PERSONALITY TRAITS

[+] objective, adventurous, selfless, polite [/] overimaginative and reactive [-] paranoid, melancholic, obsessive, nihilistic

❥ gemini : zodiacs aren't always accurate. while reggie isn't inherently outgoing, he is a deeply curious person who can adapt to anything. he doesn't fall into the two-faced stereotype that geminis get labeled with often, but his mood does fluctuate more than most.

❥ isfp-t : being independent and artistic without a strong sense of self worth are all traits that center reggie into this personality type over all else.

❥ neutral good : though reggie can be troublesome at times, he's a good-natured person who does his best to be a good person. he won't allow himself to get pushed around, but he won't go out of his way to make trouble.

❥ hufflepuff : this house values hard work, kindness, and creativity, and these traits align with reggie's much more than any of the other houses.

PERSONALITY EXPANDED

being objective or impartial is usually a neutral trait, but it leans more into the positive side of reggie's personality because he won't allow his own bias get in the way of what's right. if two people are arguing, no matter who those people are to him, he's going to look at the situation objectively. if ever a middle man was needed, reggie would fill the role flawlessly. he's going to tell both sides to calm down, take emotion out of it, and to look at things from the other's point of view. his favorite point of view is, "what's the best thing for everyone right now?" reggie is always quite selfless in that way. he's much more concerned with the wellbeing of the people around him than himself. it's the reason why he didn't continue holding a grudge against yangyang, it's the reason why he's so scared to let his parents down again, and it's the reason he would do anything to keep dgdg together.

aside from the past fighting, reggie is actually a very well-mannered young man. he knows how to show respect for others, and he'll always remain formal to seniors and elders unless told to do otherwise. his trying to stay behaved was a big part of the reason he didn't react to people trying to bully him in the past until the moment they put their hands on him. reggie will definitely be seen bowing the full 90 degrees and holding the door open for every single person coming through. this is also part of the reason reggie has become a reactive person. he won't make the first move unless the other person or people around him give him reason to do so. he likes to wait to see how things play out before he speaks or does something.

there's being creative or having a vision, and then there's reggie. he goes a little overboard with how he sees things every time. there's no time to stop and think about what could be realistic because he's too busy feeding whimsical ideas of grandeur. he wants to do it all, one day, and he doesn't think that's asking for too much. besides, as such an adventurous person, what's stopping him? a risk-taker at heart, reggie was never too worried about making a big move. when his parents offered him to move back to china by himself, the states by himself, or south korea by himself, he did it without looking back. new experiences and new memories were a big part of the appeal. if there's something dangerous, reggie wouldn't be averse to testing the waters. he's definitely the guy in the movie that the audience is yelling at to not go to the basement or jump off that cliff.

whether it be because of his past or something that would eventually grow with time, reggie has a strong centered around him and other people. it truly makes him anxious to put his full trust in anyone else, already convincing himself that something somehow will go wrong. either that person is going to make him fight, or they're going to turn their back on him when someone else makes him fight. it's happened time and time before, so what's to stop it from happening again? this is also connected to reggie's obsessive personality. once he gets latched onto to something, it's going to consume him for an extended period of time. it's going to for the people around him because that's all he's going to talk about for at least weeks. and he's going to try to get someone else to obsess over it with him.

the last two traits are the two that reggie tries (and fails) to fight the most. they've developed because of his past, but now they're simply a part of who he is as a person, no matter how much he doesn't want it. not fully trusting anyone with constant fears nagging at him has made him become melancholic. there's a sadness that lingers in him that he just can't seem to shake. even when he has happy moments, he finds himself thinking about anything that could potentially ruin those moments. his happy memories start becoming sad as he overthinks and obsesses over things that other people probably would never notice. it drives him to the point of overwhelming sadness that he hides until he's alone to let it out in the form of tears. his nihilism stems from his sadness, and he started losing hope in life when he was an early teen. if anyone could get away with calling him slurs and hitting him and then lying on him, if nobody would stand by his side throughout it all, reggie was convinced everything was pointless. nobody faced consequences, and life had no real meaning.

BACKGROUND

dance was the source of all happiness and agony in reginald zhu's life. in fact, it was the reason for his being in the first place. his parents were both ballet dancers, and they were in the same ballet company since they were teenagers. they were married young, convinced and convincing everyone else that they were in love. reggie came soon after, a beautiful bundle of joy for his parents. the move to the united kingdom came from opportunities offered by british ballet companies.

reggie learned dance from the moment he could walk, his parents thrilled to teach their son the same steps they'd been learning all of their lives. it wasn't something that was forced on reggie as he loved every moment of it. he loved how it felt to move along with the music, feeding every emotion that came from the composition or lyrics. despite training in ballet first, reggie was excited to learn different types of dance. he branched into contemporary, ballroom, and hip hop. any dance class that was made available to him, he asked his parents to sign him up. and they did so immediately, ecstatic to help their son find his passion and one similar to their own.

the pain that dance brought came during the last years of primary school. reggie wasn't a popular student by any means. he battled racism and xenophobia daily. it didn't help that the other students considered him too tall, too skinny, too pretty for a boy. going to dance classes at the end of the school day was the only relief for him, until a girl in his class revealed to everyone else that reggie was a ballerina. the taunting was relentless. he was used to the insults and slurs that were hurled at him daily, but this new information brought on a new style of bullying that reggie never had to deal with before: violence.

no matter what those kids thought of him, he wasn't going to let them put their hands on him. so, he fought back. and he fought hard. unfortunately, that meant it always looked to be reggie's fault. and with nobody in his corner, the students lied and said that he started it. he started getting in trouble constantly for merely defending himself. his parents were stressed, unsure what to do about their sweet boy who'd taken an aggressive turn.

from his last year in primary school until he finished secondary school, he switched schools several times. when he was 13 years old, his parents gave him three options: a dance school in beijing, an arts school in the states, or an entertainment company in south korea. his first choice was the dance school, where his quiet nature was taken as arrogance. that lasted mere months. his second choice was the states, where he was tormented for assumptions about his uality due to his appearance. that one only lasted a few weeks. finally, his parents had him begin his studies in korean. they homeschooled him until he graduated secondary school. they then sent his audition tape to several south korean entertainment companies until they got their first acceptance. they immediately sent their son off with the best of wishes and hopeful hearts.

 

LIKES

❥ tattoos (he loves seeing them on other people, and he wants at least one. but he knows he'd have to hide it because of his idol persona. he also just doesn't know what he'd get).

❥ classical music (from his years of training in ballet, he's grown to fall in love with the sounds of classical music).

❥ hats (he adores finding and getting a new hat. he'll wear those things everywhere if allowed. he loves pulling them down over his face especially).

❥ korean food (coming to seoul as a teenager and getting to experience all the new food he never had before was a thrill, and he still loves all kinds of korean food to this day).

❥ football (or soccer, as the americans would call it, is his favorite sport. he loves watching it, and his favorite team is manchester city).

❥ pda / skinship (because he's been forced to be a fighter, he loves when he can just cuddle, hold hands, hug, etc).

❥ stretching (though he doesn't train in dance full time, he still likes his daily stretch routine before and after practicing).

❥ musicals (he grew to love them after using them to practice his vocal skills).

DISLIKES

❥ violence (isn't that ironic? but he's never wanted to fight. he's done it out of necessity).

❥ disappointing his parents (which is why he was so excited when he found out that he was debuting. he was finally doing something right after all they've done for him).

❥ tight clothing (obviously, he'll wear it if a stylist puts him in it. however, it's coming off immediately when he's no longer performing).

❥ the smell of something burning (it's just unpleasant).

❥ basketball (he finds the sport incredibly boring, and he just generally doesn't enjoy his time when he's forced to watch).

❥ alarms (whether it's the clock or the phone, but he absolutely hates the sound. he will throw something at whatever is making that terrible noise).

❥ slurs (of any kind, since he's had his share of being called them in the past. he doesn't want anyone to use that kind of language, ever).

❥ being called pretty (too many bad memories associated with it, so he views it as an insult now).

HOBBIES

❥ riding his bike (specifically at night when the air is cool and there's less cars).

❥ collecting things (he has multiple series of collections that he's started and moved on from when he found something new to obsess about).

HABITS

❥ listening seriously when the other dgdg members are talking, even if it's about something lighthearted

❥ getting shy immediately when taking pictures

❥ vocal warm ups before going live so that he can perform well

FEARS

❥ disappointing his parents to the point of no return

❥ having to fight again

TALENTS

❥ doing impressions (while he's pretty good at copying anyone's voice, he's specifically good at bts' v and exo's baekhyun).

❥ ballet (though he doesn't actively take ballet lessons anymore, he's still very good at it from years of practice).

TRIVIA

❥ favorite food: bibim-guksu with kimchi

❥ favorite movie: sweeney todd: the demon barber of fleet street

❥ favorite artists: adele and jonghyun

❥ favorite songs: no. 3, clair de lune by claude debussy

❥ favorite season: spring

❥ favorite drink: earl grey tea, two sugars and no milk

❥ both of reggie's parents were ballet dancers. they now teach ballet together at the same dance company in the united kingdom.

❥ reggie was trained in ballet for 13 years, and he has several years of dance training under his belt.

❥ while being trained vocally under sm entertainment, he would watch a bunch of musicals and learn the songs to practice.

❥ he always wants to go third or fourth when they have photoshoots, so he can calm his nerves.

❥ his best friend is ningning of aespa.

❥ he's good friends with winwin and yangyang of nct/wayv.

❥ he wants to jump out of a plane one day.

❥ he loves horror movies and anything horror related.

❥ he's probably the member that wouldn't cry around the others easily. he would be the one comforting, saving his tears for when he's alone.

 

 

ning yizhuo.

 

  

❥ 2002 | aespa member | light-hearted, fun-loving, restless | 99%

being two chinese kids the same age as sm trainees together, these two hit it off immediately when they met in december of 2018. they did everything they could together. because reggie was always changing schools, the small amount of friends he'd made never stayed. yizhuo was the first friend that reggie ever made that stayed his friend after their time together was cut short. she was one of the few people who even believed him in the first place, becoming his advocate when he had none. despite being apart, the two keep in close contact with each other via messaging and video calling whenever they can. yizhuo always seems to have reggie's best interests at heart, even brokering a peace treaty between reggie and yangyang after reggie's departure from sm. she calls him king  or reg, and he calls her queen  or ningie. also, it's important to note that ningning is the only person other than his parents that has reggie's trust.

❥ queen playlist: dysbf! by grouptherapy. & i got 5 on it (tethered mix from us) by luniz

 

dong sicheng.

 

  

❥ 1997 | nct member | humble, diligent, shy | 85%

while training with wayv for those few short months, sicheng was who reggie connected with the most. they had a lot in common, from dancing to being reluctant to training at first. sicheng was quiet, and reggie was just trying not to cause trouble. so it was easy for the others to leave them out and group them together. because sicheng had already debuted, he had wise advice to give the group, and reggie appreciated that. when the day came that reggie was removed from the wayv training group, sicheng didn't blame reggie for starting it all, like the others did. however he didn't say anything. it hurt, and it made reggie remember that he couldn't trust people. it always led to the same thing repeatedly. sicheng apologized later, and reggie accepted. but he knew he couldn't look up to the man like the older brother figure as he was starting to. instead, he viewed him as an older friend that he trained with previously. they don't contact each other as often as reggie and ningning, but they do exchange messages every now and then. sicheng calls him reg, and reggie calls sicheng win. also, it's important to note that winwin lost reggie's trust, but reggie does view him as a friend.

❥ win playlist: adagio for strings by samuel barber & hit em where it hurts by pawpaw rod

 

두근두근.

 

  

❥  idols | 80%

in all honesty, reggie is grateful for these boys. they've trained for a short period of time, but there were none of the issues that he had in his past. for once in his life, he didn't have to physically defend himself. even if arguments or disagreements take place, he isn't singled out or pushed into a corner. this is also the first time he's been around younger friends, like moon song and the other younger members. being in a.den and dgdg is refreshing. he will quickly start coming out of his shell. on the other hand, if things start to take a turn, he will just as quickly close back up. most of the members just call him reg or reggie, but he wouldn't be averse to other nicknames. also, it's important to note that the members don't have his complete trust, and he'll get paranoid and close down if problems arise. but overall, he's truly grateful to be a team with them.

❥ dgdg playlist: generation by triples aaa & days gone by by day6

TRAINEE YEARS

❥ july 2018 - july 2021 : sm entertainment.

❥ july 2021 - february 2022 : a.den entertainment.

❥ overall : 3 years, 7 months.

TRAINING BG

despite reggie's low expectations, sm entertainment really surprised him. nobody really bothered him. his first month was just like any other trainee. he took korean lessons in the morning, took vocal and dance lessons from one in the afternoon to ten at night, and then he either practiced more himself or retired to the trainee dorm. there was really nothing more to life during that time, and it was the first time in a long time that reggie felt peace. however, the following months brought new experiences. he was being considered for a spot in nct's new unit, wayv. he was plucked from the usual trainee lineup to train with the handful of others who were also considered. and all hell broke loose.

it came out of nowhere, honestly. there was no teasing or attempted bullying that led to it. the boys were tired, words were said, and all of a sudden, reggie went flying onto the ground at the hands of an older trainee. "don't put your ing hands on me," was all he remembered saying before everything went red. the entire trainee group began either arguing or physically fighting. when all was said and done, reggie, the youngest of them all, was being singled out as the person who started it all. just like all the other times before. and his chance to debut at the beginning of 2019 disappeared.

unlike his former schools, sm entertainment had given him a second chance. he was still considered for the nct lineup, among another unit. he was placed again into the pre-debut trainee group, sm rookies. his trainee scheduled returned to the normal pace it was once at, and the other trainees never tried to fight him once. the closer it got to the announcement date of his and the other new members' arrival, the more reggie found himself getting excited. all the training of his vocals until his throat got sore, all the dance practices, all the choreographies learned. and it all was snatched from him, by the same older trainee that robbed him of a debut the first time. without even a fight happening this time around, the staff were informed of a violent threat against the nct members. and reggie was ultimately removed from the new lineup. 

reggie returned to the regular trainee lineup for the second time. he'd all but given up on sm entertainment, so when his trainee contract expired within the next year, he took the opportunity to leave the company.

refusing to give up or to explain to his parents that he'd disappointed them once again, reggie auditioned to other companies until he was accepted by the first one to give him a chance: a.den entertainment. the trainee schedule was a lot similar to sm's, but reggie threw himself into practicing even more than before. he got to the building much earlier than necessary to practice alone, he ate as quickly as possible to not waste time, and he stayed until the nightly janitor kicked him out to clean. he would not let anything or anyone ruin his chance again.

 

PRE-DEBUT EXP

❥ sm rookie: august 2018 - november 2018 (during this time, there were no events being held. his participation in the pre-debut group was a simple announcement of his joining and the release of a few pictures and dance videos).

❥ sm rookie: january 2020 - july 2021 (the second time was quite similar to the first where there wasn't a lot of activities for the sm rookie members. they were announced, and the company released some pictures and videos of them).

HEADLINES

❥ august 2018: sm rookies introduces new member reggie.

❥ november 2018: sm entertainment removes reggie from the sm rookies page.

❥ january 2020: sm rookies re-introduces new member reggie.

❥ july 2021: sm entertainment removes reggie from the sm rookies page, for the second time.

❥ february 2022: former sm trainee reggie to make his debut with new boy group, dgdg.

❥ 2023: former classmates of dgdg's reggie show proof of violent past.

FUTURE ACTIVITIES

❥ if a.den staff were to push him to pursue a solo debut, he would likely follow baekhyun of exo's style.

❥ un village, and the subsequent city lights ep.

❥ candy, and the subsequent delight ep.

❥ bambi, and the subsequent bambi ep.

❥ it's important to note that he wouldn't ask for a solo debut or even expect one for himself. the company would have to push him towards this.

 

 

HELLO THERE. REGGIE, PLEASE INTRODUCE YOURSELF.

"hello, kyungwoo hyung." a slight chuckle was heard before reggie cleared his throat. there was some shuffling noises heard before he started over. "hello, my name is reggie. I will be dancing and singing for dgdg."

ALRIGHT...HOW DOES IT FEEL TO DEBUT?

immediately, reggie responded, "I feel nervous. I want to be able to debut with these guys. I will work hard, as long as I will be able to debut. I really want it."

YOUR TRAINING HASN'T BEEN VERY LONG...HOW ARE YOU GUYS GETTING ALONG?

there were a few false starts as reggie seemed to be getting his thoughts together. finally, he let out a soft hum. "I like it here. it's peaceful."

ARE THERE ANY IDOLS YOU LOOK UP TO? ANY ROLE MODELS?

"my role model is winwin of nct. I trained with him for a few months, and at that time he had already debuted. he was able to come to this country, train and debut, and have successful. he learned korean while working hard among s. he's not only talented but strong."

IF YOU COULD CHOOSE ONE, WHAT STRENGTH OF YOURS WOULD YOU PICK?

"my strength..." there was a bit of silence before a slow inhale was heard. "I would pick my ability to learn. I could say singing or dancing, but there's a lot of people who can do that. I think I catch on fast, and I know what to do to make lyrics or choreography my own and stand out."

THANK YOU FOR THIS INTERVIEW.

"yes, thank you as well for this interview."

COMMENTS　will i ever give my characters a decent background? reggie's literally fighting for his life until he reaches a.den. but things look up after that, so it's okay. a little enemies to lovers? yes, please.

SONG SUGGESTIONS

❥ baby by astro

❥ crazy y cool by astro

❥ samsung by dkb

❥ tell me tell me by dkb

❥ crush on u by bae173

❥ amazing by myteen

❥ take it out by myteen

❥ i'm fine by victon

❥ my flower by jbj

❥ rose by dkb

SCENE REQUESTS

i'm so bad at these, i honestly will be happy to read all the scenes.

PASSWORD　baby boy blue (#C6D2DC).