Choke. - Comments

I'm riveted by this.
So profound, and just, ungh.
I love your writing.

Ugh, I just love your shit.
):
I miss your writing.

This is so good, I don't even know if this comment is even good enough to be put here.
I was just....wow. This is amazing. Absolutely amazing. The most well-thought-out and best written I have ever read in my life. Ever. Not just of fanfiction, of ALL OF EVERYTHING. Novels and classic lit included.
You have a fucking GIFT. This was beautiful and stunning and just amazingly awesome.
Hope that gets my point across...

Im just so blown away by this.... I dont even know what to say.
The way this made me feel was just....
The way things were written and described were just amazing and beautiful.

Do you mind if I put this on my profile to be on my list of story recommendations??

I love the contrast between the relationship, which most writers on here treat very casually and bluntly, and the words you used. Somehow, using biological, technical terminology just worked here. Nice choice.

I apologize in advance in case the universe implodes because of me posting a review.

Okay, so I adore this. I love it. It’s absolutely one of my favorite one-shots of all times. It’s one of the best Frerards I’ve ever read. I wish I have written this and I wish I had had this writing style naturally. I can imitate it but, let’s be honest here, I’m not as good as you with it and my writing is a pale imitation. :XD

Anyway, the beginning. Love the beginning. I think it’s great. The metaphors are beautifully constructed and it makes the reader curious. Curious about Frankie and about what this ‘it’ is. Also, repeating something three times (sometimes more) is something rhetoricians use and it can work in stories as well. And the way you repeated “three hours” worked wonderfully in my opinion. It’s a great way to being the story and captures the reader’s attention right away. And repeating Frankie worked as well. It ties the paragraph together and creates a clear image of who Frankie might be. What I didn’t think worked was ‘big, big’. In my personal opinion, since you have the other repetitions going on, that only felt unnecessary to me and like it disrupted the pattern you had going. I’d take out the repeated word, but that’s of course up to you. :cute: And yeah, I really like how the paragraph ends, it makes the reader curious. At least I know I wanted to keep reading and find out about the ‘game’.

‘He was leaning forward against the edge of the messy desk, staring down the manager with the cocky self-assurance he could always fake so well, body bent so that both hipbones jutted visibly out from his small skeleton. The cigarette in the corner of his mouth jerked slightly as he answered, lowering his voice to a hoarse, seductive drawl.’
^I really like this. Paints such a clear picture of Frankie. It tells how he acts and a bit about who he is, or, perhaps, isn’t – how he tries to hide himself. And of course I adore the way it’s all described, I think you managed to pick the perfect words and find the perfect combination of words.

‘Frank and Nancy?

“Sinatra.”

Frank and Nancy Sinatra.

The pen stopped moving.’
^ :tehe: I can really picture this scene and just the entire situation and it’s just rather comical. And, actually, it’s something I could do. Things like that can highly amuse me. x]

‘…disgusting cheeks wobble, the motel owner sat up in his chair…’
^ I’m pretty sure that comma should be there. I believe the sentence would be more correct if you removed it.

‘“Yes, sir,” Frankie mumbled sheepishly, straight-faced.’
^I like how Frankie goes a bit out of character here (the character he pretends to be not the character he is in your story, if you get what I’m saying). I find it kind of amusing. :tehe: And then he picks it up again with ‘“It’s hard to read, but it says Harry Houdini.”’. That’s humor.

‘Frankie with his pretty little bruises, the ones people used to think his daddy gave him, because no one could understand this generation of fucked-up kids who would hurt themselves for pity and for attention, the ones burning their skin with erasers, hacking the veins out of their wrists, sniffing aerosol cans and twisting lit cigarettes into their skin.’
^I think it’d be more correct to take out that comma. Anyway, this paragraph is unpleasant, especially the part about hacking out one’s veins. It affects the reader more because it’s brutal and because ‘slice’ is so overused that you hardly react if it’s put in that kind of context. So great choice of word there.

’…is fucking HOT…’
^Normally caps are used to show that something’s being screamed. So unless Frank’s screaming ‘hot’ I personally think it should be in italics and not caps. Italics are for emphasizing and caps for shouting. :cute:

‘…open and closed. Open. And. Closed.’
^It might just be me but I think it’d flow better if it was “Open. And closed.” I really like the paragraph that quote is from though.

I like the part where Frank talks about Richard Corey shooting himself. It’s very easy to picture. I could almost see, like in a movie, how blood would pour down the walls for a few seconds and then how it would disappear when Gerard focuses on Frank again.

‘And I was bitter, and I was tired, and it had been a long day, and…’
^You should take the commas out. You have ‘and’ and therefore you don’t need the commas. Using them is incorrect. :cute:

‘To this day, I make myself sick.’
^Again, remove the comma. Anyway, this sentence makes me curious; I want to know what’s going to happen. Lines like these are great to keep the reader interested and to capture the reader’s attention. It’s things like this lines which contributes to make a story good.

‘ Just a joke.’
^ I like this line is repeated like that. The fact that it’s in italics and separated into its own little paragraph helps showing the gravity of the words within the context of the story.

‘His eyes went as big as saucers, big and green without the sunglasses to hide the mess, brilliant whites stained by that familiar cerise spiderweb of inflamed capillaries. The scary scary horror encapsulated somewhere between his pupils and his irises and the way his long lashes were quivering made me nauseous [no comma] and I realized, too late, what I’d done.’
^You’re so good at painting pictures with your words (and I especially adore this part). The imagery you use makes your story very vivid. The comma really shouldn’t be there though. x]

‘Unimaginable guilt.

Suffocating.

Everywhere.’
^I think it’s great that you have these short little paragraphs here because it creates a distinct effect since most part of the story consists of long, flowing paragraphs.

‘…the sharp, splitting agony that was tearing rapidly…’
^Either you remove “the” or you replace it with “a” because “the” postulates that “pain” already has been mentioned which actually isn’t the case. Also, to make it a bit less confusing on the reader you could rewrite it like this:
‘…other pain; a sharp, splitting agony that was tearing rapidly…’
^I think it’d both be easiest to read and most correct. :cute:

‘…before I puked up my ribcage.’
^ :cheese: Love that. Love it, love it. It’s powerful and just very fitting. You’re brilliant for thinking of it, I never would have but it makes perfect sense.

‘…what I’d said [no comma] and as I turned away and heard the door slam shut, I could feel the shredding, all-encompassing guilt burrowing deep into my core, twining itself around my insides like a blood-soaked parasite.’
^I can picture something repulsive, a larva or something like that, which crawls around inside. The imager is awesome and it’s perfect, in my opinion, for capturing the feeling.

‘Paralyzed with shock, horrified that he would go this far to prove me right, as I struggled to open my mouth and fucking say something, all of the warning signs came streaming back in a sensory cascade.’
^I can’t make sense of this sentences structure wise. You’ve phrased it incorrectly. To make I correct sentence out of it I’d rewrite it like this:
“Paralyzed with shock, horrified that he would go this far to prove me right, I struggled to open my mouth and fucking say something as all of the warning signs came streaming back in a sensory cascade.”
Or like this:
“Paralyzed with shock, horrified that he would go this far to prove me right, I struggled to open my mouth and fucking say something, all of the warning signs coming streaming back in a sensory cascade.”

‘A thousand times [no comma] he had practically told me that this was what we were running toward. But like every stupid friend…’
^The whole paragraph that this quote is from is one long, sort of confusing sentence. It’d be less confusing (and more correct too) if you did those changes I made. But it’s, of course, up to you. :cute:

‘Did the water, that thin layer of colorless frost coating its surface, look inviting? Like finally touching heaven, blinding white baptism, purity reclaimed in a surge of cold wet black ink, salvation, the icy eyes of God ready to receive him?’
^ :cheese: I love, love, love this. Most. Perfect. Piece of imagery ever. I’m so in love with its perfection and it’s beauty and just :cheese:. One thing I love is that ‘blinding’ and ‘baptism’ has the same amount of syllables, it creates such a great rhythm. And that it’s sort of an alliteration. Plus, the metaphor in itself is fantastic.

‘Instead, I watched him climb the safety railing.

Sway.

Whisper something I couldn’t hear.

And.

Jump.’
^I like that you keep it short and simple. It creates a much greater effect than long, descriptive paragraphs would.

‘He was so fucking naked in that moment, arching body suspended between fall and flight, takeoff and impact – stripped bare like I had never seen him, past clothes, flesh, raw red muscle and straining cartilage, tendons and ligaments, bleached bone and marrow and pulsing blood. Just his rag-and-bone soul exposed against the dirty grey sky, tortured and filthy and smashed beyond repair. And I watched and felt my iron heart finally explode under my ribs, in a spurt of hot, gushing chemical red.’
^I just love the imagery in this paragraph, ‘rag-and-bone soul’ in particular. It’s just pure brilliance. And it just fits with the image of Frank in this story. The changes are because I’m just iffy about ellipses since they’re meant to be used in quotes to show that part of the quote has been left out, not to be used in stories as a longer kind of pause. It is incorrect to use them like that even, but few people actually care. x] The other change is because the way the sentences ended didn’t go with its beginning, grammatically or content wise. I do love this paragraph though.

‘He hit the water hands first, cerulean-inked wrists followed by the rest of his fragile body as they pierced the ice, twisting limbs and flying bones all crumpling into the churning blue-grey river until the whole blur of cold, pale skin that was Frankie disappeared beneath the surface.’
^It’s so easy to picture this; your choice of words is just perfect. I love this paragraph as too. (Well, I love the entire story but I love this just a little but more because it’s so perfect.)

‘Fuck.

No.’
^I don’t know about anyone else but I think this sort of didn’t quite work. Maybe you could put it in italics and put “No, no, no, no!” after the one “no” you have there because one just seems a bit like Gerard’s not reacting as strongly as he should. I don’t know, maybe that’s just me though.

‘I ran blindly for the water, my feet slipping on the steep…’
^Maybe it’s just me but I think there should be a possessive pronoun there.

‘I ripped off my jacket and plunged as fast as I could into the choppy waves[color=red. Suddenly I was engulfed by breathtaking, bone-jarring cold as the freezing water clawed the breath painfully out of my chest, instantly sucking all feeling from my bare fingers and seeping through my skin until the lining of every vein ached. My eyes stung as I forced them open, desperately searching for any sign of Frankie in the dark water.’
^I really like that you emphasized ‘cold’, it creates a great effect. And I like how the water claws his breath away, anyone who’s been in cold water knows how difficult it gets to breathe. Also I think the part ‘the lining of ever vein ached’ because that’s spot on how it feels. It’s almost like I’m experiencing it myself when I read it. Anyway, the first change I made serves to make the sentence just a bit less complicated. It’s not hard to get but by dividing it and by adding a pronoun it gets easier to read. The second change is because ‘desperate’ is an adjective but you need an adverb to describe ‘searching’ since it’s a verb. Hence you need the ‘ly’ at the end making ‘desperate’ into an adverb. = ]

‘Finally, when my lungs was almost bursting with pressure, I saw a shadowy blur and wet cloth brushed my numb fingertips and I knew.’
^I know it looks more artistic without the changes but in my own personal opinion the sentences because too incomplete without them in a way that doesn’t quite work.

‘…and mouth – aching ribs one step closer to cracking – as I fought to…’
^That’s how I would write it because that part is a bit dethatched from the rest of the sentence. But that’s just my opinion, of course. :cute:

There was light glimmering teasingly above me, and I could see the warped reverse reflection of the grey sky above, but my muscles were burning napalm-hot with lactic acid and his weight was pulling me down down down into the freezing, silt-clouded darkness below.’
^That’s the correct way to write it, grammatically. Anyway, I really like simile for how lactic acid feels. It’s rather brilliant. Also I liked how you repeated ‘down’, I think it really worked.

‘My heart pounded harder and harder as I struggled, feverishly pumping blood like it thought one more weak trickle of red could redeem me, but I knew that time was running out.
^This is overly complicated constructed. I think I’d be much better to phrase it like this:
‘Feverishly pumping blood like it thought one more weak trickle of red could redeem me my heart pounded harder and harder as I struggled but I knew that time was running out.’
In Swedish I could explain why using a fancy grammar jargon but it’s not the easiest thing to translate those words. And also, there’s no guarantee I’d get it right anyway seeing as English and Swedish grammar are a bit different and the words may not have the same meaning. x] You just have to take my word for it and (maybe?) trust in that I know what I’m talking about. :tehe:

‘Desperate [no comma] I found his mouth, just one black hole in a blur of pallid, slippery skin and pushed my lips…’
^If you take out what you have in between the commas and connect the ending of the sentence with the beginning doesn’t it look odd the way you’ve phrased it? I’m not completely sure about it seeing as English is my second langue but I think it should be the way I worded it above?

‘Even underwater [no comma] he tasted like sugar, liquor candy hearts and blood.’

‘With fingers tangled tightly in his wet hair [no comma] I closed my eyes tightly and forced every last ounce of stale oxygen from my constricting lungs into his.’

Yesh, I’m a grammar nazi :con:

‘I was straining, muscles screaming in vicious protest, trying and trying and trying to get…’
^See what happens with the sentence if you take out what you have in between the commas? I think you need to do that, just to make sure you don’t make incorrect sentences. See you need an ‘and’ in front of the first ‘trying’? Anyway, I liked the way you used ‘and’ when repeating ‘trying’. It’s good to have some variation in the way you repeat things, it keeps it from losing effect.

‘Pushpushpushpush - splintering, crushing pressure folding my bones as an aneurysm built deep in the numb brain tissue, my vision bleeding, heart blossoming blinding red - and then finally, pure white light flooded my eyes, oxygen exploding into compressed lungs as my head broke the surface. Gravel cut my frozen hands, dirt and snow lodging beneath my fingernails, as I crawled painfully up onto the bank of the river, pulling Frankie after me with all the strength I had left.’
^:cheese: I love your imagery. And the alliteration is :cheese:. ‘…heart blossoming blinding red…’ Just. Gah, perfect! Poetic perfection. :cheese: This paragraph is just pure brilliance. I think I could write quite a review on this paragraph alone. :XD
The changes I made are just because with so many commas it can get rather confusing. It’s just easier on the reader this way. :cute: And you just missed a comma there at the end.

‘…bitter wind. Every part of me was trembling harder than I’d thought was possible in the cold evening air and my wet skin felt shrink-wrapped to my bones [no comma] and I could feel…Frankie, my lungs scarred raw from icy water and air.’
^Just to simplify the structure of the sentences. Sometimes you make it overly complicated with all your commas. :tehe:

‘Frankie with his bruises and his scars invisible beneath the soaking clothes, Frankie smirking at the motel owner, Frankie with those fucking eyes, night eyes, the kind that always draw you right in between tangled sheets, Frankie suspended in the winter air, bridging the gap between life and death.’
^lovelovelove your description of Frankie. I think it’s great that you returned somewhat to what you wrote about him in the beginning and that you use the same way of presenting it because it ties it all together in a very efficient way. And :cheese: at everything after the last ‘Frankie’. It’s. Just. Perfect. I so wish I could come up with things like that. I mean, geeze, not only is it brilliantly worded and a fantastic metaphor but it’s so perfect for this story (context wise, I mean). You, m’dear, is a genius. :cute:

‘I watched him spill his icy guts, feeling the wetness creep slowly up the thighs of my jeans from where my knees were planted in the slush. My heart contacted spasmodically as he crumpled and broke, crumpled and broke all over again, and finally, he rolled over onto his back, exhausted and starting to quiver just slightly, perfect candy mouth opening in a ragged gasp.’
^I’d like to rearrange some things and change yet other things in this paragraph. Here’s what I’d do:
‘Feeling the wetness creep slowly up the thighs of my jeans from where my knees were planted in the slush I watched him spill his icy guts. My heart contacted spasmodically as he crumpled and broke, crumpled and broke all over again, and finally [no comma or ‘he’] rolled over onto his back, exhausted and starting to quiver just slightly, his perfect candy mouth opening in a ragged gasp.’
^It’s easier on the reader and also I’d say it’s actually more correct. Of course, there are other ways to phrase it but I personally think this is the best way.
Another thing about this paragraph is the repetition. I like it. Repetition can be efficient if one knows what one’s doing and you seem to be really good at using it. You vary the way you repeat things and that way you continue to create an effect. If you’d do the exact same thing over and over it’d lose effect rather soon.

‘My hands were shaking, and I couldn’t touch him. “Wh-what the hell were you thinking?” I breathed unsteadily, sudden anger crashing down over me like the suffocating collapse of an avalanche. “What the fucking hell were you thinking?! What kind of fuckass suicide attempt was that, you stupid cunt?!”’
^I really like Gerard’s reaction, seems real in my opinion.

‘…to keep his strawberry lips from turning aquamarine blue in the bitter air.’
^ I like how you put ‘aquamarine blue’ instead of just blue (or icy blue, or the like). Partly I like it because it’s not all that common as mentioned alternative and because it’s actually a different shade of blue than just ‘blue’. (And it’s a very fitting shade as well. :cute: )

‘He whimpered, moaned and pushed his wet tongue…’
^ I think you just missed the ‘and’ there.

‘Popsicle fingers were leaving streaks of icy water…’
^Instead of writing how cold his fingers were or that they were cold as ice you used a metaphor which I think is absolutely lovely and most fitting.

‘Frankie teasingly licking his lips with his pants on the floor and…

Things hadn’t really changed that much.

-’
^Adore the flashback. Though I doubt you need the ‘-’ at the end. It’s a bit superfluous since you actually describe that Gerard gets pulled back into the moment at hand by Frankie’s voice.

‘coated with cold’
^Since both of the words begins with the same letter you get a nice flow, and rhythm, and also the imagery is brilliant. I mean, I love the entire story and I have so many favorite parts but little things like this do stand out a bit.

‘Finally, “Sh-shit,” Frankie managed and I could see all of the six-hundred-something muscles in the human body rapidly contracting one after another, epinephrine, serotonin, endorphins all shooting through his cerebral cortex and throwing him over the edge. His jade-green eyes went as wide as sundials, pinwheels, morgue drains, big big big and bright and intensely beautiful, and a series of convulsions gripped his freezing torso, locking his voice prisoner in his throat.’
^ :cheese: Yeah, no, that’d be all. :tehe: Everything about it is just brilliant.

‘Frost-stiffened fingers slid down my back as he arched his spine against the snowy ground and pushed his perfect pelvic bones up out of alignment. And that was when I lost control.’
^ :yah I just love this part. I love how it’s worded. Especially the alliteration, love that. It creates such a neat rhythm. And also it’s simple, little things like that which can capture the reader’s attention even if the reader doesn’t really think about it.

‘…eyeballs collapsing suddenly into a flood of salty tears…’
^ :cheese: No, I don’t have anything constructive to say. :XD I just love it, that’s all.

‘My murmured words only made him cling tighter, whimpering wretchedly, and every time he inhaled, it sounded like shredding costal cartilage…Nobody was going to rip my little manic Frankie apart anymore.’
^(I removed part of it but I’m still referring to this plus everything in-between it) It’s heartbreakingly beautiful. It’s so real. You’ve captured the emotions perfectly. Even if the circumstances are more extreme than what I’ve experienced I can still relate a lot. So just know that you did this scene well, perfectly really, and that it’s believable and realistic.

‘But I cared.

I understood.’
^These very short parts occur throughout the story in strategic places and thus create a distinct effect. It emphasizes what you’re trying to communicate since the parts are so short and, at the same time, isolated from the rest of the text. You really have a great technique for capturing the reader’s attention and keeping it whether you’re aware of that or not. :cute:

‘Frankie Frankie Frankie with his bruises, bruises anywhere he could manage to hurt himself, bruises that looked like abstract watercolor paintings, Saffron and Indigo and Royal Purple pigments exploding underneath his vellum skin, Frankie with his skinny jeans and my leather jacket and his hair gelled fake 80s punk, trying hard to look like someone else, Frankie curled in my arms in the vicious winter cold, where the combined body heat we’d generated was the only thing keeping our cold hearts beating.’
^I really like that the story ends almost the same way it beings. Often when people write reports or a speech they’ll being and end it in basically the same way. And it’s not a bad thing at all that you’re story has this trait because it ties everything together and finishes the story of in a proper way. It’s really just a good way to end a text of any kind.

Also I think that the very last sentence was just right. It’s sort of a moral of the story but also something to consider – something to think about and to reflect upon. And endings like that are personal favorites of mine.

Regarding grammar, generally you shouldn’t have a comma after ‘and’ or ‘but’. It’s sort of like putting two ‘ands’ in a row. You do it a lot and if I were to advice you I’d say you could keep a lookout for that. And also you tend to have too few or too many commas. (Meaning you put commas where they’re not needed and missing commas where they should be). So my suggestion would be that you carefully read over the parts where you have (a lot of) commas to make sure you get it right. :cute:

(Oh, and I know I removed commas here and there and whatnot. But yeah, didn’t know how far I should take it because I could do more changes but I figured I’d leave it up to you to decide whether or not you’d want me to have a look at all commas in the story. :cute: )

All in all this one-shot is a masterpiece. It’s most definitely one of the best on Mibba in my opinion (and if something is among the best on Mibba I think it’s safe to say it’s among the best on internet (by armature authors)). Always keep writing because if I were a publisher I’d publish your writing, no doubt about it. And I’m not saying that just to be nice, I’d never say anything like that unless I truly meant it. You have talent and not only do you have talent but you know how to use it as well, you have knowledge too. You’re simply a great writer.

Didn’t mean to take this long to post this but you know me. :tehe:
And, hey!, look on the bright side; at least you got a seven pages (or 4000 word) long review. :XD

Yeah, that’d be all.
ily :arms:

I swear I'm really horrible at this reviewing thing. But I'll give it my best for you.

The beginning made me laugh, really it did. A lot. I couldn't help but grin as I read it. I mean, there's this feeling deep down that something's wrong, that something's just not right. What with the self-inflicted bruises on Frankie, the crying and disguises, just the whole set up. It feels like something under the skin is building up and soon it will burst from deep inside the flesh, making a mess of blood and sweat. But above that feeling, is the Frank's humor, making the situation light somehow. At the same time, it's like Frank is trying to forget about reality by acting funny, like he's someone else.

It's amusing in a sick way. Frank's hitting his wrist in a thud, thud, thud, while Gerard opens and closes the drawer with a similar rhythm. Makes you wonder what they're doing in the dingy hotel room. Nothing has been said thus far to give them a purpose. Once again, it gives you the feel that something's going to happen. Something has to.

For some reason, Frank doesn't seem to be quite there. He's giggling, restless, saying random things, all the while hurting himself and talking about morbid, gruesome things. It just seems a little odd to me. Gerard just doesn't seem to care all that much. Not exactly like Frank is a burden or that he doesn't want to deal with him, but more indifferent, like he doesn't care.

And oh, did Gerard cross that line of no return. So harsh, cold. And God, you made the pain so visible, like I can taste it myself. I can taste the bile rising, the sickness, the fucking pain. At this point, I'm anxious. Frank's left, and I want Gerard to follow him so badly, save him from doing something stupid. There's fear there, that Frank's going to hurt himself. That Frank's finally going to do it, and the hope inside me is dwindling, making room for the fear. And then I'm rejoicing that Gerard's following after him, but that doesn't reduce the fear. Oh fuck, what if he's too late?

I can't imagine how Frank must feel. I would feel so so dead inside if my best friend, if my lover said something like that. How he must feel thinking that his friend, his anchor, wouldn't care if he were dead. And he's trembling, and I don't think I could handle it either. In my head, I'm screaming "Don't Jump!" And poor Gerard, how helpless he must feel. All of the warnings, and now he was face to face with the situation that had always been inevitable. How caught up and helpless he must feel, paralyzed with fear and possibly about to witness his friend's death. All because Gerard was selfish, and Gerard was tired and sick of it.

He's jumped, and I'm holding my breath. The deed is done, now for the results. Please, God, let him be okay. And now Gerard's pulling him up, but is there time? Will he make it? Or will they both be left at the bottom of the icy river? They're out, and oh God, there's a pulse, and I'm so relieved. They're alive, they're both still alive. Now, anxious, once more, to see what will happen between the two of them.

And despite the previous pain and fear and anxiety, I can't help but laugh at Frank's answer. “Harry H-Houdini s-saves f-fucktard boyf-friend f-from d-drowning.” And it lightens the mood, just like it relieved me. The emotion, guilt and fear and happiness, all of it blends together at their reunion. They're alive. So much so that I forget that the trouble isn't completely over; Frank isn't fully saved yet. Desperation to warm each other up.

There's love there, beneath that desperation and the lust, there's love. You can see it, almost feel it. The need, so deep and visible. Oh, how they need each other. And as things get more and more intimate, the reader isn't able to forget the cold and the inches from death they'd been. Everything is a reminder, the reason behind the touching and the heat. Then, the deed is done, and they're breaking down again, so much raw emotion.

“No, Frankie,” I breathed, almost hysterical with love and fear and horror and hope and pain. “I love you. I fucking love you. I’ll pick up the pieces every single time.”

That right there fucking killed me, in the sweetest way possible. It made me ache inside, so pure, so much love, so much meaning. Makes me miss when I had myself a Gerard like that.

The ending is lovely. The indifference and emotionless way that it started...it ended completely the opposite. I absolutely loved it. But as lovely as the story was, and no matter how much it touched me and made me really feel, it would have been nothing if it hadn't been written by you. Your style, the way you describe things, the metaphors, the colors, everything about it screams incredible. It amazes me, really it does. You have such an amazing way with words, phrases, story-telling. Every word was perfect and in the perfect spot. It was just...fucking magnificent.

Astonishingly Amazing.
LoVE

Thank you allllll.

Fucking amazing.
eloquent to the point where everything starts to seem real
almost.
you know? like a dream you can't really grasp.

beautiful.

That was simply amazing. Every sentence was structured so beautifully it took my breath away. The language you used was gorgeous to the point where I wished I could quote every word, every minor reference and descriptive paragraph.

"Frankie Frankie Frankie with his bruises, bruises anywhere he could manage to hurt himself, bruises that looked like abstract watercolor paintings, Saffron and Indigo and Royal Purple pigments exploding underneath his vellum skin, Frankie with his skinny jeans and my leather jacket and his hair gelled fake 80s punk, trying hard to look like someone else, Frankie curled in my arms in the vicious winter cold, where the combined body heat we'd generated was the only thing keeping our cold hearts beating."

From beginning to the very end you captivated me, kept me enthralled to the point where distractions didn't even exist because I was reading. Nothing could tear me from this; you are simply an amazing writer. It was a marvelous, staggering, mind-blowing, astonishing, unparalleled story.

<3 Jenn

There are no words to describe how this story hit me.

I wept.

I shook.

I smiled.

I understood.

This was the most... I just can't tell you.

Spectacular.

Amazing.

Phenominal.

Thank you.

My favorites are the bits right after "Jump." and "Even underwater, he tasted like sugar, liquor candy hearts and blood, Frankie Frankie Frankie Frankie, watercolor paints and the overpowering, sea-salt salinity of too many tears". And, yes, it looks so inviting. Jumping, drowning, the most painless way to go, if you just gotta go. I also love how you describe everything, so sickly and yet beautiful and perfect and yet anatomically correct. The words make me dizzy, mental masturbation as a beautiful boy once said. But, it's more visual/auditory/gustatory/olfactory/kinesthetic. Somehow I can see/hear/taste/smell/feel every fucking line you write in my gut, deep in my heart, making my head expand with the words and then deflate with their resolution. Your stories bruise me, leave a mark, something indelible that can't be erased, a taintedflesh stain, left in my skin, seemingly disappearing but really only going skin coloured. I remember every single one that I read. I love how you describe his eyes, something different everytime, neon, big, bright, oliveoil, morgue drains, simply fantasically beautiful. Like without each other they're nothing. I know I'm rambling like a maniac, and I'm sorry, I just can't quite get the right words out in order to express what I truly feel for this story, this one in particular. I love the way it goes back to the beginning, Bill fucking Nye, lub dubs in synchronicity with his bruises. I suppose this sums it all up:
"where the combined body heat we’d generated was the only thing keeping our cold hearts beating…

Lub dub. Lub dub. Lub dub.

And love was the only thing keeping us from ripping them right out of our own chests."
Sweet candypink perfection.

Why is everything you do so amazing? :cheese:
My favorite thing about your writing is the way you describe blood. You always do it so expertly and you constantly seem to have a million words to use instead of saying 'blood' over and over; it's always stunning.
Also, thanks for the link to that poem, it's amazing.

Honestly, when I read this I was starting to lose interest in Frerard in a rapid rate but this... this came to me as a fucking blow in the face...

I mean really you made my heart burn and bleed as I read on and continued reading because of that feeling; like, oh my God... you managed to suck me there; literally suck me there within the cold and the icy water that battles the heat within their bodies.

It's amazing how you brilliantly manage to create a flow of your own, that's so smooth and well executed that it coaxes you into getting lost within this piece of work. It jerks the darkness out of your heart and lets the pain twist within your chest and actually makes you... choke ironically. The emotion just chokes you until you're unable to think at some points.

I love your descriptions; adore them really since I -too- like the use of blood and such imagery within analogies and metaphors.
The part that really hit a nerve to me was at the end; when Gerard shouted I'd pick up the pieces every time.
Honestly... no-one would pick up the pieces and deal with the other's human wreckage every time. They'll end up bleeding and flaking away on their own; the lover that handles the bleeding, the hurt from watching his other half crumble is a lover worth of legends. You've managed to capture Gerard's pure emotions ever so brilliantly, even though they're words lain on a computer screen they flooded with realism that echoed in my head along with his screams.

Also, the humor flowed ever so eloquently that you can't help just to smile, a little smile, a side smile almost smirk-like. Mimicking Frank's perhaps?
Frank's persona was a whole different area, how the shell and the core manage to merge and get the lines blurred was so surreal; he's so strong but yet, so fragile as he wants to break himself more. To just dismember himself until he's gone.

And their kisses; oh, their kisses. It was like, almost if Gerard wasn't giving Frank warmth, it was like he was kissing life into him. They didn't only share body heat to keep their hearts beating by laying skin to skin, chest to chest, it was their kisses also; their kisses transferred heart beats and blood, don't care about the taste, the connection; just the feelings said that; their kisses dug up the passion burrowed within.

The closing line was amazing. Pure perfection and I don't want to say anything else... because sincerely? There's nothing more to be said. I'm speechless.

I wish I could find an adjective that could acquire the ability to describe how great and moving it was... but I can't sadly.
I hope this review sufficed. I'm ecstatic that I got the chance to read this and blown away.

<3

I want to review properly but I can't. I'm sorry.
Some things are just too utterly breathtaking.

I loved it, though.
So much.

wow that was great!! how do u manage to ALWAYS write such fucking good stuff?
youre descriptions were really good, i swear i felt cold just reading parts of this
i love how you manage to get into the character's head so well

:cheese:

So, you're pretty much amazing.

Having Frank as the 'wise guy' and the character that's more in control, like in the beginning is a nice change from the ordinary. (I usually see it as Gerard being the tougher of the pair.)

And I was bitter, and I was tired, and it had been a long day, and the strong scent of shellac in the room was making my head spin, but of course still I had no excuse for the words that crawled out of my throat.

To this day, I make myself sick.

“Are you ever going to just do it?” I snapped sarcastically, a breath of laughter roughening my voice. “Just finally fucking kill yourself instead of talking about it all the time?”

Sure, I thought I was fucking hilarious, but once the question was hanging in the air, there was no way to explain that it was ‘just a joke.’

Just a joke.

There’s no way to tell, but your stupid stupid words could kill the thing you love most.

ohgeeze.

I could feel the tention that was in the air after Gerard had said that line.

Your description, and the choice of words just makes your stories so vivid, and realistic.

Anddd, this comment is just me repeat myself, and it's getting nowhere, so i'm going to end it now. =]

:shock:

Thank you so, so so so much.
:]

I could easily quote the entire thing. :cheese:

Frankie with his bruises and his scars invisible beneath the soaking clothes, Frankie smirking at the motel owner, Frankie with those fucking eyes, night eyes, the kind that always draw you right in between tangled sheets, Frankie suspended in the winter air, bridging the gap between life and death…

Lub dub. Lub dub. Lub dub.

-

Frankie Frankie Frankie with his bruises, bruises anywhere he could manage to hurt himself, bruises that looked like abstract watercolor paintings, Saffron and Indigo and Royal Purple pigments exploding underneath his vellum skin, Frankie with his skinny jeans and my leather jacket and his hair gelled fake 80s punk, trying hard to look like someone else, Frankie curled in my arms in the vicious winter cold, where the combined body heat we’d generated was the only thing keeping our cold hearts beating…

Lub dub. Lub dub. Lub dub.

Just.
Stunning.

I read the whole thing in one breath.
It was so hard to look away from the screen, I kept rereading some lines,
literally growing green with jealousy. XD Amazing.
The imagery, the coldness of your anatomic descriptions
set on fire by the panicked, love-frenzied tone of Gerard's inner voice.
Goddammit.

It was so relentlessly raw and disturbed, so needy and romantic,
it went from one opposite to another in every line. I'm just awed.
The thematic... I'm glad I read it today. Of all days, I'm so glad you
posted it today.

<333

P.S.
extra points for the Corey reference.