Hmmmm, now I'm trying to remember how and why the Chinese restaurant scene got scrubbed.
It wasn't a matter of swapping one for another--Janet's diner was the fulfillment of something I half-jokingly outlined very early on, which was that they got out of their captivity and Charlie got CHOCOLATE CAKE. (AND BALLOONS, AND A PONY, AND ANYTHING ELSE HE WANTED THAT DON COULD GET FOR HIM WITHOUT KILLING PEOPLE.) I had not really considered his actual nutritional needs (possibly because, uh--for a while there while writing Missing Persons I was, myself, living in a frigid basement, sleeping on a mattress on the floor, and eating energy bars for two meals a day. uh. I hadn't really thought about that part.) so much as a general state of CHARLIE GETS COMFORT THINGS.
The Chinese restaurant thing--Chapter 16 underwent a lot of false starts and changes, and I think one thing I was struggling with throughout the chapter was how much I wanted to engage Don and Charlie's Jewishness (canon ... doesn't). So I think the way that the scene is very culturally specific wound up intimidating me, and I went another way with it partly because of that, and partly because... I honestly don't know, it was four years ago. I guess I wound up wanting the whole sequence on the El instead, so they got a two-sentence diner moment and then we moved on. *g*
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
It wasn't a matter of swapping one for another--Janet's diner was the fulfillment of something I half-jokingly outlined very early on, which was that they got out of their captivity and Charlie got CHOCOLATE CAKE. (AND BALLOONS, AND A PONY, AND ANYTHING ELSE HE WANTED THAT DON COULD GET FOR HIM WITHOUT KILLING PEOPLE.) I had not really considered his actual nutritional needs (possibly because, uh--for a while there while writing Missing Persons I was, myself, living in a frigid basement, sleeping on a mattress on the floor, and eating energy bars for two meals a day. uh. I hadn't really thought about that part.) so much as a general state of CHARLIE GETS COMFORT THINGS.
The Chinese restaurant thing--Chapter 16 underwent a lot of false starts and changes, and I think one thing I was struggling with throughout the chapter was how much I wanted to engage Don and Charlie's Jewishness (canon ... doesn't). So I think the way that the scene is very culturally specific wound up intimidating me, and I went another way with it partly because of that, and partly because... I honestly don't know, it was four years ago. I guess I wound up wanting the whole sequence on the El instead, so they got a two-sentence diner moment and then we moved on. *g*