Review for Cutie-Pie // Reviewed by: pilsuk123

Title and Story link:

Ink in the Snow (Completed drabble)

Title:

The title couldn't get anymore suitable and ideal towards the story. It suits the whole Chirtmas and snow vibe but I couldn't seem to get any clue about the 'ink' in the story. A way to interpret it was that Kyungsoo left 'ink' in the snow, in that sense where the snow refers to Jongin and he left a mark on him but I guess i'm taking my interpretations too far here. Still, it kind of make sense and there's a connection between the title and plot.

Overall Appearance:

If I could write about grading for drabble, you'll definitely scored a perfect score for overall appearance! The poster was crazy beautiful and both of the posters used are just so darn breath-taking. The background gave just the perfect amount of feels to the story with it feels icy and white, I really like that! And despite the repetitive wordings of the title on the background, it wasn't distractive, instead it blended into the story well. The description and foreword overall appearance was flawless as well, it was organized well and although you had a lot to juggle in the foreword, you managed it well! 

Description and Foreword:

I really like the description, it's simple and straightforward. It's a good summarization of the story you're going to tell and in this case it was summarize mainly about Christmas, about spending it with Kyungsoo and Jongin's mind being a mess because of it. I was glad you didn't write or extract the description from the story itself or else it wouldn't feel original and interesting. You made the effort to write the description and taking a part from the story is different you see.

The foreword was well done as well, it's so organized and clean!

Plot:[Story's resolution and theme]

I think the main focus of the story's plot is about spending Christmas with your loved ones. In Jongin's opinion, Christmas should be spent with family members and ultimately his lover - Kyungsoo. You've started with describing Jongin's mind being all messed up about Christmas and Kyungsoo and showed a hint of something that went wrong because he felt wrong wanting Kyungsoo to be with him. The voice of Jongin was on the melancholy and apologetic which makes me think that he felt it was wrong to missed and want Kyungsoo. Was it because he haven't told anyone about his feeling towards Kyungsoo? There was also a past event about Kyungsoo crying on Christmas, suggesting that ,indeed, something went wrong for them? I get a different feeling and meaning every time I read the story and I've read it about 6-7 times now because still I don't know which one was it but I really like it. You didn't use any flowery words but it definitely highlighted the main character's feeling and regret in the story. 

Since you've emphasized a lot on the past different occasion during Christmas, I think that the whole theme of the story is every year in Christmas. Something like from 'One day' the book/movie, where it's every day of the day they met for the next twenty years or so. For 'Ink in the Snow', it's every year for Christmas. There was one about them making snow angels, another of Kyungsoo crying, one more of them trying to do some star gazing as Jongin planned to kiss Kyungsoo and one last one of them just being together again but as friends.

I really like that idea, if you could emphasize that more, it would have been really wonderful and moving. About making mistakes but always coming back together in the end. It's sort of the plot's theme as well, about forgiving and coming back to your loved ones during Christmas and spending time together during Christmas.

It also have a sense of hope and aspiring feeling towards the end of the story! When Jongin finally decide to confess to Kyungsoo.

You have a lot of good and hidden theme and resolution in the drabble and those I mentioned above were just the mere few, I believed if I were to read it again, the meaning might come off different! And that's what make a good drabble/one-shot!

Language:

There was some parts of the story, where I just can't seems to grasp the full meaning of some of the sentences. For example: The familiar turn to the right swayed me back from the memories... Familiar turn to the right, does it refer to Jongin driving? If possible, you can always try to write a sentence/sentences before that to explain so and readers would understand better. That way, more readers can catch the main meaning of the sentence and interpret it their way. There's also some sentences that I couldn't understand, the one about what it is that they did something that no one should ever know about and why when Jongin got a girlfriend and later become 'You got my girlfriend'? Was it because Kyungsoo stole Jongin's girlfriend from him? Other than a few mistakes and confusing sentences, I was still able to catch up in the story.

Some of them I've listed below to be corrected aren't really mistakes, it's just some changes to the sentence to make it sound a lot smoother and better but since it's a drabble and it extents the limit of language correction, please do feel free to ignore them and changes which you really want.

-The sound of the car doesn't soothe me as usual.

(The sound of passing by cars doesn't soothe me anymore.)

>I don't quite understand this sentence but if you want to use it, I think changing it to 'anymore' would sound a lot better.

-I don’t like to think about that, but your icy glare haunted me for a while now.

(I don’t like to think about it, but your icy glare have haunted me since then.)

-I still can’t fall asleep. I'm not sure if I want to sleep when I see the old bridge you and I used to go over the summer.

(I still can’t fall asleep. I'm not sure if I want to fall sleep when once I closed my eyes, I'll see that old bridge where we used to go during every summer.)

-You always complained how water isn’t clean. Or was it me? I can’t remember clearly.

(You've always complained how the water isn’t clean. Or was it me? I just can