warning: a lot of making fun of soulmate fics will happen, if you can't handle it so be it

you know what i love?

whenever i find a fic to read and it's slowly matching almost all my boxes: more than twenty chapters? check. actual description? check. cover that doesnt look half assed? check. POC lead?!?! CHECK.

and then i actually go to read the description or i read the rest of it in the book and then i get to the part where it's revealed this character is mated with Klaus or Stefan or Damon or Kai or Elijah or Kol or whoever the writer is secretly getting off on at the moment

yeah

i just love those moments

im lying, it's the fire that lights the gasoline of my rage

today, we're going to be talking about soulmates:

— how they can be interesting in a story

— how they can ruin your story (especially if you're just starting)

— why we like them

— why we don't

— and my overall opinion bc why not

i always like to start off a bit positive so let's talk about all the fun parts of the soulmate trope before i demolish it into tiny pieces

books can be like food

they could be desserts, dinner, breakfast, lunch, whatever you want it to be

for this exercise let's compare books to cookies

i like cookies

now, when you want a cookie you have two options:

you can make it

or you can buy it

soulmate fics can be a guilty pleasure for me sometimes, there's something fun about how there's this one person made for you (and vice versa) and so you know there won't be any drama about cheating and crap, and you know they (most likely) will never break up because they always find their way back to each other.

especially if the two characters are like a big deal in the story, for example if it were Klaus and the OC were the leader or the most powerful of her species, the two of them having their fates aligned to be together would be legendary and catastrophic for the world (which is exactly what we want to read)

or if it were an OC and Kol during TVD, we know they'd have to go through him dying and then him coming back in TO (twice) like we know they end up together no matter what

however, (this is where we get to the bad parts)

when you make them soulmates (especially if they already know they're each others soulmates or one knows already or the OC is fucking reincarnated for some shit) you don't allow them to develop a proper relationship

the beauty of none-soulmate fics is that you have a pair of characters and you need to get them talking, interacting, finding ways of them catching the others attention and slowly build a relationship off that rather than have a store-bought relationship already

soulmate fics are like store-bought cookies, already finished and done, they look pretty and they taste nice, sometimes basic but not bad, it's store bought, not much depth, you can look down the same isle you picked that box of cookies from and see dozens exactly like them

regular fics are like homemade cookies: you buy the ingredients, you follow the recipe, you mess up the kitchen a bit, you eat some of the dough (but not all of it) and you bake them. they're not all alike, some could end up burnt, some could end up undercooked, but a lot of the time they end up just right.

the thing about soulmate fics is they just really ruin the situation where characters fall in love, not because the universe decreed it but because they chose to pursue the other is all the more satisfying, especially when it comes to morally grey characters like in the TVDU.

take Klaus as an example again; after all the pain and torment he's caused, he finally finds the person meant to be with him and love him unconditionally and somehow he actually just goes right along with it as though he weren't the most paranoid creature on the planet and just decided that this random person that the universe or the fates or whoever decided would love him no matter what would actually love him and this isn't some trick or some poppycock that little kids believed in? if Klaus actually did have a soulmate he would be so paranoid about them until eventually he would find a way to get them killed only to regret it for the rest of his life or insult them somehow that they just never talk to Klaus again. 

it's who Klaus is. 

if he thinks that his siblings don't love him like they do their other full-blooded siblings bc he's only half their blood (despite knowing each other all their lives and then a millennia), do you really think he'd accept the love of some random person?

sure, there is something nice about reading about a character who immediately protects and loves and becomes melted butter the second their love smiles at them, and they just have this very nice loving relationship but guess. what. you can do all of that without making them soulmates.

soulmates just lets them have an excuse to be attracted to each other immediately or have unquestionable loyalty despite knowing each other for five minutes, it's like the "physically stronger" half becomes a baby duck imprinting on the first thing they see

and yes, i used the word 'imprint' let the twilight flashbacks come in

now, if you're going to do the whole soulmate fic, guess what, the only good way they work is with werewolves because of the whole pack thing

that, and it's arguably the more successful version of soulmate stories. 

vampires are dead, witches are the ones behind everything, and that leaves werewolves 

BUT AGAIN

it's weird

and incredibly constricting

imagine just being paired to one person for the rest of your life

what if you're bi/pan/omni/+ and you wanted to date before settling down?

we like these stories because they bring in a sense of comfort, one person loving you forever no matter what, there's something special about there being a destined pair of lovers

we don't like these because often they're done wrong and rushed, love at first sight and all that crap.

 but they also feel weird because it isn't realistic. when we read stories, and in this case TVDU fanfics we almost always strive for those stories that can compliment the show's seasonal plot and the OC's plot happening inside it, not overtaking the book, not being a smidge of it, but complimenting it and sometimes even mixing it with the original plot that leaves a very nicely done story

we look for those because sometimes when we come across stories about a salvatore sister that's been in the tomb the entire them and comes out a comedian that says 'dude' and it turns out she's been married to klaus this entire time because they're soulmates, and she's part faerie and has the ability to conceive a child so they have Hope together and then she dies somehow but ends up in the prison world and meets Kai and for some reason she falls in love with him despite being mated with Klaus but enter-prison-world-loophole-for-some-bullshit-excuse and also has his kid and then she either dies or lives and then there's the sequel book about Hope and Kai's kid and how they either hate or love each other as siblings

like?? something like that just seems off and not at all something that would happen in the show. 

when we write fanfics we like it to compliment the show, either if we're fixing it like calling out Caroline for slut-shaming, erasing the sexual assault (and almost sexual assault) Damon (S1-S2) and Tyler (S1) did because they're main characters that we're meant to route for and it was not at all needed in the show, especially when the writers weren't even aware of what they were doing when they wrote that. Bringing up how powerful the Mikaelsons are and actually killing a lot of the mains in Mystic Falls,

or most of the time we're trying to make the story seem as realistic inside the show as possible because it's the most satisfying way.

but that's just me, i don't know if you guys actually like reading about a half-human half-angel teenager that falls in love with Hope Mikaelson or a Gilbert sister who has magical powers and has to decide between a Salvatore or a Donavan (pff, i'm kidding!) obviously i meant a Mikaelson. or a Lockwood sister who somehow controls her shifting and falls for Klaus despite the fact that he drowned her mother in a fountain and threatened her brother more than once, actually killed him, enslaved him, and kept threatening him afterwards

and despite it all, they still get together in the end because they're soulmates.

like i said before, soulmate stories can often be comforting. there's something about a person meant just for you that feels wonderful and safe but passionate. and sometimes we need comfort and safety and i completely respect that.

for those of you who prefer the usual romance stories, there's definitely something more attractive about getting to know someone, learning about each other, being vulnerable, having an adventure with them, risking it all for love because you genuinely fell for this person and if you had the choice, you'd fall a thousand more. (again, this is my opinion)

let me know you're opinion on soulmate stories or OG romance 

in other words, store-bought or homemade cookies?