jadff

Since I seem to be getting a fair amount of comprehensive feedback on the first installment, Bad Faith, I figured it'd be good to set up a thread to reply to those kind enough to leave their thoughts, and hopefully answer any questions they may have. Feel free to pester me here, as well! Let me say first and foremost: thank you to everyone who has taken the time to leave feedback. I will only be addressing reviews with questions, but know I adore you all (even incoherent flailing counts as feedback to us authors, and we appreciate it . SPOILER ALERT: Most of the reviews left encompass the story as a whole - if you've yet to finish reading, these replies will likely spoil a lot of things for you! gollumsfriend: Yes, the story is complete. You left the review as I was editing/reformatting completed chapters, hence the lack of M/M - the summary is quite accurate, I assure you. delia cerrano: Thank you! And I will be updating as soon as possible; the beginning of the next installment is turning out a lot longer than I planned, but it's well on its way to being sent off for beta! SP777: I'm glad you enjoyed the Lucius/Narcissa duel - I had a lot of fun with that. Lucius is so often just portrayed (not unjustly) as the "bad guy" that I wanted to have a slightly different twist here -- he's not a nice guy by any means, but doesn't like being used/controlled, either. And yes, Africa was a leap but a lot of fun. I really wanted to add more of the journey/description, but didn't want folks getting lost in the description when it wasn't important to the story. I had a lot of fun with the last chapter... and even more with the next installment! And yes, this darker side of Harry will serve a purpose - more than one, even. Thanks so much! qwerty: I'm so glad I'm not the only one pleased with Voldemort actually acting like a world-class villain If there was one thing that annoyed me in the books (aside from that epilogue...) it was how Voldemort was supposedly this threat to world peace, but had his focus narrowed down to Harry Potter. I mean, the first few books I get - he needed Harry's blood to rebuild himself/beat Lily's protection. He feared Harry because of the prophecy. What he completely failed to do in any way was really affect the world as a whole. I mean, the world doesn't end with Britain, and that's all JKR really focussed on. I saw him as the kind of ego-maniacal psychopath that wouldn't stop until he hit the stratosphere. Also, yes, I am with you with throwing them into bed - for the occasionally PWP, or story with explained/presumed backstory, sure, but I can't write a start-to-finish relationship with these two that goes any more quickly than this. As for your concerns about Africa -- my view of the country is not narrow, let me assure you. I tried to hint at that with how well the airport was modernized, but didn't spend a lot of time on it. The idea here was that they were purposely avoiding flash/high pop areas that would be frequented by tourism or people that might notice them (and, more importantly, wizards - even African wizards would be likely to recognise Harry Potter), not to mention Voldemort had the reserve set up very specifically in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere, to dissuade people from poking around (wizard and Muggle alike). I also wanted to touch on Draco's point of view for things, here: seeing the poverty prompted his question to Potter, which made Harry uncomfortable; also Hermione's itch to do something, as a Muggleborn (and therefore highly empathetic) and Ron, the pureblood (and wizard-raised) reminding her that there are 'laws' about such things. These laws will come in to play much later in the story, so consider it a mechanism for foreshadowing as well as character conflict/development. If they had been in any other country (even the USA), they would have been dragged through poverty for the same reasons - because it exists in all countries, powerful and not, and is a fundamental part of the pureblood reasoning that Draco's grown up with -- ie, Muggles being filth/destructive/useless/expendable -- and also partially the reason for Voldemort's rage at being Half-Blood (hence the world domination scheme). It's the central idea of every extreme bigotted, terrorist organization: that they feel they are entirely justified for their wants/actions, and actually believe (enough to die for) the ideals they uphold (however insane they seem to us folks in the middle). Anyway, I hope that answers everyone's questions! Thanks so much again for your feedback!

Gee, thanks for that