I've been avoiding this thread for many reasons, but I do want to say that I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed Making a Scene. I know during the mess of defriending/refriending/defriending again that Buckeye5 and I went through, she told me that she 'reluctantly' friended you in order to read it and was nervous that you would harshly criticize it given the fact there was so much controversy over it at the time due to our fighting. In fact, at the end she put So yes, I do friend "critics." So I always wondered how that progressed, I had banned her well before she could tell me what your take of it was, at the time you hadn't said anything so she didn't know if you had read it or not.

I think her issue was she didn't realize that yes, her story was good but it's the expectation she gave readers that caused problems, those coming expecting Brian/Justin reunion were not getting it, but those wanting to just read about Brian were overjoyed with seeing the way he changed, while Brian/Justin readers realized that Brian was better off and many left without saying they were. Unfortunately, when I told her that I had seen no feasible (or logical) way that Brian would leave a person like Aaron to go back to Justin...things went downhill. (She made an "I quit or I'll kill off Aaron post" because she realized she was losing readers because many felt the same way.) It wasn't until months later that it was brought back into question for my mentioning of taking a break of reading that story that it progressed to the stage it is now. I think the bitter fans that came after me each time is what really caused me to view the story much more harshly, and the added the fact she would fluctuate so quickly from one extreme to another on me in private. (Overly friendly, 'let's be friends!' one minute before hating me the next if I didn't do what she asked.)