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Date Posted: 02:19:30 10/08/25 Wed
Author: Curious
Author Host/IP: 49.196.42.128
Subject: (SFFR) The Bet (Paliv) - A Review
Warning: This Review Contains Spoilers
The Bet (Paliv) - A Review
Part One - The Author
The author's is a new one who is active on the Smoking Fetish Kingdom website. A note that precedes the story indicates that they are a professional writer, albeit not a writer of fiction. They also state that they have read many of the stories released in the Loring Era.
Part Two - The Bet
The story was first published on the Smoking Fetish Kingdom website before being republished in Vol. 139 of the Noble Leaf Library. Liv's chance encounter reawakened old desires, but how to act on them in a changed environment.
Part Three - Comments
The story opens with a scene where the characters throw the term cravings around lightly, but after that Liv has her encounter with a young smoker named Nina, an encounter that awakens both old desires and new fears. Fears built around what her daughter Sophie, who's never seen her smoke will think. This creates a very different dynamic than many Loring Era stories.
This is explored in the discussion with Sophie that follows. Liv is unable to articulate and Sophie unable to understand the process that led to her buying a pack of cigarettes so that she could offer one to a smoker in need. At it's conclusion the author makes both Sophies concerns about what her mother may be contemplating quite clear and Liv's unsteady position on returning to the habit quite clear.
The resulting tensions eventually lead to Liv to meet with a friend who still smokes. It's this friend, Guava who suggests calling Sophies bluff by asking her to try a cigarette claiming that a similar tactic got her own daughter to back off when she tried to get Guava to quit the habit.
To Liv's surprise when she tries the tactic on Sophie, her daughter responds by asking to try a full pack only to balk when given the pack. Again the author gives a good sense of what's going on with Sophie as she stands on what is for her, a staunch anti-smoker the metaphorical abyss.
The tension is broken by an unexpected event, Sophie is in a relationship with a girl named Isa who could see Sophies pain and in support did what Sophie could not and started smoking. Sophies revelation about what happened seems to break down the tension between mother and daughter. But events lead inexorably towards first Sophie and then Liv taking up the habit.
To this point the story flows well, but it moves towards a 'closed-up inward looking' ending that this reviewer does not like. Smoking is a social beast, something the author demonstrates a knowledge of, most notably in one key scene where Liv catches Isa and an unnamed friend laughing and smoking together, but what's described at the end as described earlier does not feel like that.
It's also clear that the author didn't make as good of a use of the characters he created as he could, while Nina serves her function perfectly, Guava is someone who I wish more could have been done with, at the very least Liv should have contacted her once she resumed smoking.
While first time authors deserve some leeway I find this one comes so close to being a good 'Loring Era' story only to fall short that it makes me uncomfortable.
Not recommended.
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