I have so much to say.

But first, one thing about staying away from something you always do is that you start to digest experiences and reconcile them with your own personal touch. For this fanmeeting, everyone moved differently, like each one's style became more refined after they left their hot skills to cool down. It's like the vacation helped them all marinate their styles outside of choreography.

For Seungmin in particular, there were 3 areas I think he majorly improved on, all of which are quite intertwined/flow into each other: Dance line, texture, "swagger".

Dance line can loosely refer to the aesthetic, or the appealing angles and shapes the body makes in space. We can use his ceremonial pitch as an example of how his body's perfect textbook angles were praised by non-kpop fans of the sport as "great mechanics". The angles someone makes, how wide, narrow, balanced they are, can say a lot about energy efficiency, sharpness, and texture. It's a very specific element of dance that can largely contribute to how much you are set apart from other dancers. Someone who just follows choreo, only follows the suggestion of movement.

Someone who "feels" their body's natural dance line and how it looks to others figure out how to negotiate that appealing AND efficient movement with their body's range of motion, making it look natural and effortless, and ultimately "groovy", upon mastery. They will look balanced, sturdy, or artfully off-kilter. The shapes, angles, and arcs that the body makes respect the dancer's own body and the audience's own perception. I think Felix is a great example of how someone can use their dance lines to maximize stage presence and oomph factor even without a lot of fancy flairing. Think of the way he moves throughout Megaverse.

Seungmin's body lines are clean. The stability and aestheticism of his movements have come a long way from awkward foot placements where he followed the suggestion of movement but not made it his own. He is stable, but now he's starting to make it exciting. Think of a square being slanted into a trapezoid with the exact same measurements: It's deviated from the blueprint in a new and exciting way while retaining balance and stability. Seungmin gave the impression in the fanmeeting that he is growing into his dance style rather than stopping at learning the moves.

When you're starting to venture outside of what is taught, when you're secure in your ability to hit the lines just right, it's when the body or dance textures have the most impact and appeal.

A hard resin cube is cool, but a soft jelly cube wiggles is fun and eye-catching.

I feel like you will strongly understand when I bring up Hyunjin, who just outright embodies and owns textures like his bones are made of tteokbokki. Think of his Play With Fire dance. Textures in dancing refer to how the move feels on your body (when you do it) or how the move feels on the eyes (when you watch it). Body waves, the acceleration and deceleration of your moving arm rather than just swinging an arm at an equal pace. It is what makes graceful movements compelling and vicious movement striking. It's an element to "feel" that once again needs a certainness and awareness of your body, and how comfortable you are driving it to do things outside of your normal everyday movements.

Particularly for Seungmin, I think the exposure to the countless body rolls across 5-STAR and ROCKSTAR choreographies forced Seungmin to fix the closed off that "shyness" into utilizing his torso for textures he used to be more conservative about. (Recall his total inability to body wave with the same finesse in Thunderous 1:08).

Note his performance in their Sherlock cover. For his torso, he got rid of the hunched back, the huddling into himself, the closed-ish posture, and opened his chest to commit to the movement. For his arms and legs, he's started hitting hard at the start of a movement and relaxing into the next position before the limb reaches the point they were supposed to be, like the Booster choreo with his hand gestures. His stiffness is gone. Believe me, it looks incredibly awkward if you try to move your arms to that same pattern while engaging all the muscles in it the whole time. He lets himself whip his arm and his wrist into their positions rather than forcing them into their spot.

When you combine the increased sense of body lines and textures, it's quite a step forward to mastery. When you finally pin down all the fundamentals and are comfortable with them to the point where you don't even have to think about them, you get the headspace to make something more out of them. This is where "Swagger" or "groove" comes in. You see this in many street dancers, and a very select number of idols, usually the dance leader. In our case, Lee Know, whose sense of rhythm and groove has been honed to perfection after years of being into it. Think of his solo dance for "Back Door," and his cover of "Smooth Criminal" and "Finesse."

Swagger isn't really a formal term, but I know that people would have a particular image in mind with that word, which is what I'm going for. It's like "groove" (which is a more commonly used term, but with a more reserved criteria).

I like to believe finding the sense of "Swagger" is the precursor to developing your own sense of Groove. When we say groove, we look at bonkers amazing dancer-at-the-core artists like Lee Know himself, Wooyoung from 2pm, J-Hope from BTS, Kai from EXO. The ones who have literally had a lifetime to master technical fundamentals and therefore have the headspace to inject their personal touch into movement (I'm repeating myself, oops).

Seungmin has breached the barrier of swagger, a delicious step above being a loyal follower to choreo. Most of the fanmeet dances hit a bit differently now because he's starting to make them his own in general. He dances like he owns the dance, like he conjured those moves up. He looks natural, like everything he's doing is what he's supposed to do rather than just what he's meant or instructed to do. He isn't as rigid anymore, nor is he as cramped into his body awkwardly.

He's utilizing his long, lean limbs the way only he can, and he is genuinely on the right track.

I'm really excited to see how much more he could improve himself all around. I'm squealing myself silly just thinking of how he's up there now in the eyes of rookies and trainees who want to aim for the top, just like the heights they've climbed in their careers thus far, and all the rest they will continue reaching throughout their careers as a group and as individuals. It drives me crazy seeing how much he has already improved, just as much as seeing how much more he could improve, knowing he will absolutely improve on them in time.

You asked for 3, but because it took 2 weeks for me to get back to you, have 6.5! Im still sure a lot of stay would know these, but since almost an exponential amount of stays just recently joined, they might not know some of these! Additionally, many translation accounts in the past years have been suspended or deactivated, and all the facts and unique translations are all lost with them :( Honestly besides the lack of time, this demotivating realization was what kept me from answering as fast as possible as many of my favorite translators have Gone Away </3

1. On 210327, Seungmin said on bbl he raised a reliable golden retriever puppy in his dream. Seungmin said it listened well to all his TMI, and felt it was reliable. Seungmin wished it comes back to visit becaues he hasn't even given it a name yet.
   sm bbl: "In my dream last night, I dreamt of raising a puppy by myself. It was a retriever, but it was so cute. I wish it visits again someday. I haven't given him a name yet. He listened very well and was a great puppy. You could say he was reliable? I told it a lot of TMI even if he couldn't reply back hahaha."

2. In Changbin's 2021 October Anan Magazine interview, Changbin briefly talked about how he and Seungmin once watched a romance drama together at the dorm, and during a scene, Seungmin said "Wow, so that's what love is like." with shining eyes. Changbin added, it's like Seungmin learned a lot emotions through the drama. He also talked about how Seungmin was cool for having opinions that he can respectfully convey while being respectful of others' opinions. Changbin also talked about how Seungmin is just extremely pure.

3. 210112, Seungmin sent a picture of a box full of chicken drumsticks and another picture of an empty box. Every single stay joked he ate the bones too hahahaha

4. During his 200823 VLive, Seungmin said he could finally watch baseball games happily without regrets. Since quitting baseball due to injury and financial reasons in his childhood, he stopped watching for a long time because it was his first dream. But as his idol career took off with Stray Kids and found genuine happiness in singing, he found himself able to look back at his first love without regrets.

5. Seungmin's favorite baseball team, Lotte Giants, consistently won games set on his birthday! 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022, and now 4th year winning as of 2023!!!

6. During Seungmin's 230118 livestream where he showed his braces-free teeth for the first time, he shared about a time in high school that he ate with his friends in a curry resto that supposedly had unli rice... He ate 3 bowls of rice and was told to stop eating and leave, and he never went back there again ><

6.5 In the same livestream, Seungmin sincerely explained that the people who eat with him told him that they regain their appetite when they see Seungmin eat so well, so Seungmin wants to eat with Stay knowing that many of them likely do not eat enough, so they could regain the appetite and eat well.

irl? Not really? Im whatever about it ._. I consume and enjoy ship media, but I don't impose that on reality ykwim? I think i need to explain 💀
I love seeing fictional works abt it, but I feel pretty good at how i compartmentalize what I feel towards pairings from very well-written fics/drawn romantic art, and acknowledging that they're fictional, ygwim? Like... The $kz in fanworks are like actors to me: they are not their roles in fictional works. So even if i love consuming that kind of media, and no matter how "likely" even, it's not my place to say what should be real just because it seems like it is? I love how their dynamics irl are written or depicted to make things "work" that way, but im ok if thats not how it is irl ykwim like 😅 maybe im overexplaining, but i think the fanspace has been quite Hostile about this recently without fully understanding that it's not as bad as they make it out to be 😔

If you ask someone to show an angry face, they would give you a face they think looks angry. They try. They furrow their brown, thin their lips, frown, clench their jaw, etc. But thats not what they naturally or actually look like when they're angry, right?

The difference between his angry expressions before and now is that he used to try, and now he doesn't. He looks genuinely pissed off or smug whenever he wants to onstage. A good actor is one who doesnt look like theyre acting, and I would say it's definitely that kind of development. Its also why i felt compelled to say he has vaguely threatening vibe now because he genuinely looks like he could clock you in the face deservingly... Ygwim??

If you want comparisons, you can check out the the Back Door Show Champion fancam with him in suspenders + God's Menu 1nk1gay0 fancam, the studio chooms from in life and below as past examples: He was fierce because he wants to come across fierce. He had to look threatening to match with the song.

Fast forward to MAMA 2022 Maniac, LALALALA 1nk1gay0 fancam, studio chooms since Maxident onwards, 2023 Dome tour concert fancams, he developed a dynamic set of expressions that at some point can feel like he spat on your grave with a smug look then leveled you with a gaze that challenges you with a "tf u gonna do about it?" glare.

Simply put, he now gets to play around more comfortably with the vibe of the song rather than have the song dictate what he should look like! I hope that helped clear things up with what I meant SIOFMJOI

Oh OP.... I don't even know where to start. It took me so long to answer because I would've been so incohesive spamming my MANY thoughts about his dancing without order, and tbh Im still winging it as i respond rn! 😭 (Update upon finishing: Please expect a chronological observation of his dancing across eras, and then my personal viewpoints of his dancing in a still-objective ish lens right after. omg isaid so much)

Before I can talk about my Own take, I want to share where I'm coming from by describing his milestones in dancing.

Back in pre-debut, his dance style was all about force and moving explosively, widely, energetic to maximize the movement like any hobbyist dancer. He already has a good sense of rhythm back then, and only lacked personal texture. It's like his arm juts out as you would a punch on your first day of boxing, fast and straightforward.
He started forming it especially during debut, under both professional mentorship and guidance by his own dance hyungs, especially lee know and hyunjin.
In their earliest days, he still retained some of that force-first dancing that tries very hard to announce his stage presence, and has also developed the flavor of sentiment especially during I Am series' more emotional songs and choreo (Mirror, I am You).
By 2019 and the cle series, it's when I saw him start utilizing more control and precision in his body angles, taking up space onstage, and experimenting with texture, the speed with which he carries out the smaller details of their dancing, waves and arm motions and how he glides across the stage. I feel like this was especially expedited by him having such a central role in Levanter's title track choreo, where he had to express so much emotion and still maintain that control. He hit a ceiling and he's clambering out of it!

Come GoLive and InLife, we see him start to explode with improvement as a whole. Seungmin took the skills he was most comfortable in and used them to scaffold where he lacked. Gods Menu forced him to learn how to burst with energy right from the get go and still have enough breath for his own parts repeatedly in phases, while Back Door pushed him to be stable during heavy movement. These are 2 foundational skills he continued working on to the point that they are his greatest assets today.

For the past title tracks, he grasped these expressions at a general level, similar to the furrowed brows and slight for when you ask someone to give an angry expression out of the blue. After developing foundations of stability and conservation, Kingdom is when he has moved on to forming the type of suave, smug, looming, vaguely threatening aura or stage presence he naturally slips into at present. Seungmin started Really using his eyes, swagger, and angling shoulders to impose a sense or presence upon the audience at a time when there was global and professional scrutiny rather than a live audience seated far from the stage who probably can't really See facial details that well. He really worked to cement himself in Thunderous itself, putting into practice everything he's developed thus far.

I believe one of the "loudest" developments started during Oddinary. It's like he's pursuing a post doc on his brand of dancing: Mastery of basics (undergrad and masters) and the beginning of specialization(post-doc).

Things got increasingly harder for him as a dancer since Oddinary, I believe, He mentioned before that MANIAC was very challenging compared to past choreo because there was really no time given for him to breathe, even if it was overall less intense. I have always seen him positioned in the back or given rest time at the side before or after his parts so he could rest, but MANIAC was the start of him racking up his stamina out of need for longer than he's used to. And then the world tour happened, and this stamina increased exponentially with up to 3 INTENSE performances up to 12 minutes each followed and lead by a few more. The boundaries of his energy was challenged and pushed outwards.
We see this newfound tank of energy with 5-STAR with its consistently grueling choreo ALL throughout their songs that now involve full-body intensity and non-stop and very-large movements, mostly for the arms too (see s-class, item, hall of fame, and superbowl...thats practically everything they performed lmao). This was when everything he has developed so far has been put to the test. The impact of his dance style became more than the sum of all its parts, and I believe that this is a large part of why he shines so much right now, as all the pieces have finally clicked into place and he's rolling with it HARD.

The thing with any skill is that the more you master processes and details, the less you have to think about them or be conscious of them, and the more space you have to think about ways to make it better. Because he has reached mastery over a large aspect of the mechanics or movements of dancing, he now has enough mental space to explore style, swagger, injecting his sly doberman persona in the performance. He has expanded his expressions and made natural the most Seungmin brand of piercing gaze, cocky and an untouchably threatening flair.

With that said, ROCK star is when he started experimenting with how expressive he could be with his body. A little less shy now, a little less conservative. Stamina was his biggest hurdle his biggest limiter, and now its not even something he worries about as he explores energy and expressiveness in every stage. A year of touring with POPPIN, and a few months worth of body rolls in Hall of Fame opened him to the idea of maybe bringing the lower wave upwards to his torso, and now he body rolls with more ease for LALALALA's own rolls, a little less conservative and shy with how he can utilize his body.

How would I describe his style now?

Clean
I believe he's one of the cleanest dancers in SKZ, and by clean I mean precise and clear where you can see the intention of the choreo. Seungmin knows his body very well now, that the balance of his postures and the weight distribution when he dances is the best it has ever looked. He developed a strong intuition for texture; there is grace where there is no force, and a punch where there is no sway. He stays within the range of a stable center of gravity. With these, Seungmin is one of those that hold visual coherence within the group choreo, right beside Chan, Changbin, Felix, while Han, Hyunjin, Lee Know, and I.N are in charge of the in-your-face factor of ballistic explosiveness. (God I'm so proud of all of them). If you have a whole group full of furious stylized flair like HyunMinJeongSung, it could look uncoordinated from the sheer range of what everyone can do.

Stable
Changbin once said around ODDINARY era during a magazine interview somewhere that he really appreciated the vocalists because it takes a different kind of endurance to be so stable throughout the nonstop dancing for MANIAC. Stability defined as the ability to fulfill the basic skills without flustering or staggering seems basic, but it's the foundation where everything else you can do will be built upon: You can't think of expressions to woo the crowd when you're a second past passing out. He is completely in tune with what he can and can't do, and you can see throughout all his fancams how consistent his energy is in each performance no matter the conditions of the day as product of his efficiency.

Compelling
I recall one of JYP's rare critiques on him during the survival show: Seungmin was good at what he did, but he did nothing that stood out. There was a period of time you had to look for who was singing if the choreo did not highlight who it was. No more, because Seungmin developed a strong presence that demands people to look at him when he wants them to, and keep their eyes on him. It's looming, magnetic and seemingly unexplainable because he really isn't that "loud" with his body, but the audience would still feel pulled into looking. When he's in front, Seungmin has to give life to the words he's singing through his own expression, and rather than look like a storyteller with simulated expressions, he has now reached a point where he is immersed inside the story of what he sings as the character itself now.

Overall, Seungmin has grown into such an amazing dancer, and the fact that he developed this much on top of all his vocal training is a feat of excellence in discipline and consistency. I honestly don't see where else he could take his dancing identity besides growing his comfortability with more emotive bodily expressions of the tteokbokki-spine kind, unless he decides to take the Hyunjin-Jeongin route of going absolutely ballistic-joker expressive with their facial expressions and outright furious style.

Seungmin said in his 200823 vlive: "Efforts won't betray you", and he has demonstrated precisely what it means with how he grew as an artist. He's amazing. Seungmin will never cease to amaze me. If there are greater words than just "awesome", "amazing", I would use them.

Anyway, sorry it took me so long, OP. I really had too many thoughts, and honestly I think I could talk more too if anyone were to ask something more specific, but because it's such an open question I just EXPLODED with thoughts I didn't know how to format in a coherent way 😅 I don't know if this is what you wanted to her, but I hope it was satisfactory? OISJFMOSIMS

Hello hello! Seungmin revealed it in the 191008 Twitter Blueroom Q&A that he in fact already had an English name (same with Hyunjin as Sam, and Han as Peter). Presumably, they got their English/Anglicized names because of living somewhere Korean names may be hard to pronounce, such as in LA for Seungmin, Las Vegas for Hyunjin, and Malaysia for Han.
Chan did (jokingly) suggest other members names though, like Bartholomew because it's legitimately hard to pronounce :rofl:
https://twitter.com/bunn1j0o/status/1615141219457466370

In Seungmin's 200227 vlive, he also said the name Sky was chosen because looking at the sky makes you feel good... :face_holding_back_tears:
https://twitter.com/seungmiko/status/1234623292331450369

Would you be surprised to see a very long answer for each one? 😅
There would always be a specific aspect, a flavor or dynamic in each duo that stands out for me to love. And all Seungduos have the amazing quality of being distinctly special.

On a surface-level, it's definitely more like a favorite-of-the-day for me than an all-time favorite, but to make things simpler and shorter, I'll organize what I love in each duo into broader themes! (Update after writing: it was not, in fact, simpler and shorter. But imagine if I went EVEN DEEPER...)

Brotherly bonds: SeungI.N, SeungBin

These brotherly pairings make me feel so so warm and yearn for a sibling I don't have 🤣

Whenever they're around each other, they create their own little bubble of mutual mischief. At times they seem to really dislike each other, but only deceptively so. Its because there's this trust that the messing around they do will always just be messing around, that they can afford to get annoyed with each other so safely. When it comes down to it, the way they support each other goes unspoken, but palpable.
They will never be as openly sappy about each other, but it's all there in the undertone of their scant compliments.

Best friendship: SeungLix, SeungJin, 2min

So what differentiates the brotherly bond pairs from these best friend-like bonds?

I suppose... It's "provision" ?

There is a hand someone takes. There is care offered and care taken. There is trust to be cared for without asking for it.

Vulnerability takes many forms, and these 3 pairings have their own flavors of need and supplication. One is presence, one is openness, and one is understanding. And it's all a balanced tango of needing and feeling needed. It's these flavors of vulnerability that scratch an itch for someone who craves to care for others, and it's beautiful to see them fill and fulfill each other emotionally.

Absolute admiration: SeungChan, SeungSung

The gravity of the first 2 does not leave the last category with no emotional ground, however. This absolute admiration isn't blind to comparison to the self. But because they have the benefit of being together, they hold on a little tighter to what they can cherish. It's not even restricted to their art, of producing and writing and singing, but to the grit and discipline and dedication they lay down for their craft. And beyond the craft, even their lifeways, the way they carry themselves. They've both always admired everything about each other, envy without malice, jealousy without spite. It's so beautiful to me how they remain so genuinely invested in each others growth as artists no matter how much time has passed being together, what more how much it pushes each other endlessly upwards? It's amazing, mutual devotion like a laser bouncing infinitely between mirrors that they cut down what obstructs each other from their goals for themselves and for the Other.

So... Yeah. I genuinely cannot answer my favorite duo, because I wasn't kidding when I said there's very specific peak appeal to me in each and every one of the seungduos....

Im so sorry and also very thankful you asked because it made me put to words some feelings I havent had a chance to chew and reflect on. I hope... That was ok? 🤣