so you want to learn about yunjae
Welcome! In this carrd you can find the entire history of Yunjae in a disgusting level of detail. This is the worst thing I have ever spent my time on. Enjoy!This write-up was initially uploaded this to r/HobbyDrama in 2023. If this reads like it was directed at an audience who knows fuck about shit when it comes to Kpop, this is why. This carrd was made in August 2024 and its contents have been cleaned up and updated from the original.
disclaimer
I do not ship Yunjae. I have never shipped Yunjae. This is not an essay on why I believe Yunjae is real. This is also not intended to cover the entire history of TVXQ, or even all the details of the split. I am not Korean, I do not speak Korean, and I was not into TVXQ when all of this occurred. I have done my best to make sure all my information is sourced and legit, and to specify when it is not or when there may be translation errors. I am also not writing this to try and say every Yunjae shipper is as I have described or vilify RPF shippers. I just want to detail some of the insanity that has surrounded Yunjae across over two decades, because fandom history is interesting and I have issues.
Background information
If you are already familiar with TVXQ and the group members, feel free to skip this section! (this was primarily for the reddit audience)
Before we can get into what Yunjae even is, we need to talk about the group our leading men debuted in: TVXQ!. TVXQ is an acronym for Tong Vfang Xien Qi, which means "rising gods of the east" in Chinese. In Korea they're referred to as Dong Bang Shin Ki, or DBSK. In Japan they are known as Tohoshinki, or THSK. All of these names mean the same thing, and for consistency's sake I'll just be referring to them as TVXQ throughout this, unless I'm specifically talking about their activities in Japan.TVXQ debuted under SM Entertainment as a 5-member boy group in 2003, with their first performance being at a Britney spears and BoA showcase, of all places. This write-up does a really good job of explaining their history as well as their eventual fate, and I strongly recommend looking at it. I'll do my best to sum up what you need to know about TVXQ in order to understand what's to come:At debut, the members of TVXQ were, in Lastname (Stagename(s)) Firstname format:
To keep things simple, I'll be referring to members using their First Names.I've listed the members in the order they stand in, as TVXQ tend to stand in the same order in group photos. It should be noted that Jaejoong is nearly always in the middle and Yunho is on the far right end.TVXQ's fanbase is known as Cassiopeia, or as Cassies for short. Cassies are well, well known for being one of the more batshit insane Kpop fandoms. This post does a great job listing some of the more egregious things Cassiopeia have done across the years, just to give you an idea of the kind of fanbase they're known for being. Cassies are constantly fighting, even now.Yunjae is the ship name of Yunho and Jaejoong. Jaejoong and Yunho are the two oldest members of TVXQ, respectively, with their birthdays being just days apart. Jaejoong and Yunho had already been good friends prior to their debut in TVXQ, which is not always the case in Kpop. There's a lot of stories about how Yunho and Jaejoong originally met, with the most popular one claiming that they first encountered each other in a street fight. However, I have been able to find no evidence of this in English at least, so it's most likely just a rumor.
The Beginnings
When TVXQ debuted in 2004 with Hug, Yunho and Jaejoong were already friendly and close with each other, by virtue of having known each other beforehand. And at a time when most of the other members were still a bit awkward with each other, Yunjae's level of comfort with each other really stood out to people. Fans rapidly picked up on their closeness, which wasn't hard when you had incidents like Jaejoong kissing Yunho on the cheek on broadcast in early 2004. Things quickly spiraled from there, as fans began to latch on to every subsequent interaction Yunho and Jaejoong would have with each other.From late 2004, when they released their first album Tri-angle (which featured some notable styling) through the release of their second album Rising Sun at the end of 2005, Yunjae continued to grow in popularity as a ship. Fansites were beginning to pop up devoted exclusively to talking about Yunjae, capturing Yunjae moments, and stalking Yunjae. There's two very notable fanbases that are going to be important: Yoonjaepaetch (YJP), the largest Korean based Yunjae fansite, and YoonJaeLoveBar (YJLB), based out of China and the largest Yunjae fansite by far. These fansites became cornerstones of the fandom, because they had by far the most access to resources and had the most ability to get photos of Yunjae.All the while, Yunho and Jaejoong continued to interact (relatively) normally with each other. They just happened to be two guys in a group who were very comfortable with each other. Their dynamic at this point was frequently characterized as them being the mom and dad of the group, due to Jaejoong's love for cooking and Yunho being the leader of the group. Nothing insane. Yet.TVXQ was becoming increasingly popular throughout this, which means that by the end of 2005, Yunjae had become a somewhat well-known ship in Kpop. Shipping in Kpop wasn't unheard of before this, and there had been fan favorite ships before Yunjae, but these ships had nothing on what Yunjae was about to become.
2006: the yunjae yaoi inferno
The year: 2006. The event: a competition hosted by SM entertainment to find the best TVXQ fanfiction. The prize: 1 million won, the possibility for the winner's fanfiction to become a live action drama, and a date with TVXQ themselves. Yes, you heard that right. 2006 starts with SM hosting an official fanfiction competition where the grand prize was a date with the guys who the fanfiction was about. This sounds like the plot of an episode of Big Time Rush or something. We never found out how that went, but I can only assume the answer is terribly, for everyone involved.Anyways, the existence of this competition shows that by early 2006, SM was catching on to the growing popularity of Yunjae, or at least shipping in general. Realizing that it was drawing a lot of new people into the group, SM did the only logical thing a corporation in a homophobic country in the mid 2000s could do: immediately milk Yunjae for all it was worth. This is how Dangerous Love came to be.
What's Dangerous Love?Dangerous Love is half the reason I wanted to write this thing in the first place. Dangerous Love is a fever dream. Dangerous Love changed everything.Dangerous Love is an episode of the series Banjun Drama,or Reverse Drama in English. Each episode of Banjun Drama was a stand alone mini-drama episode, with celebrity guests invited on to, as Wikipedia put it, "...act in a very humorous and sarcastic way not seen in regular dramas." Think of each episode as if an SNL skit and a Kdrama had a child, and you're on the right path. You can probably tell where this is going---TVXQ were the celebrity guests on an episode, and that episode was Dangerous Love.But why do we care about Dangerous Love?To understand why we care about Dangerous Love, we need to watch Dangerous Love. Dangerous Love is best experienced in its original 480p resolution. But for those of you who don't want to watch a 45 minute long episode in Korean, I'll try to sum up the plot:Yunho shows Jaejoong gay fanfiction of the two of them (Dangerous Love has TVXQ acting as themselves). Jaejoong reads the gay fanfiction. Jaejoong imagines himself and Yunho as he reads the gay fanfiction. If you watch a single thing from Dangerous Love, watch this. Afterwards, Yunho starts being weirdly nice to Jaejoong, convincing Jaejoong that Yunho is gay for him. The rest of the episode consists of Yunho being nice while Jaejoong is unable to think of anything but him and Yunho being gay together. Sexy music plays every time they interact from now on.Yunho tells Jaejoong that he needs to confess something to him. Jaejoong cuts him off, tells him he understands his feelings, and then gives him the world's least intimate hug. This confuses Yunho, because he is not in fact gay for Jaejoong. He's been acting nice because he broke Jaejoong's new camera. Jaejoong cusses him out, chases him around, everyone laughs, and the episode ends with no actual gay wrongs having been committed. That's Dangerous Love.Also, there's a subplot where Changmin and Junsu literally get kidnapped by a ghost in the woods but that's not what's important here.This would be insane to film and air anywhere in South Korea in 2006, but just to make sure we are all on the same page about how absurd this is, I need to clarify that Dangerous Love aired on national television. On a Sunday morning, in a timeslot that was consistently the #1 most watched program on Sundays in the nation. Dangerous Love aired to 13.8% viewership. Millions of people, moms, dads, grandparents, watched this gay episode when it aired on TV.Let's circle back to the part where real life Yunho and Jaejoong have to act out a gay fanfiction of the two of them. Do you notice the red phone booth Yunho pushes Jaejoong up against? Thanks to Dangerous Love, red phonebooths have since become highly associated with Yunjae, to the point where fans have cosplayed as one to one of Jaejoong's concerts.After this, when people thought of TVXQ, a lot of them would then think about Yunjae. SM was promoting this ship on a national level. And it was working. Dangerous Love was the spark that would ignite the Yunjae Yaoi Inferno of 2006.
Dangerous Love has aired, and SM has realized they have a verifiable cash cow on their hands in the form of Yunjae. So they start pushing Yunjae, and pushing it hard. The amount of touching, looking, and suggestive comments between Yunho and Jaejoong visibly escalates during this year. And yes, it's obvious that a lot of this was instigated by SM telling them to amp up the fanservice. The thing is that it was also obvious that not all of it was just fanservice. The reason Yunjae grew so popular was because it wasn't all just for show---you could tell Yunho and Jaejoong genuinely cared about each other as people and as friends on and off camera.So now you have amped up fanservice on camera, combined with acts done "off camera" that can be used to argue it's not all for show, and you have a recipe for a whole bunch of fans who genuinely and sincerely believe Yunjae are a real thing.Not every shipper truly believes that their ship is actually dating behind the scenes, and I'd say these days those fans are in the majority. People ship now because they like dynamics, like to imagine what could happen if they were dating. This was not the case with Yunjae. This was never the case with Yunjae. And why wouldn't it be, when in 2006 alone you had:
The aforementioned Dangerous Love.
Yunho and Jaejoong doing... whatever this is on national TV. "Grinding while hanging from monkey bars" is the best way I can describe it and yet it still doesn't feel right. Speaking of grinding, what the fuck was going on here?
This photoshoot. This is one of the times where the order they stand in has changed. Which they did so that Jaejoong and Yunho could... do that?? Do this?? I don't know. Looking at it makes me laugh every time though.
Lots and lots and lots of the aforementioned touching and looking.
Like, this is nowhere near all of it. I've been trying to avoid video links but just know that if you search Yunjae moment on YouTube, at least half are going to be from this year alone.
It was rumored that Yunho picked Jaejoong up from the police station after Jaejoong had a DUI (his only one to date, I should add, and nowhere near 0.2%). This was another case where I could not find any solid English proof beyond a single photo and a lot of people repeating the same thing, so take that with a grain of salt.
Gashiyeon, an incredibly famous Yunjae fanfiction published in 2006.
If you're somewhat familiar with fanservice in Kpop, you might have clicked on those links and thought "so what, this is supposed to be proof? This is nothing." And you'd be right, compared to how idols do fanservice now, it does feel like nothing. But you have to keep in mind that fanservice as we know it in Kpop, especially between male idols, did not exist like this in Kpop until Yunjae. Yunjae defined fanservice in Kpop. This was fucking groundbreaking. Revolutionary. People had not seen their idols act like this with each other ever before this point. Something that's normal fanservice or skinship today had never been done before in Kpop like Yunjae did it. It's like the "Seinfeld is unfunny" trope. So much of what we know today comes from it, so when we go back and look at it now, it feels like nothing to us. Modern fanservice would not exist in Kpop the way it does if it weren't for Yunjae, and how insane Yunjae fans were about them.
Unfortunately for everyone, I do need to talk more about Gashiyeon, the fic mentioned above. Because Gashiyeon is the other 50% of why I wanted to make this writeup. And it only took me a couple thousand words to get there.
interlude: gashiyeon
What is Gashiyeon?Gashiyeon is a Yunjae fanfiction, written in Korean by an author known as Maio. Gashiyeon directly translates to "thorn lily," but the fic is better known in English as "thorn year." I'm going to keep calling it Gashiyeon, because that's what I've always known it as.Gashiyeon was published throughout the course of 2006, and consists of three parts. Reduced Horizons, the "prequel," Thorn Lily, the main story, and Fox's Cradle, the "sequel." The three parts all take place 5-10 years from each other, making Gashiyeon a coming of age slash melodrama slash psychological horror. Although I don't think the last one was intentional. That's just how I felt reading it. (I don't read RPF as a general rule, but this fanfic is so far removed from reality reading it felt like I had been transported to an alternate dimension.)Why do we care about Gashiyeon?Because Gashiyeon was a smash hit. Gashiyeon became insanely popular amongst Korean Cassiopeias. Obviously Gashiyeon was not one of the first Yunjae fanfictions out there, nor was it one of the longest at that point, but it became the most well known one. Gashiyeon became well known and adored for three things: because of its writing style, its plot, and its characterization. And it ended up influencing Cassiopeia, Yunjae shippers, and Yunjae themselves in ways that are still visible today.The writing style and plot are the two most important factors in why it got popular, so let's get them out of the way first. According to those who have read it in the original Korean, it is written absolutely beautifully. It supposedly has amazing prose, descriptive imagery, and is rife with symbolism and metaphor. I read translations that were kindly done by fans for free, and so for me to say anything about the prose would be out of line. I have not read it in the original Korean, and so I have not been able to verify if it's true that Gashiyeon is written masterfully. Even if it was though, not even the best written prose would be able to fix the absolute nightmare that is the plot of Gashiyeon.To conceptualize the plot of Gashiyeon, think of the most toxic, mid 2000s yaoi manga/anime/story you have ever encountered. If that is not something you have had the misfortune of experiencing, think of Twilight, except written in a way where everyone is significantly more deranged, and with much more awful sex. Now take either or both of those things and combine them with wisdom teeth, incest, eggs, toe sucking, sandwich innuendos, first degree homicide, and second degree homicide, and you'll have a rough idea of what the plot of Gashiyeon is. Except that story would still be better, by virtue of not being Gashiyeon.I cannot talk more about the plot without going on a multi-thousand word rant, so instead I will leave you with this tumblr post, and this review of Gashiyeon. Anyways, if you read those posts, you'll notice that they describe the characters somewhat. Which brings us to our next point: the characterization.Gashiyeon's characterization, to put it kindly, fucking sucks. Look, there's always going to be issues when you're writing fanfiction about real people. They're real people, first of all, and it's hard to boil down real living breathing people with all their quirks and flaws to the kind of 2D character archetypes fanfiction so often demands. It's even harder to do so while still keeping the characterized version true to the real person's personality. But no part of Gashiyeon's characterization is in any way shape or form based in reality. I used the 2000s yaoi analogy earlier, and if you're familiar with the typical toxic seme/uke dynamic, it's essentially that but on steroids. If you're not, don't worry, because I'm about to explain our characters.
Jaejoong, as a real life human, is a complicated man. He says whatever is on his mind, he's prone to questionable tattoo choices and impulse decisions, and he recently named his fans boss babies. But he is also an incredibly caring person down to his core, feels incredibly deeply and passionately, and is a talented singer and songwriter. He has been through hell and had an entire industry turn against him, and eventually came out of it ready to heal and move forward. SM has wronged him at every turn (more on that later) and he still never badmouths them out loud. He is also so good with children, its so cute (don't call him a baby though).Gashiyeon Jaejoong, on the other hand, pushes Yunho's mom down a flight of stairs. Later he pushes Yunho's pregnant wife down another flight of stairs. Separate incidents, ten years apart. No regrets, either. He's incredibly self-centered, an overdramatic diva, and a bitch. He successfully convinces Yunho to cheat on his pregnant wife with him, repeatedly. He's petty, demanding, and his love/obsession with Yunho is his defining trait here. He's primarily the way that he is because of manipulation from Yunho, and in turn manipulates him back until they're stuck in a nightmare cycle of raw anal sex. He dies at the end, because his ass starts bleeding out of "nowhere" and it makes him so upset [cw: suicide]
07/25 update:
I spoke with someone who has read the original source material (thread here, thank you @yhgwth for the info!). To summarize:
-most eng translations out there are translations from chinese, meaning the translations have gone kr->cn-> eng. this has supposedly lead to the loss of a significant chunk of the prose and story from the original that provides additional context and plot.
-the og kr version does have poetic imagery and at least decent prose that has been lost in most translations due to the reasons mentioned above.
-the characterization is much more consistent in the original (although perhaps not much more accurate).
-the original still remains the most impactful and popular tvxq fic, and is apparently genuinely emotional and heartwrenching.I still stand by what I've said, but I do think these details provide important context as to why and how it became such a phenomenon in kr as opposed to such a meme in the eng speaking fandom these days.
Gashiyeon's impactTo put it bluntly, this fic is responsible for one of the worst fandom feedback loops I know of, one which still impacts Cassiopeia to this day. Regardless of how or why it happened, Gashiyeon became very, very famous. Famous enough to become as close to "mandatory reading" as you can get in a fandom. The majority of Yunjae shippers at the time, especially the Korean ones, read Gashiyeon. And they took the way Gashiyeon characterized Yunho and Jaejoong and made it their bible. This was the lens they were going to view Yunjae through from then on, until the end of time. Of course, this characterization then begins to pop up in other fics. So then even if you haven't read Gashiyeon, you've read these other fics, and so then you start to see them that way. And so on and so forth. This is unfortunate, but at least it's just a fandom thing and doesn't impact the actual people, right?Wrong. Someone at SM must have caught wind of the fact that these traits were what people wanted to see in Yunjae, and as a result, Yunjae began to play into those tropes. Not to an extreme extent by any means, but you'll notice that a lot of the clips people have labeled with "jealous jaejoong" or "possessive yunho" happen beginning in late 2006-early 2007. Some of this spike in popularity is because fans were now looking out for anything that matched these behaviors. Though in comparing some of these interactions to earlier ones, you can see Yunjae playing into the tropes in ways that they hadn't before. It's a mixture of both, with one influencing the other.Of course, them playing into it only encouraged fans to keep writing and interpreting their behavior like that, and thus those stereotypes of them have prevailed even to this day, where you still see people reducing Yunjae to those cores. Jaejoong in particular, because he kind of got the short end of the stick here. And in a lot of other ways, but that's a later thing.The idea of the "high-maintenance bitchy bottom" would eventually evolve and go on to become a "trope" of the designated "bottom" of male kpop idol ships---who would constantly get labeled as jealous and petty divas. This stereotyping existed in other spheres long before this, but it was Gashiyeon that really brought the trope to Kpop and gave it staying power there. Luckily, as far as I can tell, it seems to have died down recently. I'm not really involved with recent Kpop groups, or any shipping that takes place there though. Instead I spend my time writing thousands of words on people from the 2000s I don't even ship. Like a well adjusted normal person.How big was Gashiyeon really? There were three editions of hard copies of Gashiyeon published and distributed---they weren't officially published by a company, but produced by the author. The most damning sign of the influence Gashiyeon had is that Jaejoong himself seemed to know of it. Someone allegedly asked Jaejoong if he had read Gashiyeon, and he responded with "isn't that one erotic?" implying that he knew something of Gashiyeon. I, however, cannot confirm this beyond old screenshots which could very easily be doctored. Given that Jaejoong and Yunho would later go on to admit to reading mpreg fic of the two of them, it wouldn't be off brand for him to know of it..And as one more point to illustrate how well known Gashiyeon was, years later veteran Kpop group H.O.T. would guest on SNL Korea and act out a sketch that is heavily implied to be about Gashiyeon. Like, they straight up quote it. This is like if NSYNC went on SNL and did a sketch where they acted out One Direction fanfiction. And also if one of the members of one direction had previously been so distraught about NSYNC breaking up that he posted on Instagram saying he had nothing left to live for. Because that is in fact what teenage Jaejoong did when H.O.T. disbanded, making it extra funny that they're the ones acting out this fanfiction about him.But now I'm done talking about Gashiyeon, we have covered the major Yunjae events of 2006, and we are ready to end the year with TVXQ in fursuits singing about depression, as one does. So let's move on to 2007. Because if you thought we were anywhere close to being done with this rollercoaster, you'd be wrong.
2007: oh thank god a break-
So throughout all of this, TVXQ have been promoting in Japan as Tohoshinki, on top of and in between their ~yearly Korean comebacks. SM sent them over in 2005 with no ability to speak Japanese, zero translators, almost no support, and had them singing in stairwells and in half filled conference rooms. Somehow this worked and paid off, and by 2007 TVXQ was a big fucking deal in Japan. They were topping the charts, something only done once before by a Korean artist in Japan (BoA). Japan is much more profitable to make music in compared to South Korea, because you can do significantly more concerts there. So it's not uncommon these days for Kpop groups to have random Japanese releases to try and cash in on that market. While second gen groups like KARA, SHINee, Big Bang, and SNSD would gain significant popularity in Japan, nobody who has come after TVXQ has ever been able to do so to the extent that they have. It got to the point where many people in the general public were unaware they were a Korean group at all, only knowing them as Tohoshinki.SM has them spend all of 2007 in Japan, doing concert tours and releasing singles and not seeing their family. This meant a sharp decrease in the amount of Yunjae content coming out from fansites, as the majority of sites did not have the money to drop everything and go to Japan to take photos of TVXQ. Some did (looking at you YJLB), but most didn't, especially because Japanese concerts tend to have much stricter rules about photography than Korean concerts do. TVXQ were still promoting and appearing on TV in Japan, so people were still able to get their Yunjae fix that way. Not a lot occurred in terms of Korean Yunjae drama in 2007 though, which means now is as good of a time as ever to talk about the fansites a bit more.This isn't related to Yunjae as much it is just interesting to me, because fandom history is fascinating. There were a lot of fanbooks and published fanfiction for TVXQ. I'm not talking like doujins or zines, I mean big fat chunky hardcover books. You could have literal shelves full of TVXQ fanbooks/fanfiction. Some were hardcover copies of fanfictions that had been published online already, like with Gashiyeon. Others were compilations put out by the fansites themselves. For example, every year YJP would put out an anniversary book containing fics, artwork, and fantaken photos that were exclusive to the books themselves and not published online. Coming from an era where everything is digital and there's not nearly as many hard copies of fanbooks being made, I just think it's really fucking cool that this was a thing. I found out a lot about Korean Cassie fan culture and what the major influential fanworks and fansites were in Korea at the time through the process of looking up some of these books and then encountering people talk about them on forum posts made back in the day.
Also, the two biggest Yunjae sites I mentioned earlier, YJP and YJLB, hated each other. YJP and YJLB both had hard bans on posting photos from the other fansite on their respective sites. I don't know for sure if it went both ways because YJP's site is now defunct, but from what I saw on other sites there was definite bad blood between the two fansites which continued until YJP's demise, making YJLB the winner of that particular fandom war.Anyways, this has been a fun detour but we should probably check back in with Yunjae. Surely nothing insane has happened while we were gone and--oh. They are now married. Okay.Well, "married," heavy on the quotes. On June 10th 2007, during an episode of the radio show they hosted in Japan called BIGEASTATION, Yunho and Jaejoong were asked which member of TVXQ they'd choose to marry if they had to. Completely unsurprisingly, they chose each other, and joked that they were now a happily married couple. Poor Junsu was also there and just had to bear witness to this happening in front of him. Obviously Yunjae fans went fucking insane at this, and the day became known as their wedding anniversary, and shippers still celebrate it to this day. Like, this day is taken incredibly seriously. Much less so now than a decade ago, but the Yunjae anniversary is sacred to Yunjae shippers all the same.Overall though, 2007 consists mostly of continuation of the theme of fanservice with hints of "more," just in Japan instead of Korea this time. The number of Cassieopeia and Yunjae shippers are still continuing to rise, and while 2006 may have been the peak of the Yunjae Yaoi Inferno, 2008 would propel the group itself to new heights.
- background information
- 2003-2005: the beginnings
- 2006: the yunjae yaoi inferno
- interlude: gashiyeon
- 2007: oh thank god a break-
2008: i've got you(njae) under my skin
In 2008, TVXQ come back to Korea at the beginning of the year for a hot second to promote their single Purple Line, which they released in both Korean and Japanese. It features the gayest thing Yunho has ever done, and considering the contents of this writeup so far, that's saying something. They're promoting this single in both Korea and Japan at the same time, leading to them flying back and forth between the two countries much more frequently. This is a trend that'd continue later into 2008 and 2009 as well.In terms of Yunjae content, early 2008 brought with it one of the more "damning" pieces of evidence Yunjaers used to prove Yunjae was real. Like, you cannot see anyone talk about Yunjae "proof" without them bringing this incident up. You can watch the clip here, but essentially while promoting Purple Line, TVXQ all are guests on a big group talk show/variety show (yes, it always took place in a bathhouse, you got used to it). During the show, Yunho gets in a conversation with a cast member about going to a restaurant, and starts being evasive about who he was with, saying only that he was with "a friend." Not a big deal, until it's then revealed that the "friend" was Jaejoong, and that the two of them were at the restaurant alone. And got shitfaced together. This was constantly brought up as proof that they were secretly dating because why else would Yunho have been so evasive about it???? Why else would they have gone out together at night???????? Everybody knows it's not possible to platonically go drinking with a friend.Also, the restaurant was owned by one of the only openly gay celebrities in South Korea, who Yunho and Jaejoong were both known to be friends with. Who had earlier in the year, mentioned that he was close with a gay couple in the entertainment industry. He didn't name anyone in particular, but we've already established how little it takes for Yunjaers to call something Yunjae proof. Huge thank you to u/hejjja on Reddit, who DM'd me after the initial post went up letting me know about this specific incident!I mentioned this earlier, but we need to talk about it again: Yunjae fans truly and genuinely believe Yunjae were real, in ways beyond anything else I have ever seen from other real person shippers. Like I cannot stress enough how far beyond normal shipping this was. This wasn't "oh these people are cute together, what would it be like if they were dating." This wasn't "I like analyzing these people's dynamics and relationship and maybe I'll theorize they're in a relationship." This was "Yunjae are real, I firmly believe they are real, and this is all evidence that they are actually dating." Sure, people in every fandom is always going to truly believe their OTP is actually real, but nobody believed like Yunjaers did. Shippers generally want their couple to get together. Yunjaers believed their couple already was together. There's a reason the term Yunjae proof is used so much---because every Yunjae interaction wasn't just a cute moment, it was proof that Yunjae was real. The degree to which Yunjae shippers firmly and truly believed Yunjae was real is so hard to describe, especially if you've never been into any fandoms with a large RPF presence. Yunjae were real to them, and every moment showed that.The middle of 2008 flies by in a flurry of plane rides from Korea to Japan and back again, but at the end of that summer it's announced that after nearly two years without a Korean album release, TVXQ would be coming back with a full album in the fall! Cassiopeia rejoice! Music enjoyers rejoice! Yunjae fans rejoice! Was the wait worth it? In a word, yes.
Mirotic, my belovedMirotic, the name of both the song they came back with and the album it's from, was a smash hit. It's overrated. It's the best song in Kpop. It's been subject to countless awful covers since its release. It's my favorite TVXQ song. It's overplayed. I perform CPR on patients to this song on a regular basis. Mirotic sucks. Mirotic is everything. Chances are if you've been into Kpop for more than a few months, you've heard Mirotic, or one of the very bad covers of it. It's truly a staple song of Kpop and if one more person who isn't into TVXQ calls it their favorite TVXQ song I am going to snap. If you couldn't tell, Mirotic and I have a complicated relationship.Back to the real ship here, Korean promotions meant more fantaken photos of Yunjae, and more fantaken photos meant more Yunjae moments were captured. This was also the first era where consistent HD photos were being taken by fans, so now people got to see all those juicy Yunjae moments in High Definition Crisp 720p images. No joke though, there really were some gorgeous photos taken this era (or photos of Jaejoong being gorgeous, same difference.)This era was ripe with Yunjae micro-moments, and there's a billion blogs that have already listed all of them and dissected all of it for evidence, so I'll pass on doing that. Instead I'll talk about the biggest thing that happened during Mirotic era itself, which was Yunjae's couple talk. They start by admitting to having read mpreg fanfiction together, which I can't even begin to unpack, and then proceed to spend the entire rest of the time pretending incredibly poorly that they are not currently beefing off-camera. The parts where they talk about "things they don't like" are direct jabs at each other. It's honestly incredible to watch. There's also a clip of Jaejoong begging to be Yunho's girlfriend on a radio show that Yunjaers really like to throw around, but they were saying shit like this every other day at this point so there's not a lot to say about the fandom response to that.Otherwise, besides Jaejoong getting a massive TVXQ tattoo on his back, like a sane person, not much happened during late summer/fall 2008. They released Wrong Number in late fall, which was a b-side track off Mirotic and featured Jaejoong's first and only rap. Who signed off on that, I don't know, but I'd kill to get a glimpse into the thought process behind pabogateunfish.
Winter 2008, though, is an entirely different story. We have to talk about the 2008 Mnet Korean Music Festival (MKMF). This day is celebrated by Cassiopeia and Yunjae shippers alike to this day. Ostensibly because TVXQ took home the album of the year award for an album they had released barely two months prior. This was a huge moment and---yeah I'm not even going to pretend that people cared about it for anything other than Kim Jaejoong's slutty, slutty jacket and the ten thousand Yunjae moments that occurred in three hours somehow. This hug in particular is like... a sacred icon to Yunjaers. The response to this was more insane than when Yunjae said they were married.TVXQ go to a bunch more awards shows in 2008, and in every single one they show up, look insane, and leave with awards for Mirotic. At one of them, they perform a remix of Mirotic where they all rip their shirts off and expose their backs to the audience at the end, with Jaejoong and his TVXQ tattoo dead center. How touching.Things go well for TVXQ heading into 2009--they had their Mirotic concert tour in spring 2009, and were consistently releasing music in Japan. Their popularity was at an all time high and still growing, and Yunjae were still doing whatever it was they were doing with each other, and things were great, right?
- background information
- 2003-2005: the beginnings
- 2006: the yunjae yaoi inferno
- interlude: gashiyeon
- 2007: oh thank god a break-
- 2008: i've got you(njae) under my skin
2009: THE DIVORCE
On July 31st, 2009, members Jaejoong, Yoochun, and Junsu (JYJ) file a lawsuit against SM, citing overwork, uneven profit sharing between the company and the artists, and unfair contract lengths. Huh, turns out having minors sign a contract that lasts 13 years might make said minors a bit upset when they become adults and see how royally fucked over they have been by you. I can't believe people don't like flying to Japan and back 5 times a week on top of an already packed schedule. Seriously, go look at that link, because TVXQ's 2008-2009 schedule was fucking insane.As I'm sure you've noticed, Changmin and Yunho (I'll refer to the two as Homin) did not file suits against SM. Why they stayed is a point of heavy contention to this day. Some people claim they all planned to leave together, others claim JYJ betrayed Homin and never told them, what you believe all depends on whose side you're on. The goal was never to split as TVXQ though---and JYJ would make that clear, many times, throughout the entire legal battle.The split/lawsuit/divorce itself is worthy of a post---good thing someone has already made one! I linked this earlier on, but if you haven't read this writeup yet, I strongly recommend reading it now, because it'll give you more information on the split than I will. This site is also a good source if you're interested in seeing what the fuck was going on then. If you're interested in learning more about the split on your own time, just be careful, because there's a lot of biased misinformation still going around out there from fans of both sides.So JYJ has now sued SM, and TVXQ group activity in Korea has been suspended. However, TVXQ had signed a different contract for their Japanese activities when they started promoting there. JYJ were still under that contract in Japan, and so TVXQ continue to film Japanese activities together as contractually obligated. Things start to get awkward the longer the lawsuit drags on, and it's made more and more clear that SM is unwilling to compromise and adjust JYJ's contracts. With SM refusing to give in, it's starting to look like JYJ might have to leave the group if they don't drop the lawsuit. Homin start giving JYJ the cold shoulder. Then the cold everything. TVXQ are still filming things together as 5 in Japan, but things are bad between them. Avex would go on to terminate their contract with JYJ in 2010, so on the last day of 2009, TVXQ does their last performance as five.
- background information
- 2003-2005: the beginnings
- 2006: the yunjae yaoi inferno
- interlude: gashiyeon
- 2007: oh thank god a break-
- 2008: i've got you(njae) under my skin
- 2009: the divorce
2010-2014: the custody battles
In 2010, now that JYJ are officially severed from TVXQ, SM immediately flexes their muscles and effectively blacklists JYJ from the entire South Korean entertainment industry. JYJ were unable to go on broadcast TV, and music shows wouldn't have them---they were barred from all means of promotion. Not legally or officially mind you, but if a show has to choose between losing SM artists or letting JYJ promote on their show, they're going to drop JYJ. This is pre-streaming, pre-social media as we know it---there is no TikTok challenge they can promote, no YouTube shows they can go on. Without being able to go on TV, JYJ are left without any way to promote their music in Korea. So they turn to other markets instead.As one of their first steps, they write and release an album fully in English. With their first single including a Kanye West feature. Yeah, you read that right, Kanye West was in a Kpop song in 2010. I genuinely do not know how that happened. Your guess is as good as mine.But enough about depressing things like people having their livelihoods snatched from them because they dared to fight for themselves. You're here for the gay ship drama, after all.Unfortunately for us, all of the people involved in the split were grown adults and were completely mature. Everybody took the high road, and handled everything without any pettiness or drama.Just kidding! It was incredibly messy in every possible way!At a press conference in 2010, Yunho claimed that he had not received any contact from the members that had left. However, Jaejoong had stated in an earlier press conference that he had tried to make contact with Yunho and Changmin, but they had not answered his calls or texts. In response to this, Jaejoong tweeted:"I want to reply to this directly, through my own words. They weren't many, but do you know how hard it was for me to send you those texts? I texted you again right now, please check it."Of course, everyone wanted to know what exactly Jaejoong wrote in those texts. Sadly, this was the last we'd hear of the issue though, and to this day we still don't know what was in the texts or if they actually got them at all. Maybe one day someone will write the tell all book about the divorce that includes the texts, but until then we will be stuck wondering #didtheygetthetexts.One of my favorite quotes of all time comes from around this era, too. During one of TVXQ's first TV appearances after the departure of JYJ, Yunho and Changmin were asked by the host about the lawsuit. Changmin had this to say about it:"When a swarm of geese prepare to migrate, they never forget to make the correct formation. I don't think it's right when a few of the geese who chose to break away still consider themselves as part of the flock."There's a lot to unpack here, but the comedy for me comes in the fact that this is not how geese work. Geese don't behave like that. Changmin does not know how geese work. He pulled a metaphor out of his ass and simply did not care if it was true or not. He wanted to be a bitch so bad he didn't bother fact checking anything. And I love him for it. I could do a whole other essay on the soulfighters divorce but it'd be hard to write through the tears. Anyways.What about the children?So TVXQ are quite obviously fractured into still-TVXQ (Homin) and no-longer-TVXQ (JYJ). If you thought things would be better amongst Cassiopeia now that the groups are seperated, you would be wrong. I've been into Kpop for nearly a decade and Cassies remain the most violently divided fandom I've seen. Cassies at the time could be divided into a few groups best categorized by who they chose to support:
OT5 AKTF Cassies
This group is often referred to as AKTF Cassies, because of their motto "Always Keep The Faith." This comes from a tattoo Jaejoong got in the early 2010s, post-divorce, and fans took it as gospel. If I could go back in time and stop Jaejoong from getting a single tattoo, it'd either be this one or the tramp stamp he got of Junsu and Yoochun's name. AKTFers believed in DB5K above anything else, and believed (kept the faith) that they were going to reunite. Can also refer to people who support all 5 ex-members in general, without being delusional about it. Which is an oxymoron because you can't support PYC without being delusional in 2024 but I digress.2VXQ is HoMin OT2 Cassies
Pretty self explanatory, these are the people who chose to support Yunho and Changmin in the divorce. Tend to hate JYJ, but not always. If you've made it this far, congrats on being blocked by Cassiesstruggles.JYJ supporting OT3 Cassies
These are people who picked JYJ's side in the lawsuit. Naturally, a lot of them dislike OT2s. These days you won't really find a lot of people who only support Jaesu and call themselves Cassies, especially now that they have official fandom names.Yunjaers
They tend to be a subset of AKTfers, but only about Yunjae. I don't consider these the same as AKTFers bcs in many cases, they only care about Yunjae. And in MOST cases, they only care about Jaejoong to the extent of his ship with Yunho. Not all current Yunjae shippers are like this, but in my personal experience I have encountered a lot of them, and they used to be much more plentiful in the years immediately after the divorce.
The existence of so many fans divided in who they support is obviously going to cause problems in the form of MASSIVE amounts of infighting seen throughout 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.And all future years. Things are perpetually bad in Cassiedom. Get me out of here. But the worst of it was during the years during and following the split, from around 2009-2015.And when the dust settled and it was clear Jaesu and Homin would not be reuniting anytime soon, and that there was bad blood, a lot of people jumped ship. A lot of Yunjae fans jumped ship, in particular. You know Yoonjaepaetch, who I have brought up multiple times as THE Korean Yunjae fansite? They closed their doors in early 2011. Taking with them all of their resources, content, and forums. If it hadn't been for people saving their photo archives before they went down, the majority of their pics would be lost today. YJLB survived, because not even a nuclear apocalypse could stop YJLB from being creepy about Yunjae.It wasn't just Yunjae fansites that eventually shuttered though. Many of Jaejoong and Junsu's more prolific solo fansites would also close, because it's not easy to support an idol when you... have nowhere to support them when they release music in your country. This mass exodus of their fans still affects Jaejoong and Junsu today---Jaejoong in particular, who tears up any time he watches anyone thank their fans for standing by them.Not everybody left though, there were people who held on. Who still kept the faith. Who believed Yunjae would eventually reunite in a blaze of homosexual glory.And they were right(ish).
- background information
- 2003-2005: the beginnings
- 2006: the yunjae yaoi inferno
- interlude: gashiyeon
- 2007: oh thank god a break-
- 2008: i've got you(njae) under my skin
- 2009: the divorce
- 2010-2014: the custody battles
2015: the military industrial complex
Military enlistment is obligatory for men in South Korea. The rules around it have changed a bunch in recent years, but the general gist of it is that if you're a man, at some point between ages 18 and 30 you're legally obligated to spend two years serving in the military. Most idols push this back as long as they can, since a two year full hiatus is generally pretty bad for one's career in a fast moving industry like Kpop. Remember how I mentioned way way back when that Yunho and Jaejoong were super close in age? This is important because it means they ended up enlisting at the same time, albeit in different branches of the military. But that was not going to stop the stars from aligning, and in October of that year, it was announced they would be attending the same military event.Yunjae stans went WILD at this news. The ones who had been keeping the faith were able to brag about how they never gave up on Yunjae and how Yunjae was truly destined to be together, etc etc. Fans who had given up came out of the woodwork because of how insane this was going to be. New fans were ecstatic that they didn't get into TVXQ too late to see Yunjae interact. Hopes were high that Yunho and Jaejoong would be caught interacting with each other on camera, and that they did.From how Yunjae shippers reacted, you'd think they ran into each other's arms and started making out on stage, and changmin showed up and got to beat jaejoong with rocks. But nope! Here's what happened instead. Yunjaers were losing their shit over a photo of Yunho looking at Jaejoong. Although at this point you probably understand how on brand this reaction is for them, especially given the circumstances.But wait---there's more! Through the least creepy and abnormal ways possible (sneaking around and stalking), fans were able to capture pictures and videos of Yunho and Jaejoong interacting with each other backstage. In a positive manner! Laughing and talking together like friends! Like I said, fans fucking lost it at this.(Also, please look at military Jaejoong, because people have been known to photoshop their faves heads onto his military body due to how good he looked.)Hopes were high that when they came out of the military, maybe there'd be an official reunion!! They looked to be on good terms with each other, after all. Fans were rejuvenated and willing to keep on keeping the faith. Has their faith paid off again?In short: no.In long:
- background information
- 2003-2005: the beginnings
- 2006: the yunjae yaoi inferno
- interlude: gashiyeon
- 2007: oh thank god a break-
- 2008: i've got you(njae) under my skin
- 2009: the divorce
- 2010-2014: the custody battles
- 2015: the military industrial complex
2015-present: current day delusions
There has been no further interaction between Yunho and Jaejoong since that day, 8 years ago. Nothing. As far as I'm aware, neither of them has said the other's name even once since then. If anyone had, it would've been Jaejoong, because it's pretty clear that even if Yunho did want to mention Jaejoong, theres absolutely no way SM would allow it.There were also rumors in 2020 that Jaejoong attended Changmin's wedding, but these were never substantiated. I choose to believe that he attended not because of Yunjae or because I believe in OT5, but because I want to see Changmin beat the shit out of Jaejoong like he used to more than almost anything else in the world.There's one other event in recent years that it's known they both openly attended, but due to the nature of it I won't be discussing it here or counting it towards anything.SM did send Jaejoong a congratulatory wreath for the opening of his own company recently, which led to this hilarious video. Mans does not want to be there. Nobody knows why they sent it, but Jaejoong left the whole thing outside instead of bringing it in with the others, which I think is an appropriate response (the other appropriate response being to light it on fire, of course).Yunho and Jaejoong have both stood next to red phone booths since then though. Which clearly means they're referencing Dangerous Love and are thus telling the fans to not worry because they're still together after all because Yunjae is for life!!!1Other than that #definitive evidence, there's been nothing. Jaejoong mentioned Changmin in an interview by name but hilariously did not say anything about Yunho. Which the shippers did take as proof, somehow.TVXQ had their first comeback in five years in late 2023 to celebrate their 20th anniversary. Changmin is married with a child, a rarity for Kpop idols. Jaejoong and Junsu have both had successful solo careers, and have both recently founded their own entertainment companies. And have both chosen questionable names for their fans. I'm just gonna keep calling myself a Cassiopeia though, because I am not calling myself a boss baby or a coconut. Their lawsuit also changed the industry significantly---thanks to them, idol contract lengths are limited to a maximum of seven years. Although that hasn't stopped SM from finding other ways to get their artists to sign 13 year contracts.Incredibly, after 15 years of being blacklisted from appearing on music shows by SM, Jaejoong was finally able to perform on Inkigayo in August 2024 to promote his album Flower Garden. This was a genuine historic moment. I cried a little.But yeah, everyone's been doing pretty well recently--with one notable exception.You remember how back at the beginning when I was listing the members, I used a photo of one of them in handcuffs? I chose that photo because Yoochun is a known rapist. And went to jail but not for that, but for using a bunch of meth. And then refused to pay damages to the woman he assaulted. And is now legally blacklisted (like, in a ruling from an actual court) from any form of the entertainment industry in South Korea. Because of tax evasion. There's a lot of fighting between Cassies who are sane normal people who don't want to support a rapist, and Cassies who are AKTF or death and see no problem giving their money to him for him to waste. Here's where you can find a whole bunch of (fully sourced) articles from the last 10 years that detail exactly what he's been up to.Even Junsu and Jaejoong are doing their best to pretend like he never existed, which is easier said than done when you have a tattoo of his name above your ass. Jaejoong is now on the record as saying he fully is no longer in contact with PYC. But as they've both left established their own companies, JYJ has officially disbanded, and in its place has risen J&J. So much like they have, let's move on from this topic.
So what are Yunjae shippers up to now? Coping. Making scarily realistic photoshops of Yunho and Jaejoong together. Getting upset whenever someone on twitter implies Jaejoong didn't spend the entirety of the 2000s getting his pipes cleaned by Yunho every single night in the communal dorms. Making Yunjae proof youtube videos. And twitter threads. YJLB are still around and are as creepy as always. Look at any youtube comment section on an old Yunjae video and there's bound to be recent comments of people saying they still believe in Yunjae. One of the most prolific pre-divorce Yunjae fanartists recently had one of her webcomics adapted into a Kdrama. Cassies on twitter are still fighting over the split (like, they're fighting about it as I'm editing this). It's a pretty mixed bag.For better or for worse, Yunjae continues to be the ship that every other ship in Kpop is measured against in terms of popularity. And for good reason---no other ship in Kpop has ever come close to how popular and well known Yunjae was. Yunjae shippers also continue to be the standard that shippers today are measured against. The measurement might be "degree of delusion," but it's still something. No other ship in Kpop has been as popular and ended as tragically and suddenly. I think part of what makes Yunjae shipping endure today is because of that tragedy. The unfinished business between the two of them. Maybe we'll never see a true Yunjae reunion, but Yunjae shippers will continue to live on, regardless.
- background information
- 2003-2005: the beginnings
- 2006: the yunjae yaoi inferno
- interlude: gashiyeon
- 2007: oh thank god a break-
- 2008: i've got you(njae) under my skin
- 2009: the divorce
- 2010-2014: the custody battles
- 2015: the military industrial complex
- 2015-present: current day delusions
notes
If you made it through all of this, thank you so much for reading my unhinged essay on an unhinged ship. I did my best to try and convey the kind of fever dream learning about TVXQ's history feels like, and I hope at some point I was able to make you question your life choices. I love TVXQ, both as DB4K and as 2VXQ, and I love Jaejoong and Junsu. I hope that came across here because this thing was a labor of love (and hate).Huge thanks to the old man yaoi therapy nursing home--jo, emily, lance, i love you so much--for all of their help when I was initially writing this monstrosity. I could not have done this without all of your insanity, ily. Thank you to u/hejjja on reddit as well for letting me know about the extra context for the Hong Seok Cheon "evidence", and to @yhgwth on twitter for the gashiyeon academic discourse.You can find me on twitter, and if you have any questions/comments/complaints/death threats feel free to leave them in my strawpage! do not make me regret linking this.#NEVERKEEPTHEFAITH
