ditzbang

Slide 13: Member intro slide (contains a photo of the member, their name, nationality flag, facts about them, and a fun or silly note below their photo) Name: Harua, Shigeta Harua Birthday: May 1, 2005 (age 20) Role: Singer About: Undisputably the cutest member Looks like a cinnamon roll, will actually kill you Paints his own nails! Used to be a child actor so despite being young clearly knows his shit with the industry and keeps a pretty good boundary between his idol persona and irl Part of maknae line and uses his cuteness to get away with all kinds of mischief and stirring shit on purpose Absolutely incredible singer and needs more recognition for it, he might be the smallest member but he is LOUD Very often gets lifted or flung/dragged around during choreo Refers to EJ and Fuma as “mama and papa” because tbh they literally raised him Nationality: Japanese Silly fact: yes this is harua from the supernova cover yes he is cunty af

Slide 14: Member intro slide (contains a photo of the member, their name, nationality flag, facts about them, and a fun or silly note below their photo) Name: Taki, Takayam Riki Birthday: May 4, 2005 (age 20) Role: Singer About: Yes he’s born literally 3 days after Harua lol, they’re besties Puberty hit him like a truck post-I-Land WEIRD LITTLE GUY. like legit SO STRANGE. My best description is like if Taemin had ADHD as well as being Like That. He’s always doing weird shit in the background of every bit of &team content. Incredibly talented dancer especially at locking, and when he locks in he has a real talent for choreo and leading/directing people K raised him from when he was like 13, that is his mother whom he adores (we do not speak of what happened to them on I-LAND) If you hear someone hooting and hollering backstage it’s usually him, someone described him as a human megaphone Nationality: Japanese Silly fact: can do a peacock impression (threat)

Slide 15: Member intro slide (contains a photo of the member, their name, nationality flag, facts about them, and a fun or silly note below their photo) Name: Maki, Hirota Riki / Riki Wilhelm Maus Birthday: February 17, 2006 (age 19) Role: Lead Singer About: Yes he’s also called Riki this is why they have stage names Another multilingual king, he speaks Japanese, German, English and Korean So terminally online that he now captions his tiktoks #wasian after seeing Lune joking about it on Twitter Legit hilarious in his English lives, also seems to help Nicho a lot with Japanese since they both speak English fluently He can SING holy shit!! Used to be in musical theatre as a kid so every single song he’s just in the back like WOOOOOAAHHHH YEAAHHH Friends with Matthew from ZB1 as they trained together at Hybe before they both went on survival shows Nationality: Japanese-German Silly fact: Most likely to yell 6 7 during a dance practice

Slide 16: My fave duos, with photos of my 4 fave duos in &TEAM. Footnote: yes there is some kind of fucked up polycule solution to all this and yes i WILL write it one day EJ & Fuma: Co-leaders, both broke down sobbing at their anniversary showcase when EJ said “Fuma, you’re MY leader”. Fuma would go to the ends of the earth for EJ. EJ would probably die for Fuma. K & Fuma: Eldest members who rely on each other endlessly! They love each other SO MUCH. Fuma is so utterly devoted to his members and especially K that it makes my heart hurt. Harua & Nicholas: Couple of cuties! Looks like a cinnamon roll and would actually kill you (Harua) plus looks like they’d kill you and is actually a cinnamon roll (Nicho). Share a love of fashion. EJ & Nicholas: Same age besties who debuted together! Soulmates fr. EJ is legit OBSESSED with Nicholas and vice versa and they’re all over each other all the time. Nicho lets EJ manage his money for him?? discuss.

maknae line member intros including Harua (will kill you), Taki (would help) and Maki (6 7). all 9 of them are madly in love with one another so i only chose four duos to focus on for the last slide but pls know they are all DEEPLY obsessed with each other and every duo, trio, etc is a delight! 4/5

Slide 9: Member intro slide (contains a photo of the member, their name, nationality flag, facts about them, and a fun or silly note below their photo) Name: Nicholas, Wáng Yìxiáng Birthday: July 9, 2002 (age 23) Role: Rapper, Singer About: Emo catboy fashionista I am obsessed with him!! Multilingual: speaks Chinese, English, Korean and Japanese fluently Incredibly sarcastic and sassy with fans in Chinese (much like Minghao lol), takes no shit and often won’t do fanservice WILL do fanservice if it involves showing his muscles or doing aegyo because he’s both hot AND in his own words “naturally adorable” Looks like a genderful elf and has lowkey RBF but is actually the biggest sweetheart and is constantly being silly and cute Prone to B-boying when left unattended for too long Chaos gremlin and attention seeking brat especially when it comes to EJ (his bestie) If you see someone wearing a skirt it’s probably him Nationality: Taiwanese Silly fact: this man owns handcuffs which he wore as a fashion accessory. discuss.

Slide 10: Member intro slide (contains a photo of the member, their name, nationality flag, facts about them, and a fun or silly note below their photo) Name: EJ, Byun Eujoo Birthday: September 7, 2002 (age 23) Role: Leader About: Was on I-Land with K, Nicholas and Taki Oh my precious leader kiddo who’s doing his very best!! He’s the kind of leader who’s very emotionally intelligent and soft on all his members (Nico does his best to annoy him into breaking out of Leader Mode but more on that later) Raps, sings and dances AND he like Nico learned Japanese in about two years in order to debut with &team Hosted Inkigayo in 2025 so you’ve def seen him Used to be a fencer before he debuted so another absurdly athletic member Nicknames include Ponyo (because he looks like the character) and Juju (Nico calls him this a lot) Clumsiest man alive Just Doing His Best Nationality: Korean Silly fact: a beautiful man who once exploded a water bottle all over himself on camera while Nico pissed himself laughing

Slide 11: Member intro slide (contains a photo of the member, their name, nationality flag, facts about them, and a fun or silly note below their photo) Name: Yuma, Nakakita Yūma Birthday: February 7, 2004 (age 21) Role: Lead singer and dancer About: Catboy #2 triple threat edition: he can sing, dance, act, he’s fucking hilarious, and he looks like THAT Has a high voice and an incredibly unique vocal tone Used to have the most adorable snaggletooth but Hybe made him get braces (BOO HISS) He’s possibly the member who trained the longest and seemed the most debut-ready during their survival show, he was a trainee at Johnny's from 2012 as well as Avex from 2015 until 2018 and was in some pre-debut groups Recently got a tattoo and relished in the meltdowns his fans had about it (the photos of it are like... STUPID hot) Massive flirt and cuddlebug with all the members Nationality: Japanese Silly fact: (Yuma voice): FUMA-SAAAAAN

Slide 12: Member intro slide (contains a photo of the member, their name, nationality flag, facts about them, and a fun or silly note below their photo) Name: Jo, Asakura Jō Birthday: July 8, 2004 (age 21) Role: Singer, center About: My precious tall bean!! He’s the tallest at 6 foot 1 Tends to dance a lot of center parts with K, who has adopted him as another of his children. Onstage has the most insane stage presence, off stage is the shyest sweetest kid Art boy!! Loves to draw and paint and often can be found drawing the members, he is genuinely a very talented artist Obviously used to play basketball Very quiet and softly spoken, a gentle giant, the other members often yell at each other to stfu so he can say something which is incredibly sweet Loves rice. Like really loves it. Kind of a mystery to me but I think that’s his vibe tbh Nationality: Japanese Silly fact: Keeps emotional support instant rice next to his bed

more member intros including Nicholas and Eujoo (soulmates fr), Yuma (not to be confused with Fuma, although they are also in love) and Jo and his emotional support rice 3/5

Slide 5: A slide titled "Albums" with photos of 4 album covers. The albums are, in order: First Howling: NOW (2023), Full Japanese album, Contains all songs from mini-albums First Howling: ME and First Howling: WE; Yukiakari (2024) Full Japanese album, Contains tracks from like 6 EPs plus Korean versions; Go In Blind (2025), Japanese single album, EP length but not an EP?; and Back to Life (2025) Korean debut mini-album, Slaps severely, also released in Japanese. A note at the bottom reads "This is basically all their music and you can ignore the EPs/mini albums because they always include everything from them in their full length albums"

Slide 6: title "are &TEAM a j-pop group?" and then the text: The short answer: yeah kinda The long answer: Hybe call them a “global” group?? I think a J-pop fan would call them a K-pop style J-pop group, like more Korean than JO1 but MUCH more Japanese than Enhypen, they release all their music on a Japanese schedule Where they trained: Korea (mostly, Yuma and Fuma both trained more in Japan) Who makes their music: Soma Genda who is Japanese (and was a mentor on &audition!), but often Korean producers are involved Where they film/shoot: usually Korea Where they do comeback prep: they have a dorm in Japan AND a dorm in Korea Where they promote: they alternate on Korean and Japanese promotions Where they do variety: both countries tbh What languages they speak: lol. lmao. You’ll see them speak a chaos language of Japanese, Korean and English to each other (Nicholas and Maki especially) Hybe seem to have them under strict(ish) instruction to speak Korean for K-comeback content and Japanese for J-comeback content but they always slip up. Adorably even in Japanese they call K “K-hyung”

Slide 7: Member intro slide (contains a photo of the member, their name, nationality flag, facts about them, and a fun or silly note below their photo) Name: K, Koga Yudai Birthday: October 21 1997 (Age 28) Role: Performance leader and center About: Started dance training allegedly at 20-ish and despite that went on I-Land like a year later (we do not speak of it) Used to be a marathon runner and still does them for fun (??) Insanely talented in dance, singing, performance, variety, choreography and serving Kunt The Hoshi of the group on stage (if you hear someone screaming or hyping them up it’s probably K) Taemin-like dance abilities like fr he’s insane, also can do the splits (you’ll learn later this actually isn’t remarkable because ALL OF &TEAM CAN DO THE SPLITS) leg. so much leg. tallest member except for Jo i think Exremely parental towards all the members but especially Taki who he raised from I-LAND onwards, took on a leader role before the leader was decided Nationality: Japanese Silly fact: look at him he’s so fucking cute i am going to explode

Slide 8: Member intro slide (contains a photo of the member, their name, nationality flag, facts about them, and a fun or silly note below their photo) Name: Fuma, Murata Fuma Birthday: June 29, 1998 (age 27) Role: Sub-leader About: Number 1 Taemin fanboy FOR REAL, he met Taemin for a YouTube thing and Taemin recognised him as “ah we’ve met before you come to my fansign in Japan” and Fuma didn’t even look embarrassed he just looked proud Encyclopedic knowledge of Pokemon and according to Pokemon people he’s like, crazy good at all the games Insanely jacked and loves to show it off including in his slutty lil crop tops Somehow even more stoic than K, acts of service are his love language, you can often find him carrying one of the members with adoration in his eyes Literally described himself as a bodyguard, make of that what you will, just a big beautiful babygirl of a man!! Really brilliant dancer and has a lovely singing voice Nationality: Japanese Silly fact: at all times he is ready to fight God and Hoshi to be with Taemin

here is some info on their albums so far (they all slap), whether they're a jpop group (yeah kinda) and an intro to the eldest two members, K and Fuma (they are in love and married. do NOT separate them) 2/5

Slide 1: a photo of all 9 &team members looking especially cunty and sparkly for the Back to Life comeback. The title of the slide is Introduction and the text reads: &TEAM are a 9-member Japanese group who debuted in Nov 2022 after their survival show &Audition in Sept 2022. They are werewolves (for real)

Slide 2: A labelled diagram of &team members during back to life promotions with pink arrows pointing to each member who is labelled with his name and birth year. Fuma (98) - babygirl, #1 Taemin Stan, 2nd oldest, sub-leader EJ (02) - leader, korean, inkigayo host, ponyo, waist snatched Yuma (04) - insane singing voice, catboy #1, excellent dancer Jo (04) - tall child, artboy, authentically weird Harua (05) - cutie pie, strong twink energy Maki (06) - maknae, theatre kid, powerhouse vocal, so gen z it’s painful Nicholas (02) - looks scary but legit the cutest, gender!!!, catboy #2, taiwanese Taki (05) - strong taemin energy (gremlin), excellent dancer K (97) - oldest member, strong taemin energy (gender, dancey dance), chameleon There is a circle around K and Taki labelled "mother and son"

Slide 3: &AUDITION. A photo of the four debut members (K, Nicholas, EJ and Taki) as well as a photo of the 14 contestants in &AUDITION. Text reads: Hybe decided that K, Nicholas, Eujoo (EJ) and Taki had suffered enough on I-Land so they were already confirmed as debut members. This was barely a survival show tbh it was incredibly chill and cute! For some reason they made the kids collect &Balls to fill up an &Ring in order to &...debut? idk man. The mentors were actually very supportive of the kids and their training especially considering some of them were like... 14 years old

Slide 4: Notes on &AUDITION: The tone of the show is overall lighthearted and fun with zero interpersonal drama and very low stakes, noone is pitted against each other. One of the main assessment criteria the judges used was how well the kids worked together as a team which was actually really cute. The Japanese mentors were very good at that J-pop thing where the focus is on idols constantly improving rather than being 1000% perfect all the time. You can SEE K mother-henning them all from the moment they walk in. There was no eliminations and only a small vote at the very end, which only counted like 20% to the debut decisions, so the finale is literally only 45 minutes long instead of interminable (although i wouldn’t rec it, Scooter Braun is there for some reason??) IMO a lot of the Korean trainees were clearly there as filler and knew they weren’t going to debut, and a couple of the Japanese trainees later debuted in AOEN (Hybe J-pop group #2) It was conducted in a delightfully chaotic mish mash of korean and japanese. Features guest appearances from Enhypen (visibly relieved that their fellow I-LAND sufferers get to debut), TXT, BTS and Seventeen.

&TEAM have announced their comeback for April 21 so if you like me are in need of a wolfpack of 9 wonderful boys in your life, here is a chaotic introduction to them in the form of a powerpoint presentation that i actually gave to @dramaletsnot.bsky.social (jen ilysm thank you for indulging me) 1/5

Paper of record my ass

help

if you need a laugh today as badly as I do, watch this. And srsly, turn the sound on.

Puck You ebook by Elizabeth Jewell - Rakuten Kobo Read "Puck You" by Elizabeth Jewell available from Rakuten Kobo. Rival hockey pros Bessette and Láska hate each other. When their aggression crosses the line into the dressing rooms, it...

For my hockey romance seekers, and i know you are legion, Elizabeth Jewell just released an omnibus edition of Puck You, her m/m hockey rivals-to-lovers series! www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/...

Gonna let you guys in on a very non-secret. The Chotiner fic is part of one of the longest-running largest fanfiction challenges on the internet, Yuletide, and it produces fics this brilliant *every single year.*

Arguably Yuletide itself should be nominated for a Hugo, alongside this fic.

It feels like everybody's talking about Heated Rivalry. My most normcore straight friends are constantly posting about it or mentioning it in chats. It's probably not too much. I think it's escaped containment and entered fully into mainstream.

At some point, my WIPs are going to band together in protest and attack me for making new notes on a new story. I can hear the murmurs. I see the looks. I know it's coming.

A screenshot of a bluesky post from The Journal @thejournal.ie. It reads: With South Korean groups like BTS, Blackpink, and Stray Kids among the biggest names in music, there's no better time to test how fluent you are in all things K-pop. The link is to a quiz at The Journal, with images of K-pop Demon Hunters and Jin.

Irish news sources are tuning in.

“Hello. This is Big Hit.”

The name has changed, but the trauma lives on.

#FicYourFall About the Fic Your Fall writing challenge.

#FicYourFall 2025 is fast approaching! Will you be joining us this year?

ficyourfall.carrd.co

omegaverse gyms smelling like a yankee candle store

Dark blue starry night sky with a pale yellow moon and clouds. The text reads: THE MOON IS BEAUTIFUL &TEAM 2025

UPDATE — NEW DEADLINE

Spindrift convinced me to extend the deadline by a week because so many of you have fics you've started but have stalled on. New deadline: 11:59 pm (GMT) on July 6th!

archiveofourown.org/collections/...

A thread on Papa Fuma and why we all love him — this guy is 100% the real deal. I've never seen an idol like him. Dive into his story a bit, and you'll find that he thought &Team was his last chance. He's never stopped thanking and loving Lune for the opportunity.

YouTube video by HappyToast Jim Bob - Song By Me - HappyToast video version

This song is a bop.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCaf...

I take my coffee like I take my books: shamelessly purchased for enough happy brain tingles to drag me through another day even though I already have plenty at home

Sticker with 4 white Chicago stars over color stripes: blue, red, orange, green, yellow, purple, pink, and brown representing each color of an L train in Chicago

LMAO YOU GUYS I BOUGHT A COOL CHICAGO PRIDE STICKER BUT ITS ACTUALLY JUST ALL THE COLORS OF THE L TRAINS IM DYING

I'm shocked and taking to my fainting couch. So much skin!

Oh wow. WOW.

Your handwork is so, so pretty and tidy. 💕

I live in a house full of artists. I’m a wordsmith. Whatever it is artist brains do bypassed me completely, and I’ve always wanted to learn how. So this is actually a really big deal for me.

A text exchange between Himself and me. I posted a photo of my desk, with a screen showing a tutorial video and an iPad in front of it where I’m painting the object in Procreate. It’s a collection of cattails and reedy leaves. The text messages read: Me: Omg omg I’m doing it I drew cattails! Next is a dragon fly. I’ll fuck it up but this is fun. Procreate is amazing Himself: Very nice! Nature’s inspiration for weiner cookouts. Me: Hahaha fire it up we gon eat

I’m being such a nerd today. 😭

So excited to share this news! I wrote a vampire novel, set in the world of Alexandre Dumas (my novel roughly matches the timeline of his novel La reine Margot, the Catherine de' Medici era.) +

whenever AI bros go on about how they can't wait to use AI to talk to all their favorite characters i'm just like, dude just write fanfiction like a normal person

A panel from the webcomic KEEPING TIME. Denver, a blond dude withe a neck tattoo, waves a hand as if to literally clear the air as he says, "...Sorry! Didn't mean to make it weird. Forget I said that! We going to the station?"

"Told a dude I missed him, now it's weird" - the Denver Leary story

#KeepingTime is a queer, slow burn, absolute bummer of a romantic drama between bandmates in the 00s and it just updated!

🎸 keepingtimecomic.com
🎸Start from the beginning

Oh. You're in &Team. Got it.

Nakakita Yuma, from &Team, at Weversecon 2025. He's wearing a tan shirt with a guitar graphic and an assortment of chain necklaces. His hair is dark and he has pale colour contacts in. He's holding a microphone and waterbottle, and looking directly at the camera while sticking his tongue out a bit (normal expression).

Nakakita Yuma, from &Team, at Weversecon 2025. He's wearing a tan shirt with a guitar graphic and an assortment of chain necklaces. His hair is dark and he has pale colour contacts in. He's singing, with a furrow in his forehead. He is holding a black microphone up to his mouth.

Nakakita Yuma, from &Team, at Weversecon 2025. He's wearing a tan shirt with a guitar graphic and an assortment of chain necklaces. His hair is dark and he has pale colour contacts in. He's looking directly at the camera and smirking with his tonue partially out (normal expression for him).

Three more from Weversecon to keep them entertained.