WOW! I don't know whether to be angry at you or in awe. And I also don't know where to begin. Bear with me cuz I'm gonna start at the beginning.
I've been reading some subpar Samcedes (I don't know if you're familiar but they're two characters from Glee and an OBSESSION of mine) fics recently because ... well just because. Wait, let me back up a little further.
I read usually when I need to be pulled out of my life for awhile. Unhappiness and all that jazz. So the Samcedes fics were just not doing the trick. I kept finding fics that it was just SO difficult to get lost in. Y'know truly lost in a story? To the point where I cared about the imaginary people I'm supposed to care about.
So I say to myself, "Self let's go by Valent and check the Top Tens. The talent at Valent is head and shoulders above fanfic.net." So I goes. And I keep see your name and this Beast story. So I says to myself again, "Self let's try this one out. Most people seem to like it." So I does.
And from the very first paragraph you hooked me. I was blown away by your skill and talent. You're no joke. Seriously. You read better than some of the crap I have to pay for on my Kindle. That I sadly can not return.
But anyway, I read. And read. And really, I can't stop reading. I stay up all night Thursday night reading. I spend all day Friday reading. Finally, Friday night and I don't want to stop reading but I'd just gotten to the point where Sunny's happy and in college, and though she's moved out she's on her way back to Nikolai. So it was a good place for me to stop. I felt happy and hopeful for my couple. I feel it's safe to leave them for awhile and go kick it with my girls that night. And kick it I did.
Let me quickly back up a second though. I remember seeing all your A/N's to leave feedback. And I'm thinking to myself. Surely I will. Something this good deserves praise at the end. And that's what I'd planned on doing all along. Leaving some well deserved praise when I'd finished. Especially because I'd figured you'd probably were long finished writing this story and wouldn't care that I wasn't leaving regular feedback after ever chapter.
Besides I was on my Kindle and I hate typing on that thing.
Also I wasn't confident till Friday night that I was gonna "like" the direction you were gonna take with this story. And I put "like" in quotes because I seriously LOVE this story; that was never a question. But, on the real, I was Team Nikolai from jump. And I kept wondering to myself why you'd write so much for him and make me like him so much if you were just gonna take him away from us down the line.
I've read a story similar to this one before and I totally wasn't on the Team the author picked and it sadly kinda ruined the story for me a little. But luckily, Friday night I was confident that Nikolai still had a fighting chance.
Okay, so I say all of this to say that though I LOVED this story and even you, the person behind the pen or keyboard rather, a little bit, I didn't care. Honestly. I know that sounds harsh. But 38 chapters in and I was still... I don't know holding myself back from feeling. Maybe I was just in a bad mood from all the not so good fics I'd been reading lately on fanfic.net. Or maybe I was scared. Maybe it was self preservation. Not allowing myself to fall deeply in love with these imaginary people.
But from the lowest lows to the highest highs in this fic up until Chapter 39, I'd observed it passively. Not letting it affect me on a deeply emotional level. Until...
Until, this part right here:
"The blackness remains still within him, awaiting his next move. He has fought against it all week, her nightly phone calls giving him strength. The calls – tentative and unsure – like the calls from their first summer, force the blackness back. He focuses on making her happy. He knows she will ask if he has eaten and has forced himself to do so. It gives him one less thing to lie to her about. She does not ask how he spends his days and he is grateful. He knows the next time she asks he will have to tell her the truth or lose her, perhaps both. Yet the blackness remains still, uncertain after being caged for so long. The solutions it offers call to him only faintly, like words echoing through a chamber. It is as if, after being in her presence for so long, it no longer knows how to be. But every hour away from her it relearns, it flairs to life until she calls, until she soothes him, until her light forces it to fade. It dies a little more with each loving word and he gets to live a little longer until he can be with her again."
Like wow. Really wow. This small paragraphed grabbed me with a force. An extremely stong force.
It's early Sunday morning now. And Daylight Savings Time has forced me to Spring Forward is it? Eh...I don't know. It's either 7am in the morning or 6am or 8am. I hope to figure it out soon before church. But I couldn't stop myself from coming here and writing to you how much that paragraphed was the last straw. How it pulled me in on an emotional level that I hadn't arrived at heretofore.
But there's more! Thank you so much for all of the "theme" songs for this tale. You've introduced me to some awesome new songs. That song by John Legend. Oh my word. It alone almost had me reaching for a tissue. It's a GORGEOUS song. I've been switching back and forth between my Cat Power station and my Erykah Badu station on Pandora while reading this story. The music/fic gasms I've been having as a result have been just blissful. But no wait, I digress, there's more. I haven't yet told you why I might be angry at you.
I'm angry at you, (don't worry... I'm not very angry) for breaking my heart. I was perfectly fine enjoying this gorgeous story and feeling only a passing affection for these people who live in your head. But the scene when Stanislavsky is telling his story to Sunshine, my heart and my resolve and my passing affection and my face crumbled. All at the same time. I just reread it and I'm crying all over again. And I'm mad because you made me cry. And I didn't want to cry. Like really cry. Like question why life is so awful cry. But it wasn't a hopeless cry. Thank you for that.
I used to watch this show on NatGeo that your friend Mynx actually recommended on another site, Locked Up Abroad. And there was an episode of two young English boys who get locked up in a Venezualen prison. And immediately as Stanislavsky is relating that prison walk I flash back to that show and it just struck me how REAL your story is. The complete absense of hope that you write about so gorgeously is something that I've actually seen in this show dramatized documentary show. And something that I sometimes can personally relate to. And it broke my heart that this is my Nikolai. That this happened to him. This is when Nikolai and Sunshine and Stanislavsky became REAL to me. So real.
Then you talk about the softness returning with an intensity so beautiful Stanislavsky had to turn away. I love you so much for that. I love you so much for that sentence, you don't even know. Because it healed my broken heart. You broke and then healed it all within seconds.
Sighs. Okay I feel I may have laid it on thick. But this is what happens when you go breaking people's hearts Miss Onimosity. My emotions are raw now and I'm loose with my tongue. I had to go sneak and get my mother's laptop to type this to you because all of this would've been way too much for me and my Kindle to handle.
Gosh I loved this chapter so much. I love this chapter!
So Stanislavsky finishes the story and Sunny goes and says "That is all?"
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Here I am sitting here wrecked! Just wrecked at this glimpse of this person. Of his heart. Of how fragile and human and such a man he is. And she says, "that is all?" And I want to cuff the back of her head like Anatoly does to Sergei. Lol. But I forgive her.
And can I just say that I love Stanislavsky so very very much. Like I want him to be my great grandfather! How you can make me love, like seriously, love these bloodthirsty ruthless killers and criminals is so ... cool. And a feat.
And then Sergei... Sergei, Sergei, Sergei! A thousand WTF's to Sergei. Poor sweet dumb Sergei. I like him but he's not too bright. And I love you more than Sergei, Onimosity. And I had to stop and tell you that. Make sure you knew it. Know it. Because it's all true and I love you. Thank you so much for this story. For your sharing this with us. You need to charge for this type of emotional upheaval in the future. I'd much rather pay for this than some of the stuff currently sitting on my Kindle unread.
You take care.
Love me.
