welcome to the fandom anonnie!! and omg okay so like a huge part of why blue hour era felt like such a big deal in bmjn circles was because of the fact that nothing could have told us that it (being their increased distance) was going to happen. like it was SO sudden. and it was especially difficult to fathom because they'd been as close as they always had been during eternity era.

speaking from the content side of things, there'd even been an uptick in shippers during and immediately post-eternity. there were new writers, editors, and artists coming into bmjntwt and there was a Lot of excitement for the ship and the things we were making for it at the time. like lmao all things considered, i myself was a part of that wave of new people coming into the fandom space after eternity since i started my old acc and posted my first fic in july of 2020. and that steady flow only increased once we got into the later months of the year, and we were looking at the start of a potential content boom, but then blue hour came in and devastated like winter does to summer crops.......

but yeah, the realization of what was happening came to us pretty slowly? or at least in my circle. since in some of the earlier promotional material for the cb they seemed fine. i think the thing that got us all was when they were taking a picture together as a group and there was this Gap of space between yj and bg that didn't exist there normally and literally the whole tl was like joking about it but also very much despairing LSDHFLKSHFD and things carried like that until freeze, basically. (i'll tweet the pic so y'all can see what we were dealing with HAHAKLS)

and as to how they were....honestly, looking back, i think it's really easy to see how withdrawn bg was to Everything, Period. like of course he was still fulfilling all his engagements, he was nothing but a consummate professional, but especially as the year neared its end he was kind of shrinking into himself. that cb wasn't easy for anyone, obviously, since covid really fucked up a LOT of their plans, but bg was also feeling really homesick and it added to it. so it wasn't just that bmjn were interacting less, but that bg in general was less engaged.

now as for Why there was all this sudden distance, none of us will really ever know unless either of them speak about it (and i doubt that happening tbh). there are, of course, theories. my friends and i had this whole angst arc in our tinhat timeline for it. the likeliest one that was prevalent in kcircles iirc is that antis had been kicking up a fuss about how there were obvious friendship divides in tubbatu (tyunningsoob, beomjun) and how the members aren't the close-knit 5-piece unit they were claiming to be. allegedly, soobin saw these posts and the company had to intervene. thus, bmjn gap for jesus and avoidance era.

but again, we never really will know for sure.

so yeah, it wasn't an easy time in the least HSDLKHFSDF but i will say that all the things you mentioned here feels like it came about almost in response to whatever fuckery was going on in blue hour. at least, if we're talking with ship goggles on. i just answered an ask where i mentioned it but so much of freeze era felt like it was yj trying to make it up to bg......and honestly considering the state of bmjn discussions pre-blue hour, that era feels like a necessary one now. it needed to happen for them to be on more equal footing.

oh GOSH yeah this was really hard to think about.....there are a LOT of contenders huhuhu this will basically be a listicle but okay in an attempt to be brief i'll keep it to like, a few honorable mentions and then My Most Favorite (Probably; Most Favorite As Of Right Now; This Is Subject To Change)

hm (honorable mention) #1: not exactly to do with bmjn directly but yj's friends making a banner for one of their concerts and shouting out beomgyu on it has never failed to throw me in for a loop whenever i remember that it happened. like okay??? bg has his oomfs in-law's co-sign??? all right then.

hm #2: i am technically cheating by including two moments but it's of a similar theme so i'm running with it!!!! bg quite famously has a way with words and i love the moments where his penchant for sweetly devastating turns of phrase are aimed yeonjun's way. so my favorites are: 1) i'm on your side (from pre-debut specifically), and 2) come to me if you ever get tired. i will wait. i could write and defend dissertations on these two to be quite honest. just so loving and gentle and patient, things that bg has always been with yj. "i cannot carry it for you, but i can carry you," as tolkein said etc etc.

hm #3 bg comforting yj during their first seoul stop in 2022 while he did his ment. there's a bit of a noticeable theme going on here (and even with my fave moment it's present) HASHDASD but in truth i just Love seeing bg take care of yj. bg in general is someone who's Very concerned with reciprocity; he loves being babied and cherishes that kind of treatment, sure, but it's always been important for him to give that love back. he talks so much abt how yj takes care of him so well and so he really works hard to put in the same effort. i especially just appreciate how frequently these moments come now that they're both older and have settled into their relationship more; bmjn have always been a give-and-take kind of pair where they take turns at being the sturdy one, someone the other gets to lean on. yj, as the oldest hyung, feeling safe enough to be vulnerable around bg, to publicly lean on him and seek him out, speaks volumes to me of how much he trusts bg, how much they trust each other.

hm #4: the entirety of freeze era. i don't even think i could ever verbalize how much that era means to bmjnists if they weren't already there. like we were coming off of them barely acknowledging each other's existence, avoiding each other, keeping a space for god in between them if they happened to be next to each other in photos. and then???? freeze happened??? and yj was?? chasing after bg??? pulling on his pigtails and trying to get him to notice him again???? it felt like the comeback arc of a couple that just recently broke up i'm not even kidding. i called it his "jogging era"; prior to blue hour, it was almost always bg the one chasing yj, and now it was yj doing it.......important monumental life-changing stuff

AND NOW FOR THE FAVORITE!!!!

what else could it have been if not the april live this year? bg coming into yj's live, telling him "how could i leave you like this?" [paraphrasing] like my god i don't even know how any of us survived it. it was the pinnacle of care and tenderness. another occasion of yj feeling vulnerable and bg being there, cupped hands as gentle and prepared as ever to catch him. so SO good. altered the course of my existence. i still get misty-eyed whenever i think about it.

hmm honestly i can't speak of how the company is marketing them these days because i've simply been gone too long and too frequently to have any substantive observations on that but i can speak on why the debut era bmjn wave wasn't able to sustain itself.

ofc my memory isn't perfect and there are factors i'm most definitely going to miss but the gap of activity between crown and run away really halted the fandom's momentum across all fronts. this wasn't the boys' fault of course since they really were just hit with stroke after stroke of bad luck, but a freshly debuted group isn't going to have the most stable of fanbases, regardless of how well their debut went (and tubbats' went Really Well).

by the time run away came out and the fandom was able to replenish itself with new numbers, other ships were emerging as more popular and although there Were beomjunists, as there always had been, we simply weren't as many as we used to be. a lot of the earliest bmjn crowd became a casualty in the general fandom's shrinking pains.

but i wouldn't be so disheartened anonnie!! bc yeah, bmjn were one of the bigger ships during debut, but the fandom was also nowhere near as huge as it is now. like, i could say with complete confidence that the bmjn crowd now is bigger than it ever was during debut. and i don't think they're unpopular by any means either? altho i do get what you mean, i think it's because i'm coming into this with a different perspective because having survived the content boom that never was and the great winter of late 2020, i think bmjnists are in a great spot. it's never been so easy to get into bmjn these days.

but yeah that whole "bmjn actually hate eo" thing has been a persistent thorn in our side since 2019 LMAO I WANT IT DEAD AND GONE AND DUSTED. it really is disrespectful bc not only are they taking the most surface-level observations of their dynamic and stretching it into something ridiculous, they're just blatantly Not Listening to anything either yj or bg has to say about their relationship.

at the end of the day, those two Adore each other. irrespective of whatever, their bond is Solid and Wonderful and it's something they very obviously cherish and take care of and i think just remembering that is enough to block out any noise :))))

eve!! hello!!! and i'm doing okay for the most part!!! how are you i hope you're doing well hehe

but hmmm in terms of recent reads, i'm still on the brothers karamazov!! i had to stop a lot because of the [gestures vaguely in the direction of my myriad health collapses] but i'm back in it....i'm on book 3: the sensualists now. i really should bring my reaction thread back but then i don't want to have to backtrack all the chapters i'd already read.......regardless i'm having fun.

i'm also re-reading two other things (frankenstein and wuthering heights) and GOD i've missed gothic literature.

i think the only new thing i'm reading alongside tbk is moby dick bc i've been told there's yaoi.