actor who can't hide how he feels... [cracks knuckles] thank you for giving me an excuse to yap about comfyliar because man i've been having so many thoughts lately. as usual but esp abt wb's inner monologue and [gestures vaguely] comfyliar sungchan in general

i'm not sure if people have caught onto this (i really hope they did...) but wonbin is quite a bit of an unreliable narrator. the entirety of comfyliar i was leaning into his inner monologue very heavily, it's why there are breaks in narration (switching from 3rd person to 1st person often, sometimes 2nd person) and why there is sometimes informal writing (gonna, wanna, stuff like that). i was trying to make it seem like it was actually wonbin's real time thought process as everything was happening around him, which is why there are so many asides and parenthesis in comfyliar too! we often remember really random things in the middle of random tasks or events, so i added them as both world/narrative building AND to make it a realistic train of thought.

all of this is to say that it is intentionally sort of made to be read as like. "wonbin is the worst person in the world" throughout most of it. because that is how WONBIN thinks of himself. when wonbin describes his relationship towards tiffany and hierophant, he never mentions the times he's gone out of his way to protect them both verbally and physically when needed because he doesn't think it's that big of a deal. it's tiffany who reveals that he's protected them like that before. wonbin questions how much hierophant actually like him and their loyalty towards him because he thinks of himself as a martyr of sorts, as the most unlikable, selfish and horrible person alive. tiffany reveals that they would drop everything for him in a heartbeat. this is not to say that wonbin doesn't do things that are genuinely selfish and unlikable, but it IS to say that wonbin is not a bad person and no one in his life thinks of him as one. they get frustrated and angry with him (cough cough room 403...) but they have never thought of him as a bad person. he protects the ones he loves, he goes out of his way for them, he sacrifices so much for them. his mother has never been good or kind to him, and he decided to put his desires on the backburner for her anyway, because he deems her as more important. he does not like her, but he does love her and because he does, he will do anything for her.

i don't think anyone has caught this little detail quite just yet but it's important so. undoubtedly wonbin is in the wrong for room 403, but. when tiffany reveals that hierophant are going on tour in asia, wonbin's FIRST thought is "How long does it even take for them to get to China? How many miles is it? How long would it take for him to go home if Sungchan needed him?"

guys. sungchan did drop everything for him to fly to japan, yes, but the thing is. wonbin would have done the exact same thing. if sungchan had a medical emergency, if he was in trouble, if he did nothing but call wonbin and say "i need you" the exact same way wonbin did to sungchan, wonbin would have dropped every single thing to go to new york. fuck the tour. sungchan is more important. sungchan is THE most important thing.

speaking of sungchan - one of the very first major narrative decisions i had to make was to decide between whether i should write sungchan or wonbin's pov, but i ultimately decided to go with wonbin's because i liked the music/song motif better than a film one (i am huge on music and not so much on film, anyway). if i had written sungchan's pov, he would also be just as much of an unreliable narrator. he wouldn't have been seen or written of so tenderly as he was in wonbin's pov, because sungchan is insecure. he appears confident, and most of the time he genuinely is, but there are many, many cracks in his facade and if it was from his perspective, he would have been cracked wide open, and ultimately, i would have written of wonbin in a very tender and soft way. sungchan loves wonbin because he's a fighter, because he's extremely passionate about music and songwriting, because he does not believe in himself so sungchan will do it for him. i'm aware that it's almost hard to believe why sungchan would love wonbin and fight for him so much in comfyliar, but that's the thing. wonbin doesn't know why sungchan loves him either.

i've said this before, but it's also why i associate "touching yourself" by the japanese house SO heavily with the bus scene because it is SO sungchan's perspective in that scene. "know i shouldn't need it but i want affection / know i shouldn't want it but i need attention / know i shouldn't say it but i had to mention / it makes me wanna die, every time i have to / picture your face / i wanna touch you, but you're too far away / and when you call me, i'm all over the place now / you think it's different, but it's always the same / i wanna touch you, but." sungchan wasn't planning on taking the phonecall in a sexual direction, but it ended up that way because he was just as terrified of being honest about his feelings for wonbin as wonbin was for him. he didn't have the courage to say "i'm in love with you," but he had enough to say "i love your eyes, your lips, your wrists." there were multiple times he was trying to nudge wonbin to say that he's in love with him ("are you in love with me, maybe?" (some of the very first pieces of dialogue in the entire thing) / "i already know you’re in love with me") so that wonbin could take the burden off HIS shoulders, so he wouldn't have to muster up the courage to say it first. even in room 403, sungchan didn't say he was in love with wonbin, he said wonbin was in love with HIM. yes, yes, most of the reason why it took them so long to (officially) get together is because of wonbin and his mother, but. getting together is a two way street. sungchan had five years worth of oppportunities to say "be mine." he never did until they were both pushed to the absolute brink. he is responsible, too.

this is literally an entire essay on my own fic jesus christ sorry BUT I HAD TO GET THE BRAINWORMS OUT. nobody has mentioned or talked about this yet and it's been 2 months already so i don't think anyone has realized it and that's terrifying. thanks for coming to my tedtalk <3 thank u for reading and loving comfyliar <3 everything i write lives inside of me <3 i love u so matcha <3

it's honestly hard to gauge how close they actually are just because so much of their closeness comes from offscreen interactions and when they think no one is recording them lol! i think it's pretty obvious that they consider each other friends, but how close their friendship is, i don't know! they often hang out in group settings (that's a given), but i'm not sure how often they hang out one on one. we know they eat together often, someone saw syongseoknen eating out at a restaurant once, and we know that they knew each other as trainees as well. in my personal opinion, i think they have a long way to go but i think they ARE getting there! they are together 24/7 whether they want to be or not. they're bound to get closer and they have gotten visibly closer over the past couple of months :-)

i think their bond will have the sort of renaissance that syongseok did because i don't know how long you've been a fan for, but when eunseok got introduced as an smrookie, we actually didn't know how close him and sungchan were! we didn't even know that they knew each other as trainees/in high school. they were even a fair bit awkward, but as you can see now that they're in a group again and their bond is closer than ever. we legit had no idea that they've known each other for 7 years, which is why i think that clip of eunseok choosing shotaro as his fav nct member and sungchan getting jealous from "welcome to nct universe" is hilarious now because like. DUDE!!! picking the guy you barely know over the dude you've known since high school... zero shame. those bastards fooled us all didn't they <3 (extremely lovingly and affectionately btw)

sungchan and wonbin have a history too, it's going to be 5 years this year (don't know the exact month because i don't think we know what month wonbin joined sm, if someone knows please lmk!!!) in total that they've known each other! they're a little different from 01z just because those two knew each other as trainees for around 3 years, and for wonbin and sungchan it'd be more like 1½-2 years ish maybe, but that's not nothing! it's just been a while since they've been in each other's presence, i feel like. they're definitely going to get much closer over this upcoming year as they get used to each other again because no doubt that they've changed a lot after about 2½-3 years since they got to see each other a lot i think! eitherway, i think the lack of information but the many crumbs of their relationship is what makes syongnen so inticing for a lot of people. they're fun! they're mysterious! they clearly have some kind of a history! that's very fun to explore! i love them anyway and as much as i write them romantically, i love them as friends too. i hope they eat well together :-) <3 <3 <3

thank you so much for reading! i'm glad you enjoyed it so much <3 it's basically a mentally ill situationship The series. someone had to do it!

my most obvious suggestion is actually a book i haven't read! my dear dear boyjeans/brachioios on twt told me that for both of the fics, it really reminded them of "heaven" by mieko kawakami. (as a side note go read their entire bibliography of fics they're amazing i love them). onto my personal reccomendations!

if you're having trouble reading longer things consistently, then i would start off with short stories and poems. "crush" by richard siken is an obvious choice for a poetry book and i've even used someone of his lines in "in cages of desire." "kingdom animalia" by aracelis girmay is also another amazing one, i think about her poem "i am not ready to die yet" more than what is considered healthy. my favourite short story collection is "awayland by ramona ausubel. another one is "slaughterhouse" by yves olade, it's 17 pages and worth your time. here's the link for it, you don't have to pay for it but you can tip! https://payhip.com/b/RKhp

these are all novels that are between 150-350 pages: "convenience store woman" by sayaka murata, "flowers for algernon" by daniel keyes, "in the dream house" by carmen maria machado, "on earth we're briefly gorgeous" by ocean vuong, "the perks of being a wallflower" by stephen chbosky. as always, please look up any content warnings for the books themselves if the summary intrigues you and you have any sensitivities towards certain content! stay safe always. if you ever end up reading one of these, please let me know your thoughts by popping in here, i'd love to know what you think (and so sorry for how long this is) <3