The post that started this whole thing 

Part I 

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Hey, kids.

Yup. I know y'all thought I was dead. 

I know y'all were convinced I had passed away, finally in the afterlife from perishing, having died a long, slow and most painful death of fanfiction overload. But guess what? I'm back to you all up, because you s can't do jackall right unless someone figuratively yells at you while you do it. This week, it's time to have another little talk about what it means to groom someone and gaslight them enough just to be able to them. 

You know what time it is. 

LET'S GO, MOTHAAS. 

Title: Ambiguity that is unnecessarily mysterious

Genre: ErmAigERD THE BOIZ ARE GONNA K EaCHOtHER UGhHGHHHHH *ion intensifies* IT’S JUST A PRANK BRO [GONE UAL][GONE WRONG][GONEY AS ][ALMOST DIED][EXTREME ]

General synopsis:

Guys.

“Attacking attention” with white sneakers is in the opening ing scene of the story

Lord let me live

As y’all may have already concluded, Kyungsoo, buddies with other useless characters, is a college aged student at a poorly written Seoul National knock-off University. They live their lives as completely normal people with everyday struggles such as grades, friends and getting laid. Now, the story follows the initial meeting between Kyungsoo and Kai, where Kyungsoo thinks Kai is handsome because he wears tight clothing, and Kai finds Kyungsoo creepy because he happens to be dressed in all black (what??????? ?_? ??? What is shallow??).

So, for some arbitrary and unknown reason, Kyungsoo attempts intimidating Kai, like, a lot, who clearly gets affected by it and feels uncomfortable around him, even trying to avoid him. Kyungsoo is a dickhead and enjoys it, and even admits to not having a reason for doing it, but then one day decides (again, arbitrarily) that it’s time for his shenanigans to stop. As he explains this to Kai and doesn’t really apologize for it, Kai gets a love- and is insta-attracted to Kyungsoo.

Gimme a ing break.

Anyway, Kai suddenly goes complete horndog mode for no reason, and in a number of oddlyy scenes (one of which is actual ual assault) he attempts persuading Kyungsoo to have with him because what does no even mean, anyway? Kyungsoo says no, repeatedly, resulting in a stiff mood for which Kai apologizes, but then says the sentence “I can’t really explain why but I want to have with you”. Seriously, that’s not me joking or any kind of hyperbole, it’s literally in there, in the story. That sentence.

Back and forth it goes, until Kai lets everybody know that he wants to the out of Kyungsoo, causing Kyungsoo’s disgusting friends to ALSO try to persuade him to just do it because hey, Kai is y amirite, whereupon Kyungsoo STILL SAYS NO. The rest of the story revolves around Kyungsoo’s inner journey to accept this emotional manipulation (including being stalked many nights in a row) despite his best efforts not to. But, as you can imagine, y boys will have y . And they do. They each other, explicitly and in creative ways. Finally, love blooms.

TL;DR: Kai slowly breaks down Kyungsoo in order to him despite him saying no, but Kyungsoo’s disgusting friends don’t think it’sy at all and even guilt him to go along with it, so he does.

My feelings on the matter:

Okay, so, I’d like to preface my subsequent criticism of this story with how I’m angry about something else, too (while I’m already at it…). Why is it that fanfiction exempts itself from the standards of good literature? Every ing time I’m reading a story about someone in fanfiction there is either so little description of the characters or extreme amounts of description. Why? Because writing fanfiction allows for the author to make a smooth copout in terms of descriptive responsibility. To clarify; certain people (though far from all), including the author of the story above, decide to use intensely heavy descriptions of the physical traits of their characters.

Yes, I’ve read some exceptions to this rule where authors choose to write moderately about their characters, but enough to keep the reader inclined to carry on with the story because it doesn’t revolve around “lusciously thick lips”, “almond-shaped, deep brown eyes” and “bronze-skinned, sweating abs”. However, let’s get real for a second – that isn’t the norm. There appears to be some sort of fangirl-limbo that we’re all stuck in, since it truly seems to be either the one (description heavy) or the other (lack thereof). Why? Can’t we work on finding something that is an adequate middle ground?

In the very first chapter of this story, the author writes in a variety of ways about Kyungsoo’s eyes 23 times. TWENTYTHREE TIMES, KIDS. C’mon, really? We need to work on the whole obsession thing that AFF has going on, that all fanfiction sites have going on, that FANGIRLS have going on. The obsession over the physical traits of a person that are signifying is something I can understand, of course, but can we at least ing pretend that there’s a little more to them than just that when we write about them? This happens all the time when new authors are trying to make use of their lacking sense of description, and the resulting mess is just repetition. Mauling over and over again about how Kyungsoo has big eyes, or Kai is a bronze-skinned god, or Sehun is tall and has a lisp, or Jaejoong’s pale skin, or Yunho’s strong chin… Guys! Where the is all that talk about all their other features??? Where is the mention of Kyungsoo’s posture? Kai’s hands? Sehun’s neck? For loving an idol, it sure seems that there are only very specific parts of them that you elect to write about.

Later on, I’ll also write more about how we obsess over ships (?) and imagined -buddies. I’m ANGRY ABOUT IT BUT CANNOT VENT IN THIS PARAGRAPH KJSHfGJHGAdfgSDFG

Okay, so, regarding this story. The immediate tribulation I encounter with this is that it’s illogical. From the get-go, we are introduced to Kyungsoo who happens to be written as his own incredibly tired trope. He’s got narrow shoulders, he dresses only in black, he’s not emotionally laden like everyone else and doesn’t smile superfluously, and interestingly he is written to be some strange who messes with Kai for funsies until he suddenly doesn’t anymore. Then he’s converted into (oddly) the only reasonable character in the story as a victim of Stockholm syndrome that he turns into.

Reasons this doesn’t make sense:

1. There is more to Kyungsoo than his narrow shoulders (see above paragraphs).
2. He has never dressed only in black, y’all are just too ing focused on the whole Satan-soo imagery that you can’t seem to let go of.
3. He has always smiled, but again, #Satan-soo.
4. He was never an for no reason.
5. He admits later in the story that Kai has done frightening and even mean things, but ignores them.

The fact that one of the main characters needs to subscribe to incredibly flawed ways of being and thinking proves that this author didn’t do her homework regarding how to build your story components. More on this later.

Next, we are introduced to Kyungsoo’s ty friends. They are shallow and lazy, they refuse to help out even when Kyungsoo begs them to and are mostly there to embellish the story with a simple step-by-step guide on “How To Help Your Friends Be Coerced Into Involuntary ” (it’s the For Dummies version). For the record, they recurrently lie to him in order to get out of having to deal with Kai, who is the idiot that they happened to dump in his lap anyway. Finally they guilt him into with Kai and lastly guilt him to become his boyfriend (even citing how they “helped”). Wow.

Reasons this doesn’t make sense:

1. ty friends aren’t friends.
2. ty friends who don’t care when you’re very obviously in trouble and you are being ually harassed aren’t friends.
3. ty friends who tell you to accept a request for coming from a nutjob with predator tendencies aren’t friends.
4. ty friends who claim credit where they’ve only helped a stalker and ual predator get to his prey aren’t friends.

Finally, we are introduced to Kai, the centerpiece of this absolute train wreck of a story. He is initially tender and kind, but loses his marbles when he realizes that Kyungsoo isn’t an (who’da thunk it??) and is just a normal person who was messing with him. Kai has explicit ual fantasies, touches Kyungsoo inappropriately on repeated occasions, manipulates him by begging him to have with him and finally gets violent toward others when he doesn’t get his way.

I’m not even going to go over why this is unreasonable, because it’s just ed up on so many levels. The thing I’m most interested in here, however, is the framing. You see, with our stories come a certain implication of how we approach certain things and how we perceive them, especially in posing as threats for us. When we write about them, we invite for a discourse to be shaped by us, because we are active participants in how we approach the subject matter, and we do this by framing things.

Kai isn’t framed as an insistent ual predator. The author herself even claims that it’s all just Kai’s raging hormones causing him to lose control over himself in an author’s note (“ecks dee”) because “Kyungsoo is literally irresistible haha”. Shut the up. You’re framing this story to be some sort of romantic adventure with lots of rollercoaster emotions because you don’t understand why it’s dangerous to go along with people’s bull when they manipulate and gaslight you. Interestingly enough, none of these things are lifted to the surface in the author’s framing, because it’s more important with the end game, which is to get to write not just one but TWO scenes and to invoke that sweet, sweet release for all the ing fangirls and fanboys out there.

I just… Guys. Must we really go over this every single time?

Literature needs to be good. Content needs to be good and thought-provoking. It needs to be there for us as a tool to build better discourses, discussions and debates.

Now, don’t mistake me for hating on style, here. I think it’s one thing to not like how an author writes things, and a completely different situation to not like what they’re writing. Speaking of which, I’m going to go over the styles of two famous writers below because this brings me to the next point I want you s to listen to.

Ernest Hemingway was known in his stylistic choices for the lack of adjectives. His descriptions are often quiet and sparse, especially in his short stories, leaving the reader to interpret lots of things for themselves. In one of his short stories (Hills like White Elephants) he lays out the conversation between a man and a woman, having them talk to each other about some pretty serious things, without them really saying anything to each other. At one point, the woman says that the hills look like white elephants, but not that they are beautiful for it, or that they appeal to her. She just says it. The man, on the other hand, gives little reply and is seemingly more focused on being stoic in his responses. Now, since none of y’all motherers are gonna read the story anyway, I’ll spoil it (highlight the below sentence with your cursor):

"They’re talking about how the woman is pregnant and the man wants her to get an abortion, but she doesn’t want to."

This… this doesn’t come out in the story at all. It comes out something like the 5^th time you read it, and even then it’s still extremely fuzzy. It’s also incredibly impressive, because Hemingway managed to convey a situation without even really talking about it.

On the flipside of things, we have Charles Dickens. He is infamous for his abundant use of adjectives, most notably so in his work A Tale of Two Cities. In Oliver Twist as well, there is description-heavy plot which circulates around the incredible misery that this young boy faces, which, honestly, is kind of fine because it is hailed as greatness in literature strictly because it sets the scene in such an overt way. In the former story, however, he’s got something like four ing pages going over how the ing fog looks on that very special night. No lie. There is a reason why lots more people have read Oliver Twist and not A Tale of Two Cities. Really.

What I want to highlight with this, as I said above, is the literary style we have as hobby authors. However, with style as with so many other things, it’s a honed skill, refined and sharpened over the years and many, many attempts at improving. Remember, the master has failed more times than the student has ever even tried. What do we strive for as authors? Excellence in everything we write? To elicit emotion from the reader? To create beautiful poetry and art? Why do we strive for it? Why do YOU strive for it?

Better yet, do you strive for it at all? Or are you satisfied with the way your characters come out? Are you satisfied with how your art looks and reads? To get to the point, I want you to consider what you’re doing and what your creative process looks like, because as of right now this website’s users are fabulous at churning out the same ing bull stories with a slightly different dress for the same ing bull audience who eats that all up.

The story that I chose for this week’s WTFIAFFD also does no favors to the reader because it’s very explicit in its die-hard use of trends going around in how we conceptualize relationships between characters. I get it, ships (whatever the those really are) are appealing to you for some reason that I just cannot fathom. You like the thought of two boys ing each other and like, being so totally in lurvies with each other and cuddling because ksjhdfkjsdhf RoMANcE <333333 xDD *u* *A* ^o^

… Now, not to judge (because as I stated in the starter-blog for this series I really try not to do that), but I must admit that it’s a sour pill to swallow when it comes to ships and the obsession that surrounds them. I’ve never seen the appeal in it, but I think that while that robs me from one perspective, it sure as hell grants another one. For example, I’m granted the superpower of being able to see through trendy crap in ships and their descriptive tendencies.

Allow me to clarify. Kai and Kyungsoo’s ship is very often described with the juxtaposition of their traits. Kai is younger, tanned, a confident dancer, goofy, sweet and appears quite physical with others. Kyungsoo is older, paler, less confident in his dancing, not goofy at all, is quieter and doesn’t mind biting back when someone says and tends not to be very touchy. These things are obvious to anyone who has ever encountered EXO. 

Look at this graph I made:

CLICK ME I'M A GRAPH

There. That’s it. That’s a neat lil’ summary of why they’re different and why it’s used. So, now that I’ve gone over that, can someone please explain to me WHY I HAVE TO READ ALL THIS OVER AND OVER AGAIN FOR MILLIONS OF CHAPTERS THAT ARE COMPLETELY AND ENTIRELY USELESS TO THE STORY???????????????

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

RAGE OF A THOUSAND SUNS

Y’all. Listen the up! There is no need to try to express yourselves in different ways through every single sentence when you’re essentially saying the exact same thing. It gets really lame after a while to read like this:

• Kyungsoo smiled softly at the younger’s expression.
• Jongin hit the elder playfully.
• The older gazed at the other’s lips.
• Hungrily, the tanned boy stared at the elder’s pale skin.

???? Do y’all not see how this isn’t entertaining after a while??? It doesn’t matter what ship you ing introduce to the handy little schematic I built up top, because the literary outcome is still the same; it’s obsession-based, and won’t change because YOU MOTHERERS WON’T CHANGE.

Have you ever actually considered why it is that all the ing romance centered stories on here are about the same thing? Boy meets girl, they ing loathe each other and swear to never even look in the direction the other one might be, but then somehow magically notice how amazing the other person is despite them acting like complete asshats just moments before.

GET REAL Y’ALL

And do y’all want to know the very worst part of this? The worst part of this is that it’s painfully clear to me and to others that this won’t change. The internet and its lovely freedom and anonymousness will always bring out the inner neckbeards in us, acting time and time again as a mirror of our deepest and darkest desires. You want them to secretly be ing each other in their dorms. You want them to be each other’s while the other members watch them do it. You want them to be the kinkiest versions of themselves because you can’t turn off your incessantly nagging need to have their intimacy imagined.

Tumblr, I’m looking at you. Keep giving us these bull posts about how the ship is realer than real because DO YOU SEE THE WAY THEY LOOKED AT EACH OTHER DURING THAT FANSIGN, THEY ARE TOTALLY ING OH MY GOD THEY’RE ADORBS WHAT IS AIR

AFF, I’m looking at you. Keep giving us these bull stories about how the boys each other hard in the because OH MY GOD I SAW THAT POST ON TUMBLR WHICH TOTALLY INSPIRED THIS STORY I’M LITERALLY ING SOBBING RIGHT NOW DO YOU SEE HOW BEAUTIFUL THEY ARE TOGETHER

YouTube, I’m looking at you. Keep giving us these bull videos about how there is irrefutable proof that they’re dating because JESUS CHRIST THEY WERE WEARING THE SAME SHOELACES THAT ONE TIME AND THEN LOOK AT THIS MOMENT AT THE IDOL OLYMPICS THEY’RE SO IN LOVE I CAN’T I CAN’T I JUST CAN’T WITH THEM

Listen. If you’re going to write about two people falling in love, why not try to make it beautiful? Why not try to reflect some parts of reality that aren’t so superficially based?

WHY NOT

I ing hate y’all. I seem to be incredibly lonely in my underwhelming stance of “who cares?” whenever it comes to these things. Have I gotten that old…?

Whatever, this cesspool of teens is killing me. I’m out for now.

Word count: 3,2k+ish