Confusion Is the Strongest Emotion - Comments

I'm in the middle of chapter two, but I felt like I had to tell you how much I'm loving this.
There's so much emotion and damaged feelings that it makes me both cringe and want to read the rest. Your descriptions are so good and you portray their actions and emotions so easily.
Supposedly this is fan-fiction, but, no lie, because you know how to write these guys so well they might as well be your own characters.

Wow. I like... hmm, I like the bit between the start and the end :). Guhhh, so freaking cute yet so sad at the same time. The candy heart <3. I think this is the first patd-centric story I've read since ryan and jon left. It's reminded me how much I like this pairing, so thank you for that. I feel so much love for this, but somehow I've ran out of words.

I only found this story a couple days ago, and I tried really really hard to read only one chapter a day, but i really couldn't. I love it. From beginning to end, it's really just... everything. Its tragic and romantic and heartbreaking but you can't stop reading because they're always just right there. I cried a little bit, and I laughed a lot, and then I made my roommates sit down and read it so that they could finally figure out what i was spending so much time on the computer fangirling over, and they had the same reaction I did. It's gorgeous, and i think that it maybe might have cured my two year long writers block.

Sorry I haven't commented on this chapter yet. I put off reading it because I didn't want it to end, and then I put off commenting because I couldn't think of anything to adequately convey how I feel about the ending.

Quite simply, I thought it was beautiful. I loved the bit with the candy heart :3 The way everything happened seemed so natural. No one asked anyone to be their boyfriend or anything that formal, they just ... were. And that fits so well.

Thank you for writing this, really. I love it so much.

I absolutely love the bit about Brendon’s smile. I love how happy and carefree Brendon can be and you just embodied his excitement really well here and it just seemed so Brendon to be and I loved that Ryan commented that it was still beautiful even though it wasn’t having the effect on him that it should.

I loved the bit about romance and movies and I think you pretty said exactly what every writer does, studying movies and all that, I mean just so we can write about it. And I loved the line that he wasn’t a hopeless romantic, just hopeless, it just completely juxtaposed the meaning of a hopeless romantic with a simple twist. It was easily done but really effective. As much as I hated it, I was a big fan of Ryan throwing away the candy heart. I think it could symbolise more than one thing here, like it could be dealing with Ryan’s hopelessness in the situation but it could also be showing us that the more “materialistic” side of their relationship and after this moment, its just going to become more real and something just between Ryan and Brendon with no bullshit symbols, you know?

"I'm in love with Brendon." Ryan said in the same way he'd rip off a Band-Aid. Then he winced at the pain that wasn't physical. This part seemed out of place to me, not just in this story, but in your writing. I thought the comparison was a bit cliché and I totally think you’re capable of coming up with something better to describe this feeling because you’re an amazing author and I just thought that this wasn’t you and I love you so I just wanted to point it out. I don’t mean any offense and I’m not denoting your writing in any way, just this one bit.

The part when Spencer asked Ryan about Trevor, I loved that Ryan actually answered the question because before, there was that whole bit about Ryan not answering questions that made him uncomfortable because answering them would make the answers real and it just really showed that even though its not obvious, Ryan is changing and growing throughout this story just as much as Brendon is.

He'd heard the noises coming from the basement and then he'd turned and run back to bed. This broke my heart! The fact that he ran back to bed, it was just such a good comparison to the children who get up in the middle of the night and get so uncontrollably scared that they have to run back to bed and hide beneath their blankets and my heart just went out to him. And it’s so sad because it wasn’t what it seemed for Ryan either and the whole situation probably hurt Ryan just as much as it hurt Brendon and they’re just not talking about it.

I love these two boys together, they’re so good for one another but they’re both too scared and broken to trust each other and it’s just so sad and I always want them to be happy, but they never seem to be until the very last moment in any story. And it’s not really fair because they can both be so happy for so long if they just have faith in each other and in what they can be together.

And in that moment, of Brendon feeling Ryan's weight, Ryan didn't feel his own. This line, in all its simplicity, was so pretty. It described the feeling perfectly and you articulated it so well.

I loved the whole last scene with Spencer in the car, I loved Spencer’s reaction, it was like mine because we’re spectators like Spencer and it is just about time and we should all have the same feelings that Spencer had then. And I loved where you ended this. We’ve already kind of talked about how much I like where you ended this so I won’t say much on that, but I loved how in the moment you ended it. Like, literally, it didn’t have much closure but it did, it had so fucking much. I enjoyed every moment of reading this story, it is definitely my favorite story on the site. You wrote their story perfectly.

Love, Love
Love, Love, Love, Love
Love, Love
This story.

I'm going to cry. I am seriously going to cry now. I have been following this story since you first began to post it on Mibba, and I don't want it to be over. No matter how wonderful the ending is. It's beautiful, it really is. It's too beautiful. I'm speechless. I can't even function right now, because it's late at night and I feel like crying. And hugging you. And hugging Ryan and Brendon.

I love the fact that they ended up together at the end. And it wasn't something simple. One of them didn't ask the other. You had to make inferences, and that's what I love the most about this story. It's not the stereotypical romance. Neither of these boys talk too much, and they tend to keep to themselves when it comes to their love for one another. Even at the end, you had to think back to the candy heart and remember what the candy heart really represents.

Most authors abandon their old ideas, or what happens at the beginning of a story. But you don't. And I think that is a great factor, Dru. You remember the story that you're writing. You remember the color of the boy's eyes. You remember who his siblings are. You remember what he looks like, and what he looks like to other characters.

You put yourself in each of their shoes.

I have so much more to say to you, Dru, but I am really tired right now. And I'm going to go finish my project for Japanese, which I get to describe Ryan and Brendon in. This is going to be fun. But I can't think of any negative adjectives about them. ::pouts:

You managed to write an ending that worked. It wasn't too sappy or too un-closure. It worked. Well done. You're a wonderful writer.
I was sad that Ryan threw away the conversational heart but it was okay because he wanted to buy a box of them afterwards. That's the sort of give-and-take writing which is really powerful.

Chapter Seven
I loved every bit of chapter seven. I loved that Brendon still thought about the candy heart long after he had left it, I liked that he finally got to go home and see his parents for a little bit. His brother, Matt was really sweet. If I was in Brendon’s situation and somebody actually expressed the face that they really cared about what I was doing, I probably would have just broken down. Brendon is so strong in this story, but not overtly strong, its like he doesn’t even realise it himself. I know that if someone told me that I had to move out, get two jobs and finish school, I’d say I would never be able to do that but maybe when you’re just thrown into the situation; you grow up and deal with it simply because you have to. He’s just changed so much since the beginning of the story and I absolutely love it when characters do that, there’s nothing worse than that static character that thinks about things the exact same way they did when everything started. I really liked Ryan in this one too, he’s just so keen and excited and really happy with where his life is right now. I liked the line where Brendon said that Ryan was probably more excited about Brendon singing Pete’s words than Brendon was because that’s so Ryan. If he’s excited about something, he’ll show it and it doesn’t matter if nobody else feels the same because they just don’t get it the way Ryan does. And I liked Pete and Patrick because the dynamic between them pretty much mirrored Brendon and Ryan. There’s always one whose head is up in the clouds and needs to be taken back down. It’s just a very real friendship, I know that I need someone that bring me back to earth if necessary, so it was just really relatable.

Chapter Eight
The sex-scene with Pete was so weird. Like, you’ve been sort of leading up to it for a while now and the idea has just been building and building and I felt sort of like Ryan, like all this anticipation was rising up in me and then when the moment finally came, it wasn’t what you expected, your mind just wasn’t in it. I liked that Ryan said he hated the necessities of having sex because it made him feel cheap and dirty because, for me, that’s exactly what this sex scene felt like. He wasn’t sleeping with Pete because he had feelings for him, he was sleeping with him just to materialize some fantasy that he realised he didn’t even want until it was too late. I thought it was a really good touch to add in the Pete and Patrick moment because that small scene really embodied the hurt that would come from what Ryan and Pete were doing, not only with Patrick but with Brendon as well. And my heart just jumped up in my throat when you finally revealed what Ryan did with the candy heart and it was just so precious and I just wanted to cry for him and shout at him that he didn’t have to be scared and they everything would be okay, but when does Ryan listen to anything but his own song?

I don’t know how I feel about this ending… I want to keep reading it because I loved it so much but I really like the idea of you telling just the story of how Brendon and Ryan got together. What happens after that is irrelevant, is history. The back story, that’s yours, and now, it doesn’t matter what really happened before they got their record deal, for me, this is what happened, this is exactly how it went down. You’re a great author for making me contradict history.

Dru stop it im salivating.

My chest hurts, my God. The development of both Ryan and Brendon was amazing. Brendon's so adorable and innocent and Ryan makes me want to cry.

The line about how Brendon's wondering if adults communicate telepathically, that was brilliant. And how being in love tasted like dark chocolate.

"You're always starving," the other three members of his band shot back almost instantaneously.
That line is great, it really gives a sense of how long the guys have been together, how often they've said it. How it's so routine.

He didn't want to be the boy that still had the candy heart Brendon had left on his pillow in his wallet because he was too afraid to say anything back.
This line is firstly completely adorable because of Ryan carrying the heart with him everywhere, and secondly really sad as he can't bring up the courage to be honest about his feelings.

The whole scene between Ryan and Pete was, in a way, quite sad, seeing how Ryan seems to feel he almost has to sleep with Pete, like he's trying to find himself through it.

I like how the last bit of the chapter is slightly more light-hearted with Patrick teasing Brendon. And I'm going to be really sad when this is over, since I've really enjoyed reading it and it hardly seems that long since you posted the first chapters.

This was the probably the most emotional and the most sorrowful of all the chapters you've posted so far for this story, and I can't believe that you're gonna wrap the story up in only one more chapter! (I'll be very sad one it's over, since I just can't get enough of the way you write.)

This story is really amazing.
You have a great plot line, and it's very well writtien.
Keep up the amazing work, and I hope update soon.
I'm definitely subscribing. :)

Oh my God, I have so much to catch up on hahaha but I love reading this story so I didn’t mind. I had a ton of extra time this weekend.

I loved Ryan in this, he just seems so easygoing and just happy for once, no underlying anything, just happy. It was really nice to see and I loved how he reacted to Pete Wentz emailing him because it’s a reaction we can all relate to, or wish we could relate to, I guess hahaha. It was just so awe-struck and adorable because Ryan always seems the type to kinda not react at all to things that mean a lot to him, like he tends to let things brush off his shoulder, but this, he let it all out and it was really nice to see.

I liked that Brendon called his second job his “land surveying gigs”, like gigs is just an odd word to use there for me, I would never have called it a gig and it just seems like he’s trying to make it sound cooler, even if just to himself, than it actually is. It made me kinda laugh.

When Brendon was sleeping, he would cling tighter to Ryan and whimper into his hair. I just fucking loved this line. I love this idea that people tend to play with a lot in movies and things where everything just comes out in our sleep and we just lose control of ourselves and we can’t hide our nightmares anymore.

I just absolutely love how desperate Brendon is in this, not just for Ryan, just for anything, to be cut a break, to be happy and he’s willing to look for it anywhere, like when he can’t find it in Ryan, he always immediately thinks of Dylan, hoping that somehow, he’ll get something from him and its just so hard to see that Dylan isn’t emailing him back because Brendon

Brendon and Ryan’s moment after they got the deal was just so heart-warming hahaha. I loved it so much and I loved that they really, really kissed and even though you just said “Brendon kissed him” or whatever, I just knew that it meant so much without you saying that there were sparks or something equally cliché.

I loved the whole bit about the crying in the shower. Its just so true because I’ve done that and it feels better than just sitting there trying not to cry, its like when you’re in the shower, when you stop crying, everything’s already washed away and you can just start over. Which usually isn’t the case, but it’s a nice feeling.

I loved the parts about the movie theatre and the contrast between Brendon and Ryan. I liked that they kind of had the same idea of what they wanted to do in the movies, but just the different between Brendon’s sort of “what you see is what you get” personality and Ryan’s was really good to see. They fit so well together!

I really like that Ryan has a thing against drugs, like you wouldn’t really expect it from someone like him but then you take into consideration what he’s been through and it makes sense and it adds a real sense of depth to his character and it gives a proper reaction to things. This sort of makes me think of the sexually abused girl who can suddenly sleep with someone when she meets a new boy.

Fuck, I cried when Brendon went about looking at all the families celebrating Christmas, it just made my heart hurt to think of him doing that. I know that he’s happy to be spending Christmas with Ryan but the first Christmas away from your family is so hard and even though you’re happier, even happier than you might have been at home, there’s something not quite right about it. And Brendon is such a homebody, I can imagine how hard it would be for him. This story has really made me like Brendon a lot more than I had before. I always liked him, but this story is just making me fall in love with him and I just see so much of myself in him and I know he’ll turn out okay and even though this may seem like something someone would only say about some glorified, published work, he makes me feel as though I’ll be okay too if I just keep it up.

He wanted to always be the one to make Ryan smile. This is the SWEETEST line in the entire chapter! It made me die!

Oh, Valentine’s Day was so sad. But I’m gonna say that Ryan got the candy heart and he sure as hell didn’t just eat it. For some reason, I think that will come up later in the story. He had softened just too much to have simply eaten the thing.

Everything about the scene between Brendon and Ryan after he got back from his parent’s place was heartbreaking. From Brendon’s opening comment to when Ryan called him ‘baby’, oh my God, it had me right on the edge of the seat and just reading so fast, I barely even realized that I should write a comment about it.

…some tuna salad sandwiches for Ryan and some bacon, lettuce, and Ranch dressing sandwiches for Brendon. Isn’t Brendon a vegetarian?

I really hope that Ryan doesn’t sleep with Pete for this, I really think he’ll regret it and it would make me feel so much better to have done something this huge based solely on my talent. I do like Patrick though. I don’t listen to Fall Out Boy so I don’t know anything about these characters but I’ve already got a liking to Patrick. This is such great work! I love this story so much!

I find it really interesting that Ryan is mildly violent considering the fact that his Dad was violent towards him... In all of the fics that I've read, he was always protreyed as more gentile and someone who would never touch a fly.. But I almost like this more aggressive Ryan. It's strange but at the same time, it makes great sense.

Patrick coming in at the end of the chapter made me smile. Especially with what he had to say about Ryan. It was entirely too perfect Dru.

I always see you posting around the boards that you like writing stories with relationships already defined. And this isn't one. It's like, a love story. It's so unlike you! And it's so, so good! Brendon and Ryan, you write them so often it's like your own canon; you know them so well. It really shows. Honestly, your character development is the best I've seen in any story, or book, even. It's taken to a whole new level. I love this.

Oh, gosh.
I squealed so much.

You're amazing.

Dru, I love your writing sososososo much. You always make the characters so.. real. You make them act and say things that people woul say or do in real life. You don't make it a fairytale or any kind of sappy stoy. You tell it how it is and I love it so much. I wish I could write like you. I am so addicted to this story. I check almost everyday to see if there was an update. Keep up the amazing work!

The character development in this chapter was great. I especially like how you've brought back the tensions between Brendon and his mom while also showing the innocence and hope that a young boy can have in the middle of a horrible situation.

Also, the special Christmas holiday/both Ryan and Brendon letting down their guards wasn't bad either. :)