Category: World-building

Condensed — A Size World

Man kissing a three-inch-tall woman in the foreground right; behind them to the left is a framed photo of both of them at full size.
Kissing the Missus by Dropdreme

When the Condensation (as it came to be called) started two years ago, most people were terrified. Junk DNA, present in one person in five hundred (at the latest estimate), caused a drastic metamorphosis in the affected population.  Carriers of the activated DNA fell into a coma and began to slowly shrink in size.  The process took a little over a month, and when the afflicted people woke from their coma they found themselves at four percent of their original height.

Not all the afflicted underwent this metamorphosis at the same time, and the shrinkings were unevenly distributed geographically, appearing first in Asia, then Africa, then worldwide.  Geneticists were still deeply divided as to the precise DNA sequence(s) responsible for the change, and they had no real idea how they had been activated.  Some people theorized that the activation had been triggered by environmental conditions related to global population levels and/or climate change, but there was no direct evidence of this.  Nevertheless, proponents of this theory suggested that the global human population needed to be “condensed” to be sustainable, and the name stuck.

Two years may have been enough time to give the phenomenon a name, but it wasn’t nearly enough time for societies to adjust and accommodate their Condensed populations.  The only observable limitation so far was that no one younger than 14 had been Condensed, leading to speculation about the role of hormones and puberty in triggering the metamorphosis.  Adults of every age, gender, country, ethnicity, and wealth stratum were susceptible to being Condensed, threatening hierarchies around the world.

New Condensed story: Tiny Roommate

New Condensed story: Tiny Roommate – Taking The Plunge

Land of the Giants – Revisited

Three giants look down on three tiny humans on a tabletop
Land of the Giants, “Target: Earth”

As groundbreaking as the original Land of the Giants series was and as much as some of us have cherished certain characters or scenarios featured therein, some aspects of the series’s premises were (unnecessarily) incoherent, silly, or simply thoughtless. Why did all the giants speak English, and why did their streets and cars bear such a strong resemblance to those found in mid-century Burbank? The Spindrift supposedly set out on a routine suborbital flight from Los Angeles to London in 1983, but here in the third decade of the 21st century not even Jeff Bezos commutes that way.

I am not currently aware of any substantive plans to remake Land of the Giants as a new series; some studio has undoubtedly bought the rights to all the Irwin Allen productions, but they’re under no obligation to do anything with the rights anytime soon. Nevertheless, I think there is merit in trying to conceive of how the setting for the show could be improved over the original as well as updated for the 21st century.

One element of the series that I always enjoyed was the technological advantage the tiny heroes enjoyed over the giants.  It gave the giants a plausible reason beyond basic cruelty to marshal resources to hunt the Earthlings, and it gave the Earthlings a little leverage in their interactions with non-hostile giants.  What follows is the product of about a day of brainstorming a new take on this premise.

I have no immediate plans to write any stories set in this world.  My most compelling story ideas are typically self-contained, with characters whose encounter with size-fantasy are thorough and complete.  I have, however, felt challenged by recent efforts of other authors to create worlds where characters can come and go and size-fantasy can be encountered repeatedly with multiple variations and scenarios.  So I thought I’d post this here and let anyone use it as they saw fit.  You never know where inspiration will come from.

Continue reading “Land of the Giants – Revisited” →

Big Sky — A Size World

Source: Czech commercial for Raiffeisen Bank

This is my background post for all stories set in the Big Sky universe. World-building is an ongoing project, and I expect to be adding to this document both when I publish a new Big Sky story and between stories, whenever I explore this world further in my imagination.

Here are all the Big Sky stories published to date:

A Little Trouble in Big Sky

A missing person case brings a detective from the warrens into a partnership with a Federal investigator in Big Sky Country.

Tiny People, F/m, M/f, FM/f, M/ff, FF/m, New World Order, Gentle, Cruel, Handheld, Entrapment, Mouth Play, Body Exploration, Vaginal Insertion, Nonconsensual, Vore Mention, Watersports, Giant Cock, Breast Play, Anal Insertion, Crush, Fatality		30.May.2013
Continue reading “Big Sky — A Size World” →

World-Building, Author Ambitions, and Reader Expectations

Land of the Giants, “The Crash”

I’m going to compose a background post for the story universe that I created for my first story, A Little Trouble in Big Sky. When I first wrote it I sketched out a couple of paragraphs as an explanatory prologue, and other world-building hints were scattered throughout the story. I’m happy with the amount of detail I provided at the time, and I think the story still stands on its own.

So why am I adding more detail now? Partly because, after almost nine years, I’m actively thinking about writing another story set in the same universe. It probably doesn’t strictly require more specification or elaboration, but I admire how Aborigen’s categories help save time and exposition by warning the reader up front that they are entering a size story and what kind of size differential to expect. I’m also looking forward to the sheer creativity of extrapolating from what I’ve written and finding room for different stories.

Another motive for creating a setting where size-differential is “expected” is to allow character development that is unencumbered by people having to acknowledge and process otherwise-fantastic size-differential. I want to show real people in real relationships, and having to spend time where they deny their own senses while trying to grapple with giants or tinies detracts from that.

Now, don’t get me wrong; the bewilderment and awe of encountering fantastic size-differential is an important and valuable element of size fantasy, and I certainly don’t want to eliminate it entirely. I also don’t plan to write stories exclusively set in constructed size worlds. I still get the urge to take a simple vision of a size encounter and describe it intensely without digression, and I plan to continue indulging such urges.

Paradoxically, I believe going to the trouble of fleshing out a size world can make the stories set in it more accessible to non-size-pervs. It helps you think about the motivations of your characters, which are always formed in the context of what other people do in similar situations. Consequently, your characters make more sense and are therefore more relatable.

I have decided against trying to formulate a size world for each of my stories; not all of them lend themselves to rich extrapolation, and of course many of them derive their juice from featuring unexpected and incomprehensible size-differential. Despite those aspects, however, some have managed to include favorite characters and/or relationships that could warrant sequels. I expect to rely almost entirely on my own passions to determine if any get expanded.

Anyway, look for the Big Sky category to get a background post soon and another story sometime this year.

UPDATE: My Big Sky background post is now up.