I DO have thoughts!

I think the people who are most possessive in the band are Baekhyun, Junmyeon, and Jongdae.

Junmyeon is a bit unhinged about it on main. He sure seems to believe the Exos are His Exos. He used to be way more explicit about this when they were younger. [fondly remembering him saying: "you're mine, MY Baekhyun" and Baekhyun saying "We're all Suho's." and "his Sehun, in his little cage"] Junmyeon only recently stopped being this insane on main, and I think mostly because they've not been together on camera enough for us to see it XD The most we see of it nowadays is his obsessive streak in tracking all of their activities at all times even though he's too busy to sleep.

Baekhyun, also, is very possessive of His People. He's protective and obsessive almost as much as Junmyeon is, but is a bit more invested in not broadcasting it. He also enjoys very much when any of the rest of the Exos shows a spark of possessiveness over him. I think he finds it soothing to consider his people to be an unbreakable unit, which is what makes him so clingy.

Jongdae is the one most invested in being normal about his possessive urges out of the three. We rarely ever actually hear him say anything about it. But we can see it in his reactions when it's challenged. For example, the first time Chanyeol claimed his place in CBX, Jongdae's face went a bit unhinged. That is HIS CBX. He did turn it into a joke immediately! But his reaction at first sure was genuine! See also: the great Xingdae divorce of 2015, which is rumored to have been about Yixing making close ties in China, which threatened Yixing's place in Jongdae's pack. He just gets a bit unreasonable when something or someone that he perceives to be HIS has its place threatened.

Honorary mention for Kyungsoo, the member who openly admits to being bad at relationships because he gets unhingedly jealous, which is not quite the same thing as possessiveness, but is close enough to count as a bonus.

Thank you for telling me you like my writing, anon 🥰 and for the well wishes <33333

I've been peering at this closely since the start of his concert tour, not quite sure what to think about it. Now that it's been this long, I can safely say he knows what he's doing.

The game he's playing with fans is precarious. It's not a safe place to be in. And many idols in his position would and have indeed, put up very clear boundaries about his sort of thing with fans. He does not want to, though. And it's not that he's not aware that this is a dangerous place to put himself in, I think he simply has weighed the risk and thinks it's too fun to stop.

Baekhyun gets more out of being an idol than just performing, he wants the entire package, including the unhinged relationship with fans. It makes it exciting for him. I don't think he'd enjoy a more traditional celebrity vibe. He'd get bored of the job.

This isn't saying that I approve of him encouraging unhingedness, and neither is it that I don't approve. It's just me saying that I think he's very aware of the consequences of his behavior and has agreed to the risks. And considering that, I think demanding anything else of him is silly and infantilizing. This might come back and bite him in the ass, and he might reconsider his decision then, but it would still be his decision to make now, and he sure seems to have made it.

Hey, anon! I am late because migraines have kept me off twitter this week, but I did hear that he didn't perform any Japanese songs, which is a shame!

I would REALLY have wanted to see Drown live 👀 but also I'm so curious about how he'd perform Get You Alone now a few years post MV release, I have had extensive conversations with people about this MV and it would have been so cool to get more data! I also love Addicted ngl, that also would have been fun!

I love his Japanese album tbh, it might be my favorite of his in quality!

He said that he didn't do them bc of time restraints but I did see some speculation on the TL that it might be a copyright issue, since the Japanese releases are under a different company and all. But idk, that's just random people talking, nothing confirmed.

The Japanese concerts must have been so fun! I can't wait to catch up on the fancams when my head is feeling a little better! I hope you enjoyed them, anon! <3

That sounds like such an unfortunate situation, anon. I'm sorry <333

My practical advice would be to mute her first. That wouldn't cause any friction because she won't know about it, and it would save you the mental strain of seeing that sort of negativity on your TL all the time. If after muting her for some time, you feel better and do not miss having her around, then you can decide to unfollow her.

I think it's very good of you to have talked to her about it, but sometimes people are too deep in and they refuse to listen, so maybe losing your friendship will make her realize that she's going down a negative path that makes her a tiring person to be around.

It's never worth it to subject yourself to horrible shit on your TL for anybody. I have muted or unfollowed close friends before over this sort of thing, too. It's always sad, but always necessary. Your joy about Exo, or any other fandom that you're in, is way more important than someone else's wank.

I am sorry you've lost a friend, though, anon <333 that's so sad :(

Hmm those are some large claims you got there, anon. I am always suspicious of generalized "they do not promote [artist]" claims because I have not seen a single band in the entirety of kpop whose fans do not go around saying this. This makes the entire idea of it meaningless.

Now, I do agree specifically that since LSM got yeeted out of SM, everything has been very unstable, and their artists have all suffered from that uncertainty. The fact that many of their senior artists have either left or are making plans to leave is a large indicator that they do not feel like their future careers are safe there anymore.

This doesn't mean that it was perfect under LSM, I am very sure it had its flaws; idols have sued SM before for very valid reasons when it was under LSM. But I think the company right now has lost the trust of its employees because of how turbulent the last two years have been.

It's a shame that after so many years in the company, even idols like Shinee feel like it's no longer the best place for them. I hope they get to stay in touch with their staff and that their transitions are smooth.

Awww! Anon, that's so nice to hear <33333 Thank you for telling me <3

Ah it's always difficult to pick top 5 anything, but I'll try! <333

My top biases are:
🥇 Zhang Yixing <333 My baby my darling
🥈 Baekhyun
🥉 Chanyeol
4️ Sehun
5️⃣ Junmyeon

Top pairs:
🥇 Yixing/ot8 Exo (not a pair, but it sure is my top thing to read and write!)
🥈 Sechan
🥉 Baekmyeon
4️ Jackxing (not kpop anymore, but I have decided they still count!)
5️⃣ Baekxing

If I were to rec you music, I'd definitely start with Exo and the Exo soloists. The people who make my favorite music in Exo are Yixing, Jongin, and Exo-SC. But other than Exo, I can rec Taemin's solo music (because he's a visionary!) Jackson Wang, Hwasa, DPR Ian, Gemini, and Key!

The contract news? Yeah, I've been keeping an eye on it!

I don't think we have enough data to say anything with any certainty, tbh. But I'm glad that he feels confident enough in himself and his career to leave SM if the job there isn't going well for him.

Honestly, SM has been super sloppy since the corporate mess of 2022, and I am not surprised their senior artists are all unhappy and twitchy with it. Like, SM has always had its faults, you know? They are not great employers, but at least they were consistent before. Now, it's all up in the air whether anything happens and that's not a joyful workplace environment.

I am glad the Exos and Shinees are putting down roots elsewhere so as not to drown if anything topples the company. I also trust them and their bonds with each other and how much they love being on stage together and making music together, so I am not worried about the future of either band. I'm sure we'll get more music and stages from both the Exos and the Shinees, no matter where they end up.

I also am super glad that after all the years they've put into honing their skills and creating their sound, they can now be free to experiment and do what interests them outside of the limits of what SM might find acceptable or profitable.

Hey <333 thanks for prodding me to talk about this!

It’s been an odd time for me since Yeollie came back. I joined the fandom during his hiatus pre-enlistment and had never seen him be active, so, all of my Chanyeol thoughts were formed in retrospect. This is important to note because I know I had a way more visceral reaction to the changes in him than most of the old-timers I know. This is a meta that came out of a personal need to understand why I’ve been feeling like this, and it took a long time because of how much I was feeling it. Understand that this is not me negating the conclusion I came to before I come to it but explaining why a lot of this answer will be about my own experience watching Yeollie.

When he first came back, from the very first short livestream he did, it was obvious that something had changed. He was no longer comfortable on camera: his body language was closed off and stiff, and his expression was fawning and anxious. He was smiling but it wasn’t a comfortable smile. And he used Zzar like a little shield between him and other people. Considering this was the very first time he was talking to us in two years, though, it made sense for him to be this anxious. But then it just continued happening.

It felt to me at the time like he was putting on an act of softness, or reading from some sort of PR script; during his official first live stream to meet fans post-enlistment, and then in his new form of vlogs, and the messages he sent on bubble (always excluding his own face), those all felt so distant in comparison to his old spontaneous lives and his nng vlogs, which all had way more soul and personality in them. I just couldn’t understand why he’d choose this form of communication in public when we’d already seen him so bare and real before, and all that would occur to me as an explanation were words like: act, shield, pr, distance, choice.

And that was unfair of me, but in my own defense, I think I didn’t say much about it because I knew, even at the time, that it wasn’t fair to him.

Over that entire time, there’d be glimpses of the old Chanyeol, mostly around Sehunnie, in the fancon bts videos, but sometimes also around the Exos in Cream Soda era. But that only happened rarely, and I just kept feeling like I miss Chanyeol.

The problem was that there was such a large gap between who he was before he took a hiatus and then enlisted, and then who he is now, and the shape of that gap felt mercurial and impossible to define for me, and therefor, the new Chanyeol also felt that impossible to understand. It was as if I skipped ten chapters of a novel, and then continued, trying to piece together what I’d missed in the narrative. It was frustrating as fuck. [Cake shaking the bars of her cage: LET ME IN]

But the solution was so simple, and I could have thought of it ages ago were I not so emotional about the whole thing.

A few days ago, I watched some videos of 2020 Chanyeol, in his promo activities with Sehunnie for 1bv, and then immediately after, played one of the behind the scenes videos of the fancon, and everything just… clicked. The shape of the gap was suddenly so easy to read after being confronted so viscerally with the before and after.

Chanyeol has come back with crippling anxiety.

His body language is closed off because he wants to curl in on himself instinctively. His expressions are soft but uncomfortable, no longer as confident as he was before, because he is terrified. He no longer trusts himself with the very unscripted lives he used to do because he doesn’t know if he can do it without panicking. He’s doing scripted videos because he WANTS to communicate and come back to his job and remember how to be himself, but the scripted things that other people plan for him are all that he is capable of making, those are the safest things to make.

That’s why he hasn’t released his solo yet. Of course he doesn’t want to do it like this. He’s been wanting to release an album forever, it would soil the entire thing to do it while feeling this mentally unready.

He feels safer around the Exos, safer around Sehun. But even then, he doesn’t have the carefree confidence that he used to. He’s been stripped bare of it. I don’t know what his service was like, but I do know that he was deeply hurt by the scandal, and the combination of those two experiences have left marks.

The only times I have seen him be entirely himself again –and this is where it gets insane– is when Sehun pokes him enough to make him want to put Sehun in his place. For example:

When Sehun pokes him with a toothpick.
When Sehun pretends not to listen to him as he speaks, and instead scrolls on his phone.
When Sehun tells him to go get them drinks.
When Sehun is poking him with the sharp edges of a tree.
When Sehun is struggling with a game and whining to get Chanyeol to come help him.
When Sehun refuses to acknowledge that Chanyeol has won a bet.
Etc.

Whenever these things happen, and ESPECIALLY when they happen close together in the same conversation, Chanyeol’s shoulders relax, and he suddenly looks as big as he actually is in comparison to Sehun– whereas before he was so curled in on himself that they almost look the same size– Chanyeol’s sitting posture becomes more relaxed, leaning back, either arms or knees spread, ankle over a knee. His expression becomes less stilted and more animated, and his smile stops being so fawning.

And whenever this happens, Sehun is delighted with himself, almost always giggling like a maniac as if his plans have worked.

This suggests to me that Chanyeol simply feels too fragile and uncertain of himself to let himself stand at full height and trust his instincts in what to do, and being given permission to set his own boundaries within the game that Sechan play: the long-standing dynamic that includes all their in-jokes and private little language– The Bit™– this makes him feel steadier and more in control, like he can be certain of at least that decision, and knows without a doubt that Sehun will listen to him once he acts.

Seeing the ways with which Chanyeol recovers some of himself makes seeing what he’s struggling with so easy. If being given implicit permission to scold Sehun and make him apologize and then succeeding makes Chanyeol feel like himself, then what he’s struggling with is crippling self doubt and powerlessness.

Knowing the shape of his anxiety, and why it has transformed him in this way, makes him so much more legible to me. It makes his actions and his mannerisms make sense. It even makes Good Enough make sense. It makes a little connection between 2020 Chanyeol and 2022-2024 Chanyeol that I can easily follow along, even without knowing the specificities, and reach this new person, who is still Chanyeol. And that is all that I’ve ever needed.

I can now look at him without confusion, and appreciate what he’s doing for what it is: recovery, and an attempt at being himself again.

It saddens me that it’s so difficult for him now to be himself in public, and I hate that being with Sehun was helping him but then Sehun had to leave so now Chanyeol is facing the public on his own, but it all makes sense, and he is being so brave. I hope he beats his anxiety horrors soon.

Chansoo are very cute! Sorry for the late answer, I got so busy this week TT and there is no need to apologize for your question, I'm happy to answer <333

I think their friendship is super precious, and I love how Kyungsoo seems to understand Chanyeol and knows how best to be kind to him. Kyungsoo is also one of those people who are very protective of their boundaries and very firm and clear about what they want from others, making it hard for Chanyeol to hurt him unintentionally; he must be very soothing to be around for someone like Chanyeol, who is so distractable and in flux.

In an rpf and speculative way, I haven't tried to delve into how fandom portrays them, because I very much don't ship them. So, I can't make any comment on what the general perception of them as a ship is.

Personally, I just don't see any romantic or sexual tension between them at all, but I don't put it completely off the table that Chanyeol might have crushed on Kyungsoo at some point, he rotated his crushes around the entire band without prejudice lmao. I just have not once seen Kyungsoo react to him in anything but friendly ways, and I enjoy their friendship.

I think it's good for both of them to have each other around, but I also deeply do not find them compatible in any way past friendship: Kyungsoo's boundaries would make Chanyeol so sad in a relationship because Chanyeol would be so invested in making his partner happy by actively doing things for them, which Kyungsoo would, unfortunately, receive like infantilization and a presumption of incompetence, and that would make Chanyeol so sad and tie his hands, making him unsure how to behave to show his love instead. And Chanyeol is always thinking about 498 things at once, he changes hobbies, interests, and ideas on a whim without warning, and while I'm sure Kyungsoo appreciates that about him as a friend and finds it refreshing, having Chanyeol as a permanent fixture to do life with would exhaust him. They just don't fit.

I always enjoy seeing updates of them together, they do seem to enjoy each other's company and trust and count on each other in important ways <333 I just don't personally ship them

Hey, anon! yeah I think I might have talked about them before, but I never mind answering things again <333

I think Kaisoo are very soft with each other in a way that neither of them is with other people in the band, which is lovely to perceive 🥺 Kyungsoo especially is extremely gentle and fond with Nini in comparison to how he is with the rest of the Exos. So, as a general irl interactions watching way, they charm me greatly and I think they're adorable.

In an rpf and speculative way, I deeply do not enjoy how they're portrayed in fandom and I don't much understand their popularity as a pairing. I think fandom does them both a disservice in the way they're generally written in fic and talked about as a pairing because people seem not to take into account their actual behavior irl when doing so and, instead, water them down into generic characters that do not resemble who they are in any way except their faces.

My personal opinion on them as a pairing (though do keep in mind I find Kyungsoo a bit illegible, and so am prone not to delve with any depth into his character so as not to make wrong or contradictory statements about who he is) goes something like this:

Having met after Jongin had, in all way that he could, soul bonded with Lee Taemin, Kyungsoo and he were never going to be anything other than friends. But they are very compatible as people. They share a baseline understanding of the world that is shaped around a dislike of social pretense and a passion for art and the authenticity it can present. They're both also quite shy and slow to warm up to other people in any meaningful way, so once they had warmed up to each other, they must have become very close.

I think it makes sense to read them both as bisexual, and both as more women-oriented though nonetheless into men. They both vibe like bisexual men XD It's delightful. And I think it's VERY clear, looking at Kyungsoo's behavior around Nini, that he finds him INCREDIBLY attractive. However, it is also clear that Kyungsoo seems to have a rule against being involved with colleagues because he values peace and deeply does not enjoy messy personal relationships. So, I find it hilarious that his boner for Nini seems to defy him and create problems for him XD

I think Jongin values him deeply as a friend and has lots of respect for Kyungsoo's craft as an artist. He also thinks Kyungsoo is beautiful. I have not ever noticed him looking at Kyungsoo with any sexual intent, though, only deep fondness. This probably makes Kyungsoo's life easier in a way; closing the door on an option that would give him a headache to contemplate.

I think I might be more amenable to reading fic (set in canon, because that is my preference on all fic) about Kaisoo if they took more care in how they characterize them both, even if they didn't adopt my thoughts on the reciprocity of the attraction in their relationship, because I think they COULD make very interesting stories!