#except for all my dear strangers on the internet haha

[doctornerdington]

I've been voluntold to write something to be read at my aunt's funeral. (I'll be watching the livestream; I can't afford an astronomical $1,200 plane ticket, unfortunately.)

The thing is, I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about my aunt, but I don't know that I want them shared with that audience. Or perhaps, I'm not sure her funeral is the appropriate venue for them because they're just as much about me as they are about her. I'm gonna take a first stab at it here, and we'll see if anything can be made of it. Maybe I'll just decline.

My aunt was a very religious woman. She started out conservative Mennonite, and moved to the more mainstream religious right from there. And because of that (and for other reasons that involve my mom and her processing of childhood trauma in pretty disastrous and destructive ways), I was never emotionally close to my aunt. She lived three provinces away and when we went to visit, things were stilted. I felt claustrophobic and wrong-footed. Couldn't wait to get away.

My aunt strongly disapproved of most of my life choices. She wasn't okay with queer people. She wasn't okay with divorce. She was grieved until the day she died that I had left the church, and prayed, daily, that I would reconsider.

And through all of that? She wrote me letters. Faithfully. Boring, rambling letters about how many buns she baked that week and how the charity shop was getting along and whether it was raining very much and how her flowers were growing. She sent cards for every holiday and birthday. Never missed. (In fact, my brother just received a card in the mail yesterday -- 6 days after she died. I guess that will be the last one.) She always sent a card, and she always heavily underlined the pre-printed words that meant the most to her. It was so cheesy and so heartfelt. When I had kids, she started sending them cards, too, with their own special underlining. When I divorced my ex, she sent me money at Christmas to make sure I could afford gifts for my kids. When my car died, she literally bought me a car, out of the blue, because she didn't want us to be without a car in the winter.

She disproved of so many things about me so strongly, and that never stopped her from loving me, from consistently acting with kindness and generosity and love to me and my children. And I loved her too, and I hope she knew it and felt it. Even though I'm queer, and divorced, and even though I'm never returning to the church. Even though loving her felt like pressing on a bruise. She lived a life of love and integrity, in whatever way she was able, and I admire her for that. Despite the bruising.

So now she's gone. And I keep thinking about these lines from the Spoon River anthology:

Just because you no more could love me, Nor pray for me, nor write me letters, The eternal silence of you spoke instead. And somehow from that hour, I had a new vision.

And it's not like I have a new vision now or anything like that. It's just that it's so strange to think that she's not out there right now, sending unwelcome prayers my way. She'll never send me another bizarrely underlined letter. Her silence will speak instead, I guess. That's love too.

#writing stuff #I guess #I don't think this will work as a public tribute #it feels very private #except for all my dear strangers on the internet haha

[softtofustew]

or maybe that’s how it has to be // notes & ending ment

pairing: kang younghyun / park jaehyung

genre: angst ; fluff 

summary: death calls childhood friends jae and brian on christmas eve. willing to make the most of their next twelve hours, they find their ways with each other — and perhaps learn how to really, truly live life on the day they’re going to die.

NOTES & ENDING MENT (2018)

hello, this is chien // on writing this christmas x death soulmates!au work, this is one of the biggest challenges i think i’ve faced in terms of writing. whilst i’m still young and brooding (i believe i am much younger than the average age of fanfiction writers… or at least the majority that i am familiar with), writing has always been here for me. i started writing fanfiction back in february of 2018, and thinking back to it, i never thought i would put out thirty (30!) works out in a span of a couple of months.

this work is particularly special to me, mostly because i’m pouring a lot of time into this baby, and because it’s posted on brian’s birthday, or as an early merry christmas.

i would just like to share some thoughts and words on ‘or maybe that’s how it has to be’, and some insight on its ideas and perimeters. if you haven’t read it, it’s here.

one; setting & perimeters

dealing with this has always been a bit of a wonder. where am i placing them? where are they going? if you notice, i’ve left this city ambiguous, though the names of the characters (minjoon, byungho, jaejoon etc) mentioned imply that it is, in fact, korea. 

as for the perimeters of the story, they are not mine to boast. they are, in fact, a work of adam silvera’s. if you follow me on twitter, i have mentioned him countless times as i wrote this work. his work is called they both die at the end (review). i shall talk a bit more on the book, and how i adapted its ideas.

the story is of two boys, two strangers, who receive individual calls about their imminent deaths in twenty-four (24) hours, the caller being ‘Death-Cast’. they meet through an app called ‘Last Friend’ (think tinder but for people about to die and try to make friends). they meet, and they spend their last day together.

once i’ve laid out these perimeters, you can see how i integrated them into my work, but tweaked a lot of the details. firstly, they die in twelve hours. why? because i don’t think i would’ve written out a whole twenty-four hours. for silvera’s work it was possible because he intertwined plenty of different points of views of different people. 

also, jae and brian are childhood best friends. i feel like them as strangers would’ve taken a lot for them to develop in such a short span of time. seeing someone from your past and reuniting with them (especially if you’ve loved the other before) i feel is more of a sentimental kind of bond over strangers!jaebri. this, of course, does away with the ‘Last Friend’ app entirely.

i never expanded on Death-Cast, but that’s because the book itself never expanded on it. also, i wanted to focus mainly on the events of the whole work. if i had had more time, i think i would’ve expanded on the background of the work, but all’s well that ends well.

two; characters

of course, it’s jae and brian! throughout this year, i’ve loved writing jaehyungparkian. there are certainly lots of reasons behind this, of course. the main one is because these two truly have a lot of chemistry irl - their backstories, their conversations, their meaningless banters on vlive etc. writing fanfiction of them never gets boring, honestly.

though it’s not obvious, i depict jae as the introvert (which is, anyway, his personality, INTP) and brian as the extrovert (who is also extroverted irl). as in the second-last scene, wherein brian asks jae what they would’ve done on their last day if they hadn’t met each other, it’s true: jae would’ve holed up by himself, brian would’ve hung out with wonpil but would never really give that true goodbye, because goodbyes are always the hardest. 

although i know there was that one christmas brian spent alone, i can’t imagine jae willingly putting up a physical fight with someone haha. 

meeting each other and catching up and everything in between works for the both of them. i love them in this work, and i hope you love them, too.

three; events

it goes without saying, doesn’t it? two childhood friends meet, spend half a day together, kiss and fall in love. cliche, i know. 

i’ve always been fond of soulmates! AUs. when i reread adam silvera’s work, i felt compelled to write a soulmates trope, but with a twist - death soulmates. clearly, it’s not a real term inculcated into my work - it’s just what jae and brian label it as. there are countless reflections in the work, wherein either or both of them think about what a miracle it is to coincidentally see each other on the day they die.

for such events to occur, you hafta make it realistic: brian gets into a fight with minjoon, in a city far from his own home, so it’s not considered ‘unrealistic’ of the both of them meeting in the same city where they both live in. it gives the sense of a coincidink to the audience, without making it too… faked? yeah.

minjoon and his gang (all made-up characters) are the cherry on the top. in adam silvera’s work, the two boys faced one of their ex’s current boyfriend and his gang. there were guns involved, but i like to keep things simple and legal (considering that this is, in fact, set in south korea.) so, on top of going to places they want to go before they die, they’ve got to square off minjoon and the gang.

as for the events, as for where they went, there’s nothing coherently ‘special’ about them, other than the sentiment behind visiting these places. i feel the plot was more of a long, drawn out build-up to the ending scenes, wherein they both knew that they loved each other and such. 

four; process

so how did i write this? this is the first time i skipped out a portion of the work to write the last few scenes first, then returning to the middle portion, and also the first time i had an alternative work.

starting it off, my first draft was a sketchy 7K-word baby before i took the first few paragraphs and rewrote it. i felt it was waayyy too forced (and way too much to handle and so i rewrote it. this baby is my second draft, and x1000 wayyyy angstier than the first child. to know more about her, scroll down to five)

as for the second (and final draft, the version that i posted) i’d finished until the coffeehouse scene when i went ice-skating with my family. of course, i’ve never gone ice-skating, and so i shuffled along the railing for three hours. during the only time i fell down, this dude helped me up (read: semi-cute dude with skating skills to die for). being me, i struggled to my feet - and slammed into the railing, skates sliding apart from each other. thus, i pulled off a nothing-less-of-gorgeous crashing stance while holding onto the railing for dear life. (which is why i never engaged in small talk with semi-cute dude. read: he skated off.)

i incorporated that into my work (except, brian doesn’t skate off after jae crashes into the railing), and i started off there, all the way until the last scene. 

and then i went back to the middle of the work and started writing. again. lol.

five; the alternate version

the first draft was… complicated. there were many different elements used in my first baby before i scrapped it. the first two scenes are exactly the same, word-for-word, but beyond that was completely and utterly different.

alternate version: jae and brian didn’t meet at the convenience store. they met at a bus stop, prior to brian’s fight with minjoon. they only went to the convenience store after a few more scenes, where they bumped into sungjin. in this version, brian and sungjin made up - they buried the hatchet between them.

also, jae’s parents did die too, in this first draft - but he wasn’t legally an adult in this version. instead, he had foster parents living on the outskirts of seoul. after meeting at the bus stop, him and brian took the bus to visit them so jae could leave their gift in the mailbox. 

also, if i had continued with the first draft, you’d be reading about sungjin realising that brian had cheated on him when they were still together! and then that’s the reason why minjoon hunts him down for a second fight. yeah. that was… unexpected. thank goodness i didn’t bulldoze through that; that would’ve been one hell of a world for me to handle, phew.

from this, you can see that my… ideas weren’t planned. i was literally going with the flow. this alternate version is even weirder than 5sos’ alternate version of she’s kinda hot, which is kinda saying something, isn’t it?

six; did they die, or did they die?

most of you would believe that they died. the last line clearly states “the last thing jae sees before his eyes is brian, brian, brian, before his world is consumed.”

but the thing is, i never said ‘and they died in the end.’ before his world is consumed. consumed by darkness? or purely just him shutting his eyes? maybe his heart stops, but beats again? maybe brian gets him out of there? truly, i’ve left the ending  ambiguous. in other words: whether they died or not on christmas day is unknown, and i’ve left it up for you to decide. 

this was one of the things i thought over the most. logically, they can’t escape from the fire, but then again, who knows? with something like Death-Cast in their alternate universe, perhaps there’s some otherworldly force? ;)

seven; quotes & inspiration

i couldn’t resist adding several quotes from they both die at the end! jae’s ment to brian, several lines in the works, some of which can be found here. if you recognise which i quoted, that means you reeaaally read thoroughly heh.

as for writing itself, there were times when i was stuck on words, which is alarming because i hardly ever get writer’s block (weeps aggressively). so i would like to thank errie, my fav internet moot, for always being there halfway across the globe to listen (read?) to my rants about the work, and for always encouraging me with her eagerness to read the work itself. and also, teenie has been a great inspiration, indirectly inspiring me every time i reread one of her works (senpai, if you ever see this, i love you). 

last note

i would like to end this by thanking everyone who has made me writing fanfiction (regularly!) an actual hobby i enjoy this year. when i first started off, i never expected to even get a handful of kudos on my first fic. admittedly, there are some works i’m not particularly satisfied of, and sometimes i wonder whether i thought of quantity over quality of the works.

everyone has their own writing style, as i do too. my kind of writing style is descriptive, long sentences. i think sometimes my long sentences are a tad too long and break away the impact of the words, which is something i feel i should work on. but writing fanfiction, truly, has improved my writing so, so much, and i’m immensely thankful for all of your comments and feedback on my writing. 

i have a couple of goals in 2019: to write a couple more jaehyungparkian ideas that i have out (pretty sure i needa start on this that i’ve been hinting since god knows when), to finish the parkbros au and to improve the impact of my writing style, and to broaden my genres of writing. throughout this year i’ve mainly been writing fluff, angst, humour. i plan on writing wayyy more action and thriller, because those genres need looooots of brushing up on (this one, i feel, was very amateur but a lot of y’all liked it hahaha so i don’t know). OH! and to plan out my works before i write them kekekeke.

in conclusion, thank you, thank you, thank you. i love you all so, so much. i will be back in 2019 with new and improved ideas to write

#day6 #day6 fanfiction #fanfiction #notes #jaehyungparkian #jaehyungparkian fanfiction #park sungjin #park jaehyung #kang younghyun #yoon dowoon #kim wonpil #inspiration

[parizsiszalami]

Dear Social Media

dear internet and little percentage of people i know whom this might concern,

i really don’t want to be a hypocrite and yet i really am one

similarly to nearly everyone in my generation i have an extensive online life which takes a significant amount of actual time from my actual life

i’m not saying this is necessarily a bad thing because the internet can be a wonderful place and i honestly admire the million ways it transformed the way we communicate with each other (and i do not believe this change can be labelled bad or good)

however, due to several external factors, all these screens and social media platforms and emails and texts have become a bit overwhelming and i’ve been planning in the past few weeks to write a dramatic post about quitting facebook or at least doing a social media detox

and there are two things i immediately realised

first was obviously that i would not survive without social media even for a day because this is the place where i get all the musician gossip and koala gifs and i thrive on conversations with friends or even strangers

and the second was that i’m angry at myself for feeling the need to let everyone know about my heroic decision and making this into a narcissistic performance instead of just disappearing and not giving a fuck about what the others’ reaction might be

(and here i am still writing this stupid note so there’s that hypocrisy i wanted to avoid but i guess this is so much part of my self-assigned wannabe rockstar slash writer personality that it could never be really suppressed or changed)

i’m also pretty angry at myself for a few other things

like the fact that i feel guilt if i don’t reply to a text immediately even though sometimes (basically always these days) it feels like a burden and i despise typing messages on my phone, not to mention opening Facebook or Gmail on my laptop which feels almost as painful as washing dishes

or obviously how i’m super-offended when my messages stay unread or god forbid UNANSWERED for more than an hour because clearly it means that the person hates me and/or is dead

or how i ’m unable to suppress the always returning urge to post something, just SOMETHING that either reflects how educated and/or cool i am or it will provide me with the necessary dose of verification that i’m funny and good-looking and interesting enough for people to like me

and that even when i’m so busy having a life and some fun that i somehow forget to document in any form, i kinda feel guilt or even fomo

and therefore i’m basically not able to do anything fun or extraordinary (or at least a tiny bit exciting compared to my otherwise pretty average day to day life) without feeling the need to show it to the world, again to prove that i’m funny and good-looking and interesting enough for people to like me

or how i feel insulted by those who are not giving me this verification or retain it on purpose and definitely intentionally forget to send me a birthday message or ignore my new profile pic etc.

i also hate that i subconsciously or very very consciously use these platforms and the content i post to subtly manipulate others, send passive-aggressive hidden meanings directed at someone or just simply manipulate everyone i know by using a sad quote or a heartbreak song as a very obvious but not at all ideal cry for help and attention

so all in all, even though i will probably never be able to quit these bad habits entirely, i felt the need to verbalise this (self-)criticism and publicly promise myself that i will try to change a few things and become less dependent on these otherwise fascinating communication tools and mostly only use it for practical purposes (e.g. above-mentioned koala gif research)

and not get frustrated about faceless strangers or few-time acquaintances not being able to spell or use grammar properly or posting misogynistic jokes, annoying status updates, stupid fake articles or any kind of content that i genuinely honestly do not give a fuck about

and try to minimise the unnecessary oversharing and only post the content that i genuinely honestly want other people to see and only share life events that i’m the most happy about or proud of

and try to live by the most overused clichés like always finding the time to bitch about life in person instead of doing it on messenger or enjoying the moment instead of trying to capture it for eternity and instead of lying in bed swiping on tinder and constantly refreshing on instagram just going out and playing basketball (haha) or doing stupid real things or learning to love myself without the need to have feedback from others and all this very coelho-esque bullshit

and also i would just like to ask all who recognise themselves in these lines to please take this into consideration whenever possible and don’t get offended if i don’t reply immediately or don’t hit the like button as i’ll be trying to do a semi-detox now (only a few beers a day kind of rehab) and learn how to survive without the internets at least for days or even hours and how not to secretly expect everyone or certain people to praise me for something i’ve done or said or worn (obviously except for this blog entry, i really hope you will appreciate it because i tried to be naked-honest here and expose my vulnerabilities and obviously also imply that i’m not in a very good place right now but i figured this kind of honesty and exposure therapy could definitely help and also i hope that the multiple people i intended this for will hear the message loud and clear and not mistake it for a cry for help because i’m planning to deal with my shit on my own this time, i jut need them to be patient and understanding)

love,

ági