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