alien affairs // jjk X reader

update (not new chapter)

June 1, 2023

It has been well over 3 years since I have touched this fic and over a year since I've updated it. Up until the previous chapter, this fic had been updated with drafts of things I have written in 2019 that I have been slowly uploading since 2021.

Alien Affairs started as a dare, in all honesty. 3 friends, my continuous complaining and a tumblr prompt in 2018 is what really caused me to bear fruit to this idea. A year later I started writing a rough draft and 2 years later, I uploaded my first chapter.

All of this is to say: I never expected this.

I think a lot of writers say this to the point that it has become a cliche in author's notes, but this was supposed to be a dare with a few people reading it. Maybe a couple of comments to make sure I wasn't discouraged to stop uploading. It was only when I saw a tiktok that mentioned this fic by name on my "for you" page that I realized how out of hand this thing had gotten. 

I am thankful, really, that the people here enjoyed my writing from my early teen years. It shocks me that something people valued came into fruition from my numerous complaints to my friends that something in these fics were missing.

Over my hiatus, I was able to dabble in reading different genres of fanfiction. Spanning beyond romance and "crack," I found what I was so desperately wanting to read in the BTS fics that I never could find. Moving across fandoms and even dabbling in published literature, I found peace in the words of others that took me so long to attempt to formulate myself.

I guess this all boils down to the question of whether or not I will continue writing. Which, originally, I was going to say no. But I realized, I would be lying. Even in the midst of my hiatus, I've been writing in multiple fandoms across other platforms under different alias'. I write BTS too... sometimes. 

So, I would be inherently lying if I reply with that I would give up writing as a whole. But continuing this story... that is an completely different question.

I looked through my files from 3 years ago where I had originally mapped out this story. I cringed, laughed and was shocked at how much and how little I knew of the world at the time and the ways it reflected into my writing. I was lacking and insufficient in so many ways -and considering the sheer depth of the emotions I wanted to portray in this fic, I still am.

Yet there are gems such as this:

" He realized now; there was nothing in this world more painful than loss. Failure can be righted, fear could be overcome, hate could be diluted... but loss... that was an unending nightmare. An end to a sweet dream."

And these gems make it difficult for me abandon this fic. Not to mention that there is an embarrassing sense of responsibility I feel to finish or at least end this story. 

So, I will leave it up to the readers, if there are any:

1) End this story. End it cleanly in one chapter.

2) Just share the story mapping notes.

3) Rewrite/Finish this story as 2023 Minhee

4) Abandon this fic.

Number 1 would take around 2 weeks as I would need to find time to map an ending that ties all the loose ends to this story. The writing (hopefully) would be very different from the first chapter (it has been around 4 years since I wrote it afterall), so it's understandable if readers are uncomfortable with the stark contrast in style.

Number 2 takes around a day. Probably even less. I just have to copy and paste the relevant notes.

Number 3 would take much longer. Not only would I have to remap the whole story to fix loose ends, but I would also stray away from my original notes. Truth be told, I've found what I like to write and how to write it. I've found a worldview that most my stories seem to follow and one of them is that war and loss... is indescribable. If I rewrite this fic, the war aspects would be much darker. I am always one for dark humor so it would still be "funny," but I won't be able to treat death, war and torture as something that isn't deeply traumatic and horrific I (ashamedly) described in the original drafts. And if I was to rewrite this whole fics, it could take up to an year. I wouldn't delete the original chapters but I would publish it as a new fic with the same name and similar background/storyline. This would, of course, have a more consistent style but I'm not sure if it's a project I am willing or even able to undertake.

Number 4 is pretty self-explanatory.

But beyond all of this: thank you. Thank you to everyone who had loved this fic for and despite its flaws. I am humbled and wildly amazed by the love I've recieved.

Thank you.