Jeez, it's about time I updated this huh? Well, it's about time I updated a lot of things, but especially my DM story. To anyone who cares I will get back to What Comes Around. I did lose interest for a bit, but as my very first posting to this site, heck, it's my very first fanfic story, it's important to me to finish it. I still know where I want to go with it, but I believe my problem was my approach. I shouldn't have tried writing as I go. That doesn't really work for me. I've been working on another story related to my current Naruto fixation to post here and found it works better for me to write a complete summary then go back and flesh it out. That gives me a really nice foundation to build off of instead of sitting in front of my computer and trying to figure out what happens next so I can move on to the stuff I really want to get to in my story. Ah, well.

Well, still can't act my age but since our childhoods are so short I figure there's still more than enough time to act like an adult. Granted, there are many perks to being an adult, but being a kid is way more fun! Still live in the same small border town in Arizona 'cause I like it here. Plus, I don't have to pay rent. Still not married or have kids, but I feel if it's meant to happen it'll happen, if not it's not. I'm in my mid-thirties, I've got plenty of time left!

Fanfiction likes:

People who leave constructive reviews Especially when they don't like something they'll take the time to tell you why they don't like something.

People who take the time to work on their story This runs the gamut from proofreading a couple of times before posting to really thinking out your plot line. Plot holes are forgivable. I've seen it happen to the best of writers and the more complicated the story, the more likely it happens.

People who graciously accept constructive criticism and actually applies them to their stories Shows you really do read your reviews even if don't answer each one personally. It also shows you care about improving your skills.

People who enjoy writing and aren't overly concerned with the number of reviews they get If you're having a blast doing something, it shows and makes it more enjoyable for your audience. Otherwise it's like watching one of the Mainstreet parades at Disneyland and seeing someone who's supposed to be portraying a happy, dancing dwarf looking really bored and pissy. It just kills the mood.

Fanfiction dislikes:

People who leave incomplete reviews The ones that say your story is great is acceptable because they simply want to let you know they enjoyed your work. It's the ones that say they didn't like your fic or it sucked that really make you wonder why that person even bothered. A writer can't improve if you don't tell them what's wrong. Even if you didn't like what they did show some intelligence and explain why you didn't like what a person wrote. This is not a difficult question to answer.

People who flame Granted there are times when the flaming is perfectly justified I've certainly felt inclined to do that myself on a couple of occasions. Besides, flames are great for roasting marshmallows and hotdogs (though usually not together, yuck). However, usually flamers are nothing but bullies who are only interested in picking a fight or are ticked because the writer didn't pander to their whims. If you feel justified in flaming don't be a coward and do it anonymously. Writers are bravely posting their work knowing it's not going to make everyone happy, the least you could do is be open enough to give them the chance to explain themselves. You'll find that most writers will calmly explain themselves and the point they were trying to make with their work. Remember, if you're going to yell at someone, expect them to yell back, if not, keep your so-called opinions to yourselves.

People who demand reviews but don't bother making changes to their stories A lot of people simply don't have the time to go back and rework their fics. Annoying, but understandable. I'm referring to those who clearly state 'my spelin suks but i'm knot goin to corect it.' If a story is that badly written because of spelling, grammar, a confusing plot line, etc. it's not worth my time to read it because when it's that bad the author obviously doesn't care to improve their skills. I have better things to do with my time than to try and understand a piece of garbage like that. Fanfiction is supposed to be fun, not an exercise in endurance and comprehension. I'd probably have a better chance of understanding the Wallstreet Journal written in Chinese than some of the poorly written crap that gets posted. Besides, if all you want to hear "it's great!" you'll just have to content yourself with five to ten other reviews claiming "diz iz kewl pls upd8 soon!" for every chapter without telling you they liked this or that. You don't need me to repeat that sentiment and you certainly wouldn't miss it either.

People who only continue stories if they get a certain number of reviews Sometimes it takes time for a story to gather steam. To abandon it because your not getting the number of reviews you want just strikes me as stupid. Also makes you come off like the proverbial little monkey dancing for the crowd in the hopes of getting more peanuts tossed to you. If you feel confident enough to post your work, you should trust it will find an audience eventually.

People who plagiarize! If you didn't write it, it's not yours and any reviews you get for stolen goods are meaningless because it's NOT YOURS! People like this are nothing but attention whores who don't even bother trying to come up with something original but are desperate to post something because they want to get reviews. That's just pathetic. Don't think you can get away with it for long. NO ONE likes a plagiarizer and will report it. I did and will happily continue reporting people I discover plagiarized someone else's work. No matter how you justify it in that little used brain of yours, you would not like someone to do that to you. Have some dignity and a little respect for others. They put forth the effort to create what you stole. This does not apply to writers who are inspired by another's work and write a similar story. If you take an idea and make it your own where it's definitely unique despite the similarities to someone else's work that's okay. At least be courteous to let the original author know they inspired you. You'll find most people are flattered and want to know when you post your work to see what you came up with off of their idea. Basically getting another reader without much effort.

People who treat incest and rape like loving sex acts I understand writers like to challenge themselves and that means tackling taboo topics like incest, rape, abuse, etc. They have a lot of different reasons for it but mostly because it contributes to the overall feeling and the plot of the story. They also want to expose the ugly side of humanity so the vermin who commit these acts can't continue hiding in the shadows knowing most people are too genteel to discuss such things. It's the silence of society that allows these heinous acts to continue unpunished. These writers aren't trying to glorify rape and incest and they do a pretty good job portraying them for the ugly, deviant, sick acts they are. What I hate is when people treat rape and incest as sex acts that lead to love with the perpetrator. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?! Obviously you have never known someone who was a victim and you were never a victim yourself because you would know first hand how horrible an experience that is. You're too stupid and lack the empathy God gave a shark to know how damaging that is in the long run. You insult and mock all the survivors who struggle daily to overcome the long lasting effects because you're too moronic to comprehend that it doesn't matter if the attack took place 40 years ago or yesterday, the victim never fully heals. You might try to justify your sick musings by claiming they're only fictional characters. Well, guess what? That doesn't make a bit a difference to someone who is a victim. They could read your story and honestly believe you scorn their pain, that you if think it's okay to do this to a fictional character it's okay to do to someone in real life, that YOU condone what happened to them.

Worth checking out:

If you're interested in getting genuine, bona fide, constructive reviews for your Naruto fics or if you're like me and like giving detailed reviews go to The Reviewer's Inn forum run by Master of Orion. In addition to being able to post links to your story so other people can review it you can also present story ideas that you would like help developing or would like to put up for adoption.

The link is: http://www.fanfiction.net/forum/The_Reviewers_Inn/66058/

Okay, I found these two lists on Jordan Lives profile (http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1515875/Jordan_Lives) and with his permission I'm posting them here. I felt his lists summed up a lot of my own opinions nicely. I've made my own modifications to these lists to fit my own opinions better or to clarify points. Ask yourself honestly when reading, 'how many of these points apply to me?' You'll be surprised people.

The Reasons people write Fanfiction:

People disagree with the original creator about what should be done with his/her creations.

People think they can rewrite the original creator's story better.

People try to guess, "What will come next?" when the original storyline isn't even finished yet.

People want to play with 'might have been,' or 'should have been.'

People think things that were left unexplored should be explored.

People find plot crossroads, places where the story could have gone one of a few different ways, and decide the way the original creator went wasn't the right direction.

People love the characters so much they want to make them their own.

People like the concept of a character, but think the original creator failed to bring them out to their fullest potential.

People like to speculate, "But what if this had happened instead of that?"

People want to feel important and try to place themselves in their favorite universe. (This also shows these people are a bit out of touch with reality and are unhappy in their real lives.)

People feel unwanted, or outcast and they want to be where they can't be judged based on who they are, but on what they've done. (Although, the fantasies they are placing themselves in are far more war torn, prejudicial and vicious than the reality they want to escape.)

People want to improve the quality of their writing.

People like the characters, but find flaws in the plot.

People like the plot but find flaws with the characters.

People get bored.

People want a reaction.

People want to understand the mind of the original. (They probably also want to learn the technical skills of the original creator, like copying a master painting to figure out how Da Vinci created the Mona Lisa.)

People want to know what would happen if that one thing, that one debilitating weakness that all great characters have were taken away. (This I have never personally understood because it's that weakness that makes the character who they are. Take that away and they are a completely different character.)

Fanfiction Annoyances (Formerly: Things Author's of Fanfiction do seemingly just to piss off me, and every other decently competent writer on this site):

(I could've put a lot of these under my Fanfiction Likes/Dislikes, but those lists are for best and worst. I can tolerate a lot of this stuff or I simply avoid them like the plague. People write stories with these elements because they like it and there's an audience who will read them, though I'm at a loss to figure out why. Hey, whatever floats your boat. I'm just sharing what annoys me. Jordan Lives created this list, which sums up a lot of my feelings, so as I've said before I'm borrowing it with his permission and adjusted it to fit my personal rants.)

Make characters not as strong as they should be: "Oh look I'm the second Espada! I'm stronger than any Gotei 13 captain, Fear me! Oh no I just got wtfpwned by this 4 year old Mary Sue nobody! It's not like according to Kubo Tite something with significantly less spiritual pressure than something else cannot physically cut that thing." What's the point in making a character incapable of keeping up with the rest of the characters? Granted it's possible in Naruto because civilians live among the ninjas, but you gotta admit the civilians just aren't as interesting as the ninjas. Other than the fact Naruto would be deprived of his lifeblood, who really cares if Teuchi and Ayame dies? That's what instant ramen is for.

Or make characters too strong: "Bwahaha, I'm Naruto Uzumaki, tremble! In the Anime I suck at life in general and have stumbled along on sheer dumb luck and stubborness. But just cuz I found a magic sword in this forest while tripping on acid and cutting myself because the village just tried to murder me for the 9001th time (Because obviously it's over 9000), now I can destroy the world by blinking! Fear me, Blink! Blink!!" When you make characters too strong it destroys what is known as 'Suspension of Disbelief,' that thing which let's you read a story about ninjas blowing giant dragons made of fire out of their mouths and summoning toads the size of skyscrapers and not go every three seconds, "but that denies every law of motion, thermodynamics and even the theory of relativity! Hey! The space on the inside of that magical toad is bigger than the space on the outside!" It's what leads people to never question that somehow when people die they go to a place exactly like feudal Japan, or that every dead person ever speaks Japanese! Or the fact that when these 'Souls' die a second time they get reincarnated into a baby. What if there's not enough babies? Or too many souls? Do you know how impossible it would be for the world to be regulated by that? "Oh no! We've somehow managed to keep a thousand souls from dying a second time...a thousand Korean kids were just born souless...well damn, that's unfortunate. Looks like Aizen just slaughtered 9001 (again over 9000) residents of Rukongai, what do we do with all these dead people with no bodies to put them in?...Force Premature births? Then they'll end up right back here." People read these stories and keep reading them because we are temporarily able to suspend our inclination to disbelieve things that go against what we know to be true. However, when things are too outrageous we can't do that...and then the story becomes not fun to read. It also makes you question your own sanity and wonder why you wasted precious time of your fading life on reading such a fic in the first place.

Rewriting the entire series, or certain parts: Look Au stories are fun, no doubt about it, but who wants to just redo cannon? Don't try arguing that your version is way different or better because guess what? It usually isn't. A lot of writers fall into the trap of pretty much writing nearly the exact same story as the original without realizing it until it's too late, assuming they ever realized it at all. Then there are those writers who simply rewrite a certain sequence of events key to the original storyline. I've read very few rewrites where the writers made the chunin exams their own. Actually, only a couple. Yeah, I get that you're setting the story at a time where you can't avoid rewriting the chunin exams, for example. However, if you can, please do us all a favor and just skip them entirely. You can simply refer back to them in the narrative because honestly, I think the original chunin exam was the best.

Yaoi! and Yuri! I understand writers are usually catering to their own yaoi or yuri fetishes and although it's not my cup of tea I've read some good stories that contain yaoi (admittedly I have not read any good yuri, and no, I'm not that interested in finding any either, so please don't point them out to me). However, notice in that sentence I wrote 'good stories that contain.' I am a heterosexual female with a gay uncle who really isn't all that interested in homosexual sex. A lot of yaoi and yuri are nothing but sex showcases and not very good ones either. If I want to read good sex fiction I know a couple of sites that specialize in erotic fiction where the sex scenes are waaaay better than the cut and paste crap that gets posted here. I don't have a problem with yaoi if the story is good and the sex isn't the sole focus of the fic.

Jordan Lives, who I got this list from, has a really hilarious, but true take on this issue. Although I don't agree exactly with his point of view he makes a very valid argument, so I'm going to go ahead and quote this part instead of deleting it simply because it doesn't fit my thoughts on this issue. "Just because I haven't ever peeped on women in the bath tub, or tried to cop a feel I'm obviously a raging Homosexual." Homosexuality is only okay in my book when the author himself has stated: that character is as flaming as a tent full of drunk clowns doused in gasoline on the 4th of July. But no...the only characters you guys don't force to get raped up the A by their unwilling coworkers are the ones that have left no doubt as to their heterosexuality, which is apparently only possible by being a giant fucking pervert." I personally never understood why anyone would make a character who clearly isn't gay a homosexual. I like to keep things closer to how they originally are, but I won't deny I've read some good stories where the characters are homosexual, so that's why this is merely an annoyance.

Annoying things writers stick in their summaries:

These are things that have been irritating me for awhile now but only finally got around to listing them since they fit very nicely to what I have already posted here. You have so little space for a summary so I don't get why anyone would waste it on this stuff. Oh, this doesn't fit anywhere on this list, but I thought it was the all time best summary I've read on this site. It very clearly states the plot of this story, which is simply called 'Kimimaro' and shows you don't have to stress so much about writing a great summary: THIS STORY IS ABOUT KIMIMARO AND A GIRL MAMED MADDIE. See? Succinct and to the point. It doesn't get any better than that.

I suck at summaries! Summaries are very hard for people to write, but I'll give a story a chance regardless if the basic idea is interesting. A lousy summary does not translate into a crappy story. Usually. However, if you feel you HAVE to point out your summary sucks that must mean you think I'm too stupid to realize the obvious, so I guess I'm just too stupid to read your story.

Please read and review! or Read it! Umm, isn't it obvious that if we want to we're going to read your story? I mean, that is what this site is for, reading and writing. I'm sorry, but no matter how nicely you ask or how much you demand I'm not going to read your fic just because you tell me to. As for the review, well, if I have something worthwhile to say I will review, otherwise don't tell me what to do.

My spelin n gramner suks Be smart about this people and don't point it out because I know I won't read if I get a warning like that. You might be able to trick me into wasting my time into reading more than a couple of chapters if you don't scare me off from the get go.

Stating the pairing At least in the Naruto category there's this lovely feature where you can filter the stories by characters because when the writers posted they set which characters when they posted their fic. It shows up right underneath the summary along with the rating, word count, etc. So why state it again in the summary? I can see what characters the story focuses on, what I want to know is what is your story about. The only legitimate exception I can see if the pairing is indicating a change in a character's gender. For example: kaka/femnaru.

Stating the rating See 'Stating the pairing' because it's the same thing.

Flamers not welcome No one really likes flamers, I mean, you never hear anyone say 'I LOVE flamers,' but this goes without saying. It also attracts the very idiots you don't want reviewing your story, so it makes sense not to give them an open invitation.