be looking down—

“Oh my god stop flirting!!” Marge shouted at them from below. “My arms are getting tired!”

Lana reached down to pick up the spinner, maintaining eye contact the whole time, and stood back up. “Hmm. If we’re lucky, maybe we’ll find out,” she said, pressing the button.

They looked at the result. Lana’s smile instantly dropped. “Aw nuts,” she groused, handing the spinner to Katie and bending down to join the rest of the group on their hands.

Katie fumbled with the spinner—it had been clunky to begin with and it was even clunkier now that she was smaller—and set it back on the floor near Lana’s free hand. “I-I’m getting some water,” she said, walking quickly away, only to stumble over the bottom of her pants. She hiked them back up, ignoring Lana’s cackle, and continued a bit slower.

In the kitchen, out of sight, she was able to calm down. Okay, not all the way down, but at least she could think coherently. Enough for her current situation to really sink in.

Her head was just barely over the kitchen counter. She could still reach the upper cabinets, but it was a bit of a stretch to grab a cup. And the cup itself felt so unwieldy that she held it with both hands, afraid she would drop it otherwise. (At least the water dispenser on the fridge wasn’t too hard to deal with.)

She had basically lost a third of her height. “That’s like, two feet,” Katie mumbled to herself in a daze. She was shorter than anybody she knew. Shorter than any adult she knew, anyways. She brought the cup to her lips and winced when she accidentally knocked it against her teeth, then tried again more carefully as she wandered around.

It was just too bizarre. After years of generally being the tallest in any room, here she was, dwarfed by everyday objects. Hell, her own clothes were threatening to fall off her. (Really getting annoying, having to pull up her sleeves every few seconds.) But it was fascinating, to measure herself against a chair, to grab a drawer handle and feel how it filled her hand, to hold a spoon and find that it could cover half of her face. Even when she heard a yelp, followed closely by a thump (which was then closely followed by Lana whooping), she couldn’t help but stay here, steadily comparing herself to a world that used to be so familiar.

Eventually, she ran out of things to do, and so she headed back to the living room.

Marge was sitting on the floor, the spinner taking up her lap. On the mat, Lana and Jennifer were still duking it out. And once again, Katie was thrown for a loop.

Everybody had gotten smaller, which was to be expected. Katie just hadn’t been prepared for what that would look like.

Marge looked up at her and waved as she approached. “Welcome back! I was worried you got lost.”

Katie stared. “…What percentage are you at…?”

In response, Marge held up eight fingers.

Katie frowned. “You are not eight percent.”

“Huh? No, you’re reading it wrong. I’m trying to say 53.”

“Ohhh.” Katie sat down next to her, feeling much too aware of the fact that Marge’s head was below her shoulders. While Katie was simply struggling with her shirt, Marge was swimming in it, the ends draping easily over her legs. And on the mat, Lana and Jennifer seemed on the verge of drowning in theirs. They hadn’t gotten smaller than their shirts quite yet, but they were getting there. As Katie watched them, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was sitting on the bleachers, above an arena housing the strangest wrestling match ever. (How was it possible to feel so big and so small at the same time?)

“Lana. Can you please get your hair out of my face?”

“It’s in my face too. Deal with it.”

“It’s getting in my mouth. Do you really want me coating your hair with my saliva?”

“Look, at this point, I can’t tie it up even if I wanted to, so I guess you’ll have to live with my hair in your mouth. And I’ll have to live with your mouth on my hair.”

“Pffbbbph, ppfffeh, bleagh,” Jennifer replied.

“They’re both reaching the halfway point,” Marge informed Katie, beaming. “Right now, Lana’s at 51 and Jennifer’s at 52.”

Katie squinted. For whatever reason, despite her percentage advantage, Jennifer looked smaller than Lana. But maybe she wasn’t seeing things right.

“Marge, spin it already!” Lana cried out, her arms shaking. She was in a slightly unfortunate position; one foot was still on a normal-sized dot, and given her current size, her other foot had to reach quite far to clear its radius. She was also currently arched over Jennifer’s back, and that was clearly forcing her to distribute her weight oddly.

“Right, okay,” Marge said, cheerfully enjoying her role as the announcer. “Oooh, left foot yellow!”

“Oh god finally,” Lana sighed out, moving her foot away from the normal-sized dot.

Katie leaned down to Marge. “Do you want to sit on the couch instead? Hardwood isn’t exactly comfortable.”

“Oh man, that would be great. But I’ll probably need your help,” Marge said, getting to her feet, somehow still able to heft the spinner with her.

Katie hopped onto the couch, then reached down to pull Marge up as well. Without thinking about it, she plopped Marge onto her lap. Which…maybe she should have asked first, but it didn’t seem like Marge objected. Katie scootched away from the edge, hugging Marge close. (It was like hugging a large teddy bear.)

“Both of them are below 50 percent,” Marge said excitedly. “They sure are tenacious. You think one of them might break 40? Right hand, red!”

“That would be fun,” Katie said, imagining what it would be like to be twice as tall as someone.

“G-give it up already,” Lana gritted out. “You’re not gonna be able to reach other spots at this rate.”

“You’re the one who sounds like you’ve reached your limit,” Jennifer countered, sounding quite bold despite the blatant size disparity. If Lana collapsed, then Jennifer was quite possibly in danger of getting smothered. Katie set Marge to the side and slowly dropped to the floor again, watching them warily.

“Left hand, red!”

Lana reached for a red dot, sinking lower and lower until she couldn’t help but rest her body on top of Jennifer’s. As it became clear that her first choice wasn’t getting any closer, Lana groaned and glanced around for another option, when all of a sudden, Jennifer bucked upwards, bouncing against Lana and causing her to lose her balance and sprawl onto the mat with a squawk.

“Jennifer wins!” Marge cheered, applauding from the couch.

Lana sat up, clutching her shirt around her. “No! She totally cheated!”

“You’re one to talk,” Katie said, crouching next to her, casting quite a (relatively) wide shadow. Lana stared up at her, eyes wide. “Hey Marge, what’s the final score?”

“Lana’s at 42, Jennifer made it to 45!”

"Hmm, so not quite half my height," Katie mused, clasping her hands on either side of Lana, feeling a flutter in her chest upon seeing how her hands spanned a significant part of Lana's chest.

"Actually," Marge called out, "in terms of absolute values instead of relative, she might as well be half your height!"

Katie could feel Lana's heart thumping under her thumb. "Is that so?"

Lana smiled nervously. "So, I know I was teasing you before, but—waugh!!"

Lifting Lana up was so remarkably easy that Katie couldn't help but feel a thrill rush through her lungs. And strangely enough, though Lana was the one flailing in her oversized shirt, it was Katie who ended up blushing with embarrassment. Which just made her feel even more embarrassed, because what sort of person would feel—

"Um, Katie? You probably don't wanna be holding her right now," said Marge.

"Huh?" was all Katie managed before, quite suddenly, the floor seemed to disappear out from under her.

The fall was short at least, but she ended up a bit tangled in her own shirt. Somewhere in front of her, Lana also thudded against the floor with an "oof." Katie scrambled around a bit before she managed to claw her way out. "What the heck happened—"

Ah.

Katie unconsciously retreated a bit into her shirt, finding that the world, Lana included, had gotten much bigger. Lana, recovering from her own fall, caught sight of her and pointed. "Ha!!"

"I shrunk again?!"

"Of course," Marge said. It seemed that she had gotten tired of shouting from the couch, as she had begun carefully climbing down. She also had some sort of cloth wrapped around her in place of clothes—looked like she was prepared. "I mean, it doesn't make sense if the loser ends up being the biggest and the winner the smallest. When the game ends, everybody's heights get redistributed. Which means right now, Katie, you're at 42 percent. I'm at 45, Lana's at 53, and Jennifer..."

A long shadow drifted over them, dropping towel-sized tissues. "You may want to have these."

As it turned out, 69 percent of Jennifer was quite large, even when sitting down. Katie jumped to her feet, hastily wrapping a tissue around herself, and she still found her eye level hovering around Jennifer's chin. As Katie continued to gape, Jennifer waved. "Anybody know where my glasses are?"

"Over here!" Marge jogged towards the discarded glasses and flagged her down. With a graceful ease that didn't belong to someone so big, Jennifer reached over and set them on the nearby coffee table.

"Excuse me," Jennifer said, shifting her legs (oh god, she's going to stand up). "I'm going to get something real quick." And with that, she pushed herself to her feet (oh god, she stood up), tugging her shirt down demurely, and headed somewhere else in the house.

"Wait!" Marge shouted, running after her futilely. "No! Hang on! We should all be together for the next part!"

Katie's heart had just about calmed when something suddenly dropped on her head. "Well, lookie here," Lana's voice drawled. From above.

She could already feel her heart start up again before she even turned her head, and yup, that was Lana's arm leaning on her, and yup, Lana was definitely taller.

This time, Katie wasn't so speechless (no height difference was going to be more shocking than Jennifer's). But for some godforsaken reason, the only thing she could think to say was, "How's the weather up there?" Her voice even had the indecency to crack.

Lana blinked at her, then laughed. "Pretty good, I think. Y'know, you're cute like this. Being short suits you."

"Shut up," Katie mumbled, shoving Lana's arm.

"You're so easy to tease. It's too bad you aren't any smaller. I'd have loved to pick you up."

Amazingly, Katie's heart didn't explode. "This is small enough, thank you very much," she retorted, just in time for Marge to trudge back from her failed mission to cajole Jennifer back.

"Oh," Marge said. "Well. Bad news on that front."

Katie's stomach dropped as she looked down at Marge. "...What does that mean...?"

"Sooooo there's another thing that happens after this, which is, Jennifer's gonna grow back to full size," Marge explained, rocking on her feet. "Then, the percentage difference that she grew is gonna, sorta, kinda affect our sizes as well."

"What."

"Oooh, you don't say."

"She's growing 31 percent. Second place gets to grow half of that—15.5 percent—third place shrinks 15.5 percent, and then last place—"

"I'm shrinking an extra 31 percent?!" Katie screeched as Lana doubled over, howling with laughter. And at that moment, as if waiting for the perfect timing, the floor fell out from under Katie the second time that day.

She landed in her now blanket-sized tissue (maybe slightly larger? tarp-sized?), feeling like the punchline of a cosmic joke. From another room, she heard a rather loud bang of something else falling.

"You okay, Jennifer?!" Marge called out.

"Yes, sorry! Give me a moment!"

Before Katie could properly wrap herself up, she found herself whisked off the floor, haphazardly bundled in a tissue burrito. She kicked the air, watching as she was lifted up and up and up, until she was turned around and finally came face-to-face with Lana. Or, more like body-to-face.

"Now this is cute."

What had once been a reasonable height difference (if an unreasonable height) was now just ridiculous. Katie clung to Lana's thumb, feeling her face go red. Lana's mouth (bigger than her head) frowned, and she felt the grip around her loosen a bit. "I'm not holding you too tight, am I?"

"Nope," Katie squeaked, and shielded her face as Lana's low chuckle gusted over her.

"Ah, hang on, I should probably replace my tissue," Lana said, reaching behind her for her shirt. Instead of getting put back down, Katie found herself along for the ride, brushing against dark fabric before reemerging in the light. Lana tugged at her drooping collar, pursing her lips. "Well...good enough, I guess."

"Hey!" Marge called up. "Lemme see her too!"

"Sure," Lana said with an easy grin, setting Katie back down on her feet. As she stumbled, Marge caught her with hands as broad as her shoulders.

"Wow, this is surreal," Marge commented. Katie, standing right around her thighs, silently agreed. "Honestly, I didn't expect anybody to get this small. This...isn't too much for you, is it...?"

"A bit late to ask me," Katie said, with only a minor amount of hysteria.

Marge gave her a sheepish shrug, then looked back towards the hallway. "Now seriously, what the heck is Jennifer doing?"

"Jennifer is getting decent," came the response. And a second later, Jennifer reappeared, ducking back into the living room. Not wearing her clothes, though. For whatever reason, she had tied some sheets around her bust and waist. "Sorry Marge. I had to borrow some things," she added, approaching them, and oh my god.

"Jesus Christ," Lana said, taking a few steps back. Marge froze, clutching Katie's shoulders. Which was useful, because without that, Katie was sure that she would fall over from Jennifer's steps alone.

They continued to stare for a while as Jennifer sat down. Jennifer stared back, fidgeting.

"So, is it just 'cause I'm shrunk," Lana said, "or is Jennifer...bigger than she should be?"

"Isn't it just because we're shrunk?" Katie asked, squinting as she tried comparing everything relative to everything else. (The only result she got was, 'everything sure is big.')

"Katie," Marge said, "her head was almost touching the ceiling just now."

"Oh," said Katie, not really able to say anything to that.

"I may have done something a bit silly," Jennifer told them in a measured tone.

Marge sighed. "...Did you put in a different height?"

Jennifer's eyes darted to the side. "Yes."

"Wait, you can do that???" Lana's head whirled between Jennifer and Marge.

"I thought you were shrinking a bit too fast," Marge muttered, rubbing her temples. "What did you put in?"

"Eight feet," Jennifer said matter-of-factly.

"Why?"

Jennifer shrugged. "I was curious what would happen. Where's Katie? I can't wear my glasses."

"Over here!" Katie shouted, hiking up her ridiculously large tissue-toga and walking over. Jennifer squinted down at her and lowered a hand. Katie hopped onto it, dizzily noting that it easily fit her whole body.

"Oh wow," Jennifer said, her mouth twitching into a small smile. "This is interesting."

With another sigh, Marge approached as well, trying to hoist herself onto Jennifer's knee, only to get scooped up in Jennifer's other arm. "You do realize that you're stuck at that size now?"

"Mm. I just have to play another game and put in my right height."

"Ooh!" Lana said excitedly, running up and vaulting into Jennifer's lap. "If we're doing this again, I'm gonna give myself four more inches!"

Katie shifted in her seat, feeling the fingers under her twitch reflexively. "Maybe I'll take off two inches."

"Starting to enjoy the short life?" Lana called up, and it was probably a good thing she couldn't see her blush from down there.

"In any case," Jennifer said, "we have about an hour until then...what shall we do?"

[soggypotatoes]

I'm in such a haze lol. started fixating on doing puzzles like 5 days ago and I'm still on it. hyerfocus for hours and hours doing puzzles. neglecting all else. I'm so fucking happy though