Friend or Foe: Breakdown.

I first would like to thank everyone for their positive reviews and critique, I've been thinking about writing a story of my own for sometime after reading so many awesome ones for a few years now. But, this was the first time I acted on it and I enjoyed the process far more than I thought I would. Special thanks to  Stubbornstain, Carycomic, and Afroking for reviewing most frequently.

Sequel:  * Spoiler, skip if you don't want to know* As far as a sequel is concerned, I am currently writing chapters for one much more meticulously than this story with some new characters. I also am jotting ideas for another story as well with a completely different plot and characters. I'm not sure if I'm going to start uploading chapters for them one at a time or upload them both then update them back and forth.

It was pretty much a basic plot, but I wanted to focus more on the characters more than the actual circumstances of how Franky shrunk. Here's pretty much my take of my own story, feel free to pass along if you're not interested, or read with your own thoughts of the characters.

Franky: The main protagonist of the story of course. An aspiring college student and employee found himself being shrunk by Maddison and had to find the means to get back to normal.

The main feeling I wanted to put in him was desperation, even though the course of events in the story happened in a little over a day, his feelings of helpless-ness and desire to return to normal make that day feel like a year. Although he is no where near as complex as Maddison or Liza his feeling of conflicting emotions when it came to wanting to accept Maddison even if she was most likely going to kill him in the long run. And wanting to believe in Liza even though he wasn't sure if he could trust her.

He sadly found himself being the scapegoat in both Maddison and Liza's plans being manipulated by both of them on several occasions to the point where he felt he needed to try to do the same in order to get back to normal. Unfortunately everything ended up backfiring on him and his lost chance of being restored drove him over the edge, which didn't go well for him to say the least. In a way he became a product of his own destruction.

Maddison: The main antagonist of the story. Definitely the most multidimensional character which stems from her difficult social background. Throughout the story some hints were given that she was mentally unstable, such as her medicine cabinet, Franky calling her a lunatic, psycho, etc. 

It was a bit difficult to incorporate her gentle and violent attributes, so one of the ways to do that with her "games" in which she would pit her shrunken victims in physical games that they would be at massive disadvantages at. It would've been too contradicting for her character to just brutalize someone and then turn around to nurse them later. So the games thus were to avoid her from appearing like a hypocrite, to which in Maddison's mind she finds the games as an excuse to do what she wants in " competitive spirit".

A big factor for her was her social inexperience in thinking she can befriend anyone she wants by shrinking them, and even baiting Franky to being her best friend despite barely knowing anything about him. Even though her scientific side isn't shown too much despite her background, she is a very good psychologist using her mighty frame in comparison to her shrunken subjects to intimidate them to her whims. Although socially inept she does have some awareness to her attractive looks, using them a few times to captivate Franky. 

As far as her 'old friends' go it was intended to be a running topic to give Maddison a creepy taste and leaving Franky wondering  how dangerous she was. I considered mid-way having Franky discover a half-dead person who was one of Maddison's old friends. But, I went a long with Liza to fill the role. All in all Maddison is a chaotic villain, but not all bad. When her background was more explained in Supper Time, she basically wants to love and be loved.

Liza: I questioned having a third major character in this, being my first story I wanted to keep the characters limited and most of the events centered between Franky and Maddison. To keep things from getting dull and more realistic Liza was added. Without her it would've been pretty hard to write how Franky would find a way to escape without any help.

Liza was the most difficult character to write since I didn't know what kind of role I wanted to her to play, she found a good niche in being a third-force. She always went about tempting Franky into going through with his ideas, and persuades him in more ways than one using her words or body to subdue him. Even going as far to tease him for a quick laugh.

She did find herself to be attracted to Franky, but I wanted to also make it apparent to question if Liza was in it to help Franky or herself. Being the hardest character to write she became my favorite, and ultimately it is her fault for Franky's escape plan failing.  Liza is also the one who gives the title of the story the most relevance.