That's a really interesting point about trusting your gut - and I can totally relate to feeling wibbly on things but not wanting to try and fix them!

I'm definitely thinking that a big part of the puzzle is working with the right people, and that's something I need to prioritise sorting out, especially as I move to work on a longer fic that I really want to get right. I'm slowly feeling out how I like to work with beta readers and part of that is definitely that I want more than just spag corrections (which seems to be mostly what you get with a beta requested from discord, I think because of the experience level and the lack of prior beta relationship). I've found the betas you've done for me really helpful! And I'm hoping that part of working out what kind of feedback I want will help me be a better beta for others too.

That's such good advice - it's so hard to put into practice sometimes, but I've definitely experienced those scenes that do nothing from the reader side, so I need to make sure I act on it from the writer side.