THE MAD LADS ACTUALLY DID IT (1 Viewer)

disclaimer: a good part of this theory was inspired by bunnykwanny-nim's post on twitter () 바니님 체고세욥 >< also a non-choice friend of mine had helped at some areas so yeah this is a sort-of team effort heheh



I'd like to start with the last picture in the scrapbook spoiler: 6 nametags, 5 with the names of A.C.E members and one blank. Of course, the automatic reaction is "whom does the last nametag belong to?"



Little do people know, this is not the first time a "sixth person" has been added into the A.C.E lineup. Digging into the old, musty, and dusty A.C.E NaverPost page, I found a post called "A.C.E's Birth"



In this post, there's an explanation for A.C.E's logo that I feel isn't mentioned often. The logo is a triangle cos that way it looks like a play button for A.C.E's music and it is in the cross section of sets of 6 lines



The first 5 lines obv represent A.C.E members

This post gave 5 (facepalming) options of who the remaining 1 line could be:

1. Chicken

2. Boss god fried chicken

3. Me

4. FAN

5. The remaining line

(Yeah so very helpful i know wow :))))



"Wouldnt 'U' who is guessing the answer right now be the main character of the remaining line? Hehehe"

(Me and my friend are cackling at the possibility of their y/n scenario with the nametags being canon ahahah)



I had the thought that the remaining line and nametag represents "me/나" (which is most probably choice lmaoo) cos even in the naver post blogs, the posts are always written in 1st pov and the writer calls themself "나작가/writer NA(na=me in kr)". NA seems to be the childhood friend of A.C.E, as well as the author of the scrapbook. They use the scrapbook to record their memories with A.C.E.

The scrapbook is filled with 4 main things: poems (that are all related with flowers and memories somehow)/quotes, memories, flowers, and butterflies.



There are 2 poems, both by writer Kim Chun-soo. One is called "Prologue of the Flower" (only ran the analysis for this one through papago cos aint nobody got time to translate lol)




src: link



The other is called "Flower"




src: link





I find it interesting that the childhood pics and the passage from Kim Chun-soo’s poem, “Flower” were put on the same page. These two elements symbolize beginnings. “Flower” talks about how calling each other’s names is the beginning of how even strangers can become a meaningful existence for each other. For NA and A.C.E, who first said each other’s names in their childhood, this was their beginning. For A.C.E and Choice, our shared meaning started the first time we got to call each other by name: A.C.E and Choice.


When our existence gain meaning in the eyes of another, this poem symbolized it as we have become that other person’s “flower”. However, in the other poem, “Prologue of the Flower”, it was said that failure of recognition, in other words, failure to recall one’s name, will cause the “flower” to wilt and die.



The poem "Flower" was pasted on a page decorated with pictures of flower. Unfortunately I could only find 2/3 of the flowers heheh. The pink one is Japanese Magnolia



And the animated(?) blue one, which appeared 3 times on the scrapbook itself, seems to be a Light Blue Delphinium



Both seem to represent youth, its hardships, and the road to maturity.




There is also a quote from the movie Spirited Away.

NA quoted the first sentence and followed it by asking "what is the thing that i cannot remember?" In other words they turned the second part of the quote into a question directed at themself.

Theres also an interesting point made by bunnykwanny where she took another quote from the same movie that says "If you completely forget your name, you'll never find your way home" Which can be interpreted as "don't lose ur self awareness"



This quote was followed by the cutout of forget-me-not flowers (note here forget-"ME"-not. Might also be connected to that one set in Savage where they put the words "Don't forget smile"), claiming that it's their favorite flower. At the top corner of the page, although cut, you can see that the writing reads "now whats fighting for?" with the drawing of a hand reaching for the stars.



Butterflies are also a constant presence in almost every page. NA says that they dreamt of being butterfly not long ago, and was so happy that they forgot theyre actually human. NA asked if it's them who dreamt of being a butterfly or if it's the butterfly that dreamt of being a human.





So far there seems to be a strong connection between the meaning of your existence, your life memories, and your name. My interpretation is that your name holds your life memories; forgetting your name means you are letting go of the memories that you made with that name. As a result, you would be forgetting the very essence of your own existence, because your memories shape you as a person and define the core of your being.



The rest of the scrapbook holds memories of NA and their friends' childhood; of places they use to visit, what they used to do together, etc. NA mentioned in the beginning that they were looking at (photo?) albums from their childhood together for the first time in a while.

There are 2 things that caught my attention within the memory part of the scrapbook: the chandelier and the sandcastle NA mentioned they built together with their friends on a trip to the beach.



The sandcastles represent how fragile memories actually are (cue the "fragile" tapes from Undercover and Savage mvs), how easily they could be swept away by the ocean waves. In this page Na mentioned that they were enjoying themself so much at the sea and when they came to their senses, they saw that they had only taken pics of the sea and nothing else. They went there together with their friends but there was no trace of that because they were too focused on something else.

Chandeliers, as a symbol of wealth and luxury, have appeared in every other A.C.E mv. It appeared in Cactus, skipped Callin’, appeared in TMH, skipped Undercover, and appeared again in Savage. In those three appearances, the position of the chandeliers kept changing. In Cactus it was in the front and center, in TMH it was hung way on the side, while in Savage it seemed to have crashed on the ground. This might indicate A.C.E’s changing perspective toward wealth and stereotypical “success”. While at first it had been the front and center as their ultimate goal, they slowly came to realize that, well, it might not be as important as they thought. They might have found other things more worthy of their priorities than mere money and fame.

In the page with the childhood photos, a cutout of a chandelier was just there, out of place but fitted itself in anyway. This might indicate how wealth had come between the relationship of the sextet, making them momentarily forget what was truly important.



However, while the 5 members of A.C.E seemed to have realized their errors, it looks like NA is still lost in the wrong focus and had even ended up forgetting their own name―the essence of their existence. Sadly, they don’t even know what they had lost, as indicated by the questions that they asked throughout the scrapbook: “what is the thing that I cannot remember?”(here they had lost their identity, as foreshadowed in Undercover mv when Donghun held documents related to identity theft), “now what’s fighting for?”(paired with the illustration of a hand reaching for the stars, means that they had lost their cause as well as their original hopes and dreams. They were reaching for the stars, but for what?), “was it I, as the human, who was dreaming of becoming a butterfly? Or was it the butterfly that dreamt of becoming human?”(butterfly symbolizes life and one’s soul. NA is asking whether it is their dreams that affected their life or was it their life that affected their dreams). This, in return, had prevented them from finding ‘home’.



I like to think that this story is pointing to us, Choices, who have been so preoccupied with money and fame, focusing too much on the fact that A.C.E is not as “successful” as the world standard requires, and in the end we neglected our relationship with the boys themselves. We neglected our name, our beginning, the reason why we’re here in the first place: which is because we chose them and they chose us. They might be telling us that fame or no fame, money or no money, they’re still happy, as long as we are together with them, cherishing our memories from the past as well as the memories we will make in the future. They don’t want us to lose our identity as Choice, so that we would be able to go back to A.C.E, our final stop, our “home”.


Of course, in the end these are all just theories, and I might end up being a clown again like all the other times Choices tried to theorize on A.C.E mvs but it was all in good fun AHAHA toodles