Oddball wrote:Mirage_GSM wrote:Honestly, it's okay to be disappointed or a bit sad if a story you liked concludes, but can't you even use your own imagination for what happens after?
I mean, I'm by no means the most creative person ever, but do you have to ask about every little detail of their future life?
That reminds me somewhat of a book I read a long time ago. I think it was by Stephen King, but I'm not positive. It was either the last chapter or one of the very last chapters, he basically comes out and gives an author's note saying, if you like happy endings where everything is wrapped up neatly, this is a good place to stop reading.
It's the final installment of The Dark Tower series. The story itself is one that spanned a good many years, and both creation and creator nearly died halfway through. Its a true masterpiece, and I have it here with me, though I had nearly forgotten it and its wisdom.
A few choice passages of the "author's note":
Though it's hard to define it as such, since SK breaks not just the 4th, but like 7 walls.
"I can stop now, put my pen down and rest my weary hand(...).Yet some of you (...) are likely not so willing. You are the (...) ones who will not believe that the joy is in the journey rather than the destination no matter how many times it has been proven to you. (...) You are the cruel ones who deny the Grey Havens, where tired characters go to rest. You say you want to know how it all comes out. (...)you say that is what your money paid for, the show you came to see.
I hope most of you know better.
Want better. (...)
And so, my dear Constant Reader, I tell you this: You can stop here. (...)
Should you go on, you will surely be disappointed, perhaps even heartbroken. (...) There is no such thing as a happy ending.
Endings are heartless.
Endings are another word for goodbye.
(...)
Would you still?
Very well, then, come. (Do you hear me sigh?)"
It's not so much a warning as a tired writer getting something off his chest. (Though it does contain that warning, and should you ignore it, prepare for the mind fucking of a lifetime.) A tired parent, chiding his child because if they ask one more question, they'll find out santa isn't real. What annoying kids, but isn't that great? What goes unquestioned goes unnoticed, so if there's so much questioning you get sick of it, doesn't that mean you created something that enraptured that heart?
Is that attitude not what drives all fanfiction? Only we
know "Endings are another word for goodbye." And we don't want to say goodbye. We are too invested, too captivated, we won't take "no" or "just because, now go to bed" for an answer.
We are the pesky kids asking for 1002 nights of story, and making up a decade's worth when Sherazade can't go on. Santa isn't real? Then he might as well fight crime besides Shelob Man, using his faster-than-light sleigh and infinite toy sack. We are not the ones demanding endings, we are the ones who ask for just one more chapter, who never want it to end.
We love this media, this work, this... wonder we found too much to say goodbye.
When my father had just died, each night I would dream up another scenario where he never left me, or came back, only to feel lost in the morning, in this reality where none of what I created happened. Isn't that similar?
When I finished Katawa Shoujo, it was my search for a way to not say goodbye that guided me here, and I caught myself in the same position of not wanting to say goodbye to these new characters I'd found in fanfiction (Damn you, Helbereth). Now that I'm writing it (coming soon), I planned out the cast's entire lives and interactions, and with their endings drawing to a close, I ended up making new characters and now I'm completely fucked.
It's our way of keeping them alive, even if only in this small way.
Heck, I still dream of my father sometimes, but I (usually) don't wake up lost anymore, but with a tear in my eye and/or a smile to my face.
I haven't forgotten his face, sai, I remember it well.
It may reach an ending, it may be goodbye, but we'll always carry the core of them with us.
Fuck I need therapy.
PS: Sorry for the long post and for going on a tangent.
Loved the fic, specially the way it shows a bumpy road towards happiness, not a "and then they found each other and magically everything was right forever".
If I'm not afraid of crying again I'll probably be back in a few months to re-read this masterpiece.
And I love how you combine things with another. You used some quotes from the game, the newspaper club from Lilly´s path for example and you used it great.
Now I just need to imagine how their live would be after the university 
