Bread and Circus

Squee ♥♥♥

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heheh, did you scan that icon from the manga?

Dah, bad doggie!! NOOOO!!!

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I got this one from the old scans on the net. It's my favorite part of the manga. ^^;;

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haha, I KNOW! It's great!! And then when Kusakabe's telling the story about Mana and the dog and she bursts out onto the roof and everyone starts laughing at her again...

I've drawn a lot of Nakaura pictures from that particular volume. *laugh*

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Then she makes the cute 'whaaa?' face.

Fan art? *perks up*

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I've given some of it away...
and did NF tell you of my defacing a Tsukasa picture for an English assignment?
I still look at that and feel guilty. He looks at me so accusingly. I need to fix his outfit and convert him back from being Huck Finn.
The only Nakaura picture I found is an OLD one. I don't know what happened to the rest of it. T T

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But Tsukasa would make a cute Huck! He would look cute in anything!

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I knowww! *huggles*

He looks so distressed in the picture. (It was when Lafayel is talking about him being Israfel. I pulled off some B.S. about the picture being Huck plagued by insecurities about slavery)

If I can get my hands on a scanner, I'll try to scan "Huckasa" and post it.

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My inner geek glomps you. =p Huck and Tsukasa? *happy sigh*

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Oh dear. You're scanning the one we discussed suspenders=bondage over? Do I remember correctly?

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...why yes.

Yes I am.

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Dearie me...the world is no longer a safe place. *cracks up* ^___^

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ph34r me. Though I am but mortal.

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Well you have to give me a copy first before I can properly PH34R. *smirk*

(deleted comment)

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*grin* She'll get to it. She just needs to figure out how to hold all the goodness in mere words. ^__^

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ah, haha, thanks for defending me, NF.
Really, I have no excuse for not completing the next chapter of CF. After SATs are over this weekend, I will FI-nally be able to write more.
The next CF chapter has only progressed a few pages. I've seriously thought of reducing chapter length at the risk of cutting up my poem stanzas. I mean, it's ridiculous how much I expect people to read in a single chapter; they need a break once in a while. I know when I read a long story, sometimes I wish they'd sacrifice splitting the story just to create some more chapters.
I think it's a psychological thing. You see the long chapter and you think, oh my GAWDS!! Whereas chapters break things down into safe looking segments.
For this CF chapter, it's like...I know what I want to do, but it's not coming out. COME ON!!

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Damn. Now you make me look bad, what with the whole Control thing... Both ways--lack of updates AND fifty-page-long-chapters... *giggle*

AND you give me cause to cry over my lack of internets every summer. *weeps hysterically*

*ahem*
Maybe I should have a race with you to see if I can get GW 6 cleaned up before you post CF. *smirk* I always write out scenes sporatically all over the place. I mostly jsut have to write the conenctors now and change about some things, and figure out how to place them aethetically so I can jump fromt the fleet scenes to the Gabriel-in-hospital scenes.
Oh...AND I need to clean up some OOC. Some of those characters have changed DRASTICALLY... (Like Rayyu. *groan* Don't get me started on Rayyu. I love him to death and all as a sort of anti-hero-ish genius character, but he's a pain in the ass to keep IC because I showed him in Control 8. *dies*)

Shall we race, m'dear? *smirk*

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We shall RACE, comrade. *glint of eye*

ack, no internet? B-but, I recall talking to you last summer.
NF internet ghosts running around or something? o_O

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*grin* Smashing. You'll almost certainly beat me, but at elast ti will give me incentive to work. I think i've jsut cleaned up Israfel and Gabriel's first dialogue. Teh win. ^_^

Ah. Very LITTLE internet, I should say. It's so sporatic over the summer I prefer to assume NO internet. Excuse me.
Yes, we did talk last summer, didn't we? *grin* I feel a little ancient now...

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it's very strange, talking about last summer. The year has gone by very quickly and very slowly at the same time. I feel like last summer was just yesterday, sometimes.
Time is relative, after all. Heh.

I got more of CF done, but it was work on another way WAY later chapter. Chapter...10 or 12, I think.
I skip around a lot; I can't just sit down and write a chapter at a time. I just write what I feel like, and then sort it out into chronologically into chapters later.

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yup. *grin* Makes you feel old. I just hadn't thought I'd actually started chatting with you normally for tht long...
Anyone who survives my inane abuses and rants for over a year should get a purple heart or something in my opinion...

Well...I think you're losing then. *grins evilly* As soon as I get little tweaks done on the dialogue, I'm done with 6. I told you I write like you do. Almsot all of the scene's been done for ages. it jsut needed some personality tweaking for the students, for Dubbiel, and for Gabriel's past clam-shell self. (Poor guy. He hates being up in front of people...)
Anything you get done is just fine. Heheh. I know EXACTLY how it is! *pats* We do the exact same thing. It' horrible half of GW7's done too though, on the bright side...but I wish I'd work more on Control, because I feel horrible about it...

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ahh, the bitter iodine-fanged sting of defeat!!

I feel horrible about THe Angel. I don't want to finish it, because I feel like going back and rewriting all that baseless fluff crap.
I just don't even want it in my sight. If somebody wanted to finish it for me and end it with some dignity, I could move on. Wafting away on a breeze.

Speaking of talking over the summer, I'm going to be gone till the middle of July. I'll try to sneak online sometimes, but those times shall be rare.

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Ah yes, iodine...the defeat that turns your hands a sickly brown-yellow if you're pale like me...hmm...The jaundice-imitating sting of defeat...

Keheheh. I'm just trying to get done with C9...I hate it becasue Tsuka's so effeminate, but when I get THAT done, I can move on and start applying all the traps I've been laying throughout GW and well...less angst-verabl-fluff-n-head-action type of stuff, more battle scenes and things making conenctions...it's more plot, less character-orineted...i think it'll work.
Heh. I dont' think any of us would have the talent to finish the angel I vaguely know what you intended (or at least I think I do) but...well...with you I'm never sure what I'm presuming is accurate because you have a wonderful knack for twisting my expectations. *grin* I wouldn't worry about it at this point...
The only thing I really like in C9 is the Shiba scenes. He's so IC in my opinion that it's scary. (Poor awkward Shiba...I love that character so much...)

Ah...I see...running from your AP results? I know how it is...I'm due to get my transcripts sent off today, and on Thursday I have to try public transit and see how that'll work to get to school... July we're visiting my cousins, aunt, and uncle up in Pennsylvania... (It's going to b Harry Potter come to life...my Orthodox Presbyterian pastor uncle is so obsessed with Harry Potter he insist on buying Bloomsbury editions of each year, after buying the book in it's American edition...He's had Year 7 saved for like a month already, and he wants to go to the bookstore for the midnight count...*snicker* Welcome to my family. It's all Puritan worship and adoration of witches on the side...)

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ah, haha. I went to the Harry Potter midnight party at my local bookstore, myself. I met so many people there. I guess since the party is for all the book nerds, I met a lot of people I knew from around town. (it's strange how many people you know when you're from the reject crowd)
Ahh! I got my AP score back. 5! b.s. wins again!
You know, I had this whole intricate thing planned out for Angel, but I see now that it was just fluff crap too.
So, I don't know what I'm going to do. I think...I think I just got *glint glint* an idea!!! Thanks, NF!! *runs off*

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heheh. i went to mine too. apprently the news came by and did a spot on us, but i was more busy trying to get the crowd to rise up to "Bother bother bother bother!" and after that, the modified "potter potter potter potter potter potter potter potter WEASLEY WEASLEY!" thing. And I admired the man with the T-shirt reading "Movie!Voldemort is my hero" and marveled at the girl who dressed as a golden snitch...etc. I got my book at like 2 AM because I jsut came in and reserved at 8:30 that night.

*sigh* My AP score was teh suck. They gave me a 3. T_T Oh well...at least I only need a 3 for where I'm going. I still sort of win, but now my pride hurts. *snicker*

Huh? what? *blink* What did I DO?

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Ahahahaaaa! Perfect! Another person I can sucker into reading "Gluttony"!

Yay! More shounan-ai for me to drool over...You are NOT good for my conscience, m'dear, but the rest of me loves you to death for this. ^____^
*fangirl flail*

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*snort*
We-ell, The Questing-Beasts is not exactly BL. Slightly BL, but for once, it's not central to the plot. I look back on the fics I write and a lot of them have BL, and it makes me feel like some damn housewife's romance novel flunkie.
Questing-Beasts (along with Dark Priest) shows SciFi channel's blessed influence on me, but I"m not sure about the title.
Basically, the story is about two agents from the Joshua organization who are assigned to go hunt down 12 ancient monsters that have awakened. The monsters are called The Zodiac. (A little play on our dear manga, Juvenile Orion; AQUARIAN Age)
It's fun for me, because I get to portray Gabriel totally differently from Muse. ^^
I'm not sure Questing-Beasts is such a great title. It brings medieval tourneys and unicorn hunts to mind. It's just a working title from the beast of Arthurian legend, but if you people like it, I guess I can keep it.

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Hooo....You ARE talking to the resident angst-romance blackhole of the fandom, I'm afraid. Sex always irks me a little, but if you're thinking more of a Clamp-style homo-tension sort of thing, I'm still game. *sweatdrop* After all, people are probably running around thinking I AM some demented housewife that likes thinking about priest cassocks. *headdesk*

As for the Zodiac, the first thing in my mind was 'ZOMG! They're going to kill the Fruits Basket cast! YAAAY!', but my second thought was about verbal plays on the Aquarian Age itself. (The third thing was about a serial kilelr report I had to do about three years back for a psychology class, and how pissed I was that it was made into a movie, because I think it gives credit to criminals and makes them heroes, or figures to be admired...but that's not important)*grin* At any rate, you know how much I love Dark Priest. you say ANYTHING's like that and I'll read it when given a spare moment to do so.

So...

You've got me. *grin*

...And does this mean I'm not getting the Ragshiel section even read for fun? (I'm not asking beta-ing. I was just trying to give you something to tempt you to procrastinate. *giggle*)

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ah, haha...I forgot about that Ragshiel section. I have to go find it. After I make my outfit for anime convention, I'll email it back.

The furuba cast- that's spectacularly hilarious. After I finish with Questing Beasts, I should do a spoof on it with The Souma Beasts, or something. ah, haha.
first, I thought QB was going to be just a fun action-adventure thriller, but it's starting to get dark, now. I've alreay finished the ending (excluding about 11 chapters, while I was at it- my writing habits freak me out) and it's a little dark.

I'd like to think of the tone QB as a combination between the tone of Paolo Coelho's The Alchemist and the tone of Neil Gaiman's Stardust.

It's kind of in between there...

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Ah, forget the ragshiel stuff if you'd like. That's jsut supposed ot be a slightly pleasant distraction for you to read at your liesure. Likely if I looked at it now (because by now it's become dated and I've worked on it) I'd rant on and on about how OOC parts of it are, but I guess I thought I owed you it what with how often I've ranted about Ragshiel's awesomeness... (He's got a bad end now though...*sigh* i'm really going to mess him up in the end of Control I think...Rayyu's screwed up worse, of course, but poor Ragshiel...) Plus his siblings keep dying off... (he's got three out of five still though, so I suppose that's not too bad, and Chamuel's a right bastard anyway except...he's kind of screwed over by one fatal flw anyway, which kind of wouldn't ahve happened if Suiel ahd jsut managed to stay alive, but she was too softhearted and....agh....a lot of "dangit" moments.)
Sorry...rambling...jsut get to it when you'd like. I've been working more on the scenes were Rayyu talks for the first time anyway. Rayyu's probably more important to the storyline, but Ragshiel's just...well...a nice character.
Read it for fun.

Oh dear, I thought Stardust had good tie-togethers but was a little predictable. I like Sandman stuff mroe than Gaiman's fiction, usually...there's a spectacular short story he did called "murder mysteries" too, (which I like even without the added bonus of a little tenshi-ai)that you can get in graphic-novel form... *shrug*

See, though? Too long, and you'll be doing end-of-chapter parodies like me. My head always does stuff like that, so naturally, people think I'm an absolute loon.

DARK'S OKAY! Worry not! GW's got so much dark in it at the point that I'm getting rating-paranoid. *counts off on fingers* Several murders, one messy adultery, a suicide, a fratricide, one rape (past-story rape, that is, so it's not a graphic scene jsut sort of...discussed), Chamuel's whole messy incestuous thing (also sort of discussed until it's blown out of propoertions, btu not really shown), oh yes--rampant plague outbreak due to someone's promiscuousness, a couple of limbs ripped off (that's canon though, that is--stupid Israfel), some very painful brandings, and...oh yes, the aftermath where you have at least one person selling themself and sleeping around while on earth...
Yeah...
I think I can handle a little "dark", because I feel rather like Kaori Yuki, and I keep expecting you to throw a shoe at me, blushing like a beet, and screaming about what an evil person I am. T_T
Stupid story...

Your writing habits are reasonably sane. I've been writing almsot-endings lately too. That's how I know Ragshiel's going to get screwed over close to the end...
Man it msut be horrible to be one of my characters...
Hadarniel: Pah! I'd take thsi over having to be a ministry assistant--YOU THERE! MY COFFEE!
Cadmus: ...Doing it for Seimei...Doing it for Seimei... *mutter mutter mutter* T_T

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Speaking of Caius...
Okay, listen. This is CF, based around Itsuki and Kaname! I should NOT have let mere secondary characters (Katsu: HEY!)
get in the middle of everything and have an entire chapter to themselves. Is it too terrible?
Also, I rolled up the Katsu Cai chapter rug, took it outside to Microsoft Word, and tried to beat all the mushy fangirl dirt out of it.
If you have time... (I completely understand if you don't. I have to study for SAT II subject tests and do summer hw) could you see if there is any other unnecessary fangirlness in the chapter that I need to get rid of.
Because I seriously looked over the chapter again and squirmed with mortification. How did my friends ever let me post that? I need to get some more anti-fangirl friends or something...
Cai: I should have spilled some coffee on them.
FM: Quite right!
Hadarniel: AHEM! Coffee. Now.
Cai: FM, get to it.
FM:...Doing it for Caius...Doing it for Caius... T_T

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Yeah, well, you already know how biased I am--I'm not fond of Naoya/kaname to begin with, and your fic hasn't yet converted me, It's just made things more palatable. (so you don't feel bad, most things can't convert me once I make up my mind about something.) Besides, my fic HAS to open up and have "minor characters" take the stage, becasue there are things Gabriel doesn't know that have to be expounded on, so I'm anturally the one who thinks "oh, she must be doing what I'm doing" because I'm self-centered and a little shortsighted like that.
You can beat me up now.

Now that I'm done apologizing,
I always have time, m'dear. *sigh* You should know that by now. That's why my chapters are so long--I don't do anything else. *smiles sheepishly* I have friends I don't visit. I have schoolwork that doesnt' exist because it's the summer. And all I have to do really is make sure my newly capture muse "Kafka" the nymph american cockroach is fed and doesn't suffocate, and pack for the trip I'm forced to go on. *rolls eyes* I have time. Whether or not I have access to your messages or not is more the issue. My internet capabilities will be all the sketchier now that I have ot go ona trip for two weeks.
*sigh* send away. I'll get to it as quickly as possible, and hope my Orthodox Presbyterian pastor uncle doesn't notice in between fanboy-ing about Harry Potter. (I finished it in five hours on the 22nd. Lucky me.*smirk*)

I'm not anti-fangirl enough? My dear, I though we established that I am the very BEST kind of pervert to have close at hand for these sorts of things. *grin* And I can disengage myself enough from my fangirling to make people suffer needlessly, so that's probably the best you're going to get taht will review for you. *shrugs and laughs*
The thing you have to worry abotu with me is massive typos in my responses due to typing speedily and sloppily.
Hadarniel: it's disgraceful.
NF: well don't blame me. At least it means you exist, oh fearsome instructor!
Hadarniel: *lip curls because he likes it when people fight with him* Metaphysical speculation does NOT change one's personal disgrace.
NF: Yes, well, failure to metaphysically speculate on my part can lead to a rapid decrease in the amount of characters willing to point out the emperor has no clothes.
Hadarniel: Hmph.
Cadmus: er...should I not look?
NF: eh?
Cadmus: The...naked emperor...
NF: Oh BLAST didn't anyone get my aliteration?
FM: *reappears* That's what you get when your characters are all aliens, sorry.
Hadarniel: *raises eyebrows* My vaguely coffe-resembling swill, if you please?
FM: *outraged* What? I even brought you biscotti! You know what? MY coffee. *sips and smirks*
Hadarniel: *glares at NF*
NF: Don't look at me, I stick with tea.
Cadmus: *sigh* Why does EVERYONE look at me like that? Get your own damn coffee!

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You know, CF has started to convert me too. It's like, okay: I have about twenty chapters in the works.
Um...wait a MINUTE! None of these chapters have any ItsukixKaname. Now how will I fit that in there...
CRAP.
Hmm, let's see how ItsukixKaname can really gradually happen...
Er...
You know what, I'm going to go bury myself under a pile of schoolwork and deal with this some other time.
*runs off*

That's basically the story of my ItsukixKaname life.

Maybe I can set Itsuki up with Mizunagi or something...
Mizunagi: NO! He'd steal all my cigarettes!
FM: Hmmm...other chain-smokers...
Tracer: I'm a married man- don't look at me!
FM: crap. Maybe I'll just make Itsuki the single loner. That's why I respected him in the original series, anyway...

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*sigh* You promisd istukaname. that's why so many people are reading it. If you make it OC-heavy and don't include the canon characters, the only person you'll get reading it will probably be me. And I'm admittedly more fond of "Muse" than of CF, no matter how much I love your writing.
*sigh* Politics indeed, m'dear. I'd say there might be a problem...

You have to put Kaname and Istuki center stage, unfortunately.
I'm currently debating whether Araiel has too much time as an OC, just so you know, so I'm trying to deal with similar problems...

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You like Muse better, eh? ^_^ Well, the story does say Gabriel Merethi grows on you like a fungus, like a layer of dust.

Gab: Gee, thanks.
FM: *ruffles Gab's hair* Aww, I love my little fungus!
Gab: You want to retract that hand or should I break it off?

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Hmm...best not to advertise fungus to a person who enjoys mushroom omlettes...
Gabriel: eek! *hides behind Kuro*

You know, I took our 'character killing' discussion so well, that I painted the word "DeathNote" on Potato-kun's Othello-black exterior.
If I write your name down in him...you might just die in forty seconds. *gasp*

Back to fungus though. This makes Gabriel a detritus eater...
So by that right, Araiel, being resident shit/placenta-eater of the piece is also a fungus.
Araiel: Mushrooms! W00t! ^_^

Seriously...he throws a placenta at Lafayel in one of those snippets.
Araiel: That just makes me one of those...oh computer mushrooms.
NF: Not the 1up one's right?
Araiel: that's the one!
Lafayel: Oh shut up, you're a shrink mushroom and everyone knows it.
Araiel: Nyoooo! Foiled agian by Lafayel's l33t gaming skills. *dramatic sigh*
Gabriel: *looks alarmed* Er...What?
NF: Hey, if you're spying on the earth, it does you well to learn a couple of new things to blend in as an eternal teenager, right?
Lafayel: Damn straight.

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XD What I wouldn't give to be an eternal teenager and not get sucked into the disgusting sugar-substitute decaying world of adults.
I finally figured out why Gabriel shut himself up in his house and all that. It's not some grand momentous damaging moment for him. I found myself thinking like him and wanting to shut myself up too, and so I traced back why I had that mentality.
He's an observer. He's a poet- he's had to be an observer. He's seen, and he's sick of the world. It's not amazing. It's pathetic and cruel. People that deserve luck and happiness never get it; people who don't deserve it usually end up prosperous. Everyone is so fake, has their own agenda.
He couldn't take it. So he tried to get away from it. His city poems are an allusion to the world as he sees it.
You think that will do?

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...That might work. But also, he's an eraser in your world, right? A big thing of the "current" GW storyline with him and Kuro is the big gap between their races. As an eraser, if he's suddenly thrust into a screwed up human world, it works, because you refer to his angelic nature.

My Gabriel's a screwup coward. Whatever he gets defiant on tends to come back and bite him in the ass: Islam....Rayyu...Issy's lack of memory after they get everything worked out in Control...
If that happened to me, I know I'd try to shrink back from my surroundings. it's why he makes such a great introvert and such a crappy leader when he becomes a sarim... (ZOMG! Spoiler!)

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ZOMG!There's only two sarim, right? Michael and...Azrael? (is that the one?)

Prince Gabriel. ^_^ That ties in so ironically with the Swan Prince story.

See, the thing is: he would have had to take initiative to publish something. I still haven't worked out that story- how did his poetry get recognised? How did it become popular? I mean, when the fleet abandoned him on the outskirts of Gaaz, he lived in the city belltower for a couple months...
an the other thing- okay, I mean in America, you have to be really rich to have maids. In other places, it's really common to have somebody who comes over every day and makes your dinner or dusts. Even for a squashed rickety old house like Gabriel's. (they had to make the townhouses narrower, so they just made them taller. I expect them to fall over at any named second)

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Oh yes, but he's the irin so he takes over in an emergency. *smile* it's in my chapter notes for chapter 6 of GW on ff.net. (Yes, Azrael)
Three princes if you count Rayyu's mock-sarim role for the nephilim. (ZOMG! Another spoiler? A minor one if it is. Rayyu's already the commander in the beginning of the fic, so it's really only a spoiler until you meet him.)

Ha! I didn't even think of that. Though he'snot turning into a bird in my story. (Though Kaoru might see Lafayel as one...)

Maybe one of his maids published the stuff, and he hardly knows how popular it is? Now he feels obligated to put out more stuff? he goes quiet when Kuro says his last book of poems was published years ago. He could still be sore about that...

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