I'll admit I was very nervous about this one -- on the one hand, I couldn't help but write it, and write it NOW, because thinking through your questions really was doing a number on my brain, and this was one of those cases where writing it out via a fic was both going to produce a deeper analysis and be more fun for you and others to read. And on the other hand, there's the fact that "Unmasked" is still in progress, and there's a part of me that didn't want to risk influencing where you might be heading with that -- but (not unlike the boys being able to see past the roles they play) one of things I like most about interacting with you in fandom is I can trust you to enjoy and take what works for you and to leave the rest aside -- the ability to accept a character's ability to inhabit multiple AUs, as it were. :-)
...though I really was entirely kidding about the Kikuchi/Onozuka/Yoshizumi three-way. *gulp* *makes note to be MUCH more careful about what I suggest*
....*rereads the expression on Kikuchi's face when Yoshizumi says "Sure" and giggles anyway*
he entertains secret fantasies of shooting/torturing/maiming directors of crappy movies.
I doubt they're a secret to anyone in the Japanese film industry. ;-)
And although I thought the fic would have Kenzaki accepting the role,
That's pretty much what drove the fic from a momentary meta-drabble into, well, a fic. Because once I started thinking about the reasons Kenzaki could or couldn't take the role, things got deeper and tanglier in a hurry (and I didn't even fit them all into here -- there was one sizable outtake as well as assorted outline-bits that will have to go into some other discussion some other day).
(Not to mention that I still need to read more about Japanese cinema, the host club industry, and WMLM itself (huge weird mental block with that last one. I'll get over it someday. It might involve buying the books in German or Japanese, since right now I'm all but allergic to reading manga online. (The heck with legal reasons -- given the decrepitude of my computers, it's just an unholy hassle.) But I digress...)
The Shisa make me smile every time I reread "Unmasked" --and I admit that the episodes they appear in have become comfort reads: there's something about the the women festooning the Shisa with party flowers that automatically makes me grin, and the tenderness Kenzaki displays toward Yoshizumi makes me melty. (And I am inordinately happy whenever Shou gets some screen time as well. ^_^)
The title: it might amuse you to know that the original working title was going to be either "All the Places We Are Hiding Love" or "The Face Behind the Face" -- both allusions to Peter Gabriel's "Secret World," which has been back on my playlist thanks to the disastrous non-date. ("Did you think you didn't have to choose it / That I alone could win or lose it / In all the places we were hiding love / What was it we were thinking of...") But a couple hundred words in, Kenzaki said, "Honestly, I'm both flattered and insulted" -- and then I realized I had not only the real first line of the fic, but also the title AND three touchstone-words to help pull it together.
I've got to get back to work now, so answering the rest of your comments will have to wait (especially since I'm kind of afraid these days that I'll run into yet another brain-devouring bunny...) -- but seriously, it's truly a joy to revisit and reconsider the characters with every new episode you post and all the fresh questions you raise in your comments, and I can't thank you enough for that. (As well as making myself grin in the process of mentally decorating new nightclubs and plotting future Mochimune storyboards -- some of which I'll probably steal for original poems/flashfic that Mochimune can then option from me, heh.)
I'll admit I was very nervous about this one -- on the one hand, I couldn't help but write it, and write it NOW, because thinking through your questions really was doing a number on my brain, and this was one of those cases where writing it out via a fic was both going to produce a deeper analysis and be more fun for you and others to read. And on the other hand, there's the fact that "Unmasked" is still in progress, and there's a part of me that didn't want to risk influencing where you might be heading with that -- but (not unlike the boys being able to see past the roles they play) one of things I like most about interacting with you in fandom is I can trust you to enjoy and take what works for you and to leave the rest aside -- the ability to accept a character's ability to inhabit multiple AUs, as it were. :-)
...though I really was entirely kidding about the Kikuchi/Onozuka/Yoshizumi three-way. *gulp* *makes note to be MUCH more careful about what I suggest*
....*rereads the expression on Kikuchi's face when Yoshizumi says "Sure" and giggles anyway*
he entertains secret fantasies of shooting/torturing/maiming directors of crappy movies.
I doubt they're a secret to anyone in the Japanese film industry. ;-)
And although I thought the fic would have Kenzaki accepting the role,
That's pretty much what drove the fic from a momentary meta-drabble into, well, a fic. Because once I started thinking about the reasons Kenzaki could or couldn't take the role, things got deeper and tanglier in a hurry (and I didn't even fit them all into here -- there was one sizable outtake as well as assorted outline-bits that will have to go into some other discussion some other day).
(Not to mention that I still need to read more about Japanese cinema, the host club industry, and WMLM itself (huge weird mental block with that last one. I'll get over it someday. It might involve buying the books in German or Japanese, since right now I'm all but allergic to reading manga online. (The heck with legal reasons -- given the decrepitude of my computers, it's just an unholy hassle.) But I digress...)
The Shisa make me smile every time I reread "Unmasked" --and I admit that the episodes they appear in have become comfort reads: there's something about the the women festooning the Shisa with party flowers that automatically makes me grin, and the tenderness Kenzaki displays toward Yoshizumi makes me melty. (And I am inordinately happy whenever Shou gets some screen time as well. ^_^)
The title: it might amuse you to know that the original working title was going to be either "All the Places We Are Hiding Love" or "The Face Behind the Face" -- both allusions to Peter Gabriel's "Secret World," which has been back on my playlist thanks to the disastrous non-date. ("Did you think you didn't have to choose it / That I alone could win or lose it / In all the places we were hiding love / What was it we were thinking of...") But a couple hundred words in, Kenzaki said, "Honestly, I'm both flattered and insulted" -- and then I realized I had not only the real first line of the fic, but also the title AND three touchstone-words to help pull it together.
I've got to get back to work now, so answering the rest of your comments will have to wait (especially since I'm kind of afraid these days that I'll run into yet another brain-devouring bunny...) -- but seriously, it's truly a joy to revisit and reconsider the characters with every new episode you post and all the fresh questions you raise in your comments, and I can't thank you enough for that. (As well as making myself grin in the process of mentally decorating new nightclubs and plotting future Mochimune storyboards -- some of which I'll probably steal for original poems/flashfic that Mochimune can then option from me, heh.)