So sad, but I liked it. well done.

Roaul a horrible #$%$## need I say more, nearly brought me to tears... it has answered a lot of questions from other readings. loved it..LOL

I am so late on this series. that once I finished the Ai No Kasubi series and Katze's diary this has me wondering the time line again. I love all of the stories, back tracking...

The whole Iason/Katze & Riki/Katze got me off gaurd, but I realy liked your story!

Great style and mood. I really liked it. The story grabbed my interest and kept it until I finished reading - almost in one go. It is twisted and bitter, but in a good way. Most likely the fact that you explore my favourite pairing (Raoul/Katze), and also play with others I like (Iason/Katze, Riki/Katze), and generally focus on my favourite character, has something to do with my liking of your fic, ;-) however I think that even without it I would consider it good. In all honesty, it's one of the best AnK fics I encountered.

I’m so proud of Raoul! He keep pushing katze a little bit each time, just enough to keep the change on him moving forwards, and at the same time he is dealing with the changes within himself, changes that affect the very nature of his been … And kiri is getting better.

I can’t thank you enough for sharing this story with us. You have portrayed Raoul as I have always imaging him, as strong as Iason but more cautious, with the good and bad that comes from it. And Katze is just to die for. The constant war inside him has to be just exhausting.

I really hope to read more from you very soon.

Best regards.

I felt the ending in my chest and in my throat. This story, despite being about dirty things and dirty people, happens to touch upon the gentlest, purest concepts. Freedom. Honesty - to oneself and to everyone else. Love. Belonging. Forgiveness. It was sweet. I will provide a grand analysis of Guy in 15, chapters 16 and 17 in private message. I think it'll have to be a long one.

Well done Loveyou. Well done.

I just skimmed over a couple last reviews. Christ, the length is bordering on creepy. Actually, I think it's already there. What ever will the people think? Anyway, on with it.

To be completely honest, I didn't think Kiri had it in him. Addiction doesn't really work like that. It is much less of a choice, and someone as far gone and as freshly damaged as him wouldn't have been able to do it - as a point of accuracy. But it may have been a bout of anger, sadness, what ever. Maybe even an accident. And maybe some are stronger than others. And I suppose he had powerful incentive.

There's the back and forth between Katze and Raoul about trust and about control and about Iason. Katze is almost too loud-mouthed to Raoul. He's too brash, too defiant. I think it comes with having found a way around being owned, this defiance. Raoul could probably have his head if he so decided, but Katze doesn't have much to lose. He's a bit of a bullsh*t hero. He needs desperately to prove how strong he is, and it's not working, and he looks childish. I think Raoul hardly even takes him seriously. He wants to break him down with affection. I think Katze long ago forgot what he was fighting for. But admitting that now would be losing purpose in the most profound of ways, so it’s best to ignore it and keep fighting. I don’t know if I would call Katze petulant, but I think the act is getting old. For everyone, even Katze himself.

So I guess that all kind of culminates in a big fat irony, because Raoul wants him to stop fighting, but that would lead to catharsis and re-evaluation of everything and real, bitter grief. And I guess Katze just doesn’t have it in him.

“"Wow. And what would you do with it?" And what would it do for you?”

Subtext. A beautiful thing. You word it so well. Because what Katze is most afraid of is looking like the fool.

Stylistically, the atmosphere is haunting, troubled. You describe the smell of dereliction and the slums well. It’s an experience with you, it isn’t just a title thrown out there to be taken as it will. The contrast is distinct, more so than it is even in the show itself, between the elite and the rest, the ideals and morals and priorities are different. It’s good. Refreshing.

I need to pass out. I might add to this in the next review. This is powerful stuff.

P.S. Guy is a different story. One for later.

We’re getting there! I Think Raoul is so different from Iason and Katze is starting to see it too. Also I may have seen some light at the end of the tunel for Kiri. Good work, as always.

Hard chapter, very hard indeed (in an emotional level). I think katze is reaching bottom and that actually Raoul is progressing slowly but steady. And I also think Guy needs a wake up kick in the ass. Don’t get me wrong, he is right in some things that he says but the man is an expert in self pity (more than the rest I mean) and he is starting to piss me off. Also, I feel bad for kiri, I really hope at the end he finds somebody that have the will to teach him to be self sufficient.

I still loving your story.

Best regards.

(It's been a hell of a week and I'm on the verge of the first decent chance of sleep, but I can't not review, so here goes.)

That first bit. I think it's almost necessary to establish the trust issue. It's not an issue per se, it's not even there. Katze just doesn't trust. He got burned badly enough not to ever return to it again, and it seems organic, in a manner of speaking, for him to not kiss. I believe - and this is the stream of consciousness again, that kissing is that intimate because the mouth is a versatile place. Everything from speaking to immediate breathing to giving someone pleasure, to eating even, are all such close, human things. And kissing involves being close, face to face, and that's something Katze simply can't afford. He doesn't have it anymore. If someone is ever that close to his face, even physically, to his mouth, maybe they'll see, they'll know about things that he wants to hide.

I think he's scared sh*tless of trust. And that fear over a long time morphed into just not being able to understand. When you have shied away from it too long it just seems strange and unwelcome and unnatural. I also think Katze is a coward. For many reasons.

Katze killing someone is the sexiest thing I've ever read. I keep thinking seen but I know I haven't seen it, and it feels as though it happened in my mind. The writing was very snappy in that bit, especially how the pinning of the manager to the floor was orchestrated (excellent use of caesura - pause I guess?) and the words "You twat.". There are times when writing sends jolts through you and that was probably one of them. It was a perfect line. It was the perfect word. Sometimes the best you can do is not over-do it, and it was such a precise balance of enough that I read it a couple times. Katze is so f*cking hot. There are times when your writing makes me f*cking shudder.

My grand analysis on Kiri is that he's just a silly little addict. The rest of him ties into why Katze bothers at all, which is maybe the faint resemblance to Riki? Or if you're interested - a subconscious craving to help someone that isn't himself. A distraction? As an act of charity to repent for things? I've been pretty good about reading into your stuff so far according to you, so I might be getting this one too.

And finally, it is so unbearably like Katze to leave Kiri a choice. He helps by allowing him to help himself. I think this is one of the rare times that he knows his powerlessness and is able to step back instead of making any more futile attempts. Of course his relationship with Kiri is based on very little, like the fact that Kiri was sort of a small child in a junkie-whore body and Katze may have felt a tiny bit sorry for him, so that might help with detaching himself, but the point remains. He did good here.

And one more thing - Raoul is a dirty hypocrite. It's one thing to be curious and another to just let yourself get into something that you practically sh*t all over when the person you liked/loved was doing it. Oh now he sees what it was all about? Grand, it's high time to withdraw. But of course he can't do that 'cause he might actually be interested in Katze for reasons Iason-replacement related or otherwise (the thing you can never ever ever have). Argh what an as*hole.

Alright. Let us begin.

"You knew this would happen?"

But Katze always knows. Or maybe he didn't know, maybe he'd hoped, masking it as a kind of pragmatic scenario possibility. I imagine it was both. He's just tired and too old for this shit, and too aware. Grief and things can do that.

"Like, curiosity killed the cat?"

Interesting parallel (as most your parallels, scratch that, ALL your parallels are) between Iason having died as a result of curiousity and Katze having lost some things as a result thereof. Curiousity killed the cat, or it got the cat neutered and eventually fat and unhappy with no sex drive. Do what you will with that last one, this is pretty stream-of-consciousness. That and it's been a double shift day.

"No," Katze snaps. "I don't."

I construed this one in two ways. First, he doesn't want to see Raoul because in the dark he might as well be Iason and that's close enough at this point. Second, he doesn't want to see himself for obvious reasons.

Raoul rises without a word and goes to shower.

That reminded me of the last episode of the first season of Sex and the City - "Come All Ye Faithful". Very funny thing in my head. A girl was sleeping with a Catholic who showered immediately after sex. Every single time. It had the premise of being like a cleansing ritual or whatever, because he's deemed sex dirty after having been educated by nuns or what have you, but the point remains. Raoul seems to be that Catholic. It's the ritualistic cleansing bit. A Blondie thing. Or an I-just-f*cked-a-street-animal thing. Or maybe even an I'm-sorry-Iason-I-f*cked-YOUR-street-animal thing. Or any mixture of the three.

So it seems pretty clear that they're both trying to replace Iason in eachother. But he appears to be the flip side of most dualities that I see in this. Raoul makes a sh*tty Iason because he lacks passion, Katze makes a shitty Iason because he is only what Iason wanted, and not even someone Raoul truly understands. They're both pretty bad at constructive outlets for grief, in fact, they're making it worse for themselves and eachother, at the moment anyway. Invariably it seems that it occurs to them both that the other isn't Iason, but his presense is still there, so they must struggle with that. Then the it becomes intertwined, being eachother's Iason, not being eachother's Iason, and trying to forget Iason, which makes for a fine mess of things, and an excellent story.

Oh and I thought maybe Katze thought it a betrayal of Iason's memory to let Raoul make him come.

A weensy criticism - it's bad tone to rhyme, however inadvertently, so try to avoid using words that even sound similar consecutively (i.e. jaundiced mist (jaundiced is an excellent word by the way), or has smoked a few fags, pulled on his rags) that kind of thing. And I may even be guilty of it myself, all I know is that it's distracting, and your writing is gorgeous, so don't let that hinder the stylistic impression.

Moving on.

I'm just finishing up before I collapse for another long day tomorrow, but it's all well and worth it, as this is all very good work.

That ending bit, where they conjoin in one of the ways that I was talking about, not being eachother's Iason (I think), with him still overshadowing some of the aspects of the conversation, I notice the notion of fear after a few times that you've mentioned it. So Raoul was never quite above the proletariat, so to speak of course, but afraid of it. It came off kind of dry and political to me - correct me if I'm getting it wrong, similar to the detached fear a dictator would have of the uneducated masses.

"I've heard that before. It cost me my nuts."

Very sharp. Just an extremely fitting statement. A perfect retort. Because he has heard it before, and he isn't surprised I don't think, that it's happening again. From pseudo-Iason. It's a funny thought.

"I have no idea what I need."

Of course he doesn't. He knows everything else but the inside of his own head. That's what makes him such a good character and such a joy to dissect. Oh and brings about the notion of a kind of limbo that he finds himself in, free as an outsider among the elite, but not back to the slums at home. Free to do as he pleases, but on the other hand, not free at all. Grief is a funny thing.

I think I milked this one as much as I could. Thoroughly impressed.

This is getting better by the minute. I really want these two to work out, it is not going to be easy, I know that, but I really hope for the best. I have always imagined them achieving what Iason and Riki couldn’t. Hopefully I’m right.

I am starting to seem some progress in both ends, I would love to know what is in Raouls head.

I have a little doubt though, I don’t think understood the part when Roul tells katze that he knows their secret and that they can’t be spontaneous. Will you help me, please?

As I said before, congratulations for a very good job done.

Regards.

I love it. Plz update soon. I really want to see how the relationship between those two develop.

God I hate Guy. He is so impossibly annoying. But he looks startlingly congruent to Kiri. Both profoundly fucked up people pushed together that I imagine would complete eachother in interesting ways. Kiri - too empty, while Guy is bursting with emotion and all that other bullshit that I hate about him. Maybe Guy could encroach upon some of that emptiness, while Kiri could take away some of the anger. And the relationship might mean more harm than good in their case, but when you're ruined enough a human being you're really better off with anyone than alone.

Now on to chapter 12.

So Katze's been around long enough to know Blondies and know how they operate, and no matter how perfect, no one is really completely flawless, and Katze knew, being quite flawed himself, so he found a way around their rules. Though liberated or not, I don't think he'd leave. Not necessarily because he doesn't want to, but simply because he couldn't function around other people. Even in the slums where he came from. Their world gave him everything (Iason, livelihood, etc.) and took everything away (Iason, his nads, etc.) so leaving would be a full-blown reintegration into normal society (as normal as it is outside of the elite) and once you're broken enough, mending becomes impossible. As does changing. Thereby remaining in a world that was once Iason would technically be easier than returning to one that would no longer feel familiar.

Raoul, and I imagine this to be a complex that most blondies would have, is in the business of making people's dreams come true.

"You could have it all now. Everything you wanted."

That would be so easy wouldn't it? But as it happens, when you get crippled you might lose some dreams, and when the love of your life loves someone else, you're likely to lose some more, and then when your love dies, well, it's a whole other ballgame. Katze doesn't dream. Not of the past anyway. Which is what the past tense in that quote is referring to I think.

Oh, and the parallel between Kiri and Riki - the childishness, definitely. I tried to put my finger on what it was that made them so similar to me. And I think it was definitely the "I went out like you told me," if anything. Obedient and subdued, a child post-punishment. But I digress to chapter 12.

"And you? Want to wipe my brain clean so you're the only one-" - left who loved Iason? Maybe I'm misreading, but it seems like a fitting ending at this point. Because it would be fitting if all this time Raoul (like a spoiled little rich boy, doted on all his life) wondered, sadly and petulantly, why Iason didn't love him more than his little pets, why he wasn't good enough, blonde enough, perfect enough. Maybe it's his way of coming to terms with his relationship with Iason, or perhaps not coming to terms with it at all.

And do I hear an undertone of jealousy in the "Copulating. How does it feel?" question? Even though Raoul appeared to look down upon Iason's habits he wondered all this time. It must have cost him some serious courage to actually ask. What's it like. And Katze, scarred and gorgeous and brilliant (as per his clever stunt earlier in the chapter) and having fucked Iason all at once, makes Raoul wonder. Maybe reevaluate some things about what it means to be perfect and what it means to be ruined, similarly, what it means to be elite, and what it means not to be. I'm trying to decide whether the question had something to do with Iason or not. I think he may have had Iason in his mind asking, but he thought of the sex itself in regards to Katze.

This is so good.