#so sorry if something here is off

[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?"

[planefood]

rules for thee and not for me

[turtleblogatlast]

Leo learns something about himself 🏳️‍⚧️

Based roughly on this old post.

Bonus:

[Leo is taking the fact that he was born biologically female simultaneously very well and also not so well but overall he’s mostly coping with the fact that it was Draxum that just essentially gave him the turtle equivalent of ‘The Talk’.]

[pa-pa-plasma]

love fics where Danny ends up in the DC universe & every alarm goes off at once & the magic users are like "yeah that's the most powerful being in the universe & also possibly super evil we are FUCKED fucked" & the Justice League is freaking tf out trying to find this thing that casually tore a hole in reality & it just cuts to Danny (Fenton) standing in the background blissfully unaware & like "man my life sucks but at least i have this candy bar—" *drops it in a puddle*

[batshaped]

morning people

[radiance1]

A castle mysteriously appears in Gotham one night.

Nobody who noticed it knows where it came from, nor how it got there as it seemingly appeared overnight. It wasn't anything big, as far as castle's were concerned, it seemed to be on the smaller side of things.

However, no one could truly estimate it's actual size. For there seemed to be an ever-present fog that never seemed to stray past the castle's gates.

Just like the fog, you always seemed to hear the cawing of crows and the flapping of bats whenever you step close enough. Yet their visibility was kept hidden in the fog.

Appearances aside, there did seem to be something... off, about the castle and not just because it appeared from thin air, no. It seemed to have a distinct aura of something... other.

No one knew how to explain it, but they could tell there was nothing natural about it. There was something fundamentally wrong with the castle, it wasn't the way it appeared out of nowhere, nor it's appearance.

===

When Sam finally became an adult, she didn't have to think twice about moving out. It was a bit difficult, with her parents not wanting to let her go just yet, but her grandmother managed to persuade them, thankfully.

When she was younger, Sam had always dreamed of owning a castle. Though its appearance did change in her mind when she grew older, from pretty and pink to one of darker colors and crows, which is why she never got one when she was younger, she realized.

But now that she was an adult, what was stopping her?

Nothing, that's what.

So, Sam buys one that matches her tastes and moves in. There was a lot of space, far more than she really ever thought about and now had to find a use for.

Magic.

Was something that enthralled Sam ever since she was young, that and the occult as a whole. So, for a few months after moving did she try and get her hands on things like magical tomes, items, scripts and learn it.

Surprisingly, she was strongly successful in her attempts of learning magic. It was surprising to be sure, but now that she compares it to the portal to the afterlife, having a half dead friend and having hunted down ghosts, she realizes that magic wouldn't be that much farfetched in the equation.

A fair bit of her time now was spent covering her castle in wards, sigils, and runes, ones that would strengthen themselves over time, various protection wards and multiple others that she found useful. Most of them were ones that she found through text, though others were ones she personally made.

After she finished the entirety of the castle, she studied thoroughly to gain more knowledge and power for herself, she even made a few spells of her own along with various potions. Unfortunately, she was interrupted in her studies by various other witches, because apparently having such a powerful fledgling witch on her lonesome was too tempting of an offer to pass up for the nearby covens.

So she had to... move, before they tried to force her to join them. As for how, well, she moved her entire castle! What better way to refuse, really?

Unfortunately, it was her first time using such large-scale teleportation magic and she messed it up. Not that her calculations on where the castle was supposed to be were wrong, but while in the midst of moving through space she was... thrown off kilter.

She didn't even know how or what caused her to mess up. But her castle both was and wasn't where she wanted it to be. Her original destination was coordinates near Amity Park, and while they were on said coordinates.

This wasn't Amity Park.

To say she worried was an understatement. She scrambled to find something about where she ended up, and realized not only was she thrown off kilter, but she was also thrown off so badly that she ended up in an entirely different dimension. Luckily, she managed to make the philosopher's stone.

To say making it was easy would be wrong, for even she didn't know how she created it. It was by accident and for a while she didn't even know she had made it, when she had and tried to do something with it the stone had, uh, well.

It fused into her skin.

It had placed itself right over her face, on her chest, and it granted her immortality it seemed. Though that wasn't the effect she was currently thankful for no, the effect of making gold would be valuable to her, she wouldn't have the Manson wealth, but she could at the very least sustain herself.

For now, though, she did have her studies to get back to.

[plulp]

IM NOT A DOCTOR BUT I THINK I MIGHT BE ABLE TO HELP

[fujii-draws]

[arinmoss]

Haley

[heartorbit]

im never finishing this ＿|￣|○

[n1ghtwr1ter]

At the end of my latest TLT reread and it’s been physically painful attempting to read the last 40+ pages of Nona. Like, the short shrift that Gideon/Kiriona gets given by the people in the story…the theoretical good guys who honestly only see her as a thing, as a means to an end with an inconvenient dead soul attached to it… It makes me want to rip my own heart out of my chest.

Nobody has cared about Gideon her whole life. Most people, in fact, if they remembered about her at all, went out of their way to tell her how much they wished she didn’t exist. In the final chapters of Gideon, she finally gets the thing she’s been desperate for her whole life: somebody telling her that they need her, they care that she exists, and they badly want her to go on doing it. This allows her to make peace with the prospect that at the ripe old age of 18, she needs to die so that that person can go on living and living and living, using the castrated remnants of her soul as fuel to do so. Not a great way to go, but at least Gideon would get to be useful to somebody, would get to be remembered for something.

And then she wakes up in the wrong body, and finds out that her sacrifice - her attempt to be useful in the most selfless way possible, in that her self will no longer exist - has been rejected. And not only that, but the person she tried to give herself to - the one who was supposed to care about her - went to extreme lengths to make completely sure that she no longer remembered about Gideon.

She literally cut Gideon out of her brain.

And now, drifting along in the worst sort of half life where she’s inhabiting her body but it’s no longer really hers, in very obvious fashion - there’s holes in it, her heart is missing, and it’s got her shitty father’s handprints all over it (not even touching how much of a violation that is), indelibly - she finally meets back up with the small group of people who could theoretically be relied upon to be glad to see her again.

But then the one who was supposed to care about her most tries to kiss her (massively OOC for Harrow), and turns out to not even be there - it’s some weird baby inhabiting her body, and doing a really shit job of it too. The rest of them won’t stop talking about how they need her to break into the Tomb - as if she was just another key, same as the ones they worked together to acquire in Canaan House, just bigger and more inconvenient - and/or how they both fucked and killed her mom, who also (surprise, surprise) wished that Gideon had never existed, but saw her as a thing that needed to be done for the good of the mission.

Ultimately, they all make it abundantly clear - Palamedes, Camilla, Pyrrha, and especially Nona, all these people who are supposed to be kind and good and right - that they would prefer she wasn’t there. That it just be her body, with no Gideon attached - at least not Gideon the way she is now, broken and rejected and miserable. They would all far have preferred that she not have her own inconvenient thoughts and feelings and desires and impulses - that she just be inanimate and let the important people, the grown ups, get things done.

They wish she didn’t exist. Same as everybody else in her life, save one, and now she’s left wondering whether Harrow really meant it at all. Because if she did, she wouldn’t have left Gideon to Kiriona’s fate.

And honestly? Really, truly? I know everybody in the fandom loves Pal and Cam and Nona and Pyrrha, but in the end I couldn’t give less of a shit about them. They are fucking side characters, and as intriguing as Nona has been from a worldbuilding standpoint, I ultimately resent having been forced to read 400+ pages of filler bullshit about fucking side characters. I am a butch, and I’m here for my sarcastic, loving, angry, vulnerable, forgiving, and yes, inconvenient sword butch. I’m here for Gideon. But Gideon has been fridged for the last two books of the series in which she is supposed to be a, if not the, main character.

And it feels like almost nobody else in the fandom feels the same way, which, fine. I’m used to that. I’m also used to being told I’m projecting; and I’m used to being told that I’m inconvenient too, in my thoughts and my opinions and the mere fact of my existence. I spent the first eighteen years of my life being told I was inconvenient. Yet another point of overidentification with Gideon.

But in case anybody still thinks that Nona proves that Gideon was an asshole all along, think about all of the above. Think about how it would make you feel to come back from not just death but from the erasure of your existence, something you chose in order to save the life of someone you loved, and be told that you’re inconvenient. Think about how you’d feel if you’d been told all your life that it would be better for everyone if you didn’t exist. And then tell me that Kiriona isn’t in the right and that I should give a rat’s ass what happens to literally anybody else.

It’s Kiriona Hours up in this House, butches. We’ve spent long enough caring about people who would prefer we weren’t around. For once in our entire lives we were told we were important; we were told we mattered; we were told we were the main character. We were going to, if not get the girl and save the world, at least get to do something real, something important, something like being the hero.

But that’s over now; we’re back to being wrong and bad and inconvenient thanks to the simple fact of our existence. So it’s time to embrace it. Let’s be a little shit. Let’s be kind of a dick. Let’s have our own agenda, let’s play our cards close to our heartless chest, let’s allow our circle of empathy to contract to ourselves and maybe one more person. That’s where I’m at right now. And I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

[stagefoureddiediaz]

I know we’ve all been calling Eddie‘s moustache, his gay moustache and I’m as guilty of it as the next person, but the reality is moustache he’s gave far more symbolism than being gay - in fact the gay moustache is actually a very recent thing (the 1970’s!) and an intentional movement by the gay community to subvert cultural stereotypes.

You see the moustache has been symbolic throughout history. They have been symbols of wisdom (think long Chinese moustaches), status (in parts of rajput India, historically only those of an upper caste could wear a moustache so it was associated with being ‘higher born’) and in Europe and America it was a symbol of masculinity and male virility. Indeed many European armies required officers and often enlisted men to wear moustaches. So its association with the military is long founded (apart from the equipment only allowing moustaches, it’s also a part of the reason firefighter swear them - because it is a male dominated career and therefore the moustache is a symbol of masculinity) and predates the moustache as a symbol of queerness.

All of this combined with Eddie diaz having one at this point in time is so interesting, especially because we now know that he’s going to symbolically shave it off on screen as a part of his emotional arc.

Eddie growing a moustache in the aftermath of the Shannon/Kim of it all - the fact Eddie has clearly not dealt with loosing Shannon or his grief, and there is a lot of other emotions and things tied up in dealing with that grief is super important. Eddie growing a moustache is him expressing his masculinity - tying himself to his heteronormative relationship and his military past.

To Eddie right now - his military past is when he had Shannon - it’s when he had a ‘complete family’. He isn’t seeing the cracks in the walls or the fact the foundation is made of quicksand. He isn’t able to see that his In his mind that is when he was happy and that is why he can’t grieve. Which is why he’s grown a moustache - because he’s clinging to his masculinity and the time when he felt he had control over his life.

It is essentially Eddie breakdown 2.0 and in the same way breakdown 1.0 came with a new haircut, but ultimately allowed him to process and deal with part of his trauma, breakdown 2.0 is likely to be the same thing. This time, likely dealing with Shannon and very likely the fact that she was essentially a ‘beard’ for him (even if he wasn’t fully cognisant of it at the time - I genuinely believe he loves(d) Shannon - but I also believe she enabled him to not have to look at himself too closely and keep himself in the closet) so shaving off that moustache is symbolic of shedding his beard (because he’s a firefighter and cannot have a full beard) and embracing his true authentic self.

So Eddie’s moustache is a symbol of his queerness - but only when he shaves it off.

[turtleblogatlast]

Something about this kind of swimming getup for characters always immediately gives me transmasc vibes. Blue swim trunks and a tank top? Sorry man my brain already connected the dots. The vibes are there, and they’re not leaving.

[cerealmonster15]

walks into the function wearing a tshirt that says ASK ME ABOUT MY TOXIC THIRD YEARS POLYCULE HEADCANONS

this map has been stewing in my mind for years i think and i finally wrote it down in the illegible spaghetti way that i always do let's GO

lilia is not in the polycule he's just playing his own game of collecting sons. everyone is his son. he's also going to watch the drama because who doesn't love a soap opera playing out in real life he's got front row seats to the divorce vortex.

cater/trey/rook/vil are the ultimate four way polycule but also oh god theres so much going on there.

cater and trey are a ride or die duo but also trey knows cater sometimes isnt completely open with him but trey has a very passive nature to him as we've seen in book 1 and when he mentions cater's wish to himself in the starsending event... but theyre still close and care for each other a lot and i will die defending them if i have to fjdklsjfds

rook and vil oh my god rook and vil. they are so married. and so dramatic. and so. sdkfjsdkljf a little divorced because rook is also in love with the biggest rival of vils life but that is NOT enough to break their marriage. love finds a way. somehow. fdskjfjksdlg

^ i could go much more into both those duos but we simply. we dont have time we are moving along we are walking

rook and trey beloved science weirdos oh my god every time theyre on screen together theyre so funny. i love odd friendships. science marriage real.

cater canonically flirted with vil even tho it got somewhat censored in engtwst and was partially probably for clout reasons HOWEVER, to ME it's also for bisexual reasons. vil is canonically very pretty and caters like yeah 🧡🧡🧡 vil can see through when cater's being more superficial BUT ALSO they have genuine moments of getting along!!! like in events, beanfest 2 and the puppet one that's not out in eng yet. no spoilers here but there is a bit in puppet event that has me so vindicated on how they really do work well together and respect each other!!!!!!! into the polycule you go.

vil and trey,,, gestures to vil's lab coat story klsdjflksd they get along and it's cute. everybody loves trey.

even leona wants trey in the divorce polycule. no spoilers but please see playful land puppet event / leona's card vignette for that event. and also i think treys platinum birthday card story sljdflksdjf

the extreme difference between how malleus reacts to cater bothering him vs rook bothering him or even just Talking To Lilia is so funny. like he gets along with rook sometimes but in those two pe scenes hes SO aggro he wants that twink OBLITERATED he is going to KILL ROOK HUNT. but he will play tag with cater :^)

leona is the king of divorce. he is divorced to everyone he touches . he invented divorce. he's turbo divorced with vil and malleus because he and vil are just sooooooo. fsdkjfskdlg when therye on screen together it's like passive aggressive but mostly just aggressive bitching and bullying. theyre so funny. they have this energy of like "we have Tension but also i am going to kill you. i begrudgingly respect your abilities but i will only say so with layered insults." like the way vil says "so leona's got a pretty face but that's ALL he has going for him" like. multiple times. why does he keep doing that.

and then whatever he has going on with malleus is so funny. like malleus seems like hes a smug little bitch having fun with the banter [again he wants to Destroy Rook in those PE stories, but leona's blatant insults i feel like he's more teehee you stupid bitch >:)] and leona's just so pissed mad angry forever he's like no i need this dragon fucker DEAD for EXISTING !!! but i think malleus' having fun with the fellow teen experience of stupid razzing

leona and cater are giving me subtle divorced vibes in that one scene in book 2. listen. i have headcanons. ive talked about it. moving on 🚶

rook. leona. i feel i do not need to elaborate jfklsjfkljsekljfkl

idia is so funny. why are his opinions about everyone around him either "oh god hes ultra tier scary" or "he's so sparkly dazzling handsome beautiful". he does this often with no filter and it's so funny. i like that he and leona played chess for like hours or whatever in that one birthday vignette but i forget which one lol i think it was idia's union bday or something

do i have more to say. ive been thinking about them for hours and also years. i can and will talk about them forever i think they are So funny. this is just a messy summary of it all i'm barely scratching the surface i simply cannot go into full detail or this post will Never End GOODBYE!!!!

[firenati0n]

people ruin people, i don't wanna ruin you // i am just a sickness and you seem to be the cure

by firenati0n on ao3

M | 3/9 | current wc: 4.3k

tags: musician au, orpheus & eurydice references, a star is born au (very loose), angst with a happy ending, icarus references, alex pov, singer!alex, singer!henry

No one could resist his soulful brown eyes, framed by doe lashes, sitting pretty on a face one could only describe as biblically gorgeous. Dark curls, a chin dimple, the cheekiest smile—Alex was marketable perfection in the sweetest package. But fame comes at a heavy cost.

Or, Alex is a washed-up singer who finds salvation in Henry, and Henry is both his loving disciple and his greatest punishment.

xoxo roop

[aeb-art]

even in a story with reader insert, i'm still putting myself in there separately ahahaha so here's another lil thing with some of @venomous-qwille's characters

and then the moment they leave the room: