When Everything Disappears

Reviewer: dhaatk
Review for: OneDirection11

Requested on: 01/27/2015
Finished On: 01/30/2015

NOTE: 15 Chapters (Spoiler Alert)

(10/10) Title: The title you chose is original as I didn't find any other fic on AFF with same name. Also, it already gives tension to the story, because reader is intrigued about the circumstances characters appear in, that lead into something's disappearance.

(7/10) Character: First of all, there are way too many characters. I don't know the full composition of Girl's Generation, but I believe you included all members. As if that was not enough, maybe five or more additional characters took some kind of role in these first fifteen chapters. For me, as a reader who has no basic knowledge on SNSD, it was hard to grasp all traits that characters posses. For example, one girl is called a midget all the time, while the other – a pig. All the nicknames disturbed a lot, too. However, these things can be easily avoided. What is more, I noticed a couple of flaws, regarding characters. I missed expanded inner monologues of Taeyeon. Especially about her doubts and insecurities, that concern confessing to Tiffany. You did mention that the girl hesitated telling her best friend about her true feelings because she didn't want to be rejected and ruin the amazing friendship, yet some deeper pattern was lacking. Those kinds of Taeyeon's thoughts were also needed when she told Jessica about her feelings towards Tiffany. It seemed a bit strange for her to just spill everything that she had been hiding for some years. Talking about Taeyeon and Jessica's relationship, it looked too strong. The latter is comforting the protagonist so much, the reader gets an impression that Taeyeon's best friend is Jessica rather than Tiffany.
However, not everything about characters is bad. For example, it's actually good that Taeyeon keeps her feelings towards Tiffany hidden for so long, it adds to the story's flow and continuity. When she got asked about Leetuk in the cafeteria, it's great that she keeped up her act and pretended to be at least a little bit sad. The fact that the protagonist's behaviour changed the moment Tiffany got together with Nichkhun was useful in character development, so I can congratulate you on that. You also managed to keep main characters different and because of that they weren't too bland, which tends to happen, when there are too many characters. An example of such could be given by comparing Taeyeon and Jessica. One of the episodes that caught my attention was when Jessica said that if she was in her friend's shoes, she would have told about her feelings towards Tiffany right away, unlike Taeyeon, who hadn't done so for many years.

(6/10) Originality: I found hard time seeing this story as original. Starting with the main idea of a person falling in love with their best friend, but avoiding telling about it to anybody, because that friend happens to be of the same gender. All the events that occurred were a bit of cliché, too. Moreover, when looking up the originality of story's title, I found this story [x]. There are a couple of things that made your story look as a rip-off. First, the story title is the same. Then, introduction is very similar. The person who's story I found wrote about somebody not remembering certain things about someone who had previously been important in their lives and so did you. Finally, your nickname indicates you're a fan of One Direction and that other fan-fiction is actually about them, so... that automatically just disturbs me and makes me feel like excluding points for originality.

(30/40) Storyline/Plot: The plot was lacking at a lot of places. First of all, in the very beginning I couldn't understand Taeyeon walking around the town. Now, think more about the situation yourself. A twelve-year old girl, strolling through the Gangnam all by herself at 5AM in the morning. On top of that, she's a heiress to rich and well-known company. Does that really seem logic and not odd at all to you? Later on, I once again missed expansion and details on whole Taeyeon-loving-Tiffany thing. How did it all start and how exactly did Heechul help her to realize those feelings? Moving on to a few more strange events, Nichkhun singing in a fountain was such a cliché I must have snorted while reading it. It was completely stupid and unrealistic. Speaking of this guy, it was a bit weird that only after a month or so he asked Tiffany to be his girlfriend. I mean, after such fiasco in the fountain they should have started dating right away. But probably two the most unrealistic things were directly related to the protagonist. First, when Taeyeon cut her wrist, she should have bled a lot and surely she couldn't have had time to calmly talk with Jessica for many minutes. I understand your need to make Taeyeon naturally change her mind and finally get the guts to confess to Tiffany, but that event was not a solution. Then, I also see your reason for getting Taeyeon into a car accident, but how she ran off after fighting with Tiffany was not logical. She originally arrived with a car, how could she just simply leave it? That never happens in real life. What else I can add is just that there was a lack of activities between friends. All the girls were showed as good friends, but it seemed like apart from classes and lunch time they don't even see each other. Of course, they tried reaching Taeyeon, when she didn't show up, but that was not enough. Make them got to a park or the disco – it doesn't even matter that much. The important thing is for them to spend time together somewhere apart school.

(15/25) Grammar/Errors: Because you disabled text selection, I can't point out particular mistakes. The fact that there were no spelling mistakes is great, but I'll say it straight – your grammar is terrible. You mix tenses basically in every sentence and I highly suggest finding a good proofreader. Also, at times the vocabulary you used made sentences awkward. For example, “her hair looked like it was 10 times” or “I don't have her life” or “now or forever”. Plus, you should mind what you write more. There was a case there you even mixed gender: “Excuse me, are you Kim Taeyeon's relatives?” / “Yes, I'm his brother”.

(2/5) Overall Enjoyment: The story was not that bad, but if I had found it by myself, I'm not sure I would have continued reading. I suggest you pay more attention to storyline and grammar.

(70/100) Points Total

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