Hey sizeaddled!

I think you should give yourself some more credit. I'm sure you would have found a way to take on Bigsby!

You're dead on about Duncan. He had some trust issues even before shrinking, so those have obviously gotten worse since falling below three inches tall. It's really hard to not trust Callie, though, as much as he tries not to. We'll see next chapter (whenever I get around to finishing it) whether or not a some people from his old life are trustworthy (and if his previous judgment of those relationships was accurate or not).

I'm really glad Callie has been so well received so far! I like your description of her.

I tried to put a lot of thought into foreshadowing various things in the first couple of chapters, so it's great to hear that you already had an idea of who Kristie is based on the brief mention of her in chapter one. He was able to escape from Kristie not too long after the events of that dream sequence, but her impact on his psyche is pretty significant.

And hopefully I can keep up that diverse set of characters next chapter (which I'm hoping to get out relatively soon). I really don't want my characters to overlap and cover the same ground.

Thanks for taking the time to review my little story! Maybe you'll beat me and get the next chapter of Delta Phun out first!

Hey Terry!

You're right in that Kristie's manipulative nature is something that Duncan got sucked into. I've also been kind of hinting that his childhood wasn't exactly stable and that things were a bit rough, so he kind of mistook some of her meanness for simple, blunt honesty, something he actually values. I should also note that this was a really complicated relationship even before the shrinking, so who knows: Maybe we'll dive a little deeper into that as the story progresses.

I'm thrilled that you pointed out the contrasting ways in which Kristie and Callie have handled Duncan's size, both physically and verbally. I tried a couple of things in an effort to draw out that comparison specifically, so it's good to hear that this stuck out for you.

Callie's sewing machine rant was pretty fun to write. And yeah, I also like the fact that she's still worried about offending him even after doing all of that stuff for him. She's not really the type of person who does stuff for "credit," so she doesn't feel like making that stuff should give her a pass. Also, she's kind of embarrassed and confused, as she was saying that without thinking about it, and she's not really sure what she meant by it. Maybe a bit of a Freudian slip on her part?

I love that your reaction to Stillwell was that immediate. I was trying to set a very particular tone with that creep, and your reaction makes me feel like I nailed it! As for his brazen admission about the thermostat, that was maybe the scummiest thing I could think of for him to do in that situation. He's just playing with her psyche at that point. Dingleberry on a scum sundae indeed.

No need to explain on the appeal of giantess' having to show restraint and the impact of their casual actions. You're preaching to the choir, as they say. And like you said, two people wrapped up in two very different emotions in that moment led to some unintentional carelessness that thankfully only ended with a face full of foot sweat (and a raging hard-on).

Monica is turning out to be a pretty fun character to write (as she was at the back end of this last chapter). That's all I should probably say about that for now.

Thanks again for taking the time to share your thoughts!

Thanks for the compliment, Toerider! Hopefully you like the coming chapters just as much!

Hey Chief!

Yeah, Divinity Lost has been incredible so far, and with the incredible level of thought and detail you guys put into it, I pretty much had to babble on about it for a while. I also checked out that new Melissa chapter (and some of the reviews; man, people do not like Melissa) and it was phenomenal. I've got a lot of thoughts on it myself, but I think I might be able to knock out the next chapter of this one in the next couple of days, so I'm going to focus on that before I get a chance to clutter your reviews again. I will say that I feel like I learned a lot about Melissa, and I also had some interesting comparative thoughts between real-life religion and how the god of gods does things.

As for your thoughts on this story, I'm thrilled that multiple people have said the 10k words went by quick. I thought a wordy chapter like that might drag people down. Also, the next chapter is looking to be about the same length (I'm at about 7,500 words right now), so hopefully it reads as smoothly as this first chapter.

It's good to hear that you're into our two main characters so far, and I particularly like how you're feeling about Callie right now. That should hopefully make this next chapter have a real impact on you. As for Duncan's trust in her, I'm hoping I conveyed well enough the combination of cautious observation and Callie going out of her way to earn that trust for that to make sense. I'm a big believer in being able to bond with people not just over time but based on actions as well, so ideally I've shown that Callie has handled things a lot differently than Kristie and Natasha (even if things did start not so bad with her).

I will say that it's going to be a while before we get too deep into the mystery of why Duncan shrank, but we'll get there. And one thing that I do find kind of funny is the amount of people drawing attention to his clothes shrinking with him. That's not to say it isn't a good observation (it is), but it makes me think about how the majority of shrinking stories on this site focus on shrinking out of clothes. I just picture a bunch of people reading that part and going, "Wait, what? His clothes weren't supposed to shrink, too!"

And you saying that my story "feels alive" may be my favorite compliment on this story. I sometimes wonder if I focus too much on smaller details, so reading this was extremely rewarding. So thanks for that!

Hey Green!

You're certainly on the right track as far as Callie's problems go. I was hoping that I didn't make her main issue too obvious with the way that I wrote the chapter, and I think you might have a good idea of where I'm going with this. She'll certainly need more than a little encouragement to get past what's bringing her down. In any case, that main issue will become obvious (and be outright spelled out) in the next chapter.

I think you've nailed down Duncan pretty well, and you're right: Despite admitting that Callie's issues are a bigger deal than just grades, Duncan's are way more serious, although I he might not be quite as on top of them as first appears (we'll get into that next chapter as well). He's definitely confident yet cautious, with the latter being just as much the result of his life before shrinking as it is the horrors he went thought post-shrinkage.

I also really, really like that you brought up (multiple times, even!) the question of how Duncan shrank! That was obviously glossed over in this chapter, but that's something that's going to play a part in this story as it progresses. I've read plenty of stories on this site that take that "Groundhog Day" approach (I really like this comparison for that type of story, by the way), and I'm not knocking them (in fact, there are some that I really liked), but it kind of bothers me when things like shrinking or growing are left completely unexplained. It's like stumbling into a mystery only to leave it unsolved.

Anyway, thanks for the generous review!

Hey Terry! I'm actually happen to be slowly working my way through Mixing Sizes now (I too am a slow reader), so it's pretty cool to hear some feedback from you at the same time.

But I was happy to hear that the 10k words went by fast for you. I thought that might be an issue for some people, so it's reassuring that you were engaged enough in the story that it didn't seem that long.

Yeah, there's certainly a sizeable divide between what Duncan wants and what his gut is telling him he needs to do, which is why he went to the lengths that he did before making contact with Callie. After months of almost no direct human interaction (and the direct interaction he did have was mostly negative, to say the least), just having a friendly conversation with someone is a luxury he craves almost as much as food and water. So it makes sense (or at least I hope it does) that a part of him would jump to accept Callie's kindness, even if the more rational part of him would rather take a more cautious approach.

As for whether Callie will make him regret that decision at some point, I can't (read: won't) say for sure. I can (read: will) say that who Callie is isn't going to change and I think you'll be good with where this story goes overall.

I'm glad you appreciated Duncan's consideration when he took his shoes off. I also thought the absurdity of the situation was pretty funny:

"Shit, is she going to do something to me? What if she wants to put me in a ... you know, my shoes are pretty gross. I don't want to be a dick or anything, so ..."

And lastly, thank you very much for the kind words, as well as the constructive criticism. Getting a bit adverb-happy is something I need to work on (I need to trust that I'm conveying the proper mindsets of my characters without trying to "steer" the readers there), so thanks especially for pointing that out. I'm also happy you're willing to put up with it, because that's honestly going to be a pretty tough habit for me to break, I think.

I should note that this isn't the first thing I've ever written. Nothing fetish-related that I've written (or at least started) over the years has really been noteworthy (and is kind of embarrassing, looking back), and none of it made it onto this site.

I feel pretty good about this one, though, so I'm glad you enjoyed it as well. Thanks for the kind words!

As for not being able to wait for more, I'll see what I can do about that, but I can't promise anything.