They Say "Pride Goes Before Fall" - [Kratos Aurion/Zelos Wilder] - (Tales of Symphonia)

[daruki]

Title: They Say "Pride Goes Before Fall"
Author: daruki
Pairing: Kratos Aurion/Zelos Wilder
Fandom: Tales of Symphonia
Word count: ~8,000
Spoilers: The whole game and both characters' background story. Contains references from Tales of Fandom II and Tales of Symphonia: the manga.
Note/WARNING: This is a manifesto for a fanon ship. Therefore it goes

Comments

[cruxis]

I think this is an extremely well-written and well-reasoned essay, and while I cannot say I agree with you (I vastly prefer the Kratos and Zelos dynamic in a non-romantic fashion when I'm not being shallow, and I rather think the only reason they would sleep together is to spite the other), I commend you greatly. It's nice to see someone in the Symphonia fandom take the time to do something like this.

And I'm well aware this is ridiculously, horribly and terribly ironic, but I'm the author of the non!NC-17 fic from the kink meme, and I'm very glad that you enjoyed it so much, since I have a multitude of problems with it. XD

[daruki]

First of all, thank you for going through this. I appreciate a lot. Still, maybe I didn't make this very clear within the essay itself, but I know exactly what you're talking about - the real goal of this is more to try and get people to acknowledge that they can have a relationship - ANY relationship, as friends, rivals, teammates, someone to relate to (that they CAN talk to each other and are NOT totally unrelated to one another) - rather than try to prove and convert people to ship them under a romantic way because it's just way too difficult and even less believable. After all, I'm already working with straws. No sense trying to make a brick house with that

[cruxis]

It was certainly well worth the read. I definitely agree with you in terms of the relationship aspect; I think they have too fascinating of a dynamic on any level for it to go unacknowledged (which it so widely does).

The student/teacher aspect of Kratos and Zelos is one of very few unproven/fanon things I take very seriously to heart. I think it makes the relationship between them that much more interesting, acute and complex. I personally maintain that they hate one another and themselves too much to ever reach a point where they could be honestly friendly with one another (and friendly's the incorrect word, but I hope you know what I'm trying to say), but I can definitely see what you're saying and understand the dynamic.

Quite welcome, please don't mention it. XD And I don't mind at all! It was posted anon-ly, after all, and I never expected it to come up again.

Incidentally, would you mind too terribly if I friended you? Good vibes, and someone who is willing to discuss is always A+ in my books. :|b No worries if not, too.

[daruki]

I should probably have reinforced this more, because THAT is the one point that I'm really trying to throw across with this.

...Yes. Actually I think we both understand very well what the other is trying to say, but none of us really have the exact words for it. @_@; Though it is precisely from what you've mentioned that I found looking for fics and arts of those so HARD (I haven't updated my fic rec list for years. After finding a handful that I really fell in love with, kinda gave up trying to look for others. ;;; Even for fanarts. I save every single one I find on Japanese sites, but there's only a handful that I really like ~_~;) - you have to keep them in character, keep in mind that they are people who HATE themselves much more than each other, and there's so much undertone and sous-entendus that it really gets extremely heavy when at first sight there seems to be nothing at all. They're NOT easy to work with, which might be one of the reasons why no one ships it. It's barely there to start with, and once you notice it, it's

I'm sorry, I don't have an icon of either of them. DDDX

[miken_chan]

[BE HAPPY, I'M PUTTING OFF MY HISTORY PAPER FOR THIS AWESOMESAUCE]

So LOOOONG~~~ And so detailed! Now something of this magnitude is definitely worthy of the person who dragged me into the pairing in the first place. [Well, technically, you and Krii]

Also many many thanks to .Cylph and Ju-da-su (argentum_canine)for staying up just as late as me, probably even later, to translate the manga from Japanese to English. XD;;

Man, I kinda wish the manga didn't end. It was probably the series that I had the most fun working on. Ahahaha, if I didn't know what going through that again would do to my health, I'd redo a bunch of chapters just for fun.

fff it's all good nobody really has them anyway

[daruki]

GO BACK TO WORK. YOU'RE A GOOD AND DILIGENT STUDENT, UNLIKE ME.

Thanks. ;;; fff I still think it's just that I'm crazy this way, 8|;

Why didn't you mention them earlier so I could have included those in the credits list D8; BRB adding now.

You can color them? Some pages WERE pretty badass. XD; -will probably try to do 50~53 from Ex Load 5 soon just cause she's a dork like that-

Hurrr making you edit the post again~

[miken_chan]

[Don't worry, I can pull A+ history papers just by skimming the article and writing whatever my brain managed to retain]

Also, eternal_rena deserves some scanlating credit, since she picked up the series before WoaA even existed.

The problem is that my Colette love usually gets in the way of my coloring other characters. Every time I see a cute image of her, it automatically gets higher priority than anything else (like the '09 WoaA birthday coloring I did)

gdit miken

[daruki]

[Awesome. You're just like me then 8|b]

ihu. :( brb editing.

...

I lied ilu for running WoaA.

[niena]

Despite the fact my primary Zelos ship is Zelos/Lloyd, I really liked this essay. Even though they don't interact much in their canon, you worked around that. I really enjoyed this.

fff wrong icon I'm sorry D8

[daruki]

ZL is much easier to work with because they uh... ACTUALLY INTERACT. I'm just a fantard who likes to make life difficult for herself, so I go for the most obscure things. 8|a;

Thank you for your time, though!~ I really appreciate it.

[gargantsurprise]

This is one of my absolute favourite dynamics in Symphonia, and you've done a marvelous job presenting it! Reading this improved my night tenfold, no lie, and it was most assuredly not a bore! I only apologise for not having more to say...!

I liek your icon. <3

[daruki]

I remember you. <3

Thank you. ...Just hearing that means a lot, and it's fine! I'm just really impressed by people's tolerance towards TL;DRs right now. XD;

[gargantsurprise]

... oh! OH! True facts! Hahah, wow, I totally didn't even realise for a moment there. I'm still very grateful, by the way! :>

And hahah, no way, man, tl;dr is my very favourite thing. That's what this wonderful community is all about! In-depth discussion/contemplation, my one true love ♥

[daruki]

fff. I must have sounded really creepy to you back then; totally understandable. Please don't. As you can tell with what I've written, there's like only a dozen out of those pics that I really liked - actually a lot of them are really :|, but I save everything I find. Can't be picky with a rare pairing, so yeah. The ones I've posted here are all decent, though 1.1, all of 3.3, and the last ones are some all-time faves. Does that give you an idea of the kind of dynamic they have that I really ship? :D;;;

Yeah, and took me way too much procrastination and time to get this up. Thanks a lot for reading, and I'm really glad that you liked it! o/

[diamondust]

Yay, this was awesome. Really interesting...I mean you brought up some points I never really considered (and I've thought about them alot!), like certian parts of the Compare & Contrast section (them both being nihilistic losers and all that).

I do believe that Zelos would wind up very similar to Kratos if he was given more time. Yeah, I totally agree. Like, the big plot twist I was planning for 'Uphill Battle' had something to do with that. Yggdrasil couldn't trust Kratos anymore, so he was planning to off him and have Zelos take his place, thus why he wanted Kratos to teach him everything he knew...heh. Kratos eventually figures this out, and, yanno, mass drama ensues.

Anyway, this line of yours pretty much sums up what this pair means to me; they can gain so much from each other, yet they are much too proud. The snark is funny and the whole surrogate father/son thing breaks my heart...there's alot of facets to it. I have to kind of suspend my belief to imagine them ever getting to a romantic level (it would take alot of work),

[daruki]

Haha, you remember when I first mentioned wanting to write this 2 years back? hahah... hahaha... ha. ;;;;;

o/ I have too much time and no life. You've helped me TREMENDOUSLY in my own love and growth for these two, so you're awesome. But ffffff I'll admit it's really nice to know, since you'll probably never finish Uphill Battle, and for the time that it lasted, I enjoyed it. You write awesome stuff of them just all around, and even if you may not again I will forever love you for the stuff you left behind. <333 And agreed. Romance is nice, but fff... It's too hard to strive for. Even my own stuff that I come up with tend to go with more derp/snark/humor/fluff/angst/whatever, but pretty much never romance unless you squint REALLY hard. Sits with me just fine - I love them the way they already are.

psshhhhh I mailed you to specifically ask you to publicly credit you for those. AT LEAST USE A BIGGER FONT IF YOU WANT TO MAKE A CONFESSION. D: -Goes to edit and add your username next to the anon ones- <3 Good; glad to hear it!~