Nocturna Suppressio Review

"Do Kyungsoo likes to dwell on his dreams. He spends hours dreaming, finding them a better place than reality.

But what Kyungsoo fails to realise is that not all good dreams are what they seem to be."  

- Nocturna Suppressio by purpleskies

Nocturna Suppressio was suggested to me by my dear sister. She told me to read it quite a long time ago. The foreword and (maybe) the first chapter was uploaded to Asianfanfics on the 17th of February 2013. The fanfiction has a total of 16 chapters. The author of 'Nocturna Supressio' is Purpleskies. And yes, Purpleskies is her pen name.

'Nocturna Supressio' is a story about a teenage boy struggling with life and constantly finding himself falling asleep multiple times in a day. In his dreams, he seems to always encounter a certain person and gradually befriends him.


The fanfic: http://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/387220/nocturna-suppressio-exo-kai-kyungsoo-kaisoo/18






The story itself starts with Kyungsoo in his dream land. He meets this guy again, a guy (Kai) he almost always sees in his dreams. Kyungsoo falls asleep in such random times of the day, and as time passes by, it becomes even more frequent. After every dream, he finds out more and more about Kai and gradually starts becoming his friend. But the happy place he escapes from reality to changes when dark smoke starts to appear.

I find the story really nice, and creative.

The idea of dreamwalkers is something I rarely (actually never) see in stories, but maybe it's just my lack of knowledge. Kai is a dreamwalker and is stuck in 'dreamland' forever. The only way he can 'wake up' from this nightmare, is to find someone to replace him. Kai chose Kyungsoo.

As time progresses however, Kai realises that Kyungsoo is precious to him and he doesn't want Kyungsoo to suffer the same fate as he did. So in the later chapters, he shows him from up a cliff (in Kyungsoo's dreams of course), millions of lifeless people walking forward. Their faces were emotionless, almost as if their souls had left their bodies. To Kyungsoo's horror, he spots his own body there.

Kai told him he picked Kyungsoo from the bunch of people.

The people there are people who have given up on life and resort to dreams for escape.

Dreamwalkers choose one person, appear in their dreams... and feed on them.





An excerpt:



"Will you tell me now?" Kyungsoo asks, a little anxious at his request. He's hesitant to know yet he wants to. If it will help him sleep at night then he needs to know. 

Luhan nods. "What do you really know about Kai?"

Kyungsoo tries not to let his grip tighten at the edges of the book he's been holding as he answers. "He's a dreamwalker." 

"That's partly true." Luhan says.

"You said he isn't one." 

Luhan gives him a small smile. "Kai refers to himself as a dreamwalker which is sort of true. They walk around people's dreams..."

Kyungsoo looks away as he recalls the amount of times he's walked into his dream.

"And..." The hesitation on Luhan's voice makes Kyungsoo look back at him. "They feed on them."

Kyungsoo stares at Luhan, trying to comprehend what he just said.

"They like the weak." Luhan continues. "They like the ones who give up on life and resort to dreams for an escape."

Me. Kyungsoo starts thinking on all the times he was like this. He is still like this, trying to stay away from reality.

"But a dreamwalker is also known throughout history as an incubus." Luhan takes the book that Kyungsoo has and opens it. Kyungsoo looks at the page he's showing.

"Your nightmare."

The drawing on the page looks like a human. Tall, slender yet well built. But on a closer look, the creature doesn't look human as it stares back at Kyungsoo, grinning with teeth sharp and with eyes blazing red. It's something Kyungsoo is familiar of, something Kyungsoo has heard about but has never once thought is real.

A picture on the bottom of the page shows an incubus hovering over a sleeping person, its long tail curling over the sleeper's neck and its hands stroking the human's cheek.

This... this can't be Kai.

"They try to win you over." Luhan starts, turning another page and Kyungsoo sees an incubus entertaining a human in his dreams. "They show you everything you want to see, take you places you want to go."

Kyungsoo can't breathe as he remembers everything he's been through with Kai,

"They lure you into their world. It's where they have everything. It's where they give you everything."

This isn't true... It can't be.

"These creatures are depicted as demons but they're actually beautiful." Luhan continues. "So beautiful that they seduce you in the end, entice you with their smiles and the way their eyes seem to tempt you in. And when you sleep with them..."

Kyungsoo looks at Luhan.

"They feed on your body."

Kyungsoo laughs nervously. "That... That can't be true. You're making things up. I mean Kai isn't... isn't..."

"Isn't one?" Luhan asks. "Then who or what is he if you don't think he's one?"

Just... Kai. Kyungsoo answers in his head. 

"What... what happens if you meet... a dreamwalker?" Kyungsoo dares to ask, avoiding the real name Kai is branded with.

"Like I said, they show you everything. They show you how dreams are better than reality." Luhan answers as he closes the book. "It's true. Dreams are better than what we live in right now. But living in your dreams is dangerous. Your dreams are a very dangerous place."

Kyungsoo balls his hands into fists, trying not to show Luhan how they're shaking.

"An incubus dwells in the dream world and looks for their prey."

Kai can't be one...

"And when they do, they latch on to them like a leech."

Kai annoying him all the time, staying with him in every dream he has.

"And once they have a hold on you, once they're sure they've managed to convince you of staying forever," Luhan says. "They suck the life out of you."

The bags under his eyes. Kyungsoo losing weight. Kyungsoo's transluscent skin. His eyesight.

"They keep you in the dream world."

No, Kyungsoo chokes on the thick air of denial and truth surrounding him as he stumbles back. "That's not true."

"It is." Luhan says, walking towards him but Kyungsoo backs away, staggering from the weight of Luhan's words. "And it shows in your eyes. I can see it."

No, Kyungsoo thinks.  He refuses to believe any of this.

"I saw it in the library the day we met. Your eyes looked different." Luhan stares at him. "And it's getting worse now, isn't it?"



Luhan is someone who experienced this before. His story is explained in the prequel called 'Nightfall'. http://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/817917/nightfall-hunhan



Overall, 'Nocturna Suppressio' is an intriguing, mysterious, and addictive fanfiction that will keep you guessing for hours and make you make the time to read the entire thing.


It's worth a read!


So,


do read it! 

48 Hours

'After 48 hours, only one boy will be alive in this house.'

'48 Hours' is one of the many famous fanfiction in the EXO fandom. It's quite a sadistic story... a very tragic sadistic story. The setting takes place in LA, and Chinese-Canadian member Kris, is the main character. Basically, the twelve members of EXO are trapped inside an enormous house(?) mansion(?) and if there is more than one person alive in the house after 48 hours, all of them will die.

This fanfiction was written in Chinese by a Chinese fan: http://tieba.baidu.com/p/1820645117?see_lz=1

This was then translated to many other different languages. This is the link for the English one: http://lukais.livejournal.com/296.html



In a personal point of view, after reading '48 Hours', my mind was flooded to the brim with information and questions. That night, I woke up multiple times with answers to my own questions about the fanfiction. '48 Hours' generated a lot of questions to the EXO fandom, and you have to read it to know why it confused readers so much. Because of this, many, many, fans decided to share their own opinions about the story. However, the most believed analysis was by a Chinese fan. (http://tieba.baidu.com/p/1872659934?see_lz=1)

This was also translated. (http://chanxun.livejournal.com/738.html)


A snippet:

Question 1

Do you think Xiumin and Chen really died from the start of the game?

1. Xiumin and Chen should have really died from the start.

At first, they were planning to fake their deaths to scare and increase the tension. However, unexpectedly, Xiumin really died. Upon seeing that Xiumin really died, Chen’s world broke down and crumbled to bits. This was because in his heart, this was all just a surprise party, and nothing could have gone wrong; let alone death! Hence, that was why Chen desperately when to try out the pin number lock on the door despite the warnings from his members! In fact, this surprise party had long been swapped and turned into a game of murder. The initially harmless ‘knife’ in the bronze ring around their necks took Chen’s life after he used up all his chances on the door lock. Therefore, right from the beginning, the only two people who knew about the entire setup had been silenced forever.

“Murder at its highest realm, would be using the hands of the dead to kill the living, and again using the living to kill the other living people, because no matter what, the first person to die would never be able to reveal the truth.”

The author had stated very clearly that Xiumin and Chen had already died right from the start! This was because the only two people who knew about the entire setup had been killed from the beginning! Also, as the surprise party was planned by only Xiumin and Chen, it would then be described as “using the hands of the dead to kill the living”.
Moreover, I think that Chen and Xiumin’s disappearances near the closure of the story were also manipulated by a mastermind. If Xiumin and Chen were to be found dead, people would start to suspect that this surprise party was swapped to become a murder game! However, Xiumin’s and Chen’s fates were never revealed; their corpses never seen.
Like this, the surprise party can be said to be the reason that led to the killings amongst the members due to their misconceptions about Xiumin’s and Chen’s deaths!
Hence, even if Xiumin and Chen weren’t dead, they’d still disappear.

Question 2
What did Junmyeon hear when he went downstairs to check out the mirror and what was he trying to tell Kai before his death?

2. What Junmyeon was trying to say was probably, “There are noises in the basement”.

“The thing was that no one knew that Junmyeon, who had been killed with the mirror shard, perhaps might have said in a hoarse voice, “There are noises in the basement.”

Question 3
Why did Baekhyun drew on eyeliner in the middle of the night?

3. This was because the eyeliner was a gift from Jongin; he had reckoned that he wouldn’t have a chance to put it on in the future if he didn’t put it on then.

“Jongin passed a long, intricate box to Baekhyun. Upon opening the box, Baekhyun held up the eyeliner and smiled widely, jumping up to hug Jongin.”

Here it states that the eyeliner was a gift from Jongin to Baekhyun.

“Baekhyun was peculiar wasn’t he; applying the eyeliner that Kim Jongin had given him right in the middle of the night. Are you claiming it’s peculiar only because the first hander, Kris, felt that way?

To the people who found this reaction odd and strange, after getting involved in all the mutual suspicions in the villa, would you behave like Kris, who walked out of the toilet silently even when he knew that Baekhyun was going to die? You are wrong; he precisely was the easiest and stupidest person in the game, stupid to the extent whereby he put friendship before the rules of the game.

He’s a person who would give away his company’s trade secrets the moment an old friend pats his shoulder casually to ask for it. Even if the entire company thinks that he’s a spy, even if the entire world thinks that he had been bribed to give away the trade secret, he’ll think that the only negative impact of giving away that company secret would be that he’ll lose his job in a month.” 

We can tell from the author’s words that Baekhyun was purely just putting on eyeliner without any intent or motive. Baekhyun did not deliberately plan anything and neither did he predict for anything to happen. He was simply using the eyeliner that Jongin gifted him with…

SPOILER:

if that wasn't too clear

Two of the many fanmade trailers:










and a longer, more detailed (but Chinese) version:








That is all for today's post! By the way, I added a Blogroll to the blog. The blogs are of some famous kpop fanfiction. Do check them out!


Bye bye!

How to write Kpop Fanfiction

Today's post will be about:

How to write Kpop Fanfiction

As I said in my second post, fanfiction means fiction stories about a particular subject/interest that are written/typed for a fan's entertainment. Therefore, fanfictions are basically stories. 

I'm sure you guys know how to write stories, right? Basically you just have to have a beginning, a middle, and an ending. Kpop fanfiction is no different. What makes most Kpop Fanfiction unique, however, is that they include puns, jokes, and words that only a particular fandom knows. Some fanfiction also include a few simple korean words that every Kpop fan is expected to already know the meaning of.

'General' simple Korean Words

- 'Oppa' : A term used by girls in Korea to call guys older than them

- 'Noona' : A term used by guys in Korea to call girls older than them

- 'Hyung' : A term used by guys in Korea to call guys older than them

- 'Eonni/Unnie' : A term used by girls in Korea to call girls older than them

- 'Tteokbokki' : A common street dish in Korea. Spicy rice cakes

- 'Seonbaenim/Sunbaenim' : Senior (Koreans call their seniors this)

- 'Seongsaengnim' : Teacher

- 'Eomma/Eomeoni' : Mother

- 'Appa/Abeoji' : Father

- 'Halmeoni' : Grandmother

- 'Omo/Aigoo/Aish' : Oh my gosh, oops, used when annoyed

However, excessive usage of these words tend to annoy most readers. So be careful.

Other than that, as I mentioned before, each fandom has their own jokes, puns, and words. For example, in the EXO fandom:

'Roll like a buffalo'

'Chicken'

'Dyodoro'

BTS Fandom:

'Awwww yeahh'

'Sassy maknae' 

These may seem weird for people who are not in EXO's or BTS' fandom, but are perfectly normal/funny for those who are. 

Some other things to be careful about (besides excessive usage of the korean words) are (like most stories) clichés, and fanfiction that are like play scripts ...

These play-script-like fanfiction again, tend to annoy readers with their stage directing. That plus excessive korean words and a cliché, oho no. (Paraphrase: http://www.theoneshots.com/2014/04/six-types-of-terrible-k-pop-fanfiction/)

I quote an example:

Excerpt:

“insert your name here” : What do you mean, Oppa?! I love you! Don’t you understand?!?!

Oppa: I don’t know what to do “insert your name here.” This is so hard.

“insert your name here”: I left the f*****g country for you, I left my home, my family, my friends …  just so we can be TOGETHER!

(crying)

Oppa: I know …  I know. Im sorry.

(next day)

“insert your name here” : I love you, Oppa.

Oppa: I love you, too, “insert your name here”

The end.

Citation: "Six types of Terrible K-pop Fanfiction." theoneshots. Web. 

Now, you know how to write Kpop Fanfiction.

Go write one now!