I'm trying to make a point here. My point is, that all arranged marriage fics don't have to be about some underaged girl placed in an illegal and quite frankly ridiculous situation where she has to marry some idol in an idol's world for no reason except that her parents say so, and then eventually falling in love with the guy she had to marry.

The lead male in arranged marriage fics is usually cruel and rich and horrible, but how many loving, realistic parents, as they're often portrayed in these sorts of stories, would place their daughter in this sort of situation just for the sake of money?

None. End of story. 

But, if you change the parents to horrible, blood-, lawyers (or something) that really don't give a about their kids, this whole idea of a 'marriage contract' can be somewhat acceptable. But you still ave to think of a reason why her parents would be like that. Psychological problems? Something happen in their childhood and/or early adulthood to make them believe that money is the only importance?

And, what's to stop the girl from runnig away with her male 'best friend' to escape having to marry this guy? Sure, he's an idol an all, but if you were a fourteen or fifteen year old girl with friends, ambitions, possibly a crush (most of you are probably exactly like this, give or take a few years), woud you want to end up with some dude you barely know apart from how he is for the cameras, to be your life long partner and most likely the counterpart you create offsrping with? I didn't think so. Think about it some more if your previous answer was 'yes', you'd have most of your life taken away from  you; you wouldn't be able to achieve your dreams or even strive for them. You wouldn't be able to search for your own place in life, you wouldn't be able to ever experience the true pains and blisses of love. 

Now this places a hard situation on the story itself: why would our lead female, in this example Park Bom, marry lead male, in this example Bang Yongguk? Originally, I would say that her parents owed Yongguk's a favour for some reason, but what good deed could be worth your daughter's freedom? And anyway, Yongguk's parents are dead in the fic. 

But why would Yongguk want to marry Bom? Easy. Because his twin brother is dying. He needs her money to pay for Yongnam's medical treatment. But why would Bom marry him. Let's kick the parents off the scene. 

• Possibly because she's just nice, but would that realisticlly ever actually happen?
• Perhaps she and Yongnam had a thing in the past? But why would she marry his twin brother? And surely she'd just give him money?
• Or Yongguk has something she wants? It can't be money. He's broke and needs her for her money. 

But, seriously, people need to be wayyyy more creative with the sorts of stories. People create characters that show the perfect side of themselves, say that they look like the same three ulzzangs, and then marry them off to their bias. Creativity, man, this shows none. Every person has their imperfections. 

Ranting over, 

-saranghanguk