*sniffle*

[aruan]

walkingshadow said to bring a tissue when I told her I was reading Snow, and it's not as if the story hasn't been breaking me a little bit more with every sentence, but oh my god, I'm an absolute blubbering mess right now because JC drank the wine he knew was poisoned and didn't let Justin do it and the glasses shattering to the floor and his sadness and emptiness despite Justin, whose devotion and hope break me, too, and Chris, who wouldn't let himself believe even at the end but knows he's never done anything but just that, and it's all broken now and I know that's how the story goes, but that doesn't mean it hurts any less.

It's so beautiful. Every heart-breaking word of it.

*goes to take Miranda's good advice*

Comments

[callsigns.livejournal.com]

i know. god.

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

So. broken. And I posted that before it ended! I could swear the Disney version didn't end like that, because I didn't curl up in a ball and bawl for a good ten minutes afterward then. *sniffle*

[callsigns.livejournal.com]

if i think about the story, i actually literally start to tear up. the end. oh shit. no no no.

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

I think the last line will be just like "We were almost packed" from Helen's Easy Come, Easy Go for me. Even though I saw it coming, when JC said that, the tears started immediately. My chest is still tight from today. That ending just very literally broke me. Consequently, I spent a good chunk of time on the phone with my best friend trying to reason out the thousand things that could've been done to change it. But that's like debating what could've happened to make the priest reach Romeo in time with Juliet's message. *sigh*

[callsigns.livejournal.com]

Oh shit. Oh god. I just now went to read "Easy Come, Easy Go." Oh my god. Oh no. Oh no no no.

Hey. Hate to hit you up like this, but you seem to be a kindred spirit. You got any angst-recs you could point me towards? I'm all in the mood for the crying now.

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

With JC wiping the hair off his forehead and straightening his suit. And that wasn't even the end of the story! Just broken.

Well, any TrickC of Amber's, especially her period pieces, are great. Rhys' TrickyFish is always angsty, though oftentimes a bit frustrating. Betty Plotnick's Be Your Own Best Friend, Sandys' Many-Roomed Houses of Wood series, When I Sleep You Are Near To Me, and Blood A Necklace, Tiffany Rawlins' A Little Rain and Save Yourself are perenial classics here. I'm working on a recs page for when I finally get my site up, but can go digging for more if you'd like.

[callsigns.livejournal.com]

This is great to start, thank you!! :) Make a big splash when you do your site, so I can check it out.

[chreesko.livejournal.com]

Ugh. I reacted the exact same way, with the added bonus that I read it on Friday morning. I spent all day sniffling and surreptitiously crying and convincing my co-workers there was something seriously wrong with me. Thank God no one asked, because I honestly wouldn't know what to say. "I read fanfic," just doesn't seem to cut it, y'know?

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

My mom kept walking in and out of the office as I read, and I was crying and sniffling before the all-out bawlfest that was the end started - she made me tea, got me a tissue box, and brought my puppy in.

And heh. Well, you don't have to get that specific, just that a story made you cry. I've had many an oblique conversation about slash with the unsuspecting. ;)

[glendaglamazon.livejournal.com]

Because I am clearly the most twisted kind of masochist, I read this entry then promptly went and read the story and am now sitting in a little puddle of tears. Thank you for the rec. I think.

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

Not twisted, smart. Amber's fantastic, but her stories usually end well! Because it's TrickComgOTP4evah when I read her stuff, and as much as she hurts them in the process, she wants them to be happy because neither one of them was ever accepted by the world. But this JC broke me so badly - not since Rhys' Experiment have I felt this strongly for a characterization of JC. People never smiling at him, being shunned by his family and called a curse, the cold when he touched people - I was so ready for him to be finally happy, which he was for exactly 2.3 seconds in there. This story's got me so strung out - there are few things I tolerate worse than injustice and cruelty to an innocent, and one of them is true love denied, and oh, hi, bucketfuls of both. Such a mess here. I'm so glad you read it though, because it really is breathtaking from start to finish, and I know I'm saving it to reread for a long time to come.

[anduril-narsil.livejournal.com]

I just don't have anything else to say about it, just because man, can't forget Lynn there, who feels she's the guilty one and yet still feeling like she wants to kill JC over and over again and and, that grrr... Prince and Princess?

Finished this at midnight, and suddenly, there's a feeling of completion somewhere.

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

Lynn, who loves him like JC loves Chris, which tripped me up because people who love like that recognize it in others. But then, loving Justin as much as she does, she probably thought it impossible that JC could love him any less. In an odd way, Lynn is guilty of what happened, but only in the interest of wanting to make Justin happy in a way that she alone couldn't do, so it's tragedy all around.

Yeah, Lance and Britney, man. That was painful. That entire kingdom was painful, the way no one would look right at JC, no one would talk to him or smile at him. So, so broken.

And I understand what you mean by completion. It was a good ending, if a bit rushed.

[anduril-narsil.livejournal.com]

That's Lance and Britney? In the beginning I put Justin and Britney over there, and Lance can be Bash the Miner and then Justin appeared I got to take my dinner and try to re-arrange the whole character to its pop equivalent.

And the Lynn story, dude, in my time, I finished it just in time for Mother's Day and you got a whole lot of thinking to do in th next day, like how deep is a Mother's love? etc etc...

This will be on my top 3 of her story, with my most favourite is Honor's Bound (it's weird to do American spelling), just cos... yea. Second is the gambling trilogy, and third will be this. She defines TrickC man.

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

I know! I was thrown at first, too. I called my best friend several times during the story and mentioned that and she's like, 'no, that's Lance, remember, he has green eyes and sharp features.' I just assumed Justin after identifying Britney, too. :)

A mother's love, man. Especially those two, very very close.

Honor Bound! I lived and breathed by that story for a week after I read it. Loved every bit of it. And you're absolutely right about Amber defining TrickC. It's like Sandy and Lambs.

[tallories.livejournal.com]

I'm usually all for angst, but I couldn't get into this one. Thanks for the rec, though.

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to hear that. I know a couple of other people who find Amber's writing too much, but I love it. I love that she doesn't have to physically torture her characters for angst or sympathy, that she deals with the very real emotional/social/psychological cruelties of the world instead. I loved the tone of this piece, perfectly Grimm's fairy tales, the trapped hopelessness of the same when every logical sense in your body is screaming at them to just do this or just do that and it could all be okay, but they don't. They don't because people, much like characters in an already-written story, never listen, especially not to reason in the face of love.