[Report This]Date: May 20 2023 4:04 PM Title: They're Coming to Get You Barbara!
Heya Green,
I really like your characters and world-building here. The smut is very vivid too. I've always been a sucker for the more villainous Gts's. So I'm interested in seeing how the power-hungry cheer captain (which is a great touch of absurdity by the way) is going to enforce her rule on her subjects. Either way, it looks like your cooking up quite the conflict.
Nice work.
Author's Response:
Thanks! Yep the Cheer Captain is reminiscent of plenty of zombie movie villains, she's the real monster lol.
Date: May 18 2023 12:31 PM Title: They're Coming to Get You Barbara!
A giantess zombie story? I don't think anyone has done something like this before. Props for doing something original.
“Now you listen up!” Celia snapped, rage coming over her features as she slapped the desk angrily, “I’m running this monkey farm now! It was me who saw the potential in fortifying the mall! It was me who got rid of those bikers who were in here when we arrived, and it’s me calling the shots, got it!”
Nice Day of the Dead reference.
Author's Response:
Lots of day of the dead references in this one lol, glad you're enjoying it. I almost didn't write this one because the concept is so out there, but then I figured hey, why not?
[Report This]Date: May 17 2023 9:30 PM Title: They're Coming to Get You Barbara!
Thank you, thank you, Greenanon.
This is a well-written, great story!
Author's Response:
Thanks! I almost didn't write this one because of the crazy premise, but I decided to just push through.
Date: May 12 2023 12:02 PM Title: They're Coming to Get You Barbara!
I feel you trying to balance out Zombie apocalypse genre with your "gentle stories" vibe. Must be hard. That survival was pure plot armor if I ever seen one.
Author's Response:
Admittedly it is a little hard because I don't want to get too gory or go full tilt into despair or anything, but both of those are kind of hallmarks of the zombie genre. Barb certainly has some protagonist power going on lol.
[Report This]Date: May 05 2023 2:38 AM Title: They're Coming to Get You Barbara!
I wouldn't sweat taking longer to get this last chapter out, especially if you were still putting stuff out there at all. I don't know that I've seen a lot of writers here put out multiple story chapters and/or one shots in a week, and as a world-class procrastinator, I find that to be pretty impressive. Also, it may have been a longer wait in terms of when the chapters in this story have been released, but it didn't really feel like a ridiculously long wait, either.
I've gotta say, Celia made a really good point when she talked about Romero's pizza. The next time I get delivery, I'm getting pepperoni and extra social commentary.
I'm also finding myself really worried about John at this point. Yeah, he's got a great thing going with Barb (and their interaction in this chapter was heart-meltingly sweet) but between the Walking Dead and Dawn of the Dead direct references, it's becoming pretty clear that this story takes place in some kind of zombie genre nexus. That means it's only a matter of time until Leon shows up, and when he does, John is done. Even if it's a tiny Leon (maybe especially if it's a tiny Leon), Barb has made it clear where her heart really lies.
But man, what a cliffhanger ending to this chapter! Going into the chapter, I didn't expect Celia to turn on Cassie OR try to get rid of Barb quite so soon, but given how this chapter played out, it made sense (at least from her perspective) to do so.
I've been raving about how good a villain Celia has been from the start, and she showed why here. I almost feel like she was trying to convince herself as much as Cassie when she said that the squad needed a "bleeding heart" like Cassie, but as soon as she found out that Cassie really had feelings for Peter, there was no going back. Even still, letting Cassie have her moment with Peter was about as kind of a thing as you could expect from someone like the good cheer captain, a "going away" present of sorts to show that she really does think of her as a friend, despite what she's about to do.
I think Celia made a mistake, though, trying to take out Cassie and Barb (and Peter, or course) at the same time. She probably assumes Barb can't do much because of their high school days. This could come back to bite her (or someone might actually get bit).
And it was nice to see how far Barb has come. She's gone from getting nervous when someone asks her what she's planning to do to trying to look for openings to escape and trying to figure out where the guns are. It seems like the old her would have probably just resigned herself to being a "fucking pizza girl" for the rest of her life (or until the power went out), hating it the whole time. Now she's telling bullies to go to hell!
After everything that Peter has been though and with the way that the relationship between Cassie and him has been set up in the previous two chapters, that smut scene they have together is particularly satisfying. Peter's hesitancy is understandable, given everything Celia has done to him, and the way that he let go of all that once he knew that he wasn't being forced into anything provided a nice bit of nuance to the scene.
Of course, the smut itself was pretty good as well, but the backstory going into it made it so much better.
Rhames continues to be an intriguing character. I didn't watch the Dawn of the Dead remake (I swore off remakes of Romero's work after watching the shitty '90s remake of Night of the Living Dead), so I really have no idea what to expect from him. Obviously he's out to take care of himself and he doesn't care for being labeled a house tiny, but I'm still not really sure exactly how his character is going to shake out.
Again, I love a good cliffhanger, and I'm looking forward to seeing how this all plays out next chapter.
Author's Response:
Your reviews are always a gem to read. Glad someone got the Fulci's vs Romero's pizza joke.
Anyways yeah Barb definitely has a crush on Leon from the RE games, luckily for John they're nowhere near rural Spain lol. As far as Barb herself goes yes she's come along way, I really liked the overall message and character arc of Shaun of the Dead and so we're repeating it here a little with Barb. She's fought real monsters, she's got someone to care about, a lot of the passiveness and lack of direction is gone, yeah she still doesn't have the head for the bigger picture stuff, but she's not ready to lay down and die.
Peter kind of was a sticking point for Cassie, along with Celia's attempt to let Barb die, that kind of broke the spell that everything they were doing was okay. Celia is at a point that a lot of zombie movie antagonists get to, where her brutality and leadership skills let her survive and even thrive in the early apocalypse, the long term picture is starting to look uncertain. The dust up with a close friend and losing her tiny crush's affections (no matter how forced they were) is a blow to an ego that's been pretty heavily inflated by all of this, still I think it took her a bit of time to come to her decision to get rid of them.
So for Rhames he's based in appearance and mannerisms on Ving Rhames Dawn of the Dead 2004 character, though it's worth nothing that Ving in that movie was pretty heroic the whole way through so there's a deviation. As far as the Dawn remake goes it's a good movie on its own but it's a pretty poor remake of Dawn of the Dead, I recommend it and it's one of my favorite zombie movies but it's also very much an action flick, so don't go in expecting the same gravitas as Romero's, it's a very different movie overall once you get over the zombies in a mall concept.
[Report This]Date: April 26 2023 10:10 PM Title: They're Coming to Get You Barbara!
Barb did a double take, the corpse of Mrs. Smythe, her old landlady, was dead in front of her
I'm not really much of a pun person, but this one … this one got me. Well done!
Also, Night of the Living Dead, Zombieland, AND Metal Gear Solid references all in the same chapter? What?! That Zombieland one was brutal, too.
And right off the bat, this chapter shows that Peter's concerns about Celia's leadership from chapter two (the ones about food, power, and water) are legitimate. Even though those particular issues don't come up, the way she handles the new arrivals has me convinced that the mall group won't last more than a couple weeks with her in charge. She made absolutely no effort to evaluate the skillsets of anyone she brought in to see what they can contribute. Of course, almost all of the tinies are all relegated to nail work, while her fellow giants are forced to show team spirit or face the unbearable punishment of mall employment.
That's not a complaint, mind you. It makes sense that she's not practical, and her introduction to the new arrivals showed off her bubbly demeanor and delusion while giving the new West State University Cheerleading recruits a peak at her dark side. I'm still really loving her as a villain.
I'm also interested to see how things shake out with Rhames. I don't think we have enough information to see which side he ends up taking (once there are sides to take). There seems to be a sense of respect between Celia and him, and if he thinks she's his best chance of survival, I could see him going her way (based on what little we know about him so far).
The banter between Barb and John continues to be charming and fun. Also, in Barb's defense about Leon, if you look at the history of Resident Evil, groups typically don't do very well. You usually only end up with one or two people left anyway. The president was probably just trying to save some time!
But it's still really endearing to see how tight the two main characters have become in such a short amount of time. Chapter one Barb certainly wouldn't have been confident enough to be so assertive (and she also likely would have been worried that John might misread her playfulness for actual coercion), and I think John would have found that assertiveness less sexy and more terrifying early on.
That little heart-to-heart they had was nice as well. It's kind of sad that Barb sees herself as a loser, but that just makes her building herself up through John that much more satisfying at the same time. And it's nice to see that she's having the same effect on him as well.
But most impressive is that their progression just feels natural. Compliment each other, indeed. If your other stuff has character development this good, I really need to check them out!
The forklift plan worked a lot better than I thought it would. It continued to show why Barb is such a fun protagonist, too. And while Mrs. Smythe may not exactly be a Bub analog, she comes pretty close in her brief time in this chapter. I wonder how her Aunt Alicia is doing?
I have to admit, I was a little surprised at how fast Celia came to rescue there at the end of the chapter. When Cassie went out to save Barb, I thought she was either going to find herself locked out and forced to find another place to escape to or be made to sweat it out until the last possible second. At first, I thought maybe Celia did it because it would be a bad look to let one of their own die in front of the rest of the cheerleaders. Then I thought maybe it was some weird parallel between Celia and the zombies, as in much like how Mrs. Smythe still craves rent, the cheer captain warlord still maintains the same loyalty she had for squadmates in the old world.
And then, once they were inside, Celia darkly reminded Cassie to call her by her title instead of her name, and something clicked for me. I think I had previously underestimated how much Celia actually likes Cassie.
I hadn't realized until that point that Celia had let Cassie get away with calling her by her name while on duty during their conversation on the roof (I know Cassie called her Celia in the last chapter as well, but I figured that Cassie was off duty since she was getting her nails done). It also seemed as though Celia was almost trying to make an effort to suppress her anger when Cassie called her out about Peter, and it was like Celia was trying to convince her to see things her way, which is vastly different from the treatment nameless cheerleader received for suggesting they try to contact other people in chapter one.
I'm starting to think that Celia sees Cassie as an actual friend (or as close to a friend as someone like Celia can actually have) rather than just a subordinate. She even shortened her name to Cass once, which gave that conversation a more personal feel than any other we've seen from Celia so far.
If Celia does feel that way, this probably doesn't bode well for Peter. Between Cassie standing up for him and those glances they shared (which I'm sure Celia could plainly see), he may make the unpleasant transition in Celia's eyes from crush and source of entertainment to bad influence pretty quickly.
Or I could be reading way too much into all this. Either way, it'll be interesting to see how the relationship between the two girls plays out going forward.
And finally, the long awaited (three whole chapters) confrontation between Barb and her former bully. It was nice to see John sticking up for Barb, but hopefully they've seen enough to realize that they may not want to let Celia know how close they've gotten. Otherwise, the mall might be offering a two-for-one bullying special, as abusing John would surely get to Barb as well.
Then again, this could be a good chance to find out if Barb's newfound confidence has staying power or if she reverts back to her self-defeating attitude as she has to endure who knows what from her old enemy.
I wonder if will Barb get to go through tryouts or if she'll be immediately relegated to mall worker (or something worse).
Author's Response:
Your reviews are always a treat to read. Yeah Celia certainly has strengths as a leader, she's got a loyal and well disciplined group and she's also ruthless and quick thinking, the problem is she's also going off the deep end and thinks the cheer squad is a great model for a new society.
Barb and John haven't had much time together, but life and death situations and the bluntness of the zombie apocalypse speed along those relationships you might say. Personally I like giant and tiny characters that compliment each other in some way, I'm not sure what, if any, of my other stories you've read but I do try to show character and relationship arcs over the story. A lot of people think my story One Year Lease is pretty good on this, and if you review any of my other stories I'd love to hear thoughts about them!
Rhames is a reference to Ving Rhames' Dawn of the Dead character. He's obviously not loyal enough to his fellow tinies to try to help them out too much, he and Celia have a weird respect thing because they recognize that they both have to be somewhat harsh to get respect in this world, Celia might be "big" relative to the tiny characters, but she's still a pretty cheerleader, like Rhames said she'd have to understand certain things to be able to be in charge in this world.
On Celia and Cassie yes Celia and Cassie are close, or were before the end of the world, and it reflects in how Cassie is able to talk with her more informally than the other cheerleaders get to. Cassie's breaking point in this chapter was actually a High School of the Dead homage of sorts, Celia's rescue is both because she can't be seen to abandon one of her own and like you said Cassie is a friend, although how long that will last is now very much up in the air.
Obviously nothing good awaits our heroes in the mall under Celia's rule, Barb's grown up a bit, but Celia's also not the same preppy bully she was either.
Date: April 20 2023 8:40 PM Title: They're Coming to Get You Barbara!
United horde? Do they share one mind? It would be the worst case scenario. I think in most apocalypses zombies can attack other zombies
Author's Response:
This story is kind of going by the rules of the George Romero movies, zombies in that series aren't quite a hive mind but they do have residual memory and they also have some way of transferring knowledge between them that isn't fully understood. To give an example the survivors in Dawn of the Dead had a secret hideout inside the mall behind a fake drywall they built, when one of them got turned he quickly led a very large horde of zombies back to them, similar stuff happened in the other movies, there's some kind of pack instinct at play, one character outright says "it only takes one of them to know you're in here." In this the giant and tiny zombies are aware of each other, and the giant ones try not to harm the smaller ones. You might say this was a relatively peaceful/gentle mixed size society before the apocalypse, so most of the giants probably are very careful around tinies as a rule, whether that's an instinct they remember from life or something deeper is up in the air.
Date: April 20 2023 12:48 PM Title: They're Coming to Get You Barbara!
Interesting story idea. Post apocalyptic neet was definitely not something I was expecting haha. I wonder how the group dynamics will change going forward in the cheerleading cast of characters.
Author's Response:
It's an out there premise but the more I thought about it the more I realized a zombie apocalypse gives a lot of plot induced excuses for some of my favorite stuff like protective giantess and clothing entrapment lol
[Report This]Date: April 18 2023 5:56 AM Title: They're Coming to Get You Barbara!
"Yeah, they're dead. They're all messed up."
First and foremost, I love the chapter name!
But yeah, this is a really good idea. I don't believe I've ever heard of, let alone read, a giantess zombie apocalypse story. This theme has so much potential, and you've already tapped into some of it with the tiny zombies being such a problem for the giant side of town. Multi-sized zombies is definitely something new to the zombie genre.
Barbara and Johnny, err, John are a fun pair of main characters to follow. John is a furnace of ambition, which contrasts really well with Barb's NEETness. I also really like how the size disparity between the two weighs on them both a bit in the early goings of the story. I mean, it makes sense that John is going to be nervous in the presence of a giant (especially when he watched her flatten several him-sized zombies in a single step), but it was interesting to see Barb's concern that her size might intimidate him when she was propositioning him. I think that says a lot about her.
Of course, thankfully, they both needed a good fuck, so it didn't end up being an issue, but it was still nice to have some insight into her thought process.
Oh, and if Barb was so concerned about John turning, she probably shouldn't have put him in her boobs before the bite check. Of course, she's a NEET, not a survival expert, and there were obviously an ulterior motive to the check itself, but that's the kind of mistake that can get you undead in the dual-sized zombie apocalypse.
I'm also really loving the zombie genre references that are littered in the story so far. I agree with Barb that groups generally don't do well in these situations, and I would think that the fact that they're next destination is a mall would bring up some red flags for her, too. Although it's good that the cheerleaders have already run the bikers out of the mall; they're not so good to have around in a zombie apocalypse, especially in a mall.
And Cheer Captain Rhodes has become a really compelling villain in a very short amount of time. Her need for absolute authority, even if it means zombifying her coach and refusing to even try to find a means of escape; her casual domination of her tiny crush; and her special blend of sadism and bubbliness are all intriguing. It's both creepy and kind of hot how quickly she can go from angry or serious to stereotypical cheerleader demeanor. Her power trip even has her making her fellow cheerleaders dressing up as cheer soldiers; how cute (and fucked up) is that?
Overall, this a great start, and I really look forward to where this goes. Also, I hope that Barb doesn't get a shitty camera angle when she reaches the next screen at the end of the hall.
Author's Response:
Glad you're enjoying it so far, yeah I was thinking about all the genre mashups I've seen on this site and I thought a zombie apocalypse thing might be kind of fun lol. Also it adds a new element, like tinies can't just fortify themselves because a giant zombie can come along and tear everything up like Attack on Titan, giants have tiny zombies that can get in just about anywhere. Also yeah there are a ton of references in this one, and Barb should probably know better than to head to the mall lol. We'll see more of Cheer Captain Rhodes and her squad, don't worry about that.
Also as far as Barb and the bite check, we're going loosely by Romero rules here so you've probably got a couple days post bite before you turn, a person who is looking relatively lively probably isn't in imminent danger of going undead... then again you're right, not a risk worth taking to most lol.
Date: April 18 2023 5:03 AM Title: They're Coming to Get You Barbara!
Zombie apocalypse GTS story???? And it isn't even one shot??? That's the strangest thing I ever read.
Author's Response: Well we've got superhero giantess stories, sci-fi alien ones, fantasy adventures, so why not try a new genre on for size fun? It is weird but I'm having fun lol.
Date: April 18 2023 4:09 AM Title: They're Coming to Get You Barbara!
Exciting set up, and great intro to a fun world! Cant wait to read more!
Author's Response:
Thanks, we'll get to see more of the multi-size apocalypse in the next chapters.
Date: April 18 2023 2:53 AM Title: They're Coming to Get You Barbara!
Honestly I love the idea, sizey zombie apocalypses was one idea always floating around my head. Can't wait to see it more especially cause of Barb.
Date: April 18 2023 2:53 AM Title: They're Coming to Get You Barbara!
Honestly I love the idea, sizey zombie apocalypses was one idea always floating around my head. Can't wait to see it more especially cause of Barb.
Author's Response:
I can't recall ever seeing the setting used so I figured why not give it a try?
[Report This]Date: April 17 2023 10:01 PM Title: They're Coming to Get You Barbara!
This is looking to be great 👍
Author's Response:
Thanks, should be a fun ride