I'm so glad you decided to leave me a review! And no worries about which chapter you leave the review on, I always try to answer all outstanding reviews prior to posting a new chapter. I absolutely love what you said and asked because as I've been writing and planning things, there have been sooo many moments where I've thought, "that would make an awesome spinoff, or that one, or that one!" As we build up the world, there are so many interesting perspectives that could be explored. I only wish I had an infinite amount of time to plan and write all of my ideas down haha! Anyways, onto your questions... I can confirm that yes, female criminals are also shrunk and dealt with like the males. In chapter 6 there is a reason Ms. Johnson was sent an entire box of males. One reason being that, because Ms. Johnson is a straight woman, naturally she finds playing with tiny men more fun. There is another (probably much more subtle reason that I'm hoping you won't be able to guess) reason though that we'll learn about later on in the story. The remaining questions you asked are much more complicated. I love these questions though because they challenge me to try and get them right! Really, these questions need their own story to fully answer and explore. I do want to answer these questions but I think I'm going to leave them sort of floating in the air and as the story moves along we might get a few natural hints that answer some of them. Depending on how soon I'm able to get to the end of this story (and we're still a long way off), I would really like to write spinoffs using this world. What I will say is that, yes, there is always someone at the other end of the technology who makes the decision to shrink someone. But it's quite a bit different than just walking up to someone in the street and shrinking them. Controlled is probably a good word to use here and you can probably make some assumptions off that. Like anything though, mistakes are definitely made. However, it often becomes challenging to appeal something when you're only an inch or two tall and you don't usually (if ever) know you're going to be shrunk as a criminal. You can only really assume that you will be, and that's only if you've actually heard that that's what happens. At this point in the world, there are a lot of grey areas. Who gets shrunk and who doesn't? What level of crime do you have to commit to be shrunk? Who actually knows about it and/or wants to put a stop to it? We'll sort of learn that people justify calling them disposables because as far as they know, they're horrible people. We sort of see this in the way Ms. Johnson speaks to them. Ms. Johnson isn't stupid though. Far from it. I take some inspiration from the death penalty and hanging that used to be done. Not because of the way people were killed but rather the motives behind doing it. Why did people even hang other people back in the day? Because they felt that was a worthy penalty for what they had done. Shrinking is sort of similar to that, with a little bit more. It's justifiable because people don't feel they're worthy to the world other than as tiny disposables. But then add on that governments wanted to free up jail space and save money. Then add on another level where the wealthy are willing to spend a lot of money on obtaining these tiny men because they're simply just plain fun. Justifying the existance of tiny disposables becomes easier and easier. At a point it becomes normal and they just blend into the world. That's sort of the beginning of everyone's motives, all of which have been scattered throughout the first 6 chapters. What point are we currently at? Well that requires either another story or a lot more chapters of this one :) I hope this sort of starts to answer your questions. I feel like I have answers to all your questions, but I really need to have them fleshed out in a story to be able to truly answer them and show what I mean. If you decide to leave another review in the future, please do let me know what you think of everything I just said! I'd love to be able to really chat this out and get your thoughts! I was really just thinking out loud in this response haha.

I also agree that Troy is an interesting character! I have a few different ideas for where I'm thinking his character could go, I'm just undecided on what path we'll pursue hehe. I'm not expecting him to become a main character in this story, but we will definitely see him again! Thanks for your review!

You all need to pay attention to the chapters that come before the new ones hahaha. But yeah, I've heard a few times that I should've been clearer about what they were playing. I figured that between the tight black short shorts, the number of players, and the net between the two sides it would've been enough lol. Anyways, I'll tweak that before I release the next chapter. The next chapter is gonna drop a few big bombs for sure. I'm really hoping that I can do this next chapter justice. I can not confirm or deny whether or not someone will die though. You're gonna have to wait and tune in!

Sounds like a cool game! I figured in just the way you word things and what you seem most interested in you're someone who might be working in the law and ethics field (hence why I guessed lawyer or law student!). I've heard so many people talk about Death Note and now you're another. I'm really gonna have to check that out.

I love that one comment you made and it's had me really thinking over the last few weeks. I've been trying to think of how I wanted to reply to that. I think you're definitely right, even though I wasn't originally intending on the world being a dystopia (to be honest I'm not even sure what I was originally intending in terms of world type), that seems to be exactly where it's heading (or has already become). And that's really had my mind working as I've been thinking of new ideas and tweaking others. It raises an interesting question of, well who is the dystopia for? Cause I don't picture the government having an iron grip on society and everyone fearing to step outside their doors. It's almost a mini-dystopia for men since they're now being punished for their actions (women too, but to a lesser extent). But at the same time I'm picturing it being more of a "hawk waiting on the branch" type world where the hawk is waiting for just the right animal to pick off even though there could be a thousand pass by. People can still do bad things to one another without being shrunken and handed off to be disposed of, but every once and a while someone will do something bad enough to justify someone stepping in and putting a complete stop to it. Cause we've heard Ms. Johnson explain a little bit about the world to the disposables and she makes the point of "the government is willing to consider even the smallest of crimes." But the interesting part about that line is we're listening to her from Troy's perspective and not seeing inside Ms. Johnson's mind. Cause besides Troy, so far we've only met really bad people who were turned into disposables. So it begs the questions again, what justifies being turned into a disposable and why was Troy shrunk? Is Ms. Johnson being serious when she says that even the pettiest of crimes will justify shrinking, or could it be something else? Sometimes it's well deserved. Sometimes examples need to be made. Sometimes there's a little more beneath the surface.

And yes, I'm definitely seeing criminals being more "disposed of" than "resocialized". Which comes back to the motive of at first they were shrunken and given a second chance, but then they saw just how badly the rich and famous wanted the tiny people. So who gets a second chance now? The origin of this world would definitely be a complex one and I'm not even sure if I have the answer to it haha. I definitely have a lot of rough ideas and a blurry picture, but I'm not even sure if I would be capable of writing a convincing origin of "this is how shrinking criminals started and grew into what it is now." There would be sooo much to unpack. We're sort of seeing shards of that origin story inside this one though.

I also love your other question about Ms. Johnson. This is absolutely something I've thought of for a long time (even before I started writing chapter 1 and was just starting to outline the characters and the story). The end of Chapter 1 (before we see her in present day) was a pivotal moment in her life but it was like the tv was shut off just before we got to fully see what Ms. Johnson's reaction was to the death of Todd. We only got to see a split second glimpse. That was the first (and perhaps only time) Ms. Johnson has ever actually lost someone she cared for. Since then they've just been meaningless disposables and test subjects. This question does not require another story to answer (lol) and you will get an answer to this in a future chapter. Lets just say that Noah (or maybe Alexis) is going to be speaking with someone who knows a lot more about Ms. Johnson than he and Alexis do.

Girls are fun though! And they just wanna have fun :) I can totally see why you would be feeling this way and you won't be the only one to be feeling this way for long. I've purposefully started the story off by introducing disposables first before we get into any major personal stuff though. We'll see if you can be convinced otherwise before the story is finished hehe. Who knows, it might be a back and forth pulling though and maybe that's what the author will be going for :)

I totally agree with the number of possibilities this world has to offer though! I know you said that you had an idea that you wanted to share with my privately and you still can. I'd love to hear it! Not sure if you saw, but in one of my other chapters I posted some contact methods. This review section works for me too though! Instagram: LittleLearningGTS, Discord: AprilMJ#7988, Email: LittleLearningGTS@gmail.com.

Thanks for your interest and support! Nighty night from Canada :)

The best advice that I can give is to just start writing whatever comes to mind. I’ve said it before, but I am certainly not a professional writer. This is the first story I’ve ever written before and I find that once you start writing, you start to figure out what works and what doesn’t. So even if what you write doesn’t turn out well or you don’t like it, that’s okay because you can take that and learn from it. It’s not like you get a failing grade and can never write ever again. I have quite a few “deleted scenes” that I’ve written but ended up not liking so I didn’t publish it. There’s even a lot of what I have published that I would rewrite and change if I ever go back. I’m not in the writing game for money or fame, I do it because I thoroughly enjoy it and it seems like other people do too. One thing that I find helps a lot is to picture the scene or chapter as a movie and play it over and over in your mind. Eventually the characters and scene can almost feel real and alive. Then you can take that “movie” and write about everything you see and everything the characters do. Essentially all I’m doing when I’m writing is trying to put into words what I’m seeing in my imagination. I don’t worry about grammar or spelling or any of that until after I’m all finished, because then I can go back and edit everything. 

That’d be really cool if you started to write a spinoff story from this one! Like I said, I’m not in this writing game for the fame, I’m in it for the fun. So feel free to take the world and the concepts that I’ve started and expand on it. My world “playbook” is still pretty small in terms of what I’ve actually published but I’ve got a lot of ideas written down for how I think the world operates. I find this world especially interesting because I think you could look at it from various points in time. So you could look at it just as the shrinking tech is being developed. You could look at the time this story is based in where the tech is still somewhat fresh but people are starting to know more about it. Or you could look further into the future where we’ve learned from trial and error what works, what doesn’t, and what kind of laws have been introduced to help moderate things. I like to think this world is constantly evolving through time and it’s not simply “this is how it is and how it always will be.” I recommend being careful if you end up using some of the characters from this story since I think there will be a fair bit of change by the end of the story. You can definitely reach out to me if you have ideas you want to share. My email is LittleLearningGTS@gmail.com and my discord is AprilMJ#7988. I’ve actually been using Discord a lot lately and that’s where I met my peer reviewer. So Discord might be best.

The relationship between normal sized men and women and what happens when a tiny person gets involved is definitely something I want to explore a bit. Your thinking is very similar to what I had in mind though. I’ve sort of pictured that for most couples, a tiny person almost becomes a “tool” for spicing things up at home. They already have each other so a tiny man is basically just a little toy. Single people are interesting because do they have an interest in normal people, tiny people, or both? And what do they think of tiny people? In my mind I think I have an answer to this that I’m going to try and show through the story but it’s not all brutal and cruel games. That is definitely out there since people do crazy things when they’re aroused, but there are also a lot of really nice people too. For a tiny man, it’s so critically important that you find someone who you can build a deep bond with (both for safety and for love). We’ve spent a lot of time focusing on disposables and how fun they are, but we’re about to start seeing what happens when an owner and a tiny person bond (aka a personal tiny). We got a few hints that Jaimey has one. Perhaps Ms. Johnson has one. Alexis? Maybe, maybe not. Ms. Johnson has started to show signs of bonding with her students. And maybe there’s a lovely couple out there who wants to buy a personal tiny for themselves but simply don’t have the money to do so and instead want a trial run… So getting back to your comment, yes, human desire is probably a huge problem for tinies in this near (for now) lawless world (regarding tiny people), but there are a lot of good people in the world who just want a companion (and if you can build trust with a tiny person, that’s pretty huge, amazing, and can lead to a lot of interesting things). Like imagine you’re tiny with your spouse, girlfriend, best friend, etc. To me at least, I don’t know how they could ever hurt you if the bond between you two is actually true. In my mind they would do everything they could to protect you. Another interesting spinoff story would be what happens if your giant partner decided she was bored with tiny you and wanted to pursue a normal sized man again (a fool she would be to leave a tiny man who loves her lol).

Poland? The Googleable fact helped quite a bit lol. Can’t say I know too much about Poland. I had a coworker who grew up in Poland and she had some pretty interesting stories. I do know that Poland has a really cool landscape and some interesting architecture that kind of takes you back in time to WW2. I’d love to visit Europe someday just because there’s so much history there.

As for little Trevor, his story hasn’t quite come to an end :) I can’t give away all my secrets before you read it though! Take care!

Glad you’re still enjoying it! I totally get where you’re coming from in your first two points because they’re things that I’ve spent some time thinking about myself. About your first point, take a look at the reply I gave TomSpeedy just before your review. It sort of outlines my thought process. Really how I’m picturing it is that yes, the boys have been traumatized by their near death experiences, partly because they know it was entirely self inflicting and their trust in women has declined pretty steeply. So although Ms. Johnson knows that she needs to reinforce the idea that what they did was very wrong, she also needs to be the teacher who brings them out of their dark places and renews their young, free spirits. What better way than literally giving them free rein over her beautiful body that no man could ever resist. I’m pretty confident that would be a pretty good first step and give them all a little extra pep. So then how do you follow that up and both punish them for what they did and build up their trust at the same time. I’m hoping I’ve got a solution for that in detention :)

As for Trevor, he’s probably the most interesting character of all that will be coming out of the changeroom. I picture him as having a completely new outlook on life. Something he now treasures more than he ever did. And perhaps once he gets past the initial trauma of interacting with girls again, he’ll be all in on life. My inspiration for him is sort of taken from those crazy mountain climbers who thrive in the face of danger. Mountain almost killed me one? Let’s conquer it and then move onto something even crazier. So I’m not quite ready to let him fizzle away yet :) After all, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger… sorry, that’s pretty cheesy haha. But the boys are also young and with that comes the ability to still shape yourself for the future. Teens are hard to keep down lol.

I completely get what you’re saying about the celebs and absolutely agree. I definitely wouldn’t make them main characters, or even supporting characters for that matter. It would be a very brief appearance just to reinforce the fact that, “oh man, this club really does serve the biggest and the best.” So we’ll see if it fits once I get that far. Weird is a good word. 

So I’m going to try and answer this from memory (without going back through my notes) but from what I remember the timeline is something like this… 10 years ago the world encountered a vicious virus that wrecked the world. It damaged more than just economies, ie. killed many people. So the world spent a fews years working on a cure to this virus that was on route to cripping us. Naturally one was found… but it led to the discovery of the tech that Ms. Johnson uses every class. Flash forward to 5 years ago and we pick up Chapter 1 with Ms. Johnson and her research team experimenting with the research tech. Although maybe not stated, but Ms. Johnson is one of the leading ladies on developing the tech. Accident happen, Todd dies by the hands of Ms. Johnson, and she’s left hurting because of it. 5 more years go by and we pick up in present day with Ms. Johnson and the boys starting the first semester of high school (the boys first, not Ms. Johnson’s first year of teaching). All we know from about the 5 years that passed between the start of Chapter 1 and the end scene is that Ms. Johnson settled down and is no longer working with her research team. I have my ideas for what happened in between but those are stories for another time :) Perhaps you can even start to see some parallels beginning to appear in places. 

What the story doesn’t specify is what year it’s set in. I have my own thoughts about that and it’s basically that we’re not that far from where we are today. The tech has certainly improved, but we’re not zipping around in flying cars yet. So my idea was to tighten up those 10 years and maybe say we’re only 5 years away from where we are right now (2022). That way the world and the people in the world are very similar to what we know. That’s the part I’m undecided on though… Do I want to tighten it up and specify the year or just leave it open ended. I like both for different reasons. Right now it’s still unspecified but can be estimated.

Thanks for your continued interest! It’s always fun to dive a little deeper and be able to explain my thoughts.

These are all very good comments and luckily I think I’ve thought about and have answers to everything. Some of which are only working answers though considering we’re apparently designing a pretty complex world. 

So I consider being a personal tiny a very very good thing. I picture it as being almost equivalent to marriage. On a scale of 1 to 10 where 1 is your enemy, 5 is a really good friend, and 10 is lifelong partner in marriage, being a personal tiny is an 8 or 9. It’s someone you love very much and would do anything for. Think of your most favourite pet in the whole world. You would do practically anything for it right? Within reason of course (and that’s the gap to marriage). So I would say that “work” is an interesting word because if you love someone to the point of wanting to marry them, of course you need to continue to “work” on your relationship, but it shouldn’t feel like work. It should feel like something that you just naturally want to do. So to answer your other comment, I would maybe suggest that a veterinarian or someone who studies and cherishes life would be a worthy candidate. However, if you form a deep bond with someone, you should feel entirely safe in their presence as well. You don’t marry someone with the intention of stabbing them in the back (unless you’re crazy lol). Now I would also say there are people who abuse their power over their tiny person, thinking they deserve more. But that’s just like abusive partners in our real world.

So disposables… These are probably the most interesting characters in the world because their backstory is so complex. Because there are so many interesting ethical and legal decisions behind them, the story behind these people will probably be forever developing. Financially, I picture (like you said) a whole bunch of savings in land, labour, and goods to house them compared to housing real life prisoners. But I also picture there being two other major incentives. One being an arguably safer world because they can’t escape (they’re teeny tiny). But another is that they sell for a boatload of money. I briefly mentioned in the story (Chapter 1 or maybe in A Night With Ms. Johnson… can’t remember) that celebs and the rich buy up these tiny disposables like crazy just because they’re incredibly fun to use. They basically turn into slaves. The ones who are masterful in bed or in the kitchen or in school are highly sought after. And the ones who aren’t can still serve some rather interesting purposes. 

Politics wise, we’re definitely building towards a very different world that was sparked by a virus that was far more lethal than the one we’re currently facing. It sort of gave this world a fresh start. My goal with the story has sort of turned from “let’s just write a fun story” to “let’s write a fun story and see if we can’t present some interesting thinking points too”. I’ve been chatting about the story end and the world with one of my peer reviewers a fair bit and I think I’ve got a pretty interesting world in mind. Definitely different than ours… but similar in a lot of ways too. Think “more extreme” in certain aspects. By the end of the story, I’m hoping to create a bit of a “what if” scenario that gets you thinking. Sort of, “what if the world did more of…” I’m still working on the details so I can’t really get too far into it yet, but I’ll leave you with the word “optimize”.

Submissive pervert is probably the real winner in all of this lol. I think most people would probably cherish one of those… I’d say the most dangerous person to be around as a tiny person is anyone horny haha. Whether it be a male or female, I don’t like the tiny’s chances unless that person has a serious reason not to harm them. After all, we’ve already seen what happens when a horny Ms. Johnson gets a hold of a group of disposables she has no connection to…

Hehe, Noah is certainly in a rather precarious situation right now isn’t he. That is the rather unfortunate part of his character though… he’s difficult to harm. We’re still early enough in the story that he’ll probably find a way back to safety, but his luck may eventually run out. We’ll have to wait and see! As for supernatural stuff, the most supernatural I think we’ll go is the introduction of the shrinking tech haha. I’ve always enjoyed stories that try to keep things realistic even when it’s not exactly possible to be realistic :) 

That is a very interesting question. I’ll have to put some thought into that since I’m guilty in saying that I’ve never actually considered that before. I can share my initial thoughts though… So I’ve more or less considered the act of shrinking a guilty person as being a binary thing. Either you’re sentenced to shrinking or you’re not. Which may sound cruel because that’s essentially a death sentence, and in a strong way it is. But we’re sort of building up this world in which a high population is less than desirable. So it’s actually a good thing in the eyes of those in charge that shrinking is binary because it’s keeping the population at bay. Which sort of leads into a much deeper plot of “what if the government forced the population to stay below a certain cap so that resources were plentiful for all and the natural world was allowed to recover”. That plot is ultimately buried deep below the surface, but how far will we go with that idea in this story? That I’m not sure of yet. But one way or another, I want to get “that” story down in words someday. This is almost like a practice story for that one. So to answer your question, my instinct tells me that once you’re shrunk, you’re shrunk. Your punishment has been served and it’s up to the world if you’re allowed to be regrown (and there are only so many who can do that). But regrowing is rare given the reputation that disposables have (they’re typically very bad people). Good question!

I completely agree that we need to work on developing some romantic relationships. It’s probably what I struggle with the most with writing because love is such a deeply complex thing. It’s actually incredibly difficult to create that natural bond between characters. I’ve read too many books that basically say, “and they fell in love”. But that’s not how love is supposed to be. It’s a deeply personal connection that two characters need to have. It needs to be shown, not forced and told. So through the next 40 or so chapters that’s something I want to try and explore between a few of the characters. But you’re definitely correct in picking out Ms. Johnson’s past in her speech. She’s definitely still got a lot going on that she’s working on figuring out.

Thank you for taking the time to read It, I'm glad everyone's enjoying the story so far. And no worries, I'll work on the proofreading.