#exo k mama | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

wolveswithblackpearls · 21 days ago

Text

Bring Me To Life

Genre: Angst, Power Era, MAMA Era, Open Ending

Summary: All is well when Chanyeol returns from his patrol. The red force is probably still licking its wounds from their last confrontation, right? ...right?

Word count: 4 k

Warnings: major character death, revival / coming back from the dead, coming back wrong

A/N: Happy Holidays @exo-xexo! I (admin j aka @breeze-of-sunlight) am your secret santa~

I wish for you to be able to end this year peacefully and find some rest in the coming weeks. Hopefully you'll enjoy this little fic - let me know what you thought of it if you want!

For all those unfamiliar, this fic was posted as a part of the @exols-silver-christmas event 2024. Please check out the gifts from this and the past years if you want to see some beautiful creations by all kinds of EXO-Ls. Happy holidays to you too, santa admin. As usual, thank you so much for hosting!

May you find time for yourself in these last days of the year, dear reader.

"Chanyeol, duck!", is the last thing Chanyeol hears before something hits his shoulder and promptly dissolves into goo all over his neck and back.

And it had been such a good day until now.

He can hear Kai and Sehun cackling behind him as he tries to shake off the worst of it and pull the more resistant parts of the novaberry from the hair on his nape. "Real mature guys, incredibly funny! You're off duty for five seconds and immediately behave like little shi-"

"Sorry, I tried to warn you, but I guess my timing was off.", Suho tries to placate as he makes his way to Chanyeol opposite of where the still snickering duo stands.

"Apology accepted, but only if you send these two right back on patrol again."

Suho huffs a laugh at that and brushes off a piece of the berry Chanyeol had missed. However, a frown replaces his easy grin and he turns to address the others. "Could you come over here, please? I need to ask you all something without yelling my lungs out".

"Sure", Kai hollers back and reaches out to grab Sehun's neck. The later only has a short second to let out an undignified squawk before they get teleported across the field and materialize next to Suho.

"Ugh, I hate it when you do that! Could at least warn me beforehand?"

"I could."

"But? You won't?"

"Boys,", interrupts Suho, long suffering of his brother's antics, "could we please focus for one second?"

"One.", echo Kai and Sehun at once but stay silent afterwards. Chanyeol can smell Suho’s hair greying.

"Have any of you noticed anything different or suspicious on you patrols today?", Suho makes a point of staring each man in front of him down until they shake their heads one after the other. "Has anyone heard back from Baekhyun yet?"

Chanyeol feels his face drop. "No, why? Is something wrong? What's going on?"

Sighing heavily, Suho lowers his head and pinches the bridge of his nose. "There might be." When he raises his head back up, he admits " Baekhyun is not yet back from his mission. I talked to the others too, but no one has heard from him since he left this morning. And we can’t reach him via transmitter right now. Quite frankly, I'm worried."

And you're definitely not alone with that. Chanyeol adds mentally. Baekhyun has never been their most serious member. On the contrary, nothing seems to bring him more joy than to aggravate the others. But not coming home from a standard patrol? Not even trying to contact them about any anomalies altering his usual routes? That's simply not a line even he would cross for the sake of a prank. He must just have forgotten.

"Kai,", Suho pulls Chanyeol back from his thoughts, "I want you to teleport to his usual checkpoints. See if you can figure out whether he's been there today."

Kai nods solemnly, the mischief from a few moments ago long forgotten.

"I don't want you to face this alone and walk into a potential trap. Take Kyungsoo with you."

"Wait, hold up!", Chanyeol interrupts, "What do you mean 'Take Kyungsoo with you'? I'm literally right here?"

“Chanyeol, do not take this personally, but Kyungsoo tends to be a lot more levelheaded than you are in these situations”, Suho tries to calm him down. And Chanyeol can see the reasoning in that, but-

"And we literally need you right here, idiot.", Sehun raises his brow at him. "We're already down a guardian who can cast a shield of light over the tree of life. If this happens to be a trap, we don't need our actual firewall gone too."

Feeling his cheeks heat from being scolded by his younger brother, Chanyeol turns away from the group. A petty fine barely had the time to leave his lips when their transmitters light up simultaneously.

"Guys,", Xiumin’s grim voice filters through the devices, "we found him."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

There have been few days Chen has felt so much negativity in their hallowed halls. Or rather, beneath the tree of life. For good reason. While the tree is not all powerful, it at least grants its guardians one thing: quasi-immortality. In the long time they've been guardians, they have never had one of them dying.

That doesn't change the fact that Baekhyun’s cold body lies before them anyway. Looking all the more fragile between the massive roots.

But it simply must be him, from his long fingers to the small freckle over his lip, Chen is certain about it. This is Baekhyun. Xiumin could have dumped an entire frozen ocean's worth of ice over Chen's head and he still couldn't have been more frozen in pace.

Chanyeol, as expected, is not quite as silent about the matter.

"Lay, I know your power is health stuff and all, but how in the world is this supposed to work? He's not missing a finger; he's missing a heartbeat."

"'Health stuff and all'? Watch your tongue, Chanyeol. I know this isn't easy for you, but damn, neither is it for us!", Xiumin hisses back, feline eyes narrowed in agitation.

Lay, with his usual calm collectiveness when faced with a patient to attend, pulls Baekhyun's head into his lap and settles a hand over his brow. "Could you all please stop snapping at each other? This is going to be dancing on the edge of the possible already. If you keep distracting me, it's certainly going to go south."

"Besides,", he raises his head to stare into Chanyeol's eyes calmly, "it's not like we have any different options, do we?"

Chanyeol tsks in lieu of an answer but otherwise drops his arguments and resumes pacing. Chen tries to reach out to offer him tactile comfort but his hand gets pushed away. No one but Baekhyun himself could calm him down, it seems. Chen refocuses on the situation at hand instead.

With bated breath the guardians watch as Lay closes his eyes and tries what they've thought was impossible up until now. While Chanyeol is right and their powers have their limits, performing this act of revival right below the tree of life is the best chance they're going to get. If Lay manages to tab into the trees power source, then surely, surely...

Lay shifts his hands, running the tips of his fingers down Baekhyun's head from scalp to chin and then settling next to his temples. The rest of them watches, watches and stares as Lay's hands start glowing. And they glow. They glow and glow and glow and begin shaking slightly after minutes (or hours? Who can say.) pass by. Baekhyun's chest still isn't moving.

Inhaling deeply, Lay tilts his head back in a way easily recognizable to the rest of them. He's trying to tap into the tree's power. Usually, the tree would start winding roots or branches around whoever asked for aid - the energy is easier to transfer that way. Right now, though? The tree does nothing of the like. The branches stop swaying in the gentle breeze, the leaves becoming completely silent. Adding to the eerie atmosphere that has befallen them.

The tension under the tree could be cut with a knife, even Chanyeol has stopped pacing and worriedly glances back and forth between Baekhyun and the tree. Until Lay finally drops his hands, covered in sweat from head to toe, and breathes heavily as though he held his breath the entire time. While he leans down, he whispers something against Baekhyun's face - too quiet for Chen's ears to catch. Lay presses their foreheads together and then slowly wiggles himself out from beneath the body.

Before Chen can react, he hears a gasp next to him and Chanyeol shoots off to kneel down in front of Baekhyun. "No, no way! Baekhyun, can you hear me?"

In full disbelief Chen also storms forward to sink down next to Baekhyun. He faintly notices how Suho grabs Lay by the shoulders to support their healer after was undoubtedly the most complicated use of his powers to this day.

Baekhyun in the meanwhile has not only opened his eyes but is also currently wiping the tears from Chanyeol's face. "What's going on? Why are you crying Yeollie?"

Which of course only results in Chanyeol sobbing harder.

Chen catches one of Baekyhun's hands between his own. "Baekhyun,", Chen begins when he caught the other's attention, "you've been dead for at least the last hour."

Baekhyun's face falls slowly, as if he had to remember how to do it first.

"What?"

"Don't you... don't you remember anything at all? Xiumin said he found you on his patrol, but-", Chen stammers, squeezing the hand harder as Baekhyun beings staring off into the distance.

"But you had no pulse", Xiumin finishes for him, leaning over his younger brothers’ backs. "Baekhyun, are you sure you can't remember anything else?"

"How about you let him come back to himself first?", Chanyeol's head snaps around and he glares alternatingly at his two members. At least until Baekhyun tries to sit up and lets out a long gasp of agony.

"Where... are we exactly?"

Chen makes a bewildered eye contact with Chanyeol as they try to stabilize Baekhyun between them, "Baek, we're under the tree of life. You're home".

"Huh", Baekhyun breathes and cranes his neck around slowly. His eyes dance up the bark of the tree up into its crown. Even slower, Baekhyun tries to lift one arm and reach out to one of the branches dangling above him.

The branch, however, flees his grasp as if repulsed by him. Chanyeol catches it with a still furrowed brow and brings it close to Baekhyun, who in turn promptly touches it. As if burned the branch jerks back and turns black where Baekhyun has laid his hand. The discoloration spreads along the branch, twitching as though it's in pain. The leaves start rustling in convulsion. Chen has never seen the tree act like that, much less after touching one of them.

Xiumin, quick as always, reacts first and summons a blade of ice to cut off the branch above the growing discoloration. The still twitching appendage falls with a heavy thud. In a radius around it the roots begin twitching and rearranging themselves, not wanting to come in contact at all.

With an open mouth Chen tears his gaze away and studies Baekhyun instead. It's as though the man's face has turned to stone, nothing but apathy to be read there. "Interesting."

And suddenly, as if the past hours hadn't happened, Baekhyun smoothly rolls to his feet and dusts off his pants with an air of disinterest.

"Woah there, take it slow Baek! You really shouldn't strain yourself", Chanyeol rises next to him, although with far less grace and holds out his hands as though scared the other will collapse at any second.

"Oh, don't worry,", Baekhyun's gaze fixes on Chanyeol, "Lay did a pretty sound job there."

Something is off about his smile, but Chen can't pin it down. Has this quiet intensity behind his eyes been there a minute ago? Why does he look at them like a predator stalks his prey?

A soft wheeze pulls Chen's attention to Lay instead. The healer has braced himself on hands and knees, one hand lifting to cover his heart. Although he had managed to slow down his breathing before, it now seems to get worse again. Suho has started quietly murmuring to him again, gently stroking his back to calm him down. Kyungsoo lets himself down next to him, naturally gifted at grounding people and offers him a shoulder to lean on.

Baekhyun, apparently, has also noticed their struggling healer and coos mockingly. "Aw, poor one. Did you overexert yourself trying to save your friend, huh? You tree huggers are even more pitiful than initially estimated."

And this? This is the straw that breaks the camel's back. Despite all his teasing and shenanigans, Baekhyun would never let one of them suffer without offering help - let alone make fun of anyone in need. So. What if Lay hadn't brought back their Baekhyun at all? What if he summoned something entirely else into their friend's body.

"You're not really Baekhyun, are you?", Chen asks in a low voice. He subtly shifts into a more battle-ready pose and summons a small string of lightning to dance around his fingers. The quiet flickering of the electricity suddenly grows a lot louder as Chen feels a wave of power and relief wash through him. It's the most encouraging signal the tree has sent him all day.

"Who are you?"

Baekhyun's eyes are widening in pure joy at the open challenge, his smile turning even more manic. "Wouldn't you like to know, weather boy?"

Before any of them can react, Baekhyun performs a spinning move and summons an orb of unforgivingly blinding light. Chen flinches and covers his eyes, afraid of being blinded even though he was only exposed for a split second. From Chanyeol's pained scream he concludes the others aren't faring any better.

He wills his lightning back down again, knowing far too well how foolish it is to shoot at a target he can't sense in any way.

Kyungsoo, however, does not seem to have such reservations. A rumble goes through the ground as he summons an earthquake. Additional to not being able to see, now Chen can't hold his balance either. While sinking to the ground as carefully as he can manage, he at least hopes Kyungsoo manages to shake Baekhyun off his feet as well.

Instead, he feels the telltale rustle in the air that comes with Kai's teleporting and the light vanishes. Soon after, the world stops shaking and Chen warily blinks open his eyes. But Baekhyun is nowhere in sight. And although Kai is still here, his limbs are entangled with Sehun, the two of them must have fallen into one another when the earthquake caught them all by surprise.

"What? Where is he?", Chanyeol asks while heaving himself off the ground, turning in one direction after the other. Chen would comment on him looking like a helicopter during takeoff if the situation wasn't so dire. “He can't have gotten far in so little time!”

"Guys.", Suho gasps an interjection, "Our tree!"

And sure enough, there is a dark, rotting hole in the tree’s bark. Oozing a dark liquid as if it's bleeding, spreading from where Baekhyun must have made contact. The tree’s branches have drooped as though all life was sucked from them; its roots aren't so much as twitching although some of them are currently squished between two slates of earth in a way that must hurt.

A forlorn no is hushed from Lay's lips. He struggles to push himself upright, but instead just falls back against Kyungsoo's chest. "What have we done?"

"He's gone", Xiumin states grimly. Gaze sweeping over the meadow and through the forest surrounding them. Nothing seems out of the ordinary. If it wasn't for the last hour, one might even say it was peaceful.

Chen picks the pebbles that bore into his skin during the earthquake out of the palms of his hand. "We have to find him immediately. Maybe if we can get that possession or whatever that was out of him, it'll teach us how to reverse the damage."

Kai, who has by now managed to detangle himself from Sehun and pulled the latter to his feet, fetches a holomap from one of his endless pockets and boots it up. With the three-dimensional star map projected in front of him, he walks up to Xiumin. "Show me where you first saw him. Maybe I'll be able to track from where he came - and see if he passes by there again."

Xiumin begins gesturing around the map, trying to point out certain coordinates as precisely and quickly as he can manage. Meanwhile, Chen sees how Sehun rids himself of most things in his pockets and even begins taking off his shoes. Clearly preparing to take flight through the woods for long hours. Searching where the rest of them can't follow him with their larger space shuttles. At least not efficiently.

Chen feels the telltale rustle of teleportation behind his back. The sensation makes him pause for a second. Kai couldn't have teleported earlier, except if he teleported himself into Sehun. Which seems unlikely at best. Yet, Chen is sure he felt the same sensation right now as he did before Baekhyun disappeared. You get familiar with the supernatural surrounding you when you live together, after all.

"Now that we're talking about it, how did Xiumin manage to find Baekhyun? Their routes are nowhere near each other."

Xiumin swivels around: "Are you trying to say this is my fault? That I'm a traitor - or possessed by that whatever-it-is as well?".

"Calm down, Minnie, no one here believes you're an imposter", Suho placates, trying to keep them united even when his own nerves must be lying raw. "What's your point, Dae?"

"I'm just saying, what did Baekhyun even do out there? If he went that far off his actual checkpoints, he must've sought out Xiumin specifically. Do you maybe think that he saw the thing coming and tried to warn you?"

"And when he realized he couldn't he sacrificed himself instead", Suho furrows his brow.

"Just a thought."

"Or,", Sehun pipes up, "did any of you stop and think about whether or not we have the real Baekhyun in general?"

Chen is certain he can hear the grass grow over the silence that descends above them.

"Sehun, what the-?"

"No, hear me out.", Sehun intercepts, "We found a body, that miraculously looked like Baekhyun somewhere he shouldn't have been in the first place. When Lay breathed life back into him, the tree of life did not help at all. Don't you think it would be a little keener to help one of its protectors get back on his feet? The twig that thing touched literally wilted at first touch, there's an enormous hole in the tree - that keeps on growing, by the way."

"And we have no actual means to find out how Baekhyun got where he ended up being", Suho adds on. "Fuck, Sehun, you might be right. This basically reeks of red force, doesn’t it?"

"Did we just bring a red force clone of one of us to life?", Chen asks breathlessly.

"Did said clone manage to escape so that he can now spread the knowledge he gained to his master?", Xiumin comments wryly, his lips pressed together in a thin line.

"We're screwed", Chanyeol exhales as he drags his hands down his face slowly. "If the red force knows where the tree of life stands, how long do we have until it starts attacking?"

"And how long", Lay pipes up from where he lays in Kyungsoo's arms, "until we can't trust each other anymore because we can't tell us apart from any clones."

And truth be told, Chen hadn't even considered that. "You think there are more of them? But how? There is no other Lay, no- no, X-Lay, right? How is that X-Baekhyun supposed to bring them to life?"

"No, I don't think X-Baekhyun can do that. But think of it, if the tree can create guardians, it's not too far off to assume the red force can too. And if it's goal with X-Baekhyun was to simply scout the area and find the tree, there's no reason to send all of its subjects and risk potential fallouts."

"And it comes with the added benefit of taking out some of us as well," Kyungsoo murmurs, stroking a comforting hand up and down Lay’s arm.

"I'm not down, I'll be fine in a few minutes."

"Just don't strain yourself. We still need you."

Suho starts massaging his temples. "That would also explain his quick getaway. If there already is a Kai clone, we can stop wondering how he pulled that off."

"So, what now?", Xiumin stares down the hole in the tree darkly. "The force weakened the tree so now it can come back with the big guns and completely claim it? And all we can do is set up wards and hope for the best?"

Chen doesn’t have it in him to respond in any way. He hasn’t felt this foolish and helpless in forever.

"We might not be completely defenseless", Kyungsoo answers quietly instead. "There's something I've read a… while ago. But it's experimental and I might not remember all the details."

Suho sighs heavily. "I can't say I'm thrilled at the thought of more experiments today."

"It's not like we have a lot of other options, though", Kyungsoo counters. Suho nods in agreement and waves his hand to encourage Kyungsoo to keep talking.

"Simply put, we would essentially split the tree in two. Hide each half in a pocket dimension. Each a mirror world of the other. The same skies over different grounds. The same grounds under different skies. That way the red force can't find it based on where it is now. Over time the tree could grow and heal itself. When it's strong enough, we'll reunite it again. Until then we have to find Baekhyun, the real Baekhyun. And we best get rid of any clones or other units of the red force as quickly as we can. I'd rather not take any chances here."

Sehun raises a brow in disbelief: "Won't we just make ourselves vulnerable if we split up? What if they find one half of the tree, charge in there with full force and completely destroy that half of the tree? This just sounds like we're presenting the tree on a silver platter."

Kyungsoo heaves a heavy sigh, as if the worst still lies ahead of him. "There's another thing. Due to the split of our current dimension, we will create some problems with space-time. Which means we're most likely not going to be able to get in touch the conventional way. I'm not sure if we'll even be able to contact each other at all. But that also means the force will get separated. It won't be able to reconnect to its other units and neither can it switch dimensions at will. Not unless we can too. The only other way for it to do that is to wait out until the two dimensions have aligned and we merge the tree once again."

Chen isn't sure how many more hits he'll be able to take today. He locks eyes with Chanyeol, who looks back at him with similarly forlorn expression. When he lets his gaze drag over the different faces of his friends, his family, he sees the same silent emotions. In the way Sehun picks anxiously at his fingernails, in the way Suho is again pinching the bridge of his nose, in the way Lay stares up at the trees crown with glassy eyes. In the tear he can feel rolling down his own cheek.

"This is goodbye then?"

"Yes", answers Kyungsoo, voice barely above a whisper. "But only for a while."

Suho turns away from the group, hands already on his transmitter. "I'll page Kai. We should meet at the ritual grounds. You guys should get a headstart, we won't be far behind."

Chanyeol and Sehun relieve Kyungsoo of his Lay-safekeeping-duties, their taller frames better equipped for carrying around a person. Lay keeps on protesting vehemently that he can walk on his own, but his complaints fall on deaf ears. Neither of them is willing to let go of their friend in what could be the last time for millennia.

Suddenly Chen's field of vision is obscured by a face. Xiumin's worried face. "It will be okay", he promises quietly. "We'll be back together in no time, you'll see. And the tree will have blossomed brighter than ever! Won't that be nice?"

"Yeah, sure it will", Chen snivels softly and tries to muster up a smile for Xiumin's sake. He clearly isn't very successful judging how the grief grows stronger on Xiumin's face as well.

"Just never lose yourself, okay?", Xiumin's finger rise to gently swipe away the tears Chen hadn't noticed rolling down his face in streams now.

"Just be brave. A new world shall open up."

A/N: And that's a wrap! I took some liberties with the whole MAMA intro, but I hope you guys like it anyway :] Please consider leaving me a comment or a reblog, that would make my day! And if anyone's in the mood for it, here's the link to the EXO-K MAMA mv. Take care, everyone!

-admin j

12 notes · View notes

dreamcatcher-roulette · 8 days ago

Text

Can I admit to something? Is this a K-pop safe space? It's not drama it's just deeply personally embarrassing.

So there’s two halves to this. The relevance of both might become apparent some time before I finish rambling and get to the point but bear with me. I'm desperately trying to justify my situation.

Firstly. I'm a girl group fan. Dreamcatcher are easily and effortlessly in a tier of their own but I do enjoy and even keep up some other girl groups rather attentively. The obvious follow up question here is well, what about boy groups? Here is a collection of excuses I have previously attempted to offer up in my own defence:

Musically, I like bass and I like high notes. This kind of lends itself to prefering female vocalists, but, as I may have mentioned before, I'm not actually into K-pop that much for the music (Dreamcatcher just happen to also make the music that fits my taste perfectly on top of having the best aesthetics).

Boy group fashion kind of blows. I mean, I have high and somewhat unrealistic expectations for any stage outfits due to the standard Dreamcatcher set, but Jesus Christ the baggy pants epidemic amongst boy groups is something else. Mens fashion can be fun. I think it frequently isn't for the stages I have seen though.

The boy group hair meta also kinda blows. I'm perfectly capable of realising when something just isn't catered to me (and may well have cultural context that's flying directly over my head) and the bowl cut adjacent curtains look that's almost a default hairstyle is one of those things. Just cannot get behind it. Sorry to all the enjoyers.

And now, even though there is truth in all of those excuses, here's the actual reason why I'm making such broad, sweeping statements about an extremely diverse subgroup of artists:

K-pop is an industry that loves to feed on parasocial relationships, and I am gay in the direction that makes me immune to girlfriend fanservice but really fucking succeptible to the right boyfriend fanservice. So long as I keep pretending every boy group sucks I am safe. If I get sucked into one of them it will probably just straight up ruin my life.

Okay. Secondly. Many years ago when I was still in high school my neighbour got really into K-pop. She was a big fan of EXO, and then, this new up and coming group called BTS (anyone heard of them?) She tried, unsuccessfully, to get me to share her passion multiple times. Of the videos she showed me, these are the ones that made an impact:

LEDApple - Time is up

SHINee - Ring Ding Dong

BIGBANG - Fantastic Baby

I liked them enough to watch them on my own a few times, but that was the end of it, until in 2020 I got recommended Scream on YouTube and the rest is history. However, one of the things that amused me getting into K-pop myself was realising 2/3 of those songs reached somewhat legendary status in the time since. Even being a GG fan news from the "other side" certainly still flies across the river, sometimes with recognition, e.g. G-Dragon's semi recent drug "scandal". I remember seeing those articles and thinking huh. Wild. That's what he looks like now. It is at this point I would like you to imagine a bullet narrowly missing my head as I'm looking the other way.

On to the present. I watched MAMA 2024 live nearly 2 months ago. I like the end of year shows. My only complaint is they should invite Dreamcatcher lmao (thank you AAA 2023 that performance still lives rent free in my head) but overall, great fun. Now I must confess, for the aforementioned reasons, I always* mute boy group performances when watching shows live. Happy to critique the fashion, don't want the songs stuck in my head, which is an inevitable outcome of listening to music whether you like it or not (and I'm well aware some of it is probably good).

*Technically I have one exception in either direction, but both are irrelevant to the point.

As you may be aware, G-Dragon performed at MAMA. Everyone seemed pretty hyped. Normally this would have been a mute for me but well, momentous occasion isn't it. The king of K-pop is back. Might as well get the full experience. And it was good! I'm not exactly a fan but I did have enough nostalgia for fantastic baby to appreciate the bigbang stage, and watching all the idols freak out was so adorable. I want you to imagine three more bullets narrowly missing me while I'm looking at the aespa reaction shot.

Like, you're probably aware of where this is heading, right? But it wasn't even the stage. AFTER the stage they still had to give him the award they made up for him being there. And man. Okay. All the actual real life crushes I've had on men that I knew started out having very little if anything to do with their appearance. I'm ace so maybe that changes it but also I don't think that's exclusively it because I'm not the only person I've ever heard say that people you are attracted to become more attractive in some kind of self enforcing feedback loop. Thats why the K-pop content vortex is so brutal because as soon as you're in the variety content rabbit hole suddenly you don't just have some guy who is pretty you have some guy who is funny or thoughtful or he likes all of your favourite movies and you start feeling like you know him, even though you don't. I know that the force of that connection if you let it happen easily overpowers the baggy clothes and the shitty haircut and every other flimsy excuse but given only a muted performance stream or occasional acceptance speech there is not enough room for that personality to break through. I can watch Dreamcatcher accept an award and I see them because I've watched hundreds of hours of vlogs at this point but groups I don't know are just that. Groups I don't know.

Yeah. So about that music visionary of the year.

Holy shit man. I've never seen anyone get up and accept an award with such fucking weird and awkward vibes. I think I was gone from the moment he reached the podium. I said to the friend I was watching the stream with hey. I think maybe I should turn this one off actually. And she said no :) Because she is evil. You know how sometimes a single event can recontextualise over a decade of vaguely knowing about someone's existence? Head in my hands. Of all people. G-Dragon is really fucking attractive. Which is like. In twenty twenty four? Really? Profoundly humiliating discovery. What am I even supposed to do with this one? It's literally G-Dragon. I know there are discourse minefields the likes of which I cannot even fathom wading into this and what am I anyway? A fan? I don't think so. I saw one singular awards show and went holy shit why is G-Dragon the hottest K-pop man by actually one hundred thousand miles and then I just had to go to work again the next morning and be normal. And the thing is that I was not even remotely normal because I then decided to dye my hair bright red the following week which to be fair I have always wanted to do but well it's not UNrelated to the current crisis is it. I'm just. Existing. Really thought maybe it would wear off by now but WELL. It has not.

#not roulette #SORRY.

10 notes · View notes

ultrakdramamama · 6 months ago

Text

The SM Entertainment Group That Stood Out From The Rest With Their “Rushed” Debut

They seemed to just hope for the best!

When it comes to debuts, SM Entertainment often makes grand ones. EXO, for instance, had 23 teasers released over the span of three months in 2012.

youtube

On the flipside, the boy group that debuted before them hardly had any promotions.

SHINee is one of their original boy groups, debuting in 2008 with the song “Replay.” Though their formation took several years, their announcement to the public was quick.

SM Entertainment announced the existence of SHINee on May 19, 2008. They released the teaser images of the group on this same day as well.

Unlike with their other groups such as Red Velvet, EXO, and Girls’ Generation, the company did not slowly introduce the members one by one. They revealed all five—Minho, Onew, Jonghyun, Taemin, and Key—at the same time.

Moreover, the music video was released on May 22, just three days after the teaser images dropped.

youtube

In comparison, Red Velvet’s “Happiness” was released around one month since the member teasers were revealed while EXO’s debut music video for “MAMA” was released three months after their first teaser featuring Kai.

youtube

Netizens commented that SHINee’s debut made it seem like the company just “hoped for the best” with how short the releases were.

Regardless, SHINee’s “Replay” was a massive success. A panel of 35 music critics and industry experts from MelOn and the Seoul Shinmun even named one of the top 100 K-pop songs of all time.

#SHINee #Onew #Jonghyun #Key #Minho #Taemin #SHINee Debut #Replay #baby SHINee #EXO #MAMA #they did just kinda toss them into the world and say have at it #and they did #they've done SO WELL #don't normally post #Koreaboo #but when it's about SHINee's debut #I just had to #Youtube

20 notes · View notes

okiecookie20 · 6 months ago

Text

EXO 'Overdose' Theory

Other theories: Obsession

𝚃he plot of is quite straightforward with the boys already being captured and put in a complex maze. The intro to the mvs shows us that they are trying to figure out how to escape the maze. An interesting thing that you might have noted is that they are not shown to use their powers explicitly or the escape might have been very simple, especially Jongin having the ability to teleport himself and "other energy" — The War repackage, Power merch as seen on Kai character cards:

Another instance is that Chen is unable to turn on a lamp in the maze.

(more under the cut)

• The intro gives us important clues, let's go through the scenes:

Everyone seems unhappy. Minseok and Junmyeon look for clues on the walls of the maze to find a way out. Kyungsoo gets a box(?) and opens it to find sand which correlates with his power of Force (also known as Earth-bending) which he empties upon seeing glimpses of their future (hands behind screen). This scene is connected to the very next in which Yixing is lying down with (lol idk how to say this) sand going up.

From Mama intro: "two worlds that look alike" but they cannot meet until the Red Force (believed to be a corrupt organization) is purified so they are in the same place (LaySoo, XiuHo, SeTao) but do not see each other.

•Baekhyun has his back towards the map to the maze:

Why is he not trying to get out even though the answers are behind him? Many believe this is because he wants to protect himself as he is the Heart of the tree of life. Baek does not want them to leave the maze.

a little Edit: in the behind the scenes video, even Tao passed this place where Baek is sitting but the shot did not make it to the final cut so maybe this little deduction was crap idk hehe

• Does Obsession happen after Overdose? In Lucky One theory mv we see how they are captured and subdued by the ladies. Twitter user @erisxekso posted this:

• They dance in 2 settings one of which looks like the inside of a cube. Notice how the subunits M & K dance in different cubes as discussed earlier. There is plenty of evidence for correlating Tempo and Overdose. Visit Exo & the cube Theory↗ where I have pointed out various links and how significant the cube is in Exo's lore. The red lights suggest it an illusion or plane created by the RF.

• SM leaked overdose mv (little different outros from the official ones on yt) which provides us an important detail. Here are both m ver and k ver in primitive form lol. We see that Luhan and Kai seem to be near the exit of the maze but a mechanism closes the exit so they are unable to escape through the dead end. Yes, we are yet to know what happens next.

_Clue: time-bound puzzle which is another instance of how Tao is unable to stop, reverse or speed up time.

Amino user vip.imnida posted a brilliant theory based on their physical ver of Overdose Album. Basically, they traced a faint line on it which is a path connecting the centres of each hexagon present in the big maze. I agree that the codes on the centre of each hexagon correspond to a member or their location.

• I'm sure you've noticed at 1:52 of the K ver mv, Jongdae passes a bolt of lightening to Yixing who tosses it upwards. It has been explained that he is the healer in the grp so he does not get hurt but tosses it out of the way. In the M ver, Baek passes his power to Junmyeon(?) who gives it back to him. waaa this is confusing I think this relates to Chanyeol's scenes in What is Love mv / Debut Teaser 20. He is reading a book of prophecy:

At the margins, this page shows Suho's symbol pointing towards Baekhyun's and an arrow pointing from it to Yixing's. They're also drawn inside the triangle with Kai's symbol in centre. Yes! They are connected and we will discuss this imp motif soon :)

• Some believe that another clue could be the iconic head drum choreography 😭 (1:35 and 2:58 timestamps) they are literally dancing to the beat of the RF. We have seen in Lucky One how they were subdued by the nurses.

An important deduction is that Lucky One is the prequel to Overdose since the title is a glaring hint: they were drugged and "it's too much." Also, are they calling the doctor who has ties with the red visored nurses?

• Jongin explained in the behind video:

• I found this analysis:

The lyrics describe a love so potent that it becomes impossible to escape, likening it to a dangerous drug. The repeated calls for a doctor underscore the severity of this 'overdose,' suggesting that the protagonist is aware of the peril but is unable to resist the allure of this all-consuming passion.

Agreed. Yixing's Honey might be connected to Overdose lore-wise because of the honeycomb patterns in both mvs. There are some minor references which Exo have made in their music since the beginning. He IS captivated. atp I'm too dumb to dive deep into it when SM be ijbol_ing all these years at fan theories.

It is important to understand that SM has neither confirmed nor denied any theories so it is all open for speculation^^ (hoping they release a book or movie on this 😭 seriously). I haven't been able to decode certain clues with SM using elements for aesthetic.

ノ⁠^⁠_⁠^ノ

Thanks for reading and do share your thoughts! ♡

#Exo #Exo k #Exo m #exo kpop #chanyeol #jongdae #kyungsoo #lay zhang #exo kai #minseok #xiumin #jongin #sehun #junmyeon #baekhyun #exo theory #fan theory #voldemort #answered

7 notes · View notes