You know, I'm starting to think that maybe Emma really doesn't like Hazel's asshole.

I say that half-jokingly, but this was the second time we've seen Hazel put her back there under protest. Maybe that's just a game they like to play. Or maybe Hazel thinks its a game and Emma just gives up and feels like she has to go with it (I can't see Hazel knowingly forcing her back there or to lick her asshole, but I could see this being some sort of misunderstanding). I don't know, I might be overthinking this a bit, but Emma saying she didn't want to do something involving Hazel's ass in two separate chapters is something that just stuck out to me.

I love how in denial of his true feelings Mateo is. He can't accept the fact that part of him liked being pushed around by Beth, and now that he's tiny, it makes sense that he can't afford to keep thinking there's a good person behind behind her tough-girl persona. While we know how Beth really feels and that he'd actually be perfectly safe with her (at least from intentional harm; she doesn't always seem to know her own strength), he has no idea and therefore feels like he can't give in to this obsession. Knowing where his feelings about her are (and having a pretty good idea where her feelings for him are as well) at this point, the anticipation of that first encounter between Beth and downsized Mateo has been masterfully built up, and I can honestly say that I have no idea how that's going to go down or what's going to come of it in the short term.

Emma's reaction to finding out he wanted to date Beth, especially wanting to have a one-on-one with him to try to berate him out of these feelings, fit her character perfectly as well. She's such a lovable in-your-face character, that it would have felt weird if she hadn't tried to intervene. That's especially true given the way Beth talked to and even threatened Emma in the first chapter (even though the audience exclusively has good reason to believe that Beth would never actually hurt a downsizer). It also felt right when she missed Mateo's uncertainty about the idea of dating him someone else ending these "nightmares" for him; she seems the type that, once she gets an idea in her head, that's just the way it is and there's no convincing her otherwise.

The only minor issue I had with this chapter was not getting to see Hazel's reaction to Mateo's revelation about wanting Beth as a girlfriend. It certainly didn't hurt the chapter to omit that, but I was already pretty curious how his "guardian angel" was going to react when she found out, so I was slightly disappointed that we didn't get to see her reaction at all. That being said, the transition from that moment to Monday morning in Hazel's pocket came off pretty smooth, so I can't complain too much!

I do want to back up just a bit and once again acknowledge how awesome Hazel is! I mean, it takes a special kind of friend to watch you cum in the palm of their hand (even with pants on) and then ask you what they said or did wrong when you run away in shame. Not only that, but when she found out what the problem was, she felt a little guilty for having sex with Emma in front of him, like she was taunting him or something.

Maybe part of that is because Mateo is downsized and there is obviously a sexual component that comes with that; I'm not so sure she would have been cool with a full-sized Mateo cumming in front of her, even he did it without using his hands like he did here. That being said, we at least know that him being a DSer doesn't make him completely excused from sexual scrutiny from her, as she was only cool with him hanging out in his back pocket as long as he was respectful (which I thought was a good thing, since that was yet another example of how she didn't view him as less than a person after shrinking down).

In any case, I found her reaction to that interesting. Her tease game is also on point, as usual.

I was also wondering how you were going to get Hazel away from Mateo at school, as seeing Beth and Tricia at his new size would have been a lot less fun (for us, anyway) if Hazel were there to act as a buffer. Having the corrupt principal trump her with logic and passively threaten to ruin her relationship with Emma worked perfectly in that regard. And while he'll still end up with Hazel for most of his classes, I'm sure there will be some time in transition between those and the DS only classes for some sort of confrontation (or who knows what else).

Speaking of Principal Sullivan, what a great villain she'll make. I like how her sizism is so different from Tricia's. Whereas Tricia despises DSers (or at least she was conditioned to do so; I still think those complaints she had about them sounded too adult for a high schooler to come up with naturally), Carol simply doesn't care about them at all. All she wants is for them to "know their place" and she's fine with them. Of course, what she considers "their place" to be isn't such a good thing, given the way she ignored and idly played with Mateo before finally addressing him. It just bothers her when the little people annoying fight for those pesky rights of theirs (students and parents alike, it seems).

I'm still not sure if this is better or worse than Tricia's hate and ignore approach (which I'm sure will be different with Mateo, although I'm not sure how yet). Obviously, Tricia wouldn't let a DSer explore her body the way Carol let Mateo explore hers, but that can also make the administrator more dangerous in some ways, especially with how easily Mateo is able to be manipulated through his dick. And now that we know that she is doing questionable things with downsized students in detention, just how far will she go to keep the DPS off campus?

And as far as the DPS goes, a private company is in charge of enforcing downsizer rights? And the downsizing companies are more involved with them than the government? I know I said before that there seemed to be some dark undertone to this whole downsizing thing, but this is straight up shady. I'm still not sure what's happening behind the scenes, but if there was any doubt that there was something weird going on, there certainly isn't anymore.

Lastly, and backtracking slightly, I have to wonder if Mateo's libido issues are just part of the downsizing process or if there's something else going on with him. I don't remember him being this much of a horndog at full size (then again, we barely even saw Tricia and him together, so who knows what they got up to). If this is a side effect of the shrinking, I wonder if this is something permanent or if it will wane a bit over time and he'll be able to control himself a bit more after a while. If not, I can see all sorts of ways that he's going to get himself into trouble!