#Ao3 isn't a problem

[bisexualchaosdemon]

I feel like writing has me constantly stuck between 'fuck reality, I do what I want' and 'if this isn't completely accurate and realistic I may die'

[mintywolf]

Until Morning

The wall of blades springs up out of the dust storm with the suddenness of the unseen predator that had ambushed them in the caverns, and Imogen is sure that this is the end. Ashton swerves, and curses, but not in time to clear the gap between the barricades. Flinging out one last spell of warding with the hopeless desperation of a prayer, Imogen throws her arms over her head.

This is the end, and she still has so much that she wanted to say to Laudna. She should have worked up the nerve to say it all sooner, should have found a moment to drag her away from Dusk, or even blurted it all out in front of Dusk, for all that it mattered now. Should have told her that she didn���t care about the damn rock anymore, that she knew it wasn’t her fault that it was broken. Should have thanked her for that silly purple pencil that means so much to her. Should have apologized for all the time she’d wasted being mad at her for no good reason when they could have spent it together. Should have given her the ring that someone’s going to find unworn in her pocket after she dies. Should have asked to kiss her, maybe. Just once. Just to know what she would have said.

The crawler smashes into the barricade with an ear-rending screech of metal and then everything is a tumbling blur of dust and sky and dust and sky and dust and sky and ground.

She is lying on the packed earth of the racetrack, somehow. Her ears are stuffed full of cotton balls, but as the dust settles she can see the ground gouged by tire tracks and the clawed mechanical feet of crawlers, and the belts of Ashton’s boots, standing upright not far away.

A muffled whoop of triumph sifts down through the roar of voices around them — cheers, it seems, although the noise is indistinguishable from voices raised in anger — and then,

“Oh shit, are you okay?”

A jade green hand reaches down through the dust settling over her. She thinks she is, so she takes it, and gets to her feet. Her last spell seems to have shielded them from anything worse than a gnarly road rash where they hit the ground.

“Yeah,” she says breathlessly, “Are you all right?”

It seems everyone is, more or less. Even Fearne, when she’s found and retrieved from the portable hole in which she’s somehow managed to trap herself. (She was trying to tip the barricade into it, she explains, which is very sweet of her.) Dusk and Orym are, with unrepentant grins, returning the crawler they’d hijacked to its original owners. Chetney is shucking off his wolf skin beside the other crawler, which is listing on its side with a dazed-looking FCG still glued to the front. And—

“Imogen!”

(Read on AO3)

[genghisthebrain]

headcanon no. 190129: enid and wednesday share a spotify account, because premium is expensive, goddammit, and they don't want to have to pay twice.

and they make each other playlists based on what they think the other will like, so wednesday's putting glittery 2010s pop into enid's and enid's finding hardcore 90s rock.

and then they accidentally get really into the genres they've been listening to? and after a while who the playlists are for becomes interchangeable and the two of them are sharing a spotify with a mishmash of happy, bubbly bop pop and misery metal, and wednesday can be seen just jamming it to ke$ha (which is just so at odd's with the gang's perception of her.)

[mechazushi]

Nope. {A Lies of P Short Story.}

It was a cloudy day in Krat, much like it was almost everyday honestly. Even with his stunted and fractured memories, Romeo had a hard time remembering if there ever was a sunny day here in this perverted but mending hellscape. There wasn't much for him to do around the hotel until later when he helped Polendina with the cooking. There might be more puppets than humans in the hotel nowadays, but that didn't mean that the few that were still here shouldn't get to eat. And with as busy and hyper-focused as some of them could get, it didn't go under quietly as an unappreciated task. Not only that, but it seemed that with each new area his friend was clearing out, the more survivors he seemed to be discovering and sending them their way.

Just like he was now, off gallivanting throughout the ruined streets of Krat, picking off what few frenzied puppets were left and scouting out for a select group of individuals that had started roosting here with dreams of reviving Krat. Romeo didn't mind it, it was an important task his friend had taken upon himself. He just wished he was stable enough to follow. It hadn't been long since Venigni had rebuilt him as best he could from Geppetto's notes, which meant that some of his awakened memories from when he was the King kept their clamps on his artificial mind. Combat had this horrible effect on him, making him react to echoes of mistakes past and forcing Romeo to keep himself under house arrest until he could remember how to be a better person.

Still, something had to be more exciting than watching the clouds waft by his assigned room window. Romeo ambled out of the room in a daze, an emotion that was now irritatingly familiar. He wandered about the hotel's halls, observing the art for the hundredth time, debating on taking on another attempt to read a book. He didn't know if he was like this before or if it was due to the sensation of an infinitely ticking organ that was inside of him, but he could never be restful long enough to enjoy books. He began to hope it was just due to a lack of literature he would find interesting, but that would imply he knew what he liked to begin with.

"All the better to go looking." He guessed. He was halfway down the main hotel stairs when he was stopped by Eugenie who was coming up the stairs on the other side.

"Oh, Romeo! Just the man I wanted to see." She called out cheerfully as she shuffled quickly to his side, "I hope I'm not intruding on any plans, but I wanted to ask if you could join me for a little bit. I could use your help."

Romeo nodded politely with a matching smile and followed her back up the stairs to the study. Venigni had removed all evidence of Geppetto's presence from the study, making the space significantly more pleasant to be in. With all the chalk boards and that monstrous augmentation chair inside, it felt more like a medical, mechanical stain in what was once a cozy area. All the equipment and paperwork had an unseen effect, drawing out all the warmth in the room like how snow absorbs sound. The desk remained, but it was paired with more desks that openly framed a large and busy table. It was overflowing with different types of documents, as well as a crude reconstruction of the city in its current state. It certainly put Romeo's mind at ease to see that there were some people who were still resilient enough to look at such a tragedy that was Krat and still see potential for a new start.

"So what did you want my help with?" Romeo signed slowly after he waited for her to face him, recalling that Eugenie wasn't as fully versed in Krat Sign Language as some of the other guests. His early memories of the Monad Charity House weren't the brightest, but it seemed the muscle memory the lessons had instilled in him weren't so easily lost, even after losing everything considered to be organic muscle.

"That. That right there is what I want help with.' Eugenie revealed sheepishly, "I know enough to get the general idea of what the both of you try to say most of the time, but any other time I'm left waiting for someone else to paraphrase what you want. Otherwise, you're both forced to write it out when you're around me. I know both of you can understand us just fine, but I'd like to be able to understand the both of you back, you know what I mean?" She asked obscurely with a small, unsure shrug.

"I'm sorry if this comes across as intruding, but I've noticed you've been practicing speech when you cook with Polendina." Eugenie mentioned as she grabbed a book off of a nearby shelf and moved over to the velvet green couch close to the fireplace, "So I was kinda thinking that maybe we could do a little trade-off session! You know, you teach me a word, I teach you a word, and so on and so forth." She squirmed a little on the couch, the lack of response from Romeo making her nervous, "If... this sounds okay with you?"

Romeo made his way over to the couch and sat beside her with an eager expression, showing her two thumbs up and a wide, bright smile.

"O-Oh! Okay then! Thank you so much for this then." Eugenie's vice shook a little from the sudden positive reception to her request.

The two of them spent quite a few hours on the couch, talking and learning and laughing at their new little discoveries. Venigni made sure to give Romeo a voice box when he was rebuilding him from the ground up, but that didn't mean that he instinctively knew how to use it. Try as he might, he couldn't figure out how to make himself stop sounding like the garbled mess he used to sound as the King, but with Eugenie's help he could finally sound out words and phrases more legibly. The whole process made him feel like a recovering stroke victim, but at least he was able to learn quickly. Getting to help his new friend with her problem alongside his progress also helped make this feel less demeaning. Spending an afternoon connecting with someone seemed to inadvertently help him remember more about who he used to be as well.

He remembered that he really could never focus on books or reading much. Could never sit still for long either, always wanting to run around, touch and feel and move, or just do anything active in general. He remembered that those parts of his are what drew his to being a stalker in the first place, wanting to explore his city and talk to others about their problems just to swoop in and fix them with a swing of his weapon. He remembered how it was his friend Carlo that wanted to take things slow. Sure, he could keep up with Romeo and would happily do so, but the brightest memories he had of them were the moments where Carlo made him stop and smell the roses. Hell, he started to think there was even a memory of the two of them doing that exact thing.

"Hey, are you doing okay? It seems like you got lost in thought all of a sudden." Eugenie asked quietly while trying out some of her newly learned hand signs.

"I'm... fine. Just... remembered something about a... rose garden I think." Romeo answered slowly, rolling the words around in his throat to get used to them.

"Aw, well that's good! I have to ask however, was that last sign how you show "Garden"?" Eugenie inquired, still hungry for more words to learn.

As the two of them continued to exchange words, the other side of the study began to fill up with people who were all crowding around the table. As quiet, polite discussion was being made, Romeo and Eugenie's attention was slowly diverted to what was going on.

"Oh, is there going to be a meeting soon? Would you like us to leave?" Eugenie asked.

"No, I don't think we will be interfering with each other." Sophia assured as she stood off to the side with other residents.

It wasn't long before more people filtered in and began to hover around the already busy table. The room began to fill with idle chatter, but thankfully the room was big enough to accompany the different conversations without causing confusing overlap. With their attention diverted to everyone else's conference, Eugenie and Romeo's educational discussion dissolved into causal banter to match the energy in the room. Soon after everyone gathered did the energy in the room gain a sudden disruption as the residents heard the double doors to the study slam open. Hunched over with an aura of debilitation, P had announced his physical discontent effectively as he stood in the doorway, covered in oil, grime, and foul organic matter. This stained not only his last, clean, white shirt but the loud Persian rug at the entrance. Several gasps and murmurs of P's audacity began to ebb out into the room.

P's agitation was felt in his footsteps as he marched over to Sophia, who was holding back an amused giggle. Anticipating what he was wanting, she waived her hand and the grime on him and the trail he made was whisked away in small puffs of her signature blue light. With the mess gone, the tension in his shoulders dropped and took a moment to breath in the calmer atmosphere. Afterwards he withdrew a long and wide looking scroll wrapped up with leather cord, the sight of which was met with cheers of victory and appreciation. Eugenie and Romeo abandoned their conversation once their mutual friend made his appearance and stuck to watching and listening to the meeting going on beside them.

"Question. What's his name?" Romeo inquired quietly as he pointed to P, leaning forward to add to the secretive need of the Question.

"Do you mean your friend?" Eugenie returned the question with one of her own, "I thought we already told you?"

"I know his name is P, but that has to be a nickname, right? I understand not wanting to go by Carlo, but I haven't had a chance to ask what his new name is." Romeo answered as he switched to signing it out, wanting their conversation to stay on the quiet end out of risk of being heard.

Eugenie watched his hands intently as she slowly pieced together his question, "As far as I know, he's really named P. I think even Geppetto called him that. You know, when he wasn't calling him his 'son'." She signed back as best she could.

"P?" Romeo accidentally cried out from disgusted disbelief.

This quickly gained the puppet's attention, causing him to jarringly turn away from the discussion and scan the room to see who called out his name. Both Romeo and Eugenie immediately averted their eyes to not catch the perceptive puppet's attention. Romeo couldn't shake the feeling of disgust of now knowing that his friend, a friend he was sure he could be more creative than this, was just going by such a simple title. He waited until his friend returned his attention to the meeting before Romeo returned his attention to his friend.

"P!" Romeo called out again, this time on purpose.

Wanting to make sure that this wasn't a new nightmare, that his friend was just mishearing them and his name was something much more befitting such an accomplished being as he was. This time when P turned around, it was with an added layer of exasperation, almost bordering on testiness. Romeo ducked down further into the couch, appalled at how receptive his friend was to the ungodly simple name. He almost fell off the couch the longer he thought about P's dull naming. All he knew at that moment was how he wasn't going to stand for it for any longer. Romeo got up and vaulted himself over the back of the couch and marched himself closer to P.

"P!" Romeo called out one last time, hands reaching out.

P swung around abruptly, now fully done with being called out for no reason. As P turned to face him, arms swinging out wide in vexation, Romeo took his chance and teasingly gripped the Krat's Savior's cheeks. He pinched and pulled on them a little, making P's face doughy and squished. Romeo pursed his lips lightly as he moved P's head from side to side, evaluating his looks as he tried to come up with something more suitable to call him. Watching his face slowly turn pink from the prolonged eye contact, Romeo's mind turned to an old memory.

Growing up in the Charity House, Romeo used to listen in on a lot of conversations, and the ones that always stuck out to him were the ones that ended with terms of endearment like "Doll" and "Sugar". He never understood why people did that when he was younger, wasn't calling people by their name supposed to be enough? It wasn't until Carlo came to the Charity House and Romeo listened to all the other kids use his friend's name against him, emphasizing who Carlos's father was and how no matter how important the man was there wouldn't enough room in his heart for his kid, did Romeo understood the power that could come from such an act. Still, he couldn't come up with anything that felt like it would stick. Not until someone generously donated barrels of various types of stone fruit and he saw the way Carlos's eyes lit up as he tore through a bushel of them did Romeo finally find one that felt appropriate.

P wasn't Carlo, and he respected that. But Carlo wasn't around for Romeo to tease anymore. He wasn't around to chase after, calling him names and telling him things that only had meaning between the two of them. P may have brought him back just to let him have a second chance, to have one last go at having a proper life, but Romeo knew in his heart of hearts that he would spend each and every chance at living by Carlos's side. Even if his friend's presence came in a different wrapping. And last Romeo checked, there was nothing wrong with repurposing something old for someone new.

"No... Peach." Romeo finally landed with a smile, drawing closer just to watch the realization spread hotly across P's cheeks.

Face now glowing from embarrassment, P flailed his arms around before pushing Romeo away. His hands came up to hide his face as he sprinted out the double doors, Romeo close on his heels as he chased after P while continuing to call him by his new name. Cries of joy at his friend's expense echoed down the hall and faded away as the rest of the people in the meeting just stood in quiet shock and awe.

"Were they always this bad?" Hugo whispered as he directed his question to Sophia while watching the event happen.

"Oh, it's about to get so much worse." She admitted as she giggled behind her hand.

.・゜゜・ 🦋・゜゜・．

Okay, Hi.... Just thought I'd explain a few things.

One, I know he's the one technically speaking when he talks to npcs, but I'm kinda a fan of silent protagonists staying silent. So, yeah... P speaks in sign language and Krat has its own version. I like to think there's a difference between KSL and Sweeper Sign (Bastards don't get their own version, If they need it they just use KSL) SSL is the same as KSL but they just has specific and dedicated signs for insults. Literally they have a short-hand insult for anything.

I kinda figured that maybe Geppetto didn't give P a voice box as another way of exerting control over him, like taking away any chance for his "son" to talk back to him. (Jokes on him, violence counts as Body Language.)

The whole "P uses Sign" idea came from a Legend of Zelda comic I saw on Youtube where Link signs to Zelda the name of his horse and it kinda threw me down a rabbit hole of finding out that a lot of people default to headcanoning Canonically Silent Protags as Sign users and I just kept running with it here.

I'm also aware that, canonically speaking, P's name isn't his name in the game and that he technically doesn't have a name, but since in this story it's implied he's working with a lot of people and he doesn't want to have to sign out his name out to others, especially if some people don't know how to read sign, he decided made it easier and just have people refer to him as P.

Also just gonna throw in an obligatory "I respect that this is a tragedy, but I would also like to see these people having a fucking break for once". That being said, I've got this whole idea for this...AU? I guess? Where Vengini rebuilds Romeo and its this reverse dementia storyline that's supposed to somewhat mirror P's story, but instead of it ending with Romeo becoming a new identity, it's him becoming more and more unhinged in realizing that he doesn't care what he calls himself, if it looks like Carlo and reacts like Carlo, Romeo is going to attach himself to that man's hip and make it everyone's problem.

I also have this really cool idea for a scene where Romeo has to talk with Arlecchino (don't worry, he hasn't been resurrected again, this is a dream sequence situation) and without revealing too much (mainly because 1) I have no idea when I'm going to get around to this and 2) I haven't fully fleshed out anything about this particular idea) The whole thing basically boils down to "Arlecchino gives Romeo a WHERE IS YOUR RAGE speech and Romeo uses it to save P and the stress of the situation turns Romeo into a redhead."

[sillyredconverse]

My husband (ao3) is back at war (shields are up) and I am waiting patiently for him to come home

[oliveden]

hi can we agree that yes characters you really like getting wildly mischaracterized/misunderstood sucks but also it's not a big deal?

like i just saw a post screaming about how everyone who joins the womanizer dazai joke is wrong/toxic/an idiot, etc. like. i love dazai as a character so much and i do get frustrated when people just turn him into a one dimensional suicidal maniac or comic relief or whatever but we don't need to make it a big deal. nobody is toxic for that. you're the toxic one for yelling at other people for it.

they. are. fictional. characters.

people are not harming anyone else by choosing to interpret a character one way. "headcanoning" living, breathing, real people as something that they are not is rude and incredibly fucked up. headcanoning a fictional character as something they may not actively be written as is fine!

[lith-myathar]

.

[catscidr]

chucks this dottore x y/n art like a smoke grenade and runs in the opposite direction like the cop in cloudy with a chance of meatballs

[waytooinvested]

Small Problem... Chapter 2

You can find the full story on AO3

..................................................

Lena was in the middle of grinding up a chunk of dried rhubarb for her latest spell to try and de-miniaturise Kara when Dreamer came hurtling into the room at full speed, almost running right into the far wall when she failed to slow down in time, and startling Lena so much that she dropped her pestle.

‘Nia! What is it? What’s happened?’

She would have been more worried by the sudden entrance, if not for the fact that Nia was now bouncing excitedly from foot to foot, and holding -something- behind her back like a child who had just raided the cookie jar.

‘Have you seen Kara anywhere? She’s not on the snack table’.

There was a tiny huff of air against Lena’s ear, and an indignant little voice muttered ‘I don’t spend that much time with the snacks!’

‘She doesn’t spend that much time with the snacks’.

Nia chuckled at the passed-on-message, tilting her head to peer past the fall of Lena’s hair to where Kara was sitting comfortably on her shoulder, legs dangling by her clavicle and one hand fisted in her shirt for balance.

‘I don’t know why I even asked – I should have known if you weren’t making the most of a fresh batch of crullers you’d be in here with Lena’.

‘There’s CRULLERS???’

Lena didn’t have to speak up for Kara this time, because that had come out at a volume loud enough to make her wince, and definitely loud enough to carry to Nia standing a few feet away.

‘Kara, remember what we said about shouting and proximity to people’s ears?’

‘Oops, sorry…’ Kara patted the lobe of Lena’s ear apologetically. ‘But crullers Lena! I haven’t had a giant cruller yet, and you know they’re my favourite!’

‘Well hang on, that’s not what I came here to tell you! I got you a surprise!’

Nia was bouncing again, and at last Kara was diverted from the promise of fresh doughnuts by her obvious excitement.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s- drum roll please-’

Nia stamped her feet in a rapid tattoo to simulate her own drum roll, then brought out the thing behind her back with a flourish, plonking it down in the middle of Lena’s grimoire so it would be right in Kara’s line of sight.

‘-YOU!’

The big (well, little) surprise was a miniature Supergirl action figure. Just under five inches high, complete with Supersuit, cape, boots and flowing waves of plastic hair. They all stared at it for a moment, and then Kara lifted gingerly off Lena’s shoulder and floated down to have a closer look.

It was not a perfect likeness by any means, but one of the better of its kind, and seeing the two of them side by side was… a little uncanny, honestly. Kara walked a slow circle around her doppelganger, taking in its fixed plastic grin and hands-on-hips pose with a perplexed frown on her face.

‘Thank… you?’

‘What’s she supposed to do with it?’

‘Isn’t it obvious?’

Kara and Lena looked at the doll, then at each other, then shrugged.

‘Not really?’

‘The clothes. You can take the supersuit off, I checked! Even the boots are proper leather. Well, pleather, but I think they’ll be comfy enough – they’re soft anyway, not stiff plastic, and they look about the right size’.

Kara perked up at that, keen to get back into something that would feel more like her usual self.

Once it had become clear that getting Kara back to her proper size wasn’t going to be a quick fix, they had done their best to get her properly outfitted. Alex and Kelly had taken Esme home to raid her doll box for anything that might come close to fitting Kara, and they had found a few things that worked, which Kara had been wearing on rotation. Her favourite so far had been a tiny pair of blue jean style stretchy pants, and a matching blue shirt with long sleeves layered under short that had once belonged to a Tiny Teen!TM doll. Her LEAST favourite was the ill fitting ‘sleepy bunnikins’ baby doll onesie she had been forced to wear for one humiliating afternoon while chocolate frosting was washed out of her other clothes after an incident of over-exuberance helping Esme decorate cupcakes for her upcoming birthday party. The rest fell somewhere between the two on the spectrum of acceptability, but none had made Kara feel entirely herself, and they had had no luck at all so far with shoes.

Until now.

‘YES! Thank you Nia!!! Lena, would you mind…?’

Kara gestured at the open grimoire and Lena obligingly stood it up on its end to hide her and the doll from their view, hoping that it wasn’t inadvertently insulting to her mother’s memory to use her revered magic book as a changing screen. She and Nia waited patiently for the reveal, sharing an amused glance at the mutters and grumbles that emerged from behind the book as Kara wrestled her plastic twin out of its clothes and pulled them on herself.

When at last she emerged the twee floral dress and pinafore she had borrowed from Esme’s littlest china doll was gone, and Kara was once more dressed in an approximation of her own clothes. She struck her familiar Supergirl pose, hands on hips, newly shod feet set wide apart, and looked hopefully up at them.

‘What do you think?’

Lena examined her tiny friend and nodded admiringly.

‘Much better. You look like yourself again’.

It was true, but not wholly true. The sizing was no worse than any of the other outfits she had been making do with lately to be fair – better if anything, since it was made of stretchy, forgiving material, but knowing how her suit was supposed to fit made it all the more obvious that the sleeves of this one were straining around Kara’s biceps, while the too-long pants wrinkled and the top hung loosely across her chest. Apparently the manufacturers had taken some liberties with Supergirl’s bra size…

Nia squealed and clapped her hands in delight. ‘I’m so glad I stayed up til 4am in an ebay bidding war for it, it was TOTALLY worth it!’

‘Nia, you didn’t!’

‘Yep – there’s loads of Supergirl dolls out there, but most of them are too big, or the clothes are just painted on. THIS one is a much sought after “Superhero In My Hand” model, and the clothes come off so that you can swap them out with other dolls in the series if you want to. I really wanted to get little Dreamer too, but that one still had another two hours on the auction and Brainy changed the wifi password to force me go to sleep, so my nemesis got her instead’.

Lena raised an eyebrow. ‘You have a nemesis?’

‘I do now. Ebay user Iheartdreamer98’.

Nia glared darkly at nothing in particular, then dropped to a crouch so that she was at eye level with Kara on the table, grinning again as if nothing had happened.

‘This is so cool. What do you think of the doll?’

‘I love the clothes, but the actual doll is a bit creepy, and they made me look kind of constipated. Now she’s out of the outfit I don’t think she really looks much like me at all’.

‘So you don’t want to keep her?’

‘Not especially’.

‘Can I have her then?’

Kara frowned. ‘What for?’

Glancing between Kara and Lena, Nia beckoned them both closer before whispering ‘hijinks’.

‘Go on…’ Kara whispered back conspiratorially (then had to repeat herself more loudly, because at her current size a whisper was inaudible unless she practically climbed into your ear canal).

‘Well -’. Nia reached over the grimoire to pull out the doll, which Lena noticed was now wearing Kara’s cast off frills (apparently despite thinking it didn’t look like her she had felt weird about leaving it entirely naked, even though it must have been a pain trying to dress a from-her-perspective-life-sized plastic dummy). ‘-Brainy knows I bought this because he was there when I was ordering it. But no one else does. Alex doesn’t. I thought there might be some good pranking potential in it. What do you think? Something to do while you’re stuck in here?’

Kara grinned back wickedly ‘oh yes’.

After the first couple of days spent getting used to her new size and taking part in a dozen different (failed) attempts at de-shrinking spells, Kara’s mood had shifted from distress to boredom. She couldn’t go to work. She couldn’t fly out to save the day from villains (though she had waged an hours long battle to oust a rat that had been attempting to set up home in the tower, then spent a further day amusing Esme with stories and re-enactments of her daring exploits). She couldn’t even go out without someone’s pocket to hide in, in case anyone saw her and decided to use her relative vulnerability to their advantage. In fact as Nia had alluded to, the main solace Kara had now was her continued delight in over-sized snacks, but even her appetite had its limits, and she was desperate for things to do. It seemed that Nia might just have found a neat solution to both her need for proper clothing and her need for entertainment (even if it was at the expense of her long-suffering sister).

‘You’re with us, right Lena?’

‘I’m theoretically with you. I won’t tell Alex what you’re up to or do anything to spoil your fun, but I don’t think I’ll have time to actively join in. I really need to keep working on this spell so you can get back to normal’.

Lena hadn’t been doing anything but working on spells since Kara’s accident, even though she had long since tried even the most tenuously promising charms in her mother’s book, and was more or less just making things up now. She was using rhubarb, because it was known for its speedy and extensive growth. Bamboo shoots for the same reason. A dose of her artificial yellow sunlight to boost Kara’s innate powers and lend the spell strength… she was about 48 hours away from suggesting that Kara drink up her milk and go to bed early in the hopes that it would help her grow up big and strong, or else poking about in rabbit holes to find the way down to Wonderland and the caterpillar’s magic size changing mushroom, but she couldn’t admit it.

Not when whatever had happened had to have been her fault. She and Kara had been standing over the workbench together at the time looking through her grimoire. Their hands had collided as they both reached to turn a page and Lena had felt the usual surge of butterflies that came with touching Kara unexpectedly. Then suddenly all hell had broken loose and everyone else had been thrown across the room while Kara shrank to dolls house proportions. It must have been some unforeseen magical accident linked to the surge of emotion, or the physical contact while touching the book, or… something. And if Lena’s magic had caused this, that meant it must also be able to fix it.

The trouble was that despite going over the interaction second by second in her mind every hour since it had happened, she still had no idea what she had done, or how. She hadn’t been trying to do a spell. Not just a shrinking spell, but any kind. The idea that magic could just burst out of her uncontrollably like that was terrifying, and another reason why she had been spending most of her time holed up in this room away from the others, where she couldn’t accidentally hurt anyone.

In fact the only person she hadn’t made excuses to stay away from for more than five minutes at a time lately was Kara.

Kara, who was the one Lena had most hurt with her accidental witchcraft, but also the only other person who was as trapped in the tower as Lena was until she learned to keep her magic under tighter control. It felt unfair to turn her away when she was already so lonely and overwhelmed by her new size. Besides, Lena harboured a secret, desperate hope that if they were together enough then whatever she had accidentally done might be undone the same way. They would brush knuckles in exactly the right place at exactly the right moment, or Kara would step onto some special part of the grimoire, and just as suddenly as she had shrunk, she would grow back to her usual size and this would all be over.

She didn’t say that to Kara of course – to her and to everyone else she remained optimistic, assuring them that they weren’t out of options yet, and the next spell might just be the one that would do the trick. Well then, the next. Or the one after that. She would find it eventually. She had to. So she couldn’t let herself get diverted into playing games with Nia and Kara, no matter how hopefully they were looking at her now. That would be like admitting she was giving up. And besides, somebody might get hurt.

Kara crossed the table to her and patted her knuckle gently, understanding something of her distress, even if not all of it.

‘I know you want to work this out Lena, but you’re allowed to take a break. It’s okay if it takes time. I’m okay’.

Lena smiled back at her gratefully, but shook her head.

‘I know, and I’ll take a break if I need to. I just want to do a little more work on this one first’.

‘Are you coming up for dinner at least? J’onn’s cooking something Martian-inspired’.

‘Sounds good, but I’m not really hungry. Save me some left overs?’

‘Sure…’

Kara still didn’t look happy, but she flew up from the table to perch on Nia’s shoulder, and Lena listened to the two of them talking about how best to prank the others with their look-alike Kara as they clattered off back down the hallway, leaving Lena alone with her spells.

Rhubarb.

Bamboo.

Artificial yellow sun.

There had to be a way.

[wardensantoineandevka]

personally, one of the biggest grievances I have against Fandom (the wiki platform) is that it doesn't respect that wikis are supposed to be focused on collaborative collating of information and instead keeps trying to make wikis into a social media platform

[in-death-we-fall]

I used to check ao3 every day, and lately I'm just not motivated to, and I also go days without checking the tumblr tags, and I'm just like. What happened

[itsybitsylemonsqueezy]

After almost 15 years, my icon on AO3 is finally having to change due to the recent icon errors. As you may know, my icon on AO3 was my beloved Evil Plotting Grinch Smile

It played on loop, despite being the wrong size ratio. It was my little special something. People know me by this image, associate my fic bastarding with this little loop.

And I have tried to restore it, resizing it, cropping it, but no matter what I do, I cannot get it to come back up. I contemplated a still image, but it... does not look great. And fails to communicate the appropriate amount of malicious glee I have behind the screen.

I am... genuinely a little sad that I can't get my icon back. Different fandoms, different pseuds, different relationships, but my main icon was always this little shit-eating grin. Who am I now that that isn't my face?

If anyone can think of something I haven't, if you know how to game the system for just a little more malicious glee in the world... please. Help me be a chaos gremlin for just a little longer.

[sulkybender]

Zuko was always dismissed, by everyone. It wasn't until he left home that he learned it wasn't because there was something wrong with him, because he was inherently dismissible.

There were people who could love him. They just weren't in his house.

a year like that

[pinkkop]

To fanfic writers on Ao3: please don't tag with unrelated tags.

Like your fic shouldn't be tagged with the actors of the characters your fic is actually about or the other way around.

Ao3 is an archive and there is no algorithm so don't just add any vaguely relevant tag, please.

I wish that it was possible to suggest tag additions and changes to fics on Ao3 because I so often see fics with unrelated tags or missing tags.

Just let me submit a suggestion to the author!!

And maybe if a certain amount of people suggest a specific tag change the author could be more persistently made aware of it.

[kitsumidori]

Hello there, here is a new fanfic I made :3

https://archiveofourown.org/works/63772234

[biathediamond]

k i just say something that just about burned my eyes out of my head so as a longtime reader-writer of fanfiction and user of Ao3 here's a quick guide to ratings.

Gen - anything on the level between Goodnight Moon to Nancy Drew belongs here. No cursing, can definitely get away with a "crap" or a "damn" here or there tho. Something a kid could read and be fine. Keep in mind intensity - you can have Crimes and Bad Stuff here so long as it's toned down enough an 8-10 y/o won't be traumatized

Teen - think Avengers and SuperWhoLock, you can have your "shit" and "ass" and "dick" and generally your "fuck" too. (in my experience fanfiction overall doesn't care nearly as much about cursing as traditional media, i see "fuck" in teen all the time) Violence and action and more serious themes go here, although still keep in mind intensity! Violence can be Fun Action OR it can be Saw shenanigans. Teen should be more Fun Action

Mature - This is where you starting putting the heavy stuff. The main difference between "Mature" and "Teen" is intensity and focus. Think The Last of Us or the Knives Out franchise: premises that can be teen, but were chosen to be more intense and serious. You can definitely have extreme themes here as long as it's handled in a moderate way. Porn generally does not go here but that isn't a hard rule - most romance novels belong in mature.

Explicit - for EXPLICIT CONTENT ONLY. If it's not straight up porn or Dead Dove then IT DOESN'T BELONG HERE. "Fuck" is not enough for something to be explicit, nudity is NOT ENOUGH for something to be explicit. Slurs, gore, and SA on their own ARE NOT ENOUGH TO BE EXPLICIT. Intensity and detail all need to be EXTREME before it's something that needs to be marked as explicit.

OF COURSE you have personal discretion, OF COURSE customs differ between fandoms and audiences, but if i see ONE MORE FIC marked as explict for the F-word or some basic violence I MAY SCREAM.