Stranger in a Strange Land

[phillipthefrog]

Title: Stranger in a Strange Land
Author: Zion Shadowlet
Beta: None
Characters: Ruki, Fuwa (OC)
Pairing: Fuwa/Ruki
Genre: Romance
Rating: R
Summary: Two strangers, a musician void of inspiration and a fugitive seek the solitude and secrecy of an old rundown apartment building in the city of Hong Kong. In a spell of loneliness, they are drawn to one

Comments

[in_bloom81]

As for the characters. Ah :) Fuwa is Fuwa! The context and age is different from that of F&E but that’s definitely him. I enjoyed the way I could recognize him you know? I mean… sometimes I read a fanfic where the character is named ‘Kai’ or ‘Reita’ but I can’t 'recognize' them though I like the fic. This brings me to another issue. Well you are aware of the fact that if this character in Strangers was named 'Reita' instead of 'Fuwa' people would shower you with comments right? But that’s where a significant issue for me comes in. Names don’t make characters. I have come across Reita being portrayed a lot like how Fuwa is here you know? But… this kind of personality does not suit Reita. At least not according to me. Maybe what I am trying to say ..though I’m finding it hard due to the lack of proper words, is that maybe a person can be compatible with people of more than one kind of personality. I’m used to Reituki so I can say I find that pairing very apt. But it’s not necessary that a character , for example Ruki, cannot be compatible with a person with a personality different from the one he is usually paired with. And of course I also often question my own motives for choosing to read a particular fanfic. How honest am I when I say I don’t are about OTPs? I already talked to you about this once. But I’m grateful your fiction makes me open up to things. And as much as I like Reituki you made me fall really in love with Fuki to the point that I won’t shy away from calling that my OTP from now. And I guess compatibility is very important for me when it comes to pairings. I mean if you wrote Fuwa with Uruha O__o I… don’t think that will work out xD Fuwa would ask ‘Will you play the guitar for me?’ and he’d be like ‘ sure :)’ . And it’s over! There would not rise the situation of him asking Fuwa why he was here because he doesn’t seem as curious or playful as Ruki.
And I wouldn’t go into this whole issue of pairings etc if it wasn’t for the fact that Fuwa and Ruki together seem very perfect for me and then there’s what you wrote in the message…
Never mind. I love the way Fuwa seems to have already fallen for Ruki long before Ruki feels the same way. And the way he feels awkward when he says he’s gay and tries to hide he awkwardness but it’s obvious to the reader. That’s so cute! And I think if Ruki didn’t make the first move Fuwa never would! He’s too polite and reserved for that. And the way Ruki is smacking him playfully in his side with his knee when they are about to make love *giggles* ♥ You have such a tasteful yet realistic way of writing these details~ They are so in love with each other that it made me giddy with happiness .
I heard Blue Angel hours after I read the fic. My vibe of their relationship seemed a bit different after hearing the song. Things got more romantic and lovelier and I wasn’t sure if I was ok with it. Cause somehow even with the ‘happy ending’ the overall impression the fic had on me was not one of sheer happiness. I somehow consider this as a ‘dark’ fic. But then I was suddenly reminded of cute scenes like Fuwa choosing Guns N’ Roses just to impress him and that made me go awww~ and the way he would always choose a love song..the way he would get teased by Ruki and so on. So I’ll just end here by saying that this fic is special in a lot of ways, it has a lot of sides to it and you balanced the somber parts with the lighthearted parts very well. Not fluffy at all. And to me this is the perfect romance. I'm really not used to reading romance ^_^ But I could really appreciate and admire the relationship between the two characters. Thank you for writing and sharing this fic . And yes, Happy Birthday ♪

[phillipthefrog]

Ahhhhh Thank you so much the long comments! You really do know how to make a writer feel loved. ^-^

While I was reading this, I was very relieved/happy that you understood it so well-not because I think anything is wrong with you. That's hardly the case but since the fiction is so abstract that I worried that what I was trying to convey would be lost. But that wasn't the case at all and I'm super happy about that because everything you talked about, I was worried about! LOL *big sigh over here*

But on to more important aspects than my persistent paranoia and self-doubt, the strange mood the fiction has: a mix of darkness and lightheartedness was the thing I struggled with the most. When I was considering her request, I had to try to peel back the layers of age and wisdom that are so prominent in Fuwa's character in Miseinen and F&E. How does one turn an almost paragon of morality (maybe that is a bit extreme) into someone that is dangerous? When I spoke more with Butterfly about her request she alluded to what Fuwa's past was like in M+FE (Going to just call it that for now) and even though I had an idea what that was like, really creating it was something difficult because Fuwa is Fuwa and his personality is really strong in my mind. And also what he would be like as a younger man...that was a bit hard for me at first, transplanting this person into another realm. For Ruki, it was easier in a way since well I think Fuwa's personality is a bit harder to construct with all its particular subtleties if that makes any sense? Also when I was talking to her, I told her I had seeds of an idea for what I could write and that it came to me when I was listening to Blue Angel-for some reason I link Orbison to Fuwa XD and she told me then that she really wanted to have a gentle feeling to it as well, the way one feels when listening to Orbison's music. I think too she was recalling the Blue Bayou scene in Miseinen so as you can see, I had to juggle two almost opposite ideas "the dangerous younger Fuwa" with the "gentle Obrisonesque Fuwa" (she by the way, never gave any clues as to what she wanted with Ruki). And so then began my biggest struggle with the fiction.

Writing the scenes where they were talking, where one gets this almost sweet feelings were to me almost essential in writing a Fuki fiction since that's really how the two characters interact and was really the charm of their relationship. I worried how that would blend in with the depiction of Hong Kong-which I believe is the 3rd main character of the fiction but as I reached the end, I felt that braiding the foreboding, lonely aspects of the fiction with the tender and sweet ones gave the fiction a stronger sense of reality despite its abstract construction since people are never really consistently one way. I think too, I felt that with the almost dark backdrop, these sweet interactions became even more delicate and beautiful. At least, I felt that way when I was writing it.

"But I find Fuwa to be the one who needs Ruki in a even more …how do I say it? Not just in a emotional way but a more intense and dependent way." << Yes, I have to agree with this. My idea of romance and I think I may have said this before is that one finds something in the other that fulfills them or brings them to life. I think with Fuwa, no matter what the situation or the fiction or the problem, he finds Ruki beautiful and not just in a physical way but in more profound way and that beauty to him is instantly draws him in. And I think with Fuwa in this fiction because he has done something that he can barely live with, he becomes almost fragmented. He is traumatized by what had a happened and I think with Ruki, the passion and the liveliness and the color that he has is like a magnet bringing all the parts of him together. I'm not sure if I am describing this well or not! In general too whether it be this fic or M+FE, Ruki is more of the "masculine" personality in the most generic sense of the word. He generally calls the shots. XD

[phillipthefrog]

" Well you are aware of the fact that if this character in Strangers was named 'Reita' instead of 'Fuwa' people would shower you with comments right? But that’s where a significant issue for me comes in. Names don’t make characters." < Yes, I have a problem with this too. I almost feel that somewhere in the fiction, there must be an instance whether it be dialogue or action within an fanfiction that establishes the character as being that person. Just off the top of my head, if I were to quickly do Reita I would perhaps have him maybe a pseudo-conceded joke about how everything thinks he's the best or something along those lines because Reita in interviews says things like that all the time. Of course this is just an example but I always figured that if people are reading fanfiction, they should feel like it's them right? Else what's the point? That's one of the reasons why I only write Gazette. I don't feel comfortable writing other musicians because I feel I don't know them enough to portray them well. Whereas with Gazette I've seen and read just about everything out their recorded and translated. XDD And I agree with you, Reita could not be interchanged with Fuwa at all in this fiction. From the opposite end of the reader, as the writer who constructed it from the bottom up, the fiction relies heavily on all the aspects of Fuwa's personality (as you could perhaps glean from what I wrote above about my conversations with Butterfly) that to put Reita in there would be so wrong...I can't even come up with the right word at the moment... I suppose I can't blame people for not clicking on the fic and reading it since most of the time, pairings are the main reason people read stuff. I am guilty of that myself. For example, with Alice Nine fanfiction, I only read two obscure pairings so...I barely read it >.>

"maybe a person can be compatible with people of more than one kind of personality" < I think so too. Usually with the mindset OTP (One True Pairing) we get an idea that there true loves of some sort.I really don't know what I think about that. I wish I could come up with some sort of rule but I can't. XDD I think Ruki can work with both Reita and Fuwa and perhaps another type of person. When I write Kai, I find that I like him with D'Marcus but I could see how if I wanted to, I could write something with him and Aoi but I find that when I think about all the characters and their interactions with my depiction of Kai, the one character that he was naturally drawn to so much so that I changed a major aspect of the fiction much in the same way M+FE changed because of Fuwa and Ruki's compatibility was with my OC Scarlet in the fiction Renegade Soldier. I was supposed to pair her up in a loose relatively unimportant relationship with Ruki but ended up becoming more inspired by her interactions with Kai. It was all rather strange XDD

Ahhh but all in all, I am so very happy that you liked the fic so much. ^-^ Your comments made me smile and giggle. :)