The corrections were absolutely on crack. They crossed out every use of "had" as a helper verb, explaining that I should avoid the passive voice, except it was all in sentences like "They had arrived the previous week, and were now well-acquainted with the city." And then criticised that the timeline didn't make sense because two separate timelines seemed to be happening at the same time. I was absolutely mortified, since my beta is a wonderful writer who was, I thought, very well-versed in grammar, and walked around in a pensive mood for a few days considering how to address it.
So today in IM with her I carefully and apologetically broached the difference between passive and pluperfect and why the fic actually had two timelines and her critique was, well, wrong and she went, "Wait, that Emelan fic with Tris? Um... I haven't even finished it yet, to be honest." And I go back and see that the revisions come from the person I'd never even met before.
Why do I keep doing this? I'll talk about a friend to them in their own livejournal, too. I keep blanking out on usernames. It's a really good thing I'm not in the habit of gossiping about my friends, or I'd be in real trouble.