Ironically, you used a word that I had never heard before in your author's notes. I have never in my life had cause to reference more than a singular thesaurus, so while I don't need you to define it for me, thesauri is a new one for me.

Also, I love that your elegant, classy word defined in said author's notes shared a sentence with the term "fuck-filth," a word of equal class and elegance.

As far as the smut segments of this chapter go, once again you were as on-point with your descriptions as you were creative. That little "love triangle" with Missy, Titty, and Ronnie was really easy to picture, and the idea of Missy using Ronnie as a glorified strap-on while both being eaten out and working Titty's clit simultaneously was such an inventive idea that I would have ever thought of, let alone the idea of how you incorporated Jen and Dick into the mix.

Better yet, I thought the way you broke up each of those segments did a fantastic job of conveying Titty's scale to the little ones. For the most part, those at each section of her body got their own separate segment, which subtly made it seem as though each character (or characters in Missy and Ronnie's case) were in completely different locations, as opposed to just being in the same room, let alone the same body. This made Titty seem positively monumental by comparison. And with the Titty segments broken up between the Claire/Stella ones, I found the layout of this chapter to be quite clever.

You also captured that effect I mentioned above extremely well with the Tara segment and the start of the one directly after it. We were given a look at Tara's huge struggle to stimulate Stella and make herself known to the others, only to see Stella be into it briefly, then slightly annoyed, only to adjust her by rubbing her crotch on the chair. That made Tara's size seem more insignificant than any direct description could have. It was the literary equivalent of the camera slowly zooming out on Tara fighting for her life all the way out to see Stella absently rub her crotch slightly.

It was nice to not only check in with Tara for the first time since she was taken but get a bit of backstory on her as well. I was thinking she might be losing her mind in Stella's sex, but I was impressed with the way she was able to keep her mental state together despite being shrunk and turned into an inch-tall sex toy. It sucks that she has to deal with these traumatic events after going through so much shit in life already, but it was good to see that her past hardships helped her cope with her situation and continue to fight.

Also, Tara said my favorite line in the whole chapter:

I might not be into girls, but ... with a boss like Titty, I know my way around a vagina.

That must have been an interesting orientation.

Stella's game turned out even worse than I thought it was going to. I assumed the girl she bullied into killing herself would be one of the pictures she would be shown, but fuck, that story was rough. Pretty much all of the other ones were, too. You had teased up until this point that the would-be intern was a nasty person, but now I know that when you construct a villain, you go all out. I respect that. The complicated villain has her place, but sometimes you just want a good old fashion embodiment of evil to root against, and you certainly delivered on that front here.

I also both agree with and like Claire's assessment of Stella. She's not a master manipulator. She's not dumb by any means, but she's been able to pull off all of this terrible shit because society is quick to judge and doesn't ask questions. I mentioned before that I didn't think Stella was particularly great at thinking things through, and it felt good to see Claire (a character that has really shined these last few chapters, by the way) give me a bit of vindication here.

But as much as I like Claire, Kim is now my favorite character in this entire story (and that's saying something). We didn't get a ton of her this chapter, but the small streamer's gradually changing reactions as Stella revealed more and more of how disgusting she is mirrored my own pretty well (Claire's shock and concern for Kim and her safety fit her character really well, though). And then at that huge cliffhanger, where Claire was both literally and metaphorically choking, the way Kim took control of the situation and came up with a crazy plan that put herself in danger to save a total stranger was just awesome! I've been liking Kim for a while now, as you well know, but that was the moment where I realized just how much I enjoy her character. She just has that neutrally controlling demeanor about her and between that and her natural confidence, she just won't let panic get to her. It's really admirable.

Since I mentioned Kim, I have to say that I noticed that Jen was having more fun with Titty than I predicted she would, although she did still have Kim on the back of her mind. I think this makes sense, though, given Jen's youthful exuberance. She's focusing on what's directly in front of her, burying the unpleasantness that happened with Kim and the potential consequences of said unpleasantness. I think she would have felt hollow after it was all said and done, though (I say would have, because I'm pretty sure she's about to have some bigger concerns based on that cliffhanger).

Looking at Claire in this chapter led to a very interesting philosophical debate in my mind. You've mentioned a couple of times how this game would fall into morally questionable territory, and you were completely correct. So regardless of her intentions, was Claire morally okay to drug Stella and drag her darkest secrets out of her?

To figure out where I stood on that, I had to ask myself which is more important to consider in a situation like this: the moral values of the person an act is being committed against or the act itself? If I didn't make it clear above, I don't feel sorry for Stella at all. That she has been exposed and will face the consequences of her actions (no matter how the next part turns out) isn't something I'm going to shed any tears over. In fact, you could easily argue that society will be better off now that the dark truth about her is out there.

But, from a moral perspective, is it really about Stella?

Claire has used her knowledge of chemistry to extract information that Stella would have never willfully given under normal circumstances. Are we, as human beings, not allowed to have secrets? Or can only the "good" people keep their private moments private? Who determines where that line is?

Let's say that Stella wasn't a terrible, terrible person. Let's say that her answers were mostly pleasant and that it turned out that the suicide she caused was actually an unfortunate misunderstanding for which she feels incredibly guilty. Would that have made Claire's actions any more or less moral?

Ultimately, for me, it was Claire's actions and not Stella's deserving of retribution that dictated how I viewed the morality of the situation. I think Claire was in the wrong here. I don't think that makes her a bad person (it makes her even more interesting, though), and she does have good intent by doing this to Stella, but none of that changes the fact that she serious compromised ethical standards to justify this. That can lead even the most noble of people down a dark path, which I think we saw a glimpse of in Claire's thoughts after hearing the tale of Emerald Greene.

Claire actually begins to consider using the shrinking solution to "punish people like this in a manner they truly deserve," which seems like the exact kind of thing the Fab Four have been trying to make sure doesn't happen with their product up until this point. Yeah, she says that she won't do that without the consent of the others, and sure, you could argue that this reaction is more about just how much Stella's actions have affected Claire, but no matter how you look at it, even considering punishing those who "truly deserve" it is an ethical barrier from which there's no return once you cross it. Making yourself (or your group of friends) the grand arbiters of right and wrong, of who's deserving of such punishment, is a one-way ticket to corruption.

But even with everything else going on in this chapter, I found myself constantly thinking about one character, despite the fact that she's barely even mentioned in this chapter at all: Victoria Vane. I'm going to go ahead and double down on my prediction that all of this is part of her plan, even if the exact happenings weren't necessarily foreseen.

I started thinking about this again when we looked in on Chae-Won. You see, Chae-won isn't very smart when it comes to planning criminal activities. Her "brilliant" plan to just break in to the sex shop; steal the shrinking solution, Melissa, and as many other tinies as possible; gamble that the dean of her college is cool with human trafficking; and coerce Melissa to transfer ownership of the business over to her under duress is actually pretty terrible. Not terrible as in evil (although it's that, too) but terrible as an awful. It has virtually no chance of succeeding. Not only that, but she doesn't know how long the solution lasts, if a gun can even stop Aidra, (again) if the dean is going to accept her generous gift of tiny sex slaves and not report her to the authorities instead, or who the companies partners even are. Somehow, I don't see Victoria being cool with her sister being kidnapped and tortured, which could lead to a lot of trouble for the Fab Four Fluids' "new owner." 

Then I began to wonder if her involvement wasn't part of Victoria's plan. I don't think it would be too much of a stretch to assume that Victoria would have looked into other professors in Claire's department and put together some information on Chae-Won. And given what we've learned about Stella in this chapter, would it really be so crazy to assume that the would-be intern would find out about and try to use the disgruntled professor to her advantage? For all we know, Stella might have been informed on who Chae-Won was when she got her information on the Fab Four.

But Victoria would probably know enough about Chae-Won to know that she would try something stupid and likely fail, much like I think she's expecting out of Stella. And going back to Stella herself, I don't think it would have been crazy for Victoria to assume hearing about Stella's past would make someone like Claire consider some "alternative uses" for the shrinking solution.

Again, I'm not saying Victoria is omniscient and knew exactly how things would play out, but I don't think she has to in order to know that her plan is going to work. I think she wanted to create a situation that would cause the Fab Four to question themselves and their product and maybe even feel some guilt. Whether the end game is to put them in a mental state to want out of the business and give her sole control of the product or to simply bring them around to her way of thinking, I think getting in the Fab Four's heads is the ultimate goal here. And Elise is hanging around to get samples and whatnot, just in case things don't go according to plan.

I'm going to further predict that Melissa is the one that sees through that plan and keeps the Fab Four on the right path. She knows her sister well, and while the other three are wallowing in extreme guilt over Tara and anger over Stella (I'm really wondering how far they're going to go with her once things settle down), Missy is probably going to have the most clear head of the group (then again, she might feel guilt over the fact that her creation is what caused the problem in the first place, but I personally don't think she'll dwell on that too much).

But yeah, a couple of huge cliffhangers you've left us with here. It looks like we're going to find out whether or not Aidra is bulletproof (I don't know why she would be, but you never know). If she's not, the immediate future isn't looking too good for our favorite orgy. Take as long as you need before getting the next one out, obviously, but I'm really eager to see where things go from here!