Receding Shores by OrcaWolfy
VᴇʀꜱᴀEᴍᴇʀɢᴇ ʀᴇᴠɪᴇᴡ ꜱʜᴏᴘ Archive。
I feel like I sound irritated in this review now that I look at it and that's not your fault, I think I'm just grouchy, please excuse that.
Title (3/5):
First thing about the title; you don't need to put that it's a 2NE1 and BLACKPINK fanfiction as you can easily glance down to the tags, or look at the poster, and know that's exactly what it is - people can see the tags. To me, it just makes the title too long and messy looking. Moving on from that, I don't really see the relevance to the story.
I mean, they did go to the beach (shores) and all but when defining "receding" it means to "move back from a previous position". Now while this can make sense with their friendships (right now at least), it works. Since Jennie is "receding" from being Chaerin's friend or vise versa considering what happened so she's moving backwards as her friend, not forward. Jisoo also seems to be receding from Bom since the incident at the beach. So if that's what you were going for then, sure okay, the title does fit. If not, then I don't know.
Description/Foreword (4/10):
After reading the five chapters, I don't get this description truthfully. Breaking it down from "Together, no competitions" this is immediately eliminated as there are, in fact, some competitions going on between them. Whether it be volleyball or... the thing with Dara and Jennie, there's a bit of competition. So this is ruled out.
"Just friends" while this is true, there's a lot of arguments so maybe this wasn't the best wording either since it makes you think they're all best friends who get along. Friends do argue, yes, but the arguments in this are a bit extreme hence Chaerin going at Jennie and Jisoo going at Bom for no reason.
And then "Maybe even lovers." It seems as if the romance was happening already by chapter one, indicating that romance/love was already happening and that people, specifically CL and Dara, were already lovers.
So, overall, the description doesn't really make much sense to me.
As for the foreword... I'd remove the pictures because they're just clutter and they're not useful. It's just more scroll time. Everyone probably knows who 2NE1 and BLACKPINK are at this time and while they're nice pictures, they're just clutter. Or make the pictures smaller and place them next to each other, either works. You could make it something like this since the pictures look better next to each other. It'll make it neater and there will be less scrolling (scrolling is annoying for me since my mouse is broken or something and refuses to scroll unless I violently scroll with the scroll-y thing).
Plot (13/40):
I wouldn't say that the chapter is "kind of boring" for a few reasons; 1. It makes you sound unconfident in your work. Writers who aren't confident in their work or always look to other people for ideas (not saying this one is you at all but just an example) makes people question if they should read or not. If two people wrote an essay and one person used proper language and big words but didn't sound confident in what they were writing, they'd probably get a lower score than someone who maybe didn't know what they were writing but sounded as if they did. If you sound believable, people will believe you (humans are the gullible ones majorily) but if you sound unsure, people will question you. Plus, first chapters are "introductions" more than anything so really, they are usually the most 'boring' chapters of any story (sometimes they're not though). And 2. You sound a little desperate with "please don't exit", if your first chapter is good enough, people will stay and read. You don't need to put that there so maybe consider removing that at the beginning of the chapter. Considering the sub count, I'm going to assume people liked it.
Moving on, I'm not really sure what the plot conflict is here that needs to be solved. All stories usually have some sort of "conflict" and when the conflict is complete, the story is over. I mean sometimes the conflict goes on through several books (such as Death Note where the conflict is to find Kira and when they do, it ends). I don't really see that here though, I don't really have a grip on what the major conflict is here. I don't really know where this is headed nor do I see there really being a solid end to it right now.
The story is also a bit unrealistic for a few reasons, some more obvious then others such as Bom and Minzy since they both left YG (or I think Bom left at least), but that's not important. It's some of the events that kind of make me tilt my head. I don't see why Jisoo would get mad at Bom for pretty much saving her from dying since she suggested a not-so-smart game.
Also, I wasn't... really understanding of chapter 4. I don't get how it goes from Dara and Chaerin to.... Dara and Jennie? I mean... what? There's really no backstory and what the hell happened there. I feel like it happened out of no where with zero explanation and I don't know. I don't really think Jennie's explanation for it either made sense and Dara's just completely at fault. This is what I mean by the story is unrealistic and quite... jumbled? When Jisoo and Jennie where talking, it mentioned alcohol but she didn't seem drunk when talking to Jisoo at all so that's an obvious excuse. Jennie very well seemed in her right mind.
I don't really think Chaerin knows the definition of either if that's what she's accusing Jennie of considering is forced , Dara obviously consented in her own way and seemed to enjoy it. Chaerin didn't seem to blame Dara at all, just Jennie. I do get that anger makes you spew things you don't mean and maybe she will apologize for it, or... not, later but who knows.
The main problem though is that this... is an idol universe. They're all idols and that immediately makes the story definitely unbelievable considering the fact that BP isn't allowed to leave without their manager as they've stated before which removes any realism from the equation. If this was an AU where they weren't idols, then yeah, I'd let a lot of this slide but since it's not, I'm just kind of tilting my head at what's happening. The drama is a bit overboard too at some parts.
Recap:
1. Unrealistic - there's a lot of unrealistic events going on here and the idol universe is making it weird for me since with AU's, you can really just throw whatever in and it'd be considered fine. With me, I try to keep it realistic when they're idols. Doesn't always work, of course, but this is just strange mainly due to chapter four and five, I'm still questioning them.
2. No clear conflict to be resolved. There are side conflicts but I don't see a main conflict. Conflicts such as what happened between Dara/Jennie, Bom/Jisoo and so on are minor since that's not what the story is based on. I just don't see a main conflict that the whole story is based on, maybe you have one in mind but I don't see it.
3. Drama - the drama in this story seems a little forced and ridiculous. Jisoo getting mad at Bom is a little ridiculous considering the fact that the woman saved her sorry . Dara and Jennie I didn't get at all, they didn't seem intoxicated at all nor do I remember alcohol being mentioned until Jisoo and Jennie had a talk. If you did mention it, I missed it and for that I apologize.
These are the three problems I had with the plot that's going on and I wouldn't focus too much on the realism of the story, I think the plot conflict is the main one because you could ask me what the plot's conflict was and I'd just stare at you blankly. I really didn't see it.
Also, why is there a shed at a beach?
Writing Style/Flow (9/20):
" To: Lee Chaerin
From: Jennie Kim
There's really no need for the spaces you put in between the senders name (Jennie) and the text message. It easier just to do:
"To: ___
From: ___
Text message"
Moving on, there was a few run on sentences. Example would be Lisa's dialogue when conversing with Jennie.
> "Ok so I woke up early today to go on a morning jog and then my phone buzzed and it was a message from Minzy unnie and she told me to go to her dance academy in the afternoon and she'll personally give me lessons so I would be 110% prepared for dancing our comeback stages," Lisa rushed."
This is a very long run on sentence that could have easily been split and there is a lack of commas which is why it's a run on sentence. I will mark changes in red.
> "Okay so I woke up early today to go on a morning jog and then my phone buzzed, it was a message from Minzy unnie and she asked me to go to her dance academy in the afternoon. She said she'd personally give me lessons so I would be one hundred ten percent prepared for dancing our comeback stages," Lisa rushed."
I split the sentences up and added commas to shorten it and reduce the use of "and" too much. Also, I changed the words "ok" and "110%" because in writing, you don't be lazy and use "shortcuts" (not saying you were lazy but I don't know how else to word it right now) or text slang unless you are using text message format in your story which you are here and there.
Next problem: the constant use of Korean words (mainly just after their names but you did use things such as "omo" and "neh" which look quite odd romanized). I tend to stress this a lot because it's ridiculous to me but Koreans do not use romanization, they use hangul. I find it quite unattractive to use Korean in the sense of romanization for a story that is in English. I understand that these girls are Korean (minus Lisa) and speak Korean and live in South Korea but the story is in English. The problem with properly using Korean in stories is that majority of people who reside on this website cannot read proper Korean but sometimes, stressing the word sometimes, it sounds very "Koreabooish" when certain people use it (not saying you, stressing that as well but I've seen some fanfics that I can only stare at with the horrified emoji sticker from messenger).
Maybe I'm the only one that finds the use of Korean in romanization unattractive and quite annoying but it's the truth since the language is being used incorrectly; if you go to Korea, there's no romanization around and if there is, it's probably for the foreigners that can't read jack. I do know that Koreans use "unnie" (since I'm too lazy to look up the proper hangul right now) and so on because Korea is VERY keen on respect towards elders and so on, so forth, but in turn this is an English story so I don't think it's needed excessively. Maybe once and awhile but not that much as it's not really needed in a fanfiction written in English.
Moving on to another big issue. The change in point of view. By this I don't mean from Jennie to Minzy, I mean from third to first. That's an absolute bad thing to do in a story; you pick a P.O.V and stick with it throughout the whole thing or rewrite the whole story. Mixing and matching doesn't really work in stories, properly at least. There are probably a limited amount of books where an odd POV change like that happens but, in truth, it shouldn't. The story should have stayed in third point of view, even with Minzy's view on things. It should never switch around. I'd take a look into fixing that or just... knowing for later.
Another problem, it doesn't happen that much, but when two people are talking, don't leave their dialogue in the same paragraph. It gets confusing, the paragraph gets too long and I can't remember where the hell I was reading. This happens when Minzy and Lisa meet up. Right here:
""May I come in?", a voice asked outside my door. "Neh, come in!" I got up from my chair as Lisa comes in."
This might've been a mistake, I do mistakes all the time while writing so no sweat, I would just be careful. Changes are in red.
> "May I come in?" A voice from outside my door asked.
"Sure, come in!" I got up from my chair as Lisa comes in."
I changed the wording in the first sentence because that's how I would have wrote it myself but that part isn't a big deal. The part that should definitely be changed is the "May I come in?", a voice asked" because you don't use a comma after a question mark or end of a quotation. You'd use it after something like this: "I didn't know," she said with a frown." If that makes sense. I also changed the "neh" merely because it sounds weird in an English fanfiction.
Use of pictures in the story since there was a (quite nice actually) picture of Dara plopped there. Books don't have pictures (I mean... you know, ...adult books or... yeah young adult - you know what I mean) unless they're a children's/young teen book so I would refrain from using pictures and focus on writing the details.
FLOW
For the flow, I'm a bit eh about it. Judging by the description, it does sound like there's no romance from the start - that they're all just friends, no lovers, nothing like that. But you quickly discover that it's not the case as Dara and Chaerin are mentioned to be dating in an early chapter. So the flow seems a bit too fast for my tastes because I expected a bit more background story rather than just focusing on the drama and romance of things. I feel like the story jumps into things immediately or, even, relies on drama to keep the story going. Too much drama in a story can be a bit of a turn off since a lot of us like drama free zones. I'm not saying drama in stories is bad, it most definitely is not, but too much drama can be problematic. If that makes any sense, it probably doesn't.
Characterization (9/20):
This part... is kind of difficult for a few reasons. There's eight characters and not all of them have really been introduced. So I don't think I will talk about Bom, Minzy, Lisa, or Rosé since they barely show up. I can't really say much about those four either. I might make a comment or two but not in depth. In all honesty, while talking about them as individuals, I do mention the scene of chapters four and five majorily. I will generalize it afterwards.
We shall start off with Jennie since the story starts with her. At first, I thought this was going to be a more normal idol kind of story since they start off talking about practice, the music video, the comeback, etc. but then it completely steers off the road into a pit. Jennie ed up, that's not justifiable. She ed up. Her character is messy to me and here's why: when she talked to Jisoo, she blames the alcohol and as I mentioned before, she seemed completely sober. I think the way you wrote her made her seem that way and if you were trying to make her seem intoxicated, definitely didn't come off that way. She talked normally, spoke normally, and obviously had her thoughts in line since she spoke to Jisoo. Another problem is seeing Dara as... Jisoo. I don't understand how she'd be that blinded considering she addresses her as Dara without hesitation. That scene just made me question her character a bit.
And that brings us to Jisoo. As the chapter ends off with a bit of a cliffhanger between Jisoo and Jennie, I can't say this confidently. Jisoo did seem bothered about Jennie's actions towards Dara until Jennie started talking about how she loved her. I'm sorry but I don't see how Jisoo would accept that at that moment in time considering Jennie's actions, if it were me I would have walked away - not really questioning if Jennie loved me or not. She slept with another, taken, woman and then claims she loves Jisoo. Jisoo should have really walked away. Now as I said, I don't say this very confidently because I can't read your mind for chapter six. What happens in chapter six could completely nullify this paragraph. But considering the way it ends with Jisoo wanting to clean Jennie up, I'm not very sure what's gonna happen. Besides that, I feel like I can't say much about her since I feel like I just... don't know her character or why she even yelled at Bom. Jisoo is a bit of a closed book to me.
Dara... I don't know. I feel like me talking about the characters is all going to revolve around what happened because I feel like that scene brought out a few of their colors. I'm not sure what to say about Dara because she does seem to love CL but... it brings me to question why she would cheat on CL and then acknowledge that she did something bad. It could have been avoided easily if she had pushed Jennie away. Dara really has no excuses to her actions as she is definitely not drunk because of the fact that she immediately recognizes and tells CL that she did bad. Her personality isn't very apparent either. She does seem playful, hence the car incident and beach incident.
Chaerin... she is interesting. She seems to have a bit of a temper due to her attitude in the car. I get that children (BLACKPINK are children to them in my eyes lol) can be rowdy and annoying and driving in peace could be nice so I can see why she was annoyed. But her with Jennie was a bit overboard. Yes, Jennie fooled around with Dara but... no, it's not Jennie's fault completely. Dara is also at fault but CL didn't seem to get mad at her, it seemed like she immediately went after Jennie after Dara told her what had happened which is a bit of a problem. Now, I do expect a little talk between them in the next chapter - if not, then I don't know... - but I don't think CL was thinking rationally considering she accused Jennie of Dara which is, obviously, not the case.
Overall, I think the character's need a bit more development. Especially the four that I didn't speak about. It's hard focusing on all of the characters since there are so many. This does seem to be mainly about Chaera/Jensoo right now since they seem to have the most damn problems of the groups.
Personal Enjoyment (2/5):
For me, this story doesn't suit my taste although I absolutely love 2NE1 and BLACKPINK. I mean, I'm more of a BomRin person but I don't excessively ship 2NE1 at all. As for BLACKPINK, I love the ships you chose but it's not about the ships; it's the story that has me kind of tilting my head. I'm only trying to be honest with you since that's my job as a reviewer but I don't really know how to process the story since I feel like it has some blackholes in it that I just can't understand. I love the poster and the title but everything else seems to not feel right to me.
Also, have I ever said that I at grading... I always don't want to make points too low because then I feel bad but pity points are bad points so I just ugh. (I hope you wanted this graded, I don't really remember now). And if I sound grouchy, as I said before, it's because I'm just in a sour mood but I've put this off for TOO long which is why I am doing it now. I feel bad for making you wait. I'm not mad at you so please don't think I am (if it comes off that way...)
I'm not saying the story is bad, no no, all stories have the potential to become something great - some just need a little kick in the . This has potential as well but I do think you need to focus on the plot a little more, really plan out what you want and make the plot's conflict more apparent. The grammar isn't an issue, sure there were a few questionable things, but that's not an issue. Maybe developing their characters a little more would help too.
This is the longest review I've done in awhile, holy cowza.
TOTAL (40/100):
I wouldn't be discouraged by the score, really, it's just a number. I'm always here, not really but I check back often, if you need clarification on anything regarding this story, story review or even writing in general. I'm no professional but I might be able to help since I've been writing since... who knows. Plus, look at the bright side, A LOT of people like your story which is good. I'm just a very strict reviewer on stories majority of the time and I'm a little too honest but sugar coating things won't help anyone improve. Writing a story is hard and keeping up with it is even harder so really, don't feel bad or anything. Always room for improvement if you're willing to improve.
SO TRUTH BE TOLD, I probably forgot to say some things because I'm just so dazed right now, don't know why. Send help haha. ==;
But really, any questions - don't be afraid to ask. I'll be around.
Ending this off with a holy because this is a long review.
Oh and don't forget to credit the shop after you've... read this mess.
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