So a while ago I wrote a post about chen and the lack of fan support at concerts; I said that all I can do is to write, write, write, and show people what I see in chen.

Currently, in about three months, I’ve written 120,618 words of completed chenfics, and 40081 words of ongoing chenfics. There’s lynx-chen, tabby-chen, fox-chen, chen with electricity, chen adopting cat!kris, chen as toy with exo, how chen met baekhyun, Chinese-legend luchen, hunger games chenlay,  threeway with luchenlay, krischensoo, foursome with chinguline… Pairings-wise, I think I’ve managed to touch on everything except xiuchen and taochen and suchen…soon, soon J

Themes-wise, it’s all about dysfunctional relationships that are trying to find a tentative balance. There’s the exploration of the fear of uality, what would a catboy!au really be if people just assumed catboys always wanted it, there’s unhealthy dom/sub relationships and how people want to drown themselves in others until someone else can breathe for them. There’s love and how sometimes is not meant to be, as much as you want it to be; how sometimes time might change you, until what two people used to have has to stay in the past.

There’s the fear of having to simply go on living when life seems nothing more than a road stretching into the distance; only the journey, only the hope, only the slight inkling that there will never be a rest stop.

In all of this, it’s just exo as they are, and the tenuous links that they’re forming.

Like many people, my writing began in scraps of foolscap and notebooks; writing piecemeal, nothing sustained. I guess I just didn’t really have anything I wanted to write about, until chen.

Jongdae, you won’t ever see this, but that’s not the point, is it? You are someone virtual, someone brought to life by electricity surging through wires, pixels crystallizing – my brain conspiring to cheat me, animating you to life in my mind.

I still remember first seeing you on Immortal Song 2, you and baekhyun – later you in miracles of December. I remember how finding out more about you made me feel like I was seeing a miracle unfolding to life – that there could be someone so good to people, without reservations – but also someone in love with life, quick to laugh, easy to smile, someone who could be both good to others and also himself.

Everytime you sing, I recognize your voice. It’s just like you, I feel. Every note is clear and well-placed, like how you treat people – with a clear conscience, nothing to hide, everything to give. Because you don’t have anything you’re ashamed about, because you love yourself – you can be bold, bold in what you say, bold in how you say it, bold, bold, bold where people cringe away from life.

Listening to you sing is easy, because you sound like you mean what you sing.

It’s just a year, but you’ve grown so much  -  each of your solo stages in TLP kept improving, I was imagining you carefully watching and rewatching footage, planning movements, facial actions, crowd interaction. I think I’m right.

Thinking of you makes me remember moments in my life, I used to be a bit colder, a bit more jaded, but I think you gave me hope, you and how good you always were and how people came to appreciate you for who you are. I remember sitting on the train and listening to your duet with Jonghyun, walking around aimlessly and getting lost, tears forming, so proud and pleased for someone I’ve never met. Going back to work later, a bit more determined. Waiting outside the interview room and imagining what you would do, squaring my shoulders and taking a deep breath, smiling to myself at the thought of you.

Most of all, how I got to write; got to take things that I never dared to talk about, bits, thoughts that I thought were shameful, desires I thought were warped or made people weak – I got to take all of that and put it out in the open, have people say yes, I felt that too. I got to write and got to come to terms with myself again, through writing fics about you.

It’s not that I’m crazy, I just – gained something, by knowing you, even through S.M’s huge propaganda machine and crazy image control. I might never know you, I probably don’t know you.

But I still want to see you onstage, healthy, voice bright – have your voice spinning new tunes in my ear, easing the day’s worries away. I want the words to keep coming, runes, raising to life you again and again.

I guess this is all I can do, to say thank you, to this digitalized chen of exo. I want you to keep existing, like this – to keep being happy, like I hope you are.

Happy birthday, Kim Jongdae; and thank you, always. 

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for all the lovely people on aff, I also have this to say - I wouldn't have kept writing without people giving me confidence and people actually liking what I write. thanks to this community, so much <3