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some thoughts on chenji
Jun. 16th, 2021 12:55 amit is currently 02:04 at night and it's warm enough to have the window open and hello future pics dropped today and me and my friends are all going to get pissed tomorrow night. life is good. feels like a very chenji kinda night yknow. nostalgic and summery and earnest and all that.
and today i stumbled across a clip on twt that i'd completely forgotten about where jisung is talking about how his family contacted him after a win and chenle is like oh? that's nice. and jisung says "but you have me :D" and chenle is like ...okay.
made me feel absolutely insane. insane i tell u. reminded me why chenji is one of the absolute best ships in nct ficdom.
also i wanna talk more about this in a post specifically about boys mental camp but the fact that he clearly felt very reliant on renjun for the first 1-2 years in dream have def contributed to it - like no doubt he wants to be seen as completely independent now.
okay so tinhat time. i remember reading once that the way jisung helped chenle practice korean (and in essence ended up teaching him a lot of kr) was just by speaking to him completely normally and waiting for chenle to take the time to piece it together and respond. which doesn’t immediately feel like a big thing, but i think what’s rlly significant is that jisung didn’t dumb things down for him. like, in my experiences of being in a place where i was semi-confident in a language but still couldn’t quite match native speakers - it is so insanely frustrating to be spoken to like a child bc someone was worried about confusing me, and like i get WHY but for somebody like chenle i can see how constantly feeling like people are altering the way they speak to not ~overcomplicate~ it for u would drive u mad. like chenle is clearly incredibly preoccupied with others treating him like an equal, and by just speaking to him normally and being patient, jisung did exactly that !! and i think the fact that they dropped honorifics early on is rlly significant, for a long time in nct jisung was the only person i think he felt fully saw him as an equal, and that’s something v important to him.
chenle is not like that. jfc chenle is not like that. hes even said himself that he makes fun of jisung because he likes him - which is obvs a super common thing for those of us who refuse to express genuine emotion - but i think he’s like that when it comes to everyone. just writing from memory, but in his DvD w mark, one of his questions is something like “what does mark think of me/what does mark think i think of him” (i cant remember which but its something along those lines) either way, his way of expressing affection is about getting mark to admit the closeness between them for him. same with that live from last year where he asks jisung to choose between him and sungchan. Like OBVIOUSLY jisung was going to say sungchan bc he wasn’t about to diss the new member in front of hundreds of thousands of people but chenle asking it is clearly his own way of affirming that they’re each other’s person. not saying its healthy thats just how he rolls.
ok i was gonna add a third collapsible but my brain hurts so like just deal pls i beg. i dont really have a tldr also just like damn its hard not to write about chenji without psychoanalysing chenle why does he have to be Like That. still love him tho just pls be slightly less unknowable sometimes. as a treat.
and today i stumbled across a clip on twt that i'd completely forgotten about where jisung is talking about how his family contacted him after a win and chenle is like oh? that's nice. and jisung says "but you have me :D" and chenle is like ...okay.
made me feel absolutely insane. insane i tell u. reminded me why chenji is one of the absolute best ships in nct ficdom.
chenle and dependency
ok so like not to deep dive into chenle’s psyche but the kid clearly has a big problem with being perceived as dependent on others. I think it partially stems from being one of the youngest members (he’s pushed to drop honorifics w most of the other dreamies (to my knowledge?) and said that with some of the 127 hyungs (taeil and jungwoo) they speak informally) and i think that’s bc he really doesn’t want to be seen as the baby of the group. like literally calling himself daddy is obvs part of a running joke (and kink but shhhh u didnt hear it from me) but i think its also about putting himself in a position of pseudo-power. Like sure, he can’t actually be older than mark, jeno etc, but he can play at being older.also i wanna talk more about this in a post specifically about boys mental camp but the fact that he clearly felt very reliant on renjun for the first 1-2 years in dream have def contributed to it - like no doubt he wants to be seen as completely independent now.
okay so tinhat time. i remember reading once that the way jisung helped chenle practice korean (and in essence ended up teaching him a lot of kr) was just by speaking to him completely normally and waiting for chenle to take the time to piece it together and respond. which doesn’t immediately feel like a big thing, but i think what’s rlly significant is that jisung didn’t dumb things down for him. like, in my experiences of being in a place where i was semi-confident in a language but still couldn’t quite match native speakers - it is so insanely frustrating to be spoken to like a child bc someone was worried about confusing me, and like i get WHY but for somebody like chenle i can see how constantly feeling like people are altering the way they speak to not ~overcomplicate~ it for u would drive u mad. like chenle is clearly incredibly preoccupied with others treating him like an equal, and by just speaking to him normally and being patient, jisung did exactly that !! and i think the fact that they dropped honorifics early on is rlly significant, for a long time in nct jisung was the only person i think he felt fully saw him as an equal, and that’s something v important to him.
contrasting affection styles
something i think is also rlly interesting about chenji is the contrast between them and shut up i know thats a basic point even chenle has said that theyre complete opposites on chenra but literally let me explain. the way they express affection really differs in that jisung is obviously incredibly heart on sleeve, just absolute earnestness whereas when it comes to affection chenle is a lot more… almost veiled? about it. chenle makes u solve a riddle to figure out that he cares about u is what im trying to say. like there are twelve million instances of jisung being really sincere when he talks about how much chenle means to him, even the very video that prompted me to start writing is so honest and genuine. when he tells chenle that its ok because he has him, he is just saying straight up that he thinks of him as family. hes saying it because he means it.chenle is not like that. jfc chenle is not like that. hes even said himself that he makes fun of jisung because he likes him - which is obvs a super common thing for those of us who refuse to express genuine emotion - but i think he’s like that when it comes to everyone. just writing from memory, but in his DvD w mark, one of his questions is something like “what does mark think of me/what does mark think i think of him” (i cant remember which but its something along those lines) either way, his way of expressing affection is about getting mark to admit the closeness between them for him. same with that live from last year where he asks jisung to choose between him and sungchan. Like OBVIOUSLY jisung was going to say sungchan bc he wasn’t about to diss the new member in front of hundreds of thousands of people but chenle asking it is clearly his own way of affirming that they’re each other’s person. not saying its healthy thats just how he rolls.
ok i was gonna add a third collapsible but my brain hurts so like just deal pls i beg. i dont really have a tldr also just like damn its hard not to write about chenji without psychoanalysing chenle why does he have to be Like That. still love him tho just pls be slightly less unknowable sometimes. as a treat.
