OK, here is the 24 I found earlier:
It is the cutest 24 in the world, and it is now my pet. I have named it 24.
Working Order:
Blood Contingency | Heretic's Reward | Communication Skill | Aku Soku Zan(za) | Castlevania | Of The Same Opinion Still | Heretic's Reward | Aku Soku Zan(za) | Sano and Kaoru's Phone Log | Blood Contingency | Miscellaneous fanfiction | Heretic's Reward | Forest of Death | Aku Soku Zan(za) | DC Faeryworld
Ongoing:
Ivarnia | TSBTS | Fate is Found in Faeryland | TBoGaH | Gift stories and Patreon rewards
Working Order:
Blood Contingency | Heretic's Reward | Communication Skill | Aku Soku Zan(za) | Castlevania | Of The Same Opinion Still | Heretic's Reward | Aku Soku Zan(za) | Sano and Kaoru's Phone Log | Blood Contingency | Miscellaneous fanfiction | Heretic's Reward | Forest of Death | Aku Soku Zan(za) | DC Faeryworld
Ongoing:
Ivarnia | TSBTS | Fate is Found in Faeryland | TBoGaH | Gift stories and Patreon rewards
And this is a website | Category: His Own Humanity | Category: Saitou and Sano one-shots | Fiction: TLY | Financial | Friends: Zombie Girl | Hiko moment | List or mention of stuff I worked on | Physical self: Illness/injury/pain/etc | Pointless complaining | Relatives: Lester/Brotha Cheese | Title: Aku Soku Zan(za) | Title: Blood Contingency | Title: Fate is Found in Faeryland | Title: Heretic's Reward | Visual art discussion: GW fanart | Visual art discussion: Miscellaneous
Well…I gotta admit…that is a cute 24. ^_^;; I think the name was a nice touch.
*bounces*
Isn’t it? *glees* It’s sitting here on my desk beside me looking adorable. I found it in my purse. Ngyee hee.
I think your ego is perfect.
Why, thank you! ♥♥♥
This poor wagon-driver . . . man just wants to sleep peacefully, enjoy some bawdy talk, and what he gets is high drama from the guards about love, betrayal, and an enormously tragic event that would no doubt be dismaying just to hear about. Dear God. I would NEVER go to Kobe again.
Having read the first half of the faerytalk, I’m now aware that you’re aware that you tread the line in this story between rape and passion and make the whole “He’s abusive but that only makes him more mysterious and my love more intoxicating” business every bit as delicious and troubling as it should be.
The most delicious part of it all, though, in my opinion, is that that allows you to tread the line between love and hate in a way that is fresh and meaningful. We so often hear that love and hate are inextricably paired, or two sides of the same coin, and we so rarely see it proven–most often an author just mistakes lustful or jealous actions for loving ones. Here, things are just weird. You’re right to say that it is a wonderful relationship that is off-kilter; before reading your notes I planned to describe it as something incredibly right that had gone off a half-step, like a minor chord. Your decision to elide the exact details–the actual threats, the brutality, the fresh abasement and violation, and the in-the-moment horribleness–of how Saitou first raped Kenshin and what Kenshin felt his alternative was to returning to Saitou regulary heightens the feeling of attraction between them (and the attractiveness of the situation) and banishes obstacles to it.
In fact, your elegant style and the muffled, smoothed emotion of the story makes it read very formally (the fact that it is Kenshin’s perspective helps with this), more like one of those gothic poems of which I am so fond, the ones that discuss outrageusly erotic or depraved or disturbing things in such a formal and pretty structure that you cannot help thinking that things are just as they should be.
Likewise with this fic: it ended appropriately, of course–the best possible outcome to such a situation, in fact–but in the meantime, Kenshin’s despair and desire and longing are lovely, and I take much more delight in them than I probably should. Thank you for writing.
Thank you for these wonderful comments ^__^ It’s always nice to hear that a story I started writing seven years ago is still acceptable to the intelligent reader :D
comment on the follow-up story
That. Is. So. Hot.
The follow-up–and it’s good that it’s a separate story rather than an epilogue, I think, in order to reinforce the time that has passed–is just as good as the original.
In fact, it reads as fan fiction of the fanfic it succeeds, referencing its forbear breezily but constructing an entirely new theme. And the quote about cowardice and laziness is going in the quotie file, oh, yes.
I don’t know what blood-red represents in Japanese culture, but in western culture it is, of course, a symbol of guilt: to present someone with a blood-red object is to remind him of his guilt–the blood on his hands, as it were. In heraldry, sanguine is a rare color that also represents power and witchcraft. These, too, I think, are appropriate, and then there is the perennial (ha!) red as a symbol of passion, blood-red, of violence.
And yet it’s a flower, too, and a very pretty, delicate one. And we all know what giving someone flowers means.
I realize that I’m stating the obvious in laborious detail, but this English-major stuff is just so cool sometimes, that a writer can say, what is that, seven or eight different things with ONE OBJECT. And you have done it so adroitly, without maudlin obsession with it.
Delightful. This fic and its follow-up might well be one of my favorites.
^__^ I’m glad you liked it! Don’t forget another thing that red symbolizes in this context: Kenshin :D Which line about cowardice and laziness did you have in mind? I am cuuuurious.