Tu es Tout ce Que Je Veux by Illenjoyluhansmayo

Reviewed by WhisperOfTheSea

Title [5/5]

At first glance, a reader would not know what this means if they don’t speak or read French themselves. If any of them are curious enough, they’ll click on the title to find out what the purpose behind the title is. I am like those type of readers and I’ve got to say, your title did an exceptional job on catching my eye.

The meaning of the title is thoroughly explained at the end of the oneshot without any give aways. You didn’t just shove a handful of information in the readers’ face but you carefully explained the situation, which I really liked how you did.

Description/Foreword [9/10]

It’s a bit catching how you start the description off with a quote. Although I’m not sure if it’s a quote someone made or not, you’ll still have to use the keyboard key intended for quotes - “. The purpose of - ‘ - is a quote within a quote. An example is this: “What I mean by ‘immediately’ is now.”. So I suggest you to replace the single quotes for the proper quote key: “What is life to someone who’d gladly fall into death’s embrace?”.

The rest of the description is doing great so I have no comment on that.

Plot/Theme & Character Development [30/35]

I can see that the character development is really strong between Sehun and Luhan. Like I said in my previous review, they both start off weak; they don’t know each other and had just started a little conversation. While this is going, Sehun’s mother comes and she is then introduced to Luhan. Luhan tells more about himself than Sehun, and this leads to Sehun asking for his number. This is the part where you make the characters meet and bond with each other. The flow fits in perfectly starting from Sehun’s deep anger, making him sit on the bench in frustration to the transition of Luhan introducing himself and Sehun’s mother later coming in. In spite of Luhan explaining more about himself to Sehun’s mother, I noticed that you misunderstood the difference between type of music and type of art. The types of music are genres such as blues, country, rock, electronic while types of art are drawing, film & video, and fashion. When Luhan answers to Mrs. Oh’s question, he says,”Well, I mostly have an interest in dancing and singing.” Dancing and singing isn’t a type of music but a type of art; dancing is an art of body movement and singing is a performing artist. I highly suggest you to change Mrs. Oh’s question before readers start to get confuse and mistake dancing and singing as a type of music instead of art.

And to continue where I left off; after the little small introductions, Sehun and Luhan start to interact more. It starts off with something small, where Luhan invites Sehun for bubble tea on the weekends to the point where they’re going to each other’s houses like old long lost friends. While Sehun’s relationship with Luhan is improving, his relationship with his mother is not. They are starting to argue, and the figure of being Mrs. Oh’s son seems to be disappearing under Sehun’s relationship with Luhan. Sehun simply rebels against his own mother and I’ve got to say, I can see why he made that choice. He feels restricted from what he’s doing. With the leg he has and being unable to dance again, it sends Sehun in a toll which makes him act out in silent but different ways. Luhan was like his way out of reality. I think that to Sehun, Luhan was the only close enough person he had to make him feel safe and free throughout the whole story.

To add in with impression and the progress of Sehun and Luhan’s relationship, the episode of them having a fight in the kitchen with flour and eggs was very unique. Not only did you add in Luhan’s emergency at the hospital, but you add in to tell the readers how strong and energetic their interactions were. In my opinion, this had definitely prevented the readers from being bored and instead wanted them to see how close both Sehun and Luhan were. Still, as they were sharing and making moments with each other, their problems got in the way. Sehun is dying if he doesn’t cure his leg and Luhan’s mother is on the very brink of death. Even though it seems that they love each other deeply, something is always in the way.

Flow/Writing Style [18/20]

Your writing style is descriptive and detailed, and a bit of like my taste of writing. The word choices and vocabulary is easily detected and they fit the sentences perfectly; they aren’t too odd or too plain. There is something that still bothers me, I’ve mentioned it in my first review. I can still see that you’re overusing/misusing commas; I’ll explain that in the Grammar section. Other than that, the entire story itself isn’t stretched too long nor put to done abruptly.

Grammar [13/20]

There isn’t anything that stands-out this time, but there are still minor mistakes. They aren’t noticeable unless the readers read carefully and have watchful eyes.

For example, in this sentence:

• They talk for a while, and Sehun learns that Luhan is 2 years older than him (much to his surprise), likes rubik’s cubes, loves singing, and adores bubble tea, just like Sehun.

Correct version:

• They talk for a while, and Sehun learns that Luhan is two years older than him (much to his surprise); likes rubik’s cubes, loves singing, and adores bubble tea, just like Sehun.

I added in the semicolon because you are listing things that Luhan likes. One of the things the semicolon helps with is  lists that involve internal commas. Think of the semicolon like a sort of ‘super-comma’ to get rid off too many commas.

And about the mention of commas (with the notice in the Flow/Writing Style), I still do think that there are too many commas. Especially around where Luhan is talking to Sehun about Mrs. Oh. Take this entire dialogue for an example:

• “Your mom, she’s really hurting, and I know that you’re aware, but I don’t think you understand completely. Sometimes, when I come over to visit, and you’re not there, or you just head out for a bit, I see her. She’s hurting more than you see, because she hurts when you’re not with her. Just when you’re not in the house with her, the entire house seems to dullen. She needs you so much, it’s sad to see you value your life so little.”

Correct version:

• “Your mom...she’s really hurting and I know you’re aware, but I don’t think you understand completely. Sometimes, when I come over to visit and you’re not there or you just head out for a bit, I see her. She’s hurting more than you see because she hurts when you’re not with her. And when you’re not in the house with her, the entire house seems empty. She needs you so much;  it’s sad to see you value your life so little.”

I changed a few points to help you see where you can avoid using too many commas.

When I read the first sentence of this entire dialogue, I felt that Luhan was expressing what he was seeing in words. He seem to be thinking of what to say so Sehun wouldn’t exactly be hurt by them, which is why I added in a pause. I removed the comma between “hurting” and “and” because those two phrases are a correlation and they shouldn’t be separated.

In the next sentence, I removed all the commas between “Sometimes” and “I see her”. I did this after seeing that they weren’t needed and that the sentence could’ve just had a parenthetical element. You’re separating verbs, which you aren’t supposed to, by adding a comma before “and” and “or” in this sentence. “Visit” and “head out” are verbs which is why I removed the commas. I’ve also removed the comma in the next sentence because the dependant clause for “She’s hurting more than you see” is on the other side of the sentence - “because she hurts when you’re not with her”. Don’t add a comma between independent and dependant clauses. Only separate them with a comma when there are two independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction (and, but, or, etc). An example is this:

• Sehun loves cooking, but Luhan loves baking.

In this sentence “Just when you’re not in the house with her, the entire house seems to dullen.”, I replaced “Just” with “And” because the sentence sounds odd with “Just” when the sentence is said out loud. Using “Just” makes the sentence seem to repeat itself, but using “And” makes the sentence continue without sounding too strange. This is only my preference though so you don’t have to take this too serious. And with the last sentence, I replaced the comma with a semicolon because “She needs you so much” and “it’s sad to see you value your life so little” are both independent clauses. Unless you want to separate them with a period, it makes perfect sense to do so too.

If you’re still confuse on the independent and dependent clauses, feel free to ask me for more proper explanations. I am willing to give you helpful and reliable sites also.

Here is a paragraph that I corrected (in the Epilogue):

• “Can’t even pick up a ing cup off the ground without someone’s help, can I?” he mutters to himself, feeling involuntary tears welling behind his eyes. He doesn’t want to cry, because he knows he’s being immature, and it’s stupid to cry over a dropped cup, but all the stress that’s been building up inside him has reached bursting point, and he finds himself sobbing into a clenched fist, because he’s been reduced to this, reduced to nothing. He’s been reduced to not being able to pick a cup off the ground, and he wonders if it’s possible to be a bigger burden than he is.

Correct version:

• “Can’t even pick up a ing cup off the ground without someone’s help, can I?” He mutters to himself, feeling involuntary tears welling behind his eyes. He doesn’t want to cry because he knows he’s being immature, and it’s stupid to cry over a dropped cup. But all the stress that’s been building up inside him has reached bursting point and he finds himself sobbing into a clenched fist because he’s been reduced to this, reduced to nothing. He’s been reduced to not being able to pick a cup off the ground, and he wonders if it’s possible to be a bigger burden than he already is.

Enjoyment [10/10]

I enjoyed the oneshot like I did when I reviewed it for the first time. It still made me feel moved even though this was the second time I’ve read it.

Total [85/100]

Comment: Thank you for requesting at #1704!

I’m so terribly sorry for the long wait! Many things got in the way

and I had to deal with them first before stressing myself out too much.

I hope you understand. ^^ To make this review helpful,

I had to pick out things that weren’t really noticeable at first glance

(which meant that the grading was much harsher).

That means that I had to point out minor mistakes. But I do have to admit, I missed

a few things that a reviewer shouldn’t have and I’m a bit disappointed in myself.

I hope I didn’t also disappoint you too on my behalf.

I added the Plot/Theme section with the Character Development

since your story was a oneshot. It was easier to do so

because your story surrounded itself around Sehun and Luhan. :)

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