yes, actually—i started working on a timeline because i was writing a canon-verse fanfiction and wanted to play around with the “divorce” tagline myself. its kind of complicated for a multitude of reasons (i ended up having to split the timeline into like, objective timeline beats and then the super, scary subjective layer of fansphere making things seem worse than they actually were). in truth, i think the baekchen divorce was probably a moment where bbh and kjd realized that their future was somewhat in flux with one another (unrelated to shipping, tbh, just as friends or as coworkers works as well). bbh has seemed to be someone who is very anxious about the idol-dream he’s got—he excels at being an idol, he excels at maintaining a strong, core fanbase, he’s very serious about being a singer and excelling at that. but I suppose my read of him is that he’s much less adventurous in that sense, and much less willing to break the mold on what an idol singer looks like? The contract issue doesn’t surprise me because its managed by his ambition, and I think he’s an exceedingly ambitious person. but I dont think bbh is going to publically announce his marriage while still intending to release music as an idol—i see him career pivoting instead (probably same industry, but not as the “face” or the performer anymore). kjd on the otherhand Would do that; he’s self-confident in both himself and his art in a way that really fits how things panned out? I dont think he was ever NOT uncertain, but I do think that he seems to have a much less anxious approach to idol-dom and more of a steadfast, patient approach to it—a little more inward focused than bbh who seems very reliant on fan perception. hence why I feel the divorce was probably just a moment where bbh was uncertain about how things would go for exo as a group and their career together (and also being anxious for his friend/coworker) and there may have been a degree of awkwardness in knowing that everyone was kind of biting their nails about it. in a shipping lens, i like to just simplify it as the moment kjd was off the market OTL.

MORE subjective and interesting about the divorce-era is that its irritated a lot by fansphere complexities, which I don’t totally want to get into because they’re still a super touchy subject and ugly to recall for a lot of people present at the time of chengate and the beginning of the divorce, but in sum, bbh had some shitty twitter moments which aggravated an already very anxious fandom(s) (post 2020 marriage announcement and superm which had divided exols at the time so u got a lot of very defensive bbh-ls with a lot of very defensive soons—imo not necessarily without good reason—and then threw them at each others throat pretty frequently). so I also feel like recognizing the baekchen divorce is in part a recognition of how much soons and bbhls fucking hated each other during a time where everyone was rife with anxiety. i know im bigger on it because that time had a pretty awful effect on me and stressed me out pretty bad, so it feels like a personal divorce (which was fun to explore as a dramatic divorce of baekchen). And then the other half of recognizing baekchen divorce is just acknowledging that 2020 changed the course of exo, or,, changed isnt really the word im looking for because I dont think kjd or superm marked how things would turn out, but I think it made visible that exo was going to have to adapt in some way as it aged into a more senior group—both internally between the artists and externally between the fans.

Re: xingdae is a blast from the past OTL u might have better luck reaching out to someone else; ive had it explained to me and get it myself, but I also had baekxing goggles on for a really long time and was not super invested in it in the same way. if any of my friends have a good primer on it/explanation on it pls feel free to reply/quote ill boost it!

and if u have a want to talk about it a little more specifically/see the timeline im happy to sit down and articulate myself according to different beats in the timeline, but i didnt think id be able to really condense everything down into an answer box :/ ur welcome to reach out in dms though! i dont like talking about more sensitive fandom things seriously in public but im more than happy to go over things in private ;u;