Reviewer: Olo Signed [Report This]
Date: July 30 2016 11:19 AM Title: The Ride

So I went back and re-read the whole story from start to finish.

I note that you completely revised the "Halftime" chapter.  The extra exposition is helpful, but I what I remember from the original version was very impressionisitic, and I thought it might be the perspective of an older woman, either remembering her youth or fantasizing about a childhood experience that never happened as a way of escaping from her current traumas.  Jade seems like a nemesis figure, a warning against the danger of trusting others too easily.

The protagonist calls Jade her best friend, but she never acknowledges any attraction to Jade.  Jade, in contrast, doesn't seem to recognize any boundaries between friends and lovers (among girls, anyway).

So I'm a little disappointed that we never got to see Jade fully defend her decision to shrink her friend (Sofia's sudden arrival and the precipitous shift to the sex scene really makes Jade look like a ninny).  Jade also never explains why she thought it was okay to drop her tiny friend between her breasts.  The protagonist clearly didn't enjoy being used as a sex toy by a giantess, but surely Jade got something out of it.

The major theme here is the inability to communicate.  Even the final chapter suggests that you don't have to be shrunk to struggle to hold a conversation.  Still, I'd have like to have seen the final confrontation with Sofia played out.  Sofia and Jade already talked about shrunken sex; surely Sofia is curious about the protagonist's experiences.

Obviously, the only appropriate fate for Jade is to be shrunk herself.

This story was frustrating, but I think that was the point.  The protagonist escapes her peril through perseverance, but she hasn't really learned anything about herself or how to avoid such a fate in the future.  Betrayal by a friend alters your sense of your place in the world, but the protagonist doesn't seem to have been changed that much.  Her suffering while being caught between two horny giantesses is purely physical; we don't know her sexual preferences or whether she finds the experience arousing.  Her (new) friend in the final chapter shows a little curiosity, but the protagonist just finds the whole thing embarrassing.  Jade's violation of her trust has more meaning than her violation of her body.

I think you could have done more with the protagonist, if only to give us a better sense of her understanding of Jade and why they are friends.  Your revised "Halftime" chapter makes the case for the protagonist's vulnerability due to loneliness, but we don't see her process her experiences with Jade in terms of that vulnerability.  Both Sofia and Jade are the protagonist's friends and both Sofia and Jade are attracted to girls, but only Jade acts on that attraction with the protagonist, and does so by violating her.  The protagonist understands that this was wrong, but she doesn't articulate how it could have been right.

The protagonist deserves to have her own desires, and we deserve to read about them.