Reviewer: It Was Me Signed [Report This]
Date: February 19 2024 12:21 AM Title: The Rematch

Wow. What a way to cement Jake as a real piece-of-shit villain.

That dude is straight up disgusting. Between dumping and ditching his girlfriend and what he tried to do to poor Lily, that guy is really easy to hate. His jerky demeanor was pulled off pretty well, too. I'm curious if he realizes that the shrinking wears off eventually. I mean, his ex probably is going to still have issues with him when she grows back, and I'm pretty sure Mike's going to beat the shit out of him. Maybe he's just too drunk to care (I'm kind of getting the vibe that this is just how he is, though).

You've really nailed the theme of the careless college kids not really understanding or even noticing what their smaller counterparts are going through. The way they all left Chloe and Mike on the table themselves, not even considering how easily someone could just take them, fit this pretty well, and the two tinies' reaction to it really made that point hit home. Also, the way Mia worded the distinction between "normal-sized people" and "tinies" was casual, subtle, and just a tad bit chilling (as Mike noted). I don't think she meant anything by it, but the subconscious divide is certainly something the you can't blame the littles for worrying about.

And also, the fact that the tinies had to drink the jungle juice because the big people didn't want to shrink shows this as well. It was a given that the bigs weren't going to shrink themselves, but they wanted to use the juice, so let's just make the tinies smaller. It's not like they could just pour a very small amount of beer from one of their cups in there or anything. I wonder whose idea that was to use the juice in the first place ...

Oh, and I love how my girl Chloe completely outsmarted Mike. That was pretty slick, and I'm liking her character more and more, even though she's only been in the last two chapters.

I like that we got to see both the worst and best in Mike and Lilly this chapter, and you were able to bring that out in understandable ways.

Lily dunking Mike and basically making him shrink was really shitty of her and it surprised me a little bit, but it makes sense that Jake would bring out the worst in her (even indirectly so) and that she would feel guilty about doing it. I also think its telling that Mike was so upset by the betrayal that he didn't even focus on the humiliation aspect of what happened (even though Jake did). We've all found ourselves doing out of character things for stupid reason before (or at least I have), so it was believable that Lily would do this, even if she hasn't been that way up until this point in the story.

Of course, Lily's true nature wins out in the end, when she refused to abandon Mike despite wanting Jake's dick all night and when she was willing to suck that creep's dick in order to save Mike. She's a sweet person, and while she did one bad (but probably not too terrible, at least from her perspective) thing to Mike to impress Jake, she wasn't going to be neglectful or cruel to her friend just to get the guy she wants.

She also could have just asked someone else to watch Mike for her, but I think she knew he wouldn't be comfortable with anyone else, so she ultimately put him and his situation first. It was a small thing, but the fact that Lily correct herself when she called Chloe and him tinies to say "person," despite the fact that Mike never vocalized how uncomfortable and dehumanizing it was when Mia said it, seems to show that they're on the same wavelength, so I don't think it's crazy to assume Lily could intuit Mike's feelings on that.

So yeah, the sweet, lovable Lily won out in the end, and that little darkness from her along the way made it all the more rewarding.

As for Mike, I think his extremely brief thought that Lily might deserve whatever Jake would later do to her was pretty natural. Again, I think we all think of terrible things in the heat of the moment (again, I hope I'm not just outing myself here) and then immediately regret them. He was justifiably pissed not just at what she did to him but that she did it to him (like I said before, it felt like a small betrayal of trust), but wanting her to be taken advantage of by a predator was out of character for him as well, and he reined that shit in real quick.

He just focused on the game and even gave her a high-five like everything was cool after that, putting the whole thing behind him. This showed that Mike is actually a good dude and really cares about Lily. It would have been really easy to hang on to that anger, but he let go of it because of his feelings for her. That's certainly a big contrast from self-centered Jake.

Mike being willing to stand up for Lily and put himself at risk was a big moment for him. It removes any doubt that behind that stereotypical jock exterior (like Jake), he's actually a good person who looks out for the people he cares about, and it was good to see. Also, I'm a big fan of tinies not being useless and finding ways to come through in the clutch, so I really enjoyed Mike's display of heroics.

I'm guessing it'll be pretty fun to see where these two go from here (they've got to be pretty close to getting past the friends barrier at this point, I would think). I can only imagine the kind of things Lily could do with a pocket-sized Mike.

And I was really glad to see Amy show some concern for Mike's safety. We haven't seen much of her, but from what time we have spent with her, she's been so focused on either her research or having fun that I was starting to wonder if she even cared if something happened to one of her shrunken schoolmates. The fact that she realized that something could have happened and was worried about it, even if expressed only through a single line of dialogue, lets us know that her seemingly indifference to the fates of the tinies (especially when she ghosted Evan and Sara after revealing how small he was going to get) is really just her having a carefree spirit and not thinking things through (which fits the standard college kid profile pretty well), as opposed to being some kind of mad scientist-type (I know she didn't invent the shrinxel, but I would have called it close enough if she would have fit the part otherwise).

This story continues to be a fun, light-hearted one with just enough seriousness to keep things tense at times. I look forward to seeing what you've got planned next.

And if you do happen to get the time to check out Roomies, I'd love to hear your thoughts on what I have so far.