seattle rain - 1/1
seattle rain: a character study. (gen)
3 443 words. pg.
◦ with prompted inspiration from kpopficwank
life goes on, even after natural disasters.
( you move or you drown )
3 443 words. pg.
◦ with prompted inspiration from kpopficwank
life goes on, even after natural disasters.
( you move or you drown )
It's hard for me to feedback this on a micro level which is how I usually try to feedback (mostly to make up for all the fic from so many talented writers I don't read, out of sheer laziness and lack of focus, that I probably should) because it's like trying to pick through and evaluate some masterful living breathing tapestry so tightly woven...it's like trying to feedback life itself or something. An impossible task because this reads like life, like reality, to me in an all-encompassing way that fic rarely ever does for me. It has the simple beauty of truth and the power and weight of real life with all its dreams, consequences, and promises unfulfilled.
So, yes, there's my inadequate macro level feedback. This story was deeply moving, affecting, raw and powerful even though it was written in a tone of sheer quietude -- nothing overwrought or dramatic or with the sheen of the labor that comes with writing and trying to depict three-dimensional life through a one-dimensional medium like the written word. This lived and breathed so that I feel like it exists off the page, somewhere in Seattle, over in Edmonds, with a young man whom you just made me fall in love with all over again -- not that I ever fell out of love with him -- because he is so strong and vulnerable, so hopeful and resigned, so lost and needing to be found. I found him again in this story and I thank you so much for that (and sorry for the cheesiness, but your Jaebum is luminous and so alive that I feel like he is the real Jaebum).
It's hard for me to pick out my favorite parts of this story. If I was pressed to, I would have to say the entire scene of him on the beach in the rain because I could see it, feel it, it was like I was there and you described it in a way that was fresh and evocative without falling on usual descriptors or metaphors that would've made the scene come across as less real and more just a masterful rendering or facsimile of reality. It was real and I felt like I was there seeing that small figure sitting on that log, the rain hitting the beach, the waves sluicing over the sand, and he was there just in the corner of my eye so close, close enough that I felt like if I could just run a few steps forward I could grab his hand and tell him it was okay, but he was actually far away because he was in the story and I wasn't. That's the power of that scene and this story -- how it made me feel like I was there in it with him.
What especially elevates this story is how you describe things we already know in unexpected ways like Wooyoung's 'tucked, nervous' smile so that the familiar images and knowledge of all these people resonates all over again so deeply and intimately that it's like we're seeing it and realizing it for the very first time once more. It's a rare story that can give a reader and a fan of the source material (in this case, these people) the feeling that we can go back to the beginning -- even though we know we can't -- and have that first moment, that first glance, that first gleam of understanding of all these people over again.
Lastly, I'm really impressed with how fully fleshed out people like Yoon and Jaebum's other homeboys in Seattle are in this story. You've written them all, even small mentions of them, in a way that is a credit to them. I find it exciting that 2PM writers have incorporated all sorts of people in Jaebum's life from his family -- mother and Jehan -- to his crew and his friends in a way that does just as much justice and shows just as much caring for them as for Jaebum himself and the other six young men of 2PM.
Amazing piece of writing. I hope to see much more 2PM fic from you in the future and thank you so much for sharing this. :)
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you are so eloquent, and i feel like a bumbling fool right now. thank you. thank you thank you thank you. are you a writer too? because honestly i can't imagine anyone being this well spoken and careful and not writing i wish i could just show you how insanely giddy and happy i am because of your comment. and by the way, yes, yes, and exactly to your statement about dreams, consequences, and promises unfulfilled. that was exactly what i'd been trying to show, and i'd wracked my brains all night in fear that it wouldn't be obvious enough. i can't believe someone picked up on it and even better, someone enjoyed it. thank you.
god i'm just so glad i brought him back to life for someone. anyone. he's always been so interesting, so dynamic and so alive that i'd hate for him to just fade away. the fact that this renewed your love for him is my biggest accomplishment; i've done what i've set out to do. (and i might be a little bit in love with him too, so i'm guessing that comes across in the writing ;) )
god, i think your passage describing him made me visualise the scene even more vividly than before. i can't believe i was able to do that to you when you're honestly doing the same to me, and the sympathy, the empathy that you feel is so so so beautiful. i could kiss you for feeling this way. you have such wonderful descriptions of things, and sluicing is one of my favourite words. + 231234 points for using it. ♥
i'm so glad someone else picked up on this! wooyoung's nervous smile has always struck me as tucked, but when i wrote it in, i didn't expect anyone else to pick up the observation. i'm still a relatively new fan, which probably explains how this feeling of meeting and falling in love with these boys for the first time comes across so clearly for you. i love that this brought you back to that initial spark of interest, that memory of when your fascination first started. i'm just stunned that someone was actually able to get everything i wanted to do so clearly. thank you thank you thank you.
to this, i have nothing to say but: west coast represent! :) i think jay's always had two families, one in korea and one in seattle, and it wouldn't have felt right to ignore the one he has in seattle if i'm going to talk about the one in korea. i'm glad it worked so well for you though ♥♥
definitely! as broken as the fandom has become, i find myself strangely unable to walk away from it. nothing inspires like heartache, i suppose! thank you for your wonderfully long and thoughtful comment. i just. can't get over the fact that someone something like this for me. thank you so so so much.
ps. oh my god i just saw that rec in your journal THANK YOU aklsdjflajdlfjawlejk i just THANK YOU SO MUCH.
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that was exactly what i'd been trying to show, and i'd wracked my brains all night in fear that it wouldn't be obvious enough.
I think that's the true emotional power of this story, the restraint and lack of obvious dramatic reaching that some written work can extend to that turns it into dramatis vulgaris. It's the exploration of weighty, deep, human themes we can all relate to, but doing so in a manner that allows the reader to piece it together for himself/herself. Whether intentionally or not (it doesn't really matter either way), what you've effectively done with this story by not beating us over the head with these important dramatic themes and not spelling it out laboriously for us is that you've complimented your reading audience with the assumption that we get it and we're smart enough to get it and figure it all out for ourselves, that whatever we take away from it is ours and you, as the writer, aren't going to tell us how it is or how to feel. By writing this with a subtle hand, you've imbued it with the power of realism and truth, and it's like a sledgehammer to the cerebral cortex so that I just sat back after I finished reading it and thought 'Yes. Yes, this is life, this is how it is. It hurts and it's real and the beauty is in the pain and the hope for something good just around the next corner.'
i love that this brought you back to that initial spark of interest, that memory of when your fascination first started.
It was pretty awesome, the feeling you gave me in this story about all of them, especially Jaebum. It was like looking up and seeing someone doing something mundane like, idk, washing dishes or channel-surfing -- someone familiar to me whom I knew I loved, but glancing up and seeing them for the millionth time and having it feel like the very first glance and just getting this rush of pure joy and adoration as I remember all the reasons why I love that person. Haha, it was like the fic form of falling in love again at first sight for the second time and for the same group of people. You can't ask for a better gift than that, stories don't get much better than that. :D
Seriously, brava! This is incredible, you should feel immensely proud of yourself for producing this kind of writing -- it appeals to and engages both the emotional preverbal brain and also the higher-functioning intellectual side of the brain and that's why it works on every level both basic and complex, and why it's so satisfying, such a pleasure to read. &hearts
Even though the fandom is currently in disarray, please keep writing 2PM when the inspiration strikes, you really have a talent and gift for it. Kudos, kudos, kudos!
(And, yes, I do write fic, mostly SHINee and very very sparsely and sporadically, lol. Oh, kpop, what you do to me! ;D)
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i feel like you're giving me too much credit now omg. i. geez i'm just so speechless and happy and flattered and i'm not quite sure how to respond anymore other than with thirty thousand thank yous and you make me so so so happys. ♥♥ seriously, thank you.
i think you made me feel prouder of this than anything else! :) i had no idea that my writing had that sort of effect on the reader, but i'm so glad that it does manage to appeal to so many levels for you ♥
i definitely will now omg :') i look forward to another one of your comments when that time comes!
(don't worry, you'll find that i'm not a very frequent writer either :') life gets in the way, it happens to everyone ♥)
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