Best posts made by Olo

@smolchlo Got it in one.

@littlest-lily said:

Out of all my friends I figured she was the most likely to believe me

Of course this had to be the chief criterion. Aiden is smarter than me.

There’s a wistful part of me that’s mourning the fact that she’s no longer my little secret that I get to keep just for myself.

Oof, that’s gonna leave a mark.

I almost cave. Almost say something I shouldn’t. Or maybe I should. But instead I just say, “Oh… All good, then.”

I know this is an unprecedented crazy situation, Aiden, but the correct response is, “I like holding you, too.”

It’s a three-way race to see who will first call Aiden on his feelings for Evie, and honestly I have no idea who will win (or who I want to win).

Sometimes when I’m reading science fiction I come across technological ideas that can, in the “right” hands, have sizey applications. As we know, the Square-Cube Law pretty much eliminates any realistic possibility of true giants or tiny people, at least those who might interact with “normal” people. I suppose one could imagine aliens from a different evolutionary environment or gravitational field that could be considered giant or tiny intelligent life, but to me such a size encounter wouldn’t be much different than interacting with blue whales or field mice; there’s awe and wonder, but it’s just not the same as meeting another person who is impossibly larger or smaller than you. For that you need either magic or some hand-waving away of known physical laws.

Even in “hard” science-fiction, however, one can find a number of ways to interface with the human mind in order to experience a virtual or artificial environment, sometimes just for communication but also, tantalizingly, for recreation. Of course, I am hyper-alert for any such scenario that includes characters who intentionally seek out simulations featuring otherwise-impossible size differential.

One example of a science-fiction universe that has multiple avenues for such size experiences is Iain M. Banks’s Culture series. Humans living in The Culture are in a post-scarcity utopia, including dramatic life-extension and digital backups of one’s consciousness that can be restored to a new body if one is killed. Artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and robotics are sufficiently far advanced as to seem like magic to us here trapped on a melting planet ruled by plutocrats.

It would be trivial for The Culture to manufacture androids of a desired size that a human could remotely pilot, just like in the Avatar movies (or in the series The Peripheral). They would have all the appearances and sensations of a normal human, just extremely large or small. They could talk, hear, feel, and have every other human experience as they encountered normal people. Presumably, the paternalistic Culture wouldn’t permit giant androids to menace human habitats, but there could easily be preserves set aside for such recreation.

More sophisticated would be engineered organic bodies into which a human consciousness could be transferred. Such bodies could be super-resilient or just as vulnerable as a normal human. With the “backup” capability, a human mind in a, say, tiny engineered body could experience the world from a reduced perspective and if they were killed (as occasionally happens to imaginary tinies), their consciousness could be retrieved, including (if so desired) the fatal experience. In the Culture series, there is a particularly cruel species that has engineered food animals that resemble miniature versions of themselves for the sheer sport of hunting them.

Of course, the simplest option is virtual reality, which The Culture has perfected to a high art. One could interact with other people, each at the size of their choosing, and AI-generated NPCs could provide the desired social environment for whatever size scenario one is in the mood for that day. Virtual scenario authors and artists would create endless narrative options, genres, and worlds to play in, and if you still couldn’t find something to your taste, give your preferences to an AI who can probably quickly generate something that scratches your itch.

I long ago gave up on the hope of ever directly experiencing true size-differential, but I still cling to the idea that technology might give us the next best thing. What would you do with these possibilities?

@mrgoblinging7 Pets With Benefits.

@littlest-lily Evie probably shouldn’t investigate stains on the bedroom floor.

@Mrgoblinging7 Depressingly, in “One Little Ship” the writers decided that normal-sized oxygen molecules would be too big for the miniature crewmembers’ lungs to absorb, so they were restricted to the environment inside the shuttle.

@bigcuddlygiant Holy fuck. Did you make this?

@littlest-lily To be fair, I’ve been thinking about this for a lot longer than they have.

@tiny-ivy I hope you encounter someone with the appropriate imagination and appetite.

@bigcuddlygiant Fantastic job!

Looks like Aiden chose well.

@littlest-lily said in:

By the time Moira makes it across the room with me, the other giant is on her heels

Adorably, I initially misread that second clause as “my other giant.”

@littlest-lily I’m afraid it varies depending on several factors, primarily our respective personae.

To address the specific size issue: little ladies taller than four inches are literally more than a handful, and it’s very important to me that I can enclose her entirely in my hand, so four inches is usually my upper limit.

The greatest catastrophe would be if I were to drop her, so my chief concern is a secure grip. One-inchers get pinched between the pads of my index finger and my thumb, 2-4 inchers are wrapped up by my fingers and pressed against my palm. Under a half-inch-tall is too small to really grip, so if I wanted a micro lady in my palm I’d probably have to sweep her into it. A bottle of compressed air would come in handy here.

An important factor is whether a given tiny woman has ever been handled by anyone at all or by me in particular. If it is an occasion where I need or want to establish trust, I might invite her to place herself into my palm. If I am feeling particularly dominant or if I sense that she’s feeling particularly submissive, I will simply grab her without warning or permission.

Regular readers will recall that I enjoy bathing tiny ladies, so when it’s time to dry off I’ll scoop her up out of the water. If she’s in the bathtub with me, I probably won’t be able to resist surfacing some part of my body beneath her.

There is no greater first impression than the first physical contact, and it can also be an occasion for demonstration and instruction. Dangling her upside down by her leg looks absurd, and as such it is best reserved for when there’s an audience, either other tinies who need to be trained or other biggos who would be entertained by her plight.

Last but not least, I do enjoy picking her up with my lips and teeth by bringing my mouth down over her T-Rex-style. I’ll do this with even the most cherished and respected tinies as a bit of playful teasing.

@smolchlo Old books smell wonderful; imagine sleeping among them!

@littlest-lily Typical Evie, worrying about how she might be able to satisfy Aiden instead of the other way around.

@littlest-lily Tinies suffer less from falling due to their small mass, so being moved around by puffs of air or suction (think a straw with a finger over one end) carries less risk of crushing and can even get to be fun for the tiny.

Yeah, tweezers are unquestionably scary (sometimes intentionally so).