![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poppyseedheart What's up party people! We're back with another extended a/n. Life stepped into the way of things for me a bit and delayed chapter 7 but we got right back on the horse with chapter 8 and that was very exciting for me, I'm amazed I got it up more or less on time (on the right day, at least!).
These are going to be pretty rapid fire notes so we're taking them in bullet points. (As always, this contains spoilers through chapter 8, which I am literally posting as I type this.)
Chapter Seven
These are going to be pretty rapid fire notes so we're taking them in bullet points. (As always, this contains spoilers through chapter 8, which I am literally posting as I type this.)
Chapter Seven
- it's only been a week and i barely remember what happens in this chapter, give me a moment to review
- OH. the oh moment. obviously. we've been building up to this for a long time (almost 70k by that scene!) and it was really REALLY fun to finally get hyunjin caught up with his own feelings
- writing hyunjin as an unreliable narrator has meant playing with dramatic irony so i hope this realization of feelings was satisfying to read! i loved writing it, honestly. u know it's a romantic poppyseedheart fic when the light is yellow/orange/golden... i can't help myself
- also note hyunjin's physical state throughout this chapter - he feels most drained and dissociated when he's once again trying to ignore/run away from his past, and most aware of sensory details when he's sitting in a dumpling shop realizing he's in love
- i think the most complicated bit here was actually the scene with chan! their dynamic is such a tightrope walk in this fic — because we're in hyunjin's pov, we know he's really misreading chan a lot throughout the story, but how much does chan know about hyunjin's involvement in his life? how much of what chan is feeling/thinking are we just fully missing through hyunjin's eyes? it's kind of a lot, and it's fun to play with that dissonance where the reader KNOWS we're missing things but hyunjin isn't able to pick up on some of those things even unconsciously
- i did write an entire new scene in revision, the first time i've done it in this fic but i don't think the last! changbin and hyunjin's dinner was important to give them a point of connection but also to showcase hyunjin's conflict resolution, which amounts to "pretend everything is fine and it will be" as long as he doesn't think he has anything to apologize for. obviously that didn't work out great in the end, though in the scene itself it seemed to go fine. that's something i've been poking at in my writing — delay the payoff, and lean into the realism that a lot of us as people aren't the type to just say exactly what we think, or ask people to be vulnerable with us. it's hard! things come to a head eventually, but not always right away.
- also fun fact this chapter went up 30 mins later than intended because i realized at the last second i picked an image with the wrong hair color for hyunjin and had to go back to the drawing board. this is not the first time i've done this.
- yeehaw!
- quick research note, i mention that on changbin's actual birthday he went out with coworkers to a pojangmacha street (originally shortened to "pocha" in the fic but then that was incomprehensible if you didn't know what it was short for) — i've been erring more towards transliteration than direct translation or just using korean words in this story but in this case it's just not a word we really have in english because it's not a thing we have!
- a pojangmacha is a food stall that's under a tent with a small amount of space for people to stay and eat/drink/talk to the stall owner/etc., and there are streets that are lined with them! more info here.
- anyway aside from that lol there is a bunch going on in this chapter! hyunjin is pining (now aware of it, miserably) but doesn't want to explicitly let go of his public association with minho, partly as a cover so seungmin doesn't suspect hyunjin's feelings, and partly because hyunjin doesn't want to "lose" to jisung. oh king. you've got a storm coming.
- the changjin confrontation scene went through SO many iterations lol. ultimately i think they needed to have a real talk, and for their previous conversation in ch7 (which like i mentioned didn't even exist until this last round of revisions) to not have fixed anything, actually. this fic has given me more practice writing fights/conflict than almost anything i've ever written! i am usually someone who writes really quiet tension, things left unsaid. it's challenging and also fun to bring that tension into the light and make it visible.
- this chapter rings in as one of the shortest in the story, under 9k! just a fun fact for you. i debated adding more or splitting at a different place but i really like that last scene as an ending, so i left it there.
