July 4th, 2009 at 02:55pm
I'm sorry I can't give a better review, but sometimes praise can be so trivial, con-crit so picky and it deserves better than that. I'm not sure a short rambley comment is the key, but it's all I can offer right now.
I particularly loved the part where he says he wants to be normal--after his "eccentric" type of career, his wild life, it's all he wants and he's tired of standing out he wants to blend in, but it won't make him happy either.
The ending was
I'm sorry this can't be better >_>
You know I love your writing, but this one is one of my favourite pieces by you. There's just something about it that really stands out to me, I like it nearly as much I like Firefly, and you know how much I loved that one. XD Anyway. Feedback.
Instantly we're thrown into the main storyline. that five foot four narcissist with a dreadful talent for shattering hearts and souls into splinters I love the detail you've gone into here, and I love how specifically you've gone into her height and the like. And how her talent is dreadful because she just goes out and breaks people. It's like she has no regard for anybody but herself. She thinks that she's better than everybody else, and if somebody isn't good enough for her then she just discards them and breaks them. She sounds like a nasty piece of work. And I think it's so clever that her name is never mentioned - she's just a nameless person to Kaoru, he doesn't care about names or anything. And also, because she has no name, it's harder to assosiate with her or feel sympathy for her. It's like she's just there, existing.
And she's just a user. Love was just a game to her and she hated to lose. She doesn't like it when she's bettered, and it doesn't seem like she dates people for love or companionship. She just does it for fun, and when she's sick of them, she just breaks them apart and hurts them. She doesn't have respect for anybody but herself. Just...argh. She's a nasty piece of work and reminds me of this girl that I know (who I really hate, btw).
I absolutely adored this description. We never quite fit together – our relationship was like a jigsaw puzzle in which someone was trying to force a little piece of the painted sky into the space where the grass should be. I love the metaphor and the way that the relationship was described. They're two people who match, but not quite - as in, they're parts of the same jigsaw but not the parts that fit next to each other. I thought that was such a clever description, I'd love to know how you think up these things!
But Kaoru knows that he fits Die a lot better than she ever will. But at least I loved him. She loved no one but herself. He can give Die what he wants, but they can't seem to make a relationship between the pair of them work. Die thinks that she loves him, but he can't see her for who she really is (it's like what we were talking about earlier, it's funny how love makes you blind to who people really are).
Kaoru can read him like a book. It was the same look he gave me the fourth time we broke up – a look of hopelessness, that told me he’d given up – and no amount of alcohol could disguise it. He knows how Die reacts to certain situations and knows which expressions go with which mood. He pays a lot of attention to Die - probably a lot more than Die realises. And Kaoru just feels so bad for him, he knows that he's not happy and he's just hiding behind a smile, but Kaoru can see through this. He can always see the real Die, despite the differences they share.
And he's the only one that notices anything is wrong. He kept saying how he was the luckiest guy on the planet, the words soon sounding robotic and repetitive. He wants to believe this, and he keeps saying it. It's as if he thinks that the more times he says it, the more real and believable it is. And Kaoru notices just how sad he is when he says them. He's just speaking lifelessly, and is devoid of emotion. And everybody believes him because they expect it to be the truth - he is getting married, after all.
It hurts Kaoru, for him to see that Die is so unhappy. I snuck outside, unable to watch Die’s performance any longer He knows that Die is just living a lie and it pains him to watch because of what he feels for him. He's hurting with Die, if that makes sense. And he knows they don't match, but there are times when he feels like they do. I could feel his presence before I saw him, almost like a sixth sense. This shows that Kaoru is really in-tune with Die, he notices when he's near. It's almost as if he expected Die to come out and join him.
I like the back-story you give, as well. He’d been smoking since he was fifteen, firstly as a form of rebellion but it had quickly turned into an addiction that he couldn’t kick. It gives the reader a bigger insight into the character of Die, and I think that the cigarette addiction is similar to the relationship that he has with Kaoru. Like, he rebelled by seeing him for a while, and although he finished it between them, he never kicked the habit because there are times when he still wants to be with Kaoru, it seems like. And it also bears similarities to the relationship he has with her - he wants to quit, but he can't.
In some ways, though, Kaoru has accepted the relationship between Die and her. It was only natural that they would get together… but even so, it was horrifying. Kaoru knows that they were bound to get together in the end, but he's just disturbed and upset by it because he knows that it isn't what Die truly wants. He knows that Die is just living a lie, but he's just resigned to the fact that this is what Die is going to do, and he can't stop him.
Sorry for quoting so much here, but I just wanted to mention all of this. he dropped his gaze to the concrete and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, turning his head away from me, rejecting my entire being with one simple movement. “I just want to be normal, okay?” This is the bit where Die decides that he's done with Kaoru, he's sick of always feeling this way and just wants to forget about everything that has happened. He turns away, which is such cold body language, and Kaoru notices this. And it really hurts him. It's so saddening to read. And then - Die declares that he wants to be normal. And this just crushes Kaoru, he doesn't truly know how to react to that, and loses all hope.
I like how you brought the puzzle imagery back into it all. There it was, the reason we’d never got very far, why the puzzle had never been completed And this is the missing piece, the reason that Die never truly commited. Because he was feeling a mixture of fear and self-consciousness. He doesn't want people to look down on him - I have a feeling that reputation means a lot to him - and this is why he acts a little bit cold to Kaoru, and why their relationship ended.
And when Kaoru gets angry - when it's completely in his right to do so, in my opinion - Die doesn't really counteract it. “Kaoru… stop it.” That's all he does. He doesn't really explain why, he just tells Kaoru to stop. That's really sad, it shows that he doesn't really care enough to explain. I don't really like Die much in this story, he seems quite suited to the woman that he's engaged to - they both seem to care more about reputation than true love.
I loved the ambiguity of the end, in particular. “No… but it’s not right either.” Again, Die doesn't really give any sort of explanation to Kaoru, and it's left open-ended. We don't get to find out Kaoru's reaction, or whether the wedding actually went ahead in the end. And that's one of my favourite aspects of this story - the mystery about the ending. One of my favourite endings, ever.
Loved this and I love you, also. :arms: