Reviewer: Curvograph Signed [Report This]
Date: October 03 2019 4:20 PM Title: Redux Chapter 17 - Forever

Both versions of "Growth Potential" strike me as some of the best stories around. While I am generally skeptical towards alternate endings and different versions of the same story, I have never minded you doing it due to high quality of final results. That being said, the story is yours and yours alone; you should never feel pressured to cater to any reader's needs. Hence, I will not comment on any plot-oriented matters, only the technical ones.

1. Language & writing - you are a skillfull writer, the story flows smoothely with very few exceptions (about that later).

2. Character development - done well, an improvement over its alternate insallment.

3. Coherency - the plot follows the established laws of the universe, characters act in a believable manner, given their background and views.

4. Overall quality - very good.

Weak spots:

1. The beginning feels like the redux is not an independent story and assumes the characters to already be known to some extent.

2. A little bit rushed ending; the epilogue part could probably be a bit longer and paint the picture of a post-Heather world in greater detail.

All things considered, the story is still within my top 0,1% stories of all time.

Looking forward to your next project,

C

 

Reviewer: Mr_M Signed [Report This]
Date: October 03 2019 11:45 AM Title: Redux Chapter 17 - Forever

Well, here we are again, at another ending to this great story. I can't say enough how this has been one of my favorite stories, enough so to make me come out of lurking to regularly give my thoughts, and now, sadly, we are at a point where this may be the last review I'll ever have the pleasure of giving you. 

First off, this last chapter by itself: I wouldn't say perfect, mostly due to it feeling slightly rushed and kind of ending abrubtly, but basically the actual events transpiring happened in a satisfactory way. I knew something was up with the absorbed memories when Heather started thinking Jason SHOULD have been the god and how his reign would have been "perfect". I assumed this was because these... were Jason's toughts. (No shit sherlock) Of course HE thought his reign would have been perfect, he either didn't think of the negatives his taking over would bring or just ignored them, and thus Heather did too as she just saw and felt the positives. Ben figuring out and unraveling how everything worked expanded on that wonderfully, wrapping everything we've learned into a nice little package... but at the cost of the whole "Everyone's souls can be brought back." option being gone forever. Poor Mark... 

Focusing more on that, and assuming the "Goddess" and "God" alt endings from the original story are indicative of how their reigns would have ended up in THIS timeline, one could argue that Jason WOULD have been better. When Heather was in charge she only killed when there was resistence, or at least that was the only time worth mentioning, but after a thousand years or so, she wiped out humanity by absorbing them so it was just her and Ben forever. Jason on the other hand, basically started eating and crushing people right off the bat for no reason other than his own pleasure. In the first cycle, this clearly made him the worst choice since, eventually, he would have run out of toys or left the population so sparse and far from each other they would either be unable to repopulate themselves or result to some intense inbreeding. In THIS version, however, he would just bring people back, as Heather put it in 'Reign' "The fun doesn't have to stop." But even this is dystopian as thanks to the pheramones Jason would be brainwashing everyone to LIKE being killed for him, to WANT it like in the original version... or at least he would, if this final chapter didn't establish that the copies are just that... copies. SO I guess whether Humanity actually lives on under Jason depends on how you see the people he would have reformed after having his way with them. In the alternate future where jason won, there would still be this planet called earth, full of people who if you asked would say they are humans, who could recount all their little memories, but there would always be something off. They would lack subtley... *Twilight Zone theme plays*

P.S. I need to also remind myself that while Heather kept killing to a minimum in the old timeline, in this one she was basically doing what Jason did on a bigger scale, since the added powers allowed her to be more uninhibited. "Releasing the beast" so to speak. That said, the same would have probably happened to Jason.

 

Now then, let's get to the story as a whole. I suppose we should begin with something I've griped on in the past, and that's the ratio between who got more focus: Heather or jason. Of the 17 chapters of this iteration Jason and "Jason" comes out at 12 chapters where he has focus as a giant while Heather comes out with a measly... 12! Yes, despite my bitching of this being more "Jason's story" earlier you actually came out giving them an even number of chapters... but not even focus. This is a giant couples story in the end, so of course they would share chapters, but usually Heather's chapters have her either overshadowed by, smaller than, or downright had the focus stolen by jason. In fact, there's only about three where she comes out on top without loss or sharing the limelight, meaning Ben ended up interacting more with Jason than he did with his own girlfriend. Now, you've actually been kind enough to elaborate on this more both in the final End Chapter Notes and outside the story, making this more palpable. You wanted to be more subtle by having Jason as this antagonisitc force who had his tentacles in everything, his contant overbearing nature overpowering Heather's building up to her finally wrestling control from him. That... happened. However, unlike the first story where you had more freedom, this time you had a sort of deadline, so you didn't have the luxury to take the time and explore things, making some plot points more subtle, and ultimately gave up on entire sections that would have made the story stronger. Personally, I think you had a damn good reason, but it still hurt the story, at least in that while it still ended up good, it could have been better.

With that out of the way, I want to talk about the things I liked. To put it blunt, this is porn. Most people came to read freaky sex to satisfy their freaky kinks. But I'm also a nerd who likes me some good world building, so something that this story had over the other in my opinion is how the titular "Growth Potential" worked. I'm sure there were points where you were making it up as you go along, but on the whole it's a pretty good system, and slowly unlocking more powers as your GP "Levels Up" was more entertaining than the "Suddenly become Omnipotent at a mere 500 ft" like in the ending chapters of the first version. It's a system that could make for a great RPG! This system is the reason why even though I think the first story is superior and better written, I probably had more FUN reading this one, as my previous reviews bouncing around theories of how the Growth Potential powers worked would show, and would feel gleeful whenever something I guessed ended up being correct, or at least close to it.

Another good point was heather's character. In the original there was no real development with her character. She started off as this sweet, fun-loving girl, who just happened to have a kink implanted into her head by her mad scientist mother where she wants absolute power over the whole planet. She even seeme almost innocent, as Jason would guide her into how to handle shrunken people and she would try to take to it, the sexual thill taking away her ability to consider how Ben feels about being treated like this. We see her sort of degrade over time as she can't get Ben to worship her the way she wants, but in the end just kind of snaps back to how she was originally, the God and Devil alt endings not withstanding because she was basically drunk on pheramones. Here, Heather that's still basically true, but it's how she reacts to Jason. Before, she could see him as a sort of mentor figure because he had experience handling tiny people before her. Here they were supposedly starting on equal footing, but with Jason actively trying to maintain control and be on top. Instead of seeing him as someone to learn from, this kind of gave off the feeling that she was in his shadow, something she was fine with at first because it was hot for her, but as Jason kept increasing his growth potential and monopolizing Ben while she couldn't due to refusing to eat people and being called away, her insecurities built up untill finally she could no longer deny what was going on. Unlike the previous Heather, this allowed this heather to sort of snap back like a rubber band, endulging in her "inner beast" instead of remaining relatively controlled for a millenium. Ultimately, this Heather felt more dynamic, like she had more going on with her character, which is always a nice plus.

And of course... there is AJ. Like I've said before, I love this woman. To the point where I basically based one of my own characters on her and the copy of this story I have on my computer has Corporal Dawes' name replaced with my own. I loved how she took to being small in the last story, though her dedication to Jason solely seemed weird since her past with Ben seemed like she would have tried something with him. In fact, back when you were first starting the alternate endings I think I misread you saying there were going to be FIVE endings instead of four, and naturally assumed there was going to be an AJ ending where she basically ends up with Ben and had all sorts of sizey fun with Heather and Jason are in, like, an antfarm or something. You later revealed that there was going to be a fifth one but it would have been about Ben "the Athiest" but hey, a man can dream. It's good to see her have her spotlight here, but again, I'm a greedy bastard so if you give me an inch of AJ, I'm going to want a mile. Lots and lots of miles of AJ...............

 

...what? Sorry, kind of blanked out there. In summation, you've given me and many others a fun ride, and even if you never write again I'm at least satisfied it's because you're leaving us for your own, personal Goddess, and I hope the two of you are VERY happy together. I'm sure we'll never get to see another epic like this... but this kink isn't so hard to get rid of, so should you ever get the writing itch and and decide on putting out some short little vignettes I hope I'm lucky enough to see them.

From your very satisfied reader: Mr. M

 

 

...but what WAS the deal with Ben's Pocket watch anyway...!?

Author's Response:

Wow. A lot of really good feedback here, the good and the bad, I appreciate it all. I’ll try to walk through your points in order:

So yeah, we could easily stretch out the last chapter into like, five more chapters. I’m pretty comfortable with its length, at least on the rationale that to bring the story to a soft landing would probably take at least another month of writing, and it’s super time consuming. This story in particular is, since I constantly have to keep character motivations consistent (in a short story who really cares). 

To Ben’s whole point about memories vs souls, he’s a hard materialist and doesn’t believe in souls in the first place. Even if a person could be “resurrected” with perfect fidelity, I’m pretty sure in his eyes he would argue that continuity of consciousness has been broken, and that is a real person that is distinct from its identical and deceased predecessor. Sort of like the classic Star Trek teleporters being essentially suicide booths. All the evidence points in favor of his case, but of course this is a fantasy story and the physics of Growth Potential were intentionally vague. Maybe the souls live on somehow. But I’m leaning toward they don’t. At one point I even thought about solving the whole crisis through time travel, but then I was like... Wait wait wait... I hate time travel. Poor Mark.

There’s another issue with literal souls being trapped inside Heather or Jason that, if I went this route, would get really complicated really fast. Because every time they released those souls and brought people back to life, wouldn’t they be diminishing their own power at the same time? Then power dynamics get really weird and even more unstable than they already were. Could be fun and interesting but also draws the story out waayyy too much in my mind.

I did, however, really like the idea that Jason was actually alive and working hard to take control of Heather’s body. But then everything gets super weird from there. Shrug. There are always fun paths to take a super open ended story like this.

It’s been a while since I even looked at the original, but I don’t think Jason eats anyone who doesn’t want it. In “The Devil” maybe something like that happens but that was like a zombie Heather/Jason rather than their true selves. I dunno. I forget things. 

Yeah. Your idea about constantly recreating generic human clones for Jason or Heather’s amusement was really where this story was headed, but it just felt super bleak to me. I like it, but it didn’t feel quite right.

Jason does pull a lot of focus, and I’m OK with that. I regret not giving Heather more time, of course, but I’m also pretty happy with her arc. Most of the story she actually sucks. It’s really not until Chapter 13 - Devour that she redeems herself, but she does so in a big way and to me she earns her title at the top. The other thing is, Jason is just so relentless in exerting his power over others, but if Heather started out that way she wouldn’t be a very sympathetic character, and I really wanted to sympathize with her while also making her the destroyer of the world. On a more meta level, M/mf stories are scarce and there’s a lot of space to be explored in how men and women wield power in different ways. That said, Jason’s really the only entry I care to make in that field. 

Gotta admit, women are way harder to write than men. That shouldn’t come as a surprise in hindsight. Even sophisticated men are pretty blunt and clear in their motives. Women are complex creatures. I know in 2019 that’s sexist to say or whatever, but it’s the damn truth. 

I’m glad you like the first story better than this one, seems most people are the reverse. I’m pretty indifferent. There were just a lot more avenues the story could’ve taken, so I figured what the hell, let’s go ahead and do another round.

The Growth Potential power system is super vague in this one, and I’m happy with that. I think if I spent half the story explaining how the system works, it wouldn’t have been as fun.

As for Heather’s “beast”... Umm.. I don’t wanna put a label on it but I feel like she’s got some undiagnosed personality disorder. Jason too, actually. Their screening process for the Growth Potential program must’ve been pretty terrible.

Yeah AJ’s fun. Glad she won. She was the only adult in the room anyway.

So. Ben’s watch. Boy, if I could do the first story over again, I’d take that whole thing right out. The backstory to that (there are a few different variations I thought up) was Ben was in a card game years back. Some rich asshole sits down, talks shit, Ben slowplays him and busts the guy out. The guy lays his watch on the table to buy back in. Ben wins the watch. The guy flips. The next day Ben has the watch engraved “To Ben, my good friend” (or whatever it said, don’t bother going back to check). The guy returns, tries to buy it back from Ben, but walks away defeated realizing that Ben had fully marked it as his. It was supposed to have been emblematic that Ben’s always been this little guy who people underestimate, attempt to push around, but he’s fucking ferocious and cunning when he wants to be, and he pushes back twice as hard. At least, in version one of the story. In Redux, he gets broken to the point where he just doesn’t even care anymore. Note that we’ve no indication Ben even wears a watch in this story.

Another item on the list of “Things I wish we had more time for.” Ben actually had a pretty well developed character in my head, but he barely got the opportunity to show it. In the final chapter, you see how fast his mind works, but we don’t really learn much about him. Oh well. I’ll always find things to pick apart, but this story was never really designed to withstand much scrutiny. As you say, it’s porn!

Hey. Glad you enjoyed. It’s super special to me that anyone would read this story and become invested in it. It was fun to write for sure. Thanks dude!