Date: December 16 2024 9:32 PM Title: Titaness
I'm guessing that Cassidy is somewhere well north of a hundred feet at this point, maybe hundreds of feet at this point. I'm also guessing it was Derek who feel off of her body and landed in the dumpster (maybe dead?). Also pondering as to what happened to Emily at the end of this chapter. Given the end of Cassidy's point of view and Emily's point of view, I'm inclined to believe that Cassidy unintentionally, unknowingly just crushed her friend, but maybe I'm wrong and it was just a close call brush with death. I get the feeling that Cassidy is gonna unintentionally cause a lot more destruction in the coming chapters, as much as I'd like for her to stay generally gentle, even though she's in a semi-inebriated and state with back-and-forth mood swings.
In any case, this was an amusing chapter all around.
Author's Response:
Thank you for the review! And yes, because this is a story written from the first-person perspective, the heights are a little unclear. Realistically, a college student can't look up at a giant person and deduce "Wow, she's 150 ft tall now" (not saying that's her height, just a hypothetical). Even during Cassie's first growth spurt, the only estimate of her height is that she's roughly double her previous height. But is she 10ft? 13ft? 15ft? You get a few points of reference, but it's hard to say exactly and that's on purpose. I am paying close attention to the scales as the story develops and using some conversion tools to make sure that the bodily dimensions conform to what's realistic, but we're going to have somewhat ambiguous scales going forward. Even if a height is offered, you should probably assume that the narrator is working with an estimate and not take it to be an absolute fact.
Likewise, the developments of the story will remain somewhat ambiguous. Some details are a lot more subtle than others and characters can only testify to what they witness. And dead men/women tell no tales! At this point in the story, it's kinda unclear what the fates of Derek, Emily, and several of the unconscious party guests are. Neither Cassie nor Annie seem to think any of the guests in the house are dead, but can we really rely on that? It's just their perspective and neither one wants to think that Cassie killed anyone, nor are they checking anyone's vitals. Throughout the story, we see little conflicts between the perspective of characters as they interpret events differently and have access to different information. For instance, Becca seems to think Emily is ditzy like Annie, but we can see that Emily is actually very academically intelligent, as evidenced by her wordier POV chapters, her knowledge of obscure topics, and the revelation that she's a straight-A student. Perhaps Becca thinks this because she is a stoic person who regards emotional girls as stupid. Maybe she only sees Emily when she's flustered because Emily is attracted to her teammates on the volleyball squad and seems to be repressing her sexuality. It's open to interpretation.
Other minor examples that won't spoil anything: Emily only realizes Cassie's clothes are growing with her during her second growth spurt, despite Luke pointing it out in a prior chapter because Emily wasn't there when he said it. Ronnie amusingly dismisses Luke's observation as men being superficial, but Emily (who is not a man) later recognizes it on her own, although she is attracted to Cassie. Emily also refers to Derek as Cassie's "ex-boyfriend" despite Cassie and Derek getting back together (sorta) in the backyard because she didn't witness it. There are tons of details in the story that I'm actually paying very close attention to that will inform the writing going forward. In fact, I caught one writing this chapter because Cassie grows with her eyes closed, but I originally wrote Emily recognizing it was Cassie growing through the roof when she saw her eyes. So I changed it to "eyebrows" (and implied she saw more of her as she grew) since her eyes should still be closed. XD
It's up to the readers to formulate their own interpretations until they receive additional information contrary to their beliefs. I will offer, however, that there are hints within the story suggesting at objective reality. You may notice some words or phrases repeat around similar events or some perspectives line up with one another. That's not me running out of ways to write things, that's a deliberate parallel. I'm not going to write 6 perspectives for each event of the story, but you may notice in different chapters when one character repeats something another character already observed (it's happened a few times already). I mean, the Cassie perspective of this chapter and the Derek perspective of the previous chapter are massively different despite covering pretty much the exact same events. However, you can probably take a few differences in perspective for granted. Like Cassie keeps referring to people as "little," but we know that in fact she is large. She may perceive herself to be talking normally, but other characters may perceive her speech to be slurred. Or in the most recent chapter, Cassie thinks she's speaking at a normal volume but it's clear from Emily's perspective that she's much louder.
Finally, I don't want to spoil anything about the direction of the story because I'm quite proud of the plot I've written, but we are dealing with what I would consider a "semi-aware" protagonist. It's clear from Cassie's POV chapters that she's a very intelligent character, but the influence of alcohol (and something else we've only gotten a slight hint at so far) is messing with her emotions, judgement, and memory. She seems to be prone to making leaps in logic that aren't quite rational and her impulse control is definitely diminished. I can say (because I hate this trope) that Cassie's character will not fundamentally change. She's not going to decide "I'm an all-powerful goddess, it's time to destroy everything and demand everyone worship me." I have nothing against those stories. Power can corrupt people and a cruel or ambitious person would absolutely use such power for their own ends at the expense of others. But that's not what this story is and that's not who Cassie is.
Anyway, thanks again for the review! I'll probably post the link to the forum again with the next chapter in case anyone else has questions or wants to discuss the story further.