doll - villain! izuku x f. reader
summary: it’s certainly been a few years since you’ve seen izuku, and he’s planning the make the most out of your time together now that you’re back with each other.
warnings: NONCON, bondage, blood, kidnapping, there is a knife, slight voyeurism(?)
important: all characters are over the age of eighteen.
a/n: wow this piece took me over two months to write, it literally took me forever i’m so unbelievably glad that it’s finished. i’m not entirely happy with it, especially the beginning part because i wrote it two months ago when i didn’t really know how to write fanfiction? but it’s okay, um the concepts are there so enjoy ig.
word count: ~5.3k
The first thing that you noticed upon waking up was the methodical dripping of water above you. Each droplet was landing just shy of your face, the cold water splashing up against your features. Cold. That seemed to be the word of the day. Beneath you, there was a slab of freezing cement, its moist chill seeping off of it and onto your shaking frame.
You raised your heavy head, matted hair falling in front of your face as a sharp, immobilizing pain shot through your skull. You moved the tangled locks from your vision, your hand landing on the back of your head in the process. When you brought your fingers back around, they were slick with a sticky crimson substance. As you stared at your fingers, dumbstruck and utterly confused at the...liquid that was coating them, you grew acutely aware of a dull clinking ringing out with each of your movements, and noticed a pair of shackles that were wrapped around each of your wrists. You tugged a bit on the chains, lurching your body away from the wall that you were attached to as you tried to decipher the situation that you were in right now, to no avail, of course. This was far too sudden and much too confusing to understand. How did you even get...wherever you were in the first place? Why were you here?
Your ears rang out, an amalgamation of horrible chiming sounds flooding your mind. You tried, and failed to recall the events that had led up to you finding yourself in this revolting state, much to your chagrin.
“Oh, you’re finally awake!” A cheery voice rang out, the words disproportionately buoyant in comparison to the bleak environment that surrounded you. You looked up, vision blurring as you turned your head in the direction of the effervescent voice.
You nearly gasped as you caught sight of the figure in front of you, your eyes scanning frantically over his disheveled green locks, his pale skin standing out in contrast to the visible blush lining his freckled cheeks.
“M-Midoriya?” You responded, your voice uneven, your horribly shaky pronunciation reflecting your bodily state perfectly.
“Izuku,” he corrected. He pushed himself off of the wall he was leaning on, slowly making his way towards your trembling form. You hadn’t seen the green-haired boy since he had disappeared entirely from your life, on that fateful day back in junior-high. You had honestly thought he had offed himself or something after Bakugou had told him those horrible things, and you had mourned for days, for months, for years over the loss of your childhood friend. You and Izuku had always been close, and you assumed that it was your shared weakness that had brought you together. While he was born quirkless, you were born with a quirk that might as well have been non-existent. An empathic quirk was what they had called it, one that gave you the ability to absorb others’ emotions and relieve them of their feelings, while you would be able to take on their sensitivities in exchange for the relief that you gave them. You had always seen it as useless, everyone had. And a few people, including your own parents, had always found a way to make it clear to you that you were just this. Useless.
However, you had still made it into UA, on account of nothing more than your grades, of course. People had marvelled at your acceptance, talking about how progressive it was of UA to let in someone as weak as you, even though you had only made it into general studies. It wasn’t like you really wanted to work in heroics anyways, but still, it had hurt a bit when you had to bid farewell to some of your friends from middle school, who were pursuing the hero path. By friends, of course, you meant Katsuki. As strange as it was, you, Midoriya, and him had always been together, well, in your own ways. You really had no idea why Izuku was still latched on to the ill-tempered blonde, and at times wished he would just let go of his hold on the boy. Countless times you had told him to just stop making contact with Katsuki, as their time together never seemed to end well, but he wouldn’t ever take heed of your advice. You couldn’t help but wonder if there was some sort of unspoken competition between them, besides their constant debate over Izuku’s quirklessness, which admittedly led to most of the dissents. It was weird. They were always at each other’s throats, and almost every time they fought you would be there, if only to defend Midoriya. You were protective over him- anyone would be after witnessing the torment that he so frequently endured from Katsuki and others.
So when the news had come that he was declared missing, you were in absolute pieces. When your mother had come into your room to tell you that this, you swore you felt your heart shatter then and there. Nothing could keep you from blaming yourself. No matter how much others tried to tell you otherwise, whether it be therapists, friends, parents, or even Katsuki himself, you just couldn’t believe them. You should’ve done more to help the green-haired boy, you should’ve helped him. You could’ve stood up to Bakugou more, or done anything at all to aid him. You always had seen yourself as selfish, which was why it was such a surprise when the king of ego himself told you otherwise.
You remembered it clearly: You were nearing the end of your first semester at UA, still completely distraught about Izuku’s disappearance. A stern knocking had rang through your apartment, causing you to look up from your stack of textbooks with weary eyes. You pushed yourself off of the couch, making your way to the door and flinging it open, squinting as your eyes met the slouching form of the person in front of you. He wasted no time, just walking into your apartment with a confident, yet defensive stride. Immediately, the person, who you now recognized to be Katsuki, had made a beeline to your couch, and was sitting upon the charcoal-colored cushions that adorned it. You just started at him, mouth slightly agape as he looked back at you, gaze perfervid and intense.
“Well, get over here,” He had spat, gesturing for you to join him on the couch. You hurriedly did as he asked, his eyes following your form as you made your way over to him. He had let out a short breath, his eyelids falling slightly downwards as he looked at your unkempt appearance. After a few moments of silence, he spoke. “It’s not your fault, you know. That damn nerd shouldn’t have done this. It’s his fault, you hear me?” He had said, voice as gravelly as ever. However, it seemed that there was a bit of… something else behind his words, like a small piece of his defensive front was crumbling away in front of your very eyes.
“I- I don’t-” You responded in a frail voice.
“Everyone else- they don’t think so either. I hate to admit it but, you… fuck. You’re a good person, Y/n.” Your shoulders jerked upwards a bit at his use of your first name. “You can’t feel guilty for what that fucking extra did.”
You stayed silent, eyebrows furrowing gently at his conciliatory words.
“Fuck,” he mumbled, barely audible. He looked back up to you. “I just…” You could tell that he was moving to say something, his gaze downcast and contemplative. He looked back up at you, his eyes landing on your face. “I…” You leaned slightly towards him, urging him to speak. You had never seen Katsuki so… quiet. He was quite literally speechless, the environment around you two extremely tense due to his wordlessness. He shifted his eyes, looking over your frame intently. His gaze caught on the area near your clavicle, and before you could say anything about his strange behavior, he spoke once more.
“Your collar,” he grunted. You looked down at yourself, staring at your crumpled uniform that you hadn’t changed out of in days. You raised your eyes back up to him, sending him a questioning glance. “It..” he said, clenching his hands a bit as his eyes still stayed trained on your collarbone.
He reached out two tentative hands, taking your shirt collar between his slender fingers. You remember your complete state of shock as he had adjusted your shirt, snapping the top few buttons into place and smoothing down the fabric. After he had finished, it was like he had snapped out of some sort of stupor, jumping away from you and retracting his hand into his chest. He had left a bit after that, a light blush still coating your cheeks long after he made his departure.
As weird as it sounds, that was the beginning of your relationship with Katsuki. You grew to like each other, him growing somewhat emotionally dependent on you while you relied on him to keep your more self-destructive tendencies in check. The two of you really were a sight, though. The soft, gentle curve of your features in contrast to Bakugou’s angular ones was enough to garner a few stares, and if that weren’t enough, there were the differentiations in mannerisms and personality to set you apart even further. But you supposed that opposites do in fact attract, at least in your case.
Goodness, before you even had time to register what was happening your thoughts had drifted over to the blonde, which wasn’t really an uncommon occurrence. You could only hope that he thought about you as much as you thought about him. Of course you two were dating and all, so it was only natural that he should, but still, you couldn’t help but feel just a bit of anxiety about not actually being wanted or needed by the boy. As much as he would reassure you that he did need you, that he loved you, part of you just couldn’t believe him. A bit of you always had a feeling that he would leave you, just as Izuku did. Maybe you were just insecure, but still. You wouldn’t be surprised if he wanted someone stronger, or better than yourself. You hadn’t ever been surprised when others wanted someone else.
You weren’t ever surprised when you were second choice.
On that note, you brought yourself back to reality, the sound of water dripping from the ceiling still grating against your ears. You refocused your eyes, which had glazed over during your train of thought, only for your now active gaze to land on a person who happened to be situated directly in front of you. You groggily looked up once more, your worried eyes meeting the face of Izuku, who looked oddly infatuated with you. Why, you did not know. All you were able to register was how his doting eyes were dancing over your whole frame, making you squirm a bit in your spot.
“Mi- I mean..Izu-Izuku…” you mumbled as you looked up at him, pushing yourself up so that you were nearly face to face with the green-haired boy. “Wh-What’s going on, I.. don’t understand…”
“Oh doll,” he said, the pet name rolling off of his tongue in a sickeningly sweet manner. “I just helped you do a little relocation, that’s all! I know you’re probably scared, and confused, but don’t worry! I’m not here to hurt you, understand?” He said, reaching a hand out to caress your cheek gently. You drew away from him sharply at the feeling of his calloused fingers against your skin, instinctively bringing your hands up to your face.
“Hey, don’t flinch away from me now, come on! We’re friends, aren’t we?” He said, his tone growing bitter as he spat out the last sentence.
“I...guess,” you mumbled, still too disoriented to make a coherent sentence. “But why.. The chains..?” Izuku looked slightly taken aback at your query, rising up from his kneeled position, and instead settling for standing in front of you.
“Just a precaution,” he said, his tone infantilizing. “I can’t have you two running away now,” he finished, smiling.
“T-two?” You asked, attempting to search his eyes. His green orbs were full of adoration towards you, but his pupils seemed to swirl with a bit of malice as he continued to stare at you. He hummed in response to your question, bringing his hand up to your cold cheek. He gently pressed his fingers into your skin and manually shifted your head to the left, your eyes drifting towards the other side of the room.
Low and behold, there was indeed another person. And the venomous look on his face accompanied by a mess of ash blonde hair was enough to tell you who this second person was. His frame was wrapped in restraints, his arms suspended above his head and his clenching fists encircled by thick shackles. He kicked and struggled against the chains, the clinking sound of them ringing out across the room like a series of cathedral bells.
“Katsuki!” You yelped, the word ripping from your lips as you began to pull against the chains binding your own body, feverishly pushing yourself to try and reach your lover. Izuku leapt towards you before you could really go anywhere, latching himself onto your shoulder and pulling you backwards.
“Now puppy, don’t get aggressive!” He said in a tone that was far too sweet and much too jubilant. He rubbed his palm against your shoulder as though he were coaxing a child, nestling his chin against your cheek as he did so, all the while looking at Bakugou with hazy eyes.
“No!” You cried. “I don’t know what you’re planning right now, but you left us for years and now you-you’re back, and you haven’t explained anything and I just can’t trust you an-and why are we in chains? And for fuck’s sake get off of me, at least until you explain yourself!” You punctuated your sentence with a shove to his shoulder, a twinge of guilt pumping through your veins as you did so.
He fell backwards a bit, his gaze downturned and his face darkened. His eyes swirled with animosity as he stared down at the floor with furrowed brows, his fists clenching a releasing a few times over.
“Please,” you said, your voice softer. “Explain. You just... left. I need to know why.”
He continued to stare down at the floor with an uncomfortable amount of determination, green eyes scanning the tile before slowly beginning to lift back up to meet your unsteady gaze. His face was serious as he bored his eyes into yours, his pupils full of pure animosity. A few moments of silence passed, and then he began to laugh.
He was laughing.
His green eyes glinted with jubilance as he looked at you through the dark shadow clouding his face, his hand coming up to rake through the mop of green tufts on his head.
“Why?” He said between giggles. “I think you know the answer to that one, love!” He said, still chuckling. You looked at him wildly, gaze skittish and horrified.
You began to speak, raising your trembling voice over his laughter. “Izu, you don’t understand, we thought that you ki-”
“Killed myself?” He said, his laughter dying down. He clicked his tongue before continuing, nuzzling himself back into your shoulder, the action earning a few muffled screams from the blonde restrained at the other end of the room. “You’ve got it all wrong puppy! I would never dare leave you like that, doll. I just saw an opportunity and took it. You would’ve done the same darling, I know you would’ve. Although, I think if you did leave me like that, I would kill myself.” He remarked, his voice far too exuberant for the weighty contention. You shivered as you slipped out of his grip, pushing your arms out in front of you to try and hinder the touches of the sensitive boy.
“No, Izuku this is weird, I don’t understand why you’re acting like this. Th- This isn’t you. And we were never t..together, so I don’t understand why you're touching me and calling me these names and I- I still don’t know what you mean by this ‘opportunity’, or why the hell you’ve kidnapped me and Katsu, and I’m bleeding-”
Midoriya hummed, the warm sound cutting you off. “Ah-ah! You’re talkative today, huh? So many questions!” He said in a lilting voice. “Why don’t we ask Katsu what he thinks about everything!” The boy continued, his use of your nickname for the blonde making you cringe. “He always was more articulate than you.”
He heaved himself off of the floor next to you, making his way over to an erratic Bakugou. The chains above his head rattled as he kicked against the restraints, the gag shoved into his mouth growing damp as he relentlessly screamed into it.
As he approached Katsuki, Izuku whipped a knife out of his pocket, the blade flicking out as he continued to walk towards him. You gasped at this, yelling out as the greenette continued to walk away from you.
“No, Izuku don’t hurt him! Leave him alone!” You screamed, tugging on your chains once more and pushing yourself towards the unstable boy. Much to your terror, Izuku disregarded your words, instead moving to stand behind Bakugou. He threaded his hand through the taller boy’s locks, grasping onto them and pulling backwards as he pointed his knife at his neck.
“Izuku, sto- aUGH!” You yelped in anguish as you reached out towards the pair, only to fall forward and hit your already sensitive head against the unforgiving pavement. You looked up helplessly as he flicked the knife between his pinky and ring finger, using the digits that were previously holding the blade to untie the cloth that sat in the boy’s mouth.
Immediately, he began to scream, as expected. “You damn extra! What the hell are you trying to do! I always knew you were fucking weird, but you really are an absolute fucking creep! You know, you shoulda just killed yourself, got it?”
“Katsuki! No, you’re going to make him mad or-“ You were cut off once again by a shrill laughter, the horrible sound grinding against your ears.
“You always were so straight-forward Kacchan! Still haven’t lost your fire after all these years have you!” He said, his speech diluted with giggles.
“Stop laughing and let us go you little fucker!” He growled in response.
Midoriya hummed before continuing. “No, no no! N/n over there has something I want, and I don’t plan on letting you two free until I get it,” He returned in a crazed voice.
“Huh? What the hel-“
“What do you want,” you began, your voice ragged. “I’ll give you whatever you need just- at least let him go.” Bakugou looked at you in disbelief, yet he stayed silent as his eyes desperately searched your face. Izuku made a show of looking over at you, turning his gaze towards your kneeling figure as a nefarious grin spread across his face, his eyes shining dangerously as he looked down at your vulnerable form.
“Hmm...interesting proposition, but unfortunately Kacchan over here is essential to the whole thing! But I will take you up on your offer to take whatever I need, although I was going to do that anyways,” He said as he stuffed the cloth back into the blonde’s mouth. He peeled himself off of Katsuki, and with a flick of his wrist, the blade that he was grasping was closed.
“Alright then doll, let’s have some fun hm?” The chartreuse-headed boy had begun to stroll towards you, his leisurely pace matching the speed at which he had begun to unbutton the clasps that held his silken vest together. Your eyes widened exponentially as you realized what was happening, and you began to scramble backwards, pushing yourself towards the other end of the room as far as you could go. You knew that your struggles would be in vain, but you still inched away from him, covering your chest in hopes that what you thought was happening wouldn’t be the case. The cold chains cut into your wrists as you strained against them, the harsh metal not allowing you to move further than a few feet away from the approaching boy. Yet you still struggled, kicking and yelling as he undid the top two buttons on his shirt, the collar falling open and revealing his delicate clavicle. You still tried to push away from him, your efforts fruitless.
A harsh pain shot through your ankle as Izuku clamped his booted foot around it, effectively stilling your leg and keeping you in place. He hopped down onto you, pressing his thighs into yours as he straddled your waist. Nimble hands glided over your shirt, easing the buttons out of their holes and pulling the button-up off of your torso. At this point you had given up on screaming, settling for mumbling out hysterical pleas and whimpers, your palms uselessly pushing against Izuku’s chest. Bakugou’s screams were white noise to your ears, the horrible ringing in your skull blocking out everything else and making you feel as though you were underwater, eyes glazing over as the world around you grew faded.
A sharp tug on your hair brought you back from your moment of disassociation, the hand pulling against your locks belonging to none other than Midoriya himself.
“Come on darling, pay attention to me! No one likes a dumb, quiet doll!” He whined as he slipped a hand under the waistband of your skirt, pulling the fabric off of your hips and exposing your lacy undergarments. From there the green-haired boy wasted no time, running his hands over your soft stomach and marveling at the way his fingers left little indents in the skin whenever he pressed down. Little mumbles floated from his mouth, the way they used to do when you were kids and he would rant to you about heroes or something of the sort. It was almost enough to make you nostalgic, if your brain hadn’t caught on to the words that let you know he was talking about you. His eyes shimmered as they caught onto the terrified expression on your face, his arousal growing as he looked upon the vulnerable state he had managed to put you in.
You decided to plead with him one last time, hoping that maybe a few tears and stutters would make him stop. “Izuku, p-please, sto-p,” you said, a few of your salty teardrops rolling down into your mouth as you spoke. He just grinned at you, eyebrows turning downwards as one of his hands drifted to his visible erection. The screams of Bakugou and your own cries muddled together in your ears as he slipped his belt off and hurriedly took out his cock, palming it rather roughly as he looked down at your limp form, sadism shining in his green orbs as he did so. He didn’t do anything to prepare you, instead leaving you to stare up at him through eyes clouded with tears, watching and waiting on the inevitable to happen. And it happened. Before you could even register it, he had pulled your panties aside, shoving his length in and eliciting a tearful cry from you. Katsuki screamed in sync with you, his smothered shouts ragged and uneven as he looked at the scene before him. Midoriya rutted into you, his thrust holding far too much power as he penetrated your dry insides, your hands clenching and another scream falling out of your mouth as the uncomfortable pain spread through your lower abdomen. You looked over his shoulder at Katsuki, a fresh batch of tears spilling from your eyes as you looked at him. The blonde looked utterly desperate, hot tears rolling down his reddened cheeks as muffled screams continued to rip from his throat. Despite your pleadings and Bakugou’s impotent threats, Midoriya continued to thrust into you, the force of his length pouring on and on and causing choked sobs to gush out of you, the pitiful sounds falling on deaf ears.
“Agh, doll, you’re so tight~! Did Kacchan seriously never take care of you?” He mused. In truth, he never had. But that was your fault, really. You had said you wanted to wait, and that you didn’t want to run the risk of any accidents happening. Part of that was truthful, but you were also just...scared. Scared of what could happen. And every time that you would even begin to consider having the ash blonde take you, the voice of Izuku himself always seemed to take over, and you would always begin to imagine how worried he would be for you, and how he would disapprove. Of course he wouldn’t have ever told you these things, he never was very assertive, and you really had no reason to believe that he would control you like that, but part of your desperate self just wanted to hold onto him when he was presumed to be dead, and still would allow his voice to run through your mind whenever you made decisions and such. In truth you shouldn’t have let your perception of him control your life, but you really couldn’t help it.
You just had missed him...that was all.
Now you regretted all those months that you spent thinking about him, the sleepless nights where you couldn’t get your mind off of the boy. In any case, it seems that even he didn’t care about whether you stayed pure as he ruthlessly fucked you. You felt a bit of blood fall from your abused cunt from the friction, a sick glee filling him up as the crimson fluid lubed up his length. He was your first, he was the first one to ravage you and have a piece of you and you would always remember him as long as you lived. He was going to make sure of that.
“Nghh- doll,” he began, his voice lewd and uneven, his sultry tone matching the lust in his half-lidded eyes perfectly. “You’re just so p-perfect, I don’t- ah! Don’t know w-hy I didn’t take you sooner!” He said between groans. You weren’t sure whether he was talking kidnapping you or fucking you, but at this point you didn’t care. At the moment, you couldn’t bring yourself to think or care about anything. Your mind was too far gone for that, your body drowning in both ecstasy and pain. Izuku latched his mouth onto your exposed collarbone, biting and licking at it until dark purple splotches littered your silky skin. Bakugou’s smothered screams began to die out, fading from your ears as your mind grew fuzzy, your thoughts fixating only on the pressure that was steadily heightening in your core. A particularly loud howl erupted from his throat, causing the green-haired boy to dig his teeth further into you. He bit down with a huge force, his sharp canines digging into the skin on your clavicle yet again. A bit of blood poured from where he had bitten, the fluid dripping down your chest as he raised his head up from your torso. You didn’t miss the subtle way that his lips quirked upwards, malice swirling in his telling green orbs. He leaned down once again, a yelp falling from your trembling lips as he swiped his warm tongue against the wound. He drew his appendage back into his mouth, licking his lips and spreading the blood onto the blush pink area around his maw. “Agh~ You taste so wonderful, d-doll!” He groaned, causing you to shutter. His thrusts grew in pace as he threw his head back, pain shooting through you as they became harder and faster. He cut into you with each stroke, an involuntary moan leaving your mouth as he heightened his pace. He smiled down at you as the sound fell from your lips. The grin was childish, his lips quirking upwards in a way that looked far too innocent compared to your current situation.
Everything grew dimmer and dimmer as you approached your climax. Izuku seemed to be nearing his too, if the uneven jolts of his body and loud groans were any indication of such. The pressure built even more as you tried to keep it down, the continuous stimulation proving to be far too much for your inexperienced body. With one final stroke you tipped over the edge, cunt growing hot and fluttery as you convulsed around Izuku’s length. He pulled out of you right before his own climax, settling for releasing himself all over your creamy thighs. You continued to cry through it all, hot tears pouring down your face and reddening your already flushed cheeks.
You heard Katsuki scream out roughly from beside you. The sound was muted. You felt as though you had been shoved under water, a thick blanket of silence coating your ears as you laid on the rough cement, body heaving and broken.
You felt so confused and so hopeless, the world felt utterly despaired.
The only clarity that came to you presented itself in the form of Izuku’s manic laughter, the horribly shrill giggles pouring over your limp frame. A click of a belt and the green-haired boy was put back together, sweat gleaming on his flushed cheeks and hair splayed about his head like a halo. Although, he was no angel. Not in the slightest.
You coughed as tremors overtook your body. You just felt so goddamn pathetic.
That was all that you were.
You faintly felt the sensation of arms hooking underneath your own, strong hands pulling you towards a wall and propping you up against it. You were facing Katsuki now, and you were finally given a good look at his face.
He didn’t even look like himself anymore. You had never seen him show so much raw emotion before in your entire life. He was despondent, his wrists limp and his mouth quiet. The gag on his face was damp with tears and spit, his jaw hanging slack as a few stray teardrops fell from his reddened eyes. Nothing about him even looked human.
And yet still, you could hear Izuku laughing. He approached the boy with heavy footfalls, boots clicking against the floor until he stood before him. One of his hands shot out and harshly gripped the blonde’s jaw, the other moving to undo the gag. The cloth hung loosely around his neck after he had taken it off, but Katsuki did not even spare a word. His gaze was weathered as he glared into Izuku’s gleeful eyes, crimson hues staying trained on the boy even as Midoriya turned towards you and began to speak.
“Well that was fun, wasn’t it doll! I can’t believe that I was your first!” He said, his voice still enthusiastic, albeit breathy. “I’m never, ever letting you leave after that! Ah, you’re just so perfect!” You just stared at him with as much resentment as you could muster. “And initially the plan was to kill Kacchan over here, but I think I’ll keep him too!” You perked up at the mention of the blonde, lips parting and eyes growing more defensive and you stared at the boy. “I think he’ll be able to help us in the future, hm? It’ll be fun, I promise!” He said, voice exhaustingly juvenile.
“We’ll be just like one big happy family!”
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Saturday, December 12, 2020
TIME’s 2020 Person of the Year: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris
(Today) President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris have been named TIME’s Person of the Year for 2020. Biden, the Democrat who defeated incumbent President Donald Trump in the 2020 election to become just the 11th candidate in U.S. history to defeat a president seeking reelection, was part of a historic ticket with Harris, who will become the nation’s first female vice president and first one of color. Though Biden joins a long list of U.S. leaders who’ve been named Person of the Year (all but three presidents have been selected since the magazine’s creation of the title in 1927), Harris is the first vice presidential pick in the magazine’s history to be included.
US budget deficit up 25.1% in first 2 months of budget year
(AP) The U.S. government’s deficit in the first two months of the budget year ran 25.1% higher than the same period a year ago as spending to deal with the COVID pandemic soared while tax revenues fell. The Treasury Department reported Thursday that with two months gone in the budget year, the deficit totaled $429.3 billion, up from $343.3 billion in last year’s October-November period. The government’s deficit for the budget year that ended Sept. 30 was a record-shattering $3.1 trillion, fueled by the trillion-dollar-plus spending measures Congress passed in the spring to combat the economic downturn triggered by the pandemic. The recession, which has seen millions of people lose their jobs, has meant a drop in tax revenues. Congress is debating another relief package that could total nearly $1 trillion, which would add to this year’s red ink.
Across US and Europe, pandemic’s grip on economies tightens
(AP) The worsening of the viral pandemic across the United States and Europe is threatening their economies and intensifying pressure on governments and central banks on both continents to intervene aggressively. In a worrisome sign of the harm the virus is inflicting in the U.S, the government said Thursday that the number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits jumped last week to 853,000—the most since September. The surge in jobless claims made clear that many companies are still shedding workers as states reimpose business shutdowns and consumers avoid shopping, traveling or dining out. The coronavirus “is having an impact on consumers, it is having a big impact on the labor force, it is having an impact on businesses,” said Gus Faucher, an economist at PNC Financial. “There are reasons to be concerned.”
Boris Johnson Once Mocked the Eurocrats of Brussels. They Haven’t Forgotten.
(NYT) Three decades ago, an enterprising young foreign correspondent named Boris Johnson reported that the European Commission planned to blow up Berlaymont, its hulking, asbestos-riddled headquarters in Brussels. “Sappers will lay explosive charges at key points,” he wrote in The Daily Telegraph. On Wednesday, Mr. Johnson, now Britain’s prime minister, walked into Berlaymont, still very much standing after a costly renovation, for dinner with the commission’s current president, Ursula von der Leyen. To say the moment was rich in symbolism doesn’t begin to capture the dense layer-cake of metaphors: a journalist-turned-politician, who made his name by ridiculing and deriding the European Union—often bending the truth in the process—returning to the scene of his youthful journalistic escapades, in search of a trade agreement with the European bureaucrats he once mocked. Ms. von der Leyen served Mr. Johnson [dinner], but she sent him on his way without a breakthrough in the trade talks and served notice that the European Union was not likely to bend. He seemed to get the message: On Thursday he said there was a “strong possibility” that Britain would leave the European Union without a trade deal. “What goes around comes around, doesn’t it?” said Sonia Purnell, who worked with Mr. Johnson in The Telegraph’s Brussels bureau in the 1990s and later wrote a critical biography of him.
Doors open but nearly empty, French cathedrals count cost of epidemic
(Reuters) France’s Chartres cathedral, a vast 13th century building with 18 staff on the payroll, is a costly place to run, and the one million a year who normally come to see its famous blue stained-glass windows are an essential part of balancing the books. This year, however, the COVID-19 epidemic has slowed that flood of visitors to a trickle, throwing the UNESCO world heritage site into a financial crisis. The Catholic church nationally has lost 90 million euros ($109 million) in revenue this year, the Conference of French Bishops (CEF) estimates. It has furloughed hundreds of staff and may have to close or sell some places of worship next year, CEF’s finance head Ambroise Laurent told Reuters.
An Unwelcome Silent Night: Germany Without Christmas Markets
(NYT) Across the country, city and town squares stand empty of the usual huts, sounds, scents and lights, as the coronavirus has forced the country to skip its beloved annual Christmas markets. There are no groups of friends gripping mugs of steaming red wine spiced with cinnamon and cloves crowding Rothenburg’s medieval market square, or beneath Cologne’s towering cathedral. No brass bands play carols before Berlin’s Charlottenburg Palace. No stars shine from the eaves of Seiffen’s wooden huts. Germans have gathered at outdoor markets in the weeks before Christmas since the 14th century, when vendors first built their stands in city centers to sell their wares to people coming from church services. “They were always meeting places,” Margot Kässmann, 63, a former bishop of the Lutheran Church in Germany said of the Christmas markets, also called Advent markets. “Today, Christmas markets remain very social places where friends and family gather,” she said. “But even people who are alone will go there on their own to take in the smells, the lights and the music, which have something comforting about them.”
U.S. to Sanction Turkey over Russian Air Defense System
(Foreign Policy) The Trump administration is set to sanction Turkey over its purchase of the Russian S-400 air defense system. The move was threatened for months but now appears imminent. The measures are to be imposed under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), which includes a provision that allows for sanctions on entities that do business with Russian defense companies. The United States fears that Russia will gain access to the F-35 fighter jet’s stealth technology if paired with the Russian system. As recent U.S.-brokered peace deals between Israel and Arab nations have made clear, weapons purchases are a sure way to curry favor with the Trump administration. The United States announced a $23 billion weapons sale to the United Arab Emirates following its normalization deal with Israel, and just yesterday it was reported that the U.S. was negotiating a sale of advanced drones to Morocco—the same day U.S. President Donald Trump announced the North African country had signed a normalization deal with Israel. By buying from Russia, Turkey diluted the favor it had gained in purchasing 100 F-35 fighter jets—ultimately having its pilots kicked off the program as a result. The move comes as Western nations adopt a more aggressive posture against Turkey.
Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai charged under security law
(AP) Hong Kong pro-democracy activist and media tycoon Jimmy Lai has been charged under the city’s national security law, amid a widening crackdown on dissent, according to local media reports. Lai, who founded the Apple Daily tabloid, was charged on suspicion of colluding with foreign forces and endangering national security, local broadcaster TVB reported Friday. He is the most high-profile person out of more than two dozen charged under the law since it was implemented in June. He could face a maximum punishment of life imprisonment. His newspaper, Apple Daily, criticized the law on its front page on July 1, calling it the “final nail in the coffin” of the territory’s autonomy. Lai has advocated for other countries to take a harsher stance on China, and last year he traveled to the U.S. to meet with Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to discuss the proposed extradition bill. He was also arrested in February and April on charges of taking part in unauthorized protests. He also faces charges of joining an unauthorized vigil marking the anniversary of the June 4, 1989, crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
Aid groups say staffers killed in Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict
(AP) International aid groups said Friday that at least four staff members have been killed in the conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, while Ethiopia and a frustrated United Nations aired differing views on a growing humanitarian crisis as food and other supplies run out for millions of people. The Tigray region remains largely sealed off from the outside world as worried humanitarian organizations warn of growing hunger, attacks on refugees and dwindling medicine and other supplies more than a month after fighting erupted between Ethiopia’s government and the now-fugitive Tigray one after a months-long struggle over power. “We have hundreds of colleagues on the ground and urgently call on all parties to the conflict to protect all civilians in Tigray,” U.N. humanitarian spokesman Saviano Abreu tweeted after the deaths were announced. Ethiopia’s government has made clear it intends to manage the process of delivering aid to Tigray, and it has rejected “interference” as fighting is reported to be continuing despite its declaration of victory.
The coronavirus is ravaging the world. But life looks almost normal in much of Africa.
(Washington Post) The top headline last week on a popular Kenyan news website could barely contain its sarcasm: “America, with 270K deaths, 13M infections, warns citizens not to travel to Kenya over high risk of COVID-19.” To many here, American fears of catching the coronavirus in Africa seem particularly ludicrous. Almost every one of the continent’s 54 countries, while home to some of the least developed health-care systems in the world, have registered fewer deaths from the virus in the last nine months than the United States now suffers per day. While testing has been comparatively limited, the continent appears to have bucked the doomsday predictions of global health experts. The telltale signs of severe outbreaks seen elsewhere—crowded hospitals and a spike in deaths—have emerged in only a handful of African countries. Surveys done by the World Health Organization have found negligible excess mortality rates in most African countries, reducing suspicion that many covid-19 deaths are going uncounted. Almost 60 percent of people in sub-Saharan Africa are younger than 25, and only 3 percent are over the age of 65, the age group in which illness and death from the coronavirus are most common.
Scientific research at its best
(Iowa State University, Science Daily) The foods we eat may have a direct impact on our cognitive acuity in our later years, according to new research. The study is the first of its kind to connect specific foods with cognitive decline. The findings show cheese protected against age-related cognitive problems and red wine was related to improvements in cognitive function.
Covid-19 Is Creating a New Kind of Financial Midlife Crisis
(Bloomberg) The Covid-19 pandemic has created such a shock to people’s lives, it’s prompted a financial reckoning akin to a midlife crisis. In the public imagination, these lead to men buying sports cars and having affairs, but often their effects are more common and muted. Brought on by health scares, behavioral shifts or job losses, people start to question their life choices and ponder the realization that no one’s immortal. And while the phenomenon became associated with people between 35 and 50 years old, psychologists say it isn’t tied to an age, but simply a jolt similar to what the pandemic has brought.
Covid-19 has disrupted professional trajectories, forcing people to focus on other areas of life—perhaps for the first time in years, said David H. Rosmarin, PhD, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and founder of the Center for Anxiety, in Manhattan. “Having more time for sleep, friends, family and just thinking can be wonderful if one has an identity outside of their career,” he said. “But it can be hell on earth if they don’t.”
The conditions created by the pandemic are putting people to the test. Joblessness is one factor. This has come along with intense despair. Americans’ view of their mental health declined significantly in 2020, with 23% describing themselves as having fair or poor mental health, up from 17% last year, according to a Gallup poll released this week. And about 30% of American adults now have symptoms meeting criteria for an anxiety disorder, compared to 19.1% pre-pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control says. It’s hard to stay positive when your life’s work is upended.
Just ask Stacy Small, 51. The Maui resident’s profitable high-end travel business had allowed her to buy her dream beach house and drive a Porsche Cayenne. On March 20, she was forced to cancel a year’s worth of bookings, losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in income. Around the same time, three close friends were diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer, while others battled Covid. And then she had a near-fatal car accident on April 21. “Covid killed the travel business I spent 15 years building,” she said. “The car accident could have killed me. It truly was a wake-up call to make a lot of huge changes.”
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Trump Is Cleaning Up Two Decades of Mediocrity
As the unprecedented effort of the elders of the Democratic Party to use the Justice Department and intelligence services to manipulate and then undo a presidential election collapses, their response is a study in the corruption of unchallenged incumbency.
The reason the country is in its present impasse is inadequate post-Reagan presidential leadership. Franklin D. Roosevelt and his chosen successor, Harry Truman, got the country out of the Great Depression and salvaged 95% of the economic system that had collapsed, did the necessary to assist the democracies to stay in the war against Hitler, and then conducted the American war effort with great skill and put in place the structure of future peace and the institutions that won the Cold War, relatively bloodlessly.
When the time came for change, after five Democratic terms, it was gentle change, to Dwight Eisenhower, and almost no discernible policy change. There followed almost a decade of peace and prosperity, as Ike extracted the country successfully from the Korean War and kept it out of Vietnam.
The country reached for bold and vigorous change in moving a whole generation to John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson’s New Frontier and Great Society.
Civil rights was a triumph for LBJ, but he left Nixon a terrible crisis in Vietnam. Nixon successfully triangulated Great Power relations and withdrew from Vietnam while retaining a non-Communist government in Saigon, but the Democrats, exploiting Nixon’s mismanagement of the trivial Watergate affair, brought his administration down and abandoned Indochina.
The country was not ready for Jimmy Carter’s forlorn lamentations of a national malady as he urged Americans to wear cardigans and turn down their thermostats during an oil crisis. Ronald Reagan was a more activist and charismatic Eisenhower, though a film star did not have the prestige of a successful World War theater commander. Reagan restored confidence and prosperity and won the Cold War, bloodlessly, by escalating the arms race into defensive anti-missile weapons.
He left America content and alone at the summit of the world.
Except for Carter, all the presidents from Roosevelt to the first term of Clinton were somewhere between adequate and outstanding.
But it had all started to come apart with George H. W. Bush.
He was competent and managed the Gulf War very well, removing Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, but he had no program and was an ambiguous leader, and he allowed his party to split badly — the first president to do so since William Howard Taft in 1912.
The unbalanced billionaire and political charlatan Ross Perot captured 20 million mainly Republican votes and the Clintons made the giant leap from Little Rock to the White House.
Bill Clinton was also a competent manager and an astute political strategist, but he underreacted to the early terrorist incidents, the bombings of the Khobar Towers, the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the attack on the U.S.S. Cole at Aden (1996 to 1998), which killed a total of 260 people and injured about 4,500 (most of them not Americans).
He also decreed and legislated the commercially unviable mortgage — the political free lunch of raising home ownership and boosting the building trades at no cost to the taxpayer. Eventually, the greatest economic crisis in the world since the Great Depression was the result.
George W. Bush had committed the country to an almost endless war in and around Iraq that has effectively handed much influence in that country to the Iranian enemy we were supposedly confounding, and generated an immense humanitarian disaster.
Barack Obama didn’t get a real economic recovery despite a 233% increase in the previously accumulated national debt, and produced an unsatisfactory health-care plan, a misguided attempt to appease Iran with a green light to nuclear weapons in another five years, and a self-punitive and inadequately researched commitment to radical environmental goals.
Because of his suavity and the earned national satisfaction of having broken the color bar on the country’s highest office, Obama has had a charmed public-relations life. But the brutal fact is that the George W. Bush and Obama administrations were failures, and so was the second Clinton term.
From Reagan to Obama, annual per capita GDP growth declined from 4.5% to 1% and the post-Reagan Republican presidential candidates were indistinct — the Bushes, Robert Dole, John McCain, Mitt Romney; none of them had the prestige of Eisenhower, the political cunning and government experience of Nixon, the panache and eloquence of Reagan.
They were essentially also-rans. Bush Senior won what was as close as could be found to a third term for Reagan, and George W. won very narrowly against unprepossessing Democrats — Al Gore and John Kerry. Trump was elected to clean up after the 20 most unsuccessful years of presidential government in American history, worse than the decade before the Civil War and the three terms between Wilson and FDR, both periods that ended in calamities.
Trump was elected because the political class was completely cut off from any grasp of what the average American thought of the "flatlined new normal" of no growth in income for the middle and working classes, and a great deal of useless human and financial sacrifice in the Mideast.
George W. Bush responded to the economic disaster on his watch with "this sucker could go down," and millions resented the condescension of Obama’s disparagement of the working-class and agrarian-class Americans who relied on guns and the Bible, and his belief that the country could be pacified with just moderate unemployment and cheap gasoline.
Since Trump attacked the entire system, both parties, and the national political media, they have attacked him with unprecedented ferocity — an overwhelming barrage of media hostility, and since the Republican congressional leaders, such as speaker Paul Ryan, were not behind their presidential candidate, the Democrats, confident of victory, went where none has dared to tread in American history before: They used the intelligence services to feed to the press defamatory fiction about Trump collected from unreliable sources in Russia but almost unquestioned because it was the fruit of a spurious counterintelligence investigation that conducted espionage on the Trump campaign and transition team.
Once Trump was elected, they tried to sandbag him with a fraudulent special-counsel investigation into the Russian-collusion allegations, which they knew to be unfounded, for the purpose of covering up their own crimes.
Obama and Biden were present at the Jan. 5, 2017, meeting where these matters were aired, and they do not have clean hands. Serious crimes were committed by high officeholders. This was as close as America has come to an attempted coup d’état and it is all about to blow up, finally.
In these circumstances, it must remain a howling mystery what President Obama was thinking over the weekend when he ruefully announced his uneasiness when a man "charged with perjury gets off scot-free" and described Trump’s management of the public-health crisis as "chaos."
General Flynn wasn’t charged with perjury, he wasn’t guilty of anything, but he was ruined and threatened with imprisonment because of his dissent from Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s mismanagement of the terrorist threat.
As for Trump’s "chaos," Obama is the president who left no emergency medical resources at all, who gave us dissolving "red lines" in Syria, midwifed ISIS by his petulant withdrawal from Iraq, and modestly described his half-measures of response as "American leadership at its best."
Obama was an unsuccessful president who is "totally invested" in defeating Trump because he is now under investigation for having attempted to stop Trump’s election illegally.
That is what is shocking, and when it is objectively confirmed and legally established, it will demonstrate the danger of running weak candidates against inadequate presidents, and of electing an assortment of unsuccessful presidents to four consecutive terms.
George W. Bush and Obama were the first unsuccessful presidents to be reelected; Hoover and Carter were defeated, and succeeded by great presidents, and Franklin Pierce was defeated and succeeded by James Buchanan, who had the decency not to seek a second term as the Union was disintegrating.
Whatever one may think of the foibles of the incumbent, he is cleaning up after much misgovernment, and is persevering despite an illegal assault on his office of a magnitude that no previous American president has faced. It will now fail, but the country and its political class must learn the lesson of it.
This is no time for a shower of Pulitzer Prizes, as in the Watergate nonsense. Venal and inept government in both parties and all branches of government came dangerously close to entrenching itself.
This article first appeared in National Review.
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BTS You Never Walk Alone - Spring Day MV Theory: The Untold Story
by: @sugasuite (edited: 170222 for pt 7)
Whose story is often unheard and untold?
The Discriminated… The Minorities…
When Kim Namjoon said You Never Walk Alone was the Untold Story… He wasn’t kidding. BigHit has done it again! Though this MV also fit the story of the boys’ journey, they still managed to discuss an underlying controversial issue.
SYMBOLISMS:
1. OMELAS: DISCRIMINATION OF THE WEAK
In case you haven’t read the story… Here is a rundown
First of all, let me say, this story is riveting in both its simplicity and complexity; and you could finish it in less than 15 minutes. The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas is an award winning short story written by Ursula Le Guin. The story starts with the narrator describing a utopian place called Omelas as the Summer Festival starts. Everything about the city is idealistic and the narrator even invites the reader to imagine his/her own utopian scenario and imagine that to be Omelas because Omelas’ perfection and happiness was hard to simply describe. The narrator claims that the people of Omelas were not stupid, that this was not the reason why they were happy, but he also states that the people of Omelas lived without guilt.
As vague and hard as it was for the narrator to describe Omelas, her description of the small, frail impoverished child was vivid. People of Omelas knew about the child’s existence, locked in a small basement but none of them helped or saved the child. The narrator believes that the child served as reminder for the people of a world opposite to what they have. The absence of the child makes what they have pointless and therefore the child’s existence was poignant for their system.
The more incredible part though, the part that got the narrator amazed, were the people who left Omelas. Those who chose to walk alone away from the surfaced perfection toward the unknown when they have seen the child.
In the MV you can see how their initial excitement of being in Omelas slowly changed. As if taking in what Omelas truly was.
Kookie goes to the desolate Omelas where ironically the No Vacancy sign was still lit. Like how minorities are refused entry when clearly there is still room.
In the end, unlike in the book where the citizens who face the realities of Omelas left alone, they all left Omelas together.
2. Snow Piercer: DISCRIMINATION OF THE CLASSES
Snowpiercer was a movie released in 2013. in the movie, the world was set into an infernal winter after an experiment to solve global warming backfires. The remaining survivors were those on board the Snowpiercer. By 2031, segregation was eminent. Elites inhabit the extravagant front cars and the “scum” inhabit the tail in squalid and brutal conditions. Under watch by guards, they are brought only gelatinous protein bars to eat and kept in their place in the social order by Minister Mason, while sometimes small children are taken away.
RICH SECTION:
POOR SECTION:
Kinda Hunger Games-ish huh?
Rebellion broke out because it seemed like the oppressed have finally had enough. Many died due to the rebellious attacks and the head of the keeper of the peace for the Snowpiercer told the leader of the revolution that it was he who planned the rebellion to reduce the population and maintain the balance of the sealed ecosystem, and subsequently orders the elimination of 74% of the remaining tail passengers. He explains the importance of using fear and chaos to maintain a necessary order and leadership on the train.
The leader of the revolution almost accepted the offer of the head peace keeper to lead what remained of the Snowpiercer but decided to continue the fight when he learned that small children from the tail section are being trapped as replacement parts for “extinct” machinery and that those in the tail section were literally being kept alive for spare parts.
In the end, an explosion happens that causes an avalanche. The train gets derailed and only two survive, one girl and one boy. They alight the train and see a polar. They learn that life was actually possible outside the oppressive train.
In the MV, Kookie and RM is shown riding the train but they keep entering the doors at the back. The train traverses a snowy terrain.
When the line stops, they all go down together and see a dying tree amidst a grassy field. It was the only semblance of life present, but it was enough to hang their shoe on it and mark the place as theirs.
3. Safety Pin Earrings: FIGHT AGAINST DISCRIMINATION
“#Safetypin I’m an ally… All those exposed to hate and violence, you’re not alone….”
No, it’s not a fashion statement, there is a deeper meaning.
4. Laundromat/ Segregation: RACIAL DISCRIMINATION
Honestly, where else can the term segregation be used that seems publicly acceptable?
Whites separated from colored.
This reminded me of a racial case I studied in law school, Yick Wo vs Hopkins 118 U.S. 356 (1886) (Who the F? would have thought I’d use that shit here?)
The immigration of Chinese to California began in 1850 at the beginning of the Gold Rush. As the Chinese became more successful, tensions with Americans grew. Californians were wary of the cultural and ethnic differences.
Yick Wo, was a laundry facility owned by Sang Lee. After twenty years of owning the facility as an undocumented immigrant, provisions set out by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors said that he could not continue to run his business due to an ordinance that was evidently racially targeted against all Chinese business owners.
This case was the first case where the United States Supreme Court ruled that a law that is race-neutral on its face, but is administered in a prejudicial manner, is an infringement of the Equal Protection Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
In the MV you can see that the blacks and whites inside were mixed. Whites, Blacks, toss it in! They’re one and the same.
5. Mountain of Clothes: ALL EQUAL!
In 2010, Christian Boltanski created a 40-foot-tall art installation at the Park Avenue Armory.
For Boltanski, clothes are simply a placeholder for 6000 real human beings who lived real lives. He told a journalist, “In my work there have always been a lot of photos of people, heartbeats of people—for me the clothing are people.” The magnitude of the pile illustrates the heaviness of all the hearts now lost.
In this work, Boltanski said that the mountain was an eternal afterlife of sorts, where every individual rests after death. In Boltanski’s view, we are all mixed together in death, no longer the distinct individuals we were in life. We become part of a great pile, individual pieces that have lost their minute details — a single, colossal entity.
This piece of art has been made in various cities all over the world.
BTS made themselves part of this mountain, a symbol of unity in lives lost due to discrimination.
6. Nods to the Sewol Ferry Tragedy: INJUSTICE
So many questions about these shoes. What I know… Jimin picked it up from the shore… and looked pale, kinda like he drowned.
It could honestly have so many meanings…
But given that this is an injustice close to their hearts, they might be giving nods to the Sewol Ferry tragedy.
The Sewol Ferry was a passenger ferry that capsized on 16 April 2014, killing 304 of the 476 people on board. More than 300 passengers were Danwon High School pupils on an organised trip, but only 75 students survived.
Months later, the captain of the ferry escaped the death penalty and has instead been sentenced to 36 years in jail for his role in the tragedy.
Prosecutors had demanded the death penalty and before the trial even started, President Park Geun-hye made a public statement condemning the crew’s action, saying that their decision to abandon ship had been “tantamount to murder”. The sentence means that the captain, aged 69, is likely to spend the rest of life in jail. In protest, friends and families of the victims laid out the shoes of the victims along with yellow cards and ribbons.
In December 2016, it was brought to light that 9000 artists were discriminated and blacklisted for criticizing the government and having a dissenting opinion in the Sewol case. In January, media leaked that Bangtan and Bighit donated money to the families of the Sewol family victims.
In the end of the video, Jimin is again looking sullen and holding the shoes.He was looking at the tree as if deciding what to do with it.
Another symbolism with a lot of interpretations in the video is the “shoes on the wire”. One other possible meaning for this is to give honor to the memory of a life lost.
7. The Yellow Ribbon: Symbol of Hope and Unity
The yellow ribbon has been used as a symbol of hope all over the world for a multitude of causes. From the desire for the return of American hostages held in Tehran between 1979 and 1981 to a fight against a dictatorship from a 21 year long regime in the Philippines in 1986.
The L finger symbol stood for the Filipino word “LABAN” which means FIGHT
For some it became a symbol of home coming and being reunited, hence the famous English song with lines that go, “Tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree”. It symbolizes the hope of freedom, justice and return. This yellow ribbon has held different meanings to different groups of people but in all those times, it served one purpose, to be a symbol of unity for those part of a cause.
In South Korea, the yellow ribbon started as a symbol of hope for the return of 9 missing children from the Sewol Ferry Tragedy but it slowly grew to be more than that. It served as a reminder that the families that sought justice did not stand alone. The government slowly saw this as a symbol of rebellion and defiance. In truth, it sent a silent but unified message against the people who were the source of the injustice committed.
In the MV, you see Kookie having sole awareness (my obnoxious way of saying he was dead ass staring at the camera) while everyone was a moving blur.
After a while, he seemed to slowly realize that everyone else was moving around him and he joins the crowd.
Two possible meanings. First, the pessimistic view, is that Kookie was the one aware of the issues but no one else was. Everyone else was going about their own business and eventually Kookie joined the crowd…
The second possible meaning? The one I prefer. The more optimistic view, is that due to the movement of everyone around him, Kookie became aware of the need to move and act and joined the movement for the yellow ribbon cause.
Though sometimes you feel like you stand alone in the crowd fighting for something… look around, look closely… there are more people who understand your plight. Never stop moving. Eventually, if your cause is truly powerful, more people will move with you.
CONCLUSION!
Bangtan’s message was clear. For those who suffered injustice or have been discriminated against for being part of a minority, we know your untold stories. Your road may be unknown but YOU NEVER WALK ALONE
From the Book: The Ones who Walk Away from Omelas
Each one goes alone, youth or girl man or woman. Night falls; the traveler must pass down village streets, between the houses with yellow-lit windows, and on out into the darkness of the fields. Each alone, they go west or north, towards the mountains.
“They go on. They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back. The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible that it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.”
From The Movie Inception:
Cobb: You’re waiting for a train. A train that’ll take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you. But you can’t know for sure. Yet it doesn’t matter. Now, tell me why?
Mal: Because we’ll be together!
See the difference? :)
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