liptinted | hylc fic commentary

so months ago, i wanted to take three traumatized characters with childhoods that ended too soon, and wanted to write a deaging fic for them. i finished it! here are the fic notes.

epigraph to hold your lost causes:

"I, on the other hand, still might not be considered a proper adult. I had been very grown up in primary school. But as I continued through secondary school, I in fact became less grown-up. And then as the years passed, I turned into quite a childlike person. I suppose I just wasn't able to ally myself with time."

- Hiromi Kawakami, The Briefcase

writing this was. an interesting time i might say. i thought i was gonna suffer real bad. and i did, but only because i don't like writing anything this long and i would have probably not suffered as much if i took the time to ask friends to read through drafts for support. however i'm impatient and i stopped taking fic writing THAT seriously in terms of polishing my writing quality and i didn't want to make friends who haven't watched the drama suffer reading a post-canon story. and now that it's done, i think a good part of the difficulties was also just residual stress from Real Life matters, like moving countries, having homesickness, having career and employment-related the pression etc etc.
here is the fic playlist:

here's why i needed to write it - from my tumblr.

i initially drew a lot of inspiration from lettered's Away Childish Things. Sorry to infer from a HP fic but there are some good drarrys out there. now i never finished reading this fic. it's over 100k words and i only got about 30-40% in but the moment i started reading the first chapter though i thought, hold on i know where this is going, OF COURSE deaging can be used as a trope to explore childhood trauma. after watching and re-watching that lazy ending with jeongje's character, i wanted that sooooo bad for a post-canon jwds and dongsik+jeongje and juwon+jeongje fic. a few days after i finished writing and posting the last chapter, i checked the very last chapter of Away Childish Things to see what was up, skimmed a little through it and saw that they clearly went all in with the angst and hurt/comfort. i haven't finished it, but read Away Childish Things because it's entertaining if you're not tired of people always having some random HP fic rec up their sleeve, and because it's written with a lot of care and thought about childhood trauma and abuse.

Anyway, the planning and process of this fic was so funny. I'd written down a general outline per chapter of scenes in my tumblr drafts, but i didn't stick to it besides some of the key plot points in the first few chapters.

some things that made my brain hurt:

how to tackle the ~logistics~ of the deaging for a canon where its tone and setting already feels very grounded in logic. luckily, once you get into writing it, it's very easy to not have to explain lol. i feel like half if not most of the people who subscribed to the fic updates were disappointed that the mysterious deaging was never explained lmao but please ppl!! it's about the vehicle! i owe my life to ao3 user princesskay's comment for understanding this.
the age(s). i knew i wanted juwon to be 8 when he gets deaged in the fic, because of how fresh the events surrounding his mother would still be then before he got sent off to England. after posting chapter 4 though, it was only then when i had the idea to age juwon up to 19 just before he would have graduated high school and started KNPU. according to the translated parts of the script and character outlines, juwon was about 17 when he understood the kind of father he came back home to korea to, ie. he was already disillusioned, distant and distrustful of his father, so writing him as a surly, rude teenager tracked.
how much of the truth about his father should eight-year-old juwon be allowed to know without dealing even more damage to him. this was mostly why i decided to age him up again to 19 instead of have him stay as 8 lol i'm not that insane. he had to find out from jeongje because it's jeongje. the parallels of toxic parenting etc.

some issues i had halfway into writing:

when he should age back again. there is no logic or reason or method to when i decided this--i just wrote the thing so that it happens a little after every time he gets to learn and/or is grappling with a pivotal life-changing moment/truth. in the end, it's all about the trope is a DEVICE, not the main problem.
how depressing should this be? i don't think it's that angsty and the comments i've gotten are generally positive so i think it being melancholic is just right.
jwds' post-canon relationship here. i knew i didn't want them to really establish anything yet at the beginning of the story. sorry to what makes a proper getting together fic, i also do not really know what that is.
pacing. i don't think my pacing and sequencing of scenes in a few chapters in the order i've written is smart. couldn't be bothered to fix that aspect.

on to the non-issues. the highlights:

making up 19-year-old juwon was so fun, i actually had more fun writing him than 8-year-old jw for some reason. writing the scene where dongsik punches jj was so fun too. i love to write HIGH TENSIONS
the final scene and dialogue between dongsik and jeongje in the last chapter is something i'm really proud of. it encapsulated everything i personally wanted and didn't get out of the drama re: their relationship.
talking about real estate and property lmao. that was a fun chapter to write along with the short conversation between juwon and his father in prison.
dialogue. when i started writing fic, i hated dialogue, it terrified me, i was reluctant to write a lot of conversations out of fear of not nailing character voices or just having the most boring conversations. it's not my strength, but my attitude towards dialogue-writing changed a lot over the years and this fic really felt like a testament to how much i enjoy it now. i love you enyphens for stuttering and pauses, i love writing out how the dialogue is being said more than ever. love to write people talking like PEOPLE with feelings, with pent-up feelings, with apathy, the whole works. dialogue <3

i was complaining a lot for being slow when i was writing this. but now that it's done, i'm sad :( i don't have anything else i really want to write except maybe porn fic lol which i still may or may not write. i'm *almost* serially monogamous when it comes to really getting into fandoms so every time i lose interest i do feel sad lol. in case my interest drops off by next year, beyond evil (2021) made my 2022 soooo much better and bearable for me and really revitalized the love i have for writing. jwds my beloved i may not speak of u any more but i'll never forget u <333