Weekly Fic Discussion

[lachrymosy]

Weekly Fic Discussion

Welcome again to kpop_fic! It's so so exciting to see so many different people joining in this community and sharing fics!

One idea arundels and I also had for this community was to have some regular discussion posts so that people have a chance to chat. So, here is our first Weekly Fic Discussion post!

This post can be used for any kind of fic discussion you want, but will also have a few prompt questions each week. We'll try to target both writers and readers with the prompt questions. You can reply to all of them, one of them, or none of them if you have something else you want to talk about!

Feel free to post WIP snippets, ask others' opinion on characterization, share a clip that has broken your brain, etc.!

This week's prompt questions:

• How did you get into reading/writing K-pop RPF?


• What is your platonic ideal of a K-pop fic (e.g. the elements you usually gravitate towards)?

Comments

[breakfirst]

Oh this sounds fun!

My first foray into kpop rpf started in 2009, when I got into super junior and started writing this super dramatic donghae/OC fic on blogspot. Then around 2010 my irl friends made me write... super junior/shinee/self-insert OCs for our eyes only on lj (elmo fire gif). Nothing deep, we just wanted our favourite kpop boys to be in love with us!! That story is still floating around somewhere but pls don't ask me about it.

So I've been writing since I was a wee child and when I discovered a suju writing comm on lj around 2009 it sort of made sense for me to transition over to rpf. Because I'd always created my own characters, they sort of lacked the depth and personality that real people really had, and because idols to me at the time were like these public personas toeing the line between a fictional character and a real human, it was interesting to see how much of the essence of their personalities and character I could inject into a fictional character while also making sure I wasn't writing about that actual idol's life, the human. I used to be very fixated on exploring the duality of idols but these days it only pops up every now and then lol. Now I just think of my fics as movies where the idols are the actors!

My platonic ideal of a kpop fic: AUs! Because I see my own personal version of the idols I write as completely fictional, I prefer seeing them dropped into fictional settings in other people's work. That being said, if a canon is written well I'll read and love it 100%. I guess my actual ideal is just for fics to be written well, I love a fic that has depth and strong themes and characterisation that is true to the person without being overblown.

[arundels]

Haha writing self-insert OCs with your irl friends sounds like so much fun! I definitely had a lot of silly fic adventures with my friends on locked LJs as a teen... (side note but today's teenagers really need more spaces to be silly kids instead of cyberbullying each other on twitter). There is something very fun about rpf exactly because of what you say, taking hints of what they display and using that to build a character that resembles the idol but is also fundamentally a character you've created to tell your story.

I do really like canon fics because I think it's entirely possible to find that balance in canon, and by and large the good canon writers are under no misconception that they're writing about the "real people" or saying anything about their "real lives". But I also love simply transplanting a package of character traits and neuroses into a totally different setting and playing around what that!

[breakfirst]

Hard agree with today's teens needing their own spaces to goof around and be cringe! It's so important for them to be able to grow into their own people without total strangers or adults telling them their thoughts are cringe... like yes their thoughts ARE cringe (we've all been there!) but time will help them find that out on their own. As much as I like today's soc med it was very much not created with children in mind, urgh.

I like your thoughts on canon fic! The irony of me saying that I'm not overly fond of canon when my latest ficlet was literally canon lol. I suppose that for me, there's like a fine line between fun speculation and intruding in someone's life story? Like if some random idols had an unexpected interaction that could spawn a good canon fic, but stories focused around actual happenings (like tragedies, real relationships that ended, etc) feel like an invasion of privacy to me.

Of course this is all just personal preference and there are some really wonderful canon writers and fics I've read before! LOL I've never had to put this into words before so it's all scrambled in my brain

[arundels]

Yeah agree about modern socmed like part of being a teenager is being cringe and awful lmao they just need spaces where they can do and be that. Spaces where I do not have to perceive them...

You're v right as well about the fine line between what about an idol is 'up for grabs' in an rpf sense and what is 'off-limits'? Being an idol means putting so much of yourself on show that I think sometimes people forget that a line does still exist, but personal tragedies and relationships definitely feel like crossing the line. I feel the same way about putting actual family members into fics - fine if it's "XYZ's mom" but actually naming their siblings etc. feels kinda off!

But then again I've also seen some canon fics deal with extremely heavy real-life tragedies in a way that doesn't feel exploitative? And fiction can be a way for people to process difficult emotions such as grief and it feels equally bad to tell people what they can or can't do as long as no one is getting hurt (i.e. the fics in question aren't being shared with the idols)...

All this to say that my thoughts are also all scrambled in my brain!! As with many things I suspect there is no bright line and everyone will have their own boundaries on what they are/are not willing to engage with, and intention probably also makes a difference, though that's hard to pin down. V interesting to think about though, thank you for bringing it up and giving me all these thoughts!

[lachrymosy]

YUN MY FRIEND I'm so happy to see you here <3 Also dying because I did not know about your Donghae/OC fic or your self-insert OCs hahahaha please send it to me, I WILL ask you about it!

Cries I remember the LJ days so fondly. The heyday of kpop_het, leading directly into the creation of Team P and the dumpster fire that was our infictions project (hey maybe we should post that here!! lololol) are some beautiful fandom memories to me.

"I just think of my fics as movies where the idols are the actors!"—honestly I see this in your fics and I think you handle it so beautifully! The thing is when I read your AUs they always feel, idk, true in some meaningful sense? Always looking forward to more fic from you!