Name: TreacleTart (Signed) · Date: 29 Jan 2019 11:12 PM · For: Chapter 1

Hey there!

 

I'm here with a review for the Magical Menagerie Review Event as well as the Gryffindor Red vs Gold Review event for January 2019! I've been looking at your set of drabbles for the longest time meaning to drop by and review some of them, so I'm finally here to do just that.

 

This was a really lovely piece. The idea that the main character fell in love while secretly watching the other person play the piano is really sweet. I can just imagine that person frantically practicing the song trying to memorize all of the notes for their performance deadline.

 

Oh. That took a left turn. I wasn't expecting this to turn out sad. Why did you have to go and do that to me? Here you have this lovely moment and then you kill the person off? Way to crush my heart.

 

It is nice to think about how our good memories of people stick with us even after they are gone. Clearly this person is recalling someone that they loved very much. It's nice that they remember them in those happier moments of playing the piano.

 

Good job! I don't know if you intended for this to read like a poem, but it had a very poetic quality, in my opinion. Maybe because of the single sentence per line structure. Either way, it was well done.

 

~Kaitlin

 

Name: manno-malfoy (Signed) · Date: 10 Dec 2017 10:00 AM · For: Chapter 1

Hi, I'm here for the winter wonderland. 

 

 While reading shorter pieces today, I realised that one of the reasons I like them so much is that I find pieces of myself in them more easily than I do with stories that have solid characters. Because after all, this format leaves so much more room for interpretation. This piece is composed beautifully, and what it did was remind me of a thing that I always say and believe in. That I always fall in love with people through their art or when they're talking about something they're passionate about. But that's just me. So thanks for making that sentiment resurface. I think I needed to be reminded by it in this rough patch I've been going through.

Name: ShazaLupin (Signed) · Date: 29 Apr 2017 10:05 PM · For: Chapter 1

Hey there, here for CTF! 

Another almost poem like story, but this fits really well with the title as it almost feels like music when I’m reading it.

This took a  strange turn, but I’ll start from the beginning. It’s a nice start, I feel like there in a school after hours or something, and he’s stumbled upon her, it seems very romantic. I wonder how he knew her deadline was that night though, unless that’s just hindsight talking since he is writing this years after that event happened.

It took a slighter sadder turn to it, but I don’t know if this is long enough to really make me feel as sad as he is. It does have a hint of sadness to it though, and the shortness of the piece just leaves me with a lot of questions. How did she die? What was their lives together like? How did they get together?

I love how you write with such little words, but create such a big story. There is so much to this story that you haven’t written but it’s still a  joy to read and just makes me even more intrigued as to what’s going on!

 

I’m left with so many questions, but it was a great read and beautifully written!

 

Shaza :)

Name: Dojh167 (Signed) · Date: 29 Apr 2017 09:54 PM · For: Chapter 1

Hufflepuff CtF Review

Wow, again you demonstrate your ability to capture so much in so very few words - bravo! This piece captured the lovers’ first meeting (or maybe did they already know each other, and this was first falling in love?), the middle of the romance, and after the partner had died.

 

I really like that you capture both the beauty and the frustration of practicing piano - that as beautiful as the music is, it i interrupted by stops and curses, which is very realistic. I think it’s really cool that the speaker fell in love with the pianist, not while they were performing, but while they were practicing - that suggests a much more open and accepting love, which does not demand perfection.

 

Even though you only specifically talk about the piano when they met, I can definitely see it remaining a part of their lives and home together (though I suppose it's also possible that the partner was not a long term piano player, and just had to do this as an assignment or something).

 

You don't specify their ages, but I imagined them as college age when they met (my bias, as I fell for a pianist in college) and as old when they die (please don't tell me this sweet beautiful couple is separated too young).

 

All in all I thought this was a lovely piece you did a great job with!

Sam.

Name: Stella Blue (Signed) · Date: 18 Jan 2017 12:44 AM · For: Chapter 1

You wrote 10 entries for the drabble contest? Go you! That's awesome.

 

Okay, so now to the story - honestly, this is beautiful. It feels like it's a significant amount of time after the person has passed away, and the narrator has moved forward enough to look back with fond memories of the good times without it hurting to remember that, and is able to cherish the times they did have with that person. This is one of the more uplifting hopeful fics I've read about death, and I really like that you chose to write it from this angle, and especially that you wrote it in second-person from an anonymous narrator. It makes it simultaneously very personal, and open enough that it could be anyone. It's lovely. Well done!

Name: abhorsen (Signed) · Date: 01 Dec 2016 05:19 PM · For: Chapter 1

I really loved this, Hayden. I think that you captured a side of mourning and grief that often doesn't get a whole lot of attention - part of mourning is sobbing, but part of missing someone is remembering the good times. Amazing job.