Oooo very cool! And agreed that criticism of others is a good way to improve your own writing. And that friendship is the real magic (cue after school special music)

For me, I realized that what I wanted out of writing was the fandom experience of friends who squee about your characters, but with the power to control canon. So my group isn't exactly beta readers in the classical sense of the word. It's people who get invested in each other's stories. And that takes a very special kind of friend indeed. I found one in fandom, one IRL and one through here.