sorry for being late, but this morning i definitely hadn’t time to answer this. anyway, before beginning i want to say that as i’m not korean myself and my korean works fine when speaking but not as fine when reading (especially if you go read in korean communities omfg all the slang, i can’t live) SO all i know are things that my korean shawol friends told me or i’ve experienced/noticed while being in korea. I probably still have a lot to learn about the korean fandom, but anyway.
it’s difficult to decide what you really want to know after being asked such a question, the first thing me and my eonnie spoke about and that surprised her was the international fandom idea of what’s manly and what’s not. or who is manly and who is not. all the things i-fans call girly about shinee, k-fans call them either cute or adorable, but they never think of them as “girly”. i’ve asked her who they perceive as the “manliest” then, and she answered onew. surprisingly. to me at least. she said that despite him being a fluffy ball of sunshine, when onew is serious he has this really strong aura around himself and in general because of his reliability he’s considered really manly. he’s followed by taemin and kibum. taemin because korean fans definitely don’t see him as a 14 year-old little boy anymore - she said that in the fandom taemin topping anyone is really popular, they think of him as really dominant, and key because… well, difficult to explain? but korean fans don’t see him behaving feminine at all? he has a strong aura too, strong personality, he knows what he wants. he would probably be ranked higher, also because of how he looks (they say he definitely looks like a man, that he’s handsome, attractive and too sexy), but because he’s a crybaby and is also considered the kindest shinee member with minho he’s just here, half way. minho and jonghyun rank last. not because they lack “manliness” but because they lack dominance? that’s what she told me. i told her that in the i-fandom jonghyun and minho are usually the dominant ones and she answered that only new shawols or people who tries to guess by appearance says that about them. no korean shawol believes in minho and jonghyun being dominant (i’m gonna LOL forever, sorry lmao). minho is the sweetest person on planet earth to them, and even if flames are not many (minho is strangely not really popular? i was surprised. i still have to meet a korean flame in real life. and people who stayed there for more than a year still have to meet one too!), all shawols love him so freaking much. they always speak only sweet words about him and could not be more thankful for his existence. in other words you would never find a korean shawol that says he’s useless. another surprising thing i have to say about jonghyun is that while in the interational fandom people are still kind of meh to all the shin sekyung issue and a lot of us still thinks it was all fake, korean shawols do believe it was real. and let me just tell you something - when korean fans think a rumor is real, it’s usually because it’s real X’D but well, old story anyway, it’s not important anymore.
all of this reflect on fan fictions too. contrary to us they like shinee to switch. and forever!bottom key (or taemin) doesn’t exist for them. no way. as forver!dominant minho. pfffffu. nope. jonghyun kind of bottoms for us too, so yeah. they like all pairings, and taekey (taemkey for them. or keytaem) is really famous too. it’s definitely not “the lesbian couple” as it is often addressed as in the i-fandom. another thing that made her super surprised is the existence of GIRLee. i was like “yeah, it’s shinee but girl version” and she was like “oh god ahahahahah”. no GIRLee in korea. definitely XD
i’ve also noticed that while for some reason i feel like lockets who see kibum in a sexual way are not many (read as “him being sexual with you”), in korea lockets are a ton? and they all see him that way. he really has a lot of fans D: for what i could gather onew, taem and key have most fans? i could be wrong, because not all k-shawols tell you or make you understand, they usually keep it a secret (they just say they like them all even if they do have a bias), but most of the girls i’ve met were either onew’s or key fans especially. mvp are really, litterally, everywhere.
and… i don’t know. i could say something else but i don’t know what you want to know. if you have other questions feel free to ask again ^W^
(i’m sorry, my information will forever be key-biased too /sighs/)
EDIT. because this post created some controversy i would like to apologize if it sounds like i’m speaking bad about the i-fandom, that was not my intention. i’m part of the i-fandom myself, i wouldn’t. i know that there are i-fans that got other the stereotypes over written, all the people i follow did (that’s why i follow them in the first place), so i did speak in general but i didn’t want to generalize. it’s just difficult to compare two groups that contain so many different people. i can only speak for my own experience and i can’t count how many of you think something and how many of you think something else, so considering how many people i follow (i don’t even reach 200 and half are not even shinee blogs) and what i usually read in tags i still believe stereotypes go strong in the fandom. it’s only legit not to agree with me, you probably have a different experience. as i always try to remind people before answering these kind of question is that i’m no moses with the 10th commandments, i just speak about what i’ve seen, heard or done. more than this i can’t do ;;