hcrj mini thesis - puzzle piece in paris

[orangevitamins]

i was on bilibili earlier between some my classes and i saw a comment on one of the videos (it was the one of hc looking depressedly at renjun during puzzle piece)

bilibili link

twitter link (same video)

anyways there was a comment on there that i'm going to paste (translated w some edits by me in brackets but they're only for clarification purposes!) here because i wanna TALK about it i think they're wrong and it's goes directly against part of my dongren thesis (a WIP) and i'm very passionate about it so:

here we go!

"I feel that Renjun doesn’t trust Haechan a little bit, and the two of them had a good meeting in Japan, but later on, I began to feel that Renjun was a little disappointed with Haechan to a certain extent, including what he said in the signing [the 'don't trust half of what hc says' thing], it seems that Haechan is only very good at speaking, and his actions did not give Renjun a sense of security"

this was just so...what in the world! to me. (a lot of other people disagreed with the comment, too) (there were also a bunch of theories about sm pushing jaemren now which is funny just because we know that jaemin and renjun are actually besties? lol. like sm was like damn...we need to push a renjun ship QUICK (since there hasn't been an official sm sponsored renjun ship ever since jaemin came back, in the time that jm was gone it was noren) and honestly it was a really good choice because jm is very visibly protective of rj (bc best friendisms). it's very sweet and it's also amusing bc i feel like hc and jm have started getting along better since dr became an actual thing...which i would post a timeline about but honestly my timeline has been so influenced by other people's timelines that it feels like plagiarism to post it as if it's my own...i dunno. also i am still exploring nahyuck friendship as a concept. i'll come back with another thesis another time!)

BUT i digress. let's get back on track: we are all well aware (via rumors and the members, as well as his own confirmations) that hc is very different on and off stage.

i think the best place to start is that anon who posted the bilibili comment about how it's fascinating that the chinese dream members (rj + cl) seem to have a harder time separating work and real life in comparison to the korean members (they specifically said mk and hc) who have a very good and distinct separation between real life and idol life/life on camera. (not going to discuss this—you can read another analysis of it on my friend lovebalance's dreamwidth here and okay, the comment said this but we are learning more and more about hc's confusion(? i guess...) about the distinction between his idol self and private self, and i don't think that that means that the comment is wrong per se, just that he is kind of struggling with the separation even if he is good at separating them. so i say the comment still stands, even with more info about hc vs ldh.

anyways, in a bearfox context: i do think this could be a point of dissension between the two of them, but i completely disagree with the quoted comment.

to me, hc is the type of person who thinks he is expressive with his words and...isn't really. like he could say i love you a billion times, but you might just be like "yeah, okay" UNTIL you look at his actions. i think that any friction in their relationship about this comes less from hc being good at speaking (we know this is true though, thank you renjun) rather actions, but more that he does not speak clearly enough in a way that is also representative of his actions?

it's like...really fucking obvious that hc loves rj a lot, but it's not because of what people think (saying i love you, flirting a lot, calling himself rj's husband) (even if he does enjoy those things and they stem from a place of truth) it's because of the subconscious things that he's constantly doing for rj that show his true feelings.

the only reason i can think of abt why this would cause friction is that rj is really, really a words person...the dude thinks so so much and he's (to me) definitely the type to overthink hc's actions (especially if they're different off camera) and get in his head about how much hc actually cares for him. i just thought it was so interesting to see that comment and immediately be like 'no this is wrong,' lol.

i guess it's kind of right in the way that hc's actions don't give rj a sense of security but that, to me, is more because rj is looking at the way his actions reflect his words (probably there's some dissonance there) vs simply his actions.

i think it's also difficult because hc is like...literally a genius? like he is so fucking smart and everyone knows that and i think rj might sometimes take that to mean that hc is always thinking carefully about what he does and says (because rj is also very very smart and part of that, to him, is consistently thinking carefully about what he does and says) and i do think that hc does a really good job at this, but it's in a far more calculated way than rj? like he thinks more about "how is this thing i say or do going to appear on camera or to the audience and how can i make the best/funniest/most impressive decision right now" rather than monitoring how his actions and words match up? iiiiiii don't really know how well i'm putting this all into words. neither is a worse way to be, it's just that if they have certain expectations of each other because of this, it may not align.

i don't know, though, generally i feel like they really have a fantastic understanding of each other and it's clear that they have a good sense of communication (obviously any tension that was there that night has definitely 100% been resolved by now [note: i wrote this around a week after that concert]....sometimes it just takes a good argument and a good fuck omg who said that) but it's definitely interesting to see the difference in the ways people perceive hc's actions! i've been a fan of dream since 2018 and hc has been my ult for nearly that same amount of time, so i consider myself an expert in the textbook of hc (which is amusing because i am far more similar to rj......hm! what does that imply ;P) so it always stands out to me when i feel like people grossly misinterpret him.

hc is an enormously complex and confusing person i'm genuinely so fascinated by him! i want to put him in a lab and study him. and THEN you add rj to the mix and i feel that way doubled... they're really so....so....so....yk what i mean? i think i could literally spend years analyzing them separately let alone together—and i have...and i will continue to do so...[insert we're in love by boygenius here]