What Exactly is Wrong With Being a Fangirl?

Three years ago, I wrote a post titled "How to Stop Being a Fangirl." That ended up being one of my most-read posts with an audience from all over the world. It seems that a lot of people like me wanted to get rid of the curse that is this fangirl lifestyle. Why- I wonder. Why did I write that post and why did all these people read it? Why do we wanna stop being fangirls so badly? What exactly is wrong with being a fangirl? Quarantined in our houses in the midst of a global pandemic, now seems to be the perfect time to reflect and resonate.

When I wrote my guide to stop being a fangirl, I definitely did it because being a fangirl cost me a lot of time and I wanted to channel that energy and time into something more productive and dignified. Productive and Dignified. Now, let's break that down one by one.

I wanted to be productive. This implies that I wasn't being productive while I was a fangirling. When I was a fangirl, I met tons of people both online and offline. Those fangirls and I, we didn't just cry over the latest episode or our favorite ship, we talked about our daily life, our dreams, and our worries. We comforted, inspired, and motivated each other. I wasn't able to communicate with my family or my classmates, but because of those people, I was still able to remain a social animal. I received quite a lot of praise and awards for my writings in my later years of high school, but it was thanks to the long hours I spent reading and writing fanfic that I was able to acquire such skill. It was the fangirl in me that discovered the writer in me. It was also the fangirl in me that discovered the artist and art lover in me. I spent hours being enamored by the fanarts of my favorite artists and even longer hours trying to draw my faves to express my love. It was the fangirl in me that also discovered the filmmaker in me, the critical thinker in me, the debator in me, the creator in me, the infinite different versions of me.

When I think back, all the time I was fangirling, I was planting the seeds for today's me. I was opening new doors of potentials each day. I was being productive. But the problem is that I thought I wasn't. The problem is that I BELIEVED that I was undignified for being a fangirl. I was ashamed and guilty. Why?

Society taught me so. It told me nothing useful comes out of passionately loving fictional characters or boy bands. It constantly reminded me that my passion and energy are funny and often, ludicrous. That it was okay to make fun of the fanfic and fanart we spend weeks and months to create. It was okay to laugh at and look down at a bunch of "crazy" "odd" girls being happy and creative.

All these years, I've heard their comments and I've accepted them as facts but no more. I've seen the underlying sexism that pushed such narratives and I'm done tolerating it. Guys are never looked down upon or laughed at for being passionate about a sport or a film or, anything. It's always the girls who're odd and hysteric and childish for being passionate. It's not shameful for me to be passionate about playing an instrument or studies or sports but it's shameful to take joy in watching a boy/girl group perform or drawing a fanart? It's okay for me to like a TV show but not okay for me to use my creative skills to write stories about the TV show? Who came up with such a guidebook and why do I have to follow it? Enough is enough. It doesn't matter if I lose interest in a certain celebrity or a TV show or an anime three months or three years later. I'm not going to let society dictate what I'm allowed to or not allowed to enjoy. Or how strongly I'm allowed to love or how creatively I can show my interest.

So much for equality and female empowerment! Society can continue act like a hypocrite but I'm no longer letting their hypocrisy confine me. I'm being a fangirl and I'm being me for as long and as much as I want to be.

Hello There~

Hello, not sure if anyone's going to read this but I wanted to write this as I've documented many parts of my life here and I want to continue that tradition.

So many things have happened in the past few months yet, sometimes it feels like barely anything happened at all. I'm back to school. Even a few weeks ago I couldn't picture myself in a classroom but here I am now in a crowd of strangers for hours in a week.

Do I want to change? I've battled this question fruitlessly and tirelessly for a so long that at some point I think I decided to push it away and pretend that I don't see it lingering in the corner of my mind. Today I bring it up again because going back to school made me realize how little I've changed as a person. To change into a different version of me is an incredibly difficult process- I realize this more and more each day as I try to alter the current version of me to fit an image that I think I and others around me may like better. But to change means to abandon the persona I've been carrying for all these years. The persona that has been so kind to me, so considerate of me, and did her best to make sure this heart is safe and secure. My current identity is something I actually quite like, so to change in my eyes seems as though forgetting who I am and pretending to be someone I'm not. Though, as I grow older, it seems almost necessary to live as someone I'm not in order to have a "successful and normal life."

Anyway, more than two years ago I wrote a post on how to stop being a fangirl and if you've read any of the posts from the past two years, you know I didn't go through that plan of being a "regular" girl. However, I have made the decision to unstan my ult group and tbh I'm not very upset about that. I feel less guilty and more liberated now that I've detached myself officially. I still like Park Jinyoung a lot and support some other artists in the group but officially unstanning the group took away the sense of pressure to always support them or be up to date with all of their activities. I'm happy with the way things are now.

I've read many good manhwa/webcomics in the meanwhile. Some of my most favorite series are coming to an end or have recently ended and I'm still not over them. These comics were there for me, they comforted me, they made me smile for the past few years at times when I, myself, couldn't take care of me. To have them just eliminated at this stage of my life, it's a little difficult to adjust. I'm now desperately reading new series to find something that can replace them and help me survive life the way they did. So far, the success rate is quite low.

What else? I've gone out way more than usual in the past two months. Been talking to friends and family more often than before. I'm proud of myself for surviving this summer. Kind of want to make a post about some of the newer manhwas that I've read in the past one and a half years and didn't mention here before. Let's see how that goes. Stay well until then! 

To Be, or Not To Be

This is not a life update, not entirely. I'm still stuck in a pool of quandary, so I have nothing new to tell you about my life. However, lately, I've been thinking about something and I wanted to share it here as this is the platform where I unleash my thoughts that I'm otherwise unable or unwilling to share elsewhere.

I've been thinking about quitting writing. It's been months I haven't been able to write. I have multiple stories, all laid out and formed neatly in my head but I can't for the sake of my like put it into words. After a few sentences, I can't move on with the story. And this has never happened before. If you read my early posts, you'll notice how flawed my English skills were. However, I could write with much more confidence and determination back then than I can now. I didn't post it here but I published a lot of writing on wattpad and on other mediums back then. What I'm trying to say is that now I no longer have the confidence and the sheer pressure to choose the most descriptive and eloquent word makes my hand quiver and heart shatter. I can't find the right word to describe the scenario in my head. I try switching to a different language that I'm proficient in but it doesn't help either. In all languages, I'm lacking. There are people who are way less "smart" than me but when I compare my choice of words and my word flow to theirs, I feel incredibly worthless. I feel like my writing hasn't improved and if anything, it's gotten worse. I can't use imagery or comedy or other rhetoric devices. My writing is more bland and uninteresting than steamed green beans.

This inability to write has led to me crying and feeling miserable numerous times. It's also brought up the question of why I write. Why am I so keen on continuing writing? Is it truly because I enjoy it and writing helps me relieve my stress? Or is it because I've used writing as a coping mechanism before, believing it to be an integral part of me and now I'm afraid to let it go? Am I afraid that I will lose that part of me and change as a person if I don't write? Am I afraid of what will become of me if I quit writing? Do I really have a talent for writing or it was pure luck the few times people praised my writing? Can I display the same skills and impact my readers with my fantasy or other genres of writings the same way I can with my personal narratives? Should I continue pursuing writing when words refuse to comply with my ideas? Is it worth feeling so miserable for something that I can survive, without?

So many questions. Not a single confident answer. I don't know what to do or where to go from here.
Until I can assuredly make a decision about my life or my writing future, I hope you all stay well. 

박진영: My Love

I've been thinking about posting something on this blog but I couldn't decide what I should post. I didn't finish the old short stories I'd been writing and couldn't come up with new ideas that I genuinely liked and felt passionate about either. I've only been able to write fanfic recently. So I decided I'd talk about a human who has become quite significant in my life recently.

His name is Park Jin Young- an actor, singer, dancer, rapper, songwriter, and choreographer. He blew into my life last summer like an unexpected windy storm. I had taken a liking in him after the first glance, even before I knew his name or what his personality was like. Nowadays, a part of me enjoys thinking it was my fate. Perhaps he was meant to be the man who'd guide my life's choices, for the time being.

I say for the time because I know I'll eventually fall out of love with him. I always get over things no matter how intensely I'd felt for something before. However, at this moment, I want to cherish the moments so that two, three, eight years later I can look back and smile fondly at the good memories.

He has an enticing personality that easily attracts people. Like all other human beings, he has his flaws. However, he has much more admirable traits than lousy ones so naturally, I couldn't help but be enamored. The more I learned about his respectable thoughts about life and certain aspects of it, my feelings deepened. I'm at a vulnerable point in my life where albeit I appreciate myself, I also can't be confident in my self and in the way I think. He thinks sensibly and maturely which helped me on multiple occasions to make a wise decision.

He's a hard-working man who's committed to his goal. Even though he's become so successful and there's more to come in future, he also faces many vacillations and he isn't ashamed of it. He and I have a lot of similarities in our preferences, however, he also has some characteristics that I lack and wish to have. This is why I admire him immensely and look up to him.

Just by being himself and living his life, he inspires me to be better and live better every day and I'm so grateful to have such a positive influencer in my life at a time when I really needed someone to stand by me, comforting and supporting me as I took steps towards my future.

He also has a great taste in literature lol.

A Spark of Randomness

Currently, it is past midnight as I type this in my room with the lights turned off and my parents thinking I'm long gone in sleep. I have some half-finished short stories on my draft of this blog that I will be posting soon, promise. In the meantime, I want to talk about all the short stories and novels (none finished) I wrote so far. Honestly, I don't even remember how many short stories and one-shots I wrote. It's a lot. However, I do remember the novels I started writing and never finished. I'll list them in chronological order, from the earliest to the latest:

1) Courage: about a girl who is super ordinary but later becomes extraordinary through her choices and actions. I posted first couple chapters of it here and I have more written but I felt like it was becoming too cheesy so I never finished it.

2) You're My Favorite Hater: a spiritual and romantic journey of the lives of two people. I published nineteen chapters on wattpad but then unpublished it in 2016 with my other works because I lost interest in this genre.

*lol I fell asleep in the middle of writing this ( >.< )
*I'm writing the rest three days later. So much for productivity ha ha

3) Perks of Being a Human: I co-authored it with one of my friends in 2015. It was about a girl who lives to collect rocks and observe people and throughout the novel, she talks about the people around her and their lives. She doesn't know much about herself but through her narration, the readers can learn a lot about her. We wrote 1.5 chapters and then never got enough opportunity to finish it.

4) Mr. Watson, His Family, and The Mystery Man: Probably the only novel which I felt so strongly about and still do. I still like the basic plot of the story and plan to finish it someday but there's probably gonna be a lot of changes. You can find an old summary of it on this blog.

I can't remember any more at this moment Idk why. I'll update this list once I remember the other ones or begin writing new ones. Thank you for investing your time and energy after this absolutely pointless post :)

Bottles of Happy

One day, a hawker came to a village with a basket full of bottles. "What do you have in those bottles?" asked a man.

"These are bottles of happy. If you drink one, you will become happy."

The villagers were excited to hear this; they started fighting each other to buy the bottles of happy. A young boy tried to go to the hawker but the crowd pushed him away. Sadly, he stood in a corner and waited until everyone has finished for his turn. Soon, the villagers were all happy with their bottles. The young boy went to the hawker, "I want to buy a bottle of happy too."

"Oh, poor child! I have no more." said the hawker.

The boy went to a man who was walking home with arms full of bottles. "Can you give me one bottle of happy?" "No. These are my bottles of happy. I need them to be happy." He asked another man, then another. "Go away! I can't give you my bottle of happy!" they all turned him away.

The boy went home, crying. From that day, he taught himself to be happy without a bottle of happy.

Months later, the villagers ran out of happy. All of the bottles were empty. "What do we do now?" The searched everywhere for that hawker to buy bottles of happy from him, but they couldn't find him. Then they saw the young boy living happily in his small house. They ran to him, "Can you give us a little bit from your bottle of happy?" they asked.

"But I don't have a bottle of happy." answered the boy.

"Then how can you be so happy?"

"I have grown this happy by myself. It is endless. I can share it with you."

The villagers thanked the boy for sharing his happy and went back home. Soon, they all learned how to feel happy from inside themselves. Then they all lived happily ever after and never bought a bottle of happy again. 

A Perfect City

A long time ago- and yet perhaps it wasn't such a very long time ago-

There was a city, so full of shopping malls and amusement parks and restaurants and cinemas that there was nothing else the citizens could ask for. There were cars with the fastest speed and no traffics. Schools with the best teachers and no failures. Laws with the best police and no criminals. Everything was in that in that city yet, the citizens were not happy.

The mayor of the city announced a huge prize for anyone who can cure the sorrow of the citizens, "Make my people happy" he said. And so everyone rushed to find the cure. Scientists invented new machines. Doctors created new medicines. Companies offered new video games. Still, there was no happiness.

A wise man came forth, "Perhaps we should change it back to how things were: green and natural."
"You're crazy!" they laughed. "We can't become cavemen again!" and so trees were cut and malls were built. Skyscrapers so tall and large that it could brighten up places miles away with its lights. Still, the citizens were unhappy.

They ran to their mayor, "Please, help!" they pleaded. The mayor gathered all the big and important people, "I will double the reward. Make my people happy." And so everyone rushed again. They searched every store and every house, hoping for something, anything that can bring happiness to their lives. Finally, they arrived at a hut next to an ancient pine tree.

"This is so ugly," said one kid.

"This doesn't belong in our beautiful, perfect city."
They tore the hut apart and proceeded to cut the tree.

"Don't!" the old lady of the hut cried, "this is the last tree standing."

They did not listen. Instead, they hired more labors and bought better machines to cut the tree. They worked for hours, days, and weeks. Finally, the tree was cut and it was a vacant land. "We'll come back tomorrow build a new cinema here, then our city will be perfect." The citizens went back home.

But for them, tomorrow never came; that night the ancient pine tree rose again. With a sore heart, it called all the other trees that were dead and buried under the tall buildings. They all awoke and recalled their past.
"I protected them from disaster, but they hurt me." said one young and broken tree.

 "I gave them wood and food, but they cut me down." said another.

 "Let's get revenge!" the trees grew again to take back what was originally their. They let their roots pierce through the streets and their branches spread into the buildings. One by one, the buildings began to fall. The cars and the toys and the books were all crumpled under the ruins.

At last, the city was green and happy and perfect. Alas! there was not a soul alive to enjoy it.