Name: sibilant (Signed) · Date: 04 Aug 2019 05:39 PM · For: My Kryptonite

Hi Tasha! Happy birthday!! I'm here to give you some birthday love because you're a wonderful person, and also for Puff-a-Claw-polypse! <3

 

This was such a striking piece, and I had to read a few times to really see all the levels of emotion packed into it. You started off immediately with an incredibly strong and heartbreaking start: fourteen is such a tender and sensitive age to start loving someone, and especially for that love to endure so many years...I thought that communicated the strength and depth of the love really well, which helped me connect to all the tension that was described afterwards.

 

One thing that struck me in general about this fic was the simple sentence structure. It read a little bit like poetry in that sense, like each line was coming from your heart--a simple truth, that you couldn't refute. Nothing more to it. I think the syntax of thsi piece emphasized how helpless the narrator is to their feelings. There's also a kind of lyrical and melacholic rhythm and tone to this piece--it just captured me a lot.

 

I feel a lot for the narrator. I don't know how much of it is drawing from your personal experience, but I really felt the pain of loving someone who hurts you--and I wonder if he is also hurt, after enduring going to war? It's obviously a very complex relationship and there are obviously very complicated feelings involved, and I'm fascinated/so impressed by how that emotional depth was conveyed through such simplicitly. 

 

Anyways. This was a really great piece! I really really loved reading it <3 Thank you for sharing! And have a great birthday! 

 

<3 Shreya

Name: TreacleTart (Signed) · Date: 14 Jan 2019 03:16 AM · For: My Kryptonite

Hey there!

 

I'm here to drop off a review for the Magical Menagerie review event on the forums as well as for the Gryffindor Red vs. Gold Review Battle. I always love seeing what people do with original fiction, so I had to come check this out.

 

Ugh. This is a tough one to read. I relate to this very, very strongly. I had a similar experience with my ex-husband. He was military. Things were good for a while, then bad. We didn't rekindle just because I won't go back to someone once something has ended, but there's definitely been him reaching out and trying several times. It's so emotionally draining and frustrating.

 

I thought the kryptonite analogy was very apt for this. I can definitely understand feeling like someone else is your weakness. I don't know when you wrote this story or if this is a continual thing, but I hope you figured out how to destroy it. There's nothing worse than being in love with someone who isn't any good for you.

 

This was a short piece, but you really conveyed a lot in a very small space. Like I said, it really resonated with me from personal experience, but I think it would resonate with anyone who had felt the sting of heartbreak.

 

Good work!

 

~Kaitlin

Name: Crimson Quill (Signed) · Date: 09 Dec 2017 02:12 PM · For: My Kryptonite

Hey Tasha!

I covered this piece for you in my mini fic night but I thought I would come back and do a little write up for you! 

 

So my favourite thing about your writing and it always gets me not just in your OF but in your fan fic too is the way that you really use the emotional. I think all of your writing feels really emotional like they just pour off the pages into the readers hearts and it really creates such an impact, this piece is a perfect example of what I'm talking about here. 

 

this piece is obviously personal to you but it really rings true to a lot of different relationships and it's really relatable because a lot of people go through this type of relationship with loving someone so much but knowing they are bad. it's a difficult thing to let go of. You really do an wonderful job at keeping this piece so honest but not over dramatic too. you use some beautiful parallels between superman and harry potter into this OF piece which I really enjoyed!

 

you know from the fic how much I enjoyed this piece. You need to write more! keep going. thank you for sharing this with us!

 

- Abbi xo 

Name: Stella Blue (Signed) · Date: 04 Dec 2017 02:04 AM · For: My Kryptonite

Aww. This is a really good piece, and I suspect it's got some personal basis to it, because it feels very authentic and deep. It's also a feeling I can relate to, and I imagine many people can - caring about someone when you wish you could let go. Letting go is hard. I think you capture this feeling so well in this piece, about how it hurts equally to let go and to hold on, and there's no easy answer. For a story so short, you do manage to say a lot and convey a really large amount of feeling. And just because of the likelihood that this is based on your personal experience, here's a lot of hugs *HUG* Wonderful writing, Tasha.

Name: Dojh167 (Signed) · Date: 04 Dec 2017 01:16 AM · For: My Kryptonite

Agh just from those first two sentences this hurts a lot.

 

When we see teenagers nursing broken hearts, we tend to tell us or ourselves that they’ll get over it. I do that too, but I also know what it’s like to never get over someone, and that’s a deep kind of hole.

 

Oohh that “I wish I may, I wish I might” line is a really good combination of unexpected references!

 

I think this did a good job of telling a story that covered a large stretch of time in a way that kept the pacing of the writing feeling natural.

 

I don’t know how autobiographical this is, but for whatever parts of this that are real, literally or emotionally, I offer you many hugs.

 

Sam.

Name: TidalDragon (Signed) · Date: 09 Aug 2017 10:22 PM · For: My Kryptonite

Howdy Tasha! Thank you for christening the Staff Review Thread! We're excited to be debuting it and I suppose I'll get to christen the opposite side of it - so double thanks!

 

Now, for your story. I know your chief concern was relatability and at least for me personally, I found it very relatable. I think the piece speaks to a universal human experience - yearning for something that cannot be, especially in matters of the heart. You capture a lot of different aspects of that in few words - the nostalgia, the magnetism - on both sides, the inevitable failure, and the lingering sense of desperate frustration that you're incapable of making "the dream" stick. Here, I think the minimalism and bluntness are your friends. 

 

If I were to pick something that maybe detracts from the effectiveness of that, it would be the specifics that I'm sure are personal tie-ins. While I think things like that are always great facilitators in the beginning to get you where you need to be, the details narrow the universality of it. Everyone has had these overall feelings, but not everyone specific numbers of years or deployments. I'd be a big fan of breaking up the third sentence too, or restyling it to read more rapid-fire, but that one is really more of a personal preference.

 

Overall though, I thought the story was really well done. How can you tell? Because I can write this long a review about it, even at its word count, and even thought I'm notoriously awful at leaving reviews on drabbles. The bottom line is that I think the piece does exactly what you want - captures and draws on complex human emotions at the same time, while also establishing an overall good rhythm for the straightforward style.

 

Thanks for sharing this!

Name: abhorsen (Signed) · Date: 01 Dec 2016 07:42 PM · For: My Kryptonite

Ouch.

 

Yeah, this is definitely a sentiment that's very relatable, and I think that invoking kryptonite is an excellent choice. It's so, so difficult to have someone that you genuinely care about who also genuinely hurts you, and letting that person go can be next to impossible. Really great job at capturing it!