eninne

[eninne]

When a multi chapter fanfic hasn't been updated in the past 2 years but the author is still active

[eninne]

[looks for you in everything] [finds you there]

[eninne]

Growing up is actually all about realizing people don’t inherently dislike you and it’s a bit odd to assume they do

[eninne]

i care btw. i care abt the song ur listening to or the bug u saw or how u just got outta the shower or how ur happily hanging out w ur friends or how ur kinda sad or how good was the meal u just had or ur fav character from an indie game nobody knows or if u chugged down some water. i always will

[eninne]

sieun is one of the most realistic portrayals of trauma i’ve seen in a k-drama(coming from someone who came from almost the same background. ofc minus the part where he stabs but the lashing out is something I struggled with as well). it’s honestly frustrating how some people reduce his complexity to something as shallow as “he’s just mad because his parents divorced.” not only is it incorrect but it’s proof they didn’t really pay attention to his character. his pain runs much deeper than that. it's ironic how one talks about trauma yet shows such shallow understanding of it. come on, i thought it's obvious that traumas can't be compared and that it shouldn't ever be invalidated.

yeon sieun appears cold, distant, and angry, but these traits are rooted in deep emotional pain. his quiet rage and closed off personality are not random. they come from growing up in a home where he felt unwanted, pressured, and emotionally neglected. he didn’t become like this overnight. ever since the night he heard his parents fight over the realization that it's such a pain to raise him, he viewed himself as nothing but burdensome to them. in that fight, his parents expressed frustration over how hard it was to raise sieun because he was often sick. his parents, particularly his father, embody a dangerously naive view of parenthood. the father’s frustration voiced in that pivotal childhood argument sieun overhears reveals a man who believed raising a child would be effortless, that children simply “grow up” without needing emotional labor, patience, or sacrifice. this moment is a turning point for sieun. hearing that his father regrets the difficulty of raising him because of his sickly condition plants the seed of self-blame. he internalizes the idea that his very existence is a burden.

this is why sieun tries so hard to be perfect. he wants to be a good son and a straight a student. it’s his way of trying not to be a burden anymore. he believes that if he makes one mistake, he’ll lose whatever little approval he gets from his parents (tho in the series, we see his current self being at a point where he is slowly exploding from all the pent up frustrations and emotions that he's so ready to release it with a jab of pen to whoever tries to trouble him but we're talking about what made sieun the sieun we know in whc1). this pressure makes him hide his feelings and needs, which only made him feel more alone.

his mother, on the other hand, is a public figure who thrives on the image of being a successful educator and parent. she brags about sieun’s academic excellence, using him as a trophy to validate her own persona(you can see this in whc2. glad she let sieun be when he said he didn't wanna go abroad to study. bet her conscience and guilt caught up with her). but behind closed doors, she fails to see the emotional toll this pressure takes on him. her pride in his achievements is conditional to sieun. it's not about who he is, but what he can prove. this leaves him feeling unseen and unheard. that’s why he suppresses his needs, his emotions, and even his pain. he doesn’t want to be “too much” for anyone. his straight a grades and stoic personality are armor, forged from the belief that love must be earned through performance.

sieun’s anger isn’t always loud or explosive. it’s a quiet, simmering rage born from years of internalized pain. he’s not angry at the world in a general sense. he’s angry at the unfairness of being forced to grow up too fast, to carry the emotional weight of his parents’ immaturity and ignorance, and to constantly perform perfection just to be tolerated. his cold, calculating demeanor is a defense mechanism. he’s learned that vulnerability only leads to disappointment or rejection, so he builds walls instead of bridges. this emotional repression manifests in his interactions with others. he’s slow to trust, quick to retreat, and often lashes out when cornered as he doesn't know how to regulate and he has reached the point where he's just gonna get back at someone who troubles him big time. bro has no one to rely on but himself. plus, he's terrified to be vulnerable much alone be seen as one. he's just fed up with everything.

despite all this, sieun still longs for genuine connection. his friendship with suho shows a glimpse of how much he wants to be accepted for who he really is, not for what he can achieve. it’s one of the few times he lets his guard down and begins to feel safe. that relationship is a small but important step towards slowly accepting affection from outside.

I feel like One is a more realistic version of Weak Hero, with the longer, uglier fights and the ML whose motivation is self-serving and grounded to his own trauma.

Not that it necessarily makes for a better cinema, but one has to appreciate the effort.

[eninne]

the wrong people in this world are unlearning shame

[eninne]

when you just finished one of the most beautiful fics ever written and you see that the author has a masterlist full of other fics

[eninne]

one thing about ptj's writing that always leaves a bad taste in my mouth is sometimes i feel he doesn't completely grasp the issues of abuse and sexual trauma, mostly and majorly for the female characters, but the male characters too.

take for example mira getting sexually assaulted by the cult leader and camp instructor, zoe's transaction with logan, club vivi, vin'mom being raped and killed by the shaman, sujin being abused and preyed upon and sexually assaulted before getting beaten to death by taejin... ALL of this feels so catatonic, almost unnecessary in its cruelty. this is a horrible world no doubt. but whatever he inflicts to his female characters seems to be done purely for the sake of shock value, almost like an indelible grief or hurt or helplessness a MALE character has to overcome in his path to nirvana. it is never shown what the woman feels about her own violation, no impact of it can be seen on her own life before she dies or simply forgets and moves on (kinda telling of the author's attitude towards how victims ought to react...).

then lets talk about the male victims. daniel gets stalked, goo and gun and eli were all minors who trained under a man who unironically touches people's genitals and brags about doing so, olly gets raped, eli gets groomed (i will not argue here about this one), sinu is shown naked often with the woman who brainwashed him. not mentioned in the comic but should be pondered upon is the fact that jake and jiho were in juvenile prison, a place with alarmingly high rates of sex crimes. dg is an idol who deals with invasive fans (sasaengs in real life are legitimately terrifying). seongji and vin were the ritual vessels for a cult. but this aspect of their trauma gets completely brushed under the rug, as if even alluding to it would take away from their strength and uhhh, masculine nature.

much to be thought about his treatment of his own characters...