#and this song i feel really represents the shift in character she's gone through

[ancient-mystical-features]

✨interesting days✨ the series (e-journal duh)

February 18, 2022

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Ever since I had gotten to explore myself and my capabilities a lot more in SHS, I have tried to go above and beyond what I am expected to in academic works if I felt the spark to do so. What other people would downgrade to "pabida", Ateneo promotes as "magis", which is one of my favorite things here. It goes against the culture of shaming people for doing an amazing work for a regular task which promotes that school is only there for you to comply and get over with instead of exploring your capabilities as a person. In this task, however, I just wanted to get it over with even though I disagreed on some points of the material given to us to analyze. The poem (for a task in another subject) went against the topic explicitly introduced to us as "other-regarding". If anything, a few lines were somewhat degrading to others (and screamed a little bit of alpha enerGY OK BYE PLEASE FORGET I SAID THAT). This was similar to what I have done three semesters ago, before I have even shifted to HUMSS, when there was an innocent poem tasked for us to analyze that was a little tiny bit ableist in nature. After finishing the task on this assignment, I jokingly typed "To be completely honest," and took a pause and never stopped writing until I had a paragraph in front of me. Turned in.

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February 19, 2022

KAHO SAID YES

I have planned to do a song with a friend I've known online but when I got to film my part, they informed me that they got really busy because their individual thesis started. I got upset but that's ok with me, things like that happen a lot in the online musical theatre community. I've been scrolling through my messages for the second day now looking for potential people I could invite to do the song with me to utilize my video. I scrolled by a person I've admired for a while now because she does musical theatre stuff in her bedroom as if she was on stage, and I saw myself and who I wanna keep on becoming (@kahoinjapan PLEASE CHECK HER OUT ON IG SHE'S LIKE RLY AMAZING). I invited her, hoping for the best, and just this afternoon, she said yes! This was what I was referring to in my "vague" entry. On my first session of filming the first song (the duet), I was feeling hyped though it has been a while since I've done it so I found it a littl difficult to connect with the character. I felt frustrated with myself on the second one as I have shared on my previous entry. BUT KAHO SAID YES OMG YES

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February 23, 2022

"Is it Google Keep Trust Issues or Obsessive Behavior? (Or Do I Just Need to Rest?)" Coming to Bookstores Nationwide!

I started my day fueling with adrenaline, struggling to prepare for my mock job interview schedule. That eventually wore off after when I felt a bit of dissatisfaction (though not necessarily disappointment) towards myself after because although I was able to talk (since I keep talking even when my mind is empty to cover up the fact that it is) I felt that the random words pretending to sound intentional did not represent myself enough to hypothetically stand out to the other applicants. Wait no actually I did not start my morning with adrenaline. I started it with a tinge of dread when I had realized that all my Google Keep Notes that I've kept for about three years were gone. I shook it off at first, since there was only half an hour before the interview and there must be a way I could get them back. I got back to it after and fell in a deep rabbit hole of forums, discussions, and concerns that are both recent and some dating back to four years ago. Seems like the issue happens so often that a post was dedicated on the Keep Notes subreddit (yes I went that far) as a reminder to always back up your notes. I've always been a forgetful person so I always write everything down on my phone. Lists of things to accomplish, thoughts while washing the dishes, movies I liked, sabaw thoughts, HUMSS-themed arguments or ideas, details of dreams and nightmares I write down right after I wake up, and pretty much anything that's in my mind that I bother writing. I was able to retrieve most of them through the web version but I was still missing entries from the last two months. Even the thought of losing that much, although it sounds so little, overwhelms me, because of just how much I've changed for that two-month period. I gave up searching for today and curled up and had another one of those meh days when I'll be doing pointless things with my phone just to keep me company.

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February 26, 2022

boundaries

I think what people need to know is that introversion isn't about being anti-social, quiet, shy, awkward, and someone on the corner who wouldn't put down their book. As I have mentioned here, two days ago, I had left home to take care of BU requirements. While we were on it, I hung out with friends and then walked by myself in circles in the mall for a while. I like meeting with people every now and I love seeing my friends. But each time I do, I feel all the energy sucked out of me once I get home and I require plenty of rest in order to function once again. I enjoy being with myself for long periods of time. And that's okay. The meetup two days ago was planned last-minute, and prior to that, we had a meetup we've been planning for a while now. Yesterday, I was still not feeling it and going out twice in a three-day period for a long period of time sounds exhausting to me, especially that I haven't refueled yet from the last one. On top of that, I hadn't been feeling well emotionally (though I did feel better eventually as I have mentioned). So I told them about it and we postponed it. I have yet to feel guilt-free from postponing such events especially that we've all been looking forward to it. But I would rather meet them when I'm ready and full of life instead of presenting as a blob of slump that I am right now.

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February 28, 2022

irregular

I believe I have the most synchronous sessions on Monday. On Tuesdays I have two, Wednesday with one, and none on Thursdays. I've already taken three of the subjects my other classmates are taking during my first semester as a STEM student. Though, on my first two semesters as a HUMSS shiftee (and one intersession), I also had to fit three (or was it four?) additional subjects in order to keep up with the regular students. I love telling people about why I shifted because it is genuinely the best yet hardest decisions I have ever made. I've already been settled in STEM and was doing well in my classes, since I have already seen it all as an STE in JHS. But the three HUMSS-related subjects gave it all to me. I didn't have that huge adrenaline rush answering practice tests in Pre-Calculus (though honestly I did enjoy some of them) the way I would when I would be waiting for my turn to unmute my microphone to voice out my thoughts. Being in STEM somewhat validated me in something I didn't love, because parents easily love kids who love math and science. So I did, even though now that I look back on it, I was just trying to. Being the indecisive person that I am who usually chooses to play it safe, this is one of my proudest moments and have led to many more.

I started writing this with the plan of going like "I only have five subjects but why am I always so busy?" Though, to be fair, I'm carrying a lot of other responsibilities including a semester-long class project I'm co-heading and ASCO. You're doing great, Meca. You're okay.

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March 7, 2022

feeling good? at 9 in the morning? meca who?

Ever since I started doing something about the miserable slump I was becoming, I started feeling better and driven with things I do. I slept fairly early last night, around 11:30PM-ish, which differs drastically from the rest of my nights. I don't expect to be consistent, since I benefit well from things I do on ungodly hours of the transition of the night to day. I just have to balance the benefits to my mental health and the disadvantages to my physical health, which was what I had just told my friend the other night. I woke up with less hesitance (still some left there but that's the best I got and honestly I'm good with that) and got out of bed to sit down in front of my laptop which what I have been struggling lately. I was quite energized on my first class and enthusiastic about it. I like the optimism that is coming back to me and the willingness to do productive things. I like it not for the reasons it may seem but mainly because it feels good and it drives me to do great things outside of my academic and org responsibilities. I don't know how long it will last because of my suspected mental health issues but I might as well take it now that it's here to prepare for an incoming storm without a warning on when it will hit.

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April 20, 2022

sleep paralysis

I am still half asleep as I'm writing this so bear with me.

Audio hallucination/unintentional experimentation of if loud sounds are enough to wake me up

It was a pot and a ladle that I tried to get louder. I "woke up" and I had my first visual hallucination in my room (but it looked more like my sister's room). There was a person with a pot in their head and their face was completely covered by it. Their hands had a ladle and a pan each, as if to mimick that they created the sounds. They were standing by the doorway in a weird position and it honestly scared me even though I'd usually do that funny pose myself. I closed my eyes again and did the toe wiggle and weird face expressions to wake me up. I opened my eyes and they were still there. I tried again. Still there bUT THIS TIME THEY WERE MUCH CLOSER that I thought if they were gonna get even closer they might jump on me and I'd experience my first physical hallucination and I truly do not want that. I closed my eyes, did both the toe wiggle and face expression while also trying to open my mouth since my arm is by my face, I tried opening big enough to bite my own arm. That woke me up. For real this time.

[myonmukyuu]

I’ve been listening to this song non-stop on loop ever since last night and I’m still very emotional about it

#top 10 songs to cast INSTANT TEARS #myon speaks #im absolutely in love with it... #Like the intro is so beautiful done it makes me kjsfsdkjf #ok you guys probably get it it makes me really emotional LOL #I adore the strings in this - i dont know the terminology but its really nice.. #hhhh I love ayumu sasdasd #😭😭 #and this song i feel really represents the shift in character she's gone through #in SIFAS story Ayumu is really dependent on Yuu - to questionable extent #So seeing her in the anime - doing things for -herself- makes me really happy #seeing ayumu being driven by her own motivations!! makes me happy!!!! #my next comic explores themes around ayumu's motivations as well as setsuna's #please look forward to it!

[jdrizzle15]

Her Second Return

Just like all of you, and especially my fellow Penny fans, I am absolutely devastated by the Volume 8 finale. I had been in quite a state these last few days, utterly heartbroken, and actually nauseous at times. It feels strange to me to be legitimately grieving a fictional character, but it’s not a bad thing to feel this way. To me, this just shows that CRWBY loves her just as much as us to have written her so well that we connect so completely with her, that it feels like we lost an actual piece of ourselves when she’s gone.

But as you can probably tell by the title, this mega post isn’t gonna be about accepting this end, not in the slightest! Today I want to share canon evidence that can point towards another return of our beloved quirky red headed cinnamon bun! I’m here to spread this hope that I and others in the Nuts & Dolts dolts Discord server have!

I have this separated into many different sections to keep these thoughts organized. With that said, here goes…

A Father’s Words:

In Episode 7 of Volume 7, ‘Worst Case Scenario’ we learn the origins of Penny’s aura, and thus her soul. We also learn that it takes more aura each time she’s brought back. This leaves open an option that could be used at a later point.

Many people theorized that Pietro could indeed revive Penny one more time, which he would absolutely do. But there also lies the possibility that someone else could donate some of theirs, I’m not sure about this as I feel like it’s akin to blood donation where compatibility matters or there's a high risk of altering her, but the possibility is definitely there.

Now, the conversation in Chapter 5 of Volume 8, ‘Amity’ that Pietro and Penny have is an important moment for both Father and Daughter. It was there to show how her death in PvP all that time ago really did have a heavy impact on him and is still affecting him to this day.

Instead of continuing to pretend that everything is A-okay, like he had done for most of Volume 7, he finally lets his true feelings about how it come out to Penny for what is quite likely the first time. Even going so far as to say "Are you asking me to go through that again?" when she offers to take the risk of trying to lift Amity with her power. He wants Penny to be able to live her life.

This entire scene with Pietro established “this is what will likely happen” even if circumstances are much different now, it doesn’t negate the fact that this is a key part of Penny’s story. Scenes like these have a purpose beyond simply making an eventual death all the more heart wrenching. Her never actually getting to live her life makes those scenes basically moot. It makes them effectively pointless from narrative point of view. Unless there's more to it.

Building Relationship:

The build up between Ruby and Penny the last two volumes has been absolutely phenomenal with a definite destination in mind, and this doesn’t feel like that destination. So much of the arc of this season was to help Penny. This girl that our main protagonist absolutely adores and treasures, it would just be awful to throw all of that out for what amounts to an avoidable end. Why use so much of their precious and very limited runtime on deliberately building up this relationship only to end it abruptly, and permanently, when they’re separated?

In my opinion, RT is definitely smarter now than to intentionally set up what was really looking like a budding gay relationship only to kill one of them for good. If N&D wasn't actually going in a romantic direction, why would they leave in all of the romance-adjacent stuff that they got, that's not how ‘just friends’ act. And that is not something you use such valuable time building up for absolutely no pay off whatsoever...

Representation of Hope:

At its core, RWBY has always been about hope. It’s not at the forefront the whole time, but there's been an underlying theme of hopefulness that has persisted since it began. Some describe the show as a Hopepunk, I personally find this to describe RWBY really well. This genre of storytelling is about caring for things deeply and the courage and strength it takes to do so. It’s about never submitting or accepting the way things are. Fighting for what you believe in and standing up for others. RWBY fits all of this extremely well. How does this relate to Penny? She has been shown to be a sign of hope for everyone, but especially for Ruby, the main main protagonist. A prerequisite for a Hopepunk story is the hope.

Her first death in V3 was something that fundamentally changed Ruby. For the first time in the series, we see our main character all but broken by this event. With the loss of Penny, immediately afterwards, Ruby’s hope followed. She made up for it through determination and force of will. We see it affect her multiple times throughout the journey to Volume 7. But upon her return in V7, Hope reached a high point for everyone, the sheer relief on Ruby’s face is plain to see!

In V8 chapter 5 ‘Amity’, Penny literally raises hope by lifting the arena into the sky so Ruby could spread her message. And when she falls, and Amity with her, the connection is lost and hope plummets again. From there things take a very negative turn with the hack begins to take Penny’s agency.

In chapter 11 ’Risk’ is the point in the arc where everyone is reunited for the moment, so two separate hero stories are no longer a thing at that point in time. For the time being focus seemed to be shifted to care about the characters and how they’re going to solve the current problems. This is also where Ruby reaches her lowest emotional point in the season.

It’s not huge, but it’s interesting how connected this is. Before Ruby and Yang share a good cry over learning the possible fate of Summer, Yang brings up restoring optimism and hope to Ruby after the younger sister storms out of the room in frustration. This is where Penny’s scenes take up the rest of the episode. Getting Penny back in control of her own body and safe again is what makes the ending of the episode much brighter, when just 5 minutes before Ruby had been distraught and scared. This then spills over into the group coming up with the plan to use the staff, putting the main group in a much better mood. Of all the things to go right, it’s interesting that it’s Penny.

Things go wrong with the plan in the end and Penny dies. I find it interesting that once again, Penny got them hopeful in their chances of doing something right. Given said plan succeeded but at the cost of Penny of all people, Penny is shown to be the beginning and end of hope for them

The highest and lowest points for hope seem to directly correlate to when Penny’s around. When she comes back again, hope will return too, just like it had before. And because she’ll likely be back for good this time, the second return will probably be close to when Ruby is nearing the complete abandonment of hope. This would be pretty par for the course of the show honestly.

A little aside, but in a sense, Penny also represents Unity. The CCT in Vale fell after her first death, knocking out global communications and the unifying connection it gave. When it was restored for the briefest moment, she was there. Her body connected so she could allow for its launch, her soul lighting the night to hold up Amity with every ounce of her strength. So of course when the Hack succeeds and she falls, she takes global comms down again with her. At a smaller scale - even at the Hack's second last attempt to control her, she draws everyone in the Schnee Manor together. At the start of the volume, Yang states the one thing that they all agree on is not surrendering Penny.

Unity seems appropriate for one whose first song and wish was for but one friend, who would go on to find so many more in the process, and permit for a moment the possibility of all Remnant becoming friends once more. Where she first died, the name of the episode devoted to her story - Amity, "friendship", from the Latin root amicus, "friend" - she almost lives and dies with the very possibility of a united Remnant. It's no wonder she's a priority target for Salem, the great divider, and it seems natural that her next restoration may very well allow the next bid to bring the world together.

The Void Screams:

Moments after Penny's death, we hear a weird scream in the void space. It was a guttural, pained, angry scream, almost like the void space itself was crying out. All the portals shuddered and flickered when it happened.

Some think that this scream was Salem returning, but that happens earlier than Penny’s death, her return is signaled with cinder's arm acting up. We know this because after the arm finished flailing uncontrollably, Cinder said triumphantly "she's back." If it were Salem screaming, it would have happened after she fixed herself, but it didn't.

And I doubt Cinder would have been surprised or unsettled by it considering she was happy Salem returned not long before it. And why would a Salem scream affect the portals anyway, she has no connection to the staff or it's magic.

Another thing to consider is the fact sound is not transmitted through the portals. Otherwise, they would've heard Oscar and the rest calling for them, or the screams of the citizens of Mantle and Atlas. This lowers the possibility of that scream being from Salem even further.

The sound really seems to be coming from something else entirely within the void, and that something is not at all happy. There’s also the fact that Penny was the only person who died in the void space, everyone else was just thrown out of it like Ruby and Co. The only logical cause to me is Penny. Her body was a product (or byproduct) of the same creation magic that made the void space, her blood seems to have been a trigger.

Now I can't be sure about it, but this makes me feel like Penny is almost a part of creation itself? For whatever this thing is to be so angry, that is the only explanation I can think of currently. But all of this could possibly relate to the Narnia allusion of 'the willing victim killed in a traitor's stead' that others have brought up, which will be covered next.

Narnia Parallels:

Atlas has several parallels and references to fictional places (putting aside real world ones like the United States). One of those is that of Narnia, both on the surface and on a deeper level. It is a land of winter year round, where people struggle to survive and there is a present divide between those loyal to the current Monarch and those who are not. James is a parallel to Jadis, the White Witch, a ruler whose thoughts and cares aren’t exactly centered around the actual well being of the people. The hologram table in Ironwood’s office is designed to look like stone, like the Stone Table which features prominently in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. He has a handpicked cadre of special agents/secret police, like how Maugrim and his wolves served Jadis. Another key parallel is how Jadis’s winter sets in to oppress and kill everyone in Narnia, but the Witch provides aid and protection to her loyal followers. She has all the power to spare harm to others, and uses it only for the loyal. As soon as Mantle splits from James and Atlas, no care is taken to protect them from the cold of Solitas even though he has every ability to turn the heating grid back on. His protection is only for the loyal.

Now that the parallel is established, let's look into the details. Starting with how James plays the role of Jadis.

"I had forgotten that you are only a common boy. How should you understand reasons of State? You must learn, child, that what would be wrong for you or for any of the common people is not wrong in a great Queen such as I. The weight of the world is on our shoulders. We must be freed from all rules. Ours is a high and lonely destiny." These are the words Jadis says in the Magician’s Nephew to justify the blood civil war she and her sister had waged for rulership of Charn, before she came to Narnia. She won that war, technically, but only after the last battle had been lost and her sister had marched right up to her so that they were face to face. Jadis’s troops were dead, her followers had surrendered, and the capital was under full control of her sister. But, she still had one card, one ultimate play to win and prove the throne of Charn was rightfully her. The Deplorable Word, a piece of old magic that killed everyone and everything except for her on Charn. It was monstrous, senseless, cruel beyond measure. But it got her that hollow victory. This mindset, the disregard for the people except as tools for her own will, the ultimate ‘aoe’ destructive move that no one had even considered her using, the unwillingness to stop even when by all practical measures the war is over, is a shocking parallel to James. In many ways, he is Jadis in mindset and deed.

Then there is the shared desire for A Thing that both James and Jadis have. For James it’s the Winter Maiden and control over her. For Jadis it’s the Silver Apples from the Tree of Youth. And funnily enough, the Maiden Powers parallel the Apples quiet well. These apples grant power and a life of eternal beauty, but should not be taken or eaten on one’s own initiative. They must be given, a gift granted by another, or only suffering will come from obtaining them. "For the fruit always works — it must work — but it does not work happily for any who pluck it at their own will. If any Narnian, unbidden, had stolen an apple and planted it here to protect Narnia, it would have protected Narnia. But it would have done so by making Narnia into another strong and cruel empire like Charn, not the kindly land I mean it to be.” Jadis’s immortality, and some of her power, come from the fact that she ate an Apple of her own will after stealing her way into the garden where the Tree of Youth had been planted. She gained the eternal life she had wanted and the power along with it, but she did so by taking it and was cursed because of it. Her skin turned pale and her lips blackened as if she were a frozen corpse given life. She will be trapped in a life of misery and hate according to Aslan- oh hey Cinder, how’s having stolen the Power you always wanted working out for you? Cinder had the power she wanted, but she only got hungrier, eager to claim more and increase her might. But in her pursuit she was defeated and humiliated by Raven, had to steal her way out of Mistral, and then suffered defeat after defeat while in Atlas. Only in the end, when she didn’t keep pursuing the Maiden Power, did she get any kind of victory.

The reason these parallels to Narnia are so important is one of the most famous events of the series. The cracking of the Stone Table and the rebirth of Aslan after his death. ‘When a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward.’ Well, the ‘Stone Table’ in James’s office has cracked, and Penny strikes me as a pretty willing victim. She has never actually committed any actual treachery or harm, as she was the Protector of Mantle, and fought for its and Atlas’s people until the very end. And because of her death, the actual traitor, Winter, who loyally served James until he had gone too far, was saved. Through Penny’s self sacrifice, Winter was saved. So now Death itself will start working backward.

(Major props to my friend @catontheweb for writing this section, I was getting nowhere with it, if they weren't there this part wouldn't exist!)

Norse Mythology:

The tree we see in the post credit scene gives off some serious Yggdrasil vibes. Also called the World Tree, it is essentially all of creation in Norse Mythology. It connects all nine realms, including the God realms of Asgard, the human realm of Midgard, and the underworld of Hel.

Humans are born from the branches of Yggdrasil. The web of Wyrd is woven for every person once they're born, and their path is set from there regardless of how many times the souls cycle over. But at the end, they're destined to end up in one of the worlds, for a myriad of reasons.

I believe Penny landed closest to this giant tree. She was on the center platform in the void space, so if that space is directly above the island(?) the tree is on, it makes sense for her to fall by the center nearest to the tree. This would not only open up all kinds of possibilities for the volume in general, but it would also create options for Penny.

The whole of Yggdrasil’s representations fit well into Penny’s story. Birth, growth, death and rebirth. We can count Penny’s appearance in V7 as birth for now, her growth is all her development in leaving =the military and becoming a Maiden, her death just happened, and her rebirth would be her revival. And this is a cycle she’s gone through before.

The Norse god Odin and Yggdrasil have quite a connection. In one story, Odin cut out one of his own eyes to gain knowledge from a pool underneath Yggdrasil. The only one that fell whose eyes alone are incredibly significant to the story was Ruby. So, they could choose to have her allude to Odin by having Ruby make some kind of deal with whatever entity likely rules over this magical place. An eye for Penny’s life.

There’s another story about Odin, Yggdrasil and the pursuit of knowledge. Odin so loved knowledge, that he sacrificed himself in a quest to learn the deeper magic of runes. It was believed one could only learn the magic spells from runes in death. So, Odin hung himself on Yggdrasil for nine days as an offering, and teetered between life and death. After he mastered the last spell on the ninth night, he ritually died and all light was extinguished from the world. Odin’s death lasted until midnight, when he was reborn and light returned to the world.

This story doesn’t fit Penny perfectly, but allusions often don’t. So If she really did land near the tree, she could be another loose representation of Odin’s story here. What she did wasn’t for knowledge, but to save her friends and keep Cinder from getting the Winter Maiden power. She believed it necessary that she sacrifice herself to achieve this end. As we established, Penny represents Hope, so her death means the loss of hope. This parallels Odin’s story of his death meaning the loss of light itself. So if this theory holds up, it would make this death temporary, until her rebirth and the return of Hope with her once again.

Alternatively, Ruby has the potential of loosely representing Odin in this story as well. Odin later uses the knowledge of the runes to do many things, but the most relevant one right now is awakening the dead. Both of these stories are about making a personal sacrifice to gain something that is desired. Ruby would absolutely make such sacrifices if it meant saving Penny.

It is said that Odin lived “according to his highest will unconditionally, accepting whatever hardships arise from that pursuit, and allowing nothing, not even death, to stand between him and the attainment of his goals." This sounds like Penny's arc of accepting the WM powers. This is more just a general connection between Penny and Odin, but I found it interesting.

Side Note: I encourage anyone who’s interested to look into RWBY connections to Norse Myth, there’s a surprising amount of things that feel eerily similar to the show. Likely just coincidental, but it’s fun to think about!

(If I got any of this wrong, I sincerely apologize by the way. I researched as best I could, but I admit it could have been lacking.)

Ambrosius and the Staff:

Ruby told Ambrosius "we kinda wanna keep her around longer than that" as part of her very specific instructions. Then Penny died about ten to fifteen minutes, at the absolute most thirty minutes later in-universe. I don’t know about you, but to me that seems very short to be considered ‘longer than that’. Technically it is, but when writing a story and a character says something like that, you typically don’t just kill the character they were referring to basically right away. It makes sense for a week-by-week watch, but in a volume binge, which many viewers do, it becomes ironic how fast Penny dies after being removed from her robotic body.

The first time we see the staff of creation being used, it's to save Penny. Using the staff of creation to help Penny is a sign of how incredibly important she is.

They’ve even got this entire transformation sequence for her, so it wouldn’t make sense for them to throw all that away two episodes later. In a meta context, it’s a massive waste of time and budget considering the asset creation for Penny.

Penny is a character who has already hopped bodies two times. And now we're supposed to just believe that this time it really is a final death? Just two episodes after we were explicitly told her body isn't what matters, that "Her soul is who she is" and that "the mechanical parts are just extra"? From a writing perspective, it feels strange, like your breaking a promise right after making it. And frankly, CRWBY is better than that, which makes me think this is not the actual end for her.

A possible connection between Penny, Ruby, and the Staff (thus Creation) can be seen in the intro. As Ruby is falling and being dragged down into the darkness, she is shown reaching for the staff. In the void space, Penny is the one with the relic. So with Penny having this strong connection to Creation, and the lyrics “fight for every life” playing as Ruby reaches for the staff, it’s a safe assumption to make, with the knowledge we now have, that the Staff of Creation represents Penny in this particular moment. Which could mean that V9 will be about, at least partially, fighting for Penny’s life.

Musical Hints:

In terms of music, Friend, as a song for Penny, is very dissonant from the episode itself. The song is oddly cheerful for Penny’s recent untimely death, and it overall highlights the wrong parts of death. It’s simply too happy to be a song about losing one of the most, if not the most joyous characters in the entire show. The song also abruptly ends. There’s no outro, and while this could symbolize the fact that Penny died young, it could be that the song itself is unfinished in a story sense.

What do we hear just before the song finishes, though? A progression of notes that sounds eerily similar to the last line of the opening of Volume 8. The notes for “Fight for ev’ry life” and “Who fin’lly felt alive'' share a similar melodic structure, they aren’t perfect clones of each other, but they are incredibly similar, to the point where it seems intentional. Penny may very well be the life that the opening song is fighting for. It is also worth noting that the line “Fight for every life” comes just after “Sometimes it’s worth it all to risk the fall,” which is the exact wording used for the description in the Volume 8 finale. Team RWBY risked the fall, yet, strangely the opposite of fighting for every life happened with Penny’s sacrifice. Perhaps the time to fight for every life has yet to happen, and we will see it come Volume 9.

For another thing, the lyrics for Friend are entirely centered on Penny’s feelings for Ruby, to the point where they read very much like a bittersweet love song. The music itself is incredibly cheerful, as mentioned previously, creating a mood whiplash with the end of the volume. Why would we hear a song about Penny’s feelings for Ruby, sounding like a love song, if her death is supposed to be a tragic sacrifice akin to Pyrrha’s? The song may very well be giving a clue into its future use in the show proper.

If this was meant to be a good bye song, why make it so cheerful and romantic sounding? There's only one part about her dying and even then, it's just too accepting and goes right back into cheerfulness. The song is also pretty hopeful, telling Penny's story in a fairly chronological order. And the part where she talks about sacrifice is quite pointedly followed up by one about feeling alive. It also ends with the super cheerful chorus, the word "alive" being the last... (Remember the episode title: The Final Word)

(I want to thank my friend @shadow-0f-x for writing the majority of this section! I was struggling to choose how to tackle it as I am not well versed in music theory.)

What We Didn’t See:

It is likely that Penny understood Jaune's semblance better than him and figured something out about it’s abilities in the same way that she understood Ruby's semblance better than her. She had plenty of time to observe his semblance up close as he boosted her aura to stave off the virus. Because of that intentionally timed cutaway in the finale, we don’t get to hear her explain herself after her strained “Trust me.” All of that seems really suspicious to me.

Pyrrha Parallel:

Pyrrha and Penny both sacrificed themselves to stop or stall Cinder. Jaune tried to convince the both of them to stop. With Pyrrha, he failed, while with Penny he actively helped her sacrifice herself. Doesn’t make sense for the guy who was determined not to let anyone else do what Pyrrha did, unless of course Penny assured him she’d be alright.

The Moment:

RT including the suicide hotline in the description shows that they're aware that Penny basically committed assisted suicide, seeing it as a noble sacrifice worth doing to save her friends. They're aware, and I believe they're smart enough to condemn that decision to hell and back.

The best way to do that in my opinion is to pull her back into the land of the living and let her witness first hand the consequences of throwing her life away so freely. This would show Penny how her actions affected others so maybe she could learn to truly value herself. To not think herself expendable. It would be bold and unwise to portray this choice as something good, unless it was going to be called upon later and be pointed out for how horrible it really is.

On top of this, Penny was way too content with her death, happy even. There's no way team RWBY is letting her stay content with it. It’s almost as though we're supposed to join Ruby and Co. in calling bullshit on what Penny is saying and doing because no, Penny, this is not how things are meant to work. It's as if Penny was basically saying "I want to die for my friends" because most of the volume had been about everyone else making sure she didn't die. She knows it will hurt them. She knows.

At the peak of it all, a choice like this will totally destroy Ruby. It may very well be her breaking point for Volume 9. Curiously, the moment itself is written like it’s the first choice Penny’s ever made, yet the entire Volume shows this isn’t the case. However, this is the first choice that Penny’s made solely independently and it’s rather pertinent that the choice she makes is a mistake. Outside of giving Winter the Maiden gift and saving the day temporarily, this sacrifice will not have any lasting positive effects. Jaune will be saddled with the grief of killing Penny. Ruby will have to live with losing her best friend and not being able to protect her a second time, and Winter now has the burden of the Winter Maiden abilities, making her a target of Cinder. This is a bad thing, and Penny needs to see the long term consequences.

Transfer of Power:

As we all know, colors in RWBY are really important and get a lot of focus in the show. That means the yellow we see as Penny gives Winter the Maiden Powers was intentional and likely important, no matter how insignificant it may seem. It’s possible that the transfer effect being yellow could have something to do with Jaune’s semblance. When Fria gave the power to Penny, the effect was very much blue, so this transfer should have been green since she was the one giving it this time. The weirdness of this transfer and the focus on color in RWBY really makes it look like something’s up with how that went down.

A little off topic, but Penny saying "I won't be gone, I'll be part of you." makes me think... Winter is smart, so when she gets time to think about what Penny said, maybe she'll arrive at the same question many in the audience came to; if she's literally part of Winter, can they be separated again? If Winter starts questioning that, the possibility of Penny coming back just skyrockets.

Fria actually tells Penny "I'll be gone" before giving her powers up, which is an interesting contrast to Penny telling Winter "I won't be gone". She may have gotten that line from Winter be all philosophical in V7, saying Fria was now a part of Penny, but it hits differently coming from an actual Maiden. S5o it’s possible that Maidens usually actually will be gone, but Jaune's semblance did something to change that.

This could go well with the theory that they won't need to find an aura transfer machine, or build another one, because Jaune will have a semblance evolution allowing him to do the transfer instead. It might actually be that this evolution already happened and the golden light we saw was Jaune transferring penny's aura to Winter in some way?

An observation that I find interesting is when Penny gives winter the powers, not only is the aura yellow but penny completely glows yellow too, and she obviously starts to disappear, but she doesn’t seem to fully disappear, she just glows.

It's possibly a fading out effect and she does fully fade but animation makes bright light easier, and so we don't actually see her disappear because she's dead and not gone. But it does once again emphasize the color yellow here!

And the color is coming from Penny, it does go up Winter's arm a bit, but Penny is clearly the source. This transfer is so weird and I’m not really sure how to interpret it. There's just actually no reason that we are aware of to make the effect yellow here is the thing. Unless it has something to do with either Jaune or Ambrosius, or potentially a combination of both...

Jaune’s Aura:

The way we see Jaune's aura break in the finale is strange. His aura shouldn't be breaking here. It had been long enough since he was boosting Penny, he's had time to recharge, and it didn't look like it was a strain on him at all. Plus, we know he has a lot of aura, so there probably wasn't too much to recharge in the first place.

He has a massive amount of aura, it has never broken before as far as I remember. Even if it has though, that doesn’t make this occurrence any less odd. It should absolutely never be a one-hit KO. We didn't see anything that would've drained it, that should not have been enough to break his aura. Unless he did something - something that would require a huge amount of aura - that we just didn't see. That amount of aura drain is far more than just an attempt at healing would do, Jaune absolutely did something with his semblance that took up almost all of his aura.

Pinocchio Allusion:

As any Penny fan knows, her character allusion is Pinocchio, the puppet who became a real boy. Penny deviates from the allusion by having always been a real girl, as Ruby is quick to point out, but she shares many story beats with her original story including multiple deaths. In the original story, Pinocchio dies from being hung by his own strings due to his poor decision making and he dies. Sounds a little familiar, does it not? This is where his tale originally ended. Readers were unsatisfied with this ending however, so the author decided to change the story by reviving Pinocchio and teaching him to be more careful.

Unlike Pinocchio making all the wrong decisions, Penny often makes the right ones, or ones she thinks is right, when concerning others. While usually a good thing, this has meant Penny almost giving herself up multiple times during V8, her last attempt being successful. This is where Penny and Pinocchio begin to share similarities again. They are both very reckless when it concerns themselves. This carelessness comes from different places, but it ends with the same result of them endangering their lives and even sometimes losing them.

In the Disney movie, Pinocchio dies by drowning after going to rescue Geppetto and washes up on the shore (like the beach in V8’s post credit scene). His father is devastated and takes him home to grieve, but as a reward for his selflessness in rescuing his father, the Blue Fairy returns and brings him back to life, as well as granting him humanity. Penny sacrificed her life as well, and it stands to reason that she should be rewarded for it, much like her allusion was.

Penny got her maiden powers from someone with blue aura and then gave her powers to someone with blue aura. So it could be that not only Ambrosius, but Fria and Winter as well represent the Blue Fairy. It could be set up for Winter helping to bring Penny back to life once more. It’s an out there theory I admit, but it’s not outright impossible either. The Blue Fairy in Pinocchio saved him three times that I know of, so RWBY having three representations does make sense.

Geppetto wished for him to live as a real boy, but it depended on what path Pinocchio took. This is very reminiscent of Penny and Pietro. Pietro wants to see her live her life, and surely with him absent in V8C14 that didn't work, despite Penny choosing. Her father did not see her happy enough to live her life, and will only be able to learn her death through others. But Pinocchio's themes were life and being alive. So the likelihood that this is not her end yet is quite high!

A Girl That Fell Through the World:

Penny could be the girl who fell through the world. The girl in the story fled the consequences of a choice. The only person who chose her ultimate fate was Penny. The others were pushed into the void, but she chose to die. The consequence of her choice is Ruby’s grief first and foremost, which Penny won’t see. The girl who fell through the world does come back though, and the world will be changed severely with Penny’s absence. Alternatively, it could also be Penny coming back to Wonderland or wherever they currently are, as long as it’s unrecognizable to her.

What Returning Brings:

Others might say another return would have no story relevant purpose, but I wholeheartedly disagree. Penny gives a profoundly youthful, joyous, and wondrous outlook on the world and story that we hadn't seen since Ruby in Volumes 1-3(not the end), Penny returning would bring a much needed levity back in after the despair they will undoubtedly be going through. While not necessarily a huge thing in most other shows, for RWBY, a show largely about keeping up hope, an ounce of such relief is a necessity.

As much as I hate saying it, Penny’s death does actually make some narrative sense because she had to pass on the Maiden powers. (They could have done this in a number of ways, and I personally think they chose rather poorly, but I digress.) Throughout this whole volume, we can see Penny seemingly being set up to join the main cast, but would have been too strong with the powers. This also accomplishes ridding her of the burden of responsibility that comes with being a Maiden and lets her obtain the freedom that’s so important to her character.

Once she returns, seeing this grief that her actions caused, particularly to Ruby, will get her to realize more that her actions can have serious repercussions. She made a choice, but that choice hurt the people she loves. She must have known that it would but I’m not sure she ever realized just how much.

I didn’t want this post to be heavy in the shipping department, so I largely left it out, but I am going to say this one thing that could have an impact. If Nuts & Dolts is on its way to being canon, which this volume makes it feel highly likely, this could be a catalyst.

It could prompt an arc for the both of them in which Penny learns to live her life fighting for her loved ones, rather than sacrificing it for them. A relationship could potentially start from there. And Ruby seeing Penny learn these things may also help her to stop doing the occasional but very dangerous and reckless things she does. Ruby witnessing Penny coming to terms with what she did to the people that care about her would actually make her stop to think “wait, is this how everyone else would feel if I got myself killed?” That would be a very important moment of character growth for her.

I’m certain there are other significant things that Penny returning can bring to the show. And there are definitely more sections I could add to this. At this point though, assuming anyone even made it this far, I think I’ve been going long enough already. So let’s just roll into the outro!

As painful and hopeless as it seems, I'm choosing to trust them with this because there is absolutely no way they didn't see backlash coming. The way this finale went makes me think that they calculated for backlash and aren’t jumping into something they don’t have a plan to recover from. Whether this trust is unfounded or not remains to be seen, but I don’t think it is currently. I do think, however, that the cause of this backlash was a major misstep. Now that it has happened though, they have a chance to do something good with it.

I know for a lot of you, trust in CRWBY has been damaged, some even irreparably so. And for those that feel this way, I don’t blame you. My trust in them took a hit too, but isn’t broken completely yet. There are many ways that they can bring her back that would make sense with the narrative, they have the ability to make it right, and after going over all of the hints and general weirdness of things many times, I think they will.

I'm feeling pretty confident now and I really didn't expect that to happen at all to be honest. But discussing and theorizing with the discord server seriously helped get my hopes back up surprisingly fast! It’s actually thanks to all of them that this gigantic post even happened! So thanks a ton my fellow Dolts! And a special thanks to!!

@arcana-amicus

@catontheweb

@cosmokyrin

@gaydontmesswithme224

@jammatown919

@shadow-0f-x

They really helped get this thing across the finish line!

And thank YOU for reading all~ of this! I sincerely wish it gave you some of the hope and confidence that I now have!

#RWBY #rwby vol8 #rwby v8 #rwby spoilers #Penny Polendina #nuts and dolts #mechanical rose #a little #Essay #more like dissertation #I haven't written this much in #probably ever actually #Have HOPE people!

[citadelspires]

Local No Big Deal Enthusiast Talks About No Big Deal (A Lot)

Hi hello how is everyone? Welcome to the post I promised. (apparently I have a tendency to promise big posts like these ahead of time, which is good cause otherwise they’d prolly just never get written. Anyway).

I think we can all agree that the song No Big Deal is a definite highlight of the second season of Amphibia, really just of the whole show in general. Of course if you can’t agree on that this post probably isn’t gonna be for you. That being said, in my honest opinion I think the song is the climax of Anne’s character arc, and is honestly the part of the show I think of most when I consider what the finale of season 2 really is. No Big Deal isn’t just a song, it’s the moment the entire show has been building up to since the first episode. (I swear I’ll get to how it changes/doesn’t change with the events of True Colors just wait for it).

It’s pretty obvious at this point that the focus of Anne’s character arc is about discovering the version of herself she’s actually comfortable with, learning how to embrace an Anne she can love, and discovering what true, no strings attached, love and friendship looks like. While Sprig is a central point of the third value and a big moment can’t revolve around that part without him (see the activation of Anne’s calamity powers for that one) the rest is pretty Anne-central. To a certain degree that’s... kinda the whole point.

To that end everything about the song serves to show how far Anne has come. I can’t even get started talking about the lyrics yet because the entire context is all representative of Anne’s growth. From the moment she shows the song to her friends to seeing Sasha’s reaction to it, Anne holds her ground, and she lets Sasha go. She’s grown up so much since the Anne we saw before Amphibia, even since the events at the Tower, where it was a serious struggle to stand up to Sasha even when it was about to mean her family’s lives on the line. This time around she’s got the strength of heart to keep her resolve in the case of something that is just personally important to her, no stakes higher than that. Beyond just that she actually follows through with it, knowing the song isn’t gonna be entirely complete the way she wanted it to be, she still goes out in full costume, full music and song swinging, Sasha or no Sasha. She’s willing to try, not because a friend said she needed to or because it’s one of their standard fun adventures or because she’s doing it for Sprig or Hop Pop or any other character, she’s just following through with something that matters to her, willing to push through because it’s hers.

So she does, and she puts her whole heart into it. You can tell just by the lyrics what this means to her, and I feel it so much every second. She’s gone from that kid hiding in the woods, to that creature living in the Plantar’s basement, to Anne Boonchuy-Plantar, resident of Wartwood, right before our eyes. And as she sings about her new home and her new self she doesn’t shy away from any of the more distressing sides of the world she now loves. She admits she’s made enemies, it’s been a bumpy road, there’s been a lot of things out to get her, and she’s had to live with things she originally hated, but every experience she’s had helped her grow, helped her learn who she was.

And so we get to (what is in my personal opinion) the most important line in the show. The final words. “Finally me and it’s no big deal.” Sung in a completely different tone than the rest of the song, no fellow singers, the music fading out. Just Anne. For me this is why the words No Big Deal are in the song. This isn’t a song about how “oh well actually it isn’t a big deal that we’re in another world,” This is a song about a girl who has been looking for herself her whole life, and now, at the end of this song, she finally gets to say the words she never even realized she had always longed to say. And maybe this is just the fact that the airing of this episode overlapped a little too close with my own self discovery as a nonbinary person, but that moment, “finally me and it’s no big deal.” I get it. You’ve finally found yourself, and it’s not a big massive change to you and the world around you that shifts your whole existence, it’s a quiet and peaceful feeling of everything settling into place, it’s just for you, no one else, and it’s No Big Deal.

So when everything goes down in True Colors? Anne gets betrayed again, she loses Marcy, she gets sent back home in all the wrong ways? It’s still No Big Deal, because it was never about  the world around her. It was about her. And despite everything, it’s still Anne.

A few months ago another Anne on another world would have been absolutely destroyed by everything that happened in True Colors. But Anne has something she never had before. She has herself, she knows she’s made enemies, she knows it’s been a bumpy road, she knows there’s something out to get her, she’s had to live through things she never thought she could, but it’s no big deal, because she knows as long as she’s still her, she can make it through countless things she never would have imagined. No matter what this or any world wants to do to her or her family, or even the friends she’s not sure she still has, she’s finally her, and they can’t take that away.

#Amphibia #Anne Boonchuy #character analysis #song analysis #No Big Deal #True Colors #this is it #this is why that song and this character means so much to me #trust me I think about this so much #it's incredible how much that song changed my perspective

[bitchywaldof]

Beth/Daryl Fanfiction Recommendations 2021

Alternative Universe

Call me friend but keep me close – Pietromavximoff

E | Friends to FWB, FWB to lovers, secret relationship, Slow burn| 105k

When Beth Greene starts University and is away from home for the first time since her Mother’s death the freedom and independence could lead her to party and get drunk as most college students do, but Beth isn’t wanting that.  Instead while focusing on her studies in a bar that’s quiet during the day Beth befriends Daryl Dixon a Bartender who is always there to intercept when college boys hit on her.

I loved this fic, the FWB into lovers trope is something I absolutely adore being explored and I don’t think I have seen it in the Bethyl fandom till reading this one.  The writing was really detailed and I loved living in the characters head during the couple of days that I binge read it.   I read this fic while I was in hospital for an endometriosis flare up and was alone as my fiancé couldn’t stay the night and honestly these characters really gave me comfort and positivity while I was going through that J

I’ll be yours for a song – dynamicsymmetry

E | Slow Burn, Friends to lovers, Coming of age, Mental health, Smut, Healing, Demisexuality | 381k

Authors Summary: “In a small town where he doesn’t expect to stay long, Daryl Dixon comes across a girl walking by the side of the road at two in the morning, soaked to the skin.  He could offer to drive her home.  But he very much wants to not seem like a creep.  He also doesn’t want to leave her there.

He has no idea what he’s getting into”

This story really has left an impact on myself long after I finished reading it.   You can tell that a lot went into the writing of this fic and the prose is so beautifully real and honest from Daryl’s perspective.  The growth that Daryl shows in this story is at times hard to read but as someone who has gone through similar situations and mental health issues to the characters I really believe that what is represented in this story is authentic and an important exploration into how trauma impacts your relationships in your life good/bad.  

Big Hands, I know You’re the One – gutsforgarters

E | Daddy Kink, light dom/sub, smut, Porn with plot in the best way 18k

Beth Greene is a girl on a mission.  While on vacation with Rick Grimes and his family she just can’t get a certain muscly man out of her mind so why not just go for it?

Oh I could read gutsforgarters stories over and over and never get bored.  I just love her AU Beth/Daryl so much.  This story is light and sexy and captures those fun moments in the honeymoon period really well.  And this story really got me into reading more Bethyl Daddy kink and loving that so there you go…(if you know you know, and if you don’t honestly give it a crack and you just might enjoy it ;))

Canon Divergence & TWD universe era

Lament – Saya087

E | Reunion, fix-it, season 6 era, happy ending, Grief/mourning | 16k

Inspired by 6x10 when Daryl begs Rick not to play the CD.  While at Hilltop Daryl gets reunited with someone he thought he would never see again.

This little story really got me in the feels and was oh so sweet.  I have found myself reading more and more ‘fix-it’ fics especially after the 10c episodes.

The Broken Ones Series - Badboy_fangirl

E | Reunion, fix-it, picks up post s4, domestic fic | 57k

Authors Summary: “After Daryl goes through some pretty heavy shit, he gets reunited with Beth.”

This series written in 2014 is a really fantastic look at how the show could’ve explored Beth and Daryl is they hadn’t fucked up.  I love the AU universe the author has built and imagined up as it is the perfect setting to explore Bethyl in a domestic setting while still existing in TWD universe.

It’s going to take you people years to recover from all of the damage – Wandering_gypsea_feet

General Audiences |Reunions, fix-its, Team defiance, multi character perspectives | 62k

Authors Summary: “But there’s going to be a party when the wolf comes home.

One’shots focused on how Beth Greene might make it back to her family and different reunions spanning season 5 to season 10, leaning heavily on theories, thoughts and wishes.  Looking at how her family would get her back and how they’d react to our girl.  Different POVs each chapter.”

Oh I loved reading this authors updates of this story and seeing what she would explore next! I loved hearing the perspective from so many different characters and how they interpret Daryl and Beth and each characters reaction was so sweet and funny at times.   Fingers crossed for season 11 to see if they will bring Beth back!

Endurance - SpicyPepper_SweetSugar

M | Angst, Darkfic, check tags for TW, Savior Beth, Negan| 135k - WIP (last updated 2016)

Authors Summary: “Three years have passed since Daryl and the others arrived at the ASZ.  The community is now lead by Rick and Deanna together as they try and keep the balance of living and surviving.  When a new threat arises, however.  Daryl is forced to face the past that he has been trying to put behind, because on the side of the enemy, a familiar face can be seen.”

So this is a fic with dark themes so please check the tags before reading.  I really enjoyed this fic for its commentary on PTSD, mental health and trauma on Beth.  This fic really explores the concept of Beth not wanting to return to her family even though she has the chance and why that could possibly be.  While some of the characterisation could be deemed ooc I really enjoyed what the author was doing in exploring such traumatic impacts on character and how that would result in shifting personalities and core belief systems and values.

Okay so that is it for now J I have seriously enjoyed being a part of the Bethyl fandom over the last few months since discovering it.  It has such amazingly talented writers and I truly feel so lucky to be able to read so many stories about characters I love in such dynamic and interesting ways.  I have been feeling really inspired to get writing myself (something that I have never felt before in any of my previous fandoms) because of this fandom and that has become such a fan and therapeutic outlet for me over the last month or so.  I am excited to just be here and enjoying it J

#bethyl #Beth Greene #daryl dixon

[pynkhues]

fic asks!! 5, 7 for CYF, and 19 and 22 for pirates pls and ty

Ahhh, I'm sorry this one's coming so late, it was briefly swallowed up by my inbox 🙈

5: Share a snippet that you’re proud of from an upcoming fic/chapter.

I'm actually proud of a lot of the last chapter of To Face Unafraid, namely because it moves through a few different conflicts and builds off a few different dynamics, and weaving them together in a way that gives every character agency and makes them all feel present in the way a family gathering should feel (even with characters who aren't technically there) has been a really fun thing to explore.

I've shared a lot of bits and pieces of it already, haha, but I like the opening, so I'm going to share that. I think it's a good little mood-setter

-

It’s the shift of the mattress that wakes him.

The twist of weight at his side, disrupting the sheets, blankets, throws, then the movement of the smooth, warm dip of the waist that holds his hand. It slides slowly, slowly, until his arm slips off and drops to hit the bed with a thud. It’s all it takes for his eyes – still bleary with sleep – to snap open, to search out the disturbance, the disruption, and he can’t even really see her in the darkness of their bedroom, but he smells the soft geranium of her face cream and the lavender of her shampoo when she leans back over him.

Smells that sweet, perfect thing that’s just her underneath it.

“Shhh, shhhhhh, go back to sleep,” she coos at him, her voice light and airy, like he’s one of the kids of somethin’, and before he can even really get his head on straight – the exhaustion stretching like an animal in the cave of his skull, she’s gone. Slipped out of their room like a breeze done rufflin’ his fur, and Rio rolls over, eyes finally adjusting enough to see the time on the clock on his bedside table, and - -

Fuck.

7: Were there any ideas you had for [insert fic] that you couldn’t make work? What were they?

Yeah, actually! I had a whole grocery story action sequence that I ended up cutting from Cross Your Fingers and condensing to a much smaller sequence + the scene with Beth in the carpark with Slav's guys. It was a bit of a shame to lose, as I think it was really good and thick with tension, and it revealed a lot more about Slav's operation in the process of that, but in the end, it was kind of irrelevant to the plot, and I didn't want to detract from the sequence at the hotel that was coming up, so I endeed up cutting it for flow purposes. Still! It was a sad one to lose!

19: 15 words to describe the aesthetic of What the Sea Wants, the Sea Will Have.

Oooo, okay, I did this one before, but I'm going to do it again: corset strings, stiff bedding, waves crashing, whale songs, almost touches, salt-crusted lips, a deep breath.

22: Have you used any symbolism in What the Sea Wants, the Sea Will Have? What does it represent?

Yeah, I have quite a few symbols in the pirate au! I feel like a lot of them are pretty unsubtle, haha, like the vase at the start representing not just Dean's lack of care of Beth's history, but Beth's earthly ties slowly being severed. Things like that.

But of course, the biggest symbol in it is water. I try to feature water in a few different ways during the story – in bathwater, in rain and storms, and, of course, in the ocean – and really tie to it this idea not just of opportunity and freedom, but also this sense that Beth feels at home in water. One of the first scenes of the fic is her in the bath, and it's this time where she's uncertain in a lot of ways, but she's also reflective and peaceful in that uncertainty.

Her and Rio having the bathtub in their cabin in that sense is sort of this extension of that, where they see each other in water and it connects them even without them realising it, because they have a similar relationship to it. They might not be able to articulate it, but water is a part of them both, and there's something in seeing the other unwind while it laps at their skin that speaks to them, and when they eventually bath together, it's more meaningful because of it. It becomes an act of peace and understanding and opportunity, because that's what the water gives them.

Fic ask game

#thank yooouuuu #i'm sorry it took me 12 million years to answer this #fic ask game #fic asks #what the sea wants the sea will have #to face unafraid #welcome to my ama

[onestowatch]

REI AMI Proves Unpredictable and Unstoppable on ‘FOIL’ [Q&A]

Photo: Lauren Dunn

The first time I became familiar with REI AMI was at the tail end of an interview with FINNEAS, who played her debut single “MAKE IT MINE” in its entirety, noting the production change-ups and thematic juxtaposition with a childlike fascination. Now, some odd two years later, REI AMI is releasing her most ambitious project to date—FOIL, a ten-track mixtape that aims to capture the same distinctive mood shifts that defined her earliest singles while showcasing a marked evolution. 

It is a lofty goal that pays in dividends, as through FOIL’s ever-shifting run, REI AMI plays on the dual nature of her name—REI for the fiery Sailor Mars, AMI for empathic Sailor Mercury—to deliver a project that is rarely predictable and not lacking when it comes to standout moments. From brash, in-your-face hip-hop to quiet moments of introspection, the rapidly rising star gives credence to her self-described title of “hello kitty with a knife.”

I had the chance to chat with REI AMI via e-mail ahead of the release of FOIL, where we delved into all the run-of-the-mill conversation topics: catching up about the past year, falling in love, and her dog stepping into her role as supreme leader and commander of her devoted fanbase.

Who is REI and who is AMI?

REI is Sailor Mars and AMI is Sailor Mercury from the Japanese anime Sailor Moon. REI is more of a bold, lots of attitude, in your face kind of girl and AMI is more reserved and timid. Both REI and AMI are foil characters of each other, and I resonate with both characters so I like to play their personas in my music.

How does this dual identity inform REI AMI and your sound?

I think the duality aspect definitely helps me experiment more with my sounds and styles. Rather than sticking to just one specific thing, I get to play around with all kinds of sounds. I grew up listening to tons of different music, so having this dual aspect gives me the freedom to experiment.

The idea of a foil to the main character is a staple in most narratives. Are REI and AMI foils to one another? If so, do you consider either side of you to be more of a principal character?

REI and AMI are direct foils to each other because they are so different from each other. REI is represented by the color red and AMI is represented by the color blue. AMI represents the more shy, reserved side of me. REI is more in-your-face and she’s all about confidence and being proud of who you are. I don't think either is more of a principal character than the other. It's a Ying and Yang kind of thing; you can’t have one without the other.

Has this past year affected how you approach music, or more broadly, life in general?

I think that the past year affected my approach when it comes to music and life because it made me realize that literally anything can be taken away from you overnight. It can be gone instantly; the country literally shut down and then we couldn't leave. I feel like I gained a better sense of having gratitude for the things in my life and I didn't realize just how much easier music-making was pre-pandemic. Then, during the pandemic, everything was stressful, and I felt very lost sometimes because I think the whole world was feeling lost. It's kind of easy for you to feel directionless when you're in the middle of a fucking pandemic. So I would definitely agree and say that the past year affected my approach in music making and art.

Go-to hangover cure? Asking for a friend.

Wow, I'm so glad you asked me this question because I literally had my hangover cure this morning. Pho. It will cure you! It will revive the dead; I swear to God. Just put some sriracha in it and it will wake you right up.

What was it like collaborating with Aminé and Lolo Zouaï for FOIL?

Collabing with Aminé and Lolo was amazing. Just the fact that these incredible artists are on my project is a huge honor. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get in the studio together because of the pandemic but you know everything happened so organically so I can’t complain. With Aminé, we sent him a playlist of a bunch of unreleased songs and asked him to pick whatever one he resonated with the most. When he came back with “do it right,” we were just so taken back because I just never thought that that would be the song he chose since it's a slower, more reflective song. Regardless, I’m so glad that he chose “do it right” because he truly made that song so much bigger and better. 

With Lolo, she surprised me actually. I had been in New York during Winter 2019 and I was in the studio with Stelios, her primary collaborator, and we tracked “Cherry Chapstick” with an empty verse. I kind of forgot all about it up until November of 2020 when Lolo just randomly hit me with the dropbox link. It was crazy because I was in San Francisco, her hometown, when she sent it. I listened to the entire song with her verse and I was so thrilled because she absolutely BODIED it. Shout out Lolo for just making my day and making so many of our fans excited about it.

What do you hope people take away from FOIL?

I really hope that people realize that it’s okay to experiment; it’s okay to have more than one aesthetic, it’s okay to quit, it’s okay to start! Life is life, don’t be ashamed and try to hide certain parts of yourself. Whether they're pretty or ugly, those parts make you who you are so embrace every flaw, mistake, etc. I really hope my fans can listen to this project and know that it is OK to be you entirely.

You’ve gone from releasing your debut single, “Make it Mine,” inking a deal with Visionary Records / Sony Music Entertainment, to releasing your largest project to date, all within the span of two years. What’s the most significant thing you’ve learned about yourself in the process?

Good things take time. I was actually supposed to drop the project back in fall 2020 but I pulled the brakes because I felt that the project, at the time, didn’t accurately represent my life and headspace. I had just moved to LA, my team had grown significantly and… I fell in love! So instead, I took a couple months off to focus on the new music and I’m so glad I did. Those extra months gave me the time to live my life, it allowed me to reflect on my past and helped me learn so much about myself.

How is Kyo?

Kyo is amazing. She's really stepped into her role as the supreme leader and commander of the Reibies so I'm really proud. I think she's going to ask for a raise, but that's a conversation that we will have once the project drops. I'll keep you posted!

What’s next for REI AMI?

I think the most immediate thing for me would be taking a fucking nap…but like yeah, merch is coming, tour, shows, lots of exciting things for my Reibies!

Who are your Ones To Watch?

Iamdoechii. My friend Doc, who's also produced a couple tracks on FOIL, put 

FOIL is available everywhere you can stream it.

#rei ami #foil #interview #album reviews #hip hop #pop #anti pop

[popculturebuffet]

Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life Review

Happy Birthday To Me, as I continue my birthday celebration by taking a look at comics that have a personal connection to me.. And for our main feature, i’m taking a look at the first volume of a series that was vitally important to a teenage me, Scott Pilgrim. 

Scott Pilgrim is the brainchild of Brian Lee’O’Malley. O’Malley came up with the concept from a number of things. Being a fan of the band Plumtree, O’Malley was curious about the name of their song “Scott Pilgrim” and wondered who this Scott Pilgrim guy was. So over the years he slowly built the guy up in the back of his mind using bits of his life and what not. As for why he ends up fighting 7 evil exes, that came from a discussion with his then girlfriend, later wife and currently ex-wife Hope Larson, where he threw off the joke that her exes should form some kind of League. After finishing his first solo work Lost at Sea, O’Malley decided Scotty would be his next project and the rest is history. To date while O’Malley has written two works since, Seconds which is delightful and Snotgirl which didn’t grab me but I intend to try again, Scott remains his most popular work, in large part due to it’s SUBLIME video game and movie adaptations, the former of which is finally getting a rerelease next month. 

The series charm is in it’s style: A manga styled comic that combines two desperate kinds of story: Shonen Fight Manga and Slice of Life Indie Comics. The story shifts from Scott going through normal life stuff while trying to make his new relationship work and get his shit together and Scott getting into big bombastic fights with his new sweetie’s exes for the right to keep dating her and to you know, stay alive. The series effortlesly blends a video game like world with real grounded characters and is wonderful for it.  As for where I came in, one Free Comic Book day I found a little comic named Free Scott Pilgrim, which I genuinely loved and was instantly charmed by it’s humor and well done art. So I picked up the second and third volumes of the series proper and the first once I could find it and the rest ,as they say, is history. For my high school life, this was one of hte most important things in it and I wrote fanfiction, which I thankfully never put online and in general enjoyed the hell out of the series. Then I just kind of.. let it sit on my shelf for a while. It wasn’t BAD, I just never got back to it and as the franchise went dormant I just sorta slept on it and the movie and that part of me...

Cut to a few weeks ago, when Comixology did a massive sale for black friday that marked a ton of Graphic Novels down to just 1 buck each, and the color editions of Scott Pilgrim happened to be part of this, though only volume 1 was that cheap. But thanks to my best friend micheal and an early christmas/birthday present I got the rest and got to revisit the series as a whole, with me rethinking my previous thoughts of volume 1 and thus.. wanting to review it and share both why this series is so damn special and what’s good, and what’s not so good about it. I’ll also be covering the game, once i’ts re-released, and the movie once i’m finsihed with the comics so look out for that. And get ready to take a trip to the glorious land of canada... 

As a heads up and as you can tell i’ll be using the color version as while I could get scans of the black and white, I prefer the color version. While the black and white was fine and always will be, I think the impressive coloring job really adds to thing and makes the already great fight scenes pop more, as well as making certain background elements stand out a bit. While it does negate the black and white gags, the tradeoff is more than worth it. That being said either version is fine so if you can get the black and white cheaper that’s fine and i’ve kept my original copies, with volumes 4 -6 having been picked up as they came out. 

So as our story starts we meet our hero: Scott Pilgrim Age 23, a charming but jobless and kind of sketchy possible college graduate whose really been adrift in his life since a breakup about a year ago. And when our story opens he’s taken a turn for a worse and decided to date sweet but naive and inexperinced Knives Chau, a 17 year old girl. And why yes the power dynamics there are messed up and why yes Scott is pretty damn sketchy in this moment in time, and while yes I am aware the age of consent in canada is 16, it dosen’t make this any less greasy and the story knows that.  And how it knows that MOST of his friends aren’t on board. The only ones who seems to is Stephen Stiles, leader of Sex Bomb-Omb, the band scott’s in with one of the best names ever and even then it’s hard to tell if he’s being sarcastic or just a total douche. The other, Young Neil Nordgraf, Stephen’s roomate, is well 19 or 20 and kind of a dipshit so we just ignore him. I used to use him as kind of a projection, to put myself in the adventure when I was younger as Neil kind of lacks personality in the comics but in the comics.. he’s not hte best or most complex character. He is great in the movie though and Edgar Wright did an amazing job fleshing him out.  The rest of his circle are .. not so permissive. His best friend, roomate and king of all gays for all time Wallace Wells very much does not want to come with Scott to school to pick her up because every part of that sentence after hurt to type. Granted Scott gets him to come with him with promises of boys, but frankly knowing wallace he was probably just playing along/wants to protect this poor child. His ex and fellow bandmate Kim is clearly bothered by it and is flat out worried Scott is taking advantage of her. Kim and Wallace are easily my faviorites both for personality and because I have a massive crush on both. With Wallace it just didn’t manifest till the reread. Finally Scott’s kid sister Stacey chews him out over it before genuinely wondering if he’s gone insane or he’s actually happy. For my two cents: he’s not. He WANTS to be, but he dosen’t know how. And as someone whose both neurotypical, which given Scott’s troubles with empathy and relating to people like yours truly I strongly suggest he is, and has struggled with depression I can relate to that. He wants to move on but he just.. can’t, he just wants to get past the haze he’s been in since Envy dumped him.. but he dosen’t know how. So instead of doing someting constructive or finding a job or anything .. he just took the first and easiest way out of his depression he could. I’ve done that with video games and stuff. Scott did that by entering a relationship that’s really easy, requires only so much effort, and is with someone who utterly adores, looks up to him and will never expect better. Being with Knives makes him feel better.. but it dosen’t MAKE him a better person. As i’ve made clear dating someone just for a boost makes him actively worse and had fate not intervened, I shudder to think what Scott might have become. That being said his actoins are still creepy and since Scott has a habit of landing ass backwards into being an asshole here’s a counter to track that. That’s 2 for doing this overall, one for tleling her to be good, and 1 for trying to ply wallace with underage boys. 

Your the Scum of the Earth Scott Counter: 1

Thankfully fate does and Scott’s dreams, ones of him crawling through a desert alone, are interupted by a mysterious pink haired girl on skates. The next day he’s just sort of in a daze, kind of confused, and even more so when he sees her IN REAL LIFE, while at the library with Knives. He’s understandably frazzled but ends up finding out he’s not hallucinating when talking to MIcheal Cormeau. Micheal is a minor character and another artist and friend of o malley’s who represents that one guy in social circles who knows everybody. And indeed he knows the mystery girl, Ramona Flowers and that she’s there. Scott TRIES talking her up but just creeps her out, so Scott goes with plan b and decides to ask around about her. Enter Sandra and Monique, two college aquantinces of Scott, who just sorta show up at major events and aren’t that developed or intresting. They turn him to Julie who forbids him to date her. To which I say. 

Naturually we’ll aslo be needing a counter for this. 

Shut Up Julie Counter: 1

Scott however did find out she’s a delivery girl for Amazon Canada, and thus orders some CD’s on Wallace’s Credit card to hopefully see her. And while his behavior IS obessive.. it’s understandable. I’d be weirdly obessed with finding someone too if they showed up in my dreams every day and were apparently a real person. I’d probably play it cooler but still i’ts kind of understandable. So after a day with knives in which he’s clearly checked out she kisses him, he freaks out and it’s very clear that while Scott’s good at attracting women he’s just.. not good with his emotions and has finally woken up to how messed up this is, but has no idea how to get out now he’s intrested in someone he actually has a future with maybe.  Speaking of Scott’s package and Ramona finally arrive. Scott’s move is to.. ask her out abrubtly but after he mentions her Dreams, Ramona finally puts two and two together and explains things: She’s been using Subspace, a seris of highways connected by the subconcious and apparently more common in america, though it’s later revealed she was taught this but being the first book with a lot of the lore and what not ironed out this is fine. Point is she was just using his dreams as transit and didn’t mean to get him obessed. Scott continues to try his schtick and eventually gets her to agree to hang out with him. Why she does I generally do not know, as SCott basically fell ass backwards over himself conversationally, but whatever. If he didn’t succeed we wouldn’t have a plot. 

That being said things pick up a bit with the date though. The scene is really good and simply just the two.. talking. Having plesant conversations getting to know one another. That good stuff. it’s just really nice to read and it’s hard to explain why. Highlights include Scott’s x-men patch, Ramona not wanting to talk about her last job and Scott admitting he hasn’t been obessed in a long time.. and it comes off sweet rather htan creepy like that sounds. It just means he hasn’t fell this head over heels felt like this. As I said Knives was easy.. but this is hard.. and this.. feels right. So as things Snow Ramona yanks scott through subspace to escape the blizzard. 

So we end up back at Ramona’s place and she offers some tea which leads to one of the best gags of the volume as she lists them off: 

So Ramona goes to get Scott a blanket, Scott ends up following finds her changing, and she decides to warm him up another way.. by embracing him... cue.. the inevitible really. 

It feels organic though: The two are clearly attracted to each other and while Scott came on as strong as freaking colossus, he still rebounded well once they hung out and he could relax a bit and show the scott underneath the lairs of dumbass. The two end up cuddling in bed and Scott seems..genuiley happy saying he needed this... awwwwwww. They part the next morning with him asking her to his band’s performance. 

So Scott finds Wallace  at home who says what Scott needs to hear “You need to break up with your fake highschool girlfriend scott’ Granted the entire first 40 pages could’ve been titled that but now he’s actively cheating. He’s also got a letter. 

It’s a death threat Scott barely grazes through, just like an email earlier. 

But scott’s more concerned with his emotional distress.. i.e. the consequences of his throughly shitty actions finally hitting him in the face. 

Scott heads to practice for his gig and can’t bring himself to break up with knives, but does find out about the opposition: Crash and the Boys, based on an NES game title because of course it is. Crash, their leader, Joel their baseplayer who scott hates because he hates all other baseplayers (”I don’t hate myself kim) and Trasha, an 8 year old progedy they found playing Drum Mania. Don’t ask me what that is, i’m not going to get every refrence. 

So at the show Scott runs into Stacey and her new boyfriend Jimmy  with Stacey being supportive. And then Knives shows up and then RAMONA SHOWS UP. Oh no scott’s cheating might be discovered! 

So Scott books it while we’re introduced to Crash and the Boys. Wallace heckles them, to the band’s annoyance, until they eventually get fed up and we easly get the best gag of the volume. I was wrong this clearly tops the tea thing. 

So Crash and The Boys continue to play their set, including a song that supposdely kills the audience but really knocks them out.. which of course bothers kim because they play next. Meanwhile Ramona and Stacey meet and the two really get along.. and come back to find the audience ko’d and Wallace Making out with Stacey’s boyfriend. Oh no! Which is a dick move, no question. But Stacey’s next move is questionable even for a 19 year old: She says “You won’t steel another guy from me and tells wallace to sit over there”. Okay Stacey even if he is bi, and this series has trouble with the concept of bisexuals we’ll get into that later trust me, he made out with someone else entirely while on a date with you. Wallace is still an asshole, it’s part of his charm.. but it dosen’t change the fact your date kissed someone else seconds after you were gone and has been eyballing him all night, as seen even above. He’s not into you as you thought, just accept it, move on, and kick Jimmy in the balls and then wallace like a proper lady. So Scott prepares to play and this happens

And it’s here, at the very end of the comic the series main premise finally kicks in and the world takes it’s true shape. It’s a world where an indie comedy about a mess of a being putting his life together after finding his dream girl.. also has said mess being forced to get into fist fights with wizards, movie stars, vegans, half-ninjas, twin roboticists and a katana wielding douchenozzle record exec in order to continue to have the right to date his girlfriend. 

It’s where the series charm comes from and really what made it a huge sucess so it’s no suprise this volume perks up immensley for the climax. I’ll get more into it’s pacing problem at the end. For now it’s fight time and as we find out in a hilarious and awesome turn.. Scott is the best fighter in toronto.. which just makes me REALLLY want a Scott Pilgrim version of letterkenny. I mean who wouldn’t want to see wayne fight some guy who can turn his hands into dragons or see Squireely Dan do E.Honda’s hand slap move from streetfighter or see the skids all fuse into one mega emo. It’s just.. the possiblities are as endless as they are wonderous and I want this now. 

But yeah as Patel is both the first boss and Scott’s first real opponent Scott.. handles him really easily. This was by design as O’Malley wanted a shonen progression to the fights.. and honestly it’s a great way to do things. Since the fights are styled after shonen and video games, and both have power based progression in bad guys and threats, it just made sense. Patel.. is just pathetic even with his magic powers, and his habit of sending letters and emails just pounds it in. Though he is right to be a bit pissed Scott didn’t read a letter he hand delivered in a snowstorm. That’s just a tad rude. 

Mid-Fight, Scott, now he knows the whole evil ex boyfriend thing, wonders what Matt and Ramona’s past is and while Matthew refuses to tell.. Ramona spills easily. It was midddle school, all the jocks wanted her for whatever reason, likely because from experince in high school, guys really like indie girls. Matthew was the only non-white non jock, so they teamed up and with her strength and his mystic powers they beat them.. but since his use had dried up, she flipped him off and left.  Matthew dosen’t take this well and summons demon hipster chicks to fight while Scott and co, minus ramona, fight back with a finger gun routine and block his fire balls before propelling Scott into matthew somehow, and landing the KO Evil Exes Left: 6 Matthew bursts into coins though fun fact, O’Malley says the Exes all respawned back at home afterwords and learned their lesson. With Pattel I genuinely don’t think he did... but clearly given his penchant for formality what with the letters and emails, he probably felt it’d break protocol to attack before the rest were done. He probably jsut formed a hipster emo band and found more sucess using his magic for that instead and just forgot about the whole thing. Could be wrong but that’s what i’m going with.  So Scott asks Ramona to go out with him then make out with him, both of which she says yes to. Nice one scotty boy. Ramona then explains the whole evil exes thing: He’ll have to defeat each one as they come after him, and while Scott wonders if they’ll come one at a time Ramona’s not sure. As time will bear out, Scott is MOSTLY correct as most exes take him one on one, with the exception of the twins. But since as I said earlier the twins are basically one person, and as we’ll find out by choice, so it’s an exception. Plus their the last step before the final boss, so by that token it’s a bit fairer to have the penultimate boss get an unfair advantage. Scott is fine with that, he and Ramona share another moment and a kiss.. but Scott makes the mistake of asking if gideon is one and Ramona’s head starts glowing with her dodging the subject, though still going out with SCott and him worried.. it just feels.. off. not a bad ending but the only one of the series three cliffhanger endings that just dosen’t work for me, especailly since it is a bit before the Gideon mystery really picks up steam again. But with that we close this chapter

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Precious Little Life is a decent start to the story.  While Scott is loathsome at first, he’s still a compelling character and does get more likeable as things go, the humor when it is there shines and is one of the series best assets and while the fight is short and only at the end, it is oh so glorious especailly in cover with the impacts taking cues from the movie. It’s a good intro to Scott’s world and ther’es a reason the movie adapts this book the closest as it sets up the cast and premise well, with only Stephen Stiles feeling a bit off and ONLY for the first few chapters.  The volume is only really held back by it’s pacing, as before Scott runs into ramona in his dream the story feels a bit sluggish as we’re just watching some douche date a high school kid. While it is necessary to set up the world, it just dosen’t have the snappy pacing the series would be known for and that makes the rest of the series more charming. it’s nto BAD.. but it’s not FANTASTIC like the series would become. What keeps it from being bad is simple: These aren’t general badness signs but more just O’Malley coming into his owna nd getitng better and better as the book goes, to the point that by the next book the pacing is much better and by book 3 onwards he has it down pat.  Overall not a BAD volume but certaionly the weakest of the bunch.. which given it’s still really good says something about the ride we’re in for. I’ll be back sometime in the future, likely january. Yup i’m taking on YET ANOTHER PROJECT. but since this one, while clearly exausting and time consuimg, is much shorter in overall length, and i’m still proritizing the three I have running over this, I think i’ll be just fine. Until next time, have a happy holiday. 

#scott pilgrim #scott pilgrims precious little life #ramona flowers #wallace wells #kim pine #stephen styles #knives chau #neil nordgraf #julie powers #matthew pattel #gideon #crash and the boys #reviews #comics #oni press #micheal comereau #stacey pilgrim

[khunfounded]

Stuck in the Cave

This one is pretty long and serious, birds, and if you are uncomfortable with the discussion of toxic relationships I recommend skipping it. I’ll cut it off before any analysis this time. 

It’s about Rachel and Bam’s tumultuous relationship, so if that interests you, read on.

Tonight we are discussing three songs from the same album, Hospice, which depicts the entirety of a female perpetuated abusive relationship. It has a lot of nuance and treats the both individuals as humans, rather than entirely a monster and an angel.

The songs are Shiva, Kettering, and Epilogue by The Antlers. I’ll have the videos in front of each analysis rather than all at the top to make it less blocky.

Let’s begin with Shiva.

The entirety of Hospice is told through a metaphor about a hospital worker who gets into a toxic relationship with a patient, which I think is really fitting considering the arc of Rachel pretending that she is paralyzed from the waist down.

Suddenly every machine stopped at once And the monitors beeped the last time Hundreds of thousands of hospital beds And all of them empty but mine

I think these lines fit the exact moment that Rachel pushes Bam. For Bam it is sudden, unexpected. Though for Rachel, who metaphorically has been in the hospital bed for a while, it was a long time coming.

The one chance for Rachel to keep their relationship ended with that push, when the monitors beeped the last time, though Bam did not know it yet.

After that, Bam is alone. Even when he is surrounded by people, they are all using him to perpetuate their agenda. So, there are many beds, but there is no one there with Bam, either in a hospital bed or visiting him. Well, I was lying down with my feet in the air Completely unable to move The bed was misshapen, and awkward and tall And clearly intended for you

When Bam is forced into joining Fug, he can’t move. They have him in check. If he does try anything, they will destroy the one good thing he found. The people who would have visited him in the hospital.

These last two lines remind me of when Khun tells Rachel that if she truly cared about Bam, she wouldn’t be coming up the tower while Bam was stuck underneath it. The bed, the ruin, was made for her, but she escaped it by putting Bam in her place.

You checked yourself out when you put me to bed And tore that old band off your wrist But you came back to see me for a minute or less And left me your ring in my fist

The theme of the bed intended for Rachel continues in this stanza. Without anyone (except Fug, who I personally see as the hospital administrators) knowing, she checked herself out of the hospital and placed Bam there instead.

The hospital band is Rachel’s supposed fate of not being worthy of the tower (though you could argue that her cunning and luck actually does make her worthy, but I’m not), which she tore off by sheer force of will.

The minute or less she came to visit him is the push, and the ring (which in the context of the album is a wedding ring) is what is left of their relationship. Bam, because Rachel is so integral to him, is stuck with it, while Rachel is not. He has both rings now, and the relationship is completely one-sided.

For Rachel, to possibility of joining the stars (whether seeing them or becoming one) is worth the dissolution of a completely devoted love. Though, that love of Bam’s is completely healthy, fueled by his loneliness and the fact that for the longest time the only good thing he ever knew was Rachel. She knows this, which is part of why she gives back the ring. She thinks that even if she picks Bam, he will leave her once he is loved and loves other people. My hair started growing, my face became yours My femur was breaking in half The sensation was scissors and too much to scream So instead, I just started to laugh

Now this, this fits so well.

Bam’s hair is such an important part of his character. Not only does it track the years, it also tracks his emotional state. He is at his lowest when it is at its longest, (which is poignant considering the length of Rachel’s), happiest when it’s shortest, and most in control of his destiny when it is in-between, since at that point is able to choose its length.

I think the second half of the stanza represents the mental break and subsequent cognitive dissonance that he goes through because his mind cannot handle the idea of his most precious person betraying him.

Oof, one down two to go. This is tough.

Now, onto Kettering. 

Ouch, this one hurts.

I wish that I had known in that first minute we met The unpayable debt that I owed you Because you'd been abused by the bone that refused you And you hired me to make up for that

Throughout much of the series, Bam believes he owes Rachel a debt because of the hope she gave him in the cave, though in my opinion she did less than the minimum (though no one owes anyone anything, I still believe that sometimes basic human kindness should win out. Well, morality quandaries for another time).

The bone that refused her was her fate of being unworthy of climbing the tower, which everyone and anyone told her whenever they could. Honestly, that would turn me bitter, too. This is a good chunk of why she is so venomous towards Bam, because his fate and outlook are quite literally the opposite of hers.

To Rachel, everything comes so easily to Bam, whilst she has to claw and fight and lie for every scrap that she can. Though, we all know better. Bam’s life is filled with suffering.

Thus, she hires Bam to make up for her destiny. She tries to take his place and put him in hers. Also, she is just fundamentally cruel to him, trying to ruin every good thing he has every chance that she gets. Walking in that room when you had tubes in your arms Those singing morphine alarms out of tune Kept you sleeping and even And I didn't believe them when they called you a hurricane thunderclap

Everyone tells Bam that Rachel is bad news, but he only sees the girl that gave him light and had her chance to climb the tower violently ripped away from her.

It takes Rachel doing to Khun what she has been doing to Bam all this time to get him to realize that he truly does not know her at all. When I was checking vitals I suggested a smile You didn't talk for a while, you were freezing You said you hated my tone, it made you feel so alone And so you told me I ought to be leaving

This is basically a continuation of the theme of Rachel treating Bam cruelly while he tries his best to make her life better.

It reminds me a lot of the moments right before Rachel pushes Bam, and for a few seconds her demeanor shifts, shocking him  But something kept me standing by that hospital bed I should have quit, but instead, I took care of you You made me sleep and uneven And I didn't believe them when they told me that there was no saving you

Bam is stuck standing by Rachel because of his devotion and the toxic relationship that they have created. For the longest time, he tries to find her and take care of her, but she doesn’t want that. She wants to see the stars. Without him.

He doesn’t see it, though, no matter what they people who really love him try to say.

Next, next, next.

It’s the Epilogue.

Finally, we are at a point where Bam realizes how toxic their relationship truly is.

This one is dense, birds.

In a nightmare, I am falling from the ceiling into bed beside you You're asleep, I'm screaming, shoving you to try to wake you up And like before, you've got no interest in the life you live when you're awake Your dreams still follow storylines like fictions you would make

I do not believe for a second that Bam doesn’t have nightmares about Rachel. She is such a large part of his life and his psyche. He must have trauma both about wondering if he could have saved their relationship and what she has done to his loved ones.

Rachel is asleep. She thinks that what she is doing to see the stars is worth it, but Bam knows better. He has lived the destruction and suffering she has caused.

She has no interest for a world where she is unworthy of the tower, so she dreams up a new one and tries to make it real.

So I lie down against your back until we're both back in the hospital But now it's not a cancer ward, we're sleeping in the morgue Men and women in blue and white, they are singing all around you With heavy shovels holding earth, you're being buried to your neck            

In that hospital bed, being buried quite alive now. 

I'm trying to dig you out but all you want is to be buried there together

This again harkens back to the idea of Bam having nightmares about Rachel. The morgue is his fears that what is happening will ruin them both.

The men and women are everyone in the war that are adding onto the pressure and consequences of this fight. In the end, Tower of God truly is about Bam and Rachel’s relationship and all the fallout that it causes

Bam sees that Rachel is being buried by the decisions she has made, and he is slowly being buried, too. Though, unlike Rachel, he is trying to dig their way out and save them both.

You're screaming And cursing And angry And hurting me And then smiling And crying Apologizing

This chorus is haunting, especially because of the singer’s voice (which is even worse if you imagine the singer is Bam) . It is demonstrative of the two faces that Rachel shows, and the abuse that she puts Bam through just to see the stars.

It evokes the image of Rachel and Bam in the meadow after Rachel has been stabbed. Rachel apologizes to Bam, though he does not truly know why. I've woken up, I'm in our bed, but there's no breathing body there beside me Someone must have taken you while I was stuck asleep But I know better as my eyes adjust, you've been gone for quite a while now And I don't work there in the hospital, they had to let me go

After Rachel puts Khun into a coma, Bam wakes up and he sees their relationship for what it truly is. There is still a part of him, though, that wonders what went wrong. 

His eyes are still adjusting, even after he has awoken.

When Bam leaves the hospital, he is leaving their one-sided toxic dynamic, though much like the physical injuries he has suffered, there are still scars.

When I try to move my arms sometimes, they weigh too much to lift I think you buried me awake, my one and only parting gift But you return to me at night just when I think I may have fallen asleep Your face is up against mine, and I'm too terrified to speak

Sometimes, what he has gone through makes it tough for him to go on. I am glad Bam has such a wonderful, loving support system.

Again, nightmares and trauma caused by Rachel. Things like what she has done to Bam never truly leave you. She has gifted him with immense trauma, and scars that may fade to silver but will never disappear. You're screaming And cursing And angry And hurting me And then smiling And crying Apologizing

Thank you for reading, please watch video of puppies after this.

#tower of god #tog #song analysis #25th bam #jyu viole grace #rachel tog

[ddaenghoney]

chapter four

masterlist link in blog description.

As a successful songwriter, you want nothing more than the acknowledgment that the chart-topping musical pieces are your own creations. But contracts, relationships, and the difficulty of facing the stakes involved head on, keep your mouth shut until pressure builds too much.

Pairing(s): Park Jimin x Y/N, Min Yoongi x Y/N

disclaimer: any characters depicted do not represent the actual personality of the respected idol in real life.

Series warning(s)/genre(s): Chapter-based written fic, Slow-burn relationship(s), Fake-dating, Unrequited love, Songwriter/producer!oc, idol!Jimin, idol/songwriter/producer!Yoongi, friends with benefits, drama, romance, smut, angst, fluff (updated as needed)

Chapter warning(s): graphic sexual depictions (fingering, like really minor dirty talk; it’s mostly dirty praise idk, oral; female receiving, cum swallowing, vaginal penetration via male penis(typing this made me laugh so hard lmao), male ejaculation without condom); i’d say it’s entirely sweet sex but uh-

Word count: 4931

if you enjoy please, please let me know!

Yoongi stands outside of the CEO office, his back against the wall beside the elevator. Waiting until the door shuts behind you, he straightens, pressing the button next to his waist to signal the elevator. Meeting eyes with his, you know there’s a lot he wants to say, but the vagueness of his expression doesn’t give you an idea of a tone. Another lecture you’re sure. Just to continue the growing streak. Yerin’s secretary glances towards you then Yoongi, curiosity taking over her to hope for something interesting to occur.

You simply follow him into the elevator.

“What was all of that?” He asks you when the door shuts, eyes peering in frustration, but you believe him to be shocked more than anything. “I’m now your fake boyfriend?” A single, breathy laugh leaves his mouth. Bitter.

“I guess,” You’re unable to meet his gaze, instead staring at the unlit elevator buttons and the lack of movement from other people calling for the elevator on this oddly slow day. “I don’t even know.”

“If I knew this would happen,” He sighs, rubbing his temples and never finishing the end of the thought. Leaving it to himself.

“This is my fault.” Your voice is barely a whisper, severity of everything catching up with you and how you’ve managed to cause trouble for Jimin and now Yoongi, who’s new to SoundWave and probably hating the employment.

“No.” Yoongi shakes his head, then exhales once more, trying to rationalize. “This is complete shit, but it’s not your fault.” In the first place, Jimin having a contract forbidding him from dating is one that Yoongi thought was just a bad rumor in the industry-- something that people didn’t actually have. There wasn’t a single employee in his last company that was forced under that rule, even though it had been frowned upon to be in public relationships. Incredibly frowned upon in a certain case. Still, Yoongi never figured the lack of a dating-ban clause in his contract and the new direction of his stage persona would lead him into a fake relationship. Irony with no humor. “Why aren’t you publically an employee?”

You reach for the elevator buttons, clicking the ground floor. The machinery shifts, starting the descent.

“Because,” You’re still hesitant about the prospect of explaining your situation. Anyone at SoundWave that has anything to do with music production knows, and Yoongi shouldn’t be an exception. It’s not like he is an intern, or part-time assistant. You may even work with him in the future, but you can’t remember ever explaining your position to someone other than Jimin. And that was only because he was whom you worked with often when first starting. “I write songs and produce, but I don’t ever get credited for it.”

“What?” Yoongi sounds like he thinks he didn’t correctly hear you. “Wait, what do you mean? Who gets the credit then?”

You sigh, eyeing the floor number that grows smaller and smaller, but not quick enough. “Whatever group or idol that ends up using them.”

“You,” He’s without comprehension, expression on his face ridiculously confused. Maybe even appalled by your job, or that he is also a part of the extremely large group under the assumption that they aren’t being lied to. Only to find out that it’s an acceptable and ongoing aspect of the company. One you’re acceptant of; otherwise you would’ve quit years ago or never taken the job to begin with. “You let your work get used under someone else’s name-- you’re lying to people, and you’re just letting that happen?”

You glare at him, but stay silent. Even if you want to argue, that’s how it is. You don’t have the power to change it, and years earlier you didn’t actually mind sliding ethics aside. You want to tell him that you’re not letting the lies occur willingly, but by the looks of his face-- something appearing increasingly unsettled and distant about your untruthful position-- you know it won’t matter. He won’t understand and maybe is even right to have his opinion of you drop to the ground.

The elevator door opens prompting you to practically jump out. “I’m going home.”

Yoongi stays inside of it, posture weighted in contempt of everything that he’s just gone through. As if the merger couldn’t get anymore terrible, now he is in a falsified relationship with someone that helps SoundWave lie to the general public just for the sake of appearances, and he’s stuck dealing with it. He groans when the doors shut again, taking a moment to bask in the nonsense of it all before clicking the button to his studio’s floor.

Outside the building you pace, considering the option of calling Jimin, but then also considering that he hasn’t texted you and is likely angry and sorting through his own thoughts of this mess. You groan, startling a passerby on their walk to wherever. Taking no notice you shake your head, pulling out your phone and ripping the bandaid off,

Y/N, 3:43pm: Can we talk?

You stare at the message thread for a passing minute, then lock the screen. He could be busy doing a thousand other things, there isn’t a reason for him to automatically get back to your message, and he could still be upset-- the screen flashes with a notification, and you immediately unlock,

Jimin, 3:44pm: Yeah, I get off close to nine.

A breath releases from your lips. At least he responded. Another message appears, the contents seizing up the next beat of your heart.

Jimin, 3:44pm: Can I call you right now?

Y/N, 3:45pm: Yeah, of course.

You descend south of the company, heading towards a nearby coffee shop when the call comes in. “Hello?”

“Hey,” Jimin sits in the recording booth, waiting for the producer to meet him there at the start of the next hour. His legs gently push on the floor, swaying the computer chair side to side. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” The concern in his voice eases you, as well as the seemingly calm demeanor. Though there is a chance he’s feigning it, you suppose. “I’m so sorry about the thing with Yoongi. I swear nothing happened-”

“I believe you, lovely.” Softly spoken, head nodding even though you couldn’t see him. Jimin bites his lip, bothered that you’ve likely been incredibly worried about what he thought ever since Yerin dropped the words. “You wouldn’t do that to me. I trust you.”

His sincerity is warm, nearly causing the fuzz of emotions in your eyes to trickle because of how much your mind was pressured from the idea that he would misunderstand. You breathe through your lips, cracking the air audibly. Jimin sits upright on his end, concern raising his voice’s volume,

“Baby, are you crying?”

“No.” You’re quick to cover up but the word itself sounds like a tremble. Jimin frowns, rubbing his face,

“I’m sorry, I would’ve texted you but I was worried your phone’s notification would be loud while you were talking to Yerin. I didn’t want it to interrupt and make her angrier.” You rub your eyes feeling no tears and just the annoying heat that seems to release from all of the stress of the past couple of hours. “What did she tell you anyways? You didn’t get in more trouble did you?”

“No, it’s nothing.” Just a speech that put you in your place, but it’s not worth mentioning. “I’m sorry I didn’t answer you over the weekend, Jimin.”

“It’s fine.” Jimin taps his index finger on the armrest, then pausing the motion as you speak up,

“No, it’s not fine. I shouldn’t have ignored you. I wasn’t being fair.” You sigh. He’s quiet at your words, surprised at the conclusion of your actions.

“I was acting like an idiot, Y/N.” He glances to the clock, knowing the producer is usually early. “I’m not mad at you for it, I deserved it. Anyways, I need to go. I just called because I wanted to hear your voice and make sure you were okay.” You smile softly at the admission. “Come to my apartment later and we’ll talk more, alright?”

“Okay,” You nod, glancing to the sign on the coffee shop that stated they are closed for the day. Unusual for a Monday. Yet fitting for the kind of day it is. “I’ll make sure no one notices me going in.”

---

Jimin can’t help chuckling at you when he opens his front door. A large zip-up hoodie drapes over you with the hood covering your face, and sunglasses complete your, to your opinion, lowkey look despite sunglasses being useless at night. You’re pouting as you remove the shades, stepping into the apartment.

“I bet the cab driver thought you were having a day.”

“He wouldn’t be wrong.” You shrug, slipping the hood off and dipping your eyes from his. Jimin sighs, head nodding in agreement. “He was telling me I was lucky to get a cab tonight and everyone is close to the city center today, so at least I got a ride if nothing else.” Jimin’s head tilts at your seemingly lack of awareness to the date,

“You know it’s New Year’s Eve don’t you?” His sentence barely completes before you’re looking back at him in shock. When you consider all of the closed establishments and lack of people at work, it makes sense, but you’re in disbelief that you forgot. Jimin smiles in endearment, reaching for your hand, “It’s been a complicated week.”

He leads you to the couch, and still calm. With all of the information he heard from Yerin, you assumed Jimin would act differently. At least be asking fervently for answers. He said on the phone that he trusts you, but despite that you wonder how he’s not appearing to be upset about it. Sitting down beside him, you watch Jimin pull his knee up on the cushion facing you. His hand fiddles with yours, thumb stroking the top.

“What should we do?”

The question isn’t one you anticipated on your way over. The diverse amount of things Jimin could mean with it flutter your mind like gusts in a tree, and the lack of strong emotion in how he spoke make your eyebrows harden in thought. “What do you mean?”

“You know,” His eyes fall to where your hands meet. Jimin squeezes tighter. A pound in his chest. “Don’t you think we should stop this all?”

Muscles tense throughout your body. The concept is so far removed from what you expected. His passive attitude to go along with it drives your head to draw a blank. You thought coming here there could be strong words in an argument of explanations, and apologies for the things Yerin called you both into the office for. Not this. Your hand squeezes around his and Jimin casts his gaze back up. Nervousness is apparent, paired with your head shaking.

Jimin bites his inner lip, trying to remain rational despite the hurt in your eyes, “We,” He hesitates, remembering the first time that he kissed you. “We’re just hurting each other, love.”

“How?” Voice higher, confused. “We’re,” You swallow dryly, “Not even dating, Jimin, why do you sound like you think we should break up.” A tiny, hollow laugh, devoid of humor. You watch helplessly as he nods,

“I know, so before it gets worse than what happened today, we should stop.” Jimin’s voice slows down, like he doesn’t want to complete the sentence. Sadder. You inhale, trying to reason his tactics in your mind,

“Then let’s date.”

“Love-”

“I don’t want to stop.” Jimin bites his lip, frowning at you while feeling the ducts of his eyes well because of your pleas. Your hand shakes in his grip, and he wills himself to stop from hugging you. “Please, I don’t want to stop. I like how we were, I,” You remember saying the opposite to him at the club. He recalls the same thing, smiling joylessly.

“We can’t stand up for each other, baby. I can’t be there for you like you deserve.” Jimin talks about the company, but also in society’s perspective. Yerin made it clear that he can’t be in a relationship publically, and for that reason the relationship between you started. Hidden. Incomplete. Jimin told you at the beginning that you should both stop if you caught feelings for somebody else and you agreed because it was just fun when it started. It wasn’t serious, but it turned into something deeper. You know that and know Jimin knows it too.

“I care about you so much.”

Jimin’s lips part at the simple, yet utterly sincere and loving words. Contrasted by the sadness of the entire situation. His hand clenches around yours. He thinks the same, but with what he knows about himself, he shouldn’t let this continue. The few cool tears dripping from his eyes plead with him as well. To admit to you the feelings that he has, but it’s more complicated.

“Jimin,” He loves hearing his name through your lips. His tear-stained face watches you move, knowing he should stop you. He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t and your lips are on his. Jimin’s hand abandons yours for your waist, to keep you from getting too close, but he kisses you back, relishing in your touch against his better judgement.

“Baby.” Jimin’s hand tightens around the side of your waist when you attempt to move closer. Mere inches from your face, his eyes lock with yours, searching for your thoughts.

“Please,” Air hitches in Jimin’s throat while your arms cascade around his neck. Your voice soft. Begging once more, by your lips kissing him sweetly. Like candy. Familiarly. “You don’t want to stop.”

“We should though.” A waver in his tone. Jimin really doesn’t want to stop, let you go, force you from his life.

“Just kiss me.” Believing you can convince him otherwise, your arms gently tug. Coaxing. In a more sensible time, you know this isn’t how to keep him with you. You know that there are problems, and the way Jimin and you are now won’t work. But you love him.

And this isn’t a sensible time.

Your hoodie is left on the couch, stripped off before Jimin lifts you to take you to his bedroom. Your lips attach along his jaw, trailing until you come in contact with the spot that elicits an expected grunt. Your arms tighten around him, holding yourself to him while working at the skin, leaving it sensitive and bruised before he lays you down.

His fingers caress on the area, smirking softly at your quick, thorough work, but his jaw tightens when you waste no time and remove your long sleeve. Inhaling a long breath, Jimin crawls over top of you,pressing your head back into the mattress as he kisses you firmly.

“What if you regret this?” Jimin’s voice blisters against your neck, syllables left in the skin like a trail leading to your collarbone where he pauses, kissing feverishly. He knows you won’t change your mind, more so when you audibly sigh and mix your fingertips into his hair,

“I can’t regret you.” You raise your hips the short distance to rub against Jimin’s, listening to his groan when he feels you against his growing bulge, “I want you, Jimin.”

For more than just the night.

Jimin’s face equals with your own, lost in your eyes until you kiss him again, prompting him to flatten against you more. His hips rub slowly over yours, firmly pressing his hardened erection against your pelvis. You moan against his lips, fueling Jimin’s emotions to win over logic. His hand reaches for the button on your jeans quickly, desiring more contact. He halts when you nudge him upwards, immediately thinking you want to stop until your fingertips are undoing each button on his top. He smirks at your hands, watching you through the sultriness in his irises.

Jimin lets you be the one to push his shirt off his shoulders, then he lets it slip off his arms to lie next to your hips on the bed. Your palm finds his chest, cementing the beat of his heart to memory. He observes quietly, curious of the slowness in your actions. The intimacy of feeling his skin in a calm manner. The moment passes when your hand moves to cup his cheek, guiding him back down to you for a kiss labored in passion, but just as vulnerable as tears.

You grind your hips opposite of his motions, creating a deeper pressure that causes a small piece of profanity to fall from his lips. Jimin’s hand finds your cleavage, squeezing over your bra to make you gasp. The article is removed then in your haste for him to touch you more, earning darkened chuckles from his lips when you lift your back from the bed to unclasp the bra, your chest pressing to his. He admires you, “You’re so precious.”

“Then don’t break up with me.” Labored words escape when you’re back against his sheets. Under his focused stare you slip your arms from the bra straps, but hesitate to remove the cups when Jimin’s chest fills with air from a sharp inhale. Watching so intently, and you swear his eyes gaze lovingly as well. He reaches his hand over yours, guiding it to slide the lingerie from your chest, exposing yourself to him for a countless time. Beautiful.

“It’s better for us,” Jimin has the nerve, the stubbornness to say this in a low voice, despite the fact that the actions currently show he’s trapped in the thing he’s deemed no good. You shake your head, then are halted by the ghosting kiss from his lips, “You mean so much to me, lovely.” A longer ministration follows, filling your thoughts of the familiarity how sweet he’s always tasted. “But we can’t become a couple. I can’t let you deal with how lousy I am.”

“You’re not,” You pepper Jimin’s cheeks, fingers trailing along his back.

“You know how I am in the company.” You don’t speak against that idea, the one you never want to bring up because it felt like an instant argument. One you didn’t think Jimin realized. “And you’re wonderful and talented,” His kisses are short and repetitive against your lips, “And deserve better than all of the crap you’re put through. But I can’t help you with it. And I don’t want to be a reason you hold yourself back.”

Before you’re able to retort at his nonsensical words, Jimin’s hand reaches between your legs palm pressing against your jeans and rubbing friction into your core. Words are lost to a whimper unprepared for the contact as well as the proceeding action his hand takes rubbing roughly, making your hips move into him craving more. Jimin kisses at your neck listening to his name fall from your lips in a needy murmur.

His hand leaves your growing pile of nerves, eliciting a breathy whine that he kisses back into your mouth. Jimin unbuttons your jeans, “Take them off.” The demanding tone is contrastingly soft, leaving your heart beating in anticipation and complying in moments to help him rid the clothing. “God,” He lifts himself upright, knees pressing further into the mattress from his weight, while he looks you over: skin already appearing glistened from need, chest concaving from breaths that leave the mess of lovebites in view on your upper body. “So beautiful.” His head tilts watching the blush on your face grow from his words. “You know that though,” A coy smirk plays at his lips, while he reaches for your thighs, gently sliding you upwards on his bed, so your head comes close to the headboard. “I tell you,” Your mouth releases a moan when his fingers press against your clit through your panties, his lips leaving airy pecks on your thighs, “Every time I can,” His smirks grows when the swipe of his thumb against your wettening heat makes your legs jerk. Trying to close, but he removes the hand to grip them back in place, respreading, “I’m going to make you feel good.”

Profanity slips from your lips in a breathless stutter when he strips you completely, Jimin’s fingers rubbing into your clit like a map memorized. Easily causing your legs to wiggle, moans slipping out when one dips inside. “Jimin,” Needily begging for more as the digit slides in and out, readying you for the second while he continues laying kisses on your chest, decorating it with heat in every spot. “Feels-” You gasp when his thumb works against your clit, the sensation mixing with his fingers pumping inside of you making your hands grip his shoulder.

Nails graze the skin as Jimin’s fingers push all the way, he grunts from the force of your hand, but leaves a kiss to your jaw, “Don’t come,” Another ministration on your lips as you whimper, already knowing you were leaving his fingers wet along with his sheets from how he was expertly edging you along, “Not yet, lovely, wait for my mouth to take you over.”

Every piece of will to listen nearly disperts from just the tone of Jimin’s voice: slow, confident. You’re so willing to be pushed over that you’re unable to stop your hips bucking into his mouth when his tongue graces the entrance of your throbbing cunt. He chuckles against you, the vibrations themselves feel good, and your face heats from your own eagerness, but you’re more focused on giving him the satisfaction he wants, “Jimin, you’re so-” You gasp as his tongue dips deeper, moaning your next words, “Good, fuck; please, I want to come.”

“Let me taste you, baby,” Jimin’s hands hold your hips as you writhe from the pleasuring sensations. He groans low when your hand leaves the bed to tangle in his hair as your orgasm coaxes through. You tremble releasing yourself with long moans, hazy while Jimin’s lips lap up your arousal, muttering praise into your core. Your head lies against his mattress, chest taking full inhales, as Jimin sits upright. His tongue drags along the remainders of you on his lips, while his eyes take in your fucked body. He crawls overtop of you, kissing you and staining your tongue with your own taste.

“I want you inside me,” You cup Jimin’s face as you murmur the words. His eyes are lidden with desire at your statement, sharply inhaling when you go on, “Fuck me, baby, please I want to make you cum in me.” Jimin kisses you, moaning to your lips as your hand rubs his shaft through tight jeans. “It’s not even fair for you to still have these on,” He chuckles, and you can’t help the tiny smirk on your lips.

“You want to come again, baby; so needy for me.” Jimin kisses your nose, his pelvis moving into the motions of your hand. His inhales grows slightly labored when you give a squeeze to his hardened bulge before you’re unbuttoning his jeans. They’re removed in moments, Jimin’s own efforts to pull of his boxers, exposing his dick, erect and sensitive enough to cause his breaths to shake when he palms himself, “You’re sure about no condom?”

“You know I’m covered there,” You say staring at his length, swallowing in anticipation for the feeling of Jimin inside of you. He notices your sultry gaze and leans back towards you, kissing you tenderly.

The emotion takes you back for a second, feeling somewhere between melancholic and warm, you’re brought back to his conviction that this would be the last time Jimin intends to be intimate with you. When his lips leave yours, your eyes are focused on Jimin’s. There’s so much you want to ask him, but when he’s as convinced as he is, what good would it do. You’re the only one with feelings surpassing love, or else he wouldn’t do this.

Jimin kisses you again, using the remnants of your previous orgasm to lubricate his length, before he’s aligning himself with your entrance and easing himself in. Your chest raises from a breath, listening to Jimin’s moans against your lips as he tops out into you, “You’re so good around me, baby. Fuck,” He grunts when your hips buck to his. You moan as his grinding begins slow in full movements to get your walls acclimated to his dick, though you’re already well stimulated.

“Fuck,” You gasp as his pace suddenly changes, Jimin pulling out only to pound back in and make you moan his name loudly. He kisses your lips before moving back to your cheek, jaw, and neck, every inch he could while he pumps into you over and over, every audible sound from you encouraging his actions. “Jimin, Jimin,” You beg using his name, feeling his hand find yours, fingers meshing as your voice grows higher from an oncoming wave wanting to burst through. “I’m close- shit--”

“God, you feel so good; your pussy takes me so well, baby,” Jimin kisses your lip hungrily, “Come for me, lovely; I’m going to,” Your hand squeezes him as the orgasm washes over you, listening to Jimin’s moaning as his seed fills you, “Fucking,” You come undone with him, the ride going through your core and releasing around Jimin’s dick as you moan loudly, senselessly, not caring if anyone could possibly hear.

Labored breathing flows into the silence of his room. Your free hand guides Jimin’s face to yours for a sweet kiss that he lets linger into a honeylike warmth. Pulling out, Jimin then lets himself fall into the bed beside you, hand still holding yours with a seeming refusal to let go. He watches quietly while you look at his ceiling aimlessly, breathing still full as your bodies calm down. “You still want us to stop.” A statement with the tone of a question.

“Yeah,” He bites his lip as you turn on your side to face him. He feels your hand grip his with a tiny tremble, and your eyes alone make his heart nearly shatter. You try your best to force the tiniest of smiles, but Jimin gently shakes his head, “Don’t pretend for my sake, sweetie.”

“It hurts.” You whisper to let out the emotions that want to escape as tears. Jimin frowns, pulling you towards him and embracing you so you could hide your face against his chest. “Are you sure this isn’t because of the thing with Yoongi?” You ask in a trembling voice while tears build in your eyes that you try to blink back.

“It’s not.” Jimin kisses the top of your head, his hands rubbing soothingly along your back, “It’s really not, baby.” He pauses, knowing there his reasoning isn’t completely selfish as he goes on, his voice sad and his reflecting that, “We just really can’t be there for each other like we’d need to be in a relationship, lovely. We’ll just hurt each other, more than we have been lately.”

You exhale a choppy breath, trying to even out your emotions for the sake of the last night with Jimin not being only tears.

You both flinch as the night sky outside flashes, with a medley of booming sounds murmuring out in the air. Jimin’s grasp on you strengthens, contemplative of what was going on as you shift to get sight of the window, covered except for the gap between the curtains.

“It must be midnight.” Your voice is hollow and you remove yourself from his warmth to crawl off the bed. Jimin’s eyes follow you inquisitive, a pit of worry brewing that you intend to leave until your hand pushes back one of the curtains, leaving the sheer set behind it out in the open. The colorful fireworks continue in happy, vibrant colors, spilling remnants of their energy as a reflection on your skin. Jimin stares in awe, silent as you turn back to face him, picturesque and ethereal in the celebratory lights. A contradiction to the events of his apartment.

A veil in the thin curtains acts as a separator between you both in the dimness of his room and the continuation of the world outside.

You walk back towards Jimin, crawling to his open arms on the bed as he greets your return with a kiss. You take it and any following in case they’re the last, settling into Jimin’s bed with him as the blankets cover your cuddling frames. It’s a long time of contentment in each other’s arms, while you both ignore that day means an end; trying to let the fireworks and their beauty be enough of a distraction between longing kisses.

Inevitably you fall asleep first, breaths soothing in sound and sight as Jimin admires the grace of your figure in his arms. He strokes your hair like you still needed to be lulled to slumber. He thinks what it would be like if he was on your side from the first instance of you bringing up that you wanted to be credited for your work, or if he hadn’t kept quiet about his opposite, selfish opinion this long and forwards.

Your sleeping body shifts, arms tightening around his waist. Jimin can’t help the little smile, wishing he had the same outlook as you just so it wouldn’t be the last night of you being practically his. Jimin’s lips find your peaceful forehead in a warm kiss, saying a whisper that he doubts he’ll ever get to say again, “I love you.”

if you enjoy please, please let me know! i hope you enjoy the series, i’m working really hard on it! : ) also don’t drag me for the smut in this chapter it may or may not be good idk im worried lmaoadsjfgk

tag list (send an ask to be added): @jaiuneamesolitaiire​ @tsvkino-usagi​​

#jimin #yoongi #bts #jimin imagines #yoongi imagines #bts imagines #bts series #yoongi series #jimin series #jimin smut #yoongi smut #bts smut #jimin fluff #yoongi fluff #bts fluff #bts angst #yoongi angst #jimin angst #all #series veil

[vuelie-frost]

Frozen Broadway 2.16.20. Caissie and Patti’s last show.

Okay, I'm finally able to write a rundown of the show. 

Note that I'm not experienced in writing about Broadway shows- mostly because I've only seen a handful- and I apologize in advance if this comes off kitschy or redundant. Theatre is a foreign world to me, so I observe as an outsider. I mostly want to write this just to immortalize the experience, but via Tumblr I can share it (to the best of my ability) with you all! - My seat was ORCH row A, which is second row, in the right section.

- I went by myself (took the weekend as a "mini vacation" to NYC)

- I did see this show last May with Caissie & Patti, and although it's been almost a year, I do have a "normal" performance to compare it to. Mattea Conforti was right outside the door as I walked in, talking to a doorman. I realized later when exiting that a small slew of the previous young Annas and Elsas were in attendance too- they were sitting a few rows behind me. Waiting for the show to begin, I heard a lot of chatter around me regarding Caissie & Patti finishing their runs. Everyone seemed to be here intentionally for this night. A lot of young adults & older teens (?) in my vicinity. Kids too, as expected, but the number of adults was notable. As soon as the first few notes of that orchestral Vuelie hit, I started to tear up. It literally crashes into the theatre with a swell of vocal harmonies and percussive beats. It's hard to not be overwhelmed. Vuelie has always had this effect on me. It's like it's saying "Come, let me tell you this story." I was reminded of Hadestown and the motif of repetition, how we listen to the same stories over and over again even if we know the end. I wonder why that is. The first scenes with the little girls ran like clockwork- they're brilliant and funny. I remained teary through this whole sequence, because it's just childlike happiness and wholeness before everything goes to shit. Knowing what's going to happen, it just grips your empathy. And then Patti took the stage. Patti entered to the darkened back of the stage as the scenes were shifting between young Anna & adult Anna, which means her entrance itself didn't garner applause. But as soon as that spotlight hit her, it was an uproar. Wild applause. Standing ovation. The music stopped- it had to- no one could have heard it anyway. Tears visible in her eyes, she just looked out and straight ahead. Her face was flushed. It was evident she was emotional & didn't try to suppress it fully, but had to maintain some composure to get through the scene. She kept nodding slightly and pressing her hand to her chest, acknowledging us. This almost broke me. She knew. But she had a job to do, a few lines to sing (which she did perfectly DESPITE CRYING.) Eventually when it quieted she sang. The door swiveled. The light hit Caissie. All over again, a thundering standing ovation. This is where Caissie's brilliance lies, because she was borderline stoic while waiting for us to finish applauding. She gazed out at us for awhile, eventually shifting her focus upward and to her left, and to the door behind her. I don't think she smiled- she might have nodded once or twice. She waited. The emotionality displayed by Patti, which we all love for its honesty, was foiled by Caissie's ability to hold it together, which we love for its professionalism. (Don't even get me started on how in-character these contrasting displays were. I could go on and on about how these women match their characters so beautifully.)

From that second, something shifted in the audience. We were no longer spectators, we were participants in blurring the fourth wall. Not that we heckled or were addressed directly by the company. But we came alive. The actresses knew. We knew. We shared that unspoken sentiment. The show continued.

I don't have specific examples here because it's only something you can observe, but it was very obvious that both women were putting 110% into this performance. I understand sometimes in performance art that for self-preservation or focus, you make minor changes to how lines are said, or the emphasis of certain words, or how your facial expressions change. Sometimes you hold back a bit. Caissie and Patti went all out. Their acting was never compromised. Patti's hilarity as Anna hit every punchline perfectly. Caissie's portrayal of nervousness and fear was so believable. I also wish I could have captured every moment they looked at each other. I mostly saw Caissie's face from my perspective, but the way they look at each other is genuine. I get the sense they have this unspoken communication between them after doing the show so many times together. Dangerous to Dream was beautiful per always, and at the moment Patti kneels upstage, I again saw tears glimmering in her eyes. How this woman can do a whole show so obviously affected and STILL NAILING IT is genius. At the end of Love is an Open Door, Patti and Joe took a moment to just grin wildly at each other and grip each other's arms and bear-hug. I didn't realize this was Joe's last show as well, so it was their last duet of that song. Let it Go was spellbinding. Caissie took every opportunity to option up not just on the final few notes (which have been unfortunately bootlegged, and you've probably heard already) but in tiny points along the whole song. She actually did this with all her songs. If there was a half step variation she could do, she did it. It was remarkable. You get the sense she was having fun, trying to engage us. I remember an interview where she once said on certain shows or nights if she's feeling up to it, she likes to give the audience a little something extra. This was THE night. As she walked back before the dress change, I could feel people around me suddenly shift to get a better view. We all knew and we all wanted to see it. In a recent interview she said she just stands there and braces. You wouldn't know it- it looks effortless. The nanosecond the dress changed: standing ovation. This is where she started really grinning wildly and belting her lungs out. She was at the foot of center stage, riffing and optioning up a storm. Her expression was so joyous. She's said before that this is her favorite part of the show. Every time she optioned up (which was like, each one of the last four notes) there was a massive wave of cheers and applause. I expected her to do maybe one or two. She did four or five. And keep in mind this was her SECOND SHOW OF THE DAY. The song ends abruptly with her turning around with a swish of her cape & the lights going nearly out, and I get the sense that the thunderous applause wanted to keep going because we wanted her to SEE us. We wanted to face her and give her the recognition. We wanted to stop the show like in the beginning and show her how much she means to us, and how honored we are to hear her last Let it Go. But the choreography doesn't let that happen, because immediately the lights come back up for intermission, and she's gone. I wonder if she secretly likes that sequence, as Caissie seems to be the kind of person whose humility doesn't let her drink in compliments or praise. She was able to give us everything she had, and then disappear. Such an Elsa move. Monster had some riffs (which is not in any way disappointing because Caissie gave us 200% in Let it Go, which was enough to satiate me for years) but I did want to mention one in particular. If you watched Jelani's backstage videos on YouTube from the first few months of the show, he does this segment where he gets Caissie to riff. She does one from Monster for the line "Would that take the storm away/Or only make it grow." I'm not going to try and phonetically replicate it, but that. She did that. I was hoping she would, as it's one of my favorite variations of hers, and she did. I was ecstatic. The finale song is where Patti started crying again and from the moment they started walking backstage to the rising platform, it was applause all around. In that sequence they're facing away from the audience and I can only imagine the exchange- spoken or unspoken- between them. They did it. Their run was over. There are a few lines at the end that may just be me projecting, but they felt poignant in how Caissie delivered them & her expression looking at Patti (again, Patti was facing away from me, so I didn't catch her expression.) I get the sense they had a triple meaning, as they not only marked the end of the show but represent sentiments two sisterly women would have.

"The magic one is you." (This is perhaps my favorite line in the whole song.) "Let the sun shine on" "Let's fill this world with light and love/And now surrounded by a family at last/We're never going back, the past is in the past." The final "let it go" line in the song Caissie looked joyous. She was all smiles. She grinned at Patti. There was a look of pride in her eyes. At bows, apparently Caissie and Patti have this tradition where they say “I love you” at the front of the stage before bowing. I could only see Caissie, but she mouthed “I love you” to Patti with such a big smile and so much happiness. If Caissie cried at all prior to bows & acknowledgements, I didn't notice it. It's possible she's just very very good at hiding it. Even during Robert, Bobby, and Kristin talking at the very end, she only wiped her eyes once or twice. (I won't recount this part very much because many people filmed it and you can watch it yourselves. I've seen it on Instagram, though I haven't browsed Tumblr for it yet.) Patti, of course, could not hide her feelings. Caissie kept hugging her and squeezing her and holding her hand during all the kind words. At once point she wiped her thumb on Patti's cheek. Patti is a treasure. I have to respect the woman for being brave enough to show all of herself to us, even if it was involuntary. And I need to reiterate that she did the whole show perfectly even while crying & feeling a lot of feelings. She's a rockstar. Caissie, while fielding a slew of compliments from Robert & Kristin, would every once in awhile look down and do a funny little shake of her head. I get the sense she has a hard time accepting praise. Knowing she’s such a perfectionist at heart, she was probably internally fighting back with reasons why she didn’t deserve those kind words. I get it. It doesn’t matter how successful you are, you will always focus on the things you didn’t do or didn’t do enough. For someone of her caliber, it’s utterly fascinating to watch her humility.  One last thing I want to point out. I mentioned earlier that from the moment of our first standing ovation, the atmosphere in the crowd changed. We went from spectators to a living, breathing mass. It was electric. Once you felt the gravity of the cheers and claps and whoops, you realized what you were part of. I heard from a reviewer on Twitter that he hadn't been part of such a lively audience-performer relationship since the closing show of In the Heights. Because that's what was different about last night. We crossed some sort of line where the art itself was no longer performance, but we partook in it. There's something really holy about the invisible exchange between performers and the spectators. Frozen is a masterpiece on its own, and we were all blessed to watch it. But when art becomes a give-take exchange of feelings, emotes, cathartic impulses, and unspoken communication, it becomes something new entirely. This was no ordinary night. Caissie and Patti gave all of themselves to us, and we knew, and we answered back. It felt alive in a way I didn't realize theatre could feel. The fourth wall ceased to exist, but only because both sides dissolved it. It wasn't direct. It wasn't obvious. No exchange of words indicated it. We just felt it and knew. They did too. It was an honor to take up space in the St James last night. I haven’t stopped thinking about it, and I will never forget it.

#frozen the broadway musical #frozen #elsa #anna #caissie levy #patti murin

[multiversemuses]

Happy Holidays, @houseofhaseul! As part of my Secret Santa gift for you (the other half can be found below), I wanted to put together a little aesthetic imagining for the softer version of our Coven universe. Here, days are golden and full of what’ll be cherished remembrances, and nobody dies. Romantic connections and friendships are formed but, best of all, a found family. 

Thank you so much for all the characters and ’verses we’ve created together (asdfghjkl; I can’t believe it’s going on six years since you applied to NYBN), and thank you from the bottom of my heart for your years of friendship! <3 I’ve loved every idea and creative avenue we’ve already explored, and I’m so excited for our adventures yet to come!!

(Secret Santa Part 2/2)

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4DYWTSIMC3kvKf1B6YUGS6

~ A playlist of songs either directly from my muses’ music collection or whose sound + lyrics resonated with how I think they’d feel about their respective love interests in this softer world ~

Baby I'm A Fool - Melody Gardot - from Mina

I’ve always imagined her music tastes leaning toward this jazzy, sultry sound. I’m not sure how Alex comes into the picture in an alternate universe where she wasn’t sent with a purpose, but I like to think the push-and-pull between these two still exists. If I could overlay the time period when Mina is starting to lower her walls - though still not fully trusting Alex’s intentions just yet - with a little non-diegetic music, this is the type of mood I’d like to set on a night when they’re sharing drinks in Mina’s office after everyone else has gone to their rooms upstairs. 

That's All - Mel Tormé version - from Tarik

Tarik’s tunes consist of modern songs he can vibe to and music that was before his time but sounds great on vinyl. The main requirement I knew he’d have for a track representing his relationship with Archie is that it be something they could slow dance to in the greenhouse/their rooms together. The fact that this song in particular makes repeated references to “forever” and being resilient against the passage of time felt especially fitting considering Archie’s long life. I also like the pictures it paints, with years of hand holding and walks through nature. It suits them and warms my heart. 

I Love You - Sarah McLachlan - from Léonie

Given that Dominic doesn’t come to the academy for detective work in this universe, it felt reasonable to assume there’d be more of a longing-in-local-proximity feel to their dynamic here. They’d be aware of each other because Léonie picked up students from the station, but they might not often have an occasion to talk otherwise. Thus, they’d pine while passing each other on the streets in town until they finally grew weary of excuses not to take a chance and try.

Dream A Little Dream - Kina Grannis version - from Kayara

Being the old soul that she is, I thought a classic song covered by a modern artist would fit Kayara pretty well. Since a common quality time activity between them involves gazing at the night sky and making up their own constellations, I couldn’t help seeking out a song that centers around nighttime and speaks frequently of the stars. This song also has that sense of aching for each other while having to be apart, which was an element I wanted to include for our dear ones who must bide their time and keep their connection a secret.

It's You - Michelle Branch - from Sofia

This song comes up on shuffle on her phone when they’re studying together one night. While Alesha’s still looking down at her book, Sofia’s just openly gazing at her in profile with a soft smile. Is this likely their First Kiss song in the softer universe? *nods* Oh yeah. 100% a First Kiss song. If anything, the lyrics just gave it a blatant push of encouragement. Thank you, Michelle Branch.

Ordinary Day - Vanessa Carlton - from Nola

Phew, I was really going back to my middle school roots in this section of the playlist, wasn’t I? I have zero regrets because applying the song to their relationship was too cute to resist. I immediately became that little pleading face emoji imaging the gentler timeline for them. Danny and Nola get to make their sparkling connection and nothing tragic interferes with actually exploring that. Someone in the comments on YouTube remarked that this song has a Peter/Wendy feel to it. Setting aside how actual Peter Pan can be kind of terrifying, I am quite taken with the Disney parallel of a redheaded boy sweeping a girl with sandy brown hair away to a magical world that is technically accessible from her own, but only if she’s let in by someone from there who decides to trust her.

I've Just Seen A Face - The Beatles - from Rhett

Initially, I assumed Rhett’s track would be something he first heard in the garage with his dad, but it turned out to be a song played in the house by his mother instead. Persuading him to let me set any of his feelings to music in public posed a bit of a challenge in and of itself. However, I think he at least approves of the fact that this one’s not overwrought. It has a fun energy for our playful pranksters, the sort of thing I could imagine over a montage of their shenanigans, with their friends laughing and exchanging knowing looks in the background. 

Youth - Troye Sivan - from Mariette

I trusted my sister’s musical tastes for Ri’s selection, because they’d be such kindred spirits if Mariette existed in our world. I wanted something that captured the joy of a young love, a song that felt like a celebratory swan dive into deep feelings despite already suffering her first heartbreak. It’s the sort of thing she could use as a background track on social media with photos and/or video clips of her time spent making memories with Garrett.

Complicated - Fitz and The Tantrums - from Neve

A song with chaotic energy for our reckless-hookup-turned-relationship. This is absolutely in Neve’s iTunes library somewhere. It’s felt like Their Song to me ever since I heard it for the first time, and I could imagine her identifying with it during the early days of their relationship. The “I love to hate it” line is like, but do you really, though? Or is it the other way around? They’ll work it out and get to softer sentiments eventually. ;)

The Other Side - Betty Who - from Vanessa

I knew, for dearest Nessa’s track, I was looking for something that felt like it could fit in on a playlist with Dancing On My Own by Robyn, our cosigned Marty song from the Unconfessed Feelings Time. Betty Who’s style absolutely fits that bill. I was delighted that there was a reference to bike riding right out the gate, and I liked that this song managed to be full of wishful sentiments but not too angsty. It simply yet perfectly describes the way conversation flows between them, and how often they can stay up late into the night in their dorm room just chatting. The line about saying “I love you” when it’s likely to go unheard, at a time when she knows Marty’s still exploring with other people, adds that dash of temporarily unrequited that gives my heart pangs but doesn’t feel like it will last indefinitely. Someday Marty loving her right back will shift from the platonic variety to something romantic. Vanessa’s heart will be just as full of devotion when it does.

#Secret Santa 2020 #theclonewriter #houseofhaseul #Made for Muses #Verse: Coven #Insp. Music

[citizenscreen]

This is a special guest post by Scott Holleran:

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My first experience of this movie was probably on television, probably in fragments. It made an impression but the movie ranged into my memory as a series of scenes disembodied from the whole work. For example, I remember watching the burning of Atlanta and certain, distinctive scenes and not much else. So, my first impressions were perfect for today’s conceptual-deprivation culture. That’s the poverty of being among the TV generation.

It took a long time to appreciate this film as a work of art, which now I know it is. At some point, as I began to take a serious interest in movies, I rediscovered it on home video. Then, again, on disc and possibly again in a revival house on one of those scratchy prints with popping sounds. That a civilization could be gone with the wind came through and I was an admirer. Later, I read about the novel upon which the movie’s based, which, with a romance novel-type jacket design for the mass market paperback edition, was off-putting.

At some point, it dawned on me that Gone With the Wind is an important epic motion picture so I sought its source and read the novel. I was astonished at the brilliant writing. I instantly observed a similarity to my favorite novel, also an epic of American literature and also written by an author who happens to be a woman. Gone With the Wind (1936) by Margaret Mitchell conveys the romanticism, scope and grandeur of Atlas Shrugged (1957) by Ayn Rand and it’s worth noting that Rand’s first novel, too, involved a love triangle woven into the end of an era in her own 1936 novel, We the Living.

After reading Mitchell’s novel, I saw the movie again — and again. Each time, I was more impressed. And, each time, I was more impressed that I was able to be additionally impressed. This is because, as you probably know, the more you know and study a motion picture, the more easily the film can lose its newness, its ability to hold and sustain interest or focus, suspense, tension or sense of plot progression and, as a result, the less likely it can be to stir one’s original passion.

Then, a few weeks ago, I saw Gone With the Wind, which, this year, marks its 80th anniversary in a culture in which it is extremely likely to be impugned or maligned. I saw it for the first time at one of the grandest movie theaters on earth: Sid Grauman’s Chinese theater on Hollywood Boulevard.

And, this time, for the first time, I was moved … to tears.

The nearly four-hour motion picture begins with three characters in Georgia talking about war. This is an essential starting point. The novel more or less begins with this starting point, too. Gone With the Wind frames its story within an argument over the fact of an oncoming war. It’s not that they’re debating the merits of war. They’re discussing the prospect of war as such; they’re considering the impact of war on their lives. So, this, the fundamental choice to face the facts of reality, is the starting point. Not the war itself. Not slavery, the issue in dispute.

Gone With the Wind is not a war movie. Gone With the Wind is not a slavery movie. Any discourse of it as either entirely misses the movie. It is also, strictly speaking, not a romance, though war, slavery and romance factor into its drama to various degrees. Gone With the Wind dramatizes an entire civilization through the life of a single individual.

Her name is Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh at her best).

Shallow, scheming and self-centered, she’s enraged when she learns during this discussion, in which she’s attempting to ignore the reality of impending civil war, that the object of her desire, Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard), plans to marry his cousin, Melanie Hamilton (Olivia de Havilland). In subsequent scenes, the men who will become pivotal to the young, impetuous Scarlett’s life, including her father, Gerald O’Hara, but also Frank Kennedy, Ashley Wilkes, Charles Hamilton and a cad named Rhett Butler, argue war on the merits, whistle “Dixie” and, with the recklessness which exemplifies the pre-Civil War American South, crow about going to war.

In this sense, there is real substance to this movie in terms of its grasp of facts and history. Every Southern deficiency is depicted here. The staggeringly affected manners, the pompous preposterousness, the asinine traditions but also the proportionately and wildly irrational inflation of people’s sense of themselves with regard to their actual merit and worth, let alone the source of their wealth, not the main focus and therefore largely unseen. The fact of slave labor is, however, shown, even if it’s not dramatized, though it is more explicit than most films of the era. House, field and overseer are each crucial elements of Twelve Oaks and Tara, the plantations where Gone With the Wind takes place.

What’s good in the South, too, is depicted. The stunning visuals, the land, manners, socializing and courtship and the gentle way of life. Pretty and feisty Scarlett, who’s earned a reputation for being bolder than her peers, holds court and gets talked about by other females and looked upon by men. The outbreak of civil war occurs within her context.

The plot revolves around Scarlett O’Hara; there is a sense in which her pettiness will be tested by war — and what’s impure about Scarlett is fundamentally what will be Gone With the Wind.

The early evidence is Scarlett standing at the window, looking down upon newlyweds Melanie and Ashley. Here’s the heroine on the inside looking out. Yet think about the meaning of her dilemma; she’s really trapped within the Old South, as the opening titles refer to this archaic slave society. In this sense, Scarlett dramatizes how the South’s ways impair the powerful, too. Her only real saviors, friends and comrades, as far as Scarlett knows, are slaves and an angry Irishman. Everyone else is happily, some even stupidly, off to war. In a flash, again like the title, they are gone. Scarlett is left behind — abandoned, lonely and alone.

What comes next builds character, with an outbreak of measles, a move to Atlanta and the entre of the ridiculous Aunt Pittypat, as cartoonish a figure as in the novel. Scarlett’s Mammy (Hattie McDaniel in one of the screen’s greatest performances), knowing all along what exploits the ambitious young missy has in mind, represents the best of Scarlett’s youthful vigor; Mammy fosters, shapes and marks her charge’s growth. Amid a dance, a bid and donation of a ring, Scarlett learns from her new companion, Melanie, wife of the man she thinks she loves.

Here are women in service at war. This, too, is to the film’s credit. Gone With the Wind remains one of the most intelligent, insightful portrayals of women at war ever made, better and more knowing than the hordes of depictions of today’s mindless women on screen who rarely if ever think about anything having to do with serious issues, let alone war or the men sent to fight them.

With intermittent titles, David O. Selznick’s Gone With the Wind, famously directed by Victor Fleming (The Wizard of Oz), with others also filling in, shifts from breeze to gust with news from Gettysburg. Then, come the war-torn faces of those in Atlanta cast down in bonnets amid news of mass death. Fleming lingers on a list of those killed in action. It is words, not pictures that tell the horrid tale. The camera scrolls down, down, down and down on the same three words.

Cue the theme song “Dixie” as a reprise to the earlier tune’s sense of false jubilation and enter a man of reason, Doctor Meade (Harry Davenport), whose role in the picture is a crucial representation of what will become Scarlett’s education. In a shift to black-and-white color schemes from the rest of the film’s vibrant colors, Gone With the Wind goes from sad and mournful “Dixie” to a musically infused projection of a funeral procession in which Johnny comes marching home.

As Pittypat, Meade, Mammy, Melanie and a young slave named Prissy (Butterfly McQueen) besides Scarlett get dragged, plunged and thrust into the South’s mass death and destruction, in comes Rhett Butler (Clark Gable, brilliantly cast and stellar in the role) with vitality, passion and rage — at the Old South for being the Old South. Butler represents the New South, post-slavery, post-Civil War, though it’s never fashioned or made explicit. What a waste of human life — this is the meaning of his every form of his disgust and he makes no attempt to conceal his emotions or suppress himself in expressing what he feels. Like Scarlett, he is a liberated soul stifled and trapped by the way things are.

There’s music, humor and, during a dance which captures and underscores the surrealism of life during wartime, a total breach from traditionalism. Life remains drab as Scarlett and Atlanta face severe deprivation. Butler has a prostitute, Belle Watling (Ona Munson), to help him ease the chronic anxiety, guilt and agony of war and she’s more than a cliché. The pictures show rain, shadows and the hotly feared Union General William Sherman’s shelling of Atlanta, with churches coming on like a holy calling from God to cease and desist with the Old South rebellion. Pictures of Jesus Christ accompany the sound of moans, the sights of a church and, in one of the movies’ most iconic scenes, the camera pulls back for a scene of mass death and dying.

“Peace be within thy walls“ incongruously graces the screen after Scarlett O’Hara encounters a patient with gangrene. Perhaps you don’t know or remember the grit of Gone With the Wind but it’s there. Between marriages, the making of Scarlett from romantic Southern belle to seasoned war bride happens during Atlanta’s silence and siege. And it isn’t even Intermission.

Before that comes, as Rhett Butler finally kisses Scarlett and enlists in the war for a kind of misintegrated sense of honor, slave Prissy hinges the plot. Prissy’s trauma triggers a key reaction that results in the story’s classic and quite penetrating tale within a tale of three women and a baby. Though this famous scene is generally regarded as humorous, I think after seeing Gone With the Wind in the Chinese theater that simple-minded Prissy’s meltdown underscores the folly of slavery even as it echoes as a call and response to Scarlett’s own earlier cluelessness.

A foreshadowing scene on a bridge marks the end of slavery preceding a scene in which women take refuge in reading (in the novel, it’s a story by Victor Hugo; here, it’s fiction by Charles Dickens). The self-made theme continues with a rainbow followed by blackness, fog and a strange yet familiar place.

The shock and violence of post-war Tara soon becomes clear. Scarlett strikes her sister, Prissy and pretty much everyone else except her mother figure, Mammy, and she forges a secret bond with Melanie over the death of a soldier. By the time war widow Scarlett, who’s remade herself as a businesswoman in post-war Southern society, meets again with her true love Ashley Wilkes, who tells her that he admires her for “facing reality“, the heroine grips the earth and grasps her property rights, legacy and life lessons and vows … to herself and her own ego.

Gone With the Wind essentially carries Scarlett in conversation with herself throughout the epic movie. From that first conversation at Tara with her suitors, the Tarleton twins, to becoming a Confederate captain’s wife in New Orleans and hiring as her subordinate the man to whom she’d once pledged to worship and motherhood, Scarlett O’Hara is both intransigent and indomitable. She will not be struck down.

Like Mammy, the former slave woman whose respect everyone respectable seeks to earn and keep, Scarlett keeps company with herself as a worldly woman alone. She makes mistakes — she makes a terrible parent — and she makes money and love. Scarlett liberates herself from tradition for capitalism, egoism and her own way of life. Gone With the Wind traces her journey in this sense from selflessness to selfishness, in time for the man whose love she finally earns to come full circle with his own mistakes, i.e., drinking alone and taking pity on himself, to reject her with the movie’s most famous line.

“Frankly, my dear…” and the precision with which Mr. Gable delivers the line redeems the film’s previous strife and tension into a single moment. It is tempting to root for what at first might seem like his own redemption. But Gone With the Wind is not the leading man’s story and, on the movie’s terns, it’s a mistake to jeer or cheer the line.

‘Frankly’ spends itself on a serious dramatic moment; it signifies Rhett Butler’s ultimate betrayal of himself — in particular, his idealism — and everything he loves. And it signals one of the screen’s greatest victories.

While the ‘Frankly’ line endures in audience memories, it is tellingly uttered only after man and woman stand as equals on the landing of the staircase from which Scarlett has literally taken a tumble in a penultimate descent — only to rise again — and, also tellingly, it comes before the movie’s last and final line.

“I’ll figure out a way to get him back … tomorrow is another day.”

This is the triumph, the meaning and the glory of Gone With the Wind. It is not a film about the slavery. It is not a movie about civil war. It is not a picture of what war does to a slave, a woman and a man — or a family, a home and way of life, though it rarely gets credit for its insights into each of those dramatizations. There is depth to this movie about Prissy, the overseer, Pittypat, India, Charles, Sue Ellen and more, not just Ashley, Melanie, Mammy, Dr. Meade or Scarlett and Rhett Butler.

Like We the Living, Atlas Shrugged and other epic novels by Hugo, Rand and other great works of literature and movies, it is an expression of the ability of the individual to resist the times, the trials and ruins of the day, rise and never let one’s ego be destroyed. It is the story of a man, or, in this case, a woman — or, in any case, a girl who becomes one — and it is certainly not a romance for romance’s sake. Gone With the Wind depicts the promise not to yield, suffer and be beaten down. It is in this sense, to paraphrase one its admirers, Ayn Rand, a paean to forging the “I” one must learn how to say before one can learn to say “I love you”.

This is why it ends where it vows to once again begin.

—

Gone With the Wind screened during the 10th anniversary Turner Classic Movies festival on April 14, 2019 for its historic 80th anniversary at the Chinese movie theater designed and built by Sid Grauman. This was the 25th anniversary date of the film’s initial airing — the first motion picture showcased without interruption or editing — on Ted Turner’s Turner Classic Movies (TCM) cable channel’s first day of launch. The movie was introduced by TCM’s festival director, Genevieve McGuillicuddy, before the original Robert Osborne introduction from April 14, 1994 was shown before the movie.

  ◊

Scott Holleran began his professional writing career as a newspaper correspondent in 1991. He’s worked in a variety of media, including magazines, broadcasting and Internet ventures. His news, cultural commentary, sports and other topical articles has been published in the Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal and Philadelphia Inquirer. You can find Scott on Facebook, Twitter or on his website. I’m thrilled Scott reached out to feature this entry on Once Upon a Screen. I hope there will be others.

  Analysis: GONE WITH THE WIND (1939) This is a special guest post by Scott Holleran: ◊ My first experience of this movie was probably on television, probably in fragments.

#Butterfly McQueen #Clark Gable #David O. Selznick #Gone with the Wind #Harry Davenport #Hattie McDaniel #Leslie Howard #Margaret Mitchell #Olivia de Havilland #Ona Munson #TCM #Victor Fleming #Vivien Leigh

[vreugd-madelon]

A Series of Unfortunate Events Review

A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket is a 13 part series, consisting of 2,433 total pages. It's a Young Adult series. I listened to these books on Storytel in English. I've read these books when I was young in Dutch, but as I recently saw the show on Netflix I became nostalgic. I enjoyed the show so much and I wanted to re-read the series, so I did. I've yet to obtain them in physical form, but that will also happen in the future.

This is the story of the three Baudelaire children, who become orphans as their house burns down with their parents inside. This is their tragic tale, as they travel across the country. If you can't stand tragedy and misfortune, you shouldn't pick up this series.

Warning for Misforture, Arson and Death.

#1) Bad Beginnings - Rating: 5 Stars. This was an amazing story. I do like what they had done as it really feels like Lemony Snicket is reading to it you, as it makes references as to it being an audiobook. The story is told with an entire cast of people, and there are background noises as well to round out the entire recording. Think of people chattering in the background or the soft thud of a dropped stone. The ominous presence that the book creates is very real, almost tangible.

#2) The Reptile Room - Rating: 3 Stars. This recording is very different from the first. The entire cast and background noises are gone, but it doesn't nessissarrily make it worse, just different. But the couching of Mr. Poe is unbearable near the end. It was only when we were first introduced to Uncle Monty that my enjoyment began to wane. I dislike the voice used for him. I dislike the character and his mannerisms as it makes him come across as a stupid man.' There is one odd question that rose through my mind as I listened; Does Uncle Monty have a permit/license to keep all the exotic animals?

#3) the Wide Window - Rating: 4 Stars. I liked this books a little more than the last. I did greatly enjoy the voice of Lemony Snicket, who narrated this. The annoying couching of Mr. Poe isn't present, and I don't dislike that the background noises have disappeared still. For the characters, there is only one dislike, Aunt Josephine. While in the Netflix show she has a redemption arc. This is present in the books. Even near the end she is willing to give up the children, but it doesn't help her. One thing I do like is the surroundings and the atmosphere, especially with Hurricane Herman approaching. It does feel completely ominous.

#4) The Miserable Mill - Rating: 5 Stars. This books is one I enjoyed more than the previous too. The only think I disliked is the voice given to Sir, the owner of the Lucky Smells Lumber Mill. It's so robotic and unpleasent. A thing I do like very much is that Violet and Klaus switch their usual gifts. Violet reads a book which helps break the hypnosis, which is usually Klaus' thing. Klaus on the other hand invents a make-shift fishingpole to save Charles from the saw, while that is more Violet's gimmick. It's nice to see such a progression within their characters, as it shows that they have learned from one another.

#5) The Austere Acadamy - Rating: 5 Stars. I do like this book. The feeling of the grim and dark place that these books are set in really comes through here. Vice-Principle Nero is horrible. Carmelita Spats is annoying. The Quagmire Triplets become true friends in the short amount of time with the bodulair children.

#6) The Ersatz Elevator - Rating: 4.5 Stars. I was only familiar with the Netflix show about this book. From my memories of my childhood, I don't remember anything. The show deviates a lot from the book, and somehow it was nice to not know what the next step was in their adventure. There is one small thing that bothered me and that is time in combination with the Ersatz Elevator, it just doesn't seem right to me. It seems like too much time is happening than it actually is. Like a day is 30 hours long instead of 24 hours. Besides that, this book was amazing.

#7) The Vile Village - Rating: 4.5 Stars. I enjoyed my time with this book. But there are still a few things that I dislike. First off is Jacques Snicket and his ending. This is the first time he is ever mentioned, and his death is supposed to be really impacting, but I couldn't care less. In the Netflix show we spend more time with him, so it's more impactful. I love the note to the editor in this one.

#8) The Hostile Hospital - Rating: 4 Stars. I liked this one the least. While it is the one with the highest stakes yet, especially in the way of plot progression. We do see very little of Count Olaf, but there is a still an ominous prescense that lurks around, that he is behind everything. I loved the atmosphere of the hospital and it's not one I want to end up in.

#9) The Carnivorous Carnival - Rating: 5 Stars. I enjoyed this one greatly as we see much progression; not only in the story, but also in background en character development. We see Sunny interest in cooking unfurl for the first time as she adds cinnamon to hot choco. We see more of V.F.D. and what they represent. There were some minor questions that I asked myself while listening; like how does the rollercoaster work exactly without rails. I felt sorry for the lions who got burned alive. The book ended with a dramatic cliffhanger, and the PS. was very interesting and stood out from all the others.

#10) The Slippery Slope - Rating: 5 Stars. I know this book takes place on Mount Fraught, but the amount of cliffhangers is surreal. Almost every chapter is one, and I wasn't able to read it all in one sitting, so I was anxious to continue on. At a certain point Lemony Snicket tell us that he didn't know what happened to the white-faced women after they left Olaf's troupe, but yet the story is written in such a way that he knew what every character was saying in a particular moment. Weird. We see more and more of Sunny's ingenuity in cooking.

#11) The Grim Grotto - Rating: 5 Stars. One character in this book annoyed me, but I later grew to miss him. And that is Captain Withershins. He is a chubby man with a mouth like a gatling gun, as he always talks on and on. Yet at one moment he disappears with Phil, and I began to miss him, just like Fiona does. Another nice progression in character is Olaf, who almost dispises Carmalita as much as me. I like how at the end the lives begin to turn around as they meet Kit Snicket.

#12) The Penultimate Peril - Rating: 5 Stars. I loved this one. In my opinion is this the best one of all. We come to know so much about the characters, the backstory and the future that is ahead. I loved the characters, especially the Denouemont brothers. If a character was in the lives of the Baudelairs adn they are still alive, they make an appearance here. Too bad they all... well I shouldn't spoil the ending.

#13) The End - Rating: 3 Stars. This one is just an Excessive Ending. It goes on an on, and while most is about the habbits of the islanders and back background of certain characters. I feel that little else happend. Most of the character aren't present, mostly due to the remote location, but it makes the book feel empty. The pacing is suddenly very slow, mostly because of the many descriptions. I can now understand why Netflix made this last book into a 1 parter instead of 2 parts.

I have a few concluding comments about the series as a whole. 1. I like the people used for each book. They do really fit and they are able to put up a wide range of voices. Most of the series was narrated by Tim Curry. 2. Each book begins with a little song, which are always fitting to each book. They are well produced. 3. At the end of each book we get a note to the editor. A small snippet of what is to come in the next part of the series. It is written in universe which is a really nice touch. 4. Each book has 13 chapters, where in the last one the bad becomes worse. 5. I love all the covers. In the beginning they resemble the original books, but the other are more like the Netflix show. 6. Characters overall feel rounded and diverse. And seeing that there are a lot it's very difficult. I think this also has to do with the return of many of them in book 12.

If you have any questions send me an ask here on tumblr or tweet me. If there are any books that you want to recommend, be sure to let me know! Tell me as well, if you like 1 post about a long series like this one.

#A series of unfortunate events #asoue netflix #asoue #netflix #book #books #review #book review #series #unfortunate events #lemony snicket

[fresh-outta-jams]

The Man of My Dreams

The Man of My Dreams Yoongi x Reader Soulmate AU

Author: Admin Mo Sequel to So Far Away (Link in Masterlist) Word Count: 2.3k Warnings: Soulmate Fluffff

Since you and Yoongi had met in person, not all that much had changed between you. When you were dreaming, you talked and hung out, and in person, it was the same, but without the talking. Yoongi had been working his ass off to learn ASL so you didn’t have to write everything out all the time, and he was getting good at reading your lips too. He didn’t try to make a big show of it, because he wasn’t that kind of person, but you noticed his improvement without him having to say anything.

When you were together in person, you spent a lot of time working on music. Oftentimes, he would pull you into his lap in the Genius Lab, strap some headphones on your head, and have you pick out what was slightly off. You were good at that. Other times, you would pluck out impromptu duets and giggle at the spontaneous chaos of the keys, clashing until you found a blend that worked.

The boys noticed a shift in his demeanor when he was around you. He was softer, lighter, not necessarily all that different, but different enough for them to notice. It happened to them too, when they were with their soulmates. There was something about the chemistry two members of a soul bond shared, something irreplaceable and unbreakable. No matter how many times the adults in your lives had described it to you, none of their explanations could compare to the feeling of it. There were no words to describe how close you felt to him, but maybe it was partially because you had known him for a few years prior to meeting him in real life.

As soon as the two of you could find time in your busy, busy schedules, Yoongi pulled some strings and arranged for a little trip.

By the time the day came for your vacation, you hadn’t seen Yoongi in real life in at least a few months. You were seriously craving his warmth, his arms around you, his voice in your ear. And what better place to satisfy your needs than in the happiest place on earth?

Destination: Disney World.

When you landed at the airport, you were looking for a driver with a sign with your name on it. Instead, you found a familiar face and a head of brightly colored hair. Rainbow.

(Y/N) “Rainbow” Garcia was Hoseok’s soulmate. She had the same name as you, so she had taken on the name “Rainbow” so the boys could tell you apart.

“Hey girl,” Rainbow smiled, pulling you in for a hug. You had already met her once for the TwoHearts Awards, and you and the other BTS soulmates had a group chat. It was lit. “You ready to get our Disney on?”

You nodded and gave her a thumbs-up. She handed you a pair of Minnie Mouse ears and you put them on. She too was wearing ears, but instead of the classic black ears with the red and white bow, hers were iridescent rainbow colors. You expected no less from her, to be honest.

“Those are from Yoongi. They’re meeting us at the hotel. But don’t worry, my playlist is lit. It’ll be a fun drive.”

And indeed it was. The two of you spent the entirety of the ride jamming out to your soulmates’ music, specifically, their mixtapes. With a healthy dose of BTS sprinkled in for good measure, of course.

The hotel you were staying in was the Art of Animation Resort, and immediately, the room you were in was perfect. It was Little Mermaid themed. You had latched onto Ariel for obvious reasons, given your shared lack of voice but love of music, so the movie held a special place in your heart.

You turned on the TV to find (surprise!) Disney movies and shows. Not that you were complaining. There was a reason you had taken Yoongi here in your dreams. Maybe it was the hope those movies had or the promise of magic and wishes granted, but you loved everything about what they stood for.

After waiting for a little while longer, you slipped into the bathroom (the shower looked like Ariel’s Grotto!) and changed into a t-shirt that said “a sea witch stole my voice”, adjusting your newly blue hair in the mirror. Yoongi had only seen it in pictures, but told you he was blown away as always. Your followers on Twitter, of course, had put up pictures of him with blue hair for the side-by-side comparison. The internet had spoken: you were officially couple goals.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, there was a knock at the door. Rainbow opened it and you walked out of the bathroom.

“There’s my rainbow girl!” Hobi exclaimed, taking Rainbow in his arms and spinning her around like he did every time they saw each other.

Yoongi came in after, a smile slowly creeping across his lips as he neared you. Reaching out, he twirled a strand of your blue hair around his finger. “The blue looks nice. And so do you.” Simple and sweet, as was everything about your relationship. He gently pulled you forward and kissed your forehead.

It didn’t take too long to get out into the parks, riding the bus to the Magic Kingdom. Yoongi held your hand tight, his thumb grazing over the back of it gently. He seemed nervous, you noticed. Quieter than usual. But then he would look over at you and all of his anxiety seemed to melt away into that beautiful smile. And yes, Yoongi looked adorable in his Mickey ears.

You put up a picture of the two of you on the bus, Yoongi’s head resting on your shoulder and his arm around your waist. In flooded the likes and comments. Rainbow made sure to have Hobi get a pic of you and her in front of the castle, pinkies interlocked and Minnie ears equipped. It was like the best double-date ever.

After riding Splash Mountain and getting absolutely soaked, which felt nice in the heat, hitting Haunted Mansion and listening to Hobi scream for ten minutes straight, and riding Pirates of the Caribbean, you took a break for Dole Whip, a magical blend of pineapple and vanilla ice cream. Yoongi reached across the table and took your hand, his thumb rubbing your knuckles. He had so much love in his warm brown eyes and it just filled you with warmth in that way unique to soulmates. You had never felt this way about anyone.

When your cup was empty, he threw it away for you and then came back, slipping his hand into yours as soon as you stood up from the table.

“Where do we want to go next?” Rainbow opened up her map of the park. “We still haven’t hit Tomorrowland.”

You held up your hand and signed “E-P-C-O-T?”

“Ooooooooh yessss,” Rainbow agreed.

“What’s in Epcot?” Hobi asked.

“The world’s showcase.” Rainbow lit up thinking about it. “They have like a bunch of buildings that represent a bunch of countries around the world.”

“It’s really cool.” You signed. Yoongi snaked an arm around your hips, a hand settling on the fabric of your jean shorts.

“Then we should go.”

After walking around the whole world in a few hours, you went back to the Magic Kingdom to ride the teacups, Small World (which resulted in Hobi singing the song for at least an hour after), and the Little Mermaid ride. You met some characters (caption: We took Happy and Sleepy to meet Snow White!), caught the parade, watched the fireworks, and went back to the hotel room.

Yoongi sat in your bed while you showered, his laptop sitting in his lap and headphones over his ears while he worked on mixing some beats and layering some harmonies. But as soon as the bathroom door opened, he closed the computer, turning his full attention on his beautiful soulmate. He watched as you walked over to the bed, your blue hair thrown into a messy braid.

“You are so beautiful, jagi.” His voice was low, already slipping into sleep. He truly loved being able to spend the night with you. And he hoped that someday soon, it would be an every night thing.

“Says the most handsome man in the world.” You signed, making him smirk and reach out for you. Moments later, you were in his arms and loving every second of it, basking in his warmth.

“I promised I would take you here, didn’t I?” Yoongi brushed the hair out of your eyes.

You nodded and curled into him, pressing a kiss to his jaw to let him know wordlessly just how much you cared about him. The connection you shared was was deeper than words. But that didn’t mean you didn’t have a surprise put together for him. Over the past several months, you had been going through vocal therapy. Yes, your vocal chords had been damaged beyond repair. They were not fit for regular use. But you found that with practice, you could force out a hoarse whisper. It was barely there, barely audible, but still there.

You didn’t say anything. Yet. You were saving it, the first ‘I love you’ for a special moment. You didn’t know, however, just how soon that would be.

***

A week in Disney seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. Every day brought a new adventure.

One of the days you went to Blizzard Beach and you got to enjoy the sight of Yoongi in his swimming trunks with wet hair. There was a ton of splashing involved, especially where Hobi was concerned. His playfulness had been soaking more and more into Rainbow, you noticed. You were glad, though. After she had been stuck with Gray Syndrome for so long, it was nice to finally see her happy.

Another day, you went shopping in Downtown Disney, where when you tried to pay for the toys and things you had found, Yoongi lowered your hand and gave you a look that said, “I don’t think so.” And then proceeded to pay for you, which prompted you to give him a kiss as soon you walked out of the store.

You ended up watching Fantasmic, riding Star Tours, competing in Toy Story Mania, meeting Stitch, eating at Be Our Guest, and doing what you and Yoongi had always done: made the most of the time you had.

On the last day, everything was perfect. You were wearing your matching soulmate shirts, you had ridden so many rides, gotten ice cream, and now, you were watching the fireworks. Hobi and Rainbow had gone to ride Splash Mountain one last time, so you and Yoongi were alone, staring up at the brilliant colors that filled the night sky. His arm was slung around your shoulders and yours was wrapped around his torso.

After a few minutes, Yoongi bent down, seeming to notice something on the ground. You were too distracted by the bright lights and moving colors to fully process what was happening.

“Jagi, you dropped something.” His voice was behind you now, and when you turned to look, he was kneeling there, a little velvet box with the most perfect ring inside held in a shaking hand.

You were stunned. Shocked. You sort of had a feeling something like this was coming. You had known Yoongi for a long time, going on four years now, and you were soulmates after all. But there were still tears in your eyes as your heart threatened to hop out of your chest.

“Yes!” You mouthed, nodding frantically after staring at him for a while. “Y-yes!”

“I had a whole speech ready.” He chuckled, still kneeling on the ground. Yoongi took the ring out of the box and slipped it onto your finger, kissing the back of your hand. He stood on shaky legs, standing to meet you.

You didn’t hesitate to grab his face and pull it to yours, kissing him long and deep. His arms wrapped around your waist tightly and he deepened the kiss, thumbs massaging circles into your hips. When you finally came up for air, he stopped to look at you for a long time, admiring how the light framed your features so perfectly. He wanted to remember this moment and everything about it.

The moment you agreed to be his forever.

“Yoongi.” You strained to make even the smallest noise, but even with all of the sound that surrounded you, he still was taken aback, lips parting in silent surprise. “I love you.”

Although he had been able to keep his composure until now, the sound of your voice, however crackly, faint, or hoarse, caused him to immediately burst into tears, reaching out for you and pulling you into his arms. He couldn’t contain the emotion built up inside him anymore, and you realized as he held onto you as tightly as he could that this was the first time you had seen him cry. Even when you had met for the first time, he hadn’t cried, even though you had.

“I love you so much.” His voice was muffled in the fabric of your t-shirt. “So much.”

And so you stood there, holding each other and crying and confessing your love over and over, a diamond ring wrapped around your finger and more love in your heart than you knew what to do with. You knew one thing for certain: you couldn’t wait to start working on your forever with the man of your dreams. 

#kpopwonderlandtag #yoongi #yoongi x reader #yoongi imagine #min yoongi #bts #soulmate au #suga #suga x reader

[harryscurationproject-blog]

What Inspired Mixed Signals?

If you know me, you know I love music. Recently, I released my first song, Mixed Signals. This was my entire year, because for the longest time, I wanted to delve into music myself, but I wasn’t really sure where to start. I spent months on end researching to develop a craft that I felt represented the pieces of me from now, and yet still encapsulate the sound and roots I had found and loved from when I was young. I started this in December or January, but took forever to finish it. I am nonetheless proud of it. I was inspired by a variation of artists, songs, movies, and just the world around me. Some of these songs have been longterm inspirations, or something that came out in the process and made me say WOW!

I feel like this one is very special to me. Not because I think it’s my best written song, or because the production or mixing and mastering is PHENOMENAL, but I think it marks a period in my life that says that things are real. I dedicated 4 months to learning how to produce better so that way I could get a closer sound, to my sound. That didn’t really happen with this one, but we’re on our way. The artifacts I used were songs that, I think, steered me in the right direction. Records, monologues, or visuals that when I see, hear, and feel, I say to myself, “I wish I was doing that. Well, maybe not quite that, but… similar.”  These are things I first saw when I was in elementary school, first getting a feel for art-culture with films like Palo Alto, or things I discovered last November, like Sabrina Claudio’s “About Time”.

I wonder if one day I will get to be in someone’s curation. That one day, someone will look up to me and my work, the way I look up to these people’s. The way I capture my life, the way they capture theirs. All I know, is that these people changed mine.

Sincerely,

Harry

I never understood Sabrina Claudio the first time I listened to her. I didn’t get it - who was she? And why was her sound so... different... from my expectations of who I thought she was.

I can’t really remember why I even listened to this song, or how I even found it, or why I even revisited About Time, the record it’s from, considering I really only liked maybe 3 songs. I just remember instantly falling in love with this particular song - her voice sounding different than usual, the lyricism, and the all around different sound from her. I followed up with that by going to read about it on Genius. What caught me was that she said it reminded her native land of Miami, and how she was challenged by her producer to step out of her usual comfort zone. I have never once visited Miami in my life, but for some reason, I could imagine it. The palm trees, warm air, and atmosphere of a permanent heat so blazing you forget to feel it. With records about Miami, they typically highlight drug use, or some sort of vacation, so this was so confusing (Miami - Kali Uchis, Miami - Nicki Minaj). It sure as hell drove me to listen, and fall in love with her other music.

I could almost feel her personal connection. I could feel the energy shift, compared to the other 11 songs. I was a fan before, I had even seen her live at the cancelled-midway Panorama festival. But things just never really clicked, with all of her projects, I felt like the standouts stood out, but while they were beautiful, bold, and vibrant, the other tracks felt like going nowhere on a rollercoaster, waiting for things to shoot up again. But this finally put all the puzzle pieces together.

I remember instantly opening up Logic, wanting to capture those feelings. I looked through my Notes app on my iPhone, wanting to see if I had anything. Unfortunately, the first song I made for it, didn’t really cut it. So, I opened up a file I had, looking to see if I had anything that sounded better. Instantly, the two were begging to be together, like Romeo and Juliet. I knew what I had to do. This was the main basis of the song I put out as my first song.

You know, the first time I had ever heard of Emma Roberts was when I was like 5 years old. I hadn’t really thought of her, like at all, until I had heard about “American Horror Story: Coven,” which changed that perception. She had grown up, and all of a sudden, I loved her attitude, style, and her as a person, all because of some character I had seen her play.

When I first heard the words “I wish I didn’t care about anything. But I do care, I care about everything too much,” I was taken aback. I had to find out who said that! Where was it from? It wasn’t even the words themselves, just more so the way they were said. They had a particular sadness to them.

10-year-old me did some research and found that they were from a movie called Palo Alto, which had no significance to me. At all. What the hell was a Palo Alto? I looked it up, and results for some place in California showed up. I was so confused, and then searched up “palo alto movie”, and then found out it was based on the town itself. I didn’t really care for the movie, but I still loved the audio from the particular clip itself.

In 2017, I took an audio production course, so that way I could advance in my audio production career. I kind of just sat there for a week of the two weeks, from 9-5, because I had no idea where to start. I couldn’t commit to an audio, I had no lyrics I liked, and wanted a fresh start, so I couldn’t recycle any Garageband projects. I was fooling around on the MIDI keyboard, and then I heard this really pretty ambient sound. I stacked a few chords on one another, and then you had it! But it was still missing something, and I was stumped what. But it HIT! I needed to use that sample.

Sadly, it didn’t really amount to much. But I still wanted to put it in something, the sample. It’s really beautiful to me. So, I loaded her voice into “Mixed Signals.” I couldn’t use it in the song because I don’t have the license, but I kept the file so I could reference it for later. Without it, I wouldn’t have had a clue where to go with the song.

The timing for Beyoncé to put Lemonade on streaming platforms (Apple Music, Spotify, etc.) was weirdly appropriate. I had just finished paying homage to that album for my art class by doing some sort of piece for it, which kinded consisted of me collaging the stills from the film and using writing and just kind of splattering it on the pictures. Then, in the midst of it all, Homecoming (her live Coachella film) was announced. I loved Lemonade a lot. I remember the day it was announced in 2016, dropped the following week on HBO, and watching the film and being in shock. It was an event! So 3 YEARS later, after all the Grammy hype, for it to drop, especially after she essentially said “I don’t need Spotify” on Everything is Love, it was incredibly random.

I was in the mixing stages of my song when this all happened. I remember getting the text that “SORRY ORIGINAL DEMO. HELP.” from my friend Angelo, and being kind of confused because we already had the 12 tracks. However, a gift came. When I first heard the demo, I was shocked, mainly because it was kind of the sound I wanted. I hadn’t really done that though. So I went back to change my final mix. Maybe I needed a synth somewhere, or a swell of some sort? I compared the two, the original and the demo. I also took the live version from Homecoming into consideration.

This demo really helped me get a clear vision for my own demos. I realized that although you could have a very drastic difference, as long as sonically you know where you want to go, it doesn’t matter as much as you may think it does, because where you start isn’t where you’ll finish. If you have a vision, execute it. That’s what she always does, and the final product is always flawless. (Homecoming has a 98 on Metacritic and Lemonade has a 92). Also, time isn’t a real constraint. She takes her sweet time to perfect things, but she always perfects them, real well. And that taught me ethic, which inspired me toward the end to make sure things are perfect, and what I like, always. No matter how long it may takes.

Iggy, Iggy, Iggy. Such a polarizing figure to the general public, from the time I was 9 or 10. I always liked her. At this point, when I got inspired by her, her “glory days” of number one hits and diamond singles like Fancy, Black Widow, Problem, were long gone under some “she’s whack” guise, but I didn’t care at all. Music is music. Whether it be her stellar visuals, or her live shows, I’ve always been inspired by her work ethic. I remember I sat in the audience for a live interview for AOL Build that she had to promote her EP, Survive the Summer, where she talked about how she has nineteen hour studio days.

Part of my ethic is that I do everything myself, which in itself is really time consuming. I am my own producer, mixing engineer, recording engineer, mastering engineer, and I am definitely my own vocals. I would always listen to this song to remember that. She talks about how she moved out at 16, all alone in the middle of Miami with no money, and just hustled and worked until her dreams came true. I’m obviously very fortunate to not be in that exact predicament, but I remember that if I work really hard at something, anything is possible. Although they say “the sky's the limit” is cliché, clichés exist for a reason, and I’ll never stop following that motto, because I wanna go past the sky.

With “Work”, I will never forget watching the video of Iggy performing at The Observatory in Orange County, and not only was the crowd SCREAMING her words and story back to her, but the video had over a million views. Over a million people wanted to see what they missed out on in the flesh, and wanted to relive it through someone’s lens. If she could do it, I can do it too, is what that video taught me. She pushed through her hardships, and although having to do everything by yourself makes things only about 5x harder because of all the hats you have to put on, I can push through something less demanding and circumstantial. Without her, maybe this song would have been done and put out, but maybe it would have taken years to put it out. This song taught me to always push through, and also taught me a way of brutally honest storytelling which I would have thought before was too literal.

The most common advice I received from every person in the music industry was to write from your experiences. Whether it be from singers, A&Rs, managers, or just people who have genuinely been in the music industry for years, they constantly said the same thing. But when I began writing, I didn’t have any experiences, until 2018. I paused making music as a producer, I paused writing, I paused THINKING. I had juiced my mind out of any ideas I had! I needed to live.

2018 was easily the most rewarding years of my life. In every area of my development as not only a person, but an artist, I had grown so much. I had a lot more friends. My personality was more developed. And best of all, I had more to talk about, whether it had been about being featured on an iHeartRadio show with one of my favorite artists, partying every weekend in Bushwick, or traveling to Chicago for a music festival with my best friends and being basically unattended, free to roam around and do ANYTHING (Lolla pics), I felt like I was finally where I wanted to be. The teenage experience I had dreamt about for years, that I had seen glamorized everywhere I looked when I was in preschool and elementary school was in my hands. I had my own sense of consciousness.

How this all ties in is funny, because the last thing on my mind was music. It was around me all the time, with concerts (confirmation receipt), events I would go to, and just my friends always blaring it wherever we would go. It was constantly surrounding me, and I channeled all the leftover energy I had from the summer into my own music when I had finally winded down enough to sit down and decide what I really want. How badly I want to be in that position, where people include me in their own curations.

So all the friendships I made and broke, the music, the parties, the sounds around me, it all went into a big mixing pot, and it spewed out with this song. My friends were the bane of my existence in 2018. I was never without them, every step of the way. Everything I did, it was for them. I could never have written anything, came up with another melody, or even thought of anything without them. They changed my life, so now I can change someone elses with my work. They are Mixed Signals.