#froggyseokthreads

ships that i think are most likely to elope in vegas with an elvis impersonator officiating the wedding: dsoo (dongho x minsoo), hyuntae (hyunjin (ven) x taeseok), and youngseok (youngjoon x minseok)

dsoo: it's predebut, they're being stupid in vegas to celebrate the fact that they finally got the news that they're going to debut EVENTUALLY, so they get married wearing matching hawaiian button ups. dongho 100% still has the emo bangs when this happens.

hyuntae: idk man. they've got the vibes. if sa1nt went on a US tour and stopped in vegas for some reason, these two are absolutely getting married and minsung is the flower girl.

youngseok: ok i'm definitely biased bc i'm currently writing a fic focused on these two but like. i don't even KNOW how to explain it. i can just very clearly picture dae finding it hilarious that his 2 best friends outside of mayhem got married. with an elvis impersonator.

they'd do it for a bet: mindae (minsoo x daehyun), junjae (jun x jaewon) (lost a bet to nari), any pairing of marshmello, kyungyoung (kyunghun x youngjoon)

mindae: do i really need to say more. anyone even jokingly bets money that they won't get vegas married and they are chomping at the bit to prove that person wrong. absolute menaces (i say this affectionately. they probably give manager choi a headache but i love them)

junjae: jun made a bet with nari and lost. the rest is history.

marshmello: girls' night out gone marriage. i literally cannot decide who would be more likely to get married on a bet?? i feel like they're sort of an unstoppable force when they're together and having a good time.

kyungyoung: they are the same age. probably besties. hyuntae 100% used to torment them about being a couple or some shit. minsung bet them 1k that they wouldn't get married and send photos to hyuntae. kyunghun is not a coward so they got vegas married.

vegas married but only bc they are ELOPING (aka i kinda sorta ship these ones. a lot): daejae (daehyun x jaewon), dongsung (dongho x minsung) (I HAD TO IM SORRY), hyuntae again (hyunjin x taeseok)

daejae: listen if they're dating they are IN LOVE. POWER COUPLE OF THE YEAR. DO NOT SEPARATE. so yeah they'd elope in vegas.

dongsung: they'd be the couple that's secretly been together for a decade or some shit they're emotionally married already they probably have rings ready to go and they have no where else to get married.

hyuntae: either they are the best of friends or they're dating idk how else they would've lasted in sa1nt for so long otherwise. they kinda seem like little gremlins but like. there's something going on between them. let them get gay eloped for funsies.

ok i posted this early on accident. whoops. meant to schedule that for later. uhm :D it's 1:35 im going to bed now :D!!!! i'll add the next section later!!

ok time for more Vegas weddings. next ship catagory.

only if they're drunk: dsoo. yeah. (dongho x minsoo), any pairing out of dae, minseok, and minyoung

dsoo is pretty self explanatory. they're besties but not enough to get Vegas married just on a whim. they are drunk if it happens.

i think the trio is also pretty self explanatory? they're friends again but like. not enough to get married for fun. daeseok would be the flower boys at minyoung's wedding tho

they're best friends your honor: jahra (jaewon x ahra), hyuntae (hyunjin x taeseok), youngdae (youngjoon x daehyun)

jahra: listen. they're besties. they'd do it for fun and bc their moms would think it's cute

hyuntae: . this is the third time I'm mentioning them i think they're just cannonically married at this point

youngdae: HAVE YOU SEEN YOUNGJOONS PIN BOARD THEY ARE BESTIES MAYBE EVEN MORE. THEY'D GET MARRIED.

daejae (daehyun x jaewon): 🥺🥺🥺/10 they r. so cute. love them <3 absolute cutest

minwon (minsoo x jaewon): AAAAAAAAA/10 listen. small feral bf with larger not feral bf. amazing content.

dongjae (dongho x jaewon): cat dads/10 listen boba would be so spoiled. so much love for tiny cat. they both love boba so much!! and they also love each other very much :>

junjae (jun x jaewon): caffeine addiction x 2/10 very cute! however they would both end up highly caffeinated!! maybe jun gets hyper when he drinks a lot of coffee idk yeah they r cute :]

nari x jaewon [no ship name yet]: ultimate rarepair/10 i have literally never considered these two dating. idk man nari is too much of a mom/older sister imo! they r good as friends tho :] (present day frog comment: i would be down to read a fic of these two if anyone writes one :D!!)

jaesung (jaewon x minsung): CANVAS????/10 bro what Happened during canvas era and why am i on board with it. jjolee u better let them kiss /hj for context

kyungwon (kyunghun x jaewon): PRETTY BFS/10 no but they’re so pretty together they’d be a model power couple. also they both just seem very sweet and i think they would get along well :D!!!

hyunwon (hyunjin x jaewon): same age twins!!!/10 they r literally the same age and same height and i feel like. they would get along well? do not know why but they vibe, they should get coffee together sometime :>

taewon (taeseok x jaewon): 🥰 cute/10 taeseok seems v cuddly and i think jaewon needs some hugs r smth so yeah pls let them cuddle :(

youngjae (youngjoon x jaewon): meow meows/10 look at them. little meow meows. they r so cute

jaeseok (jaewon x minseok): you didn’t see it coming/10 I’ve literally only written angst of these two uhm. u know what minseok had his redemption arc should he get another chance

jaeyoung (jaewon x minyoung): POWER COUPLE/10 ok hear me out. they Would Be a power couple. prove me wrong.

jaeko (jaewon x koko): you didn’t see it coming part 2: electric boogaloo/10 idk! I’ve never considered them together??? i think they’d be kinda cute tho! jaewon and his emo gf!!

yoowon (yoomi x jaewon): lgbtq+ community/10 i think yoomi likes women idk guys! they r kinda cute tho!! but idk if they’d work as more than friends!

jahra (jaewon x ahra): CHILDHOOF FRIENDS TO LOVERS 500K SLOWBURN/10 they would not realize they like each other for the longest time but they’d also be so cute together,,,, idk i have mixed feelings abt them!

he has issues sleeping (presumably because of nightmares)

despite training with mayhem since he was ~17, he still didn’t feel close to them at the start of LiT

he listens to ballads when he’s stressed. idk why but this makes me sad.

this photo in particular. i look at it. and want to cry.

Jaewon - asexual, demisexual or gay he also gives off bi/pan vibes sometimes so who knows! he’s just a funky dude who i love very much

Daehyun - pansexual and/or demiboy as a pansexual i can confirm he is pan. he has the vibes. i am 100% sure it’s an enby thing to have floofy hair. do not quote me on that. yeah he just gives me he/they vibes

Minsoo - bisexual and/or nonbinary he cuffs his pants i just know it. also sometimes he’s just so. yeah. i could totally see him using they/them or he/they pronouns

Dongho - nonbinary or agender and/or gay he gives me gender envy. enough said. as for sexuality, i literally can only see him being straight or gay, there is just. no in between when it comes to him??

Jun - MLM and/or trans or demiboy idk man he’s so gender. hand it over, sir he also 100% has a bf

Nari - lesbian my lesbian friends like her, therefore she is gay

Ahra - demigirl/pan or lesbian pink hair. what can i say. ahra’s a gay she/they

koko - nonbinary lesbian koko is a they/them lesbian and i love them very much

Yoomi - genderfluid/demi or bisexual listen i did not actually have anything planned for her when i started this i just kinda. stared at my camera roll of flags and went “that makes sense”

Minyoung - lesbian she’s gay idk what to tell you

Minseok - MLM or bisexual gay gay homosexual gay

Minsung - MLM or bisexual/demiboy he has gay (bi (technically trans)) hair so uh. Yeah. also he’s very gender and as a he/they i can confirm that this is hair i want. he also just has those gay gay homosexual gay vibes if u know what i mean

Youngjoon - MLM and/or asexual he canonically likes dae. he likes men. he also kinda reminds me of jaewon?? and i personally hc jaewon as being asexual and u know what. youngjoon has those vibes :]

Kyunghun - nonbinary or genderfluid/gay gender. yeah that’s it that’s the tweet. i have no clue who he would like tbh. like,,, he likes dudes for sure, but i can also see him with a gf? kyunghun with a gf,,, they can wear matching dresses -w-

Hyunjin - bisexual or MLM/agender it’s the bangs. 2007 emo bangs /pos honestly,,, if his hair was black I would vibecheck him as being straight. but he’s kinda gender ngl. Also he 100% has a bf. gay.

much of what i'm going to be analyzing comes from Ep. 91-94, aka minseok's backstory. i will not be including any photos directly from minseok's flashbacks, but i will be referencing the events that take place in episodes 92 and 93 and as such, the same trigger warnings that apply to those two episodes should apply to this thread. additional tw(s): non-gore injuries pictured, discussion of trauma/abuse-related health conditions

minseok's character design is very interesting to me in that, somewhat similarly to dongho, almost all of his appearances include him wearing a turtleneck. unlike dongho, however, minseok's outfits don't seem to feature any shirts other than turtlenecks.

the first photo is from minseok's first large appearance (season 1) and the last is from a sneak peek of season 3. he's wearing a different outfit for each photo, and yet every time, it's a turtleneck.

on the rare occasion that minseok is wearing a crewneck instead of a turtleneck, he's covering a portion of his neck. so the question should be raised: why does minseok need to cover his neck?

the answer is, unsurprisingly, found in the few occasions minseok's pictured wearing anything other than a turtleneck or crewneck.

(tw for non-gore injury/bruise photos)

(photos from episodes 91 and 94) minseok has some sort of injury covering part of his back, chest, and arms, with parts visible on both the front and back of his neck.

after reading episodes 92 and 93, the logical assumption would be that this is just a continuation of minseok's father's abuse, but it's implied throughout most of minseok's arc that he lives alone. he doesn't seem to be in contact with his father, either.

these can't be injuries from the incident at the club. dae never hit minseok, and jaewon only ended up kneeing minseok in the stomach to get away. there's no way that all of minseok's injuries could have happened during what happened at the club.

minseok's not implied to get into frequent fights, nor does he seem to be involved in any sort of contact sport that could cause injuries. he's not described as being clumsy, either - even when he's drunk, he's not clumsy.

so that begs the question: what kind of injury does minseok even have if the most likely causes of bruising have been eliminated? are they just scrapes? burn scars? or are they just bruises, as koko refers to them in Ep. 91?

the answer is both yes and no. yes, they look like bruises, and probably started as bruises, but no, they're not just bruises at this point. i believe that what minseok has is hemosiderin staining, more simply known as permanent bruises

so, what is hemosiderin staining? how does minseok have it?

"Hemosiderin staining can essentially be regarded as a very severe form of bruising. Staining happens in areas where a significant amount of bruising has occurred as a result of severe injuries[...] When damage occurs, the surrounding tissue is flooded with blood and a bruise forms. The more severe the trauma, the more blood that leaks into surrounding tissues[.]"

to put it simply: i believe that, as a result of both the nature of the physical abuse minseok dealt with and the extent of said abuse, he developed what are essentially permanent bruises due to the amount of trauma exerted on his body.

that in itself could be an entirely separate thread, but there's something else i want to touch on here. there are treatments for hemosiderin staining. effective, non-invasive treatments.

the fact that minseok seems to just be living with these permanent bruises instead of trying to do anything about them says a lot about him.

for starters, consider the fact that minseok's signed under SHC as a model.

he's a model, and yet he's chosen to just hide what he's dealing with. now, realistically speaking, this does make some sense, as it's pretty unlikely that he would have been signed on if SHC had known about his condition. but then why wouldn't he just pursue treatment?

i believe that the answer to that is that minseok thinks he deserves this.

he sees himself as a monster. he blames himself for his mother's suicide.

to some extent, i'd say minseok really does think he deserves everything that's happened to him.

he thinks he deserves it and yet he knows he needs to hide it to avoid questions that, if answered truthfully, would reveal the truth behind his family (and, to an extent, the fact that he is gay). combine that with everything else, and the answer is really very simple.

minseok has been and still is struggling with internalized homophobia, and it's affecting his entire life - his clothing choice, his medical decisions, his justification for the abuse he faced, and, as best seen at LiT's surface level, the way he copes with his trauma.

So Jaewon's the easiest to figure out (???) based off of one (1) panel from episode 45:

There are exactly 60 envelopes there, each which has 1 month of rent. 12 months in the year, so 60÷12=5 Jaewon's been living in Seoul for 5 years. In cannon, he's 22, meaning he was 17 when he moved to Seoul.

This doesn't really give us much info since Jaewon was the last to join MAYHEM. This does mean, however, that all the others had joined the company by then, meaning that Dae joined before he was 16, Minsoo joined before he was 19, and Dongho joined before he was 20.

Minsoo is canonically the first trainee under HCE, meaning that he joined after the whole minsung-song-stealing thing (middle school, he was probably 12-14) and before Dae joined.

Daehyun was in middle school when he got into HCE. Assuming it's his last year of middle school, that means he's 13-14 years old and that Minsoo, who's already at the company, is 16-17

It's worth mentioning that Minsung and Minsoo were both at the same middle school, meaning that Minsung (assuming he's in his last year) was, in fact, 13-14 years old when he got into XR, and that Minsoo was 12-13 when his song got stolen

Minsung had already debuted when Minsoo got into HCE. Logically, Minsung had at least a year or so of training, meaning he's probably 15-16, which puts Minsoo at 14-15 years old when he joins the company.

That lines up with Minsoo already being at the company when Daehyun joins, and means that the only person left to figure out is Dongho.

There aren't many clues for Dongho, which means there are two possibilities for when he joined the company: 1) the "dsoo as the only trainees" agenda that the LiT Fic Discord likes a lot (meaning Dongho joins shortly after Minsoo), so 15-16 years old. 2) the more logical possibility that Dongho joined shortly after moving to Seoul from California (assuming he was living in CA during highschool). That second one would mean he'd be 18 or so when joining, and that he either joined very soon before Dae or after Dae.

This means there are two possible orders for Mayhem's arrivals to the company: 1) Minsoo (14-15) and Dongho (15-16) at around the same time Daehyun (13-14) joining a year or so after the first two Jaewon (17) joining 2-3 years after Daehyun 2) Minsoo (14-15) Daehyun (13-14) joining about a year after Minsoo Dongho (18) joining at around the same time as Dae or shortly after Jaewon (17) joining 2-3 years after Daehyun

i've been waiting to say this for a while, but it never quite felt like the proper time. but now that we're getting closer to minseok's backstory, though, and we're getting small hints and scenes shown to us, i think that i should say this.

you may not understand minseok, and i get that. LiT is full of characters that you might not fully understand unless you have experienced something similar to them.

to me, at least, i feel that to understand minseok, you need to understand what it's like to grow up gay

.please note: most of this thread is based off what i can remember from growing up as a trans masc and demiromantic kid, so it may not apply to everyone's experiences. thanks for understanding.

growing up gay, especially as someone who is MLM, is, in a sense, having to constantly play a character. you have to be able to act "normal" around your peers, almost always at the cost of not being able to truly love who you actually love.

that is what i see most in minseok. he fell for dae to the point of thinking that dae is the only person who could ever love him. and that's just the thing - minseok fell for dae. as far as we can tell, chapter 83 is the first time that minseok mentions this to dae's face.

and now, i think it's time i try to explain how minseok is seeing the situation. that's the best way to understand how he acts.

as far as we can tell, minseok never really got to experience what it's like to really be in love - it seems like he's only experienced being in love with someone, but not being loved in return.

minseok does not really know what it's like to be loved by someone he loves. he loves dae, but he does not know what it would feel like to be in love with dae. more than likely, that is what is driving him - he just wants to have the love he feels returned.

this is more speculation than anything, but i think that minseok knows dae might not ever love him romantically. i think he's known this for a while. to him, it looks like minyoung's the one who is taking up dae's love. she is taking away the love that he could be receiving.

because of that, he wants revenge. if he can't be loved by the person he loves, then why not make sure the same happens for minyoung? i'm sure that minseok thinks that because he released minyoung's predebut photos, he's made her "unlovable."

more than likely, he thinks this way because he has never truly experienced what it's like to be loved. he has been in love with dae since they were in middle school, and he does not know what it feels like to be really loved by dae.

as the reader, we can tell that minseok will never really be romantically loved by dae. there is still the possibility that they might become friends again, but i'd expect that to be in the far future.