Reviewer: sandman579 Signed [Report This]
Date: August 03 2021 6:20 PM Title: Ravenous

Hmm, I actually want to speculate and play the devil's advocate that there might be enough grey area stuff on Jisoo's mom revealed so far that maybe Jisoo has her pinged all wrong and what she went through as a baby was done to protect her. We learned that China and Singapore have full rights for shrinkies and Korea seems to have something similar or at least far above the American system, which I suspect is somewhat related to being power bases of the Chen Family/Amarita Company. I'm still suspicous that the family Matriarch Baochia Fang is still alive and kicking and her guilt over possibly having a hand in the Dimunition virus over 100 years ago is driving the Amarita Company to flex some of their political pawn power to give the surviving generations of specks some human dignity back.

Anyway what if Jisoo's mom shrunk Jisoo with the serum shortly after having her and leaving her with her trusted friend or actual father of the child, Byung-ho, in Korea where specks had some decent rights because she feared some kind of power struggle between her and her siblings, cousins, and nieces/nephews was coming up? Byong-ho literally chose to keep Jisoo instead of flushing the speck down the toilet like his wife demanded under threat of leaving him and it ruined his life and reputation in the process so he had to have known about Jisoo's shrinking and a desperate plea to protect an infant from her mother would likely carry more wight under so much pressure then a vague threat. Until we get some of the missing crucial details I'm willing to doubt. Shrinking her daughter and abandoning her just seems to be way too random and likely to fail to be part of an organized scheme or plot. It carries the taste of being a sudden desparate move to hide her daughter from someone.

 

Such as 1. Who was it that approached little speck Jisoo to tell her who she really was? 2. Why does her adoptive father and sister hate her and see her as a monster? 2.5. Are they still alive? 3. Did she see her mother commit atrocious acts or get coerced into participating, or is it all relayed stories from Grace and her othe family members?

The quickest way to prove her mother is an evil bitch is to make her the one who shows up one day to tell the truth to little speck Jisoo and offer the chance to rejoin normals, at a price. the price being to prove herself, her loyalty to a mother she's onyl just met. The best way? Kill another speck. Maybe kill a random one before being given an immortality peach or special syringe. Or be restored and held at gunpoint under threat of being shrunken again and personally crushed by her mother if she doesn't crush a speck. Maybe to really hammer it in her mother shrinks Byung-ho and Tae and orders her to kill one or both of them.

I'm debating this extreme reunion being possible since Jisoo kind of gives statements about Tae in the past tense that give me a red flag about ehr already being dead. She talks about how much she respects and admires Tae, but in the past tense and if you respect someone so much you take their name when immigrating to America why would you act like respecting them is something "in the past".

Finally what if Jisoo never actually met her mother? What if Aunt Min or a famly member tracked her down somehow after her mother died at their hands and were either altruistic enough to restore her and take her under their wing or ordered by an elder like Baochia Fang to do so? Maybe it's because I've got some misgivings about the family since I still think Fang was around in the past to have a hand in the Dimunition virus and Grace show how casually the family corrupts governments and whimsically murders anyone and everyone whose a mild hinderance, but I think the family's got some much shadier and malignant things going on. They weaponized the shrink virus into a newly active serum dammit! What if she was given the family account of how the black sheep daughter tried to ruin or setback poor Great Grandma's super humane world takeover scheme?

 

Somebody conditioned security executive Jisoo to be an assest for the company, particulary her sexual pleasure she gets when torturing a shrinky. Given that Grace also enjoys tormenting shrinkies, I'm not ruling out tht Jisoo got some conditioning to see the bad in her mother and ignore it in her other famiyl member. Until we get more storytime alongside Eren or some more past reflection inner monologues straight from Jisoo about things her mother did and why her adoptive sister called her a monster and doesn't speak to or see her anymore, I'm willing to suspend ruling in that her mother is the monster that made her.

 

P.S. I'm having a bit of confusion understanding whose who in the family tree given it seems to be very multinational and with some possibly perpetually young=ish members because there's one line that describes Jisoo's mom as "the daughter of the woman who changed the world" and another as "witch that tried to destroy everything my grandmother and Grace's great grandmother did to fix it". Is Baochia Fang Jisoo's grandma and Grace's great-grandma or were you describing two different women. Because of the immortality peaches I can see some age shenanigans going on like Jisoo's mom being able to wait an extra 20-30 years to have her daughter since Grace is supposedly the 4th generation to Jisoo's 3rd but they are around the same age.

Author's Response:

Very interesting hypotheses! You'll have to see but you are on the right track. So without delving into too much spoiler territory, to clarify the Chen/Fang family tree I was describing two different women. One of whom, Baochai Fang is Grace's great-grandmother. The other woman in question is her sister; Jisoo's maternal grandmother. Min Chen is one of Baochai's several grandchildren.

The family tree I think right now is especially confusing because neither Jisoo nor Grace have stated many family members names aside from Min, and the actual age of many characters has also not been revealed either but that information will all be provided later to make it more clear. 

Reviewer: InscrutableDjinn Signed [Report This]
Date: August 02 2021 7:17 PM Title: Ravenous

A decent chapter and continuation of the story. I like the world building and subtle additions that leave the reader wanting to know more. The chapter title of "Ravenous" is an odd choice. There's no vore elements as one might expect, and aside from the brief mention of Eren's old speck life and their lack of rations nothing in the chapter fits with it. I still look forward to reading more though.

Author's Response:

Hey thank you for the feedback! I chose 'Ravenous' in reference to the feast that Eren, Tae and Grace have for Christmas dinner, and also because of the way Xiangling looks at Claire. Every chapter of the story has to begin with the letter R (there is no reason for this other than by coincidence the first few chapters did this and I just went with it lol) and since this was a Christmas dinner focused chapter I went with that.