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starymintss · 4 years ago

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Please enjoy an essay on why mitsukou has so much fucking potential and why they’re great together

by Elena~

I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a connection like the one that mitsukou shares. This ship literally has true canon potential. I have hope and believe that we may be victorious in mitsukou becoming canon- I mean god dammit guys they are “SEMI CANON”-

kounene obviously won’t be endgame. In Houkago Shounen Hanako Kun (the spin-off series) they played a game in which the person who pulled a king card was able to get to command a person that was playing the game to do something no matter what. When Kou pulled his card- he literally decided he wanted his brother Teru who was there and Nene to have a romantic connection (hence- him saying and I fucking quote, “This will make senpai happy!”) He could’ve done it to his own benefit- to maybe earn a kiss or do something of his own benefit. But he didn’t, instead choosing to make his senpai happy.

Besides Hananene is basically canon already like what the fuck

As for Mitsuba he’s a gay coded character and hasn’t denied the guys aren’t his type. Some people who deem Mitsuba straight might use the scene where he tells Kou “Is this a love confession? Sorry but lame earrings aren’t really my style.” That still does not confirm that Mitsuba doesn’t swing that way. A really great piece of evidence is the bonus comics at the start and end of a manga- one titled, “Tell Me, Mitsuba Kun,” in which Kou asks if he ever had a crush on other girls- Mitsuba responding that there are simply no other girls cuter than him. In another bonus comic he says the same thing again when he tells Yokoo and Satou he wants to fall in love. When asked to name some girls he thinks are cute, he asks if it's possible that he was the cutest one of all. On the other hand, Kou has stated that he likes someone with a pretty smile (do I have to explain that) which is a pretty open explanation of his type (not denying or confirming he doesn’t like guys). Obviously as a Mitsukou shipper I can point out different actions that I’ll admit looks pretty gay.

It’s not the fact that it’s very common in manga like this that there’s the straight couple and then the other two people in the group are automatically paired together- they are so much more than that. They have a deep connection, and both Kou and Mitsuba are somewhat aware of that themselves. Mitsuba is willing to protect Kou from harm- he’s willing to stop him from getting himself hurt for others because Mitsuba cares, and he knows that he’s too reckless and caring and fearless for others in a way that isn’t healthy?

Kou likes to be everything for everyone and the reader can see in chapter 64 that Mitsuba really did try to talk to him about the behavior. Yes it’s weird to see Mitsuba actually show true concern to people--because it’s his character to be a jerk and an asshole, but that doesn’t mean Mitsuba is incapable of not having true genuine feelings for people he seems as his friends.

Obviously, Mitsuba trying to talk to Kou didn’t happen due to other events that occurred. But I think a lot of people agree that the moment would’ve been so beautifully written and truly played an extremely important part in Kou’s character development.

As for Mitsuba, Kou is generally a sweet guy. It’s stated he will give up his life for anyone, it was what he was taught growing up as an exorcist and a fighter. Those words do not fail his actions, and anyone can see Kou will die for literally anything which is really messed up. He’s 14 for fucks sake.

Someone against Mitsukou could use that as an argument but we see here in the manga that there’s simply something different about this said connection. Kou is first introduced to Mitsuba in chapter 30 something, and he remembers who he is after Yokoo tells him--what happened to Mitsuba that was ultimately the end of his life. Mitsuba does again by his rumor being changed, and being stabbed by Hanako- but it’s the fact he cries and loses sleep and just cannot let him go for anything that moves me. May I point out that he actually decided to process the photos even after Mitsubas death? He didn’t have to do that. Not at all. But he did anyways. It’s seen that Kou wants to find a way to help Mitsuba get away from Tsukasa and help him fit in more- he wants to be a friend. (Note: after he’s reintroduced to Mitsuba; this Mitsuba being a pure apparition with no memories.)

Mitsuba is deeply insecure about himself, and feels he doesn’t fit in. He’s lonely, and doesn’t have friends even as a ghost. But Kou is there. He’s there to be by Mitsubas side.

The deep connection the two of them have is strong and that’s especially shown in the picture perfect arc. At the beginning Kou first sees Mitsuba as a human and obviously it’s freaking him out because-he’s a ghost you know. But once him and Nene meet Shijima Mei, and are told they must kill Hanako (Amane) and Mitsuba, it’s disturbing to them. At this point in the series literally everyone know Hanako and Yashiro share a connection as lovers. I mean- its the couple that the series revolves around. But Kou is deeply disturbed because he doesn’t want to kill Mitsuba. Yet- Mei also reassured them that things will be alright since after all this is a fake world and there’s no need for hesitation. But it’s still affecting Kou and he’s carrying this information on his back as he learns beside Mitsuba in school and has fun with him while cleaning the pool. At night, when the two of them are walking on the school building and watching the stars from the window, Kou confronts Mitsuba about this (note: by now Kou knows that Mitsuba knows). Mitsuba goes on to reveal his true form, and uses his powers to show Kou the past. He tells him about how he learns about his past self. And he states to just feel so… “envious”

Mitsuba grows angry with Kou- because he can see how he’s looking at the true Mitsuba with such a gaze the fake Mitsuba knows he won’t ever get.

Things lead to one another and he smashes the window in fury. (“It’s that Mitsuba you want, right?!” And I dare you to tell me that doesn’t sound like a fucking quote from a bittersweet romance novel.)

Kou insists on getting Mitsuba out of there. And can I please just point out that Mitsuba says: “What are you doing?!” He asks Kou if this isn’t what he wanted- if this isnt the life they want to live from here on out where they can be happy together along with their friends. This reminds me of a direct parallel to Hananene, in which Hanako is confused as to why Nene wouldn’t want to stay here, and Nene tells him that this isn’t what she wants. Kou says the same thing to Mitsuba.

Kou drags out embedded feelings Mitsuba has as they fight, and he says quotes that are really important to their development. Things such as:

“But… who else is there?! Who else could grant my wish?! Even you, Minamoto- Kun!”

“You see… even you don’t care about me. It’s that “Mitsuba,” isn’t it?! I don't even MATTER!!”

“I’m Mitsuba’s fake, but let’s just call it real! This is a world where the “Mitsuba” you were unable to save can live happily! That’s good, isn’t it?”

“Even if it’s only in this world, be my friend, and stay by my side… I’m just thinking scary things. Over there, I’ll be jealous.”

I think the Picture Perfect arc really shows how desperate Mitsuba is to have friends- to fit in with everyone else and to just feel like he belongs and matters. Kou tries to tell him that isn’t true... he’s willing to do everything to let him know that he is so much more than what he deems himself as. He’s so much more than a “fake” of what used to be his original friend, there's so much more to do than wish wishes and hope things will just go the way you want things to go. There’s a better way than to look to evil to bend and defy the laws of existing.

There’s the famous quote Kou says- the “How about I die too. So that we can be together forever.” And how he decided right there this this fake Mitsuba- this apparition who very much will never become human- is worthy. He’s worthy of his life; this is more than the whole “I will die for every life” because Mitsuba is dead- he’s immortal as a ghost. But a human like him... in Mitsubas words someone who will never understand something as ugly and as horrifying as a apparition born from a real persons soul and lesser about to disappear spirits- Kou will give his life up just to know the hell he goes through. Even if it’s just a glimpse- even if it’s just for a second Kou will do anything to just fulfill Mitsubas wish for him to stay by his side. He will do anything for Mitsuba.

I think writing this out also makes me realize they both have their walls up. Kou has his walls up to try and hide his true feelings- his deepest fears and insecurities- feeling as if he isn’t good enough. Mitsuba has his walls up to do the same. He portrays himself as a guy that he deems will get him friends. He hides the ugliness in himself- hides the fact he’s a total fake; doesn’t belong anywhere and his deepest insecurities.

But the two of them together help each other in such a way that it’s unable to truly analyze every single moment they share together.

They help each other but teach the other to bring their walls down. That it’s okay to talk about your feelings and that you don’t have to be everything for everyone. That you don’t have to give up everything you have living- your health and your literal life- for someone. That it’s okay to feel like you don’t fit in. It’s okay to feel like there’s just no other choice of getting what you want and therefore doing the wrong things. That people will love you just for you; what happened in the past put aside.

Mitsuba and Kou are in love.

The end. 💖

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c-c-cherry · 4 years ago

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Terribly sorry for the wait, but I’m back and I’ve got some Fugo for y’all!!

To be honest, its not that I don’t like Fugo, I just find his character really hard to nail down and write about which is why I haven’t written much about him in general. @jjadegreen helped SOOO much with this because I was so blocked when it came to writing this past week, so thank you!!

//content warning for whump-related shit (sickness, major injury, etc..)

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Pain Tolerance

-Out of everyone in the group, he surprisingly has one of the LOWEST pain tolerances Narancia comes in first though

-We all know he’s riled up pretty easily, so it's his nature to panic over minor injuries

-If there’s blood? You bet he will freak out

-It’s hard to take advantage of him because of how on-guard he is, but if he’s ever kidnapped or drugged, he’s absolutely the kind of person to kick into fight mode more than flight mode

-He tries his best to keep his composure, but if he’s backed into a painful corner and there’s nothing he can do about it, he will be loud

-Unlike Giorno or Mista, who tend to bite their tongue and shut themselves down during intense pain, you’ll know when Fugo is really hurt because of the way he carries himself

-He’s always really ashamed of the way he acts when he’s in pain because he’s supposed to be in Passione and shouldn’t be getting so worked up over minor wounds (or even major wounds at this point) :(

-Bruno always makes sure to remind his team that getting hurt does NOT equal being weak, but there’s always the lingering feeling in the back of his mind that he’s useless and nothing but a burden for the team for reacting the way he does

Injury

-He tries not to get injured, but when he does, it's not good :/

-He’s had his fair share dealing with inner pain or broken bones, but if its bleeding or an actual open wound, that’s when he starts to really freak out

-I headcanon that he has a fixation on being clean so to speak. He doesn’t have a problem if someone else is getting hurt, but he gets this shitshitshitshit reaction the moment he realizes that he has an open wound

-His mind can’t stop thinking that it’ll get dirty and infected

-It leads to him usually overcleaning them if he’s left to his own devices, which ultimately puts him in more pain and more strain on the injury

-If ANYONE tries to help him, he’s all “no no no, I can handle this myself, stop. Stop stop don’t get closer, I'll handle it on my own.”

-During times where he’s hurt pretty bad, he can’t “suck it up” as much as he wants to. He’s panicking because he’s terrified of someone being there and close to him when he’s at his weakest and most vulnerable

-He has no idea where his emotions will go and even more terrified of losing control of his stand

-He doesn’t like being touched without warning and it's even more amplified when he gets hurt

-If it’s “minor” enough to get past the gang without them knowing, he’s tense even after he tries to deal with it himself. No matter what, it just doesn’t feel clean or healed enough (and sometimes it really isn’t)

-Narancia’s usually the first one to notice and ask why he’s so pale, or gripping his side so much, etc,,

-People try to keep things on the downlow when Fugo gets hurt because they don’t want to wind him up, so it usually ends with one of them telling Bruno, who in turn gets Giorno if he needs to

-Bruno’s always been one to calm him down and he’s usually the one to patch him up (or hold him and keep him grounded so Giorno can heal if the injury is bad enough) :’)

-Even so, he’ll try to deny painkillers and insist on changing his own bandages regardless

Sickness

-On the contrary, he actually doesn’t mind being sick when the time comes

-No one likes having a fever, but he can take it. Throwing up or being so tired that you can’t move is an awful feeling, but he can take it

-Between vigorously studying how the human body battles illness thanks to purple haze, he knows the ins and outs of his own body and also knows that getting sick is just a normal human response to bad bacteria

-That, and years of Bruno’s constant reassurance and parental charm have rubbed off on him a bit :)

-Narancia freaks out a bit anytime anyone is ill because of the fate of his mother, which is why Fugo feels a bit of responsibility to act calm and collected when he’s sick so Nara doesn’t feel as intimidated or threatened by it :)

-When he isn’t feeling well, he tells someone. He knows that taking a break is important and when he’s sick, he already knows from the start that he can’t get the work done properly even if he tried

-He doesn’t mind people taking care of him in that sense, but if you try to coddle him, he will choke you

Emotional Stress

-Its not uncommon for anyone in the Bucci gang to suffer from nightmares once in while, but something crucial to know for Fugo is that only Bruno can wake him up

-Out of everyone in the gang, the two of them have the strongest bond (they were the first two in the bucci gang after all) and sometimes when things are too much, Bruno is the only one who’s able to ground him again

-If anyone else tries to shake him awake or try to get him out of his sleep, he’ll panic. He gets scared. When he’s scared, people get hurt

-Sometimes, he has no idea who’s in front of him and won’t hesitate to go for the kill if he thinks he’s in immediate danger

-Narancia tried to wake him up one night and he panicked, stabbing him in the stomach. Narancia could care less because he has another cool scar, but Fugo felt awful about it and wouldn’t sleep or see anyone for days

-Despite being a bit unstable himself, Fugo has a vast amount of knowledge and knows himself and his needs like the back of his hand

-If he doesn't like something or doesn’t feel comfortable, he’s learned to speak up about it as much as possible

-They all have an unspoken rule with him to ask before they touch him in any scenario. He doesn’t mind physical affection, but permission please :)))

-Also. He is the KING of stress toys. Don’t even tell me that he doesn’t have a giant box of things to do with his hands when he gets overwhelmed (yes Bruno bought them all for him)

-Also weighted blankets? Perfect for someone who wants warmth but sometimes not touch

-I headcanon that in my Storm-verse, he lends things out to Giorno all the time when he needs them

-He’s also the one who explains a lot of terms to Giorno (flashbacks, panic attacks vs anxiety attacks, dissociation, etc,,) and he and Giorno end up bonding a lot because of it

-Fugo isn’t exactly ready to fully confront his past and his traumas, but he knows that he’ll have people there for him when he’s ready :)

And some sad shit to leave y’all with, of course >:(

-Fugo is scared of people, despite his demeanor. People have science, but are overall unpredictable

-He feels the need to always prepare for the worst because people are the one thing he can’t analytically predict

-He trusts Bruno with his life, but sometimes, even he doubts that

-He’s terrified of death, which is partly why he hates getting injured so much. He knows where untreated wounds will get you and it isn’t pretty

-Sometimes the tiniest injuries can ruin you forever. He’s terrified of that happening to him and he takes advantage of that fear because it's something he can control the probability of

-His biggest fear doesn’t have to do with the unknown, though; he’s terrified of being a failure

-His entire life was planned out for him: the best academic scores, the best schooling...now look at him. A gangster. A criminal.

-He hates his past self as much as he hates his current self. The constant pressure in the back of his mind of being so hungry for praise still resides in him today and he hates it

-He knows he can’t disappoint Bruno, and would have to do a lot to disappoint the others but it still never left his head

-He knows he’s with people who love him now, and would treat him right regardless, but part of him doubts that

-How could they love him? What had he done to be worthy of something like that? Half the time, he’s so angry he can barely speak

-And beyond all that, beyond his fear of death, and people, and failure?

-He’s just scared of being alone

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Jade gave me the saddest shit to work with after that last line that involved canon character deaths BUT MY TINY LITTLE HEART CANNOT HANDLE THAT TODAY so I leave you on merely a bittersweet ending instead :3

Got an ask? Hit me up, askbox is open!! <3

#jjba #jjba headcanons #pannacotta fugo #jojo's bizzare adventure golden wind #jojos's bizarre adventure #bucci gang #hurt/comfort #whump

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adoranymph · 4 years ago

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That’s right! It’s been far too long, and I need to do another discussion of, what remains to this day, my #1 anime: Fate/Zero. Oh darling, how I’ve missed talking about you.

First off, I’m probably one of the few people on the planet who, for the most part, doesn’t take too much issue with the concept of prequels. I get why such stories are flawed and inherently so. Going into that kind of detail on something that was only mentioned in passing as a previous event in an original work can be detrimental to that work, punching in plot holes and whatnot. Plus, it takes away the mystery that some find more appealing about the “story before”: giving a detailed account of that takes away that mystery.

Speaking for me personally though, I kinda like it. I mean, I’m the kind of person who squees on the inside at stuff like Thranduil at the end of the third Hobbit film telling his son Legolas that he might want to look into finding a Dunedain ranger named “Strider”, a.k.a. Aragorn, son of Arathorn, a.k.a. the once and future king of Lord of the Rings, timeline consistency be damned! I love Easter Eggs in all their forms.

Which means perhaps I’m biased on this opinion, and to a degree, I am. But, I still think objectively as well as subjectively that Fate/Zero really does work well as a prequel.

Why?

A few reasons, but:

The short answer? It’s a tragedy.

In both the classical and the emotional gut-punching sense.

In the classical sense, we’re talking about actions that have consequences that are inevitable. In the emotional gut-punching sense, it’s that those consequences utterly destroy our heroes and heroines in their feels.

Anyone who’s experienced the original Fate/Stay Night, either in anime or visual novel form, or both, already knows that the consequences to many of the actions taken by the characters in Zero are inevitable. At the same time, for anyone who’s watching it before watching any of the other Fate material as a stepping off point for the franchise, it still works as a strong story of characters who sabotage their own goals through their own flaws, made tragic by how earnest they are in endeavoring to overcome them. Not to mention the sheer number of feels and brutal deaths and OMG this anime. (They didn’t give its original light novel writer, Gen Urobuchi, the sobriquet of “Urobutcher” for nothing.)

Sure, in the end, some plot threads are left frayed and fluttering in the breeze because the main Stay Night plot points are all set up here at Zero‘s conclusion (though that does produce the disadvantage of no longer making the story twists in Stay Night…well…twists). Despite that though, there is still a completeness to the ending.

Somehow the loose ends are written so they don’t feel loose. Sure we find out in the Heaven’s Feel route of Stay Night that Illya is Kiritsugu’s precious daughter that he was unable to save. Sure, in the Unlimited Blade Works route, Kirei gets his just-desserts for that little infraction of killing Rin’s father, Tokiomi Tohsaka. Sure, in the Fate route, the revelations that Saber was a gender-bent King Arthur and was Kiritsugu’s servant in the previous Grail War come to light.

And knowing those things, or lack thereof, can affect how you watch Zero. Knowing them can fill you with excitement when you see these addressed in the prequel (at least for me, since again, this is something I actually like about prequels). Not knowing them gives them their own fresh and engaging life in the flow of the narrative.

When watching Zero, we last see Illya waiting hopefully in the snowy Einzberns’ castle for her beloved father Kiritsugu to come back to her, only to learn that because he’d tried to destroy the Grail (because it’s corrupted), the Einzberns considered him a traitor and shut him out, preventing him from seeing her ever again.

We last see Rin at her father’s funeral. Kirei (who presided over that funeral no less) gives her the ceremonial dagger that her father himself had gifted to him for being his pupil in magic, only to immediately use it to literally stab him in the back. It’s only upon receiving the knife and learning that it was her father’s, that Rin finally allows herself to cry, Kirei secretly relishing her tears and the knowledge that he just gave her the weapon he’d used to murder her father as a present, and she’s none the wiser.

We see Sakura resigned to her fate as a future vessel for the Grail while carrying the weight of the Matou Family crestworms inside slowly killing her, despite her “uncle” Kariya Matou’s efforts to save her by winning the Grail for his wicked father. Efforts that were, for lack of better term, “ill-fated“.

We see Saber summoned at the conclusion of the first episode, with Kiritsugu believing that King Arthur was well a King, only to learn right off the bat that she was a woman in disguise the whole time (and that becomes a thing).

Regardless of knowing these things prior, the writing itself gives the scenes that are meant to allude to these later plot points a gravitas of their own worthy of praise. I am in a bit of a weird position where I started watching Fate/Stay Night (2006), which followed the first story route, the Fate route, with Saber (Arturia) as the heroine. Then I dropped it about a quarter of the way and bypassed straight to Zero. I was just too excited to wade through the lackluster production values of F/SN ’06. So I both knew and did not know things going into Zero. I had the opportunity to see certain things with a well-crafted setup in Zero, and still be engaged by both them and by things that were new to me in the sense that I wasn’t aware of their relevance not only to the Fate route, but to Unlimited Bladeworks, and Heaven’s Feel routes respectively.

Though I knew that it was going to come up that Kiritsugu was Saber Arturia’s Master in the Fourth War, I was still jarred by how frigid their relationship was pretty much from the word go. And it was interesting seeing someone as openly passionate about justice as Saber was getting stonewalled by someone like Kiritsugu, seeing as how his own passion for justice turned out to have been just as great. It’s just that he’s already let “reality” turn all that into a cold, calculating fire that’s compelling to watch burn so slowly, that struggle between that BBC Sherlockian sense of “Will caring about them [people] help save them?” and caring too much being the whole reason for what he does. That idea of wanting to bring the world salvation through an end to conflict, weighed movingly against how much he cares for his own family. It’s something that craftedly underpins his whole character. And anything like that will never be boring for me.

Rin meanwhile, even at a tender age, shows great potential as a mage, having started her education in magecraft in Zero. There’s an entire episode in there dedicated to how far she’s come and how far she still has to go. And it’s still exciting for those who already know that she’s going to be the capable Master of Archer in the Fifth Holy Grail War of Stay Night because of how well those parts showing such are executed in Zero, as equally exciting as it is to see it as someone going in blind.

Kariya Matou is motivated by the purest of things, love, to save Sakura Matou (formerly Tohsaka as Rin’s little sister) after she’s adopted into the Matou family simply to be used and abused in the worst ways. But for all that, it isn’t enough for him to succeed and failure is one of the most brutal things to watch.

Just about one of the most precious things I’ve seen in anything, never mind anime, is the scene of the walnut-finding game Kiritsugu and his daughter Illya would often play, because we see them play it one last time before Kiritsugu leaves for the Grail War at the beginning of the show. Even without being aware that this is the last time that they will ever see each other again, the hug goodbye that Kiritsugu gives Illya is still bittersweet because of how Kiritsugu’s character has been set up as this sober and reserved man carrying the heavy burden of his wife’s inevitable death, the cost for his wish to save the world, beautifully and poignantly juxtaposed against him acting playful, happy even, with their only child. (That, and well, there’s me who’s outed herself as a sucker for daddy-daughter relationships in fiction.)

Being a tragedy then, not only are all of the characters’ fates inevitable, and consequences of their own flaws, but they all end up spiraling apart into ultimate despair, with just the tiniest ray of hope at the end (which is the tease for Stay Night‘s continuation of the story, all three story routes accounted for). So what we’re left with is characters who either died broken, or survived broken, and for those who survived broken, we see that despite that, they find some reason to go on living (even if not for very much longer, and or even if not for the best of reasons). Just the same, it’s inspiring. Very Bluthian, actually. Despite all the trauma, it’s given worth of its own in that very last scene with Kiritsugu and his adopted son, Shirou, the protagonist of Stay Night, promising that things can be turned around for the better. That always gets me. From the very first time I watched it, I knew I had watched something incredible. An unduplicatable experience in the vein of finishing Harry Potter or Avatar: the Last Airbender.

It’s also something of a reset button where the anime adaptations of the Fate franchise are concerned. Somewhat ironically, the anime was produced so that the later adaptation of the Unlimited Blade Works and Heaven’s Feel story routes from the visual novel would work as sequels. Sequels to the prequel, as it were.

Then there’s the bottom line. It’s just a damn good show. Beautiful animation, beautiful music, beautiful character writing. Of all of the adaptations, it’s the one that works best as a standalone as probably Fate fans are ever going to get, given the nature of the source material. And with it being so good, it also has considerable rewatch value, which means that those “twists” that get “spoiled” are worth watching in the same regard that anything that has a known twist going in it is still worth watching.

And that…is why Fate/Zero actually works as a prequel.

Keeping this link up!

Why Fate/Zero Works As A Prequel That's right! It's been far too long, and I need to do another discussion of, what remains to this day, my #1…

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fullmetalirin · 6 years ago

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Fullmetal Alchemist OG vs. Brotherhood: On Endings

One more post before the final analysis: as I compared the beginnings of the series, I'll also compare the endings. The ending can tell us a lot about a series and the author's intentions. What things did they want to resolve and how, and what did they want to leave us with?

Fullmetal Alchemist

Let's review the ending of OG first. OG had a climactic final confrontation, but it was a pretty restrained affair: Ed vs. Dante alone, and then Ed vs. Envy alone. It was very personal in nature, with Ed fighting alone to rescue his brother and discover the truth behind the homunculi and the Philosopher's Stone.

The true confrontation was philosophical in nature. Dante deconstructs the guiding principle of the series up to that point, the law of equivalent exchange, and reveals it to be a lie: there's no guarantee that hard work will pay off. There is no justice, she tells us; there's just us. The hero is stripped of his moral certainty and shaken to his core, but stubbornly clings to some hope that there is still some justice in the world. Hohenheim offers a parting gift: that Dante may be right, but by freeing yourself from the logic of equivalent exchange, you can also gain something for nothing.

For our climactic belly-of-the-whale moment, Ed straight-up dies. Al overcomes the hesitance and impotence that has weighed on him all series, and uses the immense power he's been granted to sacrifice himself for Ed's true resurrection in a mirror of Ed's own sacrifice for him at the start of the series.

Ed refuses to accept this. He wants to have it all. But he cannot get it: though he partially restores Al, he himself passes through the gateway, leaving the brothers separated. But meanwhile, the background characters who never bought into this nonsense in the first place are doing great. Rose is healing, Izumi is willing to teach Al, and Mustang's rebellion is a success.

It's a bittersweet ending: the heroes survive, gaining some of the things they sought but losing others. We are left uncertain about their fate, encouraged to reflect on what we've seen and what they've learned. It's a contemplative ending, meant to stick with you: it's on the audience to write the ending of the story, through living their own lives.

Now we'll compare that to…

FMA Brotherhood

Let's catch you up on what happened in the intervening time in Brotherhood real quick:

WINRY FINDS OUT SCAR KILLS HER PARENTS OH NO WHAT'S SHE GONNA DO oh nothing because Ed talks down the hysterical woman. What a relief!

LAN FAN LOSES HER ARM OH NO oh wait we have super prosthetics so she just gets automail and she's fine.

GLUTTONY SWALLOWS EVERYONE but it's okay they get out fine and also Ed finds something useful in there so actually this was good for the heroes.

BRADLEY TAKES RIZA HOSTAGE but does not actually kill her or anyone and Riza is still able to leak information to Mustang and escape when it actually matters so this is totally pointless except for sidelining the female action hero for a while.

FATHER SHOWS UP OH NO WHAT'S HE GONNA DO oh he's going to tell Ed he needs him alive for his plan and for some reason he can't just beat Ed into a coma so actually Ed is free to act with total impunity.

BUT OH WAIT HE TURNS LING INTO A HOMUNCULUS except actually Ling is still alive and will end up totally fine.

BRADLEY TAKES WINRY HOSTAGE WHAT'S HE GONNA MAKE ED DO oh he's just going to tell Ed to keep doing what he was already doing. Okay then.

Mustang was apparently friends with Riza's dad and Riza has the secrets of flame alchemy tattooed on her back, because this is shonen and everything has to have a convoluted explanation.

Envy frees Kimblee and makes him track down Scar who is also with Marcoh because adding more characters into this tangled mess is definitely a good idea.

Pride invites the Elrics into his house and Bradley shows up to menace them but not actually do anything. Pride continues to act like the most precocious kid ever I presume because he gets off on it? Is he already planning on jumping to Ed at this point?

Ed meets Olivier and is immediately imprisoned so Ed can twiddle his thumbs while we watch Olivier take over the plot for the next few episodes.

SHOCKING TWIST that Amestris was formed for the purpose of transmuting everyone into a Philosopher's Stone which is so absurdly over-the-top I cannot even

WHY DOES FATHER LOOK LIKE HOHENHEIM??? Because he tricked Hohenheim into giving him his face and actually Hohenheim is totally innocent because why have complex morally gray characters when we can atomize any possibility of that instead. (Also Father's original form looks absolutely nothing like how historical homunculi are drawn or described except that he's in a flask, even though homunculi's flasks are obviously artificial wombs and not literally part of their bodies why do I need to explain this.)

After several episodes of wheel-spinning the characters suddenly decide it's time for the finale so a hideously convoluted multi-front battle ensues.

They're fighting Envy and SUDDENLY RIZA POINTS A GUN AT MUSTANG OH NO CLIFFHANGER HAS ENVY TRICKED HIM no Envy turned into Mustang for some reason and Riza saw through it because the villains spent all their competence points killing Hughes.

Mustang curbstomps Envy because he's a Gary Stu but Ed doesn't want him to be consumed by vengeance because it was… so much better when he sadistically burned a homunculi to death for no reason at all?

RIZA'S THROAT IS SLIT AND MUSTANG HAS TO DO HUMAN TRANSMUTATION oh never mind she gets healed by the cavalry BUT SUDDENLY THE HOMUNCULI SHOW UP AND FORCE HIM TO DO HUMAN TRANSMUTATION ANYWAY… somehow… and OH NO HE GOES BLIND but he can still fight because he's a Gary Stu so it doesn't actually matter. Nothing ever actually matters.

Up to and including…

FMA Brotherhood Episode 61: "He Who Would Swallow God"

THE BAD GUY WINS! FATHER ACTIVATES HIS TRANSMUTATION CIRCLE! HE BECOMES GOD! ROCKS FALL, EVERYBODY DIES! Except oops, nevermind, turns out Hohenheim spilled the souls of his Philosopher's Stone all around the country offscreen and now they, for some reason, are helping the guy who helped trap them and destroy their country at no benefit to themselves. Somehow, they were not absorbed by the transmutation and can somehow free the souls of Amestrians. Somehow.

Seriously. This series has always been careful to surgically remove real tension from the story, but now it’s just atomizing its desecrated corpse. Everything, up to and including the villain succeeding at all his goals, will be reversed on a dime so the heroes can win. There is no longer any possibility that the heroes might get anything other than an absolutely perfect victory. This is terrible storytelling. It’s sacrificing all narrative coherence on the altar of one cool scene.

Ed shows up for five seconds to yell at Father but is useless because Father deactivates alchemy. This is followed by several minutes of Hohenheim ranting about how awesome he is and how important this confrontation is to him personally because why focus on the protagonist when we can spend all that time on his awful deadbeat dad.

Hohenheim's Stone is activated by the circle of the moon's shadow. Sure. Why not. Nothing else in this show has ever made sense, why start now.

Ed looks on in awe as Hohenheim exposits on the exact effects this will have on Father. Father shoots an energy blast at them and Hohenheim deflects it. Another energy blast, this time May deflects it because alkahestry still works and is perfectly suited to this because it's magic. Another energy blast, and Hohenheim blocks it again. But oh no, he's losing strength, so the protagonists play support for him.

Then we cut to Scar vs. Bradley. Bradley asks why he's using alchemy if that's against his religion, and asks if he's abandoned God. Scar does not answer.

How is Bradley defeated? He's blinded by the sun when the eclipse finishes and that negates the Ultimate Eye.

Seriously? Seriously? HE WEARS AN EYEPATCH. IF HE CAN SEE THROUGH AN EYEPATCH WHY CAN'T HE SEE THROUGH BLINDING LIGHT. Also how has this never happened in any of the other daytime fights.

Scar gets one hit on him and that kills him when the immortal legion which is explicitly made the exact same way as him have multiple lives because what is consistency. But what's this, Bradley manages to stab him in his last moments! Oh wow, is a major character actually going to die in the final battle??? No.

Then Bradley talks for a straight minute about pretentious nonsense. Wow, and here I was thinking OG had too much talking.

Then what Tumblr has helpfully informed me is our great disabled WOC representation sits there and demands to know if Hitler loved his wife, then she helps Scar over to his transmutation circle so he can learn the very important lesson that it's wrong for him to hate white people so now he's going to save them. Thanks, brown people! Still no answer to Bradley's questions. If they're answered earlier, you are free to tell me about it.

Bradley… ages to death? Why?

Alchemy is powered by tectonic movement, apparently. That is a reasonable but incredibly boring answer that does nothing to explain why soul goop empowers alchemy. (Also I guess they're slowing down the planet's rotation by doing this?)

Alchemy's reactivated so Ed finally does something and it's to… smash Father's throne. Wow. Great contribution, hero. Father throws another energy blast at him and Hohenheim defends.

"When will he run out of energy?" "I don't know!" And this is why I don't like Brotherhood homunculi. There's no sense of progress or scale. They're boss monsters who are always exactly as strong until they suddenly die. The battle lasts as long as the author wants it to.

Ed makes one substantial attack on Father who then shrugs it off.

Mustang is sad he's useless. CAN'T RELATE.

Ed asks what the homunculi's motivation is and gets a non-answer.

Kimblee is still alive in Pride because NO ONE IN THIS SHOW CAN EVER DIE. He nosells the soulstorm because he's just so special. He's mad that Pride is lowering himself to entering a human because for some reason he cares deeply about Pride's honor. Then Ed… turns himself into a Philosopher's Stone so he can enter Pride's mind, kills Pride, and turns him into a human baby? That's bizarre even by this show's standards.

Honestly that whole thing is so random. Pride does absolutely nothing during the battle with Father, then all of a sudden he grabs Ed and everyone else is like "sure whatever we'll leave you behind with the supermonster" because they've read the script, then Ed beats him in five seconds. This really looks to me like the author was going "Crap, crap, Ed hasn't beaten a single villain the whole story, quick, give him some token contribution."

FMA Brotherhood Episode 62: "A Fierce Counterattack"

Why does Trisha's soul have giant boobs in the OP.

Father is just absorbing people directly now because suddenly that doesn't need a circle.

Hohenheim leads the charge and gives a hero rant.

Father frees the souls in his Philosopher's Stone to make zombies. Why has no one ever done this before. What is even the point of this.

Izumi is horrified when a baby touches her because this show just loves hammering in how she's a frail woman traumatized by her inability to have babies.

Father uses Hyper Beam.

We spend another age talking about exactly who's going to go to the final battle. Olivier has to stay behind because she has a broken arm but the blind guy gets to go on ahead.

The Hyper Beam atomized half the building but Al and Hohenheim were somehow able to block it without dying. Ed's automail has taken damage but he can still move it because injuries are for losers.

Father smacks Hohenheim but he's still not dead.

Mustang burns the entire courtyard because what are power limits. (He explicitly says that actually every other time he's used fireballs he's been holding himself back, because this show just cannot stop escalating the Stu Power.) Riza is helping him aim because women get support roles. Mustang preens about clappy transmutation being awesome. Why does he even need to do that? He already has a transmutation circle on his gloves.

Then it's just three straight minutes of everyone blasting Father while Father just stands there looking grouchy. Greed attacks him and Father drops the shield to try to absorb him, but it doesn't matter because he can still raise walls at will without even clapping.

It looks like they might actually get a hit but Father pulls an energy blast out of nowhere. It destroys Ed's arm but somehow not any other part of him. Why doesn't he use his soul drain again? Why is anyone engaging in melee attacks against him when they have a whole battalion of soldiers to nuke him from orbit?

And now Ed and Ed alone is conveniently impaled just enough to immobilize him without giving him life-threatening injuries. This is so Alphonse can make the big sacrifice of repaying his soul to restore Ed's arm, because Truth is just such a nice person who trades so fairly in this. Somehow no one is able to attack Father during the long time they spend discussing this as he slooowly lumbers forward. Where did Greed go? His whole thing is invulnerability, he should totally still be mobile.

Shouldn't Ed's arm be mismatched on account of him losing it when he was way younger? And the fact he has automail welded into his shoulder? But the arm has just grown over that and somehow works fine. I guess Truth took care of that too because he's just so nice.

Ed screams a lot because that's his only emotion.

Yeah Greed is there, just watching this. So is everyone else, including the soldiers.

FMA Brotherhood Episode 63: "The Other Side of the Gateway"

And Ed is just punching him now. Because it's not like this series has "alchemist" in the title or anything. Everyone just stands there.

Then despite being weaker than he was before, Father is somehow able to pull out another nuke and then move super fast to grab Greed. Greed nobly sacrifices himself to kill Father because only homunculi are allowed the sweet release of death. But he still gets to talk with Ling for like a solid minute first about how totally irresistible Father's pull is.

We get a Sad Flashback Montage. Altogether I think it's longer than Al's sacrifice, and more people look sad. This show just has no concept of pacing. Putting noble sacrifices back-to-back diminishes the effect of each.

Then an extended sequence where Father gets a dressing-down by Truth. Last-minute contrived sympathetic moment where he's terrified of being reabsorbed by the Gate because he just wanted to experience the world. Too little too late, show. You cannot fix your complete failure to humanize him at all during the story with a last-minute reversal. Not every villain needs a humanizing sympathetic last moment. Sometimes it's better to just let them own their villainy. Like Dante!

(And given the way this show has handled previous villains I also get the impression we are supposed to laugh at how pathetic and scared he is, which makes me profoundly uncomfortable.)

Then everyone hands Ed a bunch of ways he can get Al back and he nobly refuses them and I'm sorry but I hate this. Him turning down one thing is just barely acceptable, but this utter deluge of possibilities just turns it into a farce for me. OH NO HOWEVER WILL WE SOLVE THIS TRAGEDY well actually there are a ton of solutions but we're going to turn them down to rationally come to the objectively perfect solution. There's no desperation, no tension or emotional weight. Also HE TOTALLY SHOULD HAVE USED HOHENHEIM, LET THAT DICKBAG BE GOOD FOR SOMETHING.

(Also, how on Earth is a Philosopher's Stone – a zillion lives – for one life an equivalent exchange?)

So instead Ed gives up his ability to use alchemy. Credit where credit's due, he does bring up Nina during his long, long speech about how very humble he is, which is a good callback. (Even though he really doesn't have that much reason to remember her in this continuity.)

TRUTH: That is the right answer, alchemist. You have beaten me.

And this is where it really clicked for me. This isn't about sacrifices, or moral choices, or tradeoffs. This is about winning. It's the gamer mentality: there is a perfectly optimal solution that will solve all your problems, and you just have to keep trying until you find it. Anything you lose you can get back if you just try harder. You never have to face any actual loss or consequence for your actions, because the world is fundamentally fair and just and will bail you out of everything if you can just figure out the right cheat code. That is the exact mentality OG so scathingly attacked in its conclusion, and I concur for all the reasons I've already stated. This all leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth.

When Al returns, May is hysterical but Hohenheim keeps a stiff upper lip.

Then Mustang declares he's going to… continue the Fuhrer's wishes? Of "national security" read: genocide?

Then Hohenheim reflects on his history with Homunculus because he's the real protagonist with a real connection to the villain. Armstrong tells him they'd have surely lost without Ed and Al despite all the evidence to the contrary. Y'know, maybe if Hohenheim didn't have to incapacitate himself shielding Ed's useless self he could've just solo'd Father with his superpowers. Also, if they were so integral why aren't they getting told this.

Then we continue following Hohenheim as he gets to calmly come to terms with his own mortality over Trisha's grave. Then he finally, finally dies.

I don't know why they keep doing the pixellated skin cracks. It looks so weird.

And then the ending montage is Hohenheim's entire life, because he was the real protagonist all along.

FMA Brotherhood Episode 64: "Journey's End"

We open with Mustang fixing Ishval. Team Mustang helpfully informs us they are doing this because they were so helpful in defeating Father. See, brown people, all you need to do is shut up and help the white people some more, and then they'll fix everything for you!

Marcoh is somehow still alive. He has a Philosopher's Stone because Brotherhood is just tripping over the things. He explicitly says it's made of Ishvalans and then says he wants to use it to heal Mustang's eyes "for the sake of Ishval". Wow. He instead nobly uses the souls of genocided brown people to heal the spine of a white dude, because being disabled is such a terrible, terrible fate no one could ever live with.

Cut to Scar. He's going to help restore Ishval's culture and religion, which I guess is cool with alchemy now? Also he's gonna be helped by an Ishvalan in the Amestrian military because the series really, really wants to hammer in that the oppressed have to work for the oppressors to get anything done.

Olivier seems to have saved Scar just to punk Mustang and oh my god is she still using kisama for Scar? Why is she such an awful person.

We cut to the Elrics, for once at a relatively reasonable point. Al is still recovering from muscle atrophy. Boy, it sure is a good thing there was an utterly nonsensical Deus ex Machina that prevented him from starving to death. Otherwise the heroes might not have gotten absolutely everything they wanted.

Oh, Fu died? So one character was polite enough to remove themselves from this hideously bloated cast after all. Good on you, Fu.

Ed ships Al and the little girl. Ew. Is this revenge for Al shipping Ed with his surrogate sister?

Ah, Al wants to learn alkahestry so he can save people like Nina in the future. That's good but really just hammers in how ridiculous it is alkahestry isn't common knowledge already.

Winry is being a nag and Ed is being a tsundere. Het culture continues to baffle me. He awkwardly proposes with equivalent exchange. Winry jokingly says equivalent exchange is nonsense. If only.

Ed is taller than Winry now. Boy it sure is great his growth wasn't stunted, that would almost be a consequence.

Ed ends by affirming equivalent exchange.

May is adult height in the ending photo, so yyyyeeeah that wasn't just stylistic, that was a little kid Al was crushing on.

WHY IS YOKI STILL ALIVE

Conclusion

So, uh, yeah, I'm honestly not impressed by the final boss fight. It's more a montage of everyone showing off their best moves than, you know, a fight. OG's battles with Greed and Sloth were much more visually and tactically interesting to me. I also don't like the battle royale aspect, and Al's sacrifice feels so tepid next to actually bringing Ed back from the dead. I did actually mist up a bit at Hohenheim offering to sacrifice himself, but it was ruined when my logical brain reminded me of the context and how yeah, there is no reason not to sacrifice him and he 100% deserves it. Honestly, though, I don't think I would have minded if the show had actually committed to its obvious desire to make Hohenheim the protagonist? He really is better-suited to it. He has an actual personal connection to the villain; he's the one making an actual sacrifice by turning against him; and he's the party member with the most power (except maybe MUSTANG THE MOST SPECIALEST). I genuinely think his death by the grave would have worked as an ending to the series, emotionally, if he had been the protagonist from the start. But then we'd have to have an old geezer as the protagonist of a shonen and that's just unthinkable.

For real, though, Brotherhood's finale is a great shonen finale. It is very prettily drawn and well-animated, and adequately wraps up the massive tangle of storylines with a feel-good bow. Everyone gets what they want and everyone's happy. The heroes' beliefs are affirmed. All problems are solved forever.

It's also all flash and no substance.

I read an interactive webcomic once, called NanQuest. As to be expected from an interactive story, it was pretty spiralling, and had a rather open-ended conclusion that left some mysteries unanswered. In the Q&A afterward, people hounded the author with questions, asking him what was going on with X, why didn't we get resolution on Y. I was right there with them.

In response, the author said something that stuck with me: "[The story is] like life. It's messy, not clean. No last words."

Now, you can say that's a load of crock, just a lazy author covering his butt with some pretentious platitude. And you might not be wrong. I certainly feel the same about a lot of works I feel are too open-ended. But in the case of NanQuest, I thought it made perfect sense, and put some things in perspective for me. Because you know, he's right. In real life, we don't always get to wrap everything up to our satisfaction before the end. Some problems are bigger than us. You can't dismantle a system of racism in a day or even a year. You can't always save everyone. You can't always get a perfect narrative finish to your subplots, a perfect fairytale ending. You don't always get last words.

We love stories because they're a world where we can get all those things. That's a comforting fantasy... but after I'm finished it just fades into the mists as I get up for another flawed, imperfect day in my life. And… maybe I'm just weird, but when a fantasy is too happy, it actually makes me feel worse. It doesn't mean anything to me when you say that these perfect people who had everything stacked in their favor got a happy ending. That makes me say, "But I'm not those people. This happy ending is for people who aren't me, who are better people than me." It's when I see horribly flawed characters go through awful trials and still make it out in the end that I can allow myself to think maybe I'll be okay too. It's through imperfections in stories that life bleeds through, that we are able to take something back with us. And I, personally, think that verisimilitude is worth some visceral dissatisfaction at the imperfection of a narrative.

What were Brotherhood's last words? The things it wanted to make sure happened before the end? A comforting lie. The world is just, it says. As long as you work hard enough, you can achieve your dreams. It doesn't matter how many sacrifices you have to make or how many people you have to hurt, because you can fix that too, in the end.

What were OG's last words? A hard truth. You can give everything you have and still lose. You can't have it all. At some point, you have to recognize that you're better off leaving the scab alone. There was no justice in Trisha's death. In trying to fix it, to assert justice onto the world, they only hurt themselves more. In trying to fix that, they hurt more than just themselves. But maybe, if they can accept that, they can find happiness in what still remains to them; maybe if it's possible to lose something and gain nothing, it's possible to get something for nothing too. Maybe. We don't know. It doesn't pretend to have all the answers. It's on us to complete this story, to take these lessons into our own lives. That's not a fun ending. But it's still, in its own way, a good one.

#fullmetal alchemist #fma #fullmetal alchemist brotherhood #fma 2003 #liveblog

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chanyeol-and-you-fantasies · 7 years ago

Text

Sweet Lies - by Solifiedjaporeanist21 (Admin SCYO)

Rating: Explicit

Member: Chanyeol (Exo)

Pairing: Chanyeol x Reader (You)

Words: 5,378

Warnings: Smut, Angst

Summery: Based on the song written by Park Chanyeol, Sweet Lies. A story of love and lies.

Request: No

Notes: It is finally here!!! The fic I’ve been writing for about 3 months. (Not even ashamedXD) I won’t lie to you guys, I’ve read my fair share of fics about this song and though they were good they didn’t quite match my expectations. So to reflect that I’ve written one myself. I mean it was going to happen eventually anyway.^·^

Song Suggestion: Naturally Sweet Lies by EXO. Enjoy~

…

The door slams behind Chanyeol as he left, the force behind it making you jump, blinking in utter shock. All your pent up tears beginning to fall carelessly down your face, the last words he spoke echoing in your brain, the venom in his voice dripping. “I can’t be that guy you want, (Y/N), I’m sorry!”

But that was just it…you wasn’t wanting much, you just wanted him to tell you he loved you back. Fuck even if it was another lie, another one of his false fabrications of the truth, it would’ve been better than being led on. The sweetest lies are sometimes better than the truth. Right?

You despise the mere thought, falling helplessly to the ground, covering your ears. You couldn’t stand to hear your thoughts, the sound of your own sorrow. The sound of the pain of being fooled by the one you thought loved you back.

You didn’t begin to register how long you’ve been on Chanyeol’s floor, angry at yourself, regretting every possible decision you ever made in your life. But when you look up, staring right into the eyes of the man who’d betrayed you, you knew it couldn’t of been any longer than five minutes.

Chanyeol’s passive face gave no hints as to why he came back, and frankly you didn’t care, it didn’t matter to you anymore, you were done. After this you realized you couldn’t stay with someone who couldn’t have the nerve to tell you the smallest truth of them all.

That he had never wanted you like you did him.

All the signs and not one did you see. How could you have been so stupid?

You look his way, feeling a strong pang in your chest at the way he looked at you. Just the way his eyes sharped in sympathy made you fume uncontrollably. Of all things in the world he had the fucking nerve to pity you, to feel sorry for what he couldn’t do? Of what he promised he’d try?

You shake your head in disbelief, tossing a dirty look at his judgemental eyes. Standing you ready your leave but before given the chance he ultimately stops you, reaching for your wrist. “(Y/N)…” You flinched, it was cruel how your name off his tongue sounded.

It was so broken.

So bitter.

No. There was nothing Chanyeol could say that will change anything so you didn’t understand why he was still trying. You were nothing to him, you knew that now. So why?

“Please….” Hearing his despreate plead just pissed you off more and you clenched your teeth, harshly yanking out of his grasp. It proved futile. “Don’t!” You bite, your voice shaken. You couldn’t even look at him.

You heard Chanyeol shift, turning you around, his hands gripping your shoulders. The tears that blurred your vision make him wince and he goes to hug you but you push at his chest. “I said don’t! Stop leading me on Chanyeol! I don’t want you anymore!”

It was sad that even you could hear the lies in your tone. The bittersweet truth of knowing that even you couldn’t lie to yourself. What possibly made you believe that you could him?

It was so fucked up, you wished he’d get over with it already and just push you away completely. What is possibly keeping him from ending this fantasy? Doesn’t he realize how much its hurting you both? It was fake, every word, every look, every touch, everything you thought you shared was fake. You didn’t understand!

“(Y/N) I can explain. Please just let me tell you what’s on my mind.” He says.

You didn’t even hesitate. “I don’t want your explanation, I want to leave. I never want to see you again. Why can’t you understand that! You’ve hurt me far more than you can repair!”

When you finally escape his grasp, you put some distance between you two. “I get it, okay, you wanted a slow burn relationship because of your past, I understood that, I fucking respected that, but,” you shake your head in disbelief, looking to the floor then back. “-but to this? The lying I got over, I hoped it’ll make you come to realize that you didn’t need to lie anymore but when I found out you were doing it out of spite of the truth….I couldn’t, okay. I mean, I loved you Chanyeol, not from the lies you spoke, but from the person you were underneath, even from just the littlest time we spent together, I fell for you, I did everything you asked, wanted. And I would’ve risked anything for you….But in the end….I couldn’t get you to see past it all to get even a ounce of your love in return?”

You paused, looking him straight in the face, your voice cracking from the tears. “Do you comprehend how that makes me feel? Do you? God I feel so betrayed Chanyeol. And it was because of you, the man I thought actually gave a damn made me feel this. I put my trust in you and you stabbed me in the back.”

Chanyeol winced at that but you don’t awknowladge it. You refused to. You look away once more.

“(Y/N), I wasn’t lying to you, I mean, I was but not as much as I was to myself. I’m a pretender, okay, I didn’t think this, that us, could ever happen. I didn’t think you could fall for someone like me, or if I could ever love again. Every lie I told you, to myself, was genuinely true but my feelings…my feelings were not. I was poisoning our minds I get that, but I couldn’t stop myself. Every chance I got I wanted to push you away, but I also didn’t. It was selfish. But it didn’t matter, nothing I did made it any better. I was too scared. I fell for you, (Y/N), I fell for you hard, I found I needed you in my life, but I also knew I didn’t deserve you, not after all I’ve done. I thought if I could just hide, keep telling my sweet lies, that maybe I could just drown completely within myself. But that too was cruel, cruel to you. I was already in far too deep.”

He pauses for breath, sighing defensively. “Don’t you see (Y/N)? I had to push you away, maybe not completely, but some. I had to keep lying because I couldn’t cope with how I truly felt. I was a coward that had to lie my way through our moments because I couldn’t handle the thought of you leaving me for hiding the truth in the first place. I didn’t want to see the pain it would’ve caused you.”

Chanyeol tries to move closer to you, to give you some sort of comfort, but you find yourself backing away. Your brows furrow. “How am I suppose to believe you, Chanyeol? All that has ever came out of your mouth were lies, what makes today’s words any different? How do I know that you’re not going to just keep lying if I were to forgive you? Don’t get me wrong, I want to believe you, I really do but…I just can’t. Not anymore. I’m sorry.”

You turn, your breath hitching in your chest. This was it, this is the end. Your limit. You didn’t know how much more of him you could handle before you actually start to believe his lies as though they were the truth.

You reach for the door, but Chanyeol was insistent. “(Y/N) please…just…”

Tears blurr your eyes once more, your voice vocally shuddering, but no matter how much you willed, you couldn’t seem to find the strength to leave. What was keeping you here!

Chanyeol hastily grabs you, turning you to face him, keeping your back pinned to the door. He cups you cheek, his fingers shaky against your skin. He felt almost scared to you.

“(Y/N), I-” It’s when he leans down to kiss you that you move. The look in his eyes is almost sincerely hurt but you can’t fall for his tricks again. “What do I have to do to get you to believe me, (Y/N)?”

“There is nothing that can fix this…fix us.” Chanyeol gasps. You swore you hear tears in his own voice when he pleads. “Please, don’t say-” “-We’re finished, Chanyeol.” “-No, please-!”

You slide out from between him and the wall, reaching for the door once more. Looking back over your shoulder, you mumble. “-You know out of all things I’m sorry about, the most is how I couldn’t be the girl that saves you.”

The silence between you two was unbearable but not as much as it was opening that door. It hurt like hell that he let you too, he actually let you leave without any struggle this time. And all you could do to stop your heart from breaking was to keep telling yourself that this was the right thing. That this will free you both from the binds of sorrow and pain.

But was that truly all? Why did all you could think to do was run back into his arms? Why’d you want him so bad after everything he’s done?

“(Y/N)! Wait!”

Abruptly you stop in your tracks.

You didn’t turn around. If you looked at him, at his sad face you knew you’d never be able to leave again. But did you even want to? You shake that thought. Of course you did, the pain he caused you cannot be forgotten.

When he realizes that you wasn’t going to face him he murmurs, his voice impossibly soft. “(Y/N), please will you just look at me.” It took everything to pretend you couldn’t hear him.

Chanyeol let’s out a low breath, turning you around despite your stubbornness. You looked up at him, brows furrowed, a plead stuck in your throat, but the words just wouldn’t seem to surface. You close your eyes, desperate not to show your tears.

Chanyeol tenses at the pain in your face.

He takes advantage of your silence and cups your cheeks in his hands, his height intriguing. What is he trying to achieve?

You open your mouth, having found your voice but like before Chanyeol cuts off your train of thought, lunging forward he kisses you. You gasped, your eyes widening in shock. Out of instinct you try to struggle away. But Chanyeol was stronger than you, his arms just tightening around your back.

When you successfully managed, you break his kiss, huffing. “Chanyeol, stop, this wo-!” But stubbornly he doesn’t listen and stops you short, kissing you even harder, guiding you back to the hallway wall. This wasn’t how you envision your first kiss with him to be.

He kept you pinned like last time, but this time when you tried to hit at his chest, he grabbed them, holding them too against the wall. He wasn’t giving you any chances.

Chanyeol pulls back, his voice soft. “I love you, (Y/N)…Please…please don’t leave me.” Chanyeol breaths lowly against your lips, slowly rejoining his to yours again just because.

You squeeze your eyes shut, your heart clenching at his words. For months you’ve been wanting to hear those simple words, and now that you have it takes your breath away, it almost makes you want to forgive him. To just throw this whole ridiculous fight behind you. But…

That shameful thought roams your brain and deep down you knew it was wrong, that you shouldn’t be easily swayed by his last ditch effort to get the girl, but somehow for some stupid unknown reason your brain wasn’t registering that properly, especially when all you could think to do is react to his touch.

To kiss him back.

Essentially you fall limp, taking into consideration that maybe you were wrong. That you couldn’t possibly fight the man you love, no matter how much he’s hurt you. Call it gulible, call it stupid, call it whatever one shall like, it wouldn’t stop you from thinking any different. Not anymore.

Chanyeol separates from you, his lips lingering on yours a second longer than it should, both your breaths heavy from the loss of oxygen. “(Y/N)…please…say something, I can’t tell what you’re feeling.” When you don’t, he searches your eyes for answers. But you knew he wouldn’t find any.

Although when Chanyeol sighs, letting go of your wrist, his shoulders slumping in defeat, you think otherwise. “I see…” Still you tilt your head at his words, confused yourself. Cause what ever he found clearly wasn’t what you truly felt. Actually far from it.

The lump in your throat made it nearly impossible to get your words out so instead you spoke with your actions, pulling him back to your lips, arms encircling his neck, yanking him as close to you as you could.

This time it was Chanyeol’s turn to gasp, falling against you almost dangerously, luckily he catches his fall in the nick of time. You pull him harder against you at the cuteness of his lost composure, his lips clumsy against yours. It was strangely addicting.

“I lied,” you say, slightly pulling back. “I can’t leave, I can’t ever, not in a million years.” Chanyeol lowly groans at that, quickly leaning back in, taking back his lost dominance. And you honestly didn’t mind, you needed this, you chased for this affection for far too long. Just how could you have been so blind to his feelings.

The bolder he got, the quicker your heart races, the more you feel yourself fall for him. Chanyeol easily reconizes your desires, quickly taking action, trailing his mouth to your neck, pressing hot open-mouth kisses in his wake. “Ive told you the sweetest of lies….” You force out, your voice strained. “…The lie within a lie.”

He hums into your throat, “After everything you’ll still have me even when you’ve been cut this deeply?“ Chanyeol murmurs, his warm breath tickling your neck from where he speaks.

"Of course, the deeper the cut the more blood of my love that spills for you. I wouldn’t dare ask for anything less.”

Before you knew it Chanyeol was kissing you once more, but this time there was something more heavier in his actions then there was earlier.

He holds your body to his tightly, kissing you in just the same amount of force his hands were you, guiding you both back to his studio, to finish what he couldn’t in front of eyes that pry.

Chanyeol locks the door naturally, you gigging the second his attention was back on you, your back quickly meeting the nearby wall once more.

“We shouldn’t have any interruptions in here.” Chanyeol groans in your ear, the tone of his husky voice chillingly seductive. Hastily he lifts you up into his arms, giving you no opportunity to escape. Not when he has you where he wants you.

You sigh blissful. Chanyeol’s mouth on your neck making you breathless of any thoughts, your voice just sounding out randomness. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. Personally I’d rather have you all to myself anyway.” You smile, gasping, the sharp pain of his teeth sinking into your skin mildly surprising. Chanyeol massages your thighs in his large hands, feeling the rising of goosebumps sprout from his gentle but teasing fingertips. Your noises of greed just driving him to higher heights, pushing himself harder against you, sandwiched by him and the wall.

You moaned, finding the source as to why. The simple realization makes your mind hazy, and you bite your lip, looking up at him with lustful eyes. He catches your eye, smirking, leaning in. His kiss doesn’t stop you though.

Reaching down you trail to the destination of his silent want. Chanyeol’s breath hitching in his chest, hands moving to your ass. “Just what is it that your hiding?” You say against his mouth, your lips curling up at the answer to your own question.

Wantonly you palm Chanyeol’s dick through his jeans, crazy at how unbelievably hard he was so early in the moment.

“Are you trying to start something you can’t finish, (Y/N)?” Chanyeol purrs, his pupils blown with desire. You watch as he licks his lips hungrily. Your heart skips. “Trust me there won’t be any stopping, you have my word.”

Chanyeol grinds against your teasing fingertips, removing a hand from your ass to unbutton his tight pants. You kiss him as he works, distracting somewhat, sliding your tongue past his awaiting lips. He groans, meeting your tongue with his own.

Once he releases himself from the confinements of his restraints, he slides his jeans down some, watching as you gladly stroke him. You made sure not to waste time. The feel of his cock in your small hand had you swarming in ecstasy, the hidden curiosity you’ve held no longer.

Chanyeol lowly moans, your sweet name passing his lips in the overwhelmness of your blunt actions. Never would he have guessed you to be so bold. So careless.

It didn’t take long of your stroking before Chanyeol was fighting the urge for more, breath uneven, his heartbeat erract against yours, his touch far beyond relaxed. “If you need release just fuck me already, why hold back?”

You let go of his cock, sliding your panties to the side, grabbing him again. Slowly you guide him to your wet sex, positioning each other, before you slide the tip into your pussy. You toss your head back.

Chanyeol gasps, taking lead, he pushes forward, you visibly wincing at the unfamiliarity. “Because I care for you, (Y/N), I’m reluctant that if I rush I’ll hurt you more than I have already.” You hiss when he bucks further in, filling you completely. “Fuck,” you curse.

“…” All words die in your throat the second Chanyeol begins. He squeezes you tightly to his body, giving you no time to adjust to his size as he fucks you against the wall. Lowly you moan his name, biting your lip, your fingers digging into his shirt. Into his skin. He just moans, enjoyingly.

His thrusts are deep and slow at first, giving you the pleasure of feeling every inch of him ease inside you, before speeding up.

Although it may be rough and fast now it was still very gentle, he cradles you with such tenderness it’s nearly impossible to think of such with his current movements below.

“I love you,” Chanyeol pants in your ear, trailing his lips to yours. Wantongly you kissed him back, a whine itched behind. You run your hand though his hair, lightly tugging at it.

“Ahhh, Channie! Yes!” You break the kiss, tossing your head back against the wall, your brows furrowed in pleasure, face warm. “You feel so good.” Chanyeol meets your drunken eyes, watching the flare of ecstasy burn within them the more he drives you closer and closer to pure bliss.

However even though it was greatly worth it the strain of the position was beginning to be too much for him. You’ve known him long enough to understand that, that his ability of stamina was scarcely thin. You’re actually quite surprised he lasted this long.

Abruptly you tighten your legs around him, forcing him to stop. Chanyeol looks at you questioning. You smile, reaching up, you stroke his cheek, watching the beads of sweat begin to roll down his face. “Wha-?!” His words silence, your lips on his.

“Let’s go to the bedroom, baby?” You murmur, quietly. It took Chanyeol a second to register why the sudden request but overall he nods. You beam joyful.

Like promised he lets you down, cupping your cheeks in his hands. He kisses you once more. You chuckled, and when he pulls back you grip his shirt, yanking him in the direction of his bedroom.

Only when it comes in sight do you begin to peel your clothes off, throwing them carelessly across the floor. Chanyeol follows suit, practically ripping his own off, the need for you back on his cock strongly influencing.

Only when your both are naked does Chanyeol come back to you, pressing your bareness to his own. You moaned, your skin tingling at the longing contact. It was almost embarrassing really, you figured he’d look like a god, but you, on the other hand didn’t think yourself so fabulous.

Chanyeol seems to have caught your troubling thoughts, for he hastily kisses you, holding the curve of your back as he carefully leads you back onto the bed. It’s clever, his distractions.

Comfortable he pulls back, a small smile framing his lips. You smiled back nervously, slowly losing that confidence you held so high earlier. You guessed because this was the first time he’s ever seen you this vulnerable. And before you wasn’t nearly this exposed.

Chanyeol merely throws those worries aside, leaning forward, he placed a gentle kiss to your jaw. “You’re beautiful, (Y/N), don’t let anyone think or say otherwise, even yourself.” You didn’t get a chance to answer for he begins traveling further down. You whined surprised. “Every part of your being is beautiful.”

At your neck he kisses with his tongue, leaving a wet trail. Lightly he sucks, creating a small hickey. You stretch you neck back farther, his touch at that part driving you seemingly crazy with desire. Your neck…“ He murmurs, leaving one last kiss to your collarbone before venturing farther, sliding his hand up your side, his lips meeting in the middle. "Your breast…”

You whine, back arching into his touch, into his lips that lightly peck at your breast. Surprisingly he couldn’t hear your heartbeat with how close he was because you’re sure it’s beating awfully rapid.

Chanyeol grins against your skin. You shiver, having felt his tongue all of a sudden, your toes curling up into the bed sheets from the excitement. Chanyeol hums throaty, squeezing your tit, softly taking your nipple into his mouth. You gasped. He swirls his tongue around it. When he uses his teeth, you begin to feel yourself about to lose it.

Chanyeol works diligently, lightly flicking his tongue across the hardened nub, before giving the other the same treatment. You mewl, carding your fingers through his hair, the other digged into his shoulder.

Your breathing picks up when he continues downwards, your eyes meeting his once he reaches your belly. “Your stomach…” He says, your brows furrowing, god he doesn’t stop there. You think fearful.

He’s kissing down your thighs, only then does his movements hault. Your breath hitches in your chest at the seductive look he throws you, one that gives far more than he probably liked to admit.

“Your pussy.” He smirks wide, placing a hand on your hip, the other behind your thigh. You swallow, knowing all too well what he was aiming to do next. And when he leans forward, you got proven right, his name gorgeously slipping from your lips.

Chanyeol presses his tongue flat against you, a gruff moan heard from him, his hands tightening. He eagerly licks up both his and your wetness, digging the tip of his tongue into your slit before sliding back up to your clit.

Chanyeol sucks at the sensitive nub, your voice coming out in pants, your hips itching to rise up against his face but the hand on your hip doesn’t allow you too. It was teasingly selfish.

You groan, the tone of your voice hoarse. “Fuck, Chanyeol, why does your tongue have to feel so good too?” He chuckled, sloppily licking at your clit, feeling you jerk with every swipe he delivered.

He ran his hands across the parts of your body he holds, squeezing, his nails digging into the tender flesh when he feels your squirming intensify. Gently he scrapes his teeth against your clit, welcoming the exact reaction he was looking for. You cry noisily, your breath unevenly ragged. “Oh god!!”

Chanyeol chuckles against you, moving back down to your soaked hole, sucking up the wetness you’ve leaked out, hungrily laping up your escaped sweetness. You tremble knowing he was savoring every drop that hits his tongue.

Your hips roll into his mouth, pleasure overwhelming your senses before you could stop yourself. He took your movements as a compliment, fucking your slit with his tongue.

You watch him as he eats you out, drunk off the lust that gleamed in his eyes. And with a pop he pulls back, sliding his fingers into his current place instead. You gasped, feeling the two fingers he enters into you, his tongue back on your clit.

Your voice becomes incoherent the faster he pumps his fingers into you, curling them to strike that sweet spot within. And when he does you cried out loudly, your hips unconsciously lifting, but Chanyeol was there to hold them down, sucking you harder, watching your disheaved self come undone. “AHHHH, Chanyeol! I’m so close!” Hearing this he gives you one last pump with his fingers, driving them impossibly deep, before pulling them out. You shivered, greatly unpleased.

With one final suck Chanyeol too removes his mouth. He sits up. You watch him in awe at the way he licks his lips, even more fixated at the way he slowly and very sensually wipes his mouth. There was no words to describe how rude it was.

You lift yourself. Reaching forward you grab your man, your lips sliding helplessly to his. You wanted to taste him, taste yourself. He chuckles, climbing over you, your back meeting the bed again.

“You’re all I want, (Y/N), that’s the truth.” he mumbles in your ear. You agree, instantly feeling him slide himself into you. You moaned blissful, catching his loving gaze. He doesn’t even hesitate and just fills you completely in one thrust, your walls accustomed to him from the first time.

Chanyeol presses his mouth to yours, sliding his tongue past your lips, his grunts of pleasure flowing from him to you when he finally starts to move.

He eases his hips into your cunt at a slow pace at first. And you sighed, the fullness of his cock ten times better in comparison then his fingers had. Every thrust hits all your sweet spots, he hits spots you didn’t even know existed. And with every passing second takes hold of your senses, throwing you in a fit of pure rapture. Never have you felt so wonderful.

Your arms come around his back, your fingertips feeling every muscle flex and twitch every time he buries himself into you. You spread your legs further, feeling him drive himself even deeper into you and it makes you mewl, bitting your swollen lips.

He pants, picking up speed, the bed beginning to creek slightly from the intense movement. It was music to your ears, every sound, his pants, your moans, the slapping of slick skin, even the light bump of the head board hitting the wall. Its was heaven to you.

Chanyeol squeezes his eyes shut, his voice vocally noisy, every pass of your name that leaves his lips gets more and more sloppy, the intense pleasure of you igniting his insides making his own speech incoherent.

You slide your hands across his body, tracing every definition of his skin, every beautiful muscle. Gentle you rake your nails down his front, his nipples, his abdomen. Eventually your trailing your hands up, behind his ears, to the nape of his neck. He meets your half-lidded eyes with his own, moving into the gentle touch of your fingertips that slide across his cheek.

You smile, “I love you, Chanyeol.” He seemed taken aback by the sudden confession, but quickly softens. He matches your smile, rejoing your lips, your breath flowing into him.

Fueled with your words, Chanyeol fucks you harder, quicker, the ache to express every ounce of his love to you in return endearingly powerful. And you made sure to understand every bit of it.

Your pussy takes every deep, rough trust he had to give. Every drop of pre-cum his cock releases your cunt wantongly mingles it with your own. You take him like he was meant to be there, inside you.

“Fuck, (Y/N), your pussy is so tight.” You groan at that, dragging your nails down his back, needing him more inside than you ever would’ve thought possible. You didn’t ever wish this to end. Not ever.

Your body says otherwise however, the tightness gripping the pit of your belly and it makes you jerk, your pussy getting even wetter. “Holy shit!” Chanyeol curses, feeling your body tighten around him. “I’m so close baby, you’re going to make me cum.” Chanyeol moves faster at your honesty, aiming for that spot he knows will make you explode with pleasure.

You reach down between you, placing your fingers on your clit. Just the touch had your head dizzy and swarming in ecstasy, your closed eyelids fading white the more Chanyeol nears you to your golden peak. He leans down on his elbows, carding his fingers through your hair, kissing your neck, leaving love bites and hickeys. “Come for me baby girl, let me witness what no one else can.”

Just his voice has you nearly cumming, the sound so deep and husky in your ear, along with his amazing cock was enough to take you there. But with one final thrust Chanyeol was the one cumming. Not being able to hold out as long as he thought. “Fuck!” He gasps, dragging out the word loudly, his body trembling as he spills his cum inside you.

He pants out of breath but despite it he kept moving, making sure you come as well. And with just a couple flicks of your wrist you too are cumming with him, his name heard bouncing off the bedroom walls. He hissed when your walls tighten around his sensitive dick but he doesn’t pull out, he wants to feel your spasming orgasm. Actually he needs it.

Chanyeol watches your expression, turned on even more at the sexy look of your release, the sound of his name in that matter he never thought he’d hear gorgeously slipping from your lips. When you stop spasming he starts to move but you stop him, your body still too overly sensitive. You just grab him keeping him in place until you rise down a little more from your high.

He understands, carefully pulling you close to his chest, slowly lifting you up into his lap, his cock still rested inside you. You hum, laying you head on his shoulder, beads of sweat rolling down your head and onto him. Not that he minded you both were pretty sticky already with sweat anyway.

It’s when things start to calm down, and you both begin to relax does Chanyeol lowly speak. You expected him to express how happy he was that you stayed but instead you got something completely opposite.

“I love you…” He suddenly whispers in your ear, tears visably laced in his voice. You lean up, shocked by the frantic change in his attitude.

You open your mouth, worried, you mean to ask why he was so sad but he hugs you tigher, not letting you utter a single breath. Continuously he repeats himself, telling you how much he loves you. Only after hearing his tears do you realize why.

He’s scared.

He’s scared because he had almost lost you. He almost lost the women he loved because he wasn’t strong enough to stop himself from lying. The realization makes tears well up in your own eyes but the ones that fall are not sad but happy.

You’re happy…because you knew the words he speaks are genuinely honest. Silently you bury your face in his neck, holding him just as tight. You’d think about the consciquenses later, but right now all you wanted to do was stay in his arms and hold him. To listen to every single ‘I love you’ he’s had pent up until today.

And no matter how long it takes you’d be here for him, now and forever.

#sweet lies #chanyeol smut #chanyeol scenario #reader #mine #admin scyo #solifiedjaporeanist21 #@solified-chanyeol-lover

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cbk1000 · 8 years ago

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I thought I was going to wait a couple more days to write this, but, well, I'm sick, I'm home alone, I'm bored, and as people have been trickling in to comment on this series, it feels right to add something characteristically long and meandering.

Much of this will be an overly long commentary on some of my all-time favorite characters, why I chose to tell their stories the way I told them, how I feel about Caroline in particular, and her journey in this series vs. what the show did to her. Also included: answers to several of your most burning questions, including What the Actual Fuck Is Wrong With You*, Are You a Robot, and my personal favorite, Are You Some Kind of Sick Person?

*I'm not actually going to answer this; sorry. I'm still sorting it out for myself. It's a long and murky journey that involves rummaging about in my subconscious, which is a dark place, full of an alarming parade of bizarre historical facts, serial killer case files, and helicopter/dinosaur porn.

As this will contain spoilers, I'll put the rest under a cut so those of you who have not yet finished the series don't accidentally stumble across something you're not ready to see.

So, first we'll address the elephant in the room. I know this series didn't go the way some of you expected it to; frankly, it didn't go the way I expected it to, either. First and foremost because it was supposed to be a goddamn trilogy (whoooooooops), and secondly because Christ on a goddamned pogo stick was TO so much worse than I ever could have imagined. I know for some of you there was too much history, not enough KC, that I gave too much time to Caroline's other relationships, that Klaus was too terrible, the Originals too fucked-up, Tim unsympathetic/boring, etc. etc. etc. (Let's all pause for a moment to appreciate the fact that not one negative comment ever said this series has gone on too fucking long. I can ramble for 600,000+ words and no one has an issue with that, but thousand-year-old vampires being terrible people is unendurable.) I won't talk about this for too long, mostly because I've addressed it before, and basically my response to all of this is that I wrote the series exactly how I needed to write it to deal with what happened to some of my favorite characters. I cut out characters and plotlines I originally intended to address, sometimes rather abruptly, because I could no longer look at them, even my own version of them (Stefan, buddy, I'm talking about you) without feeling enraged. It was a constant struggle to divorce myself from canon to such an extent that I could write freely, so that my muse wouldn't be cockblocked by Klaus' magical testicles and the reduction of Caroline to Stefan's penis pleaser. Mostly I was successful; sometimes I was not. So I did turn to the things that pleased me: I turned to lengthy flashbacks, I turned to Caroline as an individual character with her own plot and developments outside of Klaus, I turned to an original character who didn't force me to tiptoe around shitty canon.

Tl; dr: The series was long and rambling and there are child murders and an original character, and I'm genuinely sorry some people who enjoyed it in the beginning were eventually disappointed by it, but I'm not sorry I wrote it that way.

This series, as I have already said, was the longest, most complex writing project I have ever attempted. Previously, I've always written about humans: soft, breakable humans who can and often do die, whose stories are small, narrow things in the grand scheme of the world. Because that's who I am: a small, breakable human with a finite number of years and stories. And that's exactly what drew me to Klaus, who really was the catalyst for my TVD work--how do you write so far beyond a human's limited scope? How do you explore a perspective like that? How do you write about a thousand-year-old savant and somehow convince your readers that they actually are following the perspective of a man who has lived and evolved for ten centuries, who speaks hundreds of languages, who is an expert in most subjects, who is not only smarter than any reader can really comprehend, but smarter indeed than the writer herself? We're supposed to challenge ourselves as writers: we're supposed to confront the things that frighten us most, and that's what Klaus was for me. He was a character I could never be smart or skilled enough to fully capture. So, being a masochistic bitch, I waded right in.

I was never really opposed to a redemption storyline for Klaus. This may seem contrary to my many varied and colorful comments on the moist tampon that has usurped the rightful face and place of one of my favorite characters, but it's true: I just never wanted that redemption. Klaus is not a character who can be saved. He's not a character who should be saved. He's not human: that's what TO's writers have forgotten (along with the most basic tenets of good storytelling). He can never be 'good' by our standards. He's from a long-vanished world; he was never one of us even when he was human. He was from a time and culture we will never experience or fully understand. He was born into a society some of us would now consider barbaric, and then he was stabbed to death by his own father, turned into a monster he could not possibly comprehend, and sent off into the world with the only father figure he'd ever known hot on his heels. He killed his own mother. These are his origins: and from this we expect a man we can understand, a man who falls prey to dipshit psychology students and the miracle of childbirth. Klaus has seen plenty of births and plenty of dipshit humans: that's the whole fucking point. He's seen it all. He's seen just about every iteration of human bullshit there is, over and over again. We're cyclical, predictable creatures, and, what's more, we're a food source to him. Why should we be anything else? The depressing truth of it is, humans don't even give a shit about humans, as evidenced by our multiple wars and genocides. If humanity can't even treat itself with the proper respect and reverence for life, why would an immortal monster care about anything other than its most outstanding members (and, no, TO, Cami is not even remotely close to an example of a noteable human)?

Klaus' redemption, then, should have been a tiny, incremental thing. It should have been him slowly letting go of his father's shadow. It should have been him realizing that he does not deserve the loyalty he so desperately craves, and he never will if he continues in the same vein. It should have been him slowly learning to treat his family with more respect, to stop using even those closest to him as pawns, to step back and take a breath and sometimes just let things fucking go instead of lashing out. It should have been a long and difficult process that he had to fail at over and over again. And there shouldn't have been a goddamn baby in sight. This series was what I wanted for him. And ultimately, though I love him and I want him to be happy, I also want him to have to face permanent consequences. It's the only way he can grow. Letting go of Kol was his redemption. Having the dagger on him, knowing he could have repeated the cycle, knowing he could have stuck Kol in a box for three centuries to cool off, knowing he still had control, knowing that he could still puff his chest and exert his power and instead choosing not to do that was the best ending I can think of for him, bittersweet though it may be.

As this series continued, it became very important to me that I tell a story about breaking away when you need to, when a situation is not healthy anymore, when the people who are supposed to love and protect you treat you in a way that is detrimental to your emotional if not physical health. One of the things that most bothers me about TO and TVD is the persistent message that you must stick by your family, no matter what; I see this message perpetuated throughout media in general and real life itself, and I can tell you this: it's bullshit. It doesn't matter how long you've put up with it, you still have an obligation to yourself to get the fuck out. Because someone shares your blood does not mean they own your soul. None of the Originals' relationships are healthy: they're a bunch of thousand-year-old serial killers. I didn't write this series so people could enjoy, guilt-free, the white picket fences and 2.5 kids of your high school sweetheart neighbors who have been married for twenty happy years. But Kol felt so marginalized, so trapped, so lonely, and though I set up Klaus' narrative arc so that the natural conclusion can be drawn that he does improve, he does mellow out a bit, he will treat the people he loves better--that's not good enough. It's not enough for Kol to think that in future he'll feel more included, his siblings will love him in a way that, if not exactly healthy, at least will not destroy him. He didn't need to wait any longer for that: he says so himself. He acknowledges Klaus may well become less of a tit: it doesn't matter.

Though Kol may have left with Tim, it wasn't about giving a ship a happy ending. It was actually my original intention to kill off Tim (I'll go into that later, but for now, shout out to my sister for reminding me that LGBT romances never get a happy ending in media), but Kol's story was always going to have the same ending: he was always going to leave. I think he is, right now at least, the only family member capable of breaking away. Rebekah can't do it; she'll see it through to the bloody end. But I always approached Kol with the idea that, disturbing murder shenanigans aside, of them all he actually had the healthiest grasp of what it means to love someone. He is, ironically, perhaps the most well-adjusted of them all. He isn't immune to the effects of time and the examples of his siblings, he isn't without his slips and fuck-ups, but ultimately the relationship between Kol and Tim, despite the fact that they are both bloodthirsty murderers who were mentored by Klaus, is one of mutual respect and gay murder. This too I have TO/TVD to thank for, because I could not fucking stand one more girl-gives-up-everything-she-is-for-a-boy-who-treats-her-like-shit relationship, nor was I down with the concept that all these ancient creatures with uber durable privates and raging hormones never strayed so much as a little toe outside the careful, heteronormative confines of the writers' extraordinarily limited notions of immortality. This graphic gay murder sex brought to you by my annoyance.

I'm going to leave off here, because this, like everything I write, is annoyingly long, and I've still got quite a bit I'd like to say. In my defense, this series is over 600,000 words and has consumed over three years of my life. Bit hard to summarize my thoughts and feelings in a few paragraphs.

Also, I have fucking nothing else to do anyway.

#writing #au originals series

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