#but then again I’m not like super active in the community/fanbase so idk if that’s why I haven’t seen other people expressing this

[organized-chaotic-disaster]

Okay but fr I hope Dan and Phil don’t feel pressured to actually do a 25-day gamingmas bc that’s like. SO much work for them. They don’t need to upload every day leading up to Christmas. They can just do like 5 days or a week, but even then they don’t need to do that, that’s just if they wanna do some sort of gamingmas-type thing

I just want them to take care of themselves and not burn themselves out 😭

[yanankim]

Idk you well and I’m usually all for people speaking about their controversial opinions but also since I don’t know you well I’m just hoping it isn’t pure hatred and vitriol for a person or something (bcs I have zero idea what the censored thing is. Maybe Dawn related?? I feel like he’s the thing most people have acidic ideas over lol, it fits your censor and he also has a small fanbase)

uhm okay it is *kinda* dawn related but not really. its under the read more bc yeah

naughty boy's entire era leaves just a really bad taste in my mouth. dont get me wrong, i love the entire mini and i know the boys put so much effort into it, but it was their first comeback without all of the members. i mean, during half of gorilla era shinwon had to sit out and critical beauty yanan couldnt be in live stages, but they at least got to participate in the songs. naughty boy was the first time they were.. incomplete? i suppose? and it was just a time filled with so much uncertainty. we werent even sure if yanan was gonna come back, especially after it was confirmed that dawn got kicked. for the longest time, i couldnt even listen to any of the songe on the album bc it just felt so empty without either of their voices. hell, you could *hear* where dawns voice was supposed to go in naughty boy.

its an era that, even though im able to listen to the songs now and not feel this emptiness, i still cant fully enjoy it. what makes it worse for me is that they were riding off of the coattails of shine's success. they had the entire kpop community's eyes on them as they had to go through losing a member and criticism over making a shine copycat and so much uncertainty. i still remember kino crying at a fanmeet and reporters asking them questions about dawn leaving and them having to be civil about everything.

and as much as i love naughty boy as a song now, its so obvious they WERE trying to capitalize on shine's success. thats not a criticism! shine is a good song and so is naughty boy and it introduced ptg's now well-known fun concepts! but hui has also talked about how ever since shine, he hasnt been able to make songs with such a carefree attitude. he constantly has to make songs with the success of shine looming over him and how cube is trying to push him into making a hit like it again.

the reason why im scared to say all of this is that when naughty boy was released, a LOT of unis were just.. awful. it was more of a problem on twt, but i saw my fair share of tumblr unis being disgusting too. they all said that it was okay to take ur time and heal from dawn leaving however long it took, but as soon as someone was open and vocal about their hurt, they would be called a fake uni! if you didnt support hyundawn, you were a fake uni; if you didnt support dawn's solo debut, you were a fake uni; if you posted hui crying during bomnari; if you are ot10; if you are ot9— all of it somehow signaled that you werent an ACTUAL ptg stan or that you were a bad person. ive talked about this before, but there are a handful of big-name unis (specifically on twt i dont think any of them are active on here anymore) that tote a Specific Way Of Being A Universe and if you Werent That, then you were somehow doing it wrong. they were are are super protective of the boys, and i get it, theyve been through shit and i want to protect them to, but it was getting to the point of sending hate to other unis for simply being a uni in a different way.

im ot10. i was pretty vocal about it in the past. in my eyes, pentagon will always be 10. they talked about how pentagon wouldnt be pentagon if it werent the 10 of them, dawn got a bigass 10 tattoo on his hip, they fought tooth and nail to debut as 10. to me, that signifies that, if it werent for cube, they would still be 10.

ive stopped being vocal about it because there are a few ot9 stans that tell ot10 stans to get over it. it happened years ago. theyre 9 now, so theres no point on being ot10.

ptg are my ults. they still are. they debuted the same month i tried to kill myself, and while recovering, their debut album was the only thing i could listen to. it comforted me in a way i cant explain now. i think thats why dawn leaving had such an impact on me, and why i had to take a break from everything for months after he left.

theres so much in-fighting that ive seen within the universe community. its hostile and bitter and i hate it. its died down since shalala, but i still see it. it makes me sick to my stomach.