Annie's Stories

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Revision as of 05:06, 22 November 2012

In an Alternate Universe, around the '80s, on "The Day", people shrank. The world was in outrage and fear, and decided to make the little people second-class citizens. Well, worse really, pets with no rights (except maybe being registered).

This is the story of one of them, Annie, at that time a high-schooler, who was found by a pre-teen boy who decided to "adopt" her as a pet. She was probably lucky it wasn't in his teens. It Gets Worse, but mostly Played For Laughs. Ray turns out to be a decent fellow (after his teenager phase, at least) and treats Annie at least decently, and they start to have a more equal relation (as much as they can have compared to their heights).

You can read it here. They also have a spinoff "Tammy and Cruiser".

Tropes present in this work

• Accidental Public Confession: Though the bad repercursions are avoided by good intentions/The Power Of Love:

  "Someone loves another that much, gives me the most hope I've had since the day a gnome shrank me." Bubba had also outed himself in that comment, but no one took him to task for it.

• Anachronic Order: The "present guiding the past bits" type.
• Ancient Conspiracy: The Alchemists, whose only concern seems to be to turn anything into gold. For all their powers, they could have gained money a lot easier and without drawing the attention of Eagleland.
• Anvilicious: Be careful how you treat those smaller than you, because life's a bitch and it's going to punish you if you're naughty! Discrimination is evil! Third world nations expatriating their citizens is evil! The Power Of Love is magic!
• Arbitrary Skepticism: We have a guy that can manipulate elements (in this case, fire), turn junk into gold and claims to get his indications and protection from a God. But ghosts? Those are just stories!
• Bait And Switch: Most titles will give you the impression that something happens to the girls, when it's actually about something different and usually more benign. Even "New World Order" is an overreaction to what happens next. For example, one chapter is titled "No Annie At All" is not about, say, Annie getting lost/being kidnapped, but it's about Denise in High School.
• Bait And Switch Tyrant: Dorre.
• Because Destiny Says So.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: The sylphs can basically run around anywhere (provided they aren't caught or locked up), can hear things over a large distance, whether some insulation tries to stop that, their metabolism run much, much faster, but if they're fed by ordinary-sized humans, they're not going to have a feeding problem or a food supply problem. This is however Blessed With Suck, since being small means you can be crushed by big things or ordered by them around, needing lots of food means you're at the pity of your giant again, and hearing everything, all the time is not a good thing.
• Cliffhanger Copout: In chapter 80, it appears that a Slave Liberation act is underway. Two or three chapters later, Status Quo Is God again, at least in that aspect.
• Crapsaccharine World: Don't be fooled by the happy-happy relationship between Ray and Annie, Annie described the world pretty much in a nutshell from the first chapter. It is that bad.
• Crowning Moment Of Funny: A few of the quotes here.
• Cool And Unusual Punishment: Ray does this to Annie, though sometimes (rarely and not for a long while though) tend to fall on Cruel And Unusual Punishment. Of course, other sylphs have it worse.
• Cut His Heart Out With A Spoon: "Annie'd carve out your heart with a potato chip."
• Dangeous Forbidden Technique: Using Ray's robots for more than he's made them to work under safe conditions. He's got an Override Command for that, though.
• Dark And Troubled Past: Well, for Annie, it was mostly one night... but was it a bad night.
  • For others it was much, much worse.
• Deliberate Value Dissonance: Annie's one of the few to get out of her way to point out how life used to be for the sylphs before The Day.
• Exactly What I Meant To Say: How some Incredibly Lame Puns are shoehorned in there. For example:

  Pet [ ... ] but it's for a good cause we're going to establish a sylph Olympic event of confined sports so if they ever have Olympic sylphs we can submit a suggestion.

  Denise: I think you mean combined sports?

  Pet: Nooooooo, Pet said slowly, thinking and tapping her chin. No, I'm pretty sure Annie said that sylph events would be confined sports.

• Everything's Better With Bob: A cameo by a random sylph, but still, Bob. He's also an Ain't No Rule type of guy... which came against him.
• Moderate Doormat: Ray as the story progresses and he's at the whim of more and more females a tenth his size.
• Doing In The Scientist.
• Door Stopper: 125 chapters.
• Fantastic Racism: And how.
• Fetish Fuel Future: Despite the sympathetic twists, this is the author's favorite topic for stories, on that site at least.
• Freak Out: Denise after she sylphed.
  • Annie had an anxiety attack/nervous breakdown, where she became "allergic" and (unproperly) paranoid of Ray for being her Master and literally being the Big Brother watching her.
  • Annie's prediction about Pet below almost came true when Annie threw Pet into the making-big-tunnel and made her big instead. Pet has such a nasty freakout that it indeed almost kills Annie.
• Genius Ditz: Pet. She's ditzy and may not be a grammar fan, and she may give the impression of being raised into a Rich Bitch, but she's all heart and all "street smarts". Denise is actually surprised when Pet saves her.
• Giant Foot Of Stomping: The sylphs are in constant danger of this in public places, though mostly accidental.*
• Got Volunteered: Ray, though more than it's Lampshade Hanging:

  Ray had been volunteered into being a judge. Annie suggested it, Buttercup approved and Pet made her eyes three times as big and silently threatened a disappointed lip quiver. He was helpless against their coordinated efforts and now stood close to the Start.

• Green Aesop: Anvilicious, though it verges on Gaia's Vengeance.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Narrowly averted, at least twice, though this is a (mostly) Everybody Lives fic:
  • Annie is ready to die at the hands of Pet for turning her big, instead of herself, so she'd experience the life she never had. Daw!
  • Denise when confronting more than one rat with a fork. She's ready to die there and then for stranger sylphs.
• Hollywood Atheist: Annie blamed God for The Day and won't stop reminding people that she hates him... or doesn't believe in him... except when her friends believe in him... and they get their wishes and prayers answered from whoever sylphed a part of the world anyway... and...
• Hormone Addled Teenager: Ray, so much. It's his Freudian Excuse for tormenting (albeit mostly playfully) Annie.
• Humans Are Bastards: Some of them, obviously.
• Humans Are Cthulhu: Annie's one of the few to put it this way, constantly, though she probably doesn't believe it herself. She makes fun of humans as being a monstrous alternate species because she's allowed and to not go mad with her new situation.
• Humans Are The Real Monsters: Obvious to the readers, oblivious to the rest of the in-universe characters for over 30 years. They treat sylphs as pets because they fear them of being monsters. Right...
• Jerkass Woobie: Annie, from some in-universe points of view.
• The Missus And The Ex: Ray, Denise and Deliah. All is good until Denise gets shrunken and has a Heroic BSOD, and a few days contemplates that Ray would live her for Deliah, seeing that now she's only - legally - property and won't be treated as a wife anymore. Ray fixes this by reofficializing their marriage, and marrying Annie and Pet too, so they won't feel left out.
• Mistaken For Pervert: Ray. Well, he is in some ways, but not like that:

  Some people that passed Ray kinda recognized him. The guy with the weird Ark fetish.

• Mood Whiplash.
• Mutant Registration Act: Passed out initially that sylphs can be "owned" as property as part of world-wide panic. Later discussed to turn at least slightly into a Slave Liberation act.
• Noodle Incidents: A few, especially those involving Cold Blooded Torture.
• Nothing Is The Same Anymore: When the "present" timeline turns to "New World Order #1".
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: "Freedom Anxiety" revolves around the benevolent version Played For Laughs. A sylph asks the pros of cons of being able to live free. Three people reply (except the intended one), and the sylph gets more and more afraid by each reply. It culminates in:

  Amelia: Dear Denise, Butters and Hearts, Y'all are idiots. Sincerely, Amelia.

• Our Presidents Are Different:
  • President Personable: The (current) president of the United States.
  • President Action: Straw President of a Banana Republic and a Bait And Switch Tyrant
• Override Command: Ray's miniature robots have these for the maximum time of staying inside - since staying more than the maximum may lead to mental illness or overexerting the body.
• The Power Of Love.
• Preemptive Declaration: Played for Black Comedy:

  Dorre: Former President Kendall will spin in his grave, but that's just gravy.

  Ray: He's not dead yet.

  Dorre: Oh, he won't be finished spinning before they put him in the ground.

  • Dubs as a Tear Jerker when Annie apologizes to Pet for making her big, instead of going for it herself:

    Annie: Pet? I want you to know...I forgive you.

    Pet: For what?

    Annie: If...you should do something. Later today. If you get overcome with emotion and do something you regret? I don't want that hanging on your conscience. Not me, not because of me. Okay?

    Pet: Okay.

    Annie: Remember. I forgive you.

    Pet: What could I possibly do today that I'll regret?

    Annie: You might kill me.

• Reassigned To Antarctica:

  Yes, the Kendall appointed, tight assed, mouth breathing, lip reading, finger pointing, brain dead Minister of Paranoia and Party Pooping. He was transferred the same day you were released from jail. Kisu said the man was harshing his mellow and Dorre said they need a diplomatic presence on Christmas Island.

• The Reveal: The Swede that Ray punched, just a Jerkass that seemed to have no bearing on the story, was actually an alchemist. Ray didn't find out this until much later, until after the reveal of these people was made clear.
• Right Behind Me: Narrowly averted by Annie when Ray was talking about one of his dates... a bit too... ungentlemenish.

  Annie: I really should let you keep talking. Just to see the look on your face when she hears you.

• The Snack Is More Interesting: Chocolate. Template:Justified, as it borders on Template:Phlebotinum for their metabolisms.
• Tastes Like Diabetes: When it enters the Green Aesop and The Power Of Love part.
• Tenchi Solution: Marry Them All.
• Sarcastic Confession: A few months after she was Ray's pet, Annie wasted no time when she got the chance to be alone... dubs as an Accidental Confession as she was hungover at the time:

  Ray: How did you survive without me?

  Annie: Oh, it was great. Your parents bought me clothing and wine and RC cola and left me alone in the house all day and I stole a knife and dug an escape tunnel and-

• Sex Slave: The Logical Conclusion of making second-class citizens into slaves.
• Shut Up And Hug Me: Buttercup to Pet in "Hostess".
• Slave Liberation: Sam and Amelia's organisation strives for this, almost succeed in chapter 80, finally accomplished in "Finally", in chapter 90.
• Stealth Insult: Well, at least she took it as one:

  Date: You men! You're all ALIKE! Shut up, honey this is men talk. Shut up, bitch, you don't know what you're talking about. Don't drink while you're on the medication, dear, you'll pass out.

  Ray: And did you?

  Date: Did I what?" she blinked, tantrum suspended.

  Ray: Did you pass out?

  Date: That's not the POINT!

• Unfortunate Implications: In-universe: the Pentathlon was supposed to be fun, but the escape-from-jar contest turned into Accidental Nightmare Fuel for the contestants.
• Unperson: So much so that sylphs are made to stay naked and are treated as household pets and/or wild animals.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Ray and Annie of course, with healthy doses of Deadpan Snarker, especially from her.
• Wangst: Some in-universe characters feel Annie is this, considering Ray a good guy who is used too much of a mild doormat for her. I repeat, this is not from the readers (to be fair, they know better and sympathize more with Annie), it is from other characters in-story.
• Weirdness Censor:

  Nothing anyone could say or do would change Grandma Foster's mind about Annie. In her eyes, Raymond had shaved a gerbil and pretended he was a ventriloquist. How he'd taught Annie to walk erect or move her lips at the right time was a mystery she never touched on.

  Dad's theory was that on The Day, she'd decided she was too old to shift her paradigm.

• Wham Chapter: Though the chapter's title isn't too obvious, the "Timeline" is ominous named and it goes downhill from there: "New World Order #1"
• Who Names Their Pet "Pet"?: A 5 year old, though it's deconstructed, since the mother and Denise's parents agreed.
• You Are Grounded: Ray in his highschool years gets this often.

Notes

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