name Jacob Choi

Jacob and his brother Will were named after the brothers Grimm. They're both pretty proud of their names, although Jake also has a hatred for any Twilight comparison he's gotten over the years.

other names

최 종수 (Choi Jongsoo) - korean name

nicknames

♥ Jake - this was a nickname that his brother, friends and teachers used for him for years. Jakey was also a variant, but when he turned twelve, Jacob began to veto that one.

♥ Grimm - It started as a harmless nickname concerning his and Will's namesakes. Later, when he began acting out, it was also used in a degrading manner, as if to say how was that kid going to be good for anything when his name was in reference to a word meaning darkness. Jacob embraced the nickname even more then.

♥ Peralta - This nickname is a Brooklyn 99 reference, that Will gave him at some point. Jake Peralta has some similarities with our Jacob, so this nickname is used mostly when he embarks on some crazy idea. It's caught on with other people in his life now, provided they've seen the show.

♥ The King of Nicknames - Jacob gives everything and everyone a nickname. He has named various pieces of furniture in the dorm. Not one of his friends is saved in his phone by their real name.

♥ The Choi Bois (with Choi Sangmin) - At one point during their training days, Jacob and Sangmin had to complete a task together, or had to work on something for an evaluation together. While they were on their way, Jake decided they needed a team name. And so the Choi Bois was born.

♥ Jakeroonie - Will made this one up. Not sure how or why.

♥ McFly - With Jacob being kind and helpful to people he cared about but an to everyone he disliked, and Will being the creative nerd, they were quickly dubbed Doc and McFly.

♥ Jake M. Barrie - A storyteller with a good imagination. A sneaky main character that refuses to grow up. Cut all the racism out of Peter Pan and you're left with a fantastic story b with magic, that Jacob grew up on. This nickname is reserved by friends for when he's written something good.

birthday august 18 1999

birthplace London, UK

hometown Seoul, South Korea

ethnicity half-british, half-korean

nationality british, korean

languages

♡ english - native speaker

♡  korean - near fluent

♡  thai - conversational (had courses in various entertainment companies)

♡ spanish - conversational (had courses in secondary school)

faceclaim Kim Mingyu (Seventeen)

backup Jung Wooyoung (ATEEZ)

height 181 cms

weight 64 kgs

appearance Standing relatively tall, Jacob is fairly slender. Dark hair, somewhere between wavy and curly frames his face and falls into his eyes. His eyes are as dark as his hair and usually either crinkled in smiles or narrowed in thought and calculation. His nose, though of average size is perfectly straight, pointing towards plump lips. Jake would really rather not die his hair, but probably wouldn't grumble too much if he had to. Maybe he'd even like it, he just doesn't think he would. He has a tattoo of a tree with alchemy symbols on his left forearm. He doesn't know that much about alchemy but he does think it's interesting. It's his only tattoo and for now he doesn't have much else planned.

fashion style Jake grew up having to dress well and proper. School uniforms were a given, of course and he never really had a problem with that. What bothered him, was that his parents to wear fine clothes outside of school. When he was finally old enough to act on his own opinions, tears began to show up in his non-school clothes. He was scolded, of course, but soon stopped giving a . his fashion sense still reflects that need to rebel, even though he's no longer influenced by such strong control. So a lot of his clothes are ripped jeans, sometimes ripped shirts and lots of hoodies and cool jackets. He's not used to cute and colorful clothes much, but what really gets to him is suits and formal attire. Being told that he has to wear fancy clothes makes him clench his jaw in an effort not to cringe and he will be visibly uncomfortable when he does have to wear them. Fans have chalked that up to nervousness at award shows and the like. Even being able to a few of the buttons on a dress shirt or not having to wear a suit-jacket or a tie, will make him more comfortable.

traits 

charismatic ♥ creative ♥ engaging ♥ energetic ♥ humble ♥ eloquent ♥ strategic ♥ driven ♥ fantastic memory for people ♥ funny ♥ empathic

extraverted ❧ calculated ❧ shameless

restless ♡ opportunistic ♡ reserved ♡ his moral compass is a bit off ♡ manipulative ♡ smug ♡ immature ♡ pragmatic ♡ the ends justify the means ♡ argumentative  ♡ dislikes himself

❣ Slytherin

❣ Chaotic Neutral

❣ ENFP-A, the Campaigner

❣ leo, scorpio moon, rising sign cancer

❣ blood type B

personality At first glance, he seems to have a typical quirky personality, but the devil's in the details. If you watch closely, you will begin to see there is intent and calculation behind everything Jacob Choi does. One of his strongest traits is a combination of strong empathy with his well-spoken manner and enthusiastic charm. That gives him a certain perceptiveness for other's emotions and the skills needed to nudge them in the direction of something he wants. And he's not above manipulation. If he made worse choices, he could be a very bad person. He does try not to hurt anyone. Any conscious manipulation is reserved for situations that would benefit him and the people he cares about, at no cost physical or mental for the other. Although he sometimes forgets that finances and time are also things that people can lose.

Jake is highly ambitious and has incredibly high expectations for himself. He works hard for the things he cares about, follows self-set schedules and has a battle plan ready to go for any obstacle him and his friends face.

If you open a dictionary to "people person" or "social butterfly", assuming those are even terms in a dictionary, you would see a picture of his face. Charming, welcoming, well-spoken, he finds conversations and getting to know people easy. He tries to make sure everyone is included and interested in conversations. Adding to this, he's decent at remembering names and the corresponding faces and can usually recall a random anecdote about most people he's spent time with.

Jacob's humor is quite out there though and although he can be chill with his jokes he tends to prefer weirdness over wit. If he can go the extra mile for a joke, he will. He's fairly immature in his humor in the sense that he doesn't always know when to stop. While people usually laugh along with him, there are times when he overshoots it and they start rolling their eyes, groaning or worst case, feeling like he doesn't care about a conversation they're taking seriously. He is also rather argumentative, which usually just results in teasing or playful banter, but once again, there are times when he will argue a point way past exhaustion, just because he thinks it's entertaining.

While a lot of people that know him tend to have rather positive opinions of him, that can not be said for himself. In his mind, his good actions are often overshadowed by everything he does wrong and every time he hurts someone or makes them feel bad or less validated. He has high expectations of himself and is usually disappointed. He knows about a lot of his negative qualities, but is at a loss on how to fix them. Not that he would ever tell anyone or ask for help. Jake absolutely refuses to and and avoids showing vulnerability or any negative emotion. Partially, because he doesn't want to burden anyone, that's not who he wants to portray himself as and lastly because he just has absolutely no idea how to express how he feels. In everyday public life, he's either being fun or persuasive but whichever it is, every moment is him, sure, but he also maintains a certain level of detachment to most situations.

Tl;dr: deliberate, more or less harmlessly manipulating, highly ambitious, charming and funny guy, who doesn't always realize to stop joking and privately thinks he's an .

background

press any key to start

> start

London, August 1999 - June 2011

Summer's sweltering heat hangs low between the buildings as people wonder how they managed to sweat by just walking down the road.

>wait

Jacob Choi was born in late summer in 1999. His parents came from oldish money, they own a pharmaceutical company. While their son wasn't necissarily expected to take over the company, he was expected to go in a similar direction in life. After all, in the the Choi's eyes science was the only thing that would actually get you a job and financial stability. And so from early on Jake was stuffed into proper clothes and taught more so than played with. There was only one problem. Jacob turned out to be not great at math. If he was given oranges to learn to count, he would draw faces on them and cast them in a story. Then his brother was born. William had big, kind eyes and a bright curiosity. Soon it turned out that he was far more the science kid. Where Will wanted to understand how the world worked, Jake worked on understanding the people in it. Unfortunately to their parents only one of those was the right answer. They never explicitly told him that they thought less of his interests, but got a lot more excited about his brother's accomplishments, which wasn't helped by the fact that the times Jacob tried to do something in the same field it was always less good, because it just wasn't where his strengths lay. Although he learned if he couldn't be smart, he could at least be charming. At ten years old, Jake began to weaponize his smiles, gestures, words and wit. While it may not work on his parents, he could appeal to some teachers by being the sweet little kid and others were fooled if he just appeared confident and smart. Of course, it was important not to let anyone realize that he knew exactly what he was doing.

>look

There is a book here.

>examine book

An old classic, but not the dusty leather-bound pages that those words would suggest. No, this book has long been out of copyright, so it costs only a pound or two for a paperback copy with one of those glossy front pages. 

>read old classic

(picking up the old classic first)

The book is light in your hands. It's cover is warped and the cracks on the spine suggest it's been read a lot.

Then when he was almost twelve, he began to read the book that changed his life. Origianally, he picked it up at the library, because reading a classic might impress his parents. Hard Times by Charles Dickens presented the concept of fact over fancy in the form of Mr. Gradgrind, a rich merchant who raises his two children strictly and in the way he thinks best, by filling their minds with facts. Jacob felt like he was finally understanding his parents a little better and of course, they were just looking out for him. How was he going to make a living off of... well anything that really interested him. So he decided to buckle down and make it work. He tried. He really did try, only no one seemed to notice. There was always something wrong with what he did. Not one conversation went by without his parents sounding disappointed in him about something. No matter how upbeat the subject matter, his heart was always fluttering, because he knew it was only a matter of time. As he continued to read Hard Times, his perspective began to change. Sure, Louisa Gradgrind followed what her father taught perfectly, but it was also slowly becoming clearer that she was miserable. He didn't want to be Louisa Gradgrind. And then there was Tom Gradgrind, biding his time and rebelling in a self-destructive way and eventually becoming a wholly unsympathetic person. Jacob didn't want to be Tom Gradgrind either. After a few screaming matches, his parents sat him down and told him, that his tone of voice hurt them and how dare he and how did he manage to keep friends if he talked to people like that. And Jake said I'm sorry, I'll work on it. What he wanted to say was I'm sorry, I'll work on it. But it really hurts me too, that you always seem disappointed. What he said was I'm sorry, I'll work on it. And he tried for a few more weeks but when nothing changed, he stopped caring. "If hanging out with someone makes you feel worse or less confident, then stop hanging out with them" was the advice he heard about toxic friendships a lot, but he wasn't sure how to apply it. He began by spending all of his time in his room or outside and avoiding his parents as best he could. And so, couped up in his room, curled up under the covers so he could pretend to be asleep if anyone but Will came in, he finished Hard Times. All seperate storylines entertwined, characters changed and evolved and when he read the last thirty pages, his heart would not stop breaking. At some point he pushed the blankets off of him, because the uncontrollable sobbing would give away that he was awake anyway, so he might as well breathe fresh air. Mr. Gradgrind had changed after a confrontation with one of his children, but Jacob had already talked to his parents and they had told him he was in the wrong and he had apologized. It broke his heart, but he stopped caring what his family thought. His already iffy school grades dropped as he spent his time tracing mindless lines on paper or watching the birds fly outside the window and let his mind wander and create. He was bad at sciences and had refused to write down a single story for english. Other forms of writing were fine. Music class was boring, spanish was alright and sports was the only fun one. Jake's rebellion was actually fairly tame by teenage standards. After all, he wasn't rebelling aginst anything, he was rebelling for something - himself and the life he wanted to lead. Underage drinking and hanging out in shifty places without lettng anyone know where he had gone was as bad as it got. Not that that wasn't bad and that it wasn't dangerous, of course. But Jake was just so  honestly more comfortable away from home.

In a strange twist, he grew a lot closer to Will during this time. Sure they had liked each other beforehand, but there had always been a level of jealousy and mis-placed resentment on Jake's part. That was gone now and so the gates were open for them to actually feel like brothers.

Since Gangnam Style Jacob had been somewhat aware of kpop, but it was only when he found out that G-Dragon started training at age 13, that it presented a new world full of opportunities. Why not give it a shot? It would be something to do, a job that seemed up his ally, an excuse to move out and be more or less provided for somewhere else.  And so he auditioned for YG in 2014. He didn't get a callback. Fine. Change of plan. GCSEs first and he actually wanted to do good in case this kpop idea wouldn't work out. So he worked hard in the time he had and passed pretty admirably in 2015. When he got home, he spoke to William about his plans to get into kpop. Will seemed sceptical, but encouraged him to at least give it a shot. And so, a few days later at dinner, Jacob told his parents he wanted to move to South Korea to be an idol. His parents were not amused. But Jake layed it out in a factual and decided manner, making clear he wouldn't tolerate any arguing. It blew up anyway. Will tried to speak up in his brother's defence, but Jake kicked him under the table to stay out of it. After all, he still had at least four more years there. His parents told him he could forget it. Maybe go to college, get a bachelors and think about it then, once he had a good backup plan. But it was still a stupid idea that would get him nowhere. They had had hopes when his GCSEs turned out well, but they were starting to worry again when he said things like that. He managed to convince them to at least visit South Korea with him on holiday. To see the family. And the capital.

>go east

Seoul, 2015

A small hotel room with two beds on either side. In between lies a vast expanse of hopefully clean carpet and a closet. Jacob and William Choi are here.

>examine william choi

William is eleven years old now. He looks nervous and is clutching a travel guide to Seoul. His parents gave it to the boys to pick out some landmarks they wanted to see, but they have the tendency to not do that and just follow their parents around, because they usually pick interesting things. William looks nervous and keeps glancing towards the door.

>examine jacob choi

Jacob is standing in front of a mirror. He's wearing a white hoodie and torn jeans and is trying to get his hair to look appropriately messy. He is clenching his teeth and glaring at his reflection. His posture strikes you as determined. As you watch he turns to Will and smiles at him.

>listen at door

There are no noises from the other side of the door.

>open window

Morning air wafts in. Jacob hugs Will, closes the window and walks out the door.

William was the only one he told when he went to the audition. SMs building loomed above him as he walked in, but he felt taller.  He got in that time. A few days later the Chois went back to London. Jake immediately began to pack his bags, rolled his suitcases out to the living room, slapped the contract down in front of his parents, told them where they needed to sign and told them he was leaving. They tried to engage him, but he looked them dead in the eyes and refused to speak. They signed and he left. They've only had pragmatic conversations since. Jacob wants things to get better, but they're on the other side of the world and he has no off-time. And he was always the first to apologize when he was younger and nothing ever got better, so he is unsure whether that would be the right move this time. Still, he has a new family in this new part of the world and he has Will and that's what counts.

likes

♥ nighttime

♥ storytelling

♥ classic rock

♥ fairy tales

♥ being on variety shows

♥ animation

♥ debates

dislikes

♡ horror

♡ having to talk about his emotions

♡ being told what to do

♡ diets

♡ hot weather

♡ being treated like a child

♡ people being disappointed in him

habits

♥ Jacob doodles constantly. No matter the occasion or if it's appropriate. Any autograph he signs includes a small doodle of something. Sometimes he tags walls of recording studios Kingdom visit with a tiny drawing in the corner when nobody's looking. He's also responsible for half of the scribbles in JYP bathrooms. Some of it is drawings, some of it is writing, changing his handwriting to make it look like a bunch of different people. Most of it has been removed over time, but when he was sixteen he started an ongoing comic in the bathroom near the rooms where trainees practice dance. Now that he's debuted the comic has moved to the debuted artist's floor. No one knows who the person beind the comic is (although a few suspect Jake), but it's clear it's someone recently debuted.

♥ He oobsessivly checks internet polls and popularity rankings both of Kingdom in regards to other groups and the members in regards to each other. His ambition never lets him rest.

♥ Jake hangs out with fans at the stage doors after concerts for about half an hour or so. This is a bit of an unspoken secret, as he doesn't think he could handle huge masses, but if somebody's there, he will take a picture with them and engage in some smalltalk.

♥ He can only fall asleep in complete darkness, which is tough when trainee schedules give you such strange sleeping rhythms.

♥ He prefers phone calls over texting, but respects that a lot of people have the opposite opinion. To him, speaking face to face is the best anyway.

hobbies

♡ singing

♡ telling stories

♡ doodeling

♡ writing speeches or scripts

♡  performing

Little fears

♥ heights

♥ ants

♥ jellyfish

Big fears

♥ Despite calling himself an a lot, he is horribly afraid that he's a worse person than he portrays to the world. He fears he's exactly the person he sees himself to be: someone who can never take anything seriously and takes pride in manipulation. He masks this fear through more jokes, usually, but when he's alone it petrifies him. He doesn't know how to fix it.

♥ He spent a lot of his childhood and teenage years being told he wouldn't amount to anything. In response he first lashed out, trying to live up to what they were saying. When he realized that wasn't who he wanted to be for the rest of his life, he fortified his mind and worked his way into what he considers to basically be the military version of the entertainment industry - kpop training. Because he knew he would be miserable following orders unless he could motivate himself by reminding himself, that he was working towards something he really wanted. That's all well and good and so far it's worked well, but it leaves him terrified of faliure. He's invested so much of his life and soul into this and he is all too aware, that he doesn't have a proper support network in place. Sure, he has so many friends, but few of those firendships are built on vulnerability. And his brother is fifteen, Jake wouldn't forgive himself if he leant on Will too much.

♥ Between a controlled childhood, rebellious teenage years and working his off to be an idol, Jacob is acutely aware he hasn't had a normal life. Now that he's debuting, he'll be under a dating ban and even if he wasn't, publicity has ed up a few relationships in the kpop world. The only job he really worked before this, was at a bubble tea shop. Even if this whole Kingdom thing goes perfectly, who's to say he won't rtire from the entertainment industy without  a job or a relationship and with little money. Basically, he's afraid life will pass him by and he'll miss important milestones because of his choice of career.

special talents

♡ telling stories

♡ can hold his breath for close to three minutes

♡ does good imitations of people, both comedic or sincere

♡ he's very good at ballroom dancing. His parents told him to learn it and by the time he had started to rebel he honestly needed a club activity to have a chance at staying in his teachers good graces at least a bit. So he kept it up and when he started training, he figured it might come in handy one day.

♡ when he was fourteen, he scoffed at his dance partner complaining about her feet hurting. So she dared him to wear her shoes. So he did. He was pretty bad at it, spinning and stumbeling across the room, laughing. She dared him to learn to dance or at least walk in the heels because he'd be more capable of judging how much they hurt when he wasn't falling off them every minute. So he did. It was pretty good agility training. Heels or no, that bet along with his humor and relative shamelesness has led him to be pretty good at doing girl group dances at shows.

♡ He's very good at making soundeffects with his voice. You need the sound of a door creaking open or a torch bursting into flames? No problem.

trivia

♥ He's usually pretty good at being funny, but relies very much on situational comedy. If someone strait up asks him to "be funny right now" or to "make a joke" he has an arsenal of terrible jokes and puns ready to go, that usually make people groan rather than laugh.

♥ He prefers getting potted plants as presents over cut flowers, because he thinks it's depressing to essentially watch them die.

♥ He used to have a job at a bubble tea shop when he graduated high school.

♥ He is still in contact with his brother Will, but dropped contact to everyone else back in London, including his parents, the moment he moved.

♥ He loves going out to the theatre, cinema, opera, ballet, musical, or a concert. Any excuse to go to fancy places and see a show.

♥ Jake's favorite food are rice cakes, especially home made ones.

♥ His favorite cuisine is probably indian, although he is very aware, that he grew up with the british version.

♥ He didn't know kpop was a thing until Gangnam Style.

♥ He knows he'd hate to be considered Kingdom's dad or  mom. Not only because of his own relationship with his parents, but also because he believes he's way too self-centered to be a good parent to anyone right now.

♥ Jacob has a cairn terrier named Sir Pumpkin. Sir Pumpkin looks like a tiny, fluffy black hole when he lies down. Yes, Jake actually held him a knighting ceremony. Will has a light brown counterpart named Toto, because one of them had to name their dog Toto.

♥ He has absolutely no idea what his ideal type might be. To be honest, he's not thought about romance or uality a lot. There was always so many more important things to focus on. Sure he's met people who were pretty or hot or interesting and funny, but training was his hightest priority so far. Also he was always afraid they wouldn't like him back. After all, he is terrible at noticing when somebody likes him. At school and in training there were people who liked him and he was none the wiser. The few times somebody talked to him about it, he felt really bad about not knowing what to do..

♥ Jacob and William have never seen a single episode of Aquisitions Incorporated, but they've seen every single one of the animated intros. Might have something to do with the fact, that the intros are two minutes instead of two hours. They have rough ideas of who the characters are. So when Jake had to sign a bunch of contracts to join Entertainment companies and the such, he complained to Will. His brother told him that it was time to "go full Omin". Because Omin Dran enjoys paperwork and contracts and hile he's usually the employer the phrase going full Omin is still a thing between the brothers, when one of them has to buckle down and do paperwork.

♥ He knows all the words to all the good british football songs. He has never had a chance to sing them.

♥ If Jacob wasn't in the entertainment industry, he'd be writing politician's speeches.

♥ Nu'est and Mamamoo are probably his favorite kpop groups. His favorite western artists are Camila Cabello, Pearl Jam and The Beatles.

♥ BIGSTAR's Run & Run is his favorite thing ever. Watching their behind the scenes stuff, Jacob considers them gods of chaos and fanservice.

♥ He's never read Harry Potter and only seen one move. He did watch the sixth film with Will, but was banned from ever watching any of them with him again, because he had to ask who every single character was.

♥ His favorite TV show growing up was Avatar: The Last Airbender. His favorite film is The Emperor's New Groove.

♥ His favorite author is Charles Dickens, although he never tells anyone because it's a little too personal to him and he is notoriously terrible at talking about personal stuff.

♥ Jacob and William send each other packages once a month. The packages Will gets tend to hold a CD of some sort, a handwritten chapter of a story and some cool paints from a local art supply store that Jacob has gone to so often to buy stuff for these parcal exchanges, that he's on a first name basis with everyone who works there. And the ones Will sends Jake usually inclute what seems like a metric ton of different loose teas, a ty cheap souvenir of London as both a joke and a reminder of home and a drawing or painting Will made.

♥ He did his A-Levels while at SM, Woollim and Cube. They took him longer than anticipated, because he had to put them on hold while he was at SM because his health was deteriorating. But he did end up passing them and they're good enough to get him into college for political writing, if he needs to one day.

name says

♡ Not with that attitude!

♡ Don't worry. I have a plan.

♡ Nah, you're good. I'm just being a .

♡ Huh.

♡ The difference between school and training is that I'm paying attention.

♡ I saw everything. You can buy my silence in rice cakes and doughnuts.

♡ You say blood is thicker than water, but maple syrup is thicker than blood. So by that your logic we should all be canadians.

♡ Cool, cool.

♡ Whoops, , I meant to do that!

♡ It's important to always look like you know what you're doing.

♡ I'll go talk to them.

♡ Hey, do you want to hear a story?

relations

Because Jacob is one of those social butterflies that seem to know everyone, I might have gone a bit overboard here akghagdkj I'm so sorry. If it's too much, let me know.

The Brother

William Choi - 15 years old

♡ Will 

♡ Liam

♡ Willaby - a play on wallaby

♡ Mr Turner - a reference to Pirates of the Caribbean

♡ Wilbur - they grew up with Charlotte's Web

♡ Willbutt - an unfortunate misspelling of Wilbur

♡ Discount Shakespeare

♡ Painty Shakespeare - Jacob may have most of the artistic talents in the family, but Will is the painter.

♡ London's William Tell - Will at archery

♡ Willaroo - Jacob had to take revenge on the Jakeroonie nickname, didn't he?

♡ William Wobbles - Jacob was six when Will was a toddler and so was old enough to make up nicknames while Will was busy toddeling around.

♥ Will and Jake may have grown up in the same household, but they emerged very different people. They don't really mind, though and support each other as much as they can from different sides of the world. Thank god for Skype, Discord and phones.

Best Friends

Kim Yerim (Red Velvet) - 19 years old

met at SM in 2015

♡ Turtle - he still thinks it's funny that the animal she represents is a turtle. Sure, turtles are cute, but they're also super slow. So he's saved her number in his phone as Turtle♥.

♡ Oogway - Yes, another turtle jokes. This one is used whenever she gets surprisingly deep out of nowhere and offers strong advice. Mostly he uses it as a way to lighten the mood once a deeper conversation is done.

♡ Hermione - she graduated top of her class. Guess who didn't graduate top of their class? Yeah... he's super proud of her for that and regards her as really smart.

♡ Yer-bear - A play on the care bears. This one is also a deflection, a way to make himself feel less awkward if she's gotten to him, just by showing she cares.

♥ Put these two together in a room and they are the life of the party, even if there's no party currently happening. They met in 2015, when Yeri was about to join Red Velvet and Jake was auditioning for SM. He had managed to take a wrong entrance into the building and wander around like a lost idiot in search of the audition. That's when he bumped into Yerim. He asked if she was also here for auditions, she laughed and said she was joining a group, but he couldn't tell anyone. He asked for directions and because they're both social butterflies, who have a hard time letting an interaction end without having had a bit of a conversation, they began to talk about being nervous for the upcoming events. They talked for a few minutes, reassured each other. He promised to come to the next concert of hers he could afford tickets to and she promised to meet him for lunch when he was a Trainee. They ended up exchanging phone numbers to let each other know how their respective events had gone. Yerim was sad to hear he hadn't been invited to the second audition round, but he wasn't going to give up his dream anyway. Believe it or not, two days before his Woollim audition, he met her to give her high heel advice.

They're still friends to this day, mostly sending each other memes and brief life updates. Their schedules make it difficult to meet, but they try. After all, they are fellow 19 year-olds in groups from two of the big three companies. Gotta stick together.

Laurence Zhang - 18 years old

met at SM in 2015

♡ Laur

♡ Laurence Zhang, the master of breakdance - The boys often trained themselves to oblivion. One time at around three am, they were extremely out of it. Laurence decided he was now totally unironically the master of breakdance and had to teach Jake his ways. And so both boys got busy flinging themselves to the ground, awkwardly flailing their legs in order to propel themselves around, only to jump up, facing the wall in a pose that can only be described as the frightened lizard. This continued for a good five minutes until they had both collapsed laughing. In a fit of irony, Laurence has actually learned how to breakdance for real since. Jake's response was, that most jokes get funnier once there's some truth to them and refuses to stop using the nickname.

♥ Laurence started training at SM the same time Jacob transferred there. Both being english speakers and new, they flocked together quickly. Although they would have had plenty of serious subjects to talk about, they soon found that they shared their sense of humor. And so lunch was spent laughing their asses off about random stories they were stringing together. They excelled in imagining absolute bull connections where there were none, almost like a parody of conspiracy theorists. They were sad to part whe Jacob signed over to JYP, but they whish each other the best of luck anyway. Laurence was possibly more excited than Jacob to hear, that he was debuting. So far he himself is stuck in the training dungeon, but it hasn't been that long, so they hold out hope. Plus, once Laur does debut, Jacob is going to promote the out of him. Between their jobs being in the entertainment industry and Jacob's backup job idea as writing political speeches, they plan to take over the world. Just you wait.

Kim Woojin (Stray Kids) - 22 years old

met in 2015 at SM

♡ Shrek - Jake wasn't actually around when he gained this nickname. But they've decided if Woojin is Shrek that probably makes Jake Donkey.

♥ These two both joined SM in the same year and left around the same time. Since their main talents were both singing, they spent a lot of their training time together. Their friendship began as the kind of friendship, that only develops because you sit together in class. But soon they had formed a solidarity and if one of them had decided to train into the night that day, the other would join. They forged the bonds of brotherhod in dumb jokes, shared exhaustion and a lot of memes over the course of one year. At the end of that year, they were both pretty done with their training conditions and decided to leave. When they were accepted into different companies, they mostly just joked about being Romeo and Juliet and argued about who was Romeo in that equation. They stayed in contact and Jacob was front row for Woojin's debut stage. In turn, Jake suspects a recommendation might have helped him get into JYP just a little later.

Close Friends

Choi Sangmin (Kingdom) - 25 years old

met at JYP in 2018

♡ Mr Monday

♡ Choi Boi the Second - naturally, Jacob would be the first. After all, he has a knight at his disposal. Granted, his knight is his pet dog, but you know.

♡ Baby Bowser - Basically the word sang is french for blood. So the first time Jacob heard Eunjung call Sangmin "Baby Sang" his mind went Baby Blood sounds like a scary miniboss. Like a creepier Baby Bowser. And so that nickname was born.

♡ Goblin - This nickname seems way more mean that it is. Because despite what it may sound like, it is not based off of looks at all. See, the only reason Jake even knows the french word for blood is because of one incident. When he was nine, his family rented a house in france for a holiday. Now in this house were a few comics, one of which was called Goblins!. From what he could gather, the plot was that trolls were killing the goblins in what was basically cartoony torture . He was pretty grossed out and never looked at that comic again. But the fact that he knows the french word for blood is invariably tied to goblins in his mind now and it makes for a good nickname, as long as it's established, that it's just a far fetched play on his name. Also, Jake doesn't use it on camera because he doesn't want to have to explain himself because that would give the comic more publicity.

♥ When Jake started training, he was fifteen, two years younger than Sangmin when he started. Had they been a part of the same company, Sangmin (by this time four years in the industry) might have tried to act as a mentor figure to the younger, relating to the feeling of entering into the entertainment world as a literal teenager, miles from home. It's hard to say whether that would have gone over well - maybe they would have a wonderful bond, or maybe Jake would have interpreted helpfulness as control and freaked out. As it stands, they met only when he joined JYP a year ago. By that time he had grown into his own enough to react better to mothering. Although Sangmin was Jacob's elder at the company by many years, the younger's "make all the friends"-attitude quickly esablished them as friends, that usually view each other as equals.

Jacob has a lot of admiration for the bond Sangmin shares with his siblings, although he's amused by the overbearing nature. It never occurred to Jake to meddle in William's personal affairs unless asked, because Jake knows he himself would freak out if someone tried to do the same to him. But the fact that it works for the other Chois is entertaining to him. Since Jacob has always worked hard for the few things he cared about, he also has a lot of respect for Sangmin's passion for dance and relates to knowing early in life, that that was all he wanted to do. He's just glad it worked out for the two of them.

Yoo Jeongyeon (Twice) - 21 years old

met at JYP in 2018

♥ Apart from general friendliness, these two don't have a lot in common. Jeongyeon is the mom of her group, oderly and nuturing. And Jake is just Jake. When he first met her, he was honestly intimidated by her and just how much she seemed to have her together at just two years older than him. He avoided her as he felt extremly awkward around her. After a month or two she approached him and asked if she had done anything to offend him. When he explained, she thought it was funny. Soon, if she saw him in the halls, she'd tell him about something funny she'd screwed up recently and he'd tell her about small accomplishments he had had. Eventually they both exchanged embarrassments and accomplishments. If they meet somewhere by chance one will litterally hop over to the other, grab their hands and start telling them about something while spinning in excited circles. It's pretty silly to watch.

Friends

Felix Lee (Stray Kids) - 18 years old

met through Woojin in 2018

♡ Fe'

♡ Felio

♡ Felix Navidad - This is what Jake changes Felix' name in his phone to ever december.

♡ The Golden Feleece - One time when Jacob had caught a cold, he complained to Felix about not being able to sing properly. Felix invited him over, because they had left over soup. The conversation basically went "Thanks Fe'" - "No problem, this stuff heals basically anything." - "Oh my god, you're the golden fleece! Feleece! Whatever, you get it."

♥ Jake was excited to meed somebody who had debuted before him, but was also younger. Plus, someone who spoke english in an accent he hadn't heard all his life like the british or american one. They get along well, although they do bicker a lot. Every time they try to go shopping together, Jacob gets bored and dragges Felix off to get rice cakes instead. The joys of sharing the same favorie food.

Lee Haru (EMPIRE) - (am I allowed to just write empire members as friends or do i have to ask first?)

♥ There was a timeframe when they were both training at SM. They initially bonded over Haru liking bubble tea and Jacob working at a bubble tea shop. Does that sound like a weird basis for a friendship to you? It mostly meant that they saw each other a lot, even outside of training. They were also both very young and still relatively new to the entertainment world, so they banded together as allies. After Haru's injury and Jacob's leaving the company they haven't stayed in touch as much as they would have liked, but have cheered each other on  each time something happened.Now they're in rival groups and Jake thinks it's the funniest thing ever.

♥ Kingdom members to come, once they are revealed, should he be chosen

Aqaintances

♥ Yang Hongseok of Pentagon

They bonded over Marvel movies and have gone to see one or two together. Irregular contact over text

♥ Park Jinyoung of Got7

Theatre nerds, have tried to make plans to go see something together but never had the time.

♥ Im Jaebum of Got7

Jacob reached out to JB after seeing their episode of Hello Counselor, if he wanted to talk about weird parental issues. They decided to meet up and but talked about completely different. More lighthearted things instead.

♥ Kim Jungwoo, Kim Doyoung, Mark Lee of NCT

Used to train with them back at SM. They haven't really stayed in contact, but are happy to see each other and catch up whenever their paths cross.

♥ Serenity Shin

When Jacob joined SM, Serenity had been there for a while. They didn't have all that much to do with each other as they were different genders and disciplines. But they were a pretty good match in wit and so they still know who the other is and can still hold a basic conversation should they meet again.

Negative Relationships

Minatozaki Sana (Twice) - 21 years old

met at JYP in 2018

♥ Sana's ideal type is "someone who treats their parents well. Someone who works hard in his career, someone is professional." Now, while he may work hard, Jake doesn't usually come across as the most professional, nor has he even properly spoken to his parents in four years. Aside from the occasional Merry Christmas, happy birthday, I need a copy of my birth certificate, yes I'm still doing the singing thing, you for not believing in me. Sana hasn't thought very highly of him since the first time they met and if he's honest, Jacob is just so over explaining himself to people who look down on him. To be fair, he isn't at his friendliest to her either. In his mind she has a lot of growing up to do, which is ironic cause she's older than him. Despite never speaking of her at all on camera, off the record he describes their relationship as "I don't blame her. It's not like she's a bad person, she just doesn't think I'm a very good one."

name a member of Kingdom (any gender) or Empire, if that's eve possible?

backups Felix Lee (Stray Kids), Park Chaeyoung (Rose of BlackPink, yes I am recycling this), Choi Junhong (Zelo), Jeon Jungkook (of BTS)

nicknames

alkgj;aldjgadl there will be so many

(if it ends up being Chaeyoung he is going to make so many jokes about them being off-brand Titanic. Y'know, Jake and Rosé, that tragic movie couple.)

personality remember that no one is perfect! give them positives and neutrals, please!

first meeting here

development here

interactions here

status their status at the beginning of the story, make sure you've read the cheatsheet. 

ending this is an ideal ending (which means no promises) or you can leave it up to me!

relationship trivia

format these as you please, the minimum is five!