MAAKOPLA

My thoughts about the story overall

Thank you readers!

I am out of words (literally) haha. I am simply exhausted and happy too. Finally, after a year and a few months. Finish line was crossed. It's complete. I want to cry. Thank you for your support guys! Every time someone posted a comment it made me want to write another chapter. You guys, seriously, you are awesome and I don't know how to be thankful enough. I hope you all were satisfied how this journey ended if you aren't then please tell me. I would love to hear your comments, good or bad. I love you all <3 Later I am going to post a proper q&a about the main characters and if you have any questions please ask. 

The idea

One day when I was browsing trough fanfics here and on other sites, I saw that so many of them were depressing. Melancholy, sadness and despair. So many prologues bashed fairy tales and happy endings, saying in reality there are no such things. Haha, I just realized that my prologue is actually similar. For a good reason though! But anyway, the first thing I wanted to tell you guys is that I wrote this story to prove that fairy tales make sense and it's not useless to believe in them. I wanted to somehow bring fairy tales to life (I tried to use as many fairy tales/stories as possible). I also tried to concentrate on the original storylines instead of Disney but of course Disney quotes are more memorable. I will add more of them to the earlier chapters when I have time, since this "add quotes" idea hit me pretty late. Heck I had already managed to publish like 8 chapters or something before I even got the whole fairy tale idea.

The Meaning

The purpose of the story never was to promote LOVE or prove that something like eternal perfect love exists. No. I just wanted to prove that fairy tales can be real and that they are not stupid and naive, that a deeper meaning can be found behind those simple lines and applied to real life. So in this story, Jiyong, a guy who has never believed in fairy tales, is converted to believe so strongly it keeps him sane. What comes to love I don't believe it's eternal and all happy go lucky thing to start with. 

For example "Always & forever", like was mentioned in one of the chapters, doesn't mean literally that I.Love.You.All.My.Life.My.First.Love.And.Nothing.Can.Change.That - exists. Forever represents ourselves in life itself, as long as we are alive we are forever, once we die we are nothing (or go to heaven or whatever) so when Jiyong said he wanted to live forever he meant that he wanted to be alive and be able to love.

Forever is a moment full of happiness, because when you move on with your life you can still remember that happy moment and be happy. Always is reality because we always this and always that but forever is abstract because everyone knows that forever doesn't exist. However, for me it exists in a fleeting moment. A moment is forever and a moment is with you always as long as you live and are willing to remember. So you can be together with someone always and forever, as long as you are alive. Even if that person disappears you are still alive and that person is with you as long as you remember. So love is "always & forever" because love is a mix of "real & abstract" You know it exists yet it's hard to understand.

Another thing is that no one in this story actually ended up with their first loves, except Jiyong, of course. I am sure in one chapter Dara mentions meeting Seung Hyun when she was little but I just couldn't find that part no matter how I searched. It might have been in a previous version I never posted NOOOO! I will definitely add this part if it's missing. Anyway, Dara and Seung Hyun were each other's first loves even though Dara doesn't know it was Seung Hyun.

Dara and Jiyong didn't exactly love ONLY each other throughout the story. They both tried to move on, Dara was even engaged and Jiyong had Yeon Hee, even though no much was elaborated on her (I didn't think it was that important, an ordinary sad love story). He even once had feelings for Bom too. The thing is that once you really like someone it's impossible to forget. This comes from my own experience, there was this friend I truly loved (as a friend), we got into a huge argument and didn't talk like for 4 years. Then one day I wrote him a message on fb, he answered and somehow we made up. It's like we had never been apart.

I sort of believe in destiny (probably obvious after reading my stories) that things happen for a reason, life is more fun when I think about it like that. So, if you are meant to like someone you do, even if you get separated you might meet again, if only you were meant to be. You will keep coming back to your feelings and digging them up, inevitable. Even if you start forgetting, once you meet again you feel happy and the old feelings can come back to you. If you never meet again, then you weren't meant to be, still doesn't mean you won't miss that person.

So in a way, regarding the amount of sad endings in this story. I also wanted to show the miserable side of life, sometimes it doesn't work, maybe it's not meant to or you didn't try hard enough. But you can move on and fall in love again, get over and be happy. (Seung Hyun, Dara and Jiyong all were happy with their new loves too, it just didn't work.) Here again, I want to highlight that what matters is the MOMENT because once it's over it's gone for good. So people, keep living in real time, don't hang on the past, don't worry about the future. Enjoy now as long as it lasts. You get me? Happily ever after is now, not later, not before. NOW! So happily ever after really exists and it's a forever in you. Don't give up on love, The Little Mermaid died for that. (Messiah in the bible of love aka Jesus of love? HAHA, snort)

Characters

I hope that someone already thought about this but Just a Big Fat Lie was not a story about Dara, the protagonist was Jiyong all along. It all starts with him, the prologue portrays the state of mind he has fallen into. He doesn't believe in love, he is scared of it, he wants to forget about it for good, he hates fairy tales (hated them since he was a little kid) and overall, he just wants to give up on everything, perhaps even die. There was only one thing he couldn't give up, Dara. Because he loved her like a love song, consciously or not (guess which song I was listening to while writing about this lol). Because she was important to him and it's hard to give up on people we care about. 

There is a passage in the very beginning of him making a wish “I want to grow old, I want to live really long.” and him telling his mother that “A fairy will surely grant me my fish” Deep in his heart that little boy is still alive and this simple wish is the red thread of the story “I want to live long” As long as you really want something, it tends to come true. Really, I am not joking. I know there is a saying "You can't always get everything" but seriously, think back. When was it you really didn't get what was important. Okay, maybe you didn't get that CD or book but you got the job of your dreams, or got accepted in the College you wanted to attend, or you won in a competition, or the person you fell in love with answered your feelings etc etc etc. But at least you got some of those things. Because as long as you want something you don't give up, you keep trying to get it until you do!

I know that it must be very unrealistic how Jiyong survived after all those accidents, first there was the plastic surgery and then the heart transplant, then at the very end he got shot. I am just going to say that he was meant to live on, love Dara and find his happiness. After all, he tried to stay alive really hard, he worked for that. In fact, his whole life was a violent battle for survival. And Dara was there, in a sense she was his fairy because she kept him alive. Not literally but because he was so attached to her he stayed alive, he had to. As long as she hadn't achieved her happy ending he couldn't vanish from her side. The flashbacks you can see how he, at times, kept coming back to her when there was no risks of getting caught. He just wanted to make sure his favorite person in whole world was doing okay. If not as a lover, then as a family or a friend. 

And you know, he never confessed to Dara back in high school because he was sure he wouldn't be able make her happy. Seung Hyun was different however, even though a melancholic character, he was more free, open minded and full of hope. He was too proud to fall in depression and tried to live his life as well as he could. That's all. Just to enjoy the moment. A bit more positive. At all times he accepted his fate and tried to get the most out of it. Like you can see from the flashbacks of his high school years, he is a hero.

The ending

You know, even though I always kept saying that I had planned the ending long ago, the truth is I was unsure about it until I wrote these last chapters. Even the epilogue had been different in my mind but once I started writing it, the result was something completely else. Even Sil Jang's death was spontaneous turn of events and for a long while I tried my hardest to come up with a good explanation. Haha, even though I always kept mentioning how I had planned everything in advance the truth is that I never planned anything and if I did those plans never came true. Anyway, I must admit this story has been the hardest to write so far, too complicated and twisted. I am pretty sure that everything is okay with the time line, I was really about all the birthdays and mentioned years/dates. So if you go back every single dot should connect perfectly. But there is always a possibility that I made a mistake and that's why I will be re-reading and revising this story again, pdf file will be posted after that but I have more than 1000 pages on word to g trough so it will take quite a while. 

I went trough million scenes for the ending. Jiyong died in almost all of them. But in the end... I couldn't finish him off. I just couldn't. You see when I started to write this fic I also wanted to defy the typical gangster fic ending, heck this was not supposed to be a gang fic either (that's why there is hardly any gang action and it's all on the side, this fic is all about figuring Jiyong out!). In so many dramas/movies when the main character takes a revenge on someone who has greatly wronger him in the past, after getting his revenge the main character usually dies. Why? Of course, the morale is that you shouldn't waste your time o