(August 2015)

Title: throw me in the deep end, watch me drown
Author: -anglestory180

Reviewer: eleutheromaniac

Title: (4.5)/5

Looking at your title alone gave off a strong livejournal feel, so I wasn’t surprised to see that you’re mostly a writer on livejournal, haha. While I personally feel that the title fits well with your story and has a nice ring to it (it’s a song lyric, right?), for those that aren’t familiar with the song, the title can be a bit difficult to remember.

Description/Foreword: (9.5)/10

Short and simple is my favorite kind of description, so I thoroughly enjoyed yours. While it definitely enticed me to continue reading, I think that you could have picked something that would fit your story more. The sentence that you decided on feels more like something that you would click on in order to read what’s under an lj cut rather than something that truly captures the essence of your story, if that makes sense. The reveal of a bit of the nature of Kyungsoo’s relationship with Jieun was a nice introduction to the mood of the story, but it may have been nicer if you touched on Jieun’s guilt for the “murder,” as that’s the ultimate focus of your storyline.

Plot: (26.5)/30

Your story is layered so intricately that it can be difficult to understand the depth of the subject matter unless you read it multiple times over—and that’s how you know that it’s a good story. While the ambiguity leaves a lot of things up to personal interpretation, the vagueness of your writing style isn’t to the point that it seems as though we’re just getting pretty words without a real storyline, and for that, I can’t commend  you enough. This plot resulted in one of the most intense discussions about fanfiction that I’ve ever found myself in. That being said, some of the things I’m about to bring up in this portion of the review are things that Amber and/or Tiff originally pointed out, so some credit definitely has to go to them as well.

There are two driving factors behind your plot: the status of Jieun’s guilt in regards to her role in Kyungsoo’s “murder” and the stark contrast of Baekhyun’s character as opposed to Kyungsoo’s. While both elements of the storyline were given ample development, it felt like the former was left with significant amount of ambiguity in comparison. The question of the romantic triangle between the characters is resolved (and quite beautifully, might I add—it’s been a long time since I’ve experienced such strong symbolism within a fic), but there are a lot of questions left behind in regards to Jieun’s guilt. Although said feeling starts off as being the subject of the beginning of the story, once Baekhyun enters the picture, it is almost as if the question of Jieun’s emotions in regards to the accident take a backseat to the development of her relationship with Baekhyun and how his presence serves as the catalyst to her “healing”—if it can be called that. At the end of the story, there are so many questions left behind in regards to both the type of guilt that Jieun experienced as well as to what happened to it: is this a guilt that settles over time? is it a guilt that never goes away? is it a guilt that just grows and grows? is this ultimately a story about Jieun’s recovery from the trauma or simply her suppression of it?

The idea that Jieun’s emotional troubles in regards to Kyungsoo’s passing took a backseat to the budding relationship she has with Baekhyun can be seen in the latter’s introduction itself. Although they’re meeting at Kyungsoo’s grave, they both engage in interaction with one another as though they’re not standing over the coffin of their dear friend. In situations like this, introductions are typically blunt and overshadowed by talk of the deceased. Kyungsoo isn’t brought up by either of the characters until the section is nearing its end while Baekhyun blushes and Jieun checks him out during the majority of it. Kyungsoo’s death still seems like it’s a fresh memory for both individuals, so it’s odd that they don’t react more to the setting of their first “true” meeting with one another.

I have to honestly admit that I didn’t fully understand your story when I first read it. However, it possesses a certain magnetism that kept me rereading until I felt that I had developed an understanding for what was occurring. Although I think you fell a little short when it comes to the development of Jieun’s guilt, I felt that the relationships between Jieun, Kyungsoo, and Baekhyun were incredibly realistic in both their progression and the honesty of their essences. The platonic love that Jieun felt towards Kyungsoo despite his wholehearted, genuine feelings for her added a fresh element to the story and emphasized the overarching theme that sometimes we remember people in a brighter light than we originally saw them while also fleshing out a shockingly realistic reason for Jieun’s parasitic guilt. Baekhyun going from replacement to habit to addiction was gradual and I enjoyed witnessing their relationship unfold.

I could go on and on about all of the things that I loved about your story, but it would probably take hours and it’s four in the morning by me, so I’ll cut myself off here.

Characterization: (20)/20

I didn’t think that it was possible for me to become so enamored with three different characters so instantaneously, but well, you’ve proved me wrong. Jieun as the girl driven to complacency because of what was meant to be an innocent action, Kyungsoo as the lost daydreamer who saw perfection everywhere he looked, and Baekhyun as “a boy that you could see, fall in love, and forget about within a matter of seconds” instantly had me hooked. The relationships within the story felt so lifelike and Tiffany can honestly tell you how excited I got when I was reading about the possibly aromantic feelings between Jieun and Kyungsoo—it’s definitely something that you don’t see every day and therefore added another unique layer to your story. The ultimate realization that Kyungsoo fell in love with his idea of a “perfect” Jieun while Baekhyun fell in love with someone who he knew was flawed definitely leaves a powerful, lasting message on your readers.

Grammar: (14.5)/15

Your grammar’s pretty spot-on and the only mistakes I noticed were typos—and even then, there weren’t many. I would make sure that you know the difference between your en and em dashes, but you don’t use them that often and it’s more of me being nitpicky with you. If you don’t have the em dash (“—”) symbol on your computer, it’s usually represented by “--” (two en dashes).

The few typos I noticed had to with word choice.

“who would think a sixteen year old girl writing from her dusty old bedroom capable of killing someone?”

I felt that the sentence was missing a few words in order to make it flow better. A suggestion correction would be as follows:

“who would think that a sixteen year old girl writing from her dusty old bedroom would be capable of killing someone?”

There was also a moment when you said “all of the sudden” when I think you meant “all of a sudden”. Other than that though, I could find no flaws in regards to your grammar.

Writing Style: (15)/15

It’s been literal years since I’ve seen a story on AFF that had a perfected writing style of their own, so I’m so happy to have come across your story. Your imagery is absolutely gorgeous and possesses a sort of raw storytelling that I don’t think I really see anymore when I read stories online. I sometimes don’t like it when someone uses a large amount of parentheses in their text, but I felt that you pulled it off well and I don’t think that I can imagine the story without them. I was also impressed by how you were able to accomplish so much in your story in such a small amount of words as it’s something that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do.

The only advice I can really give you in terms of your writing style would be to try experimenting with using italics within your dialogue or text. Italicizing a key part of any sentence can change the way that it’s read and add subtle emphasis wherever you feel that you need it.

Personal Enjoyment: (5)/5

I think I mentioned this to you before, but I honestly couldn’t stop thinking about your story once I finished reading it. I was actually sad when it ended because I felt that I needed more of your writing and I had a lot of questions regarding the text due to the ambiguity of the story. It’s actually kind of funny because as soon as I finished it, I sent a message to our kodawari group chat and I got into these really intense, analytical discussions with Amber and Tiff in regards to the story—I honestly don’t think I’ve ever gotten into such a hardcore literary discussion with fanfiction. LOL.

Even though this story doesn’t have any popular pairings, I was still pretty disappointed to see that this story wasn’t getting the love that it deserves. This story is a jewel.

Total Score: 95/100

Reviewer’s Comments:

This review is coming out a lot later than I had originally intended it to and I can’t apologize enough for that. I feel kind of awful because there’s not much advice that I can offer you since you’re pretty much spot-on. In fact, I had to get really picky with your writing in order to be able to give you any advice at all. My only real suggestion would be that you consider using italics within a character’s speech and that you make sure you read over your work before you post it so that you can get rid of those pesky typos (although you really don’t have many).

I can’t thank you enough for sharing such a beautiful story with the rest of us and I’m proud to announce that this story will be the first entry on our shop’s featured stories list. c: