Crush'd Commentary
So here is my entry for this year’s SHINee Big Bang fic challenge! This was actually my very first SHINee fic, so I was very nervous about writing it and had many second thoughts about even submitting it since so many of the writers that I deeply respect and admire also participated..But anyways! I did it! I decided to repost it here and on tumblr now that i’ve gone back and cleaned it up a bit (I suck at self editing) and in doing that, I thought it would be interesting to provide some author’s commentary on what I was thinking while writing this.
So when I started planning what I was going to write, I had one idea in mind: I wanted to write from the perspective of a sympathetic bad guy. I wanted to create this character with whom readers would empathize with to the point that they would not hold him accountable for his actions until it was too late.
I decided to pick Jinki to play this role because it is so easy to paint him as this unassuming dork. In outlining his character I really paid attention to traits that would make him both relatable and familiar. I made him clumsy, I made him tell bad jokes, I dressed him in sweater vests and loafers, I gave him a flip phone, I gave him a set of normal, loyal friends, but most importantly, I made him crave control and order. It is no coincidence that Jinki collected stamps (a very visual hobby to have as he is drawn by Taemin’s visual aesthetics) I made him enjoy having his pencils in line, I made him punctual. I also carefully laid the foundations for a psychotic breakdown what with his obsession with his fists and his inability to connect with people around him as well as his struggle to make sure that his facial expressions are unassuming and normal. All of these things were intended to spike the reader’s interest without really raising any red flags. Even his best friends who have known him for years were none the wiser that I was setting Jinki up for failure from the beginning.
That leads us to Taemin. Now for this whole loveable psycho thing to work, I needed Taemin to be detestable. I gave him a bad reputation. I made him sleep around the school. I made him sloppy and lazy and greasy and everything that it takes to be this deplorable character. Jinki’s friends warned him about Taemin and Jinki’s initial attraction was set up to appear as though he was a really good guy for being able to look past all of Taemin’s bad traits and see some good in him. As Taemin slowly became more and more detached from the world around him (and more and more similar to Jinki, himself) his initial set up as a cocky bastard just made this decent more painful.
Once I had decided that I wanted Jinki to be a stalker, I did a lot of research. Now, as I have read, most people are not stalked by strangers. Stalkers are usually people you know or people who are around you often enough to even have that sort of interest. I didn’t make Jinki and Taemin best buddies but I did make them slightly aware of each other. Jinki vaguely knew Taemin and once he had his eyes set on Taemin and became enamored with the way that he looked, I allowed Jinki to fill in the blanks by himself. He made Taemin into what he wanted Taemin to be. I also read that sometimes, people who are inclined to stalk others often suffer from other illnesses such as schizophrenia and my mind was drawn to the familiar rhetoric of rapists that “they were asking for it” and I kind of put those ideas together to form this concept of Jinki hallucinating and imagining that Taemin was seducing him. Jinki is driven so crazy that he even begins physically assaulting Taemin which is common in cases in which a stalker has a ‘if i can’t have him no one can’ attitude.
Its actually funny because a lot of Jinki’s descriptions of Taemin are taken from similar ones that i’ve seen on Twitter or Tumblr. People saying that they want to lick Taemin’s armpits and have entire tags on their blogs dedicated to the shape of his nose. For example, I distinctly remember people flipping shit when Taemin started wearing that rosary ring because people thought it was a couple ring. I thought that it would be interesting to use those descriptions and reactions because they are descriptions and reactions that readers are familiar with since they may have been some of the ones making them themselves. That just added an extra unsettling element to the story.
When writing about Jinki actually beginning to stalk Taemin, I wanted there to be a lot of internal conflict. Keep in mind that my goal was for the reader (you) to empathize with him and to grasp at straws in order to rationalize his behavior. I made him promise himself that he would stop but then I drove him back to Taemin over and over again, each time getting more and more graphic and violent. I really tried to get in Jinki’s mind and thought a lot about what it would be like to be driven crazy by this person you barely know. To love someone so much that you would want to be with them all the time. The pain of rejection. The urge to hurt something. Anger.
Eventually when Taemin found out who Jinki was I considered what I would do if I were in his shoes. Obviously, Taemin’s secrecy is the only thing keeping them together so I made Jinki hurt Taemin, and hurt him badly enough that he wouldn’t risk telling anyone out of fear as most victims of assault do. I wanted Taemin to become this sort of wilting flower. I intentionally made his character dull and meek. Like the life was being drained out of him. In contrast, I tried to make Jinki come across as more vibrant, but completely uncontrollable. Like a sudden splash of blood red. He became more and more violent and as the story progressed I wanted the reader to look back and think oh my god why didn’t I notice before? Why didn’t I realize? I wanted the reader to almost feel like an enabler for liking Jinki for even a split second.
I battled over whether or not to kill Taemin and after much deliberation, I decided that he had had enough and that I would punish Jinki, instead. It was made even better by Kibum betraying him.
I did not set out writing this story with the intentions of making it into a psychological thriller but I’m glad that it turned out that way because then, maybe my main purpose will have been accomplished.
The main point in all of this is that assault can happen to anyone at anytime even to people who you would never think that that sort of thing could happen to. Also anyone can be someone who commits assault. Even your best friend. Even the guy who collects stamps and smiles too wide. Even Lee Jinki.
I hope that you enjoyed my fic and thank you so much to everyone who made it this far and enjoyed it!
((P.S. Taem’s ashtray in his dorm is a flower pot because shout out to taemplants eeeeeey))
Some of the songs that I listened to while writing this that are cool to listen to while reading are:
Disarm -- The Civil Wars
Crush’d -- Say Anything
Be My Baby -- Snow Hill
Haunted -- Beyonce
One Way Or Another -- Until The Ribbon Breaks
Afraid -- The Neighborhood
Crazy In Love (50 Shades of Grey remix) -- Beyonce
What The Water Gave Me -- Florence and the Machine
Toxic -- District 78
The Devil Within -- Digital Daggers
So when I started planning what I was going to write, I had one idea in mind: I wanted to write from the perspective of a sympathetic bad guy. I wanted to create this character with whom readers would empathize with to the point that they would not hold him accountable for his actions until it was too late.
I decided to pick Jinki to play this role because it is so easy to paint him as this unassuming dork. In outlining his character I really paid attention to traits that would make him both relatable and familiar. I made him clumsy, I made him tell bad jokes, I dressed him in sweater vests and loafers, I gave him a flip phone, I gave him a set of normal, loyal friends, but most importantly, I made him crave control and order. It is no coincidence that Jinki collected stamps (a very visual hobby to have as he is drawn by Taemin’s visual aesthetics) I made him enjoy having his pencils in line, I made him punctual. I also carefully laid the foundations for a psychotic breakdown what with his obsession with his fists and his inability to connect with people around him as well as his struggle to make sure that his facial expressions are unassuming and normal. All of these things were intended to spike the reader’s interest without really raising any red flags. Even his best friends who have known him for years were none the wiser that I was setting Jinki up for failure from the beginning.
That leads us to Taemin. Now for this whole loveable psycho thing to work, I needed Taemin to be detestable. I gave him a bad reputation. I made him sleep around the school. I made him sloppy and lazy and greasy and everything that it takes to be this deplorable character. Jinki’s friends warned him about Taemin and Jinki’s initial attraction was set up to appear as though he was a really good guy for being able to look past all of Taemin’s bad traits and see some good in him. As Taemin slowly became more and more detached from the world around him (and more and more similar to Jinki, himself) his initial set up as a cocky bastard just made this decent more painful.
Once I had decided that I wanted Jinki to be a stalker, I did a lot of research. Now, as I have read, most people are not stalked by strangers. Stalkers are usually people you know or people who are around you often enough to even have that sort of interest. I didn’t make Jinki and Taemin best buddies but I did make them slightly aware of each other. Jinki vaguely knew Taemin and once he had his eyes set on Taemin and became enamored with the way that he looked, I allowed Jinki to fill in the blanks by himself. He made Taemin into what he wanted Taemin to be. I also read that sometimes, people who are inclined to stalk others often suffer from other illnesses such as schizophrenia and my mind was drawn to the familiar rhetoric of rapists that “they were asking for it” and I kind of put those ideas together to form this concept of Jinki hallucinating and imagining that Taemin was seducing him. Jinki is driven so crazy that he even begins physically assaulting Taemin which is common in cases in which a stalker has a ‘if i can’t have him no one can’ attitude.
Its actually funny because a lot of Jinki’s descriptions of Taemin are taken from similar ones that i’ve seen on Twitter or Tumblr. People saying that they want to lick Taemin’s armpits and have entire tags on their blogs dedicated to the shape of his nose. For example, I distinctly remember people flipping shit when Taemin started wearing that rosary ring because people thought it was a couple ring. I thought that it would be interesting to use those descriptions and reactions because they are descriptions and reactions that readers are familiar with since they may have been some of the ones making them themselves. That just added an extra unsettling element to the story.
When writing about Jinki actually beginning to stalk Taemin, I wanted there to be a lot of internal conflict. Keep in mind that my goal was for the reader (you) to empathize with him and to grasp at straws in order to rationalize his behavior. I made him promise himself that he would stop but then I drove him back to Taemin over and over again, each time getting more and more graphic and violent. I really tried to get in Jinki’s mind and thought a lot about what it would be like to be driven crazy by this person you barely know. To love someone so much that you would want to be with them all the time. The pain of rejection. The urge to hurt something. Anger.
Eventually when Taemin found out who Jinki was I considered what I would do if I were in his shoes. Obviously, Taemin’s secrecy is the only thing keeping them together so I made Jinki hurt Taemin, and hurt him badly enough that he wouldn’t risk telling anyone out of fear as most victims of assault do. I wanted Taemin to become this sort of wilting flower. I intentionally made his character dull and meek. Like the life was being drained out of him. In contrast, I tried to make Jinki come across as more vibrant, but completely uncontrollable. Like a sudden splash of blood red. He became more and more violent and as the story progressed I wanted the reader to look back and think oh my god why didn’t I notice before? Why didn’t I realize? I wanted the reader to almost feel like an enabler for liking Jinki for even a split second.
I battled over whether or not to kill Taemin and after much deliberation, I decided that he had had enough and that I would punish Jinki, instead. It was made even better by Kibum betraying him.
I did not set out writing this story with the intentions of making it into a psychological thriller but I’m glad that it turned out that way because then, maybe my main purpose will have been accomplished.
The main point in all of this is that assault can happen to anyone at anytime even to people who you would never think that that sort of thing could happen to. Also anyone can be someone who commits assault. Even your best friend. Even the guy who collects stamps and smiles too wide. Even Lee Jinki.
I hope that you enjoyed my fic and thank you so much to everyone who made it this far and enjoyed it!
((P.S. Taem’s ashtray in his dorm is a flower pot because shout out to taemplants eeeeeey))
Some of the songs that I listened to while writing this that are cool to listen to while reading are:
Disarm -- The Civil Wars
Crush’d -- Say Anything
Be My Baby -- Snow Hill
Haunted -- Beyonce
One Way Or Another -- Until The Ribbon Breaks
Afraid -- The Neighborhood
Crazy In Love (50 Shades of Grey remix) -- Beyonce
What The Water Gave Me -- Florence and the Machine
Toxic -- District 78
The Devil Within -- Digital Daggers