Hello,

I am Kyrotec.

I have had fun reading, writing and reviewing on this site for a few years now, but now I'm thinking of winding it down. The (tenative) plan is for me to take some time to finish up most the "In-Progress" stories I have going, and maybe upload a couple oneshots I've had sitting on my computer. So, other than tying up those loose ends, I'll probably keep reviewing stories, but at this point I don't anticipate doing anything more.

SORRY GUYS - I thought about maybe continuing Demented Mentors, but the muse has left me entirely. That story, as you will notice, is now officially 'Complete.'

The plan for now is for me to retire this account to a state in which I return to giving only reviews.

Before this happens I would like to get the following accomplished:

1. Complete all 'In-Progress' stories.

2. Upload 1-3 more of my oneshots or short stories.

3. Upload cover art for all Completed stories.

I can't make any promises as to how all of this will go or when it will all be done. Thank you all for reading and reviewing my stories so far and for taking the time to visit this page.

= ABOUT ME =

I try to give nice, well-rounded reviews that tell you specifically what I liked and didn't like. If I mention something I didn't like, I usually try to give a specific reason. If I think someone is out of character (badly OOC) or I find another issue with the story that might take me longer to go into-- I might PM you or something and tell you exactly what I feel the problem is. I also send PMs if I feel like my comment/complaint would take too much time to explain and could not be submitted as part of a "proper" review. I would say I try never to FLAME anyone- I think everyone should be allowed the opportunity to improve their writing on their own time.

I have a reading disability, so my spelling is not always the best. I try to catch my own mistakes, but I may miss some here and there.

I generally prefer to read and write "canon," and I've found that I simply can't deviate from that, even to support a "popular" pairing, if I just can't justify it, or shipping those two seems to force me to write them more out-of-character than I would like. I've been getting more relaxed about this lately but I still think it's important to set a clear goal (either completely canon or... convincing AU? Well-executed role-reversal?) and strive for that.

I think of it as a challenge to try and write as close to the "cannon" tone, action, and style as possible, but I understand that deviating (if slightly) from this can make a story more entertaining. The nice thing about fanfiction is that we fanfiction authors aren't bound by the same rigid censorship guidelines and we don't have a bunch of higher-ups to tell us what we can and cannot publish, so we have a lot more freedom to explore different subject material. We should be glad for that.

HOWEVER, I HATE and I mean HATE it when people do this... and I've been seeing more and more of it.

I am a stickler for "canon," as I've said, but I can tolerate some stuff that deviates from cannon, as long as it is entertaining and I can see the characters doing that. Some people do what I've called "puppeting," where you take a character and make them behave completely contrary to cannon, for no other reason than that you wish to use them (as your "puppet") to speak about something that's on your mind.

Need an example of puppeting? How about this? BEAST BOY from TEEN TITANS has been shown, in the cartoon, to not only be a vegetarian, but most likely a vegan. I am not a vegan. I am not vegetarian. I eat meat. I like meat. If I wrote a fanfiction for the CARTOON TEEN TITANS where I had Beast Boy go back on his vegetarian stance and talk about how meat isn't bad for you and meat doesn't hurt anyone/anything that would be me "puppeting" through Beast Boy.

So, what do I LIKE? I like fics that are a bit adventurous, but I like it when they remind me of the original thing. Nothing brings a smile to my face like reading good writing where the author clearly likes the series for what it is/was. I get really tired of reading fics where people adapt the characters by making them more muscular, taller, more "cool," less "of a jerk," or whatever, to satisfy their own wishes. All I can think when I read that is, did you like the character, or the series, in the first place or not?

So that's what I have to say before I close out of here for good. I can't say I'm that proud of anything I've produced, but that's life.

- Kyrotec