aidenfire | (no subject)

I review a lot. Basically, one can be safe assuming that if I read something and liked it, (something on LJ, or FA, or some other place where reviewing is easy), I reviewed it. And, as most of the things I read are on recs or from great authors (here's looking at you, flist! <3<3), I like most of them. However, I don't write a lot, or spectacularly, so I'm not sure how writers respond to people like me--people I've termed serial reviewers. After a certain point, do reviews from the same person start to lose your interest? If a person has reviewed your work five times? or ten? Do you think that the person is simply reviewing to review, or does each individual review make you happy? Also, if you had a long, chaptered, novel-length, would reviews on each chapter irritate you, or would they make you think the reader really enjoyed the fic? What if you were friends with the reader? Would that make you value their reviews more or less?

[Poll #499474]

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

aidenfire

Lj is indeed teh shit, much of the time. And yet I'd die without it

Hahah, yeah. Do you remember the Great LJ Blackout? Hah. The woe and angst has never been seen before outside of Bright Eyes concerts. *G*

With the brush-off response, yeah. That really makes me mad, because, as I mentioned earlier, I love carrying on conversations with people, and if I make the effort to really think about their writing, I think I deserve a bit more than a one or two word response. And yet, it's not really something I feel comfortable calling the author on--it would feel weird to say "Hey, I left you a great review, and you didn't leave me an adequate response. Whassup witchyoo, h0?" (with or without the fake ghetto-ness, hah)

And I just like to know what people are thinking, period. Yes. That's exactly how I feel. I want to feel vindicated, I suppose. I want the affirmation that things I liked or thought were really coll are things other people liked too. Although, I could be the only person feeling that way, and that wouldn't stop me from feeling it, or saying it--especially online, I don't really have a problem with stepping out from the crowd--it's nice to know that I'm not the only person who, say, author X's latest fic left a gibbering wreck, or about wet myself laughing while reading _______.

Really? You liked it? I'm so glad to hear that! I think I mentioned earlier, I'm really hard on my own writing and am convinced that it is all teh suck. *happy*

I'd love a skyehawke account! Although, obviously, I don't write a lot, I'd like to secure my username for archiving anything I do write, and the few things I've already written. Is it just for fanfiction, or can I post original things there, too?

From:

silentauror.livejournal.com

OH, the html tags! Somedays, we're just not on good terms at all... I've reposted the same comment or entry upwards of three times before. :)

And ohhh, yes, do I remember the blackout! I stay in touch with a few older (as in longer-time, if that makes sense) friends of mine, which probably saved me. Otherwise, I felt so cut off! I was still feeling the angst about skyehawke's big crash then, too - it had just come back up after being down for over a week. I was distraught.

Again, definitely, with wanting to know what other readers thought of the fic you just read, too. I'm afraid I'm a crier, and I remember reading Cinnamon's Beautiful World without knowing it had a sad ending, damn it, and bawling my eyes out at the end. I like knowing I wasn't the only one. Or the only one who had to read Left My Heart twice, because the suspense forced me to read through the ending far too quickly the first time. :)

Skyehawke totally has an original section! :) Tell me exactly how you want your pen name to appear (i.e., with capitals, without, with a space, without, etc. - it's virtually impossible to change after it's been done, so I want to get it right!) and your email & we'll make it go. :) You can email me your info if you'd rather it didn't appear here - silentauror@yahoo.com.

:)

From:

aidenfire

Yes. Argh. HTML tags just lose at life. Especially when you can tell something's wrong, but you've used lots of html, and you can't find the one little mistake that's making the whole thing go all wonky. That makes me Angry. Yes, with the capital A. Hah.

The blackout...hahah. I think that was the defining moment of who was an LJ nerd, and who wasn't. If you weren't all distraught omg I need LJ then you were an LJ user, but not an LJ addict. Hee. I don't think there was a person on my flist who didn't freak out, which tells you a rather lot about my flist.

Beautiful World. OMG. Destroyed me. I was a wreck for like two days after reading. Wow. And that was actually one of the first long HD fics I read, and I was terrified that they were all going to be like that--not to say it wasn't spectacular, but I didn't think I would be about to take it. What a beautiful fic. Wow. Have you read Oscilliate Wildly? I don't want to spoil it for you if you haven't, but it rather destroyed me too. Our fandom is really lucky--we have some fucking amazing writers.

I don't have a problem with it appearing here!

Penname: aidenfire
Email: aidenfire.blog(at)gmail.com

Thanks so much! <3333

From:

silentauror.livejournal.com

Argh! Skyehawke apparently won't let me register a new user at the moment! Their hosts seriously need to die! I'm still mourning the popular stories pages; I miss those so! Well. As soon as it's back, then. Otherwise, you could post at thesilversnitch.net or thehexfiles.net (which is all H/D). Both of those are open membership, with any rating, though no original fiction.

I couldn't write for two days after Beautiful World, and I usually do a bit of writing, at least, every day! And yes, I've also read Oscillate Wildly - it was incredible, but the very last scene killed me, too. :( And I missed crazy!Draco after we didn't see him anymore. I'm retaining hope that normal-Draco will get more like that... :)

But A Thousand Beautiful Things undoes every string in me every time I read it. I just re-read it about three weeks ago (having had advance warning that the sequel was finally nearly ready for the posting!), and just - whoa. Incredible. So much love, I don't really have words for it. :)

From:

aidenfire

Yeah. Skyehawke does seem to go down a lot, what's up with that? *anger*

Crazy!Draco...how I adored him. I adored that whole fic. It was so, so gorgeous. And the end! The last scene! With his parents, and Sirius, and Crazy!Draco ~~and me sobbing my eyes out~~. Wow. That fic took me for such a ride.

A Thousand Beautiful Things! I actually just read that for the first time maybe three or four weeks ago, and if I weren't SO backlogged on things I should read, I'd really like to read it again. As it is, I haven't even read the sequel yet--off to do that momentarily!--and I'm really looking forward to it. That fic was just so well-crafted! And Draco was so noble and misunderstood and just. Oh. Really good.

From:

aidenfire

Huh. Maybe I won't be reading the sequel soon, as ALL of skyehawke seems to be down. Which totally sucks, because I tried to read a bunch of fics off your recs list, and most of them were on Skyehawke. Fuckers.

From:

silentauror.livejournal.com

ARRRRGGGGHHHH!!! Skyehawke, why?! Why do you do this to me?

*gets hold of self*

I hate it when it crashes! They're having really big problems with their bloody webhosts, apparently, who never answer their emails or give them reasons why their site crashed again. A couple weeks ago, they were told that it was the popular stories listings that was doing it, so the admin folks obligingly took it down, and the site still crashes at least once every twenty-four hours. Sometimes it's only down for fifteen minutes or so, but still. If it weren't such a damned good site, then nobody would be going there any more. *gives hosts the evil eye*

Yes, loved crazy!Draco. And
silent!Draco just... I don't know how to say it, exactly - something about him breaks me. I love it. I adore Draco, period. :) For my last long fic, I finally wrote from Draco's POV, and it was marvellous. So much fun. :)

From:

aidenfire

Why doesn't skyehawke just get a new server? I know enough people that use it, they must have a bit of money, at least. Geeez. And it's so frusterating when you really want to read something in particular, and it's only hosted there, and skyehawke is dumb. That just sucks. x|

Silent!Draco...yes. He was so--noble, and understanding, but no one knew it, and oh. I have this huge weakness for guys in literature who everyone thinks to be an ass, but in reality have hearts of gold. And secretly, I adore over the top, fandom, leather trousers Draco. Heh. <333

From:

silentauror.livejournal.com

Ummmm... *shifty eyes* I *cough* might have a fic wherein Draco wears leather pants... available here, if you're interested. Or, skyehawke failing, here. It even has sequels. :)

I kind of ~~dream about~~ adore fanon-Draco, too. :) How do you like your Harry? I prefer him stubborn, angry, possibly confused, but very passionate.

Skyehawke - they keep talking about getting new servers, but I think they worry about having to ask for donations and stuff, if they do. The problem is that it's so widely used that the bandwidth keeps expanding practically exponentially. It's one of the reasons why I think they've suspended new accounts for the time being. I know they meet weekly to talk about it (the three admin people, I mean) - hopefully they'll work something out soon. :)

From:

aidenfire

Oh my god! I loved your fic! I have two Harry-writings that I really love, and you got one of them spot-on: the confused, slightly naive, scared-shitless-and-trying-to-hide-it, utterly adorbable, and for all of that, still passionate as hell Harry (The other one is almost his antithesis--the angry, stubborn, knows-what-he-wants-and-GETS-it-goddammit Harry). I loved your first paragraph! I haven't read any of your stuff yet, because I've got more fic to catch up than I know what to do with (I just finished my finals, so I hadn't been online much), so honestly I had no idea what sort of author you were. I clicked on the link, read the first line or two, and smiled and thought 'This is going to be good!' and read them again. The first conversation with Ron was great! It made me laugh, beacuse I could totally see Harry and Ron having that conversation. And then we met your Draco and I went all melty. God, he was hot. So sexy, and suave, and mmmmmm. And then! Wall!sex! Does fic GET better than this? Great, great job, and I'm off to read the sequel. *g*

Ahh. That explains more than it doesn't about skyehawke. I could never quite fathom why it went down all the time, with as many users as it has, but that makes sense--the very amount of users is its problem. Ah, well, it's up now! Heh.

From:

silentauror.livejournal.com

EEEEEEE! I'm somewhat beside myself here, you know! I honestly wasn't expecting that you actually would read my fic, let alone its sequels! :) I sent you a longish response to all three of your reviews from skyehawke - apologies in advance for the formatting. In an ironic twist of fate, their auto-review system seems to like inserting slashes into the responses. In place of apostrophes, perhaps? Oh, well. I'm all for inserting slash, myself! :)

*hugs*

From:

aidenfire

Oh, and about your fic--the AU perspective was interesting, with Harry and Draco not knowing each other, but still being the same people. On a purely selfish level, it was nice to have them, *ahem* enjoy themselves without having to worry about all the emotional baggage they've managed to create for themselves over the years. (And they have managed to create a rather lot, haven't they? Those boys.) On a more in depth level, though, it kind of showed how the two of them shaped each other, and how they were different without having grown up together. I think Draco was a lot more in control, more smooth. I firmly believe that Harry is about the only person who routinely makes Draco lose his cool, and without Harry around in his youth, Draco grew up more cool than hot, a little less emotional, and more about self-gratification. And Draco may have forced Harry to be a stronger, more confident person--have you read Lord of the Rings? (spoilers for return of the king (JRR Tolkien, not Peter Jackson), skip this if you haven't read)
.
.
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In the books, when the hobbits return to the shire, everything isn't as perfect and wonderful as it was in the Peter Jackson movies. They still had a mess to clean up there, and I thought that was a lot more realistic. Admittedly, it was nowhere near as difficult as some of the other things they'd done, but it was still one more thing to do when they returned to the place they thought was safe, their haven, and that was was ultimately broke Frodo.
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Draco is kind of like that for Harry--one more obstacle to deal with beyond Voldemort and the Death Eaters (God, that sounds like a bad band from the seventies or something). Sure, Draco's not REALLY a life threatening obstacle, but he's still an obstacle in the place that is more home to Harry than anything else, the place he wants to feel safe (AKA The Shire). Dealing with that can't have been easy, so I think Draco's mere presence would make Harry into a stronger, more mature, more confident person.

Um. Wow. That was going to be short, really.

From:

aidenfire

And then I read the sequel (and this one is actually going to be short, hahah) and it was just as good! I loved how nervious Harry was, and then just a touch of possesivness. Mmm. And Draco! He's such a little stud! I love him! And I loved how kind he was with Harry. Aww, the little cutie. Great job, once again!