ap_aelfwine
Andrew Aelfwine
Bio
I'm a bloke, and more than old enough to know better. I play Irish traditional music and have strong opinions about anthropological theory.
For the most part, I ship Harry/Hermione or Harry/Hermione/female (generally Ginny, Luna, or both).
I find it oddly comforting when I get negative reviews from the blathering inarticulate and the borderline illiterate. It's almost as pleasing as some West Brit wanker insisting I'm simultaneously "a stupid ignorant mucksavage" and "an insufferable snob" (My dear chap, you must make a choice!) for being a fluent speaker of a language said wanker hasn't got a word of.
An bhfuil Gaeilge agat? Scríobh chugam, le do thoil.
Look, I'm thick-skinned as fuck, right? I've done university writing courses. I've had an instructor who disliked science fiction and fantasy--and I might add that I wrote him speculative fiction and put in the work to get decent marks for it*--who regularly said things like "you started with a lovely premise and destroyed it with a cheap joke."
That being said, you don't have to insult other writers to praise a story you like. By which I mean comments such as one I just saw on a fic that, needless to say, wasn't mine: "This is like the first time reading a fanfic in Irish that wasn't cringe..."
Might I add that I don't want to see that comment on one of mine, either?
Seriously, people, have you any notion how much work goes into a story? This is a small world, and the least we can do is try and be decent to each other.
*He was a professional author who'd had a novel or two turned into a film, so I took my chances and made it work. It was a case of us having different tastes, not him being a pretentious English department hack.