Reviewer: It Was Me Signed [Report This]
Date: April 30 2024 10:13 PM Title: Chapter 15 - Breaking, and Entering

Again, I wouldn't worry about taking so long between chapters. We're not entitled to your work, and our expectations to see it at a particular point and time certainly shouldn't supersede whatever you have going on in your actual life. Hey, if it makes you feel any better, I'm pretty much three months from the last time I updated my story, too, so you're keeping pretty good company!

As for the leaving us hanging from that cliff for three months, I just figured you were a master of suspense!

I also find myself wondering what part of this chapter you weren't happy with. I think it turned out pretty well, particularly when there were some tricky descriptions that I feel were pulled off with amazing detail (a lot of them taking place inside Stella). I also found the building tension in both of the dire situations driving this chapter to be gripping and, well, tense. So, as a reader, I was quite happy with the chapter. Then again, having become pretty familiar with your work, I think you have higher standards than I do, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised that you're a bit hard on yourself.

Regarding the chapter itself, I have to start with Chae-Won. I can't remember how much I've mentioned this before, but her extreme sense of entitlement may make her an even more despicable villain than even Stella, and I love that about her. I mean, at least Stella knows she's being a bitch (hell, she seems to feed off of it), but the Korean beauty has actually convinced herself that all of the terrible things she's doing and intends to do moving forward are completely justified.

It would be one thing if that justification was somewhat understandable, like the classic "misunderstood" or "relatable" villain, but that's not the case here at all. She feels justified simply because, in her mind, she deserves to be a part of this project, and how dare Melissa, a student, be allowed to help with Claire's shrinking solution (I wonder what her reaction would/will be if/when she finds out it was actually the other way around and that it was the "prideful" student who actually made the breakthrough).

I also love how Chae-Won just assumed that they took short-cuts and that the tech is only half-finished despite having no actual knowledge about the project itself. She did have a legit point about security, though ...

And then there was that cold viciousness she showed in breaking Jen's leg. Even when she second-guessed the decision, it seemed more like she was mad at herself for feeling the pressure of the situation than actually sorry for hurting Jen. And, of course, once she saw that the leg healed itself, she deemed learning about that little side effect more than worth the mistake in the first place. She may be sloppy, but Chae-Won has a lot of the traits I look for in a good, old-fashioned bad guy (or girl, in this case, although bad girl usually has a different connotation).

I also liked Missy, out of all the people at Chae-Won's mercy, was able to keep her composure and coming up with a decent plan. Yeah, Jen kind of screwed things up a bit, but I can't really blame her for that. Titty mostly just yelling obscenities the whole time fit with her pretty well (and, in another scenario, I could almost see her enjoy being tased). And poor Dick didn't even get to find out what was going on before he was plucked away like a flower petal. Well, at least he was conscious, unlike Livy. That's going to be a rude awakening.

Also, I'm ultimately glad that Missy's plan didn't work out. Not that I was rooting against the tinies, but it almost would have seemed too convenient if they had just so happened to find a way to stow Richard away for Claire to find later (which might have made for a fun scene, admittedly), and despite Chae-Won's sloppiness with this whole thing, she would have come off as completely incompetent if they were able to pull that over on her. It also wouldn't have made sense for her to have given them the kind of time they would need to do so.

Still, it would have seemed odd if Missy hadn't come up with something to try, so, again, I'm glad that she did, even if it didn't work out.

On the other side of the secured door, Kim continues to be my new favorite character in the story. I've harped on Kim having a natural take-control mentality for a while now, and to see that culminated here was pretty satisfying. Like I said before, she doesn't necessarily look to boss people around or crave control, but it seems to just come naturally for her. That passive dominance even extends to when she's dealing with giants, and the way she was able to get Claire's head in the game both at the end of last chapter and the start of this one fit her character rather well, I think.

Then, when she was inside Stella, risking her life and putting herself in just as much danger as Tara, she was still able to keep her confidence, keep her head and improvise, and even provide comfort to Tara, who, again, was in the exact same situation as Kim herself by that point. Even during the darkest moments of the whole ordeal, we saw that sense of control over the situation only start to crack, which shows vulnerability on her part but also that her commanding presence is truly a part of who she is rather than a façade or defense mechanism.

I thought this showing by Kim contrasted really well with Claire's own handling of the situation. It had since been made clear that Claire's stoicism was a veil hiding some deeper emotions she would rather not face head on (her feelings for Titty among them), and seeing her composure break down and her struggle to keep cool enough to play her part in the rescue was, in an odd way, refreshing. It felt like we were finally getting a glimpse at the real, unfiltered Claire, even if said glimpse came at the most inopportune of times.

I love that she somehow lost her shoes and immediately gave up on trying to figure out what happened to them. I love her scatterbrained thoughts while trying to simply retrieve the extraction device. I love that she couldn't remember which way the storage room door opened and that she screwed up the code to the back room once. Like I said above, that frantic response was the polar opposite of Kim's, whose own life was on the line here.

That's not to criticize Claire, far from it. Kim's poise was unique and rare among most people, I think, and watching Claire messily do her part helped illustrate that. It also shows how much Claire values life, as the source of her panic was the thought of them dying rather than something terrible happening to her directly. In other words, it demonstrates just how good a person Claire is.

Now the question becomes, How do Claire and company figure out what happened to everyone else? I could see them assuming Stella might have something to do with it and "interrogating" her for real or Aidra coming back online to provide the vital clue/back up. Hell, I wouldn't be stunned if Claire just naturally assumed it was Chae-Won and went from there.

I could also see Victoria stepping in at this point. I've already noted that I think that, at least in some ways, she will be seen as the "real" villain by the end of the story. But, in other ways, I don't think she's villainous at all (at least compared to Stella and Chae-Won). I don't know if she's so smart that she anticipated most if not all of what is happening right now or if she was just monitoring things through Elise the whole time, but I feel pretty confident that, if nothing else, she's not going to let anything too terrible happen to her little sister and she surely had some safety precautions of her own put into place before sending Stella to muck everything up (I'm still clinging to that theory).

Lastly, I have a question about how the shrinking solution works: How does the solution distinguish between swallowed people and food? We know it has to shrink digesting food when it shrinks a person, otherwise Dick would have been ripped apart from the inside by those sex-spiked gummy bears Ronnie was feeding him before he went down himself. So how did the solution "know" not to just shrink Kim and Tara to a microscopic size as Stella was shrinking herself?

I don't ask this to take away from the tension of the scene (which was pretty intense), but I'm legitimately curious about how that works.

Oh, lastly lastly, when I was saying things I love about that Claire segment, I forgot to mention the bosom bed. That they went so far as to create things like that to go along with this grand idea is awesome!

Author's Response:

Thanks for the kind words!

I know I may not be obligated to post - I suppose this isn't a Patreon, after all - but I do recognize the disappointment and frustration that come from a writer positing a timeframe for the next chapter, and then shattering it like a table setting that's had the table cloth pulled out from under it by NASA's shuttle crawler.

As for what I wasn't happy about with this chapter, it came from a few places, not the least of which is my unhealthy obsession with alliterative description.  mostly, though, it comes from an incomplete view of Chae-Won as a character.  I have a solid grasp of her as a plot device, but as a character, she's a little less cohesive.  Writing her is like diving into a fresh gallon of neapolitan ice cream.  You start with some sharp, bold vanilla, then before you know it she's darker, like chocolate, but maybe not quite as rich.  And then, next thing you know she's an aggressively sweet but artificial strawberry.  I feel like my characterization of her is more of a dismally brown, melted morass, even if that is mixed with a bit of villainous Korean professor who will happily put me in my place.  For another example, I couldn't get Chae-Won's interrogation of Jen to work for me.  Cutting it down to exposition might have been the right call in hindsight, but wiring it just felt off, no matter how I approached it.

Touching again upon Chae-Won, I approached her character through the lens of a twisted center of responsibility backed by ambition, and reinforced by a desire for completion defined in part by an expectation of human fallibility.  Her mindset regarding the shrinking solution is that it is powerful, and important, but no one person - even aided by an ambitious grad student - could possibly get something so powerful, so world-altering right by herself.  It is Chae-Won's responsibility, as the most capable person in the vicinity, to make sure that the shrinking serum is completed, without fault or defect.  The fact that doing so would support her career and finances only enhances that feeling of responsibility into ambition, and the willingness to act.

You brought up Missy, and I have to say that I absolutely enjoy writing her.  On the one hand you have Missy, the tiny, adventurous redhead who just wants to act out until someone puts her in her Livy's warm, wet womanhood - I mean place.  Puts her in her place.  But that's the intimate side of Missy.  The side she presents to those she hasn't let in is Melissa, the strong, confident daughter of the Vane household.  She's a woman who was strong and compassionate enough to forge her own trail with her love beside her, even after she's already climbed the obstacle course that leads to a steady position on the peak of the mountain.

I feel a bit sorry for Titty in this chapter.  The poor succu-girl is having her mind blown by the three lovers writhing inside her vagina, even as a fourth lover is humping her labia even as she pushes the others in and out like a dildo.  And while Titty's in this breathless state of bliss, Claire-Bear's bitchy coworker comes in and tries to kidnap everyone to be used as guinea pigs or lab rats.  In Titty's enviable - erm, in her restricted and distractible position, I doubt I would have faired any better in communicating my point.  Which would probably have been, "Fuck off and let my pussy pals get back to fucking my brains out."

I'm glad Missy's plan, and its subsequent failure to get off the ground, made sense.  Melissa isn't the kind of person to take a bad situation lying down, but as a tiny, eight inch tall sex toy, there's not much she could do, even against the somewhat careless Chae-Won.

I'm really glad Kim is so likeable.  I may have a lot of emotional investment in Titty, and Missy, and Livy, and Jen, and... well the whole cast.  Still, Kim is the character I feel is closest to my ideal person.  She's strong of spirit, but not aggressive or particularly assertive.  Still, when she speaks, people listen.  She's fun and competitive, without being absent or combative.  She's kind, and caring, without being needlessly self-sacrificing.  Yet, when shit hits the fan, she's willing to put herself on the line to save someone she'd seen for all of a few seconds, if for no other reason than that person had been threatened, and Kim was the one who could help.

Claire is a bit of a contrast to Kim.  Not in a bad way, just in a less healthy way, I believe.  She's rigid, and controlling.  That has helped her stand tall in life, but she's never really developed coping methods for things that fall outside of her control.  That makes her afraid, and that fear may fuel some darker, more primal urges to deal with an unpredictable threat in a permanent manner.  That feeling of being out of control may also, in some small way, contribute to why she has yet to confess certain feelings to a certain bubbly, pink engineer.

Regarding Claire's next hurdle - finding her missing friends while caring for and protecting a traumatized pair of inch-tall women and restraining or dealing with a dangerous third - you raise a good question.  Can they solve things with the resources on hand, or will she require outside assistance?  Is it time for Victoria, or at least her agent, Elise, to step in and impose control on this chaotic enterprise?  I hope you enjoy the answer, and I hope it's at least a bit of a surprise.

As for your question about how the shrinking solution works, this was described way back in early September, or Chapter 3 - The 200 Ld. Sexbot in the Room.  While Livy and Missy are spending some amorous alone-time together, Missy shrinks down, and the solution's effects are described as the process runs its course.

In summation, the solution is a composite of several chemicals.  When it enters the stomach, it induces an aggressive digestive cycle, dumping in stomach acid that reacts with a second molecule in the solution, which drastically increases the acids potency.  A third chemical reacts with the stomach lining, helping it protect itself from the super acid, though this part is imperfect, and the stomach lining is typically healed in the shrinking process.

After the stomach's contents are liquified, the stomach contracts, forcing the nutrient-rich bath into the intestines, where the bile is rapidly absorbed, and the nutrients distributed throughout the body.  This has the dual purpose of both clearing the stomach of material that would cause problems for an imminently tiny tummy, as well as providing fuel to the whole body to support the shrinking process.  Within a couple of minutes of ingestion, the stomach is empty and the body begins to shrink.  It may be less time if the person has a naturally efficient digestive system and high metabolism.

As the person shrinks, their body becomes more resilient, and their cells ability to multiply and respond to damage is drastically increased.  Oxygen needs drop, and the body is, for all intents and purposes, under the effects of a mini super soldier serum.  As another side effect, the stomach stops producing normal digestive enzymes.  Instead, it is closer to saliva, optimized for breaking down sugars for easy digestion.  This protects inchers who may end up swallowed by a foot tall tiny, though even an incher in a normal stomach would fare fairly well, as the stomach acids aren't powerful enough to outpace the tiny's healing.  Though, the sensation of being broken down and instantly healed might be discomforting, to the point of being considered torture.  Hmmm...

As for your last point, I'm glad that tickled your fancy.  I have a small laundry list of inventions Titty made that just don't seem to have a great spot to be showcased.  Yet.  I am hoping to get a bit more use out of a couple of inventions in the next chapter.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to write these incredibly analytical and detailed reviews.  I really hope I can continue to deliver the goods to an enjoyable standard.