People always handwring about content. It doesn’t come in nice and fluid like people would like. Instead, it seems almost as if the macrophile community has one big biorhythm, and the authors and collage artists get “up” and “down” at the same times.
That’s certainly true about stories. After a good long period in the doldrums, suddenly the past week or so has seen an infusion of new yarns. And while there are several good ones (check out Giantess World for a hundred examples), two stick out for me as worth noting.
The first is Asukafan2001’s new unaware entry, Imperceptible. The setup is nice — guy sells car to pretty girl, says to come by and pick it up after he cleans it out, gets shrunk to micro size in the car before she comes to pick it up, then ends up being unwittingly kidnapped as she drives away.
But what really sets the story apart is its sheer scale, in the literal sense. Not content with boring old 288:1 scales, Asukafan2001 has created a world that is ~4000:1 scale, a universe that almost defies comprehension:
The sandal was crushing thousands of grey pillars with absolute ease. I found myself forced to climb one of the gigantic pillars that was being partly crushed by her flip flop. I didn’t want to give myself a chance to hesitate so I reached out and grasped the carpet fibers of the car floor mat and started pulling myself up. The process really was like scaling the side of a mountain, only I had no safety harness in place. The carpet fiber had small groves which made for great handholds and footholds as I made my ascent.
I was climbing like a mad man. My heart was racing, my blood was pumping. As I reached upwards grabbing the next handhold I could feel the exhilaration and nervousness coursing through my body. As I looked upward and saw the carpet fiber ultimately bent underneath and being crushed by her flip flop I realized that a single movement on Brooke’s part could ultimately affect my life quite adversely.
I made it to the top of the carpet fiber after several harrowing minutes; I now just had to walk across the length of the carpet fiber which was being bent partially downward by Brooke’s flip flop. I found that it was more like walking across one of those old wooden foot bridges only instead of railing on either side you have nothing what so ever.
I looked downward for a moment and saw what would be to me a fatal death if I would fall, however no other option seems to exist. So I push myself forward trying t block out what could be a near fatal consequence if I make even the slightest mistake.
I take one deep breath and hold it as I start walking across the unstable bridge. As I inch my way across the bridge I find myself staring into a massive wall of pink. It just extends up further and further into the sky, many times higher than the carpet pillar I had just climbed. I realized this was my first time being this close to a person at my new size. I can only describe Brooke as a goddess. I crane my neck back as I walk struggling to see just the top of her sandal. I desperately wonder if this was such a wise move as all the sudden everything starts to shake.
Pretty intense, no? Through three chapters, our protagonist has had to deal with a world almost on the infinite scale. As is Asuka’s wont, the story has a great deal of humor and a protagonist who is not willing to simply capitulate to his fate. I’m very much looking forward to where this is going.
The second story I’m tracking is coming in more slowly, but that’s okay — I’ll be patient. Nostromo’s Into the Wild, a continuation of the Noleen story, is one of the sweetest stories I’ve read in my thirteen years of mucking about in this corner of cyberspace. It’s a very simple story — Noleen and her boyfriend go off camping. He’s tiny. She’s not. Fun ensues. — but it’s done with a style and joie de vivre that’s just infectious. I’m not going to excerpt it. You’re just going to have to follow the link and read it yourself. Frankly, it’s a Nostromo story — why haven’t you already?
