Reviewer: Greenanon Signed 
Date: February 05 2024
Title: Chapter 2: Callie vs the Persuasive Professor
I'm liking the continued bonding of our protagonists, it seems like Duncan might have a few skills and connections that will let him pull his weight after all. The Ex sounds like a real piece of work, I wonder how she reacted to his escape? And is she still looking for him or has she moved on?
Stillwell sounds like a potential link or suspect to whatever got Duncan downsized, at the very least there's a motive from a bunch of shady academic types to get rid of him. Clearly the university didn't bother to curb Stillwell's excesses, is he too valuable to let go? Or is it just the insular culture of college administration at work? Then again maybe Duncan just drew the cosmic short straw.
A powerful businesswoman like Ms. Shale is a high risk high reward play, on the one hand proof of being tiny is a pretty damn good excuse to miss work, on the other the true motives of the C-Suite are hard to determine at the best of times. She could be an extremely useful source of resources or another hazard in the way of figuring out what happened.
Anyways good job, looking forward to more!
Author's Response: Hey Green!
Yeah, like you, I like it better when the tiny isn't a completely helpless and sniveling shit. And I'm glad you're enjoying the bond being formed between Duncan and Callie. I wanted that to feel as organic and natural as possible in a scenario that is in no way actually possible.
All I can say about Kristie at this point is that we haven't seen the last of her in this story.
As for Stillwell, he's definitely the beneficiary of university politics. He's well known in the economic field out in the real world (didn't really find a place to mention that), which helps, but the protection he gets from the administration is more about who he knows than anything else.
And yeah, that does sound like something those shady academic types would do, doesn't it ...
High risk high reward is the right way to look at meeting with Ms. Shale, I think, although I'm pretty sure that's not how either Duncan or Callie are looking at it. Their fear and excitement, respectively, doesn't go past meeting with Monica herself. They're too focused on that to really consider what Monica can do for or to them with the resources she has available to her.
Thanks again for the kind words!
