Review: trying to behave (but you know that we never learned how) by christmasyoongi

THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW.
They won't be particularly specific, but if you want to read the story first please do that now by clicking on the linked text below.

Okay so I am pretty hardcore BTS trash at this point, and Yoonmin is one of my OTPs. So I was super excited to read "trying to behave (but you know that we never learned how)" by christmasyoongi. On AO3 it has the most kudos of yoonmin fics, so I was expecting a really high quality, well-written plot. However, I was quite disappointed with this work after getting further into the story.

The description is as follows:

It's been years since Yoongi's last seen him and the younger boy is a shell of his former self in a way that makes his heart twist in his chest. And yet, after all this time and countless days of convincing himself to let him go, he's still unconditionally, head over heels in love with Park Jimin.

(Jimin and Yoongi grow up together.)

To me, this sounds like it has a lot of potential to be a great piece of fanfiction. I mean, it has kid!yoonmin, it has angst, and it has a fluffy reunion.

NOTE: I am fully aware this author stated that they haven't written in a while as well as this being there first BTS fanfiction. A lot of the issues I had with this story are really things that I see often in stories, and make them lack credibility in my eyes. I believe that this fanfiction can be a good way for writers to really think about their writing and whether or not it is credible. A lot of the things I am about to mention are pieces of advice for all writers, not just christmasyoongi specifically.

I was very excited about the beginning of the fic. The story of Yoongi and Jimin growing up was fluffy and well written. They were cute little kids falling in love. Adorable!

But then it got to the angst. And this is where I started to get disappointed. Reading it felt like I was punched in the face with angst. The plot went from fluffy to angsty almost instantly. And it didn't make a whole lot of sense how Jimin's self-hatred seemed to come out of nowhere. One chapter he seemed okay, and the next he was having a mental breakdown. It almost seemed like maybe we didn't see enough of Jimin's descent into self-hatred.

Another thing is this author's seeming romanticism of clinical anxiety and depression, as well as a handful of other related mental health issues. I don't know for sure if this author has ever had a panic attack before, but they seem to throw the phrase around a lot for, well as it seems to me, just starting to cry. The same is true for the idea of "falling into a depression". For people who are depressed, this likely means a lot more than simply feeling a bit sad for a few days because of a shock.

I urge fanfiction authors to not make light of mental health issues, even in an angsty story. If you feel that incorporating a mental health issue would strengthen the development of your characters, then please do thorough research, rather than just throwing around heavy words and phrases, and ultimately making things uncomfortable.

Another thing I would recommend is to write where you know. If you have never been to South Korea, then I would urge you not to set your story in South Korea.

I think a big pet peeve I had with this story is that it was set specifically in New York City and Larchmont, NY which is a little bit north of the city. To me, it did not seem like this author knew New York City all that well. One thing that really confused me was that everyone who wasn't Yoongi or Jimin or Jungkook in New York seemed to be white. This makes a little bit more sense in Larchmont, which is the suburbs, but as for being in the heart of the city (The Bronx, Manhattan, etc) there were still only white people, and as far as I know that is pretty unlikely.

In addition, christmasyoongi seems to think it's possible to walk from Larchmont to the city in 30 minutes. I looked this up on Google Maps, because I am not from NYC either, and it shows that it takes approximately three hours to walk from Larchmont to the city.

I think the best suggestion I can make is to never mention a city in specific. Let readers assume the location, and then people like me won't need to do research about the credibility of your knowledge of the city in question.

Okay, a final thing that I want to say is to please avoid emphasizing random words. I think this can be an amazing trick when needing to show emotion of urgency, and there are a few times when this author pulls it off so well. However, I urge authors to not overuse this trick and to only emphasize words with purpose. If it's not something essential to the character development or the sentence or the plot, then why did you need to draw the readers attention to it?

And there you go! There is my review!

I apologize if it felt like I was totally bashing this fanfiction, but I notice a lot of these same things in other fanfiction as well, even from other fandoms.

Again, this is just my opinion, so if you don't like it then please just close the browser, or read this fanfiction and tell me what you thought of it, and if you noticed any of the things I mentioned.

Besos!
-Orianna The Queen-

Review: A Dowry of A Single Galleon by Bunney

While I don't usually venture out into the world of Potterverse fanfiction, I was particularly in the mood for some recently. My love for Potterverse will never die!

I chose "A Dowry of A Single Galleon" because it was dramione (for those who don't know, this is Draco and Hermione's ship name). I personally love the two of them together, as it's a bit of an opposites attract situation. I think there are a lot of creative things that could be done with there relationship.

I say this, and yet I started out with an arranged marriage fic. The description is as follows:

A Marriage Law has been enacted by the Ministry and Purebloods are being forced to choose a Muggle-born spouse. After an untimely meeting in Diagon Alley, Draco Malfoy sets his sights on Hermione Granger. Originally posted to Livejournal in 2004.

Okay so maybe I haven't traversed the dramione fanfiction enough, but I do feel that this maybe isn't the most exciting work to start off with.

Don't get me wrong. I really enjoy a lot of things about this work, but it also has it's drawbacks.

One of my favorite things about this fic was that it wasn't all extremely out of character. Draco was an arrogant little brat and Hermione was strong and brave. That was exactly what I wanted and the author, Bunney, did a great job of giving me that.

I loved that this fic not only took place in parts of the wizarding world that I was familiar with (the Burrow, Diagon Alley, etc.) but also brought me to new parts of the wizarding world that were never particularly discussed in the original books, such as wizarding Paris. It was like I was falling in love with the wizarding world all over again!

In my opinion, there were a lot of aspects of this fic that didn't quite work the way I would have liked, and that made it really difficult for me to get through the story.

For example, I really wish that the author would have focused more on Draco and Hermione getting past the animosity they felt towards each other when they were in Hogwarts. In the first chapter, Hermione nearly slaps Draco and he only seems in the relationship for sex. Then by the third chapter it seems like they are already head over heels in love.

While I totally love the idea of Hermione and Draco having little crushes on each other the whole time they were in Hogwarts, this particular work takes place assuming that Harry defeated Voldemort, just as he had in the original books. I don't think that Hermione would have been so forgiving towards the Malfoy's even though this was four years after Voldemort's death.

This brings me to another part of the story that sort of makes me uncomfortable. It kind of seems like everyone just forgets about blood relations at this point. It seems too soon. The United States is still arguing over race relations even 80-ish years after the Civil Rights Movement. And there was a genocide in the wizarding community! I find it quite unlikely that the wizarding community would just suddenly all be on good terms after just four years.

Okay, now for my final issue with this particular work of fanfiction, which is unrelated to blood status.

While it does say that it is explicit, I was expecting there to be more plot than there actually was. This fanfiction is 21 chapters and is bordering on pwp (porn without plot) status. I was expecting it to have a general theme of sex, but I wasn't expecting it to be nearly as prevalent as it was. Like I said earlier, Draco and Hermione have a really tense relationship, and the fact that the story skipped over that and pretty much got right into the sex kind of bored me.

Overall, I have to say this isn't one of the best fanfictions I have ever read, but it's not the worst either.

I'll give it 3/5 dragon eggs.

Please read it, show the author support and let me know what you think!

Besos!
-Orianna The Queen-