i explained how i arrived at yunjae, so now i will explain why i stayed. this list is not in a ranked order, and in fact it says more about me than it does about the ship haha.

• honestly, i think it’s funny. their fans are funny. the ship is funny, and the two of them are funny about it. i don’t need to bother linking all of the “”yunjae proof”” videos on youtube for you to know what i’m talking about. i personally firmly believe that when sm encouraged them to play up the ship and the fanservice for capitalism reasons, yunjae just looked at each other, smirked, and said ‘bet’. THAT’S FUNNY. they, in concert with their rabid fans, turned themselves into one of the biggest and most enduring memes in kpop in their 6 measly years of existence. that’s impact, and that’s funny.
• speaking of impact, i like that too. admittedly, this is mostly due to the fans: so much of how fanservice and kpop shipping currently works is based on the blueprint of yunjae/yunjaer behaviour. (even the objectification i talked about before is something that the shippers popularised and perpetuated.) there’s just something really… nice? about being a part of something that’s so huge. it’s like why people join greek life or root for sports teams with long legacies. the history of it, the fame, the knowledge that it will continue after you but that your being here is already part of why that will happen—it’s nice! being a part of something special makes you special, right?
  • however, i also know this impact has a lot to do with yunjae’s mess, and—surprise, surprise—i like that too. the yunjae hype didn’t get to fizzle out the way other kpop fads do; we all had to quit cold turkey thanks to The Schism. just like in any other media, when beloved characters die young, they are mourned harder, they are memorialised and idealised faster. the same exact phenomenon happened to yunjae. as far as i’m concerned, the only things keeping them apart are an NDA and max’s one-sided beef with jyj. the angst of this circumstance is so delicious to me.
• i like their predebut lore. birthdays so close together? how nice that jaejoong only had to live in a world without his soulmate for two days. first time meeting is a street fight? even though it’s not corroborated, i’m eating that up because it completely sets their tone. four seasons? they were gonna be together in a group no matter what shape or form it took, and everyone knew how winning this combination was. (admittedly, their lore is greatly serviced by their timing: 2nd gen just have more fun growing-up-together stories to learn about since their pre-debut online footprint is so shallow, and these stories just get better with time and distance.)
  • ofc, their post-debut lore is iconic for reasons i kinda extrapolated on in bullet 2, but i’ll mention it again here. so much of it was fanservice, but it’s also clear that so much of it /wasn’t/ fanservice, and that’s all it takes, isn’t it? they genuinely liked being around each other, which made it easier for them to fake being in love for the fans. i would have loved to be a fly on the wall when they first got the script for dangerous love; i bet they were reading it together under the covers with a flashlight, on their stomachs with their legs crossed at the ankles in the air, giggling as they tried to outdo each other’s ideas of how to rip this loosely-hinged plot clear off the doorframe. this is the mental image i have, the vibes i imagine when i think about how they might have been like when they were in the same group: them vs. everyone else on a prank only they thought was funny. 20 years later, they finally got one more person in on the joke—me!
• finally, i think they really do suit each other. storytime: when i read yunjae fics, i almost exclusively imagine them as their almost-40 selves as opposed to their late teen/early twenties selves. this is mostly due to the fact that i met them at almost-40, but also i think they suit each other better /now/ than they did in 2006. consider: jaejoong is constantly fishing for attention. he lives for compliments and reactions based on his words and actions, and he also provides these in turn for the people he’s with. he’s shameless in these pursuits, and he needs someone equally shameless in turn. for better or worse, that’s uknow dude xD i only know one single individual (in my personal life) who has less shame than jung ‘uknow’ yunho. jaechingu!jaejoong 🤝 invention king!uknow, that’s all i’m saying!!!
  • actually, it’s the fact that i could easily see them getting along /now/, in the year of our lord 2024, that really helps my continued fervour for them. i started shipping them not long after born gene released, and i still come back to them even two years later.
  • they grew apart—as in, separately from each other—but somehow, despite that distance, they just seemed to grow /towards/ each other as well. like even if they didn’t have the history they have, i would love to watch them on a variety show together; that’s how much i think their personalities suit each other. i want to watch them interact the same way i want to watch sj and monsta x interact. if they were strangers, they just seem like they would end up having a fun time together. the fact that they’ve got such a long, deep, pockmarked history just adds to how much i (and all of cassieland, whether the ot2 cassies want to admit it or not) want to see them together again. it would be the most analysed piece of media on the internet for months hahaha.

all of this to say, any ship could have had this, and it wouldn’t necessarily mean i would ship it. they got me hooked as individuals before i learned anything about them, so i had a positive impression that allowed me to view these listed things as charms instead of aggravations. (height of irony: the aspects i listed here are often the things i cite when i explain why i don’t like other things. we need look no further than bts. those boys have a lot of this going for them too, and i won’t touch them with a 10 foot pole.)

i have a lot of grievances with the group, the music, the fandom, the fanfiction… (you can see why i don’t really call myself a fan haha); and i will continue to talk the two of them as individuals and as a unit; but it’s all stemmed from the fact that yeah, i kinda really do care about this ship.

... how embarrassing, lol.

published: 4.27.2024