Your comments are a light in my life, you know that. *hugs*
I, too, *desperately* wanted my own food dehydrator. I based Riley's late night TV viewing entirely on my own youth, when I dreamed about the joys of making my own beef jerky and fruit rollups.
I tend to be kind of picky about sex scenes, so your other readers might have been fine with it... I just thought you'd appreciate the feedback. I do appreciate the feedback. I feel that my sex scenes are getting better over time, but still lacking whatever it is that makes for truly great, story-appropriate smut. So I definitely appreciate constructive criticism that could lead to improvement.
I have to say, the way that you've made Riley/Buffy *real* for me is nothing short of amazing. Thank you! I regretted Riley and Buffy's breakup in a way that I didn't regret Angel leaving. At the point where it ended, Buffy and Riley were both hurting, and the relationship was really unhealthy, but if they had made different choices, they could have been great. For this story, I tried to get them out of that extremely negative place while still getting them to a break-up point. Because, while Buffy deserves love, I don't think she deserves Riley as much as Xander does. :o)
I'm... not entirely happy with that scene, and having a hard time pinning down exactly why. When I wrote this story, I worked on the first two thirds for weeks. Wrote the whole thing in notebooks, edited it long-hand, edited it more while I was typing it up. The last third happened much quicker and was mostly written on a keyboard. I think the fact that I skipped steps in my own editing process hurt the quality. I don't dislike what I wrote, but I can see places where I could have spent more time, and this is one of them.
Re: Okay, third time is the charm, right?
I, too, *desperately* wanted my own food dehydrator. I based Riley's late night TV viewing entirely on my own youth, when I dreamed about the joys of making my own beef jerky and fruit rollups.
I tend to be kind of picky about sex scenes, so your other readers might have been fine with it... I just thought you'd appreciate the feedback. I do appreciate the feedback. I feel that my sex scenes are getting better over time, but still lacking whatever it is that makes for truly great, story-appropriate smut. So I definitely appreciate constructive criticism that could lead to improvement.
I have to say, the way that you've made Riley/Buffy *real* for me is nothing short of amazing. Thank you! I regretted Riley and Buffy's breakup in a way that I didn't regret Angel leaving. At the point where it ended, Buffy and Riley were both hurting, and the relationship was really unhealthy, but if they had made different choices, they could have been great. For this story, I tried to get them out of that extremely negative place while still getting them to a break-up point. Because, while Buffy deserves love, I don't think she deserves Riley as much as Xander does. :o)
I'm... not entirely happy with that scene, and having a hard time pinning down exactly why. When I wrote this story, I worked on the first two thirds for weeks. Wrote the whole thing in notebooks, edited it long-hand, edited it more while I was typing it up. The last third happened much quicker and was mostly written on a keyboard. I think the fact that I skipped steps in my own editing process hurt the quality. I don't dislike what I wrote, but I can see places where I could have spent more time, and this is one of them.
And now on to part two of the comment!