I'm really just writing this for myself

With the exclusion of Stardust which is 8404 words, collectively with all my stories I have written 483,104 words. If we include Stardust, that equates to 491, 508 words.  That is almost half a million words that I have written and I did this in the span of +/- 9 months with Renovatio having gone in hiatus for a bit.  The word document stats for some of the longer stories are as follows:

• Gain = 165 pages.
• Deliverance = 123 pages.
• Friends with Feelings =222 pages.
• Renovatio = currently 345 pages and still ongoing *maybe*.

Those are just the longer stories. Most of my one-shots are on average 4 pages. I look at this and it blows my ing mind. I wrote all my stories on my own from my own imagination. It is difficult for me to comprehend that I have written so many words. Furthermore, I did this while simultaneously writing an Honours thesis that was 15,000 words in total. It’s weird to think that my thesis is smaller in comparison to fanfiction I have written.  But alas it is. How I did all of this, I do not really know.

I have always wanted to write a novel. But because of having done so much academic writing for so long, the creative side of my writing dwindled. You got to practice your talents for them to shine. So, the beginning of 2019, I was trying to find a way in which to spark that creativity again. In 2018 I had taken a course (lol yeah they offer such courses at my uni) on gaming, classic literature and fanfiction. That course made me (re)-connect with fanfiction in a way. I had read fanfics when I was younger and having gotten back in to it through kpop, I was like why not use this as a vehicle to spark that creativity. And in my mind, I thought it would be good to write fanfics on a less popular “ship”. I thought that the less popular “ships” allow for more fantasy components meaning that its easier to suspend belief for them. Truthfully, that’s how I decided to write chaennie fics.

It had nothing to do with actually shipping Chaeyoung and Jennie. I did not really care. I am a fan of their music, but I do not really follow them extensively. My engagement with Blackpink is occasional. If it occurs, it does and if not then nope. But here, I saw an opportunity for me to try and be creative again. I also chose to write chaennie fics because there were so little of them. It’s not the coolest way in which these fanfics I wrote started but it’s the truth. That was the one part. The other part was that the fanfics I was reading were not good.  In my opinion, a lot of fanfics are not well written but sometimes because of how badly they’re written they’re even funnier. That aside, a lot of chaennie fanfics at the time were left unfinished, had no plot, no character development or were just one sentence. I’m not even kidding. So, in a way I kind of saw a “gap” in the kpop fanfic writing world and used that “gap” as a way to get back in to creative writing.

And so Gain happened. Gain is perhaps the most cohesive narrative out of all the longer chaennieuniverse works. It’s definitely rough around the edges but somehow, I managed to have a plot driven fanfic that gave attention to all of the characters. But more importantly, I wrote Gain as a critique of the way in which Blackpink was managed by YG entertainment. If you read it, I think you can see that. It’s kind of allegorical. I had been listening to Blackpink since their debut in 2016 and at that point we had like no music from them. So I thought it would be cool to engage with that for my first story. And wow did I write. I finished writing Gain in like a month and a bit and straight after that I began writing Deliverance. While writing Deliverance I wrote some one-shots and after that I literally began writing Friends with Feelings straight after. Then halfway through Friends with Feelings, I thought it would be cool to create an entire universe. I am not lying when I say I was making this up as I went. But in my head I was like why not try? It could be a cool way to practice connecting different themes maybe do some world-building in a different kind of way.

So that’s how the chaennieuniverse started. Literally because I woke up one day and was like, yeah, I think doing this will be fun. If only I knew. First, I had to think about how to fit in my previous works into this “universe” while still making sense of things in future works for said “universe”.  But I found a way to do this and in a way by the end of Friends with Feelings (FWF) I knew how the chaennieuniverse would end. But getting to that ending would take a couple of books and unfortunately, I did not realise that I was beginning to get fatigued. By the end of Part 1 of Renovatio I was completely burnt out from writing. Along with what was happening in my country and this was also compounded by my increasing uncomfort with certain practices in the kpop industry. My views on the kpop industry was changing a lot  but also I was exploring music from Korean artists that were not “kpop”. In other words, I was losing interest in kpop actually getting tired of some of the toxic trends involved with how the industry itself was operating.

Such toxicity occurs in every industry in different ways but, here I am specifically referring to the kpop industry. Also, things in my own life were moving along and so I stopped. I just stopped writing. Because I didn’t feel like writing. I won’t lie but I lost interest. I think I still feel this way now, but I lost care in writing these fanfics. Also, though it allowed me to do exactly what I wanted, which is to write again. I have not done anything for the actual novel I dream of writing. I have done no notes, no drafts, no world building ideas. Absolutely nada. But here I have 855 pages of fanfiction. The irony.  I got so consumed in this “chaennieuniverse” that I forgot why I started writing it in the first place. I really did get lost in it. Because it gave me a good feeling, I was having fun during a time I was quite depressed and alienated. But because of that, the writing was becoming fanfic tropey. Those probably aren’t real words but it’s the only way I think I can describe it.  I knew this but continued anyway and because of it my works contain some problematic aspects. Along with some character arcs or traits that I do not like. 

I am glad I took a step back because (re)-reading my works now, I am proud of them but I also recognise their flaws. In the previous post I spoke on my views on the ualisation of trans individuals, how I perpetuated their objectification through my works and why I do not want to do so anymore. That is why I deleted Stardust. And I intend to make changes to Renovatio as well because that story was hinting to similar tropes. For Stardust particularly, I just do not agree with my motivations for writing that fanfic anymore and the entire story itself.  But here, I would like to expand on another aspect of some of my works that now make me quite uncomfortable. This aspect is mental health. So, in Friends with Feelings there is a mental health aspect that does serve a purpose for future ideas I had for the chaennieuniverse. But that does not mean, I still do not think it is problematic that FWF’s mental health issues result in violence.

There is a common trend within various literature mediums that equate mental health issues with violent actions or atleast create a relation between the two. It can not be denied that FWF does this. Moreover, my other fanfic, Somewhere between May and December also indulges in this idea of mental health and violence. FWF is in the overall chaennieuniverse but Somewhere between May and December is not. Thus, how the mental health issues play out in FWF is meant to serve an overall purpose. Still does not make it right, and I will not disagree with anyone who faults me on this.  I really do not want to perpetuate such damaging stereotypes. I am still conflicted as to whether I will even continue the chaennieuniverse. And if I do and I have not deleted FWF, then there is hypocrisy in my position. Which is something I will have to continue to grapple with.

On the otherhand, I did delete Somewhere between May and December. Though it was a gift for a friend and still remains so, I no longer feel comfortable with it because of the above stated reasons. Then there’s my issue with Deliverance. So, yes Deliverance is in the main chaennieuniverse arc but it is also a story that revolves around a relationship between an underage student and an adult teacher. This is wrong on so many levels and I’m shocked that I didn’t see this as I was writing it. It’s my own fault and I apologise for it. But I do not agree with this type of situation at all in real life. I never have. In my mind for that fic Jennie was meant to be 22 while Chaeyoung was 17. It’s still ed up. So yeah. If I want to keep that story then I’m definitely going to have to change that. Make Chaeyoung 18, so that she’s of consenting age. But then again I’m thinking of deleting it entirely.  

I may delete all of my works. I am still thinking about it. But I really do not know if I care enough anymore to continue writing it. Despite how I know how the chaennieuniverse should end and that I planned things a year ago. I have outgrown the need for these fanfics to help spark my creativity in many ways. I feel like I need to move on. But also I feel like even with the problematic nature of some of these fics narratives its good to have an account of where I was in terms of writing back then.  It’s also been interesting (re)-reading these fics and knowing how depressed I was when I was writing them. They really were a coping mechanism of sorts.  So yeah, those are my current thoughts on my problematic fanfics.

All of this is my own thoughts on my own works. All of my works were fictional. None of the characters in my stories are (re)-presentative of the actual “idols” whose name they come from. Nor are the characters (re)-presentative of my opinions of those “idols” in real life. It was all just imagination, none of it real. Pure fiction. So yeah, it was fun for awhile but now well I myself have changed and am in a different space. This is literally just the tip of my thoughts on all of this.  Who knows, if I feel like having another discussion with myself I just might. But for now, it is what it is.